Kirk Markley’s set for Craig Wright’s Orange Flower Water was not beautiful — it was devastating. The script told the tale of badly behaving married folks, most notable for their ordinariness. And Markley’s set, with its looming backdrop of to-the-rafters metro shelving, captured the terrible banality of their suburban world. Stacked along the metal shelves were toilet paper, a pair of shoes, a teapot, towels — the stuff of dull daily life. These details, wrought from the detritus of living a middle-class life, brought Wright’s story of infidelity home. They made it real, almost too real for comfort. And at center stage stood a bed, sprawled like a battlefield, where the players fought. It became the central, unforgettable image of Wright’s domestic war story.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2005.