Eugenio Caballero

Production designer

Who he is

Eugenio Caballero is a production designer from Mexico City. He won the Academy Award for Art Direction for Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, and was nominated again for Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma. Alongside film his work extends into live performance, including Cirque du Soleil.

Production design is the job of building the world a story happens in — what gets constructed, what gets lit, what texture everything has. It is the discipline audiences feel constantly and rarely name.

What he changes about your evening

The obvious way to stage a show in a jungle is to clear a space, build a stage and point lights at it. ALMA does not do that, and the difference is Caballero’s.

The set is built into the hillside rather than placed on it. The existing vegetation is treated as part of the design rather than a backdrop to hide, and much of the lighting is firelight and warm sources at low level rather than stage wash from above. The effect is that the venue reads as a place that exists, which the performance then occupies — not a set that was trucked in.

It is the same instinct as his film work: build the world completely, then let the story happen inside it.

What to look for

• Where the built set ends and the jungle begins. It is deliberately hard to tell, and that is the point.
• The light sources. Notice how much of the scene is lit from within rather than from a rig above it.
• The walk in. The torch-lit paths from the beach to the theatre are part of the designed experience, not just circulation. Do not rush them.

The venue itself has its own history worth knowing before you go — see Las Caletas.