Naomi Wilkinson – Theatre designer
Born, August 16th 1963; died November 18th 2013
Naomi Wilkinson, who has been found dead at her home in Islington,
North London, was a singular stage designer with a vision and flair
that was a natural fit for large-scale shows, but which could also be
applied to smaller studio pieces. In the former, there were few bigger
than Dominic Hill's epic production of Peer Gynt, which began its life
at Dundee Rep during Hill's tenure there as co-artistic director. In
the latter, a box that was part kennel, part museum exhibit was enough
to bring atmosphere to an already chilling play such as Hattie Naylor's
play about a young boy living wild on the streets of Moscow, Ivan and
the Dogs, which toured to the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.
Gifted with a strong visual aesthetic from an early age, Wilkinson
initially studied fine art in Bristol before being increasingly drawn
to stage design, going on to study it on the Motley Theatre Design
course. It was while she was at Motley that Wilkinson met artist
Charles Mason, who was studying at Slade. The pair fell in love, were
married in 1991, and for twenty-five years were inseparable.
Charles and Naomi's love story was etched with tragedy when Mason took
his own life earlier this year.
In the years inbetween, Wilkinson developed a reputation as a designer
of integrity and vision across theatre, dance and opera. She worked in
experimental spaces including Battersea Arts Centre, and designed the
likes of Happy Birthday, Mr Deka D, which saw another one of her tilted
floors tour to the Traverse. She worked with The Gate and Soho Theatre,
and, with Told by An Idiot, had actors slide out of walls and dangle
from chairs in I'm A Fool To Want You. Dreamthinkspeak's production of
Don't Look Back, performed in General Register House in Edinburgh where
her designs were crucial, won the company a Total Theatre Award.
In dance, Wilkinson worked with Lloyd Newson's DV8 Company, Bern Ballet
and Scottish Dance Theatre. Her working relationship with Dominic Hill
began on his Dundee Rep production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, where
her expansively dark and elementally-inspired tilted-floored set
captured the play's full imaginative potential. It duly won her the
first of two Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland's Best Design
awards. The second award would come with Peer Gynt, in which Wilkinson
utilised every inch of Dundee Rep's stage to present a gloriously messy
vision of a version of Ibsen's epic that looked and felt utterly
contemporary.
Wilkinson designed all three plays in the National Theatre of
Scotland's Traverse Debuts season, including Cockroach, written by Sam
Holcroft and directed by Vicky Featherstone. Wilkinson designed
Dundee's production of Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children,
directed by Gerry Mulgrew, who had played the older incarnation of Peer
Gynt. Wilkinson designed Hill's Edinburgh International Festival
production of Rona Munro's play, The Last Witch, and, most recently,
Hill's Christmas show at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Sleeping
Beauty.
Wilkinson developed a body of work at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin,
including a nomination for Best Set Design for Alice in Funderland. In
2011, Wilkinson's work was selected to represent the UK at the Prague
Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, which was later seen at
the V&A Museum in London.
Despite all this acclaim, and while regarded as a brilliant talent by
her peers, Wilkinson remained modest, never seeking out praise, but
preferring to work quietly and diligently to create what was inevitably
a vital component of whatever production she was working on. Wilkinson
was known too for a dry wit, which she applied to her darkly cartoonish
designs for Sleeping Beauty.
“As a designer,” Hill recalls, “she had a sensibility that I always
felt was poetic, never prosaic, influenced by sculpture, photography,
contemporary art and dance, often looking to Europe for influences and
inspiration. I used to love going to her studio, it was sparse, and
white and beautiful, often with a piece of sculpture in the corner that
had been made by her husband, Charles. She was absolutely her own
person. She would only work on projects that she wanted to, or which
inspired her. She was quiet, intelligent and funny. A true artist.”
Wilkinson is survived by her brothers, Anthony and Patrick.
The Herald, December 11th 2013
ends
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