Costume Design Blog

Designing Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Part I

I have been asked to design Hamlet! Yes, I am excited about it too!

I have fond memories of this particular show from my High School English class.  I know most people look back on their English class Shakespeare assignments with dread and loathing rather than love, but I think I had an exceptional English teacher for that class in particular.  I still remember how she talked about this play as having permeated our culture.  Lines from it are everywhere, and once you start reading the play, you realize how true that is. Because of that, she thought Hamlet was the best of Shakespeare’s works, though I think we also touched on the other “greats”, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer, etc….

I remember that we had to learn one of Hamlet’s soliloquies and understand the emotion behind it.  We also had to, in pairs or small groups, stage one of the scenes.  So we learned how to read and understand Shakespeare… not always an easy thing to do, unless you are a Shakespearean scholar.

But I digress – I really just wanted to point out how invaluable this particular class was for me, and how much it helped me start re-reading this script.

Back to my new design gig

For this production the director has a strong idea of what she would like to see in the costumes and overall designs.  She sent me a packet of visual research last week with notes:

“I love this detail”

“I hate these shoes, but I like the structure of the jacket”

“This is too far [or, too costume-y, or too period]“

Mostly I find this sort of information helpful.

It tells me what to avoid researching because she will inevitably hate it.  The biggest challenge for me as a designer in this situation is my own justification for any particular style choices.  I can’t just say “because my director liked it” when a producer or other future employer asks why Ophelia is in grunge bondage.

Strong directors may be challenging, but it’s in the good way

This isn’t the first time I’ve been given strong direction from a director.  Nor will it be my last.

The last time I designed a Shakespearean play – King Lear – the director also had a clear vision for the design of the show.  It leaves me wondering if this is simply the way Shakespeare is produced in the United States.  In some ways it makes sense as his plays are so dense that they require serious study, yet they are completely timeless (as is evidenced by our penchant to place them in different time periods and / or places in the world).

King Lear was set in an insane asylum.  He himself was modern day, as were many of the supplemental characters (dressed as doctors and nurses) along with Kent and the Fool.  These main three (Lear, Kent, and the Fool) were constrained to wheelchairs for the most part.

When Glouster’s eyes were gouged out, it was done in a dentist’s chair and involved copious amounts of stage blood.  When Kent was put into the stocks, he was placed into a real iron lung.  Very creepy, yet very cool.

Many of the secondary characters – Lear’s daughters and their husbands – were all interpreted as “shadow characters” from the old black-and-white horror movies of the early 20th century  (think of “Frankenstein“, or “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde“).  Simple Victorian lines.

It was an interesting contrast.  And the director used stylistic acting techniques that helped the whole thing hold together as a production.

But don’t lose yourself as the Designer

It is easy in these sorts of situations to feel that you are being handed the designs from the director.  The trick in keeping yourself engaged in the process is to understand that you aren’t.

No matter how much you feel that this isn’t your design, it really is. Always. You are the one ultimately responsible for what ends up on stage.

The director won’t be making all of the decisions for you unless you completely give up.  The director is simply setting the framework that you need to design within.  There is both freedom and challenge in that. Your job as the designer is to take the framework you’re given and build on that to give the characters life and breath through the costume choices you make.

Back to Hamlet

It looks like this Hamlet is going to be very modern.

A mixture of high-fashion, steampunk, goth, Lolita, and possibly a few other current popular sub-cultures.

The idea that seems to be most important though is an interplay between the notion of being  ”bound” versus “un-bound”; “structured” versus “un-structured” in terms of the garments and how they relate to the emotional stability of the characters.

This makes sense in light of the eminent madness that four of the main characters experience through the course of the play.

I can also justify the idea of high fashion as this is the royal house of Denmark and all of the court should be well-dressed.

Hamlet and Horatio are somewhat anti-establishment (Hamlet the more obvious) and these sub-cultures should be reflected in his costume.

To tie everything together through steampunk, while exciting, seems slightly arbitrary, but this is only the very beginning of the process.  I thought this could be interesting to let you view this process in sort of real time. You can expect irregular updates on this show as we go along.

It will be an adventure … let me know what questions you have as we go along. I’ll do my best to answer them.

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