director's concept
The concept for the design of Stalking the Bogeyman was a palimpsest. Palimpsests were originally documents (papyrus or parchment) where the original written words were erased so that the material could be reused for another writing. This often resulted in a ghost image of the original reappearing over time behind the new text.
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bad998_333272c01e7042d899f74a453ffd77e2~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_506,h_282,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/bad998_333272c01e7042d899f74a453ffd77e2~mv2.jpg)
More recently, the palimpsest concept has become a scholarly code word for something with multiple layers visible at the same time. In the play, David tells his story from a stable point in time (2004, let's say), but as he (and we) relive various moments, we see both then and now. Most clearly, this is seen in David himself: he is played by the same actor throughout, no matter what the character's age at any given moment. In the rape scene, he is both 7 years old (his age when raped) and 33 (his age when telling the story) simultaneously. This is also true for many of the other characters. I asked the designers to pull this layering idea through everything we were creating.