COSTUME DESIGN
EURYDICE
Within the 1930s Hollywood theme set, Eurydice is based on all the beautiful women that helmed comedies as clever and charming women in the 1930s. Take our pick: Myrna Loy in The Thin Man (1934), Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey (1936), Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1937), Greta Garbo in Ninotchka (1939), and even Marlene Dietrich in Dishonored (1932). For wild-eyed innocence, Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Orpheus then becomes a handsome man that exists to be played with by Eurydice. Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby (1937), Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve (1941), and even Myrna Loy’s regular comic partner William Powell in The Thin Man (1934) and the next five sequels through 1947.
With screwball comedy set as the theme, designed the set for the Underworld to look like the lobby of an Art Deco Era hotel. Brightly lit with polished floor and brass trim, my version of Hell looks like a luxurious home away from home, and would be a wonderful to endure eternity, if the staff would register any guests.
For Costume Design for Theater, Television, and Film (DRAMA 146) at MiraCosta College in 2024, a major project was a costume design for the play Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl (2003). With the goal of creating a unified design theme based on 1930s screwball comedies, I chose to costume Hades as three comic characters from the Golden Age of Hollywood film.
As “Lord of the Underworld,” Hades looks like Groucho Marx, and talks like him. When Hades is a “Nasty Interesting Man”—and Ruhl’s Eurydice initially suspects he is homeless—I based his costume as Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” character. Although “The Little Fellow” (to use Chaplin’s term) was usually an innocent object of pity, he was mean and vindictive in his earliest incarnations, i.e., 1912-1916.
Finally, when Hades is a “Child,” he dresses like Spanky McFarland from Hal Roach’s “Our Gang” series of comic shorts, complete with short pants.
As for Eurydice’s “Father,” since he died years before, I costumed him as a man who developed his style sense in the 1910s, complete with knickerbockers, linen summer suit, and a straw boater hat. I imagined his appearance to be like Constable Slocum (Walter Catlett) in Bringing Up Baby (1937) with a personality like Grandpa Martin Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore) in the Frank Capra-directed classic, You Can’t Take it with You (1938), based on the 1936 play by those Lords of Laughter, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
With those two points of reference set, the remaining two characters flowed logically.
For The Stones, my inspiration were abstract surrealistic music videos from the 1980s. This includes the videos for “True Faith” by New Order (1987), “Sweet Dreams (are Made of This) by The Eurythymics (1983), and the Alice in Wonderland-themed video for “Don’t Come Around Here No More” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1985) (co-written with Dave Stewart of The Eurythymics.
In the end, I designed a sprung contraption that would allow each of The Stones to swing around with little ability to control their movement, like the female encased in a giant upside down boxer’s speed bag in the True Faith video.
ASH GIRL
Also for Costume Design for Theater, Television, and Film (DRAMA 146) at MiraCosta College in 2024, the final class project was a costume design for the play The Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker (2003). I costumed the human characters in normal European and Arabian period costume, but they went wildly modern for the Deadly Sins, particularly “Lust,” who dresses in red and black latex, like a BDSM dominatrix.
For example, the titular character “Ash Girl" (Sophia) dresses like a late medieval peasant, but she goes to the prince’s ball dressed like Helena Bonham-Carter in Cinderella (2015).
Anger Bird is a contrast to both AshGirl and Lust, dressed in a red feathered costume, complete with tail feathers around her legs. Even her hair sticks up in angry spikes.
The AshGirl’s younger sister Judith’s favorite joy is experiencing nature and she doesn’t want to marry Prince Amir or anyone else. To create a maximum contrast with her greedy sister Ruth (see below)—and most productions of The Ash Girl choose to make Judith and Ruth a distaff Tweedledum and Tweedledee—I gave Judith pince-nez glasses, a knife, a walking stick, a hiking stick and a broad-brimmed hat. Her hair is rumpled and hastily tied back into a pony tail.
I realize that my version of Judith is a medieval era lesbian.
The wise Owl wears a costume similar to the crimson-feathered Angerbird, but in less garish colors, with glasses. I especially like the cosplay version of a bird in the upper left corner.
Lust—or as I call her, “Little Miss Fan-Service”—is the most extreme contrast to “Ash Girl/Sophia” dressed in red vinyl, a spiked black leather character, and carrying a black leather whip. When the AshGirl’s father struggles against “Lust,” he’s wrestling with a literal fetish queen that wants to dominate and humble him.
The Fairy in The Ash Girl is based on Helena Bonham-Carter in Cinderella (2015), except that her costume must be more toned down to not overshadow the magical ball gown that Ash Girl wears when Prince Amir falls in love with her.
I modeled Prince Amir after traditional costumes created for Othello in the eponymous play. Wertenbaker is vague about where he came from before coming to Europe. North Africa is just as good as Arabia, and many costumes made for Shakespeare’s “Othello” are similar to traditional men’s clothes in both North Africa and Arabia. At any event, I like it.
The Mother of AshGirl/Sophia, Judith, and Ruth is based on my research into women’s lives in the Middle Ages. For example, before the invention of automatic weaving machines, both queens and peasant women were expected to spin flax into thread.
My design for Mother surprised Professor Amanda Quivey because I made her much more sympathetic than she is in most production of The Ash Girl. In particular, this young-looking woman intentionally dresses her children better than herself, while remaining respectable. Consequently, AshGirl’s insistence on remaining a drudge sleeping in fireplace ashes is a major greatest disappointment.
