Costume Concept

For the costumes, I plan to delve into the dialogue between the sincerity (or reality) of spiritual belief and the fraudulence of performance. I am in the midst of designing costumes (with a new knowledge of photoshop) that utilize both very true to period (late teens, early twenties) costumes, inspiration from photographs of the historical characters themselves and drawings and photographs from art deco vaudeville. I am also using newspaper to create fake, or fraudulent pieces in each of the characters costumes, that may be added or removed throughout each character's transitions between the realms of true belief and act. Newspaper is a prop that turns up throughout the play, mainly to signify Margery's coming out as a new performer in society, perhaps against her will. The newspaper is thin and cheap, and I think it will be interesting combined with the more 'real' pieces that I plan to both rent, make, and pull from our costume shop. I am using warmer tones for the more "performance" oriented characters and cool tones for the "spiritualists."

I am posting the costume I have been working on for Bess today, but I will post all of the character drawings hopefully by the end of winter break. Bess's costume right now is a combination of a real costume found from a vaudeville picture of someone called "Hurly Burly," and pictures I found of Bess actually assisting her husband wearing something similar. I liked how ridiculous it all was; I even showed my rendering to my grandmother who was born in 1921 and she cracked up laughing. The puffy sleaves are made of newspaper and will be removed later in the play, and especially will be absent after Houdini's death. I am using real photographs of humans underneath the clothes so that we can see how the clothes look on real people--often times drawings stretch out bodies and we don't get a real idea of what the clothes would look like.