Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Keeping It Authentic...Meet Jill Bowers, Costume Designer
If you were to see two productions of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet you might find that the two Mercutios donned entirely different styles of clothing - yet you would still easily recognize each of them as the braggart Mercutio. The sartorial style of even traditional opera has been played with of late, as anyone who saw Baz Luhrmann's "La Boheme" can tell you.
But such a concept - changing the time or locale and particularly the costumes - is non-existent within the Chinese Opera. Each costume within the Chinese Opera is specifically associated with a single character and every time you see that character on stage they would look exactly the same. (It's similar to the commedia dell arte tradition where characters such as Harlequin, Pierrot and Pantalones always looked and behaved the same way.)
This historic tradition presented both challenges and opportunities for "Red" costume designer, Jill Bowers.
Take the traditional opera costume which the character Hua will wear in "Red." It is authentic, just one of the pieces rented to achieve an accurate depiction of the Chinese Opera. The head dress that accompanies this gown weighs around five pounds, which may not seem like a lot, until you find out that the actor must dance in this costume. (Remember the earlier post about rigorous physicality?)
This production also features realistic Red Guard uniforms. Actual characters wear these, but stagehands will also be wearing variations of such uniforms. Bowers and director Robert Kelley agreed that the stagehands should at times be "invisible" while handling props and set pieces, but will sometimes become part of the action on stage.
Bowers stated that many things influenced her on this design- she used books, information from other productions of "Red", and aspects of other designs. For example after seeing the set design, Bowers honed her color choices. The red background of the set is a strong choice and dictated what colors would help a character "pop out" against the background and what colors would help them blend.
Designers look at their design issues from many different angles, and Bowers is no exception. When in a quandary about a costume choice, Bowers "thought about how the costume would look in Sonja’s mind". (Sonja being the modern-day Chinese-American novelist protagonist, of course!)
When production designers have done their job, the audience may not even be aware of the amount of research, thought and imagination that goes into their design. But now you may have just a small inkling.
But such a concept - changing the time or locale and particularly the costumes - is non-existent within the Chinese Opera. Each costume within the Chinese Opera is specifically associated with a single character and every time you see that character on stage they would look exactly the same. (It's similar to the commedia dell arte tradition where characters such as Harlequin, Pierrot and Pantalones always looked and behaved the same way.)
This historic tradition presented both challenges and opportunities for "Red" costume designer, Jill Bowers.
Take the traditional opera costume which the character Hua will wear in "Red." It is authentic, just one of the pieces rented to achieve an accurate depiction of the Chinese Opera. The head dress that accompanies this gown weighs around five pounds, which may not seem like a lot, until you find out that the actor must dance in this costume. (Remember the earlier post about rigorous physicality?)
This production also features realistic Red Guard uniforms. Actual characters wear these, but stagehands will also be wearing variations of such uniforms. Bowers and director Robert Kelley agreed that the stagehands should at times be "invisible" while handling props and set pieces, but will sometimes become part of the action on stage.
Bowers stated that many things influenced her on this design- she used books, information from other productions of "Red", and aspects of other designs. For example after seeing the set design, Bowers honed her color choices. The red background of the set is a strong choice and dictated what colors would help a character "pop out" against the background and what colors would help them blend.
Designers look at their design issues from many different angles, and Bowers is no exception. When in a quandary about a costume choice, Bowers "thought about how the costume would look in Sonja’s mind". (Sonja being the modern-day Chinese-American novelist protagonist, of course!)
When production designers have done their job, the audience may not even be aware of the amount of research, thought and imagination that goes into their design. But now you may have just a small inkling.
