Here are two male designs by Caroline Siedle for Happyland; a chorus gent and a leading player. Siedle obviously designed for both men and women, but the male costumes tend to be overshadowed by the elaborate gowns created for the ladies.
The chorus design is for 16 shepherds, the whole male chorus, in the second act of the show. The simple toga-style outfit with a fleece tossed over the shoulder leaves no doubt as to their profession, together with a horn, flask and shepherd’s crook. The same chorus gents would appear as soldiers later in the act, so it’s pleasant to see their bucolic side! The rear of the board reads “Chorus men from 31 to 46” (totaling 16), and “cloak golden brown for color”. There appears to be a fair amount of green on the cloak in the drawing, as well as the hat and accessories, so perhaps this was a change of plan on Siedle’s part. The other piece is a first act design for Sphinxus, the Royal Secret Keeper. He’s shown with his secret-keeping apparatus - looking very much like an old fashioned telephone. Confiders could speak their secrets into the mouthpiece and keep them secure unless someone - usually Sphinxus himself - decided to listen in. The drawing is labeled “Sphinxus - Act II”, but photos show this as a first act costume.
At some point in time several costumes in this show were redesigned, this being one of them. Here’s the same scene as shown above, with different outfits on Sphinxus and the King. Sylvia’s dress did not change.
I’ve
mentioned before that costume designs are often subject to wear and
damage; for this show, there seems to have been some sort of water
leakage that affected many of the drawings. Most of the designs I've seen from this
production have water damage to some degree, some definitely worse than
others. This tends to make me think that the damage happened at an
earlier date, before the suites of costume designs were broken up and disposed of individually. It’s unfortunate, but at least the drawings themselves
do still exist!
No comments:
Post a Comment