I feel the same Robin.
Re the detail bit of faking it...another moment of epiphany for me was the
first show I got to do in our Olin Theater. I endured all the mineuture of
prep I wa used forthe small theater and in viewing my first procenium show,
none of the little details mattered a hoot...including the hems! The fabrics
had great drape and graceful movement but you could hardly tell them from
the backdrop!So I went out and gots lots of trim and beefed them up...and
made notes re the brighter colors and fab patterns for the next time And
got better at concealed closures that looked like their antique
counterparts.
kathleen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Netherton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Historical Costume" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 9:58 PM
Subject: RE: [h-cost]Theatrer vs Historic (was:new Butterick pattern 5061)
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
_______________________________________________
h-costume mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
