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April 2, 2010
Designing worlds, emotions
Israeli-born Amir Ofek adds a deft touch to Bat Boy: The Musical
BASYA LAYE
“Shows are never about the designer. I’ve never heard of a show that stayed open because the design was good,” mused a modest Amir Ofek. An Israeli-born set and costume designer now based in Vancouver, Ofek is in demand, proving that his designs are certainly part of what keeps theatre-goers in their seats.
Next week, his costumes will be seen in Bat Boy: The Musical, a quirky, award-winning play that tells the story of Bat Boy, a half-bat, half-human creature who is discovered in a cave and adopted by a human family in a small town. The play, which the New Yorker called a “giggling cult hit,” has earned rave reviews in New York, London and elsewhere. The story is both highly comedic and starkly tragic, and Bat Boy doesn’t shy away from tackling the complex and highly charged themes of “hypocrisy, acceptance, forgiveness, racism, revenge and scapegoating,” all reflected against the backdrop of religion. Ofek’s has been charged with helping to create the surreal and campy world in which Bat Boy comes to life.
Growing up outside of Tel Aviv, Ofek left Israel twice – once after the army to get an undergraduate degree in costume design in London, England, and once to get a graduate degree in set design at Brandeis University, outside of Boston. Ofek then taught at Duke University in Durham, N.C., for two years but, faced with the difficulty of getting a Green Card, he applied for permanent residency in Canada and moved to Vancouver.
In an interview with the Independent, Ofek said he has been surprised with how quickly his career has gotten off the ground after his move to Canada. Originally considering taking a break from the theatre, Ofek tried to get a job doing anything but – his plan quickly went awry.
“Once you become a theatre person, that’s the only world that actually understands you. When I applied to all kinds of jobs here in Vancouver ... and they know you have a background in theatre, they just look at you in a funny way and don’t give you the job.” Ofek worked as a wig master with Bard on the Beach last summer, which, he said, “made me realize that I’m not alone. For three and half months I was surrounded by other theatre people, actors that also didn’t know what they were going to do after the summer was over, and I thought, well, that’s what I should I do. That’s the one place that keeps saying yes, so I should stop fighting it.” He sent Patrick Street Productions an e-mail and, within a few days, he had been hired to do the costumes for Bat Boy.
Ofek was not familiar with the play, which he considers a bonus. “The first thing I did was not to Google it online,” he said. “I didn’t want to see anything of previous productions.... I just asked for the music and for the script and I just imagined it.... With something like that, you can find your own voice, your own style to bring to it.”
Impressed by the play’s quirkiness and sense of humor, Ofek said, “There is a dark side in it that I’m attracted to, the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, you can have fun with it.... It wasn’t about going so deep, it was more about the world that I managed to discover for myself within the show.”
As both a set and costume designer, Ofek has had to contend with the different expectations of each role, expectations that seem to shift depending on the location. “I don’t really see myself as a costume designer. When I decided to do theatre, to design for the theatre, I ended up studying in London. The way they teach it [there], it’s the European way, where designers do everything, designers do both sets and costumes.... For me, it just became very natural for me to do both.”
The value of being able to do both is that Ofek is always working towards a cohesive vision of each production. “I usually start designing sets, which is the background, the world, and, as I’m doing that, I also have a very good idea of what the people who live in that world should look like.”
Explaining his design process, Ofek said first, “you read the script, you dissect it, you look into how many scenes, how many people on stage, who is doing what, who needs to change into who. I actually start designing from a very boring place, from making diagrams of how the show works.
“The design process is a very lonely process, the fun starts when you start meeting everyone.... When you get into rehearsal ... you get to see your work happening, the magic – that’s what we do it for.”
Of his dream job, Ofek said, “I’m waiting for the opera house to give me a call.” Opera’s audience “is open and educated and will accept almost everything,” he continued. “It’s the combination of the music, the grandness of the characters, what you can do with it – it’s a totally different scale.... You’re designing emotions.”
This month, Ofek’s work can also be seen in a brand new play, My Granny the Goldfish, by Anosh Irani, the first that’s being mounted at the Arts Club’s New Revue Stage.
Ofek is excited and proud of both plays. “People should come and see both shows because they’re going to be quite good and quite provocative and a change.... I think Bat Boy might be a risk, because not a lot of people have heard of it, but I think that what Patrick Street Productions is doing is great. In a way, they are educating Vancouver, they’re bringing in something that they would have not seen someplace else.”
Ofek has some high praise for the arts community in Vancouver. “What is so nice about Vancouver is that it’s welcoming.... Everyone is very open to hire or give a chance to people who were not necessarily born here ... there is always more need for support for the arts, there is always negative in everything. But, you know, I moved here less than two years ago. I don’t really think that when I [came to] Vancouver, if someone would have told me that, in less than two years, I’ll find myself designing on a big scale for two productions that I’m very proud of.... I really didn’t expect this to happen so quickly.”
Bat Boy plays at the Norman Rothstein Theatre April 8-18. Tickets are available at patrickstreetproductions.com. My Granny the Goldfish is at the New Revue Stage April 16-May 16. Visit artsclub.com for more information.
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