Minimalist Costumes

“What is theatre without the elaborate outfits?”

Most people seem to think that stage costumes should always be exhaustively detailed, but not always. Elaborate costumes might be necessary if you are staging Shakespeare but not for most new age theatre. Ultimately costume is a play on reality (pun intended).

The iconic pipe and lens

So how does it work if you're designing costumes?

Well, you look at a script, you pull out the core characters and sit with them a minute. What it that one thing each character must put on? Write that down. Play into stereotypes; If your characters are prissy then use that, A priss will dress a certain way. Make notes of each character’s base stereotype. And finally, find a trait in a character and try to link it to an item of clothing or a prop. Give the detective a pocket watch, the maid heavy laden eyes. Keep the playwright’s vision in mind and add on to it. 

Once this is done, now take groups of characters together in a scene and observe them. Is one character drastically opposed to another? Then outfits should express that opposition as well. Is the acting very subtle? Then you need to use the clothes so as to highlight the tension. But then again, that doesn't mean you need to put a mother-in-law in a gaudy dress and the daughter in a bandage dress a la Cinderalla. Subtlety is key, subtlety is life. 

Use cuts. 

An interesting way to direct costume will be to draw from the eras of clothing available to all of us in abundance.

Costume makes a play come to life, so it needs to be lifelike. Remember that the next time you custom-make a corset. 

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Editor's Note : These musings contributed by the costume designer for our upcoming performance of Paula Vogel's 'How I Learned to Drive'.
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Image courtesy : http://bit.ly/XhBjv5