clancy

Autobiography 3. The Royal Court 2

2011-06-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

Royal Court 2. D. H. Lawrence.

The 1^st productions for which I designed the costumes was “A Collier’s Friday Night”, and such was the critical success of this that the following year a trilogy of all 3 of D.H.Lawrence’s mining community plays was produced to universal acclaim.

Although written between 1911 and 1913 they had never had professional productions, so these were, in fact, World Premiers. The director was Peter Gill, and the great John Gunter, then aged 28, designed the sets. We embarked on our researches with a day-trip to Eastwood, the bleak little mining town some 8 miles from Nottingham. It was something of a shock to see just how small the miners’ cottages were, with outside privies and no hot water. An exact, true to size construction of the entire cottage of the play fitted easily within the constricted sight-lines of the tiny Royal Court stage.

Like much of Lawrence’s stage works, and indeed his best known novel, “Sons and Lovers”, the theme was jealousy, a bitter battle between a man’s new wife and his glowering mother. It was clearly a theme that dominated Lawrence’s own life experience, where the women were, or considered themselves to be, “a cut above” their lumpen, furiously inarticulate coal-streaked men-folk. If I remember rightly the climactic scene took place while the women were waiting for news of their men after an accident at the coal-mine. “I dinna want the Orts and Slarts of a man” Minnie cries. I never did find out what an ort or a slart was.

We all worked hard to recreate this world without any sense of condescension, and the result in the end was beautiful in it’s honesty. The costumes were naturally very simple, but such was the care lavished on every pinafore and pit-boot that they had a great richness about them. Even if half the miners’ high-backed work trousers fell to pieces on the 1^st dress rehearsal as I had tried to bleach the colour out of army surplus trousers from Lawrence Corner in an over-strong solution of domestic bleach with disastrous results. The colour shifted not at all, military dyers might like to hear.

I suppose that these productions did define the Royal Court ‘style’. It was very earnest and deeply purist, which is maybe surprising the given the Court’s somewhat racy reputation as a centre of the dramatic avant garde.

Amadeus 3

2011-06-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

Here are a final few photos of Amadeus. I love the smoky candle-lit feel of the lighting, it makes the stage pictures look like Hogarth paintings, I think. Though it must be said that towards the end as the play gets ever darker, more than one candle would make the photography a bit less challenging!

I have to admit that I do have issues with Amadeus, I want to barge in and stick up for the characters that Peter Shaffer defames. [Nearly all of them, it seems] I shall restrain my impulses to chorus “I don't believe it...” along with the Venticelli. But it is a fantasy, a memory play, and undeniably a most spectacular evening. It seems that all is fair in the author's search to make extremely dramatic points that might be made less powerful if mere justice to his characters got in the way.

Autobiobraphy 2. The Royal Court Theatre (1)

2011-06-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2. The Royal Court Theatre.

In 1966 I was given a job at The Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. It’s strange how doors present themselves. I had just finished a year as the Arts’ Council trainee at Lincoln Rep. That last sentence needs explaining, as there are no longer any such thing as Arts’ Council trainees, and hardly any repertory theatres any more. When I left Birmingham College of Art it was suggested that I try for the Arts’ Council scheme. It was quite brilliant in it’s simplicity, and must have cost peanuts. You did some sort of exam, designing the set and costumes for a set project, I think mine was Don Giovanni, handed it in, went to an interview in St James’ Place if you were short-listed, and if successful were offered a job in some theatre around Britain. It could have been anywhere, but because of the comparative strength of my costume work, I got the Theatre Royal, Lincoln. The fledgling designer was paid 2/3rds of the minimum salary, £12 a week, I seem to remember, the theatre in question found the remaining third. So 12 designers got their crucial 1^st professional job as assistant house designer for a year, and the theatre got a very cheap designer. Brilliant – the first round of Thatcher’s cuts put paid to all that.

Lincoln was a fortnightly rep which went out on tour to Rotherham and somewhere else that I can no longer remember, (Scunthorpe?) so in effect there was a new production to prepare every week. I only did one show as assistant designer, the Christmas Panto, which was Aladdin, otherwise I did show for show with the head of design, Jonathan Porter, (I hope that’s right). It was very good training as you had to improvise and work very quickly, no spending all morning on a single costume design, but exhausting with at least every other Saturday was an ”all-nighter“ in order to light on Sunday, do the technical rehearsal on Monday, a dress run on Monday evening, and open on Tuesday. My year was cut short because after 2 nights without sleep I tripped over a stage-brace that someone had left out next to an open trap door over a spiral staircase which lead to the under-stage area.

When my broken finger had healed and my memory recovered from the days of ‘retrograde amnesia’ I left Lincoln to try my luck in London. It was suggested that I should begin my assault on the capital by going to see the great designer, Percy Harris. Percy, christened Margaret, was one of the 3 remarkable women who made up the iconic design team of the 1940s and 50s called “Motley”. Percy was the only one still living, and concerned herself greatly with encouraging the younger generation of stage and costume designers. Her 1^st question to me was “are you strong?” I couldn’t think quite what she meant, or why it was important. It wasn’t physical strength that she meant, though robustness of constitution was certainly part of it. But I did find out in the years that followed that a certain quality of steel in the backbone was crucial in order to survive in the perilous waters of the business.

It was typical of her graceful generosity that she took the time to see me, especially as I had got the date wrong. Her main piece of career advice was that I should find a director a year or two in advance of myself, and hopefully move up through the ranks with him. She knew just the person, she said, it was Peter Gill, then starting out as a director at the Royal Court.

At about the same time (and I can’t quite remember how this came about) I found myself making a set model for the other great designer of the decade, Jocelyn Herbert. I was so impressed by everything about her. She lived in austere splendour in an artist’s studio off Flood Street in Chelsea. Tiled floors, photos of the Carmargue on the walls, Monteverdi on the record player, and the wonderful, impractical Alvis Grey Lady car that she drove, I had never seen or heard anything like it. The opera she was working on was Gluck’s or possibly Monteverdi’s, Orpheo, and although I was never an expert model maker, I seemed to do alright.

Jocelyn was the widow of George Devine who had been the director of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court, and she decided in her rather grand way that I should have the costume supervisor job as she didn’t like the incumbent at the time. She proceeded to tell Bill Gaskell, the director, that he had to see me. So it came to pass, that in the space of a week, I was interviewed by both Peter Gill to design a D. H. Lawrence play “A Collier’s Friday Night”, and by Bill, to take over the wardrobe. I was 24. Looking back on it I have absolutely no idea how I survived Except that somehow I fitted in, and was not overwhelmed by this odd, brilliant group. I must have had the bravery that sometimes goes with ignorance and inexperience, and for the first time in my life felt completely at home.

I was a hopeless costume supervisor, as I don’t have a tidy mind, nor am I in the least bit good at, or interested in maintenance and filing, my desk in the cubby-hole of an office overlooking the yard and the bus depot at the back of the theatre was always covered in drawings rather than any sort of supervisory matter. Luckily this part of the job didn’t last very long as I was asked to design an increasingly demanding selection of productions. In those days I usually did the set as well, so set boxes and bits of ½” to the foot model bits and pieces added to the clutter.

I have been trying to work out what the defining characteristics of the Royal Court ‘style’ actually were. It was certainly a pared-down rigorous aesthetic much influenced by the work of the mighty Berliner Ensemble as directed by Bertold Brecht, seen through the English eyes of Jocelyn Herbert. One important Brechtian idea was that every thing you saw on stage had to be true to itself. There was no artifice. In other words if you had as a back-drop a painting of a landscape no-one believed for a moment that they were actually out of doors, they were merely responding to the paint and the canvas and the idea of a landscape. Therefore wood was never covered in paint to imitate wood, because what you saw was paint, but it would be scraped and waxed to enhance its natural woodiness.

This hyper naturalism was combined with the simplest of scenic suggestions to create an evocative sense of place. Quite often the set was a gauze box of some kind with carefully chosen furniture. This style was certainly a reaction against the fussy 1950’s drawing-room comedy style prevalent in the West End, but was also necessary, as not only were budgets extremely tight, but that the stage itself was tiny. There simply wasn’t room for clutter. The costumes therefore, became very dominant in the space. And it was years before I felt comfortable using bright colours! The auditorium was painted Jocelyn Herbert brown, a shade somewhere between dark mouse and sepia, and over much colour on stage was thought to be a little vulgar.

Amadeus 2

2011-06-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

The Amadeus costumes were fun to design - although it is a fantasy memory play, it is about real people in a specific time-frame, so obviously there has to be a high level of period accuracy, but because the 18th century part of the play takes place in what Shaffer describes as a “golden glow” this indicated a palette of pinks and golds that is, I'm pleased to say, very effective.

Also, one seldom gets a chance to do huge corseted frocks with full-on 5' wide panniers and towering wigs - with 2' feathers on top just in case they didn't look big enough.

Nowadays the fashion is to do 18th century plays operas in modern, or at least 20th century dress, lest complex costumes 'get in the way'. Also they are extremely expensive and difficult to make, requiring a level of knowledge and period expertise on the part of the cutters/drapers that is seldom available. There are few other costume shops that could have managed this little lot as well as the Old Globe has so done.

Amadeus 1

2011-06-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

I was rather dreading the Amadeus Techs, the show is so complicated, and there are so many quick changes, but it's been OK - so far. “So far” being the end of part 1. Part 2 gets even more complicated.

It's challenging to photograph, but the 18th century candlelit lighting by the brilliant Alan Burret is actually very flattering, and makes everything look very, - well - 18th century in the wooden pruscenium of Ralph Funicello's elegant set. The “portrait shots” of Miles and Jay are quite inspiring me to take up portrait painting again!

Much Ado 2

2011-06-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare's comics can be very tricky to get right. They were clearly written for a well loved company of actors with their own idiosyncrasies who the audiences found howlingly funny. Well to us they are often not funny at all, but this time we get lucky in the lanky shape of John Cariani as Dogberry, who leads his gormless team of Watchmen with joyous incompetance. [as Watchperson, I hasten to add, not as actor].

I have often wondered why that sort of glorious mangling of the language is called “Malapropisms” rather than “Dogberryisms”. Shakespeare certainly got there first.

Here also are pics of Georgia Hatzis as Beatrice winding up Benedick, [Jonno Roberts], Winslow Corbett as the enchanting, put-apon Hero, and Adrian Sparks who does another Shakespearean Papa with great gusto. Ryman Sneed is just right as Margaret.

Autobiobraphy 1

2011-06-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

After much dithering I am finally embarking on my Autobiography - here is the 1st draft of of some of the opening chapter.

Chapter 1. Malvern.

I was adopted at the age of 8 weeks by Julie Clancy, who must have been a woman of remarkable courage. For the sad and obvious reason there were a large number of spare babies available towards the end of the war in 1943 and I was one of them. She was one of the last single women who were allowed to adopt, she was also 52 years old, and that wouldn’t have been allowed these days either.

Julie was the matron of a nursing home in Graham Road, Great Malvern. Before the advent of the NHS nursing homes were very different places from today, the main difference being that they were allowed to perform operations, tonsil and adenoid removals and the like. There was a fully equipped operating theatre attended by visiting surgeons. Patients also came to convalesce, as Malvern was always considered a healthy place to be, set as it is half way up the Malvern Hills. Does anyone convalesce any more? Or indeed remove adenoids? Julie prided herself on the quality of the food, and as a registered nursing home, rationing was not applied with anything like the severity found elsewhere.

We had a flat on the top floor, with the hills to the back and a slightly interrupted view over the Severn Valley To the front. I had a nanny till I went to school, I don’t think I liked her very much, a Welsh woman called Nora Bough, who went on to Higher Things when she became Nanny to the children of Lord and Lady Beauchamp of Madresfield Court, (famous for its association with Evelyn Waugh). Nanny Bough stayed on as housekeeper when the children grew up and was the ladies maid and confidante of Lady B, until she retired aged 80-something to a Grace and Favour almshouse in Malvern Link.

My preparatory school was Croftdown, an establishment that had been evacuated from North London for the duration of the war, and stayed. It was run with a kind of fierce cosiness by two unmarried sisters called Wortley. (There are a great many unmarried ladies of a certain age in my early life.) The children were encouraged to call the Misses Wortley, ”Auntie“, I think it was meant to inspire family feeling, it didn’t strike me as peculiar, or even embarrassing at the time. Auntie Wortles and Auntie Jan?? Oh dear, what were they thinking of? The other teachers got away with diminutives based on their surnames, the only one I remember was Milly for Miss Millward, a tall gaunt woman with iron grey plaits wrapped round her head and flat Clarkes sandals, Miss Millward would have been a far more appropriate means of address. She taught maths I think, certainly we were all very well taught the basics, times tables, mental arithmetic and so forth.

As an only child with a hard-working mother I presumably spent a lot of time on my own, I remember that visits were made to the school and conversations had to find out if anything was the matter with me, since I clearly had great difficulty making friends or interacting with other children. I suspect I was simply terrified of rejection and it seemed safer not to try. Like many somewhat lonely children there were a pair of imaginary friends, called, strangely enough, Monks and Bishy-bar. I didn’t know any monks, and certainly no bishops, nor wanted to, so what that was about I have no idea.

Julie decided after much discussion with friends that I should call her ‘Mardy’ supposedly a combination of Ma and Daddy, she didn’t realise that it was Yorkshire for whiny or grumpy, as in ”he/she’s a mardy little bugger“. But I didn’t find that out till much later, and no one in Malvern knew anything about the North so it didn’t matter.

I started riding lessons while still at the nursing home, and enjoyed them very much. The riding school was run by a hard-bitten ex-cavalry chap called Major Chandler, whose true metier was drilling tough young subalterns, he was wasted on slightly nervous small girls, and hopeless with them, really. We rode on Malvern Common, and the 1^st time I was allowed off the leading rein, the little brute I was riding, recognising complete inexperience when he felt it dithering on his back, bolted up the hill as fast as his legs would carry him, finishing the performance with a couple of determined bucks. I sustained a fractured elbow. Traditional wisdom has it that you are put straight back on again, [once someone has managed to catch the pony that is] lest you ‘lose your nerve’. Well, you lose your nerve anyway, at least while the plaster is still on.. I have a memory of ringing the door-bell at the nursing home, and saying rather apologetically – ‘I seem to have done something to my arm’. I tried again a couple of months later on a less volatile mount, and all was well.

Soon after the National Health Service came in 1948 Julie decided to give up the lease she held on the nursing home. She was told that she could no longer run a private operating theatre and felt that nursing homes would become simply geriatric establishments if people could get free treatment for all their ills in hospitals. She was of course partly right, but maybe she would have been better off to have sat out the transition period and kept going, because with the move she lost the only proper income she was ever to have. She bought a large house in College Grove at the western edge of Great Malvern called Far End. I think I was about 8.

I’ve no idea how Julie managed to keep afloat financially, and I realise now that she didn’t, sinking very slowly into debt until in desperation she turned the top 2 floors into self-contained flats. She should have done this right from the start, of course, but that’s easy to say now. She didn’t want to worry me, so never talked about it, I wish she had. There were all sorts of schemes that were supposed to make the house self supporting. A sort of extra canteen for children from Croftown School and a holiday home for somewhat older children whose parents worked in the Far East and who were only able to fly out to visit their parents once a year during the long Summer Holidays, were two that I remember.

In 1955 I went to the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Tunbridge Wells. Julie had chosen this school with much care. She was a committed Catholic of the old school, (preferring the Mass in Latin, and hating the faux chumminess and the “bobbing up and down” that crept in later on) and felt that there was nowhere suitable in Malvern. The nicest of the holiday children, who must have been 17 or so at the time, attended this school, so visits were paid, I was accepted and off I went. I took the grammar school entrance exam, the “11+” and somehow scraped through which enabled me to achieve a small grant towards the boarding fees from Worcestershire County Council.

It wasn't easy to fit in to begin with. Know-it-alls with no talent for making friends are always going to have acceptance difficulties, so the 1^st couple of years weren’t much fun. But it did get better. I was a good all-rounder, good at art, good enough at sports to make it into various teams, and anxious to please. I never did quite the ”holiness“ business, though I did try, eventually enjoying the brisk daily mass. Attendance wasn’t in theory compulsory, but it was certainly noticed if you never showed up.

Many things would seem hopelessly quaint, not to say embarrassing, nowadays. We still had to curtsey to the Headmistress and the Reverend Mother, though it seemed as normal as shaking hands at the time. It was more a maid’s bob than a full blown stage curtsey, and we got very good at perfecting the double version on the slippery polished floors, if two high ranking nuns were standing together. It’s been a surprisingly handy skill, I’ve passed on the knack to many an actress!

Tempest 1

2011-06-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

I think this is a wonderful production. I've never understood why the Tempest was supposed to be such a great play before, Prospero seemed petulant with serious anger-management problems, the romantic leads dull and the magical element somewhat twee.

Well not here. Miles Anderson was clearly put on earth to play Prospero, his humanity and lightening changes of mood making perfect sense, Winslow Corbett and Kevin Daniels are enchanting in their beauty and innocent directness, and the magic, headed by the graceful shape of Ben Diskant as Ariel is truly - well, magical.

I approached the design quite openly, almost the only things I had drawn in any detail were the goddess puppets, and Ariel as-a-Harpy - and the ever-present spirits. [managed to work on the spirit chorus with Adrian when we were bringing the Mozart Trilogy to the boil in Lyon] And Miranda, which got changed immediately I met Winslow.

Everything else grew out of the rehearsal process with input from the actors. Especially Jonno Roberts who is a terrific Caliban, using a hurt, angry, sexy energy that I suspect doesn't get let out very often.

Much Ado 1

2011-06-03T12:33:00.001-07:00

This is a lovely production - Ralph Funicello's handsome black, filigree set and easily the best Beatrice and Benedick I've ever seen (Georgia Hatzis and Jonno Roberts. They must get heartily fed up with the prefix “married couple ...etc”), but to have a real, passionate relationship at the heart of this play makes the most extraordinary difference.

Ron wanted to set Much Ado in a period where the gender differences were at their most extreme, I felt that crinolines had been somewhat over-done, and were a bit boring, so rather than use the 1850s we decided to go for the less explored 1830s. The clothes are exceptionally pretty for the women, and the soldiers uniforms are seriously glamorous.

San Diego 2011

2011-06-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

So I am back at The Old Globe designing the 3 plays of the 2011 season with Adrian Noble and Ron Daniels. The plays are The Tempest and Amadeus directed by Adrian and Much Ado About Nothing directed by Ron. Last week we did the technical rehearsals and 1st preview for Much Ado very successfully, and we are currently on the 3rd tech day of the Tempest. It has/is being very interesting to do 3 such different plays, not just different, but whole different approaches to the theatre.

Much Ado is, I suppose, a fairly conventional approach involving realistic, almost Chekovian 1830s costumes, lovely to do and very smart/pretty they look.

Amadeus is all about real people seen through the warped memory of Salieri himself, and involved a spin on accurate period fashion. Fun to draw, of course.

The Tempest is far more abstract - improvised almost - with much input from the actors in places

Almost the only 'concept' I had firmly in place for this were the Goddess puppets that Adrian wanted, which we decided to base on the Japanese Banruku tradition, and ideas for Ariel, particularly his Harpy wings.

Credits etc from Die Tote Stadt

2010-08-14T01:51:00.000-07:00

This is the cast list and credits for the production, and an intro from Giordano, the director of the Jyske Opera.

After the successful Danish premiere of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West (August 2009), The Danish National Opera once again presents, in August 2010, a masterpiece from the great opera repertoire that people have not previously been able to experience in Denmark: Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die tote Stadt. With its extremely expressive style the opera is a milestone in the late-romantic German opera repertoire after Wagner and Strauss. The music as well as the dramaturgy point towards the great epic movies which became the popular art form of the 20th century.
“Die tote Stadt is about the loneliness of deep sorrow, about the dark side of life when we are struck by an existential crisis where the meaning of life and death itself fills and tortures our soul. Never has this theme been more present or relevant than in our seeming welfare society”, Artistic Director Giordano Bellincampi states. Hallucinations, thrills and reality get tangled up in this surreal drama of one of the 20th century’s most breathtaking operas. “With its intense, psychological plot and ingenious music Die tote Stadt is a performance worth experiencing”,

Composer
Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Libretto
Paul Schott (Erich Wolfgang & Julius Korngold, [Erich's papa])

Conductor
Jaroslav Kyzlink

Director and stage designer
Mikael Melbye

Projection designer
Wendall Harrington

Lighting designer
Anja Myung Hansen

Costume designer
Deirdre Clancy

Choreographer
Marie Brolin-Tani

Cast.

Paul
Torsten Kerl

Marietta, dancer / Marie's revelation
Ann Petersen

Frank, Paul's friend
Jørn Pedersen

Brigitta, Paul's housekeeper
Anette Bod

Juliette, a dancer in Marietta's troupe
Elsebeth Dreisig
Lucienne, a dancer in Marietta's troupe
Trine Bastrup Møller
Victorin, the director in Marietta's troupe
Jan Lund
Fritz / Pierrot in Marietta's troupe
Daniel Hällström
Count Albert
Jens Krogsgaard
Gaston - a dancer
Ahmad Salhi

Kor
The Chorus of the Danish National Opera
Orkester
Aarhus Symphony Orchestra

Die Tote Stadt - Act 1.

2010-08-14T01:23:00.000-07:00

And here are some pictures mostly from Act 1.

Die Tote Stadt - Mostly Act 2

2010-08-14T01:11:00.000-07:00

Here is Act 2, with the traveling circus folk, that I tried to base German cabaret from the 1920s and some Klimt fabrics.

Die Tote Stadt - Act 3

2010-08-14T01:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics from the production - have to remember to start with the end, as otherwise everything seems back to front on the Blog. I will put up a proper credits list when I get into the theatre, so as to be sure of spelling the names right.

Die Tote Stadt 1 - Aarhus

2010-08-13T23:56:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of the filming of the projections, and of the 1st dress rehearsal which took place before the said projections were done. The very brilliant Wendall Harrington and Ruppert [with 2 ps] Boyle made them. That's Ruppert with the dancing nuns.

Aarhus 2

2010-08-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

The theatre has found me a very nice flat here. It's further away from the opera-house than last time, 2 kilometers across the middle of Aarhus, an ordinary seeming block from the front, but with an endlessly fascinating view across the harbour. The yacht club has its marina directly in front across a cycle way, and to the right is the ferry port and the docks are beyond that. I just love being by the water, I suppose that bits of it are fairly tatty, with graffiti on the boat sheds and so on, but somehow the sea, the ships of all sizes and the light make it lovely.
I rented a bike to get to and from work, also a pleasure in Denmark, as the town roads are organised with bikes in mind, and flocks of cyclists zoom around all over the place. And having got my nerve back and into practice in Balboa Park I do fairly well, if slightly wobbly at start-up still.

Over a footbridge on the quay is a tremendous fish shop, run by a family of enormous Viking fisherman, [5th generation, it says]. I don't think we have such places in the UK, nearly all the fishmongers having been wiped out by the dreary supermarkets. Today, quite apart from the splendid selection of fresh and prepared fishy things, there was a 5' shark on the floor with ice around it, and not looking all that dead. And here is a photo of one of the ugliest fishes I ever saw.
Further harbour excitement was the arrival of an absolutely humungus cruise ship. I counted 9 rows of portholes, not including the bits on the top and underneath. It's gone now, sailing off with much honking of fog horns.

2010-08-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

I've been in Aarhus [half way up Jutland on the right hand side] for a few weeks now, for the production period of Korngold's opera “Die Tote Stadt”.
The dead city in question is Bruge. I found it really hard to get into, being as it is the Fruedian story of a man's obsession with his recently deceased wife and her hair.   It was a huge hit in the 1920's, and now that the band is with us I begin to see why.
Korngold was very young indeed, 23 when he wrote it, and it all obviously just came tumbling out. I'm not enough of a musician to place it properly musically, I'm told it has echos of late Puccini, and there are certainly bits of Strauss, and possibly Weill in the circussy bits.
He certainly doesn't stint himself, orchestrally speaking, 2 harps, celeste, bells, organ, and goodness knows what else.  
The fun bits for me are the circus troupe, the procession of dead Brugians, and Marie's portrait- come-to-life and doing a Lois Fuller type dance.  

Here are some of the drawings.

Mad George

2010-06-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

I didn't take any photos at all during the technical rehearsals of George, the readiness of the costumes suffered a bit from being a, the 3rd show, and b, the most decorated. All that gold trim and frogging is immensely fiddly and time-consuming to apply. Endless bodily fluid notes for the poor King's 'small clothes' didn't help either.
The big 18th century wigs are a nightmare as well, they look wonderful or ghastly, seems there is no middle way! Molly O'Connor has done wonders.
But the results are spectacular, I could have done costume drawings till my shoulders seized up, but all would have been for nothing had they not been so brilliantly executed by Stacy Sutton's extraordinary team. I really think the Old Globe has one of the best costume shops in the world - truly world class.

More Shrew Pics

2010-06-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

This is a somewhat random selection, I had trouble up-loading the last entry - and it's lost in the ether.
This includes Petruchio's wonderful horse - Neither of the horses got the reception I was expecting from the audience last night.
Maybe everyone's got too used to Avatar style computer graphics to appreciate what is in essence a hobby horse toy and a puppet. We shall see!

Shrew 2 + Dress Rehearsal.

2010-06-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

We had a run through with a small invited audience last night which was much enjoyed. I'm very pleased with my stuff, its all been so beautifully made by the costume shop here. You can't fail to be cheered up by it all.

I can just about cope with the [in]famous “submission speech” because Emily does it so brilliantly, and with such a shining quality of wondering love that it brings a lump to the throat. You just know that the two of them are going to have an amazing marriage, not because her spirit is broken, [it isn't] but because these 2 equally impossible people have worked through all the crap, both social and personal that they were carrying at the beginning of the play, and learnt the big lessons - about themselves, about each other and about love itself. Wonderful!

I still get a bit of a sense of humour failure about the song that ends Part 1, though. About 'commanding wives' and crowing hens - etc. It's a bit like some of the ghastlier hymns we had to sing at school, were the words were dreadful, but we just sang them without bothering with the meaning. - Can't really do that any more!

The Taming of the Shrew-Tech 1

2010-06-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

It was a great relief to leave the gloomy world of Lear with its death,madness and eye-goo, that everyone was quite riotously happy to be in Shrew-land! The tech went at a terrific rate, and we actually got to the 1st scene after the interval by midnight. We are borrowing the Lear storm for the said scene, and it's just as effective here.
They will definitely finish it tonight.

Lear - 1st dress rehearsal.

2010-05-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

I'm very pleased with the way it went from our point of view. The 1st half is easier in some ways because most things are made to measure, and sort of 18th century. Part 2 is trickier - where is this “Beckettland”!? Vaguely early 20th Century crossed with old style Royal Court trampy realism. You know when you hit it, but it's very easy to miss.

2010-05-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

Some pictures didn't load, I'll have another go.
Jonno Roberts - Edmund
Jay Whittaker
Edgar
and Charlie Janasz as the very dysfunctional Gloucesters.

Lear Tech 3 & 4

2010-05-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

We finished the tech last night in good time, so we will have a run through tonight, and actually get home an hour early at midnight instead of 1am. I'm beginning to get used to it, but despite looking forward to being at home, I thing the jet-lag is lightly to be fairly grim!
I haven't discovered how to label the individual pix yet, so I'm sorry if I've missed out some of the actor's names.
But it's a wonderful cast and I do thing Adrian has done a terrific job - I never understood quite why it was such a great play before.
Not surprisingly the management doesn't want any costumed rehearsal pix on anyone's Facebook page - which has been happening. It's lovely that everyone likes their costumes so much, but I can see Management's point.

Lear Tech 2

2010-05-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

The tech continues on its merry way - a tremendous storm for Lear on the blasted heath, a fine 'coup de theatre' for Jay Whittaker as Edgar as Mad Tom.
“Poor Tom's a-cold” he says quite often, and so were the rest of us. 5 hours on the most unforgiving seats in cold so damp that we might have been in the Highlands of Scotland.
2 techs down, another 13 to go!

Lear Tech 1

2010-05-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

It went very well actually, and I am very pleased with the costumes so far, and Ralph's Autumn leaves look wonderful. Also the photos are better than usual, mostly, I think because of Alan's very sparing use of follow spots - which are too much for my camera.

Lear- Bob Foxworth
Goneril - Emily Swallow
Regan - Aubrey Saverino
Kent - Joseph Marcell
Fool - Bruce Turk.
Albany - Don Carrier.

At the Zoo

2010-05-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to the San Diego Zoo. I should have taken the advise offered and gone at 9AM as it was very crowded by 11. I only saw about a 1/4 of it - it is huge. - was a bit disappointed at first, as the bird cages seemed awfully small, but it all opened out into big enclosures which were much less worrying. I must go back for the pandas and Polar bears, and the sky-train.

Then went out in the evening to look at a sunset, but got lost again trying to get to the western coast by Sunset cliffs, but thought the pearly light over the harbour very beautiful. It is extraordinary here, I had this view to myself until a man and his dog came by, not 5 minutes from the airport, which is itself within sight of downtown San Diego.

More Fittings

2010-05-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

Some more fittings - we start the Lear tech tomorrow, so will be entering a new way of being here. Because of the light, costume work doesn't start till 7.30PM and the call finishes at 12.30, and then technical notes! At least I shall be able to call the UK before I go to bed knowing that folk, well Maxwell will be up.
It's going to be tough till I get used to it, like moving to a new time-zone somewhere in the middle of the Pacific. Here we hit the down-side of doing all 3 shows, no nights off, except Mondays till I leave!
We will carry on with the last fittings in the afternoons, and here are a few that we did last week. In the right fabric at last.
Top 2 Bianca's Wedding. [Bree Welch]
Vincentio
[Craig Dudley] and from Lear, in rather more restrained mode, Aubrey Saverino as Regan and Emily Swallow as Goneril.

Palm Springs Story

2010-05-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

Before Christmas I got an email from someone called Joe Tompkins who lived in Palm Springs explaining that he had found an old sketchbook of mine while tidying out a cupboard in the costume dept at Universal Pictures. The only clue that connected it to me was a note against one sketch which said “Goldie's own“ so a researcher friend had looked up Goldie Hawn's films online, and come up with my name as designer for ”The Girl from Petrovka“. [I had only done the European location stuff for the film, not being allowed to go to Hollywood because of not having a union ticket - but had still been credited with the costume design] So Joe Googled around, found my website and emailed!
When I got to San Diego, seeing that Palm Springs was within driving distance at 140 miles, I got in touch with Joe who invited me over to stay the night. And so I did..
The drive was OK and did much to cure my nerves about driving here. I went through very varied scenery, from orange groves to mountains, past an industrial zone with a 1/4 of a mile long freight train, [where each container seemed about the size of our cottage] through mountains again, past thousand of wind-farm windmills and coming upon the desert very suddenly.
On arrival at Joe's house I was immediately whisked off to lunch - what turned out to be a Mothers' Day buffet at the Palm Springs golf club. Joe had gathered together 7 chaps who were, I thing all associated with costume in some form or other, either designing, film costumer, or teaching the subject in Los Angeles. It was a lot of fun, and it was flattering to be told that Alan, the professor from the design dept in LA had been showing my quite scrappy little sketch book to his graduate students!
In the afternoon Joe took be to see some of the sights, including the old theatre, where the Palm Springs Follies, all ex-pros well into their 70s who could still do the splits and high kicks, were wont to perform, Liberace's house, one of Bob Hope's many houses, and the spectacular desert in a raging wind storm.

Next day we sat and chatted, I looked some more at Joe's collection of delightful painted wood figurines, and drove back to San Diego.. I hope he will be able to come to 1 or 2 of the shows here, must email possible dates.

A day off

2010-05-03T17:01:00.000-07:00

I had a very restful day today, though may go to the Art shop in a bit. There is a small pool at Laurel Park apartments, and a terrific hot spa tub, and today I both swam and poached. Great for aches and pains, since it is kept as hot as a bath!

Last night one of the actors had a party at the flats were most of the out of town actors live.
Everyone very welcoming, no sense of that Brit thing of not being certain if you can join their gang... Took apple juice which is available in enormous flagons, and some bananas.

In the morning I went to the San Diego Quaker meeting and was delighted by this sign.
Back to work tomorrow.

The Taming of the Shrew gets under way

2010-04-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

Big events today on the Design Show & Tell. To everyone's dismay and Adrian Noble's fury, nobody was present from the set design team to introduce the model or answer questions. After the incredulity had subsided Adrian introduced me in glowing terms, and I took everyone throu my concepts - to varying degrees of comprehension(!)

In the afternoon we had the fitting for Bree Welch's costume that we were reviewing on Saturday. Noah Tafolla was there again to film so Maxwell came in too. Louise Powers' work was much admired. Bree had the perfect figure for the dress and was delighted with it.

Very few alterations were required, and as this is the bridal dress we left it long to create a train.

These are swatches for Fitzroy, an ambitious equerry, in Madness of King George.

I plucked up courage to ride my bike into work across the park. On the way back a passer-by, hijacked by Maxwell, took this photo of us with a statue of Kate Sessions, a lady who spent 60 years of her long life clearing Balboa Park of the desert scrub and planting the beautiful parkland one sees today.

Getting down to work

2010-04-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

The task on Saturday was to discuss the wedding dress for Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. This is a mock-up of it in what we call calico, but the Americans call muslin. It will be an extremely ornate dress worn by the actress Bree Welch. She has not yet arrived in San Diego, so we're going as far as we can from her measurements.

During this session we were being video'd for a film being made in conjunction with the Historical Museum for a 75th Anniversary Exhibition of the Old Globe, featuring the work of the costume department.

The costume is being made by Louise Powers. Here she demonstrates for the camera how the corsage of pearl embroidery will be fitted to the bodice. We found this in a wedding gown shop, where it would have been destined for an ornate bridal gown. I've always to use one of these, but they've always seemed too OTT, but this is absolutely what is wanted.

The dress is supposed to demonstrate that her father has a great deal more money than taste and this corsage spoke to all of us as soon as we saw it!

The under-dress is a classic Elizabethan farthingale shape of ombré-d pink silk, which will help the light over-dress appear to vary its colour with the light.

We then needed to discuss the fabric that is to be used for the latter and here the Head of the Costume Shop Stacy Sutton is giving a view.

The top fabric will be multiple sun-ray pleated circles of shell-pink organza, edged with fine filigree gold.

Because my costume drawing is from the front further questions then arose about how I intended the back, and so I had to do a further drawing of the back to show what I meant.

It was particularly unnerving to have to do this with a video camera a foot away from my nose.

Here you see the final result. The original drawing of the front is on the right, with the new sketch of the back on the left, which shows how the over-dress is pinned and falls.

Next we needed to discuss the ombrè-ing of the pink silk with Teri Carignan the dyer. She is holding swatches of experimental colour tests she has made in order to find the closest match.

The shadowing of the pink will echo the way the pleating goes on the overdress, but you can't dye organza without it going floppy, so to get some movement into the colour we have to treat the under-dress to do the work for us. With us is Charlotte Devaux, who is Stacy's main assistant and the chief costume supervisor.

Afterwards we went over to the workstation of Erin Tavares who handles metal craftwork and fabrication. She has questions concerning the armature that will support Bianca's ruff in order to make it stand out horizontally. What she has done is absolutely right for the needs of the costume we have been discussing.

A useful Saturday afternoon!

As a final glimpse of work in progress elsewhere in a costume shop of 50 people: here work is proceeding to create body padding for the extremely fat Prince of Wales in Bennett's The Madness of King George, later in the season.

San Diego 2

2010-04-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

Maxwell traveled out with me to have an Easter holiday and help me settle in, but has been grounded till heaven knows when by the ash cloud. He's booked to go out on Tuesday but the signs are not looking hopeful.
And Adrian, who is directing the Madness of King George and Lear is due to arrive on Monday, but may well not... The entire company will be lined up, the refreshments will be ready, but we are all at the mercy of the volcano. At least we will be allowed to get on with fittings. Unfortunately Ron Daniels, who is directing Shrew, is working on a production of Bohème, [or possibly Traviata] in Denver and won't be here either.

Meanwhile we have been choosing fabrics and the 'drapers' have been cutting trial shapes, which is going very well - it's a very good wardrobe.

I have taken the brave step of renting a ”woman's step through“ bike which will be delivered on Monday morning so that I can ride to work through the park in a stately sort of way.

An earthquake on our arrival

2010-04-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

After a 10 hour flight backwards in time we arrived in Los Angeles only 3 hours later. We left London at 10:55 and arrived at 14:15, traveling in brilliant sunlight at 35,000 ft all the way. We were greeted by an earthquake! Standing by the check-in desk as we waited to transfer to the local San Diego flight it felt as if the desk was rocking on the floor, or that feeling you get when you've been on a ship all day and then return to dry land. We commented it on it to the woman, wondering if it could be the precursor to an earthquake and whether we should head for the open door to the tarmac, and she said: "I thought it was just me." This surprised us, as we imagined all Angelenos would be used to the sensation.

Nobody seemed very concerned, but shortly afterwards it came on CNN that there'd been a 6.9 quake (later upgraded to 7.2), whose epicentre was near Callexico. When we arrived at San Diego everyone was talking about it as an exceptional occurrence, and had their own stories of pictures falling off walls and swimming pools overflowing.
;
Our apartment is tasteful in the extreme, in coordinated shades of brown. In a condo, which is itself in coordinated shades of beige, just a block away from Balboa Park. So far Maxwell has been driving me to work, but shortly I intend to rent a bicycle as it's all level; and I'm hoping it will strengthen my weak knees. However it's well equipped and has an open air swimming & spa pool, just visible in the picture below, as well as a gym and games room.

Setting off for San Diego

2010-04-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

Finally off on this adventure.

I am designing the costumes for the entire 2010 season at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park, San Diego. The plays are King Lear and The Madness of George lll [Alan Bennet] both directed by Adrian Noble, and the Taming of the Shrew, directed by Ron Daniels.

There are 80 drawings done at considerable speed which will generate something like 230 costumes - it’s a good thing that Stacy the head of wardrobe is so efficient. I’ve had 41 emails from her so far! Including lists, cross-plots, ‘draper notes’ [US for cutter] I had to beg her to desist from sending me every piece of reference for all 3 shows, sometimes several times over.

I have made prints of George, but will do the others there, partly because art paper weighs so much, and ink is expensive – and I ran out of time.

There is still much colouring in to be done, but the ones on the Hannemuhle Antiqua paper look so nice in pencil that I may just leave them. I’ve put colour notes on the prints instead.

Tomorrow, Ron Cooling the company manager will help us to get local sim cards, there isn’t a phone in the unit, it costs a fortune to use a British mobile, and I can’t rely solely on Skype.

On Wednesday we will go to LA for the dress rehearsal of die Gezechten, [the Stigmatized ones] the peculiar Schreker opera that Sam and I helped out with some principal’s drawings for. Ian says he has been having a vile time, little money no designer and the wrong set. For the Ring Cycle apparently, vertiginous rake and a fixed gauze – terrible idea in my opinion.

Don Giovanni in Lyon. 1.

2009-10-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

Don Giovanni, which opens tomorrow night is the third of the Mozart Da Ponte operas that I have designed the costumes for here in Lyon. The Director is Adrian Noble, set designer - Tom Pye. It's been a terrific experience, and indeed it is one of the great joys of working in opera that you get the opportunity to really get to know such works the best way possible, if your not a musician, that is.

The idea is to revive the operas as a trilogy in January 2011. Through-cast where possible, though so far the only singer who has been in all three is the extraordinary Markus Werba as Guilemo in Cosi, Count Almaviva in Figaro, and as Don Giovanni himself.

We set Cosi on a beach in 2006 with an exceptionally young and beautiful cast, Figaro went back 30 years to the 1980s of the White House. We didn't want it to be set in the 18th century, [surprisingly hard to be sexy in such a self-conciously pretty period] but it had to be set somewhere where the abuse of sexual power made sense. And for Giovanni, Tom had the brilliant idea of going to "little Italy" in 1930s New York.

It works very well, I think. And for the party at the end of Act 1, we turned that into a masked ball in fancy dress, with a nod to the 18th century in the costumes - hence that sketch of a lady in a corset and panniers. We even found the most wonderful black and silver embroidered coat for Don Giovanni which was actually from a very old production of Figaro. It pleased me to give such beautiful costumes another airing, and looks really interesting.

Fanciulla

2009-10-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

Fanciulla del West - The Girl of the Golden West, or in Danish, something that looks oddly like Pig del Vest, is very late Puccini, written in America about Californian gold miners, the 'girl' of the title, Minnie, who runs the only bar in the miners' shanty town, and her relationship with gang boss Dick Johnson [the tenor - of course] and the nasty sheriff, Jack Rance - the bass.

I got very fond of it in the end, but it has been rudely described as 'Puccini without the tunes' and it did take a bit of getting into.

It's actually very difficult indeed to design and make interesting and convincing work clothes from another period, 1880s in this case... they tend to come out boring, un-real or just plain wrong.

In the end I went for pencil drawn photo-realism. I had been provided with photos of all the chorus, and managed to find pix of the principals on the internet, and worked with a method that involved the computer a good deal, printing out the photos, drawing the costumes over, or alongside, then scanning them back in again, framing and adding simple back-grounds in photo shop, and printing them out again on heavy art paper. A bit laborious, but it worked beautifully, and the cast greeted their drawings with little cries of delight as they recognised themselves and each other!

Belated Fanciulla

2009-10-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

Fanciulla del West actually opened in Aarhus on August 16th, which meant that I returned home precisely 10 days before Suzi and John's wedding. There was no time really for blogging, as I had quite a bit of wedding sewing to do. The wardrobe kindly lent me a machine, and my flat was splendidly light and clean, so the dressmaking bit was actually easier than at home in Duck Street, where there are too many dog hairs for comfort. I made Sefa's yellow silk dress, my own jacket in a tastefully wild Briget Rileyesque printed silk, and cut out several miles of bunting.

There are 600 and something pictures of the wedding on
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martineauwedding/
so I shan't put any more up here!

I did manage to visit the Old Town, [Die Gamlie By] an extraordinary re-constructed village of nearly 80 buildings from all over Denmark, dating from 1500 onward. It managed to avoid the Disneyland effect danger, and was actually very interesting.
I very much liked the patterns of sunlight on the wooden floor of the newly opened, very brightly painted Merchant's House.
And there was even a tiny theatre built in 1817 and moved from Helsingor, [yes, Hamlet's Elsinor] I home the home town didn't mind, I shouldn't have been pleased if such a delightful theatre, complete with little dressing-rooms and working hemp scene change system had been taken from my home town, but maybe they got a fine new one in exchange.

Much Ado Technical Rehearsal 2

2009-05-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

The technical rehearsal rumbles on. I've sat through a lot worse but it's always a rush, and the changes are difficult. The costumes do look nice though, here are a few more photos.

I quite like the one of Tony O'Donnell as Dogberry having his breeches mended!
Not exactly part of the drama, but certainly part of the tech!

Much Ado in Regents Park

2009-05-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of the drawings for Much Ado.

This morning we started the technical rehearsal in costume for the first time. They look very good, but it's an extremely long day. I am very pleased with Sam's masks - here are some examples...

The costumes are very plain, but quite effective in the open air, with the men in warm neutrals and the girls in fruit coloured shot silk.

Niagara

2009-04-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we had a day off so I decided to go on a coach trip to the Niagara falls, thinking I would be
unlikely to get another opportunity. John and Mich Gunter (the set designer of Boccanegra and his wife) decided to come too, so we booked on a bus trip from the hotel over the road. It was all
quite an experience! I have something of an aversion to the guided tour,
and this one fulfilled many of the reasons why! But we didn't quite feel
like hiring a car and I didn't have my licence with me anyway.

The guide/driver talked solidly the entire way, it was informative, but quite relentless, I learnt more than I wanted about American Football and the hopelessness of the local ice hockey team, but he was very interesting on Canadian history and topography.
Having taken the shorter trip, we didn't get to go to the 18th century town of Niagara on the Lake, which is lovely - apparently.

Still it was well worth it for the experience of the falls themselves which are indeed amazing.in Summer there is a boat which takes you behind the main fall itself, but its not safe yet, as the 'ice bars' are still in place in Lake Eirie and great chunks of ice are likely to tumble over the edge at any time. Dramatic, I think, but painful..

There is an esplanade opposite the American Falls which could have been Worthing, but behind it was a tourist strip of quite speechless vulgarity! I do find bad moving waxworks depressing... think a revolving J Depp on his pirate ship and Harrison Ford being endlessly pulled up and down over a pit on his rope - oh and a sphinx with a moving lower jaw and beard singing Elvis songs, actually that was quite funny.

Then back to Toronto, [which simply means 'meeting place' in Huronese - we learnt].

last day in Moscow

2009-04-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

I didn't get to do much sightseeing in Moscow, what with one thing and another, too busy - too tired and so forth. But there was a monastery in the next road where the monks restored icons, here is the Church Duster. There were also quite a few people who had come in to pray.

I went to a couple of services, each was full, and not just of old ladies either, Mikael visited the big cathedral opposite the Pushkin Gallery which had a weekday Lenten service on - also full. The Russian Church is clearly powerfully alive and very well!

On a different note, over the road was this sculpture gallery, I was supposed to be looking at the statue of Schostakovitch, but was rather taken with this Don Quixote and Sancho Panza....

1st Night 3

2009-04-04T05:08:00.001-07:00

More pictures...

Ist Night 2

2009-04-04T04:57:00.000-07:00

These picture were supposed to go with the 1st 1st night post, somehow the window had got hidden behind the main page..

Golfo's body painting was done quite beautifully in the end by an artist called Helen, everyone wanted their photos taken with him after the show! There is one of me somewhere, but I need to get hold of it somehow...

Ist Night in Moscow

2009-04-04T03:30:00.000-07:00

The last few days in Moscow were very difficult. Napoli, with its 240 costumes, would have been a tough show even with efficient stage management, a friendly costume supervisor/ assistant, and being able to get home at weekends. A month away from home is too long for me, and I found out what various chums who have worked there warned - Russia does your head in in the end!

This inness of head, whatever that is may actually mean, manifested itself by stress responses such as a forgetful clumsiness with my self and possessions that would have been a comedy turn had it not felt so demented. I lost things constantly, both phones went at one point, the precious iPhone never to return [grrr..]

Despite all that it was an unforgettable experience, and the 1st night was a great, joyous success. It was wonderful, with a tremendous party afterwards - showers of flowers and chocolates, and vast quantities of alcholol. The Russian wardrobe department were so nice to me, and so pleased with the results of all the hard work that the difficulties will fade very quickly, and the good bits, the friendliness, affection and skill of so many will always be with me.

Act 3

2009-03-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

Act 3 of Napoli is sometimes done on its own, [indeed it is what we did in Prague last year], it is unofficially called "The Joy of Dance" and I must say you would have to be very mean-spirited not to be swept along by it all - it is truly joyous. Despite the noise of the yelling of the choreographers - 'ligne - ligne' they shriek, the director of ballet shouting instructions and the chatter of various departments giving notes, the sheer exuberance of the dance and the whirling colour really does make the heart beat a little faster. And it's been working its magic since 1842!

I'll try and get some better pix tomorrow with the first cast.

Act 2

2009-03-24T00:40:00.000-07:00

Don't think I can stay in the flat much longer today, a work party is decorating the hallway and drilling enthusiastically, apparently into my door - the noise is deafening.

Here is the the bad water-god being wigged up, with his very engaging daughter in attendance.

I got fed up with being told that I could only have his body decorations stitched on to net that looked like granny's lisle stockings - not sexy at all, when suddenly Mrs Golfo introduced a friend who did body art! Brilliant, she arrived, took a brief look at the costume drawing, got out her little pots of make up and produced a fantastic seaweedy tattoo.. It looked a bit like cabbage leaves yesterday, but will be lovely when the colour is right.

I tried to get some pictures of this act, I quite like the swirly one - Will try again more selectively tomorrow.
Today is the dancers' day off, so the wardrobe don't want me there to give them yet more notes, they will have quite enough to do finishing the pages they already have.
So I shall go out in a minute - it's my last chance of sight-seeing.

Act 1

2009-03-24T00:31:00.000-07:00

I haven't really solved the problems of taking good on-stage pix, even though there is more light than usual for Napoli. Here are 2 for Act 1 - taken from the side of the stage, which is close enough, but hardly the ideal view-point. There are moments when the dancers freeze and hold a pose, but they are few and fleeting.

There was a small door in the proscenium arch that would have pitched me into the orchestra pit had I gone through it too far, good vantage point though, but embarrassing!

Orchestral Dress Rehearsal 1

2009-03-23T02:56:00.000-07:00

More Act 3

I asked for absolutely everything to be put on stage after this morning, even it was unfinished so at least we could see where the holes were, as the casting muddles had caused a number of peculiar results. Despite the strange lack of urgency about seeing even quite important costumes on stage, it was actually quite encouraging.

In Act 2, however, the underwater scene, the water-god has a huge silk cloak over his variably god-like form. The applique´d waves and seaweed are far from finished, and we only saw the said cloak last night after a huge fight on my part. [It was in bits in the art department - still damp.]
"Technical rehearsal" , i.e. to rehearse using all the practical bits and pieces must mean something rather different here.
As you see, these pictures are still Act 3 - will try and get photos of the rest of it this evening.

Back in the Studio

2009-03-23T02:43:00.000-07:00

The dress parade didn't help much, it was in the studio and the costumes that were still in the workrooms couldn't be interupted. I think we discovered where the problems were and worried some more, but that was about it.

Photographs will now be more of a problem, as the band is in, the way across the pit, between the harp and the piano and up some wobbly steps has been deactivated, the pit is enormous to cater for those 120 piece Verdi orchestras and my rather domestic camera wont really stretch to taking good pics from the stalls. Here goes anyway.

1/2-Dress Rehearsal

2009-03-20T23:37:00.000-07:00

The show is beginning to come together on stage now. I was expecting a full technical piano dress rehearsal with most of the costumes in place, but what with one thing and another, that isn't quite what happened!
It’s actually in fairly good shape despite the seeming chaos. The big problem has been the head of the ballet [Russian], issuing a different cast list to the wardrobe from the Choreographer/director [Danish]. These lists line up quite a lot of the time, but when they don't, well, costumes have been made for the wrong people, Tourists as distinct from Neapolitans, for instance.
Mmmm.
I have to be careful what I write here, [I would like to work again] - I will just say this - if you think ‘musicians in charge’ should cause you to duck, you should try dancers – they communicate best in mime!

I love these dancers sitting on the side of the stage, one darning her pointe shoes, the other with her woolly leggings under her finale costume.

The soloist in the very Bournonville pose, [look at the hands] is Teresina in her wedding dress for Act 3.

Today, heaven help me, we have a hated "dress parade", an infernal invention designed to allow all dancers and choreographers to grumble a lot and cause confusion and give notes to the wrong people. However, given the list fiasco, it is the only way anyone can think of to sort things out.

The Trtyakov Gallery

2009-03-20T23:26:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday I went with Mikael Melbye to the Tretyakov gallery, which is simply amazing. Whole schools of Russian painting such as 19th century landscape, portraiture and genre paintings that I hardly knew existed. I particularly liked this little pair of sisters. The other impressive thing is that by lunchtime it was full of families on a day out, it isn't free, and there are very few tourists at this time of year. Good news for the appreciation of Russian culture, I thought.

Saturday Afternoon again.

2009-03-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

A blog-free few days as to begin with I felt too tired, and then had 3 WiFi free days, O how one misses it! All functioning again now though. I was unable to do any fittings this afternoon because the entire cast + extras and children have been in the rehearsal studio all day, and will be tomorrow as well.

I made enquiries as to how on earth one got the people you needed as I hadn't seen anyone who might be called a stage manager to insist that fittings happened, and it seems there is no such person. The only person, apart from the Choreographer, his assistants and the ballet teachers is a trade union official who's present principally to prevent anyone doing anything during their breaks - she doesn't care about costume fittings... There is, I'm told a being who manages the stage, in the sense of running the show, but no team as we know it who attends the rehearsals and then moves into position to run things when the stage time begins. Mmm- 5 maybe 6 ballet masters but no stage manager! Therefore the person to whom the Head of Wardrobe is wont to scream "no fittings - no frocks" at regular intervals simply doesn't exist, and of course, nobody else cares that much, they will soon though.

Next Wednesday which is the 1st piano dress rehearsal in costume, could well be pandemonium. Everything in the workrooms looks lovely, but some things are still being cut out!

Saturday Afternoon.

2009-03-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

Just 2 fittings yesterday, one for the mother, Veronica which was very good, and the second one for the Flower Seller" who turned out to be the most extraordinary little person, called Viola. She arrived in the fitting room wearing a brilliantly coloured kimono, outsize shower hat, dark glasses and killer heels, no unseemly scrabbling about changeing from her street clothes or undignified underwear moments for her.
She could hardly have been more unsuitable as a flower seller, really, as she was entirely queenly throughout, and accepted it as completely her due when I complained that it was difficult to make her look un-aristocratic.
She was one of the tiniest human beings I have ever met, and must have been a sensational Odette/Odile, her most famous starring role 40, maybe 50 years ago. [She was born in 1933, they told me, so that makes her still performing at 76.] She probably joined the ballet school 70 years ago, hard to imagine really. She executed a perfect curtain call bow when I said she could have a hat for act 3 - it was beyond my skills to describe a "fascinator" to either her or the interpreter, so a hat with flowers it will have to be. And she brought me chocolates and a minute embroidered hankie for "womens' day" as I was clearly man-less in Moscow.

Friday

2009-03-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

Managed to get in on the metro without getting lost. This is Pushkinskaya Station, where the theatre is.
I went to watch the dancers rehearsing, this is Teresina, our heroine with Frank Anderson, the choreographer.
Then loads of fittings.
The underwater people, naiads and so forth are supposed to look as if they are dressed in seaweed and water crystals. This is really hard to do, as the combination of apparent fragility and hardwearing toughness is quite a challenge. We are not there yet...
The humans look much better, very pretty, or full of character, according to what's wanted. The Russian makers are very skilled indeed once they get going, luckily I do quite clear drawings, have an interpreter at all times, and am getting almost as good as the dancers at expressive mime!

Moscow March 2009

2009-03-03T23:52:00.000-08:00

This month sees the culmination of the complete version of the Danish ballet Napoli, of which we did act 1 in Prague almost exactly a year ago.
I arrived in Moscow for the final rehearsal and production period on last Monday, [March 2nd] for once the plane was early, and immigration hassle free. The Stanislavski Theatre owns 5 0r 6 apartments in a strange bleak Moscow suburb of high rise blocks, a 15 - 20 minute walk and 4 alarming metro stops from the Pushkinskaya station round the corner from the theatre. which I must attempt again in a minute ... They will send a car if it if too dark, wet or I'm not feeling up to it, but I feel I should make the effort when all is OK, and the sun is shining, like this morning.

Dress Rehearsals

2008-02-19T01:14:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of the dress rehearsal. They are going very well, I must say I am very impressed by the quality of the making in the wardrobe here. (I hope they will be as good in Moscow). Absolutely everything is made in house, no free-lancers, as there would be in the UK. it did take a few goes to get the samples right, but once done, the costumes produced are lovely. There are 70 people working in the ateliers, apparently, so the process has been curiously remote, just meeting the head cutters and supervisors. I've not so much as visited a dressing room - not seeing anything between fittings and seeing the results on stage. But visiting the workrooms to arrange the decoration, everyone was working with broad smiles on their faces, as it was like walking into a flower market with all the bright colours that are such a part of napoli. All day colour therapy!

Sunday Morning 2

2008-02-17T05:50:00.000-08:00

It's very, very cold here, and I didn't bring enough warm clothes, so am grateful for the long under-leggings sportif I purchased yesterday [rather expensively.] I don't know how Czech women find anything interesting to wear, apart from lots of leather. A smallish Marks and Spencer has increased the available fashion-wear by about 70%, which says it all really. Terrific shoe shops though.
This morning i decided to be a tourist for a couple of hours and visited the castle/palace/cathedral complex across the river. By 9, busloads of Japanese and German tourists were already being unloaded. i went into the cathedral with a Lenten mass going on, a huge Gothic building, but where some bishop had been unable to resist adding gold topped columns and writhing Baroque statury. The stained glass windows were really magnificent, glass-work being such a local speciality. I then went to the undercroft of Prague Castle which had an interesting display of allsorts from bronze-age burials to 16th c grave clothes, i really wanted to see the great hall above, but my ticket didn't allow. I will have to go again, then coffee overlooking the city, and so home - across the Charles Bridge.

Sunday Morning

2008-02-17T05:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening Mikael and I went to see La Clemenza di Tito at the Estates Theatre. The opera was premiered at this very theatre in 1791 with Mozart himself conducting from the piano, [though mightn't they mean harpsichord?]. How's that for history? It was terrific, we never saw the chorus, who were squashed out of sight behind the Peter Brook like white perspective box, so it became a powerful, rather modern psycho-drama concentrating on the 6 principals. the scene changes were all at the end of the tunnel, and therefore only needed to be 2 metres square...

Ballet Design

2008-02-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

If you want to destabilize any self-satisfaction you might have about your body image try working with dancers! It's not just that they are tiny, which they are, but their fitness and grace makes them seem to belong to an entirely different species. I feel like a Labrador among Italian whippets! There's no point in bothering about it, they simply belong to a different gene pool...
Apart from the ballets which occur in operas such as Prince Igor and the Baroque dancers in Purcell's "The Fairy Queen" I have not actually designed costumes for a classical ballet before.

Napoli in Prague

2008-02-16T07:21:00.001-08:00

I arrived in Prague for the final production week with dress rehearsals, and on February 21st, the 1st night. Therefore this blog will have quite a number of flashbacks.
We had the first dress rehearsal yesterday. The event is billed as "A Bournonville Evening" and consists of his two best known ballets, "La Sylphide" and Act 3 of Bournonville's genre ballet, "Napoli" which is essentially a 40 minute celebration of the joy of dance, without the back-story.
The evening contained another adventure, when during the big scene change Martin, the director of the Prague ballet, took us up to the roof of the theatre in the freezing moonlight, which would have made a fine set for Don Giovanni, or Tosca without any changes at all!