Tempest the First: Stephano's costume
Nov. 6th, 2013 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labricoleuseWe're opening two plays in repertory this Thursday and Friday evening at Playmakers Repertory Company, one of which is Shakespeare's The Tempest. I've got some posts in the pipeline about all the interesting work we've done in and around the production process (those pool water tests were only a drop in the bucket, ha!). Today's installment deals with the challenging costume process for the clown character of Stephano, which involved figuring out how to make a fat suit that someone could fall into a pool in!
Costume design rendering drawn by Jan Chambers.
So, Stephano is one of two clowns in the show, the other being Trinculo. Our Trinculo is tall and skinny, so our costume designers envisioned Stephano as his physical foil, short and roundy.
Except the actor who was cast, though she was shorter-statured than the actor playing Trinculo, she's not nearly so portly or pear-shaped as the rendering.
So, Denise knew she'd be making a fat suit, and that the fat suit needed to exist before she could make the clothes to go on top of it. And, to make matters more interesting, we're doing these rep shows in and around a huge swimming pool on the set, and we knew our two clowns would be going into the pool. Traditional padding supports like foam or batting wouldn't work, because they'd absorb loads of water, become sodden and misshapen, and when the performers got out of the pool, pour water onto the deck.
Above is a sample thigh-pad Denise made, using layers of reticulated foam.
Denise used spray adhesive to seal up the pads with PVC vinyl "skins",
with the plan that they would then uptake minimal water, if any.
Fully sealed thigh pad. These pads were then put into pockets on a singlet worn by the performer.
The pockets snapped closed with a row of snaps, to hold the pads in during the action.
This also allows wardrobe to remove them for laundering the singlet after each show.
As dyer on this production, my concern with this costume was, how to dye the fabrics so that they'd stay as colorfast as possible in the chlorinated pool water. Above you see a series of fiber-reactive dye tests on some of the clowns' garment fabrics. These dyes, while more expensive and time-consuming to process than something like Rit, remained far more colorfast in the pool water testing.
Stage shot of the fat suit in action!
Julia Gibson as Stephano, Jeffrey Blair Cornell as Caliban, John Allore as Trinculo
Photo (c) 2013 by Michal Daniel
For this costume, second-year graduate student Denise Dietrich served as the draper. Denise has a primary interest in costume crafts, so this look was a good one for her since it would involve some crafty solutions to realizing the design.
Costume design rendering drawn by Jan Chambers.
So, Stephano is one of two clowns in the show, the other being Trinculo. Our Trinculo is tall and skinny, so our costume designers envisioned Stephano as his physical foil, short and roundy.
Except the actor who was cast, though she was shorter-statured than the actor playing Trinculo, she's not nearly so portly or pear-shaped as the rendering.
So, Denise knew she'd be making a fat suit, and that the fat suit needed to exist before she could make the clothes to go on top of it. And, to make matters more interesting, we're doing these rep shows in and around a huge swimming pool on the set, and we knew our two clowns would be going into the pool. Traditional padding supports like foam or batting wouldn't work, because they'd absorb loads of water, become sodden and misshapen, and when the performers got out of the pool, pour water onto the deck.
Above is a sample thigh-pad Denise made, using layers of reticulated foam.
Denise used spray adhesive to seal up the pads with PVC vinyl "skins",
with the plan that they would then uptake minimal water, if any.
Fully sealed thigh pad. These pads were then put into pockets on a singlet worn by the performer.
The pockets snapped closed with a row of snaps, to hold the pads in during the action.
This also allows wardrobe to remove them for laundering the singlet after each show.
As dyer on this production, my concern with this costume was, how to dye the fabrics so that they'd stay as colorfast as possible in the chlorinated pool water. Above you see a series of fiber-reactive dye tests on some of the clowns' garment fabrics. These dyes, while more expensive and time-consuming to process than something like Rit, remained far more colorfast in the pool water testing.
Stage shot of the fat suit in action!
Julia Gibson as Stephano, Jeffrey Blair Cornell as Caliban, John Allore as Trinculo
Photo (c) 2013 by Michal Daniel
