One thing that bothered me about the production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that we saw in Ashland, which I did not mention in my previous article, was the costumes. They were fine, actually. The Athenians in elegant frock coats and empire-gowns, the faeries in fairly standard chaotically thready, wispy glitter-gear. The costume designer did perfectly respectable work. The aspect of the costuming I objected to is, I think, the domain of the director.
COLORS! You simply cannot help colors having a strong emotional impact on an audience, and if you use them starkly, they will probably see symbols, or try to. Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus wore black and white. That’s fine. The lovers wore muted colors - dusty lavendar, dove grey, blush pink. That’s very appropriate. The fairies almost gave my color-symbol brain-bits an aneurysm. When first they appeared, Titania and Oberon wore matching green, while Puck’s clothes, and the groups of colored lights that served Titania, were red-orange. To the naked eye, this made Titania and Oberon look fairly chummy (as opposed to squabbling) and the fairy kingdom look rather caste-divided. (Rise up against your oppressors, Peaseblossom!) The complex costumes (green sparkly hair as well as outfits) stayed constant until we returned from intermission, when Oberon appeared in the same outfit, in scarlet! I looked at Matt, he looked at me. I mean, that sort of external change is usually linked to a major internal change, in theatre. Not practical considerations like “we had an intermission to change him in.” Then Titania appeared in red at their reconciliation. When they blessed the house they turned up in blue. The only symbolic meanings I can attach are: green - jealousy. Red - love (Note that Oberon did NOT make any reconciliatory statements when he first appeared in red). Blue - peace? Dawn? Splendid clothes for final spectacular exit?
At any rate, it got me thinking how I would dress Titania and Oberon, especially as the “stringy glittery messy” thing has gotten about as tired as ever gauze wings were of old. I thought about how they first meet—they discuss how their estrangement and argument is rending the natural forces of the earth. So I thought perhaps I’d divide the natural forces up betwixt them. I thought of seasons, but finally I settled on plants and animals. Oberon, the hotheaded, more sinister faerye, uses animals in (rough, listening estimate) 75% of his images and metaphors. Titania uses plants a great deal, and, if you add insects to the pile, almost all her images are accounted for. She is also, before bewitched, more cool and deliberate, less hasty and fiery.
So I would dress Oberon in tawny browns, perhaps increase his bulk and majesty with a ponderous greatcoat or mantle, with a certain suggestion of fur about it. I would smear black around his eyes, slanting at the sides, and the rest of his face bronze a touch with makeup. He should stalk. This also leads me to cast Puck, Oberon’s homunculus, as an animal - I thought about it, and came up with a specific animal for him, rather than the vague bestial gestures outlined above for the Fairy King. Raven is a trickster god, a sinister figure. He flies fast. I would try to come up with a raven-like costume for Puck that wouldn’t look too outlandish. Perhaps he could carry a raven on his shoulder (slightly non-feasible for most theatres) and release it when he is put to a task (“See how I go, swift as an arrow from the Tartan’s bow”) - if something one could wangle, very effective in an open-air theatre.
Titania then would be dressed in flowers. It’s easy to come up with a general design for that - one just has to look at various takes on DC Comics’ Poison Ivy. Most of her outfits are just leafy leotards, but occasionally someone gets creative and covers her in a fabric of twisted vines or adds trailing sleeves and garlands of ivy or flowers. There should be a crown of dragonflies and butterflies in her hair, which could be green or brown - not red, we don’t want them to actually think it’s Poison Ivy! I want her to be a vision. Which, incidentally, is why I am not entirely in favor of doubling Titania and Oberon as Hippolyta and Theseus. I want the audience to react with wonder to the appearance of the High Fae amongst them. The fairies should be radiant, capable of human feelings yet imbued with something more. I want you to think, “Wow,” not “Hey, isn’t that Theseus?” These are beings whose marriage squabbles make the world a barren wasteland. You should feel that.
That’s it for my thinking on the subject, as yet. Also, the best performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” I ever saw was at Tygre’s Heart in Portland. Hippolyta was wearing a Xena outfit and the entire first dialogue between her and Theseus was delivered during a (friendly) fight. I don’t think I would be able to resist the urge to rip that off, were the play given into my hands.
Comments
Costuming Considerations
A costuming convention I’ve always liked for the faeries in Midsummer, and one that I feel is drastically underused, is Indian-style (faux or authentic) costuming. Oberon and Titania are both referenced as traveling frequently in India and the Near East, their main object of contention is an Indian boy, and the concept of magical things coming from India fits in perfectly with the conceits of Europe’s fantastic Orientalisms from Shakespeare’s era to the late 1800s. Big flowy silk pants, brightly colored capes, batik prints, and henna designs. Tasty.
On another note, some of my charges this summer will be performing scenes from Midsummer—I’ve got a young lovers’ scene (3.2) and a Puck-Fairy scene (2.1). Any suggestions on cheap but interesting costuming that’s not the standard faux-Elizabethan garbage, maybe in a modern style? I was considering messing around with hip-hop conceits, but I’m not sure if that’s appropriate.
Re: Costuming Considerations
Ooh! I actually thought about that for Titania - the fact that the boy’s mother was a “votary in her temple”... I think it would help accrete more mythic proportions to them, too. Excellent suggestion! They must be foreign - I actually toyed with the idea of making them aggressively modern/anachronistic—out of time and of all times. Spatial foreignness also great.
I will think further on the costuming ideas, but my first impulse on the fairies is to go fairly simple - go for color. Choose a good symbolic color and do that color completely - if no shoes in the right color are available, stick with socks. If feasible, use glitter/makeup and temporary hair-streaker - it helps young people in classroom settings to act if they have a physical mask, however thin. I had to play Athena in a classroom once (Derek Walcott’s Odyssey) and just putting on every bit of cold (and I mean cold, someone asked me if I had frostbite) blue makeup I had made me feel Other. For the monochromes, I’d of course suggest something extreme for Puck - either garish, red, or black/purple/blue, sinister.
Puck could safely go street-chic, as you considered—since he is mischievous. But the nameless Fairy seems a more subdued (Orchid!) fairy of Titania’s train, and should be more conventional, possibly even childlike.
The lovers…hmm. I’d say, to represent the hidebound Athenian dress in a way your kids will understand, go for Catholic school outfits, and then rumple, soil, spindle and mutilate as desired both for realism (as by that point they’ve spent the night in the woods) and comic effect. Play up the Hermia-aggression thing if you feel you can trust them not to hurt each other. That was the really hilarious scene in the production we saw.
I will think further on’t.