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.