These Walls

‘These Walls’ is a story of three young women facing walls in their lives. Eden is contained within the walls of expectation: she cannot escape from the image nor stray from the path of perfection which other people draw for her. She is top of her class, captain of the netball team and three-time winner of the British secondary school debating championship. Chrissy is trapped by a lack of expectation. She has only ever been defined as a beauty, a beautiful object. She works as an erotic dancer though no-one ever wants anything more from her than her body. She has been fenced into a lifestyle she loathes. Althea is limited by her love. She loves an unfaithful man but cannot bring herself to leave him. These women find themselves brought together and forced to face their vulnerability, envy and hypocrisy. The walls close in as each woman is physically detained and forced to remember, forced to decide. Will one catalyzing event break down these walls?

(Text from Camdram)

‘These Walls’ is a play written by Isla Cowan and directed by Josh McClure. I met up with the cast at Downing college to do a photoshoot for their play. We had a room in the basement and a couple of hours, and this was the result:

Imogen Osborne. The room had a set of windows without any kind of view to speak of, so we had to get creative with our framing.
Imogen Osborne. Casually chilling on the steps.
Imogen Osborne and Becky Shepherdson. By walking behind the steps it was possible to get a novel framing of the shot.
Becky Shepherdson, Imogen Osborne and Cecily Pierce. Here we had the cast improvise some dialogue, arguing about — actually I do not remember anymore what they were getting worked up about. Maybe who had ordered pizza instead of sushi?
Josh McClure, Becky Shepherdson, Imogen Osborne and Cecily Pierce. Josh providing the lights for the shot.
Becky Shepherdson
Becky Shepherdson and Callum McClure.
Cecily Pierce and Becky Shepherdson. Josh had this idea to use the reflection to show both Cecily and Becky at the same time, and it worked out beautifully.
Cecily Pierce. A single lamp lit this scene, creating quite a dramatic light.
Cecily Pierce
Becky Shepherdson
Becky Shepherdson and Callum McClure
Becky Shepherdson. We also procured a projector for a few shots at the end of our photoshoot.
Becky Shepherdson. With the right pattern you can make some gorgeous photos using a projector.
Cecily Pierce. Dark brooding thoughts.

‘These Walls’ plays in Edinburgh 5-20 August 2017. Go check them out!

To see more Edinburgh Fringe related blog posts, check the Edinburgh Fringe tag.

Cast
Althea – Cecily Pierce
Eden – Becky Shepherdson
Chrissy – Imogen Osborne

Production Team
Director – Josh McClure
Assistant Producer – Tom Bevan
Co-producer – Russell Fancourt, Francesca Cosslett
Photographer – Benedict Flett
Writer/Associate Director – Isla Cowan
Technical Director – Iain Blackwell
Assistant Director – Maya Yousif
Photographer – Johannes Hjorth

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