We recently supplied the world-premiere of the brand-new play Mad House, which ran at the Ambassadors’ Theatre in London’s West End. Starring David Harbour and Bill Pullman, it tells the story of a man who returns to his childhood home to look after his dying father. However, his siblings soon arrive, determined to work out how much money their father has left and how they’re able to get their hands on it… The show featured a lighting design by Prema Mehta, who has put together a blog about what it was like working on the production and what her role entailed:   

My journey with this show all started when I was first sent the script, which was written by award-winning American playwright, television writer, and novelist Theresa Rebeck. Instantly, I was in awe of how Theresa tackled some big life topics with such boldness, braveness and courage. When the director, Mortiz von Stuelpnagel, flew to London to interview me about working on the piece, we spent over an hour discussing the emotional layers within the script and the complexities of each character and their dynamics amongst each other. For me as a lighting designer, this is really where my process began, as through our conversations we started building a world. 

Once it was confirmed that I would be lighting the piece, I was introduced to the other creatives, which included set designer Frankie Bradshaw and costume designer Tilly Grimes. As a team, we were working across New York and London, so we started the creative process working remotely across different time zones. From the initial stages, Gregory Crewdson’s work was a large influence within this production; looking at references and tones which supported the emotional journey of this powerful script. We were keen to sculpt areas of the set to keep an intimate, almost filmic quality. A lot of Crewdson’s work uses a key or practical light to draw attention to a subject, with an almost painted wash, or some form of texture in the background. It also quite often features light creating rectangular or square shapes, usually falling through a doorway or windows. This technique felt well suited to our plans of using a number of practicals on the set to support the location for Act One which was set in a late nineteenth century American house, within the kitchen, dining area and staircase to the upper floor of a house. We also discussed the balance of using light to create atmosphere, whilst supporting the tone of this dark comedy. 

As with any production that involves new writing, it’s so important to have a strong relationship between the creative team members as you are creating a new world together and layering all the artistry to support the storytelling. With the show’s lead actors being David Harbour and Bill Pullman, this meant rehearsals actually took place in New York. As a lighting designer, there is nothing on par with physically being in the rehearsal room and whilst our industry has learnt a lot about working remotely over the past two years, the director wanted the emotional language to be translated accurately from the rehearsal room to stage. As such, I made a flying visit to New York to watch some of the rehearsals. With a revolving set, seeing the mark-up in the rehearsal room is really helpful, as no matter how much you look at a groundplan, sitting in front of the actual dynamics of the space helps correct even the smallest of angles on your lighting plan; which, in the long-term, helps avoid any re-rigging and further issues. Similarly, just seeing the words come alive for the first time during the run through moved me and I knew we were creating something very special.  

It was important to design with both art and logistics in mind. The set (beautifully brought to life by Frankie Bradshaw) revolved from an interior setting for Act One, to an exterior setting showing the outside of the front of the home during Act Two. The revolve move was live, so we also had to create a sequence of lighting cues to support the reveal, which was a dynamic and pleasing moment. 

At the time of designing Mad House, I was faced with an obstacle that all lighting designers are at the moment and that’s an issue with the supply chain; something that is a long-term impact of Covid. Thankfully, I knew White Light had continued to invest in new equipment where possible and that with the advice of their team, as well as my Production Electrician Stu Meech, we’d be able to find alternative kit where required – and we did just that. We invested time during the planning stages to fully discuss the rig as Stu, the Production Manager Patrick Maloney, in-house lighting team and myself worked out which units needed more consideration in terms of how best to access them. As such, I tried to position the majority of the fixtures to work around the revolve and I knew the fixtures needed to be fairly accessible to ensure a relatively straight forward focus session. The stage was also slightly raked, so that affects the angles slightly when you come to focus.  

I ultimately opted for a rig made up of Varilite VL1000 Arc,  GLPX4 Bar 20s (which fitted into the scenic build) and a number of Source Four LED Lustr+ which provided great colour palettes to support the timelines within the play from dawn to dusk. The use of moving lights meant that we utilised a fairly simple (and relatively small) rig to its maximum potential. The nature of having a number of practicals on stage was factored in early on, and the cable management of this was fully thought out to work with the revolve.  For the Act Two set, which was a patio with an awning, it was important for me to discuss the placement of the GLP X4 bars to be considered during the build process, so they could discreetly be rigged under the roof to ensure we could get toplight onto the actors when they were stood under the awning.  

Once the technical rehearsals were done, which saw me working closely with my brilliant LX Programmer Gareth Hughes, we opened shortly after and were immensely proud to see the show was so well received by the audience in London. It also achieved critical acclaim, with London Theatre saying ‘Mad House shines creatively, courtesy of haunting interludes by Isobel Waller-Bridge and flickering lights by Prema Mehta’ and All That Dazzles commenting ‘every aspect of this production is top notch with beautiful lighting from Prema Mehta.’ The show also featured a personal career highlight in that when Bill Pullman and I were stood outside Stage Door, he told me his wife really loved the lighting and that he did too having seen the production photos! It was a truly amazing comment to receive and one I will treasure dearly. To me, that was up there with some of the best comments an artist could ask to receive! 

Photos courtesy of Marc Brenner and Stu Meech.

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