Dressing a Drama

page...1...2

by Cate House

he next step is deciding whether to buy or make the costumes, which isn’t always easy. In Side Man, the script mentions that one of the characters—the young man’s mother—is wearing what looks like a homemade dress. So Owen had to ask herself how a homemade dress differs from a store-bought dress. Then she had to decide if it would be better to find a homemade dress from the 1950s or design one herself. While she ended up having one made, she says she was worried that her drapers "might make it look too good."

Some of the clothes Owen found at vintage stores; others she designed. When choosing fabrics, she really has to think about color. Not only do the colors have to go with the other play components—the scenery, the lighting—but colors have certain associations. Side Man’s script, for instance, says the musicians are wearing powder blue suits. "But we didn’t do that because of the associations people at Carolina have with that color," Owen says. "We didn’t want people to wonder why they’re for the Tarheels, or if we chose the wrong shade of blue, why Duke."

After the costumes are almost put together, about a week before the dress rehearsal, Owen supervises the fittings. With scissors dangling from necks and pins held between lips, Owen’s assistants begin marking hems, moving buttons, tacking in waistlines. As they work, Owen asks, "Do you have enough room to walk in this skirt? Does this need to be ‘quick in’ or ‘quick out?'" If an actress only has two minutes to change her costume, then her dress might need a longer zipper or buttons may need to be exchanged for snaps. "I think about these things all the time," Owen says. "To me, costumes are only good if they can be used. If you can’t sit down in them or roll around on the floor—if that’s what you have to do—then it’s not a good costume."

ven after the costumes have been made and the actors fitted, Owen may change her mind. After seeing the costume with the stage and lighting, she and the other designers may decide the color is all wrong for the set or that a different pattern would work better. Or she may feel she’s sending the wrong message. "If I go to church on Sunday and see a woman wearing an outfit similar to one I’ve chosen for a wicked stepmother, then I wonder if I’ve made the right choice," Owen says.

"So you keep working on it," Owen says. "Maybe I just need to change the hemline or the shade of brown."

But then there’s a point when it stops being her costume and starts to become the play’s. "And then the costume designer disappears," Owen says.

Discuss this story.

© 2001 Endeavors, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.