Professor designs dank, dazzling sets in 'The Seafarer'

Posted Fri, 12/12/2008 - 9:52am by Matt Itelson

Conor McPherson’s booze-filled Christmas Eve play “The Seafarer” takes place in a dank Irish cave. In designing the set for the Bay Area premiere, Theatre Arts Professor John B. Wilson “frames the slovenly, bottle-strewn household within the rock walls of a cavern,” Robert Hurwitt wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Receiving critical praise in the Bay Area, Wilson’s “gorgeous set anchors the action in the delightfully detailed squalor of the brother's two-story home, but then establishes the fantastic side of the story as the set rises up into the rafters with a cavelike structure resembling the ancient Irish tomb of Newgrange,” as David Templeton wrote in the North Bay Bohemian.

“The Seafarer” closes Dec. 14 at Marin Theater Co.