Monday, June 06, 2011

artwork spotlight | danny and the deep blue sea

Up next in our series of blog posts highlighting the amazing artwork Emily Cooper put together for our 2011-2012 season is DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA by John Patrick Shanley.


This is one of the "tougher" pieces in our season, rather literally. It's the story of two very tough, very damaged individuals with a lot of armour up, and their process of breaking it all down. It's harsh and tender, funny and heartbreaking, and yes, it has our strongest language, violence, and sexuality warning of the year.

As for the artwork:

One of the main goals Emily had in creating this piece was to make a surreal world. It's one night where everything else in the world disappears except for these two people, giving them a shot to work things out.  So you know, some fish coming out of the water is not so big of a deal.

They are half-submerged in the sea - lending to the surreal quality of the piece as well as reflecting the title, and maybe having something to do with these characters being half-submerged in the madness of their lives.  There might still be a chance for escape?

The moon comes up several times in the play as an image of love and signal of darkness for the characters, so it got prominent placement in the image.

Danny and Roberta are both represented by dogs - powerful, aggressive, but beautiful and loving.  Especially Danny's pit bull, an animal known for its violence, but that is also very fit and has a basic attraction to it.

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