THEATER is a synthetic art form that allows us not only to hear, not only to imagine, but also to look, to see. The theater gives us the opportunity to be a witness to psychological dramas and a participant in historical deeds and events. The theater, the theatrical performance is created by the efforts of many artists, ranging from the director and actor to the production designer, because the performance is “a combination of different arts, each of which is transformed and acquires a new quality in this plan ...”
Theatrical costume is a component of the actor's stage image, these are the external signs and characteristics of the character being portrayed, which help the actor's reincarnation; means of artistic influence on the viewer. For an actor, a suit is matter, a form inspired by the meaning of the role.
Just as an actor in word and gesture, movement and timbre of his voice creates a new essence of the stage image, starting from what is given in the play, so the artist, guided by the same data of the play, embodies the image by means of his art.
Throughout the centuries-old history of theatrical art, scenery design has consistently undergone an evolutionary transformation, caused not only by the improvement of stage technology, but also by all the vicissitudes of styles and fashion of the corresponding times. It depended on the nature of the literary structure of the play, on the genre of dramaturgy, on the social composition of the audience, and on the level of stage technique.
Periods of stable architectural structures of antiquity gave way to the primitive stages of the Middle Ages, which in turn gave way to royal court theaters with self-sufficient luxury of performances. There were performances in cloth, in complex constructive scenery, only in lighting design, without decoration at all - on a bare stage, on a platform, just on a pavement.
The role of the costume as a "moving" scenery has always been dominant. The point of view on his "relationship" with the actor, time and history, and finally, with his immediate "partner" - the artistic design of the stage, changed.
In the process of the progressive development of the art of modern theater, the innovation of directing, the transformation of the method of artistic design, the role of the art of costume is not waning - on the contrary. With the growth of its younger and more flexible counterparts - cinema and television - the theater, undoubtedly, acquires in search and torment new forms of spectacular techniques, precisely those that would defend and define the theater's position as an enduring value of an independent art form. The costume, as the most mobile element of theatrical scenery, is given first place in this search.
The high modern culture of theatrical art, the subtle and deep directorial work on the play and the performance, the talented acting of the actors require the artist who designs the performance to have a particularly thorough penetration into the dramaturgy of the performance, close contact with the direction. Modern design is not canonized by the rules. It is individual and concrete in each particular case. “The work of a director is inseparable from the work of an artist. First, the director must find his own answers to basic set design problems. The artist, in turn, must feel the tasks of setting and persistently seek expressive means ... "
Theatrical costume is first created by visual means, that is, a sketch.
THEATER COSTUME, performance element. In the history of the theater, three main types of theatrical costume are known: character, play and clothes of the character. These three main types of costume exist at all stages of performing arts - from ritual ritual and folklore pre-theatre to modern artistic practice.
A character costume is a kind of figurative-plastic composition on the figure of the performer, set in motion by him and voiced (by pronouncing the text or singing), sometimes hiding his figure completely, similar to how the mask covered his face. Examples of character costume in rituals and ceremonies of different countries of the world. The bell-shaped silhouette of the Indian costume was a paraphrase of the Nagar Shakhara tower-tent temple and the sacred mountain Menu (the center and axis of the world in Hindu mythology). Chinese - with its shape, design, ornamentation and color expresses the ancient cosmological symbolism of the natural alternation of Light and Darkness, the merging of Heaven and Earth in the act of creating the world. The shaman costume of the peoples of the North embodies the images of a fantastic bird associated with the "upper world" and an animal (an inhabitant of the "lower world"). South Russian is a kind of model of the Universe. In the traditional performances of the Peking Opera, the costume was the image of a formidable dragon, in the Japanese theater "No" - the motives of nature, and in the Baroque era of the 17th century. - Fair or World. If for ritual ritual and folklore performances, character costumes (like all other elements of scenography) were the fruit of the work of anonymous folk masters, then in the 20th century, from its very beginning, artists began to compose them: I. Bilibin - in the opera The Golden Cockerel N. Rimsky-Korsakov (1909), K. Frych - in bure W. Shakespeare (1913), V. Tatlin - in Tsar Maximilian, P. Filonov - in tragedy Vladimir Mayakovsky, finally, K.Malevich - in the project victory over the sun(all three productions in 1913). And then, at the end of the 1910s - the first half of the 1920s. a whole series of character costumes were created by the Italian futurists E. Prampolini, F. Depero and others, O. Schlemmer from the German Bauhaus, and in the ballet - by P. Picasso, who showed grotesque Managers in Parade E. Satie and F. Leger - Negro Deities in Creation of the world D. Millau. Finally, the cubist costume "architecture" of A. Vesnin acquired character significance in the performances of A. Tairov - in Annunciation, his Suprematist compositions on the figures of heroes Phaedra. On other scenes - Y. Annenkov's "shell suits" in the play Gas G. Kaiser and A. Petritsky - in Viy, as well as fantastic collages as character costumes for the performance auditor, which were created by the students of P. Filonov (N. Evgrafov, A. Landsberg and A. Sashin) on the topic of stamps, coats of arms, seals, envelopes, etc. - the character of the Postmaster, recipes, signatures, syringes, clysters, thermometers - the character of the Doctor, bottles , sausages, hams, watermelons, etc. - the character of the Man-Tavern. In the second half of the 20th century costumes as independent visual characters, shown separately from the actors, as an element of scenography, were created by M. Kitaev and S. Stavtseva, and as various kinds of compositions on the figures of actors - K. Shimanovskaya, D. Mataitene, Yu. Kharikov.
A game costume is a means of transforming the appearance of an actor and one of the elements of his game. In ritual and folklore performances, the transformation most often had a grotesque-parodic character, when men dressed up as women, women as men, young men as old men, beauties as witches, or when various animals were depicted. At the same time, everything that was at hand was used: a zhupan, a sheepskin coat, a casing, a sheepskin - always turned inside out, funnier and more amusing, as well as any other, somehow ridiculous, “inverted” clothing, for example, over-shortened pants, an unreasonably wide shirt, stockings with holes, all kinds of tatters, rags, rags, sacks, ropes; everything that nature gave was also used: grass, flowers, straw, leaves. Finally, various artificial decorations were also used for dressing: colored paper, birch bark, foil, glass, ribbons, mirrors, bells, feathers, etc. The techniques of grotesque masquerading passed both into the performances of ancient Greek comedies and into the traditional theater of the East, where they were combined with the actor’s varied play with elements of his costume: long sleeves and pheasant feathers - in the Peking Opera, trains, towels and fans - in the Japanese “But”. Performances of Italian commedia dell'arte, plays by Shakespeare and Lope de Vega were built on endless disguises and disguises. At the end of the 18th century Emma Hart (Lady Hamilton) built her famous dance on the game with a shawl, after which similar techniques (manipulating scarves, bedspreads, veils and other similar elements of the costume) were widely used in the ballet theater of the 19th century, reaching their highest artistic height in the work of L .Bakst, whose sketches of choreographic images included the dynamics of various flying fabrics, belts, scarves, skirts, scarves, raincoats, capes, pendants, garters. On the dramatic stage, the tradition of the costume, which plays along with the movements of the actor, was continued - by means of cubo-futuristic expressiveness - A. Exter in the performances of the Chamber Theater Salome O. Wilde and Romeo and Juliet W. Shakespeare, followed by her student P. Chelishchev and other masters of the early 1920s: V. Khodasevich and I. Nivinsky, I. Rabinovich and G. Yakulov, S. Eisenstein and G. Kozintsev, finally again on the ballet stage, in the productions of K. Goleizovsky - B. Erdman. If during this period play costumes constituted a whole trend in scenography, then in the second half of the 20th century. they were used by artists and directors also quite widely, but out of necessity, as an element of the "palette" of means of expression available to them. Among the authors of modern play costumes are Georgian artists Sameuli, G. Aleksi-Meskhishvili and N. Ignatov, examples of a similar kind can be found in theaters of other countries: in Poland, in the Czech Republic, in Germany, in Italy.
The costume, as the clothes of the character, being, often, the basis for composing the types of costume discussed above (character and game), in all periods of the historical development of the theater, to a greater or lesser extent, there is an embodiment on the stage of what people wore in a given period . So it was in ancient tragedy, and so it remains in the performances of our day. At the same time, the general evolution of this type of costume was characterized by a movement from the conventional forms of real clothing (in the era of baroque and classicism) to its ever greater historical, geographical, national reliability, accuracy and authenticity. In the theater of naturalism and psychological realism, the costume becomes fully adequate to the character of the character, expresses not only his social status, but also his state of mind. At the same time, both today and in past centuries, the costume remains the subject of special creativity of artists (among whom are the most outstanding masters of fine art and set design) and they compose it (even seemingly everyday everyday costumes, not to mention fantastic ), not only as a separate work, but as an essential component of the performance.
Based on the book by Zakharzhevskaya R. V. "The History of the Costume"
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm the type of director and actor for whom stage costume doesn't really matter. I really don't care what I'm wearing on stage, and even the most accurate costume doesn't help me better get used to the image of the character, because the internal adjustment to me is much more important. As a director, I never stick to an era or location, preferring to think that it doesn't matter and that the story I want to tell could have happened anywhere, anytime. The reason for such indifference to the visual component in me is probably my complete ignorance in the visual arts and underdevelopment of visual perception. But I myself understand how mistaken I am and how much my productions lose because of this.
So, what is a stage costume and why is it important for both the actor and the production as a whole? Theatrical costume is a component of the actor's stage image, these are the external signs and characteristics of the character being portrayed, which help the actor's reincarnation; means of artistic influence on the viewer. It is wrong to think that the suit is limited only to clothes. This is also makeup, hair, shoes, accessories (umbrellas, scarves, scarves, briefcases, bags, hats, jewelry). Only in such a complex of things is the concept of a costume complete.
For an actor, a costume is matter, a form inspired by the meaning of the role. Claude Autan Lara, a well-known French film director, writes in the article “The costume designer in the cinema must dress the characters”: “Costume is one of the fundamental elements in the creation of films, not only in terms of historical, but also landscape, clothing conveys a state of mind: through it, each of us discovers some part of his personality, his habits, his tastes, his views, his intentions ... The costume says that this person has just done, what he is going to do , and that is why the costume in the cinema must first of all be a psychological indication ... "
Even during the preparatory work on a play or film, the artist draws sketches of costumes, starting from the idea embodied in the dramaturgy, the director's idea, the stylistic decision of the future production and, of course, from the characterization of the characters. The sketch suggests the style of wearing the costume, gait, provides for the necessary deformation of the figure, head positioning, hand movement and the manner of holding them, the sharpness of the silhouette drawing, the actor in the costume.
A bad costume can "kill" an actor; good - "raise", give the key to understanding the role, to the disclosure of certain qualities of the character. If the costume is uncomfortable, if it falls off, tears, clings to the props and scenery, hampers movement, then the actor (and the audience along with him) will constantly be distracted by him, forgetting about the line of the role. At the same time, a good costume that reflects the character's character will help you get used to the role better, feel the truth, and even create the required emotional state.
Moreover, the viewer is also able to consider many of the characteristics of the character simply by his appearance. Recall at least Charlie Chaplin with his famous tramp. “The bowler hat, the mustache and the cane speak of prosperity, but what a sad disappointment we experience when our gaze glides over the baggy frock coat and “foreign” trousers falling down on the boots! No, life has failed! The parts of the clothes so talentedly played, built in contrast, created an image that was unforgettable in terms of persuasiveness and power of influence, which became a symbol of the “little man”.
The costume is able to express the psychological characteristics of the hero, i.e. betray the properties of his character (kindness, stinginess, swagger, modesty, daring, panache, coquetry, etc.) or state of mind and mood. The character of a person is always reflected in his appearance. How a suit is worn, what details it is complemented with, in what combinations it is made up - all these are features that reveal the character of the owner. And the actor must remember this. An elegant lady in a normal state of mind cannot be careless in a suit. A responsible officer cannot afford not to fasten all the buttons on his uniform. On the other hand, it is precisely such deviations from the norm that will give out a special emotional state of the hero.
The costume can also express the social characteristics of the hero. By costume, the viewer unmistakably recognizes the rich and the poor, the military and the intelligentsia, the nobles and the burghers.
In addition, a costume on stage can change the figure of an actor, not only according to the image and age, but also according to fashion. Deformation, if we are not talking about a plastic change of the figure by means of thicknesses or overlays, is carried out by changing the proportional ratios of the main lines of the figure and a special cut of the suit, moving the waist line, various forms of the bodice. Such changes can be a great help in creating character roles and heroes living in a particular era.
Just having a good costume for an actor is not enough. Work with a suit. It is "settle in", "age", "wear out". This is also a kind of psychological work with the costume, one of the real means of "revitalization" and "spiritualization" of the costume. I'm not talking about the fact that you just need to get used to the costume, because the sooner the actor finds the costume, the sooner he starts rehearsing in it, the better. Thus, the completion of the creation of a costume-image remains with the actor: how he will beat it, how he will get used to it, how he will be able to wear it.
The costume, of course, reflects the time and place of action. This is especially important in everyday and realistic performances. If the costumes are accurate to the era, or beautifully stylized for it, the audience will have more confidence in what is happening on stage. I'm not talking about blunders in costumes in the movies, which especially corrosive viewers then procrastinate for a long time and with pleasure (you can read examples).
The costume, like the scenery, depends on the style of the performance. “... There comes a moment when the director, as if suddenly, discovers that he has found a solution to the performance, and from that moment he will already have the key to every detail. The found style will tell you how the actors should walk, how they should sit, whether they should speak romantically upbeat or everyday down to earth. The same style will tell you whether the decorations should be simple or sophisticated, whether the furnishings should be authentic or cheerfully painted on the back; should the costumes be combined in sharp color contrasts or be of the same type? ..” The stylistic features, in the key of which the performance is decided, are determined primarily by the measure of their need to identify the genre of a dramatic work and reveal its essence. Therefore, for example, the costumes in Lyubimov's Hamlet, Nyakroshyus and Zeffirelli are so different from each other.
Sometimes a costume can become an independent symbol, when the viewer perceives it no longer just as the hero's clothes, but reads the director's idea, a metaphor embedded in the costume. I have already spoken about this, mentioning Charlie Chaplin, whose costume has become a symbol of both the "little man" and Chaplin himself. The red dress of the heroine of the play "Kalkverk", about which I am, endows her with some demonic features, she is perceived as a threat, danger. Moreover, the very change of the usual gray dress to bright red indicates the unreality of what is happening, that this is just a dream created by the sick imagination of the hero.
I also wanted to write a few practical tips, but already the “sheet” turned out. Obviously, this topic is interesting and immense. I am only at the very beginning of its disclosure, so for sure I will return to it more than once.
Summing up:
1. A costume is a means of revealing the character's character.
2. The costume can change the figure of the actor.
3. The costume reflects the time and place of action, the style of the era.
4. A costume is an important part of the expressive decision and style of a play or film.
5. A suit can become a symbol.
The art of theatrical costume
"The part of the set that is in the hands of the actors is his costume."
French Encyclopedia.
“The costume is the second shell of the actor, it is something inseparable from his being, it is the visible mask of his stage image, which must merge so integrally with him in order to become inseparable ...”
A. Ya. Tairov.
Theater is a synthetic art form that allows us not only to hear, not only to imagine, but also to look, to see. The theater gives us the opportunity to be a witness to psychological dramas and a participant in historical deeds and events. The theater, the theatrical performance is created by the efforts of many artists, ranging from the director and actor to the production designer, because the performance is "the conjugation of different arts, each of which is transformed and acquires a new quality in this plan ...".
Theatrical costume is a component of the actor's stage image, these are the external signs and characteristics of the character being portrayed, which help the actor's reincarnation; means of artistic influence on the viewer. For an actor, a suit is matter, a form inspired by the meaning of the role.
Just as an actor in word and gesture, movement and timbre of his voice creates a new essence of the stage image, starting from what is given in the play, so the artist, guided by the same data of the play, embodies the image by means of his art.
Throughout the centuries-old history of theatrical art, scenery design has consistently undergone an evolutionary transformation, caused not only by the improvement of stage technology, but also by all the vicissitudes of styles and fashion of the corresponding times. It depended on the nature of the literary structure of the play, on the genre of dramaturgy, on the social composition of the audience, and on the level of stage technique.
Periods of stable architectural structures of antiquity gave way to the primitive stages of the Middle Ages, which in turn gave way to royal court theaters with self-sufficient luxury of performances. There were performances in cloth, in complex constructive scenery, only in lighting design, without decoration at all - on a bare stage, on a platform, just on a pavement.
The role of the costume as a "moving" scenery has always been dominant. The point of view on his "relationship" with the actor, time and history, and finally, with his immediate "partner" - the artistic design of the stage, changed.
In the process of the progressive development of the art of modern theater, the innovation of directing, the transformation of the method of artistic design, the role of the art of costume is not waning - on the contrary. With the growth of its younger and more flexible counterparts - cinema and television - the theater, undoubtedly, acquires in search and torment new forms of spectacular techniques, precisely those that would defend and define the theater's position as an enduring value of an independent art form. The costume, as the most mobile element of theatrical scenery, is given first place in this search.
The high modern culture of theatrical art, the subtle and deep directorial work on the play and performance, the talented acting of the actors require from the costume designer who designs the performance, especially careful penetration into the dramaturgy of the performance, close contact with the direction. Modern design is not canonized by the rules. It is individual and concrete in each particular case. “The work of a director is inseparable from the work of an artist. First, the director must find his own answers to basic set design problems. The artist, in turn, must feel the tasks of the setting and persistently seek expressive means ... ".
Theatrical costume is first created by visual means, that is, a sketch.
Theatrical costume sketch
Each performance or performance played on the stage is designed to bring the viewer, among other things, aesthetic pleasure from what he saw. That is why it is so important to dress the characters in the appropriate theatrical costumes. Then it will be easy to feel the spirit of the era of the work, to catch the character of the characters and just enjoy the beauty of the spectacle.
Theatrical costumes from antiquity to the present
The clothes of the actors have undergone modifications since the advent of the theater as such, and up to the present day:
- They tried to create stage images in ancient times, experimenting with improvised materials. Even in ancient China and Japan, it was possible to observe actors in specific clothes, especially at festive or ritual performances. In India, in ancient times, street dancers also dressed in unusual bright saris to attract attention. And with the advent of the art of painting with natural dyes, saris became not monophonic, but patterned.
- It is the “theatrical” that can be called a costume that appeared in ancient Greece. Grotesque masks, make-up were used, and the special color of the characters' attire indicated the status or profession of the hero of the performance.
- Then the European theater began to develop in the era of feudalism, when performances, the so-called. "mysteries" were given by wandering artists - histrions. The appearance of the characters was distinguished by elegance and rich elements of decoration.
- The Renaissance, with its comedies dell'arte, is characterized by grotesqueness. With the help of clothing, hairstyles and wigs, headwear, shoes, masks and makeup, witty images were created, the inherent features of specific characters that were ridiculed or delighted the viewer (fancy feathers on hats, colorful pantaloons) were emphasized.
- In the following centuries, in every European and Eastern state there were some theaters, musical salons, operas, ballets, etc. The costumes became more diverse, often conveying the spirit of the historical era, modern clothes, freeing themselves from excessive stylization. Therefore, on the stage one could see both images familiar to the viewer, as well as recreated historical costumes, naturalistic appearances and fantasy make-up.
The Russian theatrical costume deserves special attention. The buffoons are considered its first creators. Bright shirts, caftans with sashes, bast shoes, caps with bells, patches on trousers - all these elements of the costume resembled peasant clothes, but in an exaggeratedly satirical form. There was a church theater where the performers were dressed in white clothes, like angels. In school theaters, the characters had their own emblems. And under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, a professional theater operated. Therefore, the elements of the sovereign's costume had signs of royal dignity, custom-made embroidery was used, expensive stones and exquisite decorations were sewn on by hand.
Kinds
It is customary to distinguish three main types of costume:
- Personal. This type is a figurative-plastic composition, which is a direct part of the whole image of the performer of the role. In a suit, the figure is often completely hidden. The actor himself sets it in motion and voices it. So, for the Peking Opera, images of a sacred temple or a dragon were characteristic.
- Game. This is a means of transforming the appearance of the artist and an important element of his game. The transformation of characters in ritual and folklore actions by character often had the basis of the use of grotesque and parody, for example, when young men dressed up as girls.
- Like the character's clothes. It is the main one in modern performances, often exactly resembling the traditional clothes of a particular era of action in the production. On the basis of such a suit, the above two types are created.
Tailoring features
Tailoring stage outfits is a rather complex and creative activity. It is necessary to choose the right materials, accessories, create embroidery and appliqué if necessary. Theatrical costume must meet the following requirements:
- To embody the era with accuracy, taking into account the historical, ethnographic, national features of the work and characters.
- Match the director's intent to express the essence of the character's character.
- Give effect to the image of the actor in the eyes of the viewer.
- It is good to sit according to the figure of its owner.
- Convenience of wearing a costume (especially important for dancers participating in performances).
Since the costume designer selects a theatrical costume for a specific role and a specific actor, it is necessary to tailor it to the measurements. For this, it is better to turn to professionals. Tailoring Factory is a sewing production in Moscow and the Moscow region, here you can order tailoring of a costume for a performance, opera and ballet. The best materials will be selected and modern sewing technologies will be applied.
