by Ranjini Balan Arun
Perhaps at the risk of being labelled artistically pretentious with the dozen pins held between clenched teeth, the measuring tape around neck, barking orders in the green room, I have found costume management my most cosy niche in theatre production. And I have loved every minute of the barking orders business.
Dressing up the character involves more than just measurements and pin-tucks. Every costume is a challenge, for it is a physical and emotional prop to the character who dons it. The costume develops the visual characterization of the actor and the role, sustains the story, and conceptualizes the scene. The technicalities of costume designing determine the comfort and ease it provides the actor in delivering the scene. It must never inhibit the movement of the actor, nor make him/her visibly conscious of its effects. Period dramas always present these complexities and more.
While working on the production of Stagecoach’s An Inspector Calls, the most challenging and inspiring costume work I did was for the character Sheila Birling. The play was set at the turn of the industrial era in the early 1900’s and the character was to be portrayed as a young, fashionable, spoilt heiress. Research began with looking into what was popular with the young for evening dresses in the Titanic era. We looked over several ideas for the design, the fabric, the trimmings and colour. Since the mood of the play turned sombre as it developed, all characters were dressed in shades of black and grey. We retained the same colour for Sheila as she mourns the loss of several aspects of her life. A rough outline resulted in certain prerequisites such as - an ankle length dress in satin with a tight bodice ending below the bosom (to retain a classic Victorian look) and elbow length sleeves. As the character moves around a lot during the play, we did not want to burden the actor with a trailing dress, as she also had to get up and sit several times and would inevitably trip on a longer hem.
Creating a costume on a limited budget meant creating it from scratch but without having to sew it. The costume had to infuse a sense of modern sophistication mixed with a hint of snobbery and pretence into the character and the dress is referred to, at a pivotal point in the storyline.
We started with a full length, heavily flared satin lehenga or a skirt in silver-grey which was to be the dress. To modernize the costume and make it fashionable for the young character, we decided to contrast the bodice and the dress. A black shrug was worn underneath to give elbow length sleeves and its lapels pinned to create a slightly plunging V-neckline. The skirt was worn over it and hoisted up over the bust and pinned in place. To create a bodice, we used a black stretchable short tube top which was worn over the skirt covering the skirt band and extending underneath the bust. The overall effect was a black bodice contrasting with an ankle-length free flared satin grey dress starting where the bodice ended. The body of the costume allowed for ease of movement. We added a satin ribbon tied in a side bow over bust of the bodice as trimming.
The hairstyles of the era were more elaborate and luckily our actor had long, easy-to-manage hair. After a thorough study of YouTube tutorials, the intricate coiffure was created with swept back, mid-rise hair bun made of several twists and plaits of hair and satin ribbons. The hairstyle was accessorized with a large floral ribbon tie at the lower side of the bun and two rows of a beaded hair-band created from a long pearl necklace.
During the dress rehearsal, we came across several glitches - the most prominent being the bodice and skirt sliding away with agitated movement. At one point where the character gets up from the chair, the long flowing length of the skirt tripped the actor. The issues were fixed with more pins and a demure handling of raising the skirt before sitting down. Thankfully the actor had to exit the stage several times during the play and hence I could keep tightening the skirt and bodice and adjusting the pins before she went back on stage.
Creating a period costume from scratch can result in some innovative designing. A dress need not be stitched and sewn from a large length of fabric, if you can use the right resources and clothes. The trick is to limit your resources and see what you can make with what is available. The results can be simply amazing.
Photo Credits : The immensely talented Roshan Santhosh. You can see his work here.
like this :))
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