Sigrid Wolf has designs on “Oedipus”
Tom Titus
You might say that Hammer is Sigrid Wolf’s middle name. It so happens
that it really is, but even if it weren’t, it should be.
Wolf employs her hammer, along with a number of other instruments, to
create the scenic backdrops for Golden West College’s theater
productions. And in the four years she’s labored at the college she
hasn’t seen anything of the magnitude of “Oedipus Rex.”
“It’s my first crack at classical literature,” says Wolf, who has
focused on the technical side of the theater since she arrived in
California from Pennsylvania in 1988. On that occasion, she walked into
the Riverside Community College theater and offered to help build their
set and a career was born.
“I jumped from assistant prop monkey to technical designer,” she
quipped during a break from assembling the panoramic “Oedipus” setting.
Her portfolio displays elaborate set designs she’s created for a brief
stage life, including a more-than-lifelike exterior for Eugene O’Neill’s
“A Moon for the Misbegotten” for the Riverside Civic Light Opera, which
she allows is her favorite -- up to this point.
Wolf was virtually born in the proverbial trunk. Her father was an
actor and she started out in props and worked her way up. “I quit acting
and moved backstage when I was 8,” is the way she puts it. She learned
her trade helping her parents work on custom houses.
Now 38, Wolf has designed and constructed over 200 sets and also
learned the ins and outs of stage lighting, which she’s also handling for
“Oedipus.” She notes that the theater generally operates with some 60
dimmers, but for the ambitious production of the Greek tragedy there are
285 of them.
She indicates the window areas on her model for the “Oedipus” set:
“You’ll see a gray sky through them,” she says, “until the point when
Oedipus is blinded, then they become red, with the cracks in the walls
reflecting rivers of blood.”
Wolf smiles ironically as she recalls her school days when “I wasn’t
allowed to take shop class because I was a girl.” Those shop teachers
should see her now.
She’s also done some acting work, playing roles ranging from Lizzie
Curry in “The Rainmaker” to the Cheshire Cat in “Alice in Wonderland,”
and doesn’t totally dismiss the possibility of getting onstage again in
the future. But for now, Wolf is perfectly content swinging her hammers
and building scenic backdrops.
* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Independent.
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