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Costume design: statements in color
Mar. 13th, 2010 12:26 pmAt some point i'll have a bit of free time and access to the photo disk for Earnest to do a complete write-up of the crafts projects in it--the elaborate hats, parasols, and reticules that my team produced--but first, I have to take care of the show i'm designing for our second stage series, I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady from Rwanda, by Sonja Linden. This will be the first in a series of posts on the design process, from the design perspective.
I haven't done much design work since i was on staff at the ART, when i filled in holes in my swiss-cheese crafts artisan contract by picking up design gigs for the productions put on by the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, Harvard's graduate acting program. (Well, unless you count the feature film i did.) It's been really exciting and gratifying to begin stretching those creative muscles again; there are different ways of thinking that you have to employ when functioning as a designer than those you utilize as a production professional (or, as our Costume Director likes to call it, a design interpreter).
For example, your relationship to color, with respect to the play: it's a completely different experience as a designer than as a production artist.
As a costume production artist, your relationship to color is relative and somewhat proscribed--it isn't to say that you don't have a certain amount of creative control, but it is not your responsibility to determine the color palette of your work. The costume designer (in conjunction with the director and the rest of the design team) has set the general color palette for the show. So, as a milliner, I know what the general color theme is for a given hat, and i might have the creative capability to select a boutique of potential trims and flowers and feathers within that palette, but i'm not the one who ever says, "This hat is blue. That hat is green." I might develop theories as to why colors are chosen, or discuss color meaning with the designer, or even suggest color choices, but they aren't mine to make unless a designer expressly tells me to run with a hat design. Even then, s/he can always veto my choice, if it doesn't work onstage within the entirety of the stage picture.
Color can be used to comment on the characters and the action of the play, or to underscore themes in a work. Earnest is a good example of a case where costume designer Anne Kennedy used color choices to make a visual statement about two of the characters, Lady Bracknell and her daughter Gwendolyn. In the play, there's a line about how "all women become their mothers," and at least one review of the production picked up on Anne's color use to underscore that line: in Act 1, Lady Bracknell is in a deep teal blue costume, while Gwendolyn is in purple; in the second and third acts, they've swapped so that Lady Bracknell wears a purple-mauve while Gwendolyn now wears blue. Sometimes audience members recognize these things consciously, and other times they only hit the subconscious radar. When you know to look, though, you can spot these kind of choices manifesting in design concepts in all areas of technical theatre and cinematic art direction.
With Rwanda, an immense amount of research went into determining the color palette. It's pretty clear from the very lines the characters speak about themselves, that their understanding of the world moves from one of grey stagnation to resumption of the ability to enjoy the larger spectrums of their respective lives. In the context of the play, it's metaphorical, but that sort of "relearning to appreciate colors" is going to be incorporated into the way the characters dress, as well.
This progression is going to be most evident in the character of Juliette, the "young lady from Rwanda," a refugee living in London who has written a book about the Rwandan genocide of which she is a survivor. Juliette is clearly someone who has essentially dissociated psychologically from the immense trauma she experienced; even though she has written the book she has done so in third person, dryly, like a history text. Simon (the other character in the play, her writing teacher), in critiquing her work, mentions that there is no evidence in it that it was written by a survivor, that *she* is not present in her own book, and that that human voice is what readers will connect to and what she must search to find.
In determining what colors Juliette will rediscover (as a literal manifestation of her metaphorical psychological journey), I did a lot of research about Rwanda, particularly beautiful images of the land and cultural arts. I looked at indigenous flowers and fruits, popular colors for the products of Rwandan artisanship traditions like textiles and basketry, and how Rwandans choose to decorate and paint their homes, both interior and exterior. We also had the invaluable experience of speaking with a local resident, an immigrant to the US from Rwanda who herself survived the genocide. She spoke about a whole range of subjects, from what kind of music young girls in Rwanda liked in 1994, to how it felt to finally return a few years ago. One statement she made really stood out for me: that she had forgotten that "oranges taste different in Rwanda, much better."
It was also important for me to find a palette of specifically Rwandan greys--grey is such a complex color, and can have overtones of the entire spectrum, from a dirty yellow-based grey to a soft comforting lavendery dove grey. What color is Rwanda when it is drained of color, i wondered?
Many costume designers like to put together a color collage, to give them a concrete representation of a show's palette. At one time we used to do this physically, with scissors and paste and magazines, like scrapbooking; now, thank god for Photoshop. It's way easier and faster!
( click for color palette collage and more discussion )
I haven't done much design work since i was on staff at the ART, when i filled in holes in my swiss-cheese crafts artisan contract by picking up design gigs for the productions put on by the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, Harvard's graduate acting program. (Well, unless you count the feature film i did.) It's been really exciting and gratifying to begin stretching those creative muscles again; there are different ways of thinking that you have to employ when functioning as a designer than those you utilize as a production professional (or, as our Costume Director likes to call it, a design interpreter).
For example, your relationship to color, with respect to the play: it's a completely different experience as a designer than as a production artist.
As a costume production artist, your relationship to color is relative and somewhat proscribed--it isn't to say that you don't have a certain amount of creative control, but it is not your responsibility to determine the color palette of your work. The costume designer (in conjunction with the director and the rest of the design team) has set the general color palette for the show. So, as a milliner, I know what the general color theme is for a given hat, and i might have the creative capability to select a boutique of potential trims and flowers and feathers within that palette, but i'm not the one who ever says, "This hat is blue. That hat is green." I might develop theories as to why colors are chosen, or discuss color meaning with the designer, or even suggest color choices, but they aren't mine to make unless a designer expressly tells me to run with a hat design. Even then, s/he can always veto my choice, if it doesn't work onstage within the entirety of the stage picture.
Color can be used to comment on the characters and the action of the play, or to underscore themes in a work. Earnest is a good example of a case where costume designer Anne Kennedy used color choices to make a visual statement about two of the characters, Lady Bracknell and her daughter Gwendolyn. In the play, there's a line about how "all women become their mothers," and at least one review of the production picked up on Anne's color use to underscore that line: in Act 1, Lady Bracknell is in a deep teal blue costume, while Gwendolyn is in purple; in the second and third acts, they've swapped so that Lady Bracknell wears a purple-mauve while Gwendolyn now wears blue. Sometimes audience members recognize these things consciously, and other times they only hit the subconscious radar. When you know to look, though, you can spot these kind of choices manifesting in design concepts in all areas of technical theatre and cinematic art direction.
With Rwanda, an immense amount of research went into determining the color palette. It's pretty clear from the very lines the characters speak about themselves, that their understanding of the world moves from one of grey stagnation to resumption of the ability to enjoy the larger spectrums of their respective lives. In the context of the play, it's metaphorical, but that sort of "relearning to appreciate colors" is going to be incorporated into the way the characters dress, as well.
This progression is going to be most evident in the character of Juliette, the "young lady from Rwanda," a refugee living in London who has written a book about the Rwandan genocide of which she is a survivor. Juliette is clearly someone who has essentially dissociated psychologically from the immense trauma she experienced; even though she has written the book she has done so in third person, dryly, like a history text. Simon (the other character in the play, her writing teacher), in critiquing her work, mentions that there is no evidence in it that it was written by a survivor, that *she* is not present in her own book, and that that human voice is what readers will connect to and what she must search to find.
In determining what colors Juliette will rediscover (as a literal manifestation of her metaphorical psychological journey), I did a lot of research about Rwanda, particularly beautiful images of the land and cultural arts. I looked at indigenous flowers and fruits, popular colors for the products of Rwandan artisanship traditions like textiles and basketry, and how Rwandans choose to decorate and paint their homes, both interior and exterior. We also had the invaluable experience of speaking with a local resident, an immigrant to the US from Rwanda who herself survived the genocide. She spoke about a whole range of subjects, from what kind of music young girls in Rwanda liked in 1994, to how it felt to finally return a few years ago. One statement she made really stood out for me: that she had forgotten that "oranges taste different in Rwanda, much better."
It was also important for me to find a palette of specifically Rwandan greys--grey is such a complex color, and can have overtones of the entire spectrum, from a dirty yellow-based grey to a soft comforting lavendery dove grey. What color is Rwanda when it is drained of color, i wondered?
Many costume designers like to put together a color collage, to give them a concrete representation of a show's palette. At one time we used to do this physically, with scissors and paste and magazines, like scrapbooking; now, thank god for Photoshop. It's way easier and faster!
( click for color palette collage and more discussion )
