Thoughts on Costumes

I want to make sure my costumes are very simple and try to look "timeless." To achieve this, I wanted the women to wear white dresses, with Medea's being a  cut a little longer and more matronly and the Princess's being slightly childlike. Jason I want in black slacks and a white button down shirt. Since I'm playing Jason, I want to add a simple hat to further distinguish masculinity and also to remove the possibility of seeing Jason's face. I feel like, despite all the damage his actions cause in the course of the story, the focus for my piece should really be on Medea and the Princess, with Jason acting primarily as a catalyst for the actions that occur. In a way though, I suppose by removing his face and dehumanizing him in that manner, he becomes more monstrous as well, which is also a nice thought.

Initial design concept for Medea, Princess and Jason.

Final design for Medea (except she will be barefoot during the performance).

The other costume piece needed for this production was the garment that Medea poisons. Originally I developed a very complicated idea to create a white dress that the Princess would put on and smooth down her body. When she reached the bottom hem, I want two small elastics, like hair ties, sewn into the inside of the hem that she would look around her wrists and then begin to struggle with, as she pulled the dress higher, it would begin to flip inside out and reveal an under layer of all red. The struggle, in the form of a dance, would continue until the garment had been entirely reversed and was then completely red, at which point the Princess would collapsed on the floor and die.

Initial concept for the Princess Death Dress.

When I got the fabrics back to my apartment to create this garment I realized that my sewing expertise was probably not up to the the task. I pinned the white and red fabrics together and saw that the flowiness I wanted out of the garment was lost when I added the white fabric. I also realized it was likely to look like a big white sack of her because the available material wasn't quite right for what I envisioned. The material needed to be stretchier, more like spandex or nylon, and it needed to flow better.

So I started to dance around my apartment with the various bits of costume and fabric I had and realized that by combining the two red capes, I could create a similar visual effect that I was hoping to overall achieve for the Death Dance and only loose the initial surprise of the dress changing colors. I realized that were was no real reason for the Princess to reject an item if it was bright red and that as long as Moe took a moment to really seem to enjoy the red cape, smoothing it down her body and checking out her reflection in an offstage "mirror" it would probably be just as good.

On the first day of rehearsal with the cape, I realized that it would be best to cut the second cape, the one the Princess laces her wrists through elastics at the bottom to adhere it to her, in half and just allow the dance to carry the action of dying more than the prop, especially since Moe was capable of dancing the part so beautifully.

Final design for the Princess. You can see the white dress that she wears for the whole piece below the cape that she receives from Medea.