ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION

Interview With Set Designer

Afsoon Pajoufar

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. What did you consider as you started to imagine the design for English at Studio?

AFSOON PAJOUFAR: I understand the feeling of the people in the story. Everybody is coming to this class with the hope of obtaining something in the future, either by staying or leaving Iran.

These characters are looking to transform something through this English course in their life and in their future. [Director Knud Adams and I] decided to expand the stage space beyond the classroom and create the courtyard so that it gives us many opportunities to play with the daytime, nighttime, and weather.

Q: How do you use the weather in this play?

AP: Rain is one of the elements we are going to use in this production. I think it adds a very beautiful and pure, basically poetic moment to the whole production, especially for the final moments. The finale of that story is very, very emotional and the rain effect will heighten that moment.

Q: Is it difficult to make it rain on stage?

AP: Yes! First off, dealing with the element of water on the stage, raised many other challenges in terms of how to get rid of the water. Now we have to rake the whole upstage area and collect the rain in a gutter or something to drain the water so it doesn’t accumulate on a stage. [A raked theater stage slopes like a ramp–in this case, away from the audience.] These are the technical challenges and obviously there is a static or visual challenge as well. How realistic, how romantic or how dramatic we want to create this rain effect? That includes deciding the intensity and the speed of the rain. These are all factors.

Q: What has it been like working with director Knud Adams?

AP: It was our first time working together, but once we started working and brainstorming it has been super smooth. It feels like we understood each other even without extending too many words. I felt like, “It feels like [I’ve] known you for a long time and we’ve been working together for life.”

Q: How beautiful working on a play about language to feel that you’re communicating even without or beyond language or beside language.

AP: Yeah, especially [since] you know English is my second language. My English was not as you are hearing right now, obviously, 10 years ago, when I moved here. So it improved and it totally changed. It changed the amount of emotion that you’re able to communicate with your friends with your collaborators. When you’re not able, it’s very limiting. It feels like your hands are tied in the back and your vocabulary is very limited. You’re constantly translating from your mother tongue in your head to English, which doesn’t make sense because you have to learn the culture. I really lived this story.

Q: Did you always have a strong interest in design?

AP: I knew that I wanted to do something in art. Once you’re a sophomore in high school in Iran, you have to keep a concentration. You have to be focused on one program: either using math or liberal art or biology. Unless you go to the art school which was a big taboo and I didn’t want to tap into that with my parents. They forced me to basically get my high school diploma in math. But at the same time I was pursuing my passion: I was exploring photography and graphic design. And I went to college for painting, fine art. As a painter, you’re mostly working by yourself in your studio, and it was nice for a month or two. After that I was getting bored and depressed and I needed some kind of collaboration, teamwork. And that’s how I got grounded into theater design.

Q: Do you have a favorite part of the design process?

AP: I’m just obsessed by research. Watching movies, going to the museum, listening to a piece of music–I can basically use any piece of information, even when I’m on the train in New York City. If I see somebody in a specific pose on the train, I’ll capture that moment. I use it. I’m learning through my work.

I’m improving myself as a human who is going to hop to the next production in less than a month. I really, really enjoy it.

We have the power to stand up for that. To stand up for women’s rights, for human rights. So I think it’s a human responsibility and then especially an artist’s responsibility to do that.