The man Jesus 

by Matthew Hurt

director: Joseph Alford. Lyric theatre. Belfast. 

set & costumes

 'Fiammetta Horvat’s design is simple and really strong. She piles a set of wooden chairs in a heap up-stage-right on a large white square, for Callow’s characters to individually extract, move, sit on, deliver speeches to, scatter, turn over (in righteous anger) and line up'...      

The man Jesus. 2014.David Ralf. The Public Review

'Fiammetta Horvat’s minimalist set design and Mark Howland’s understated lighting ensures the focus is entirely on Callow telling a version of the greatest story ever told and, as a storyteller, he is mesmerizing.' 

The man Jesus. 2014. Sally Jack. British Theatre Guide

'Callow’s task is somewhat alleviated by the spareness of Fiammetta Horvat's set: a blank, black canvas on which his only physical task is to occasionally move around a collection of wooden chairs intially concealed behind the fire-doors at the rear of the stage area. The featureless spartan setting, and the fact that Callow is the only moving object that the audience has to fasten on, sharply focuses attention on Hurt’s investigation of the impact Jesus made on individuals with whom his life at some point intersected.'

The man Jesus. 2013 . Terence BlainIrish Theatre Magazine

'Out of this pile, Fiammetta Horvat's design enables vivid recreations of the Last Supper, the money-lenders in the temple, the brutality of Golgotha and other set pieces.'

The man Jesus. 2013. Jane Coyle. Irish Times

'the naked simplicity of the set...'

The man Jesus. 2013. Cathal Delea. thegown.net

'The stage is completely stripped back, the brick walls and fire evacuation sign giving a sense of stark bareness, of barrenness, almost of bleakness. This allows the audience to focus only on the actor on stage and gives the feeling of the story being told in any space or time.'

The man Jesus. 2013. classygenes.blogspot.co.uk

'All the while, an assortment of chairs that the surprisingly spritely actor fetches from the back are placed as theatrical and often actual supports for his array of characters. And as these chairs are fetched, arranged, rearranged again and again about this stark arena, they add their own curious character, an abstracted landscape in this otherwise barren stage.'

The man Jesus. 2013. Nawaz. culturenorthernireland.org