On Wed, 2 May 2007, Sharon Collier wrote: > Thoughts: > -30 second costume changes. > -$300 costume budget for the whole show-12 actors. > -Director's vision-often more artistic than historically accurate, so you > try and compromise. > -Lack of a crew to make everything you envision. Sometimes it just comes > down to not enough time. You put someone in something close, just so they > can go onstage in something other than their own clothes.
Another issue specific to the stage: Heat! Stage lots are hot hot hot, and even if your budget and costume changes would allow you time for multiple natural-fiber layers, the stage heat might nix them. Also, stage costume has to be geared to make its impact from a distance. Only the people in the front rows will see fancy needlework, and maybe even they won't. So trims and embellishment that are important to the design or the character (e.g. connotations of social class) have to be large and contrasty enough to be visible to the people in the last row. On the other hand, I've seen some really smashing stage costume with "goldwork" that turned out, on close inspection, to be fabric paint squeezed from a tube! I should note also that there's more than one kind of theater costuming. Costume for the stage has different issues than costume for film. Because film doesn't have the constraints of distance visibility, heat, and costume-change time, there's less excuse for resorting to zippers, faked layers, and faked trimmings. And films usually have way more budget and time for these things too. I'm a lot more critical of visibly inauthentic costuming in film productions that present themselves as authentic and historical than I am of stage productions that not only are working with stage limitations, but also are usually clearly meant to be complex re-interpretations for the modern audience. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
