I haven't done this before, so I figure I'd give it a try..

In our group discussion during class I brought up the idea of costuming and staging in The Tempest, especially the feast scene where a table full of food disappears from before Alonso and company and there are misshapen spirits and fantastical beings. I was wondering how they would have accomplished these things in the Renaissance and how the production we are going to see this weekend might do it differently. I didn't do much research because I wanted to use this blog a bit creatively and focus more on how I think it could be done.

The stage directions for the banquet read:
Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel like a harpy, claps his wings upon the table, and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.
In class, we talked about possibly having the table full of food lifted up into the air and out of view. That's possible for a production today, but in the Renaissance the typical place for these performances was the Globe Theatre, which is outdoors, and has no roof to hoist a table up to. For Shakespeare's time I picture someone out of sight making loud banging noises for thunder as shadows were made in whatever lighting they had to represent lightning. There could have been a long, thin table, so that the feast could appear large and appetizing. The table could be stationed over the trapdoor so that when Ariel hits it with his wings it folds in the middle and falls down through the trapdoor and out of sight.
There are many other ways it could have been done. The only thing we get from the text is that a "quaint device" was used. My footnotes indicate that the word quaint meant something different in those days, and that it was some sort of mechanism or person designed to make the banquet disappear with a blend of "imagination, skill, and elegance."

When the spirits and strange beings perform, we get these descriptions from the text:
Enter several strange shapes.
"Who would believe that there were mountaineers,
Dewlapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em
Wallets of flesh, or that there were such men
Whose heads stood in their breasts" -Gonzalo
There's more description here than there are with many other fantastical things in The Tempest, which potentially makes it harder for productions to live up the Gonzalo's words and Shakespeare's original plan for this play. With this I am mostly curious to see if the production we go to this weekend will include these people with heads in their breasts and fleshy throats, or if they will simplify the spirits for convenience's sake. I hope they keep it in, because I am really curious to see how it would be done.

I know I don't have much experience in planning and creating things like this, I've always been on the observer side of things. So I could use your input. How do you think people from the Renaissance could have pulled this off and made it a thing of spectacle without any kind of modern special effects? And what are you hoping to see this weekend?

May I say that our class trip to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar was great? Well, I'm going to say it anyways. It was great. I had a fun time getting to know the people in my car who I probably never would have interacted with any other way. And the play was really well done. Seeing Shakespeare live is such a big difference from reading the text or watching a movie. Although I will admit that every time the lights went down to the "winter" setting of black and purple I had a hard time keeping my eyes open...

One of the things that really interested me while watching the play was how they used costumes to promote a theme or develop a character. There's really no way to organize my thoughts on it without getting long and drawn out, so here they are in all their unorganized glory:

Hermione wearing white in the beginning and when she comes back to life, and Perdita wearing white. It emphasized their innocence, Hermione as faithful and Perdita as Leontes true daughter.

Purple and black clothes set the stage for winter. Winter colors. Shiny, black shoes and tuxes and formal clothing for winter.

The men changed to brown suits in the spring and the tones of the girls dresses were a lot more earthy and reminded me of spring and life. It was more natural.

The clown in striped pants. The clown in striped suit after he is made a "gentleman." Character continuity. Rank didn't change him. Helped make the actor recognizable after a wardrobe change.

Autolycus' coat. Can I just say it was awesome? Really, I want that coat. On the outside it was tan and plain, like the facade he is trying to portray. On the inside it was woven and messy and all kinds of crazy colors. Like his true personality could help bursting out every time he turned around. His clothes were so complex and interesting. The wig and the hat, his boots went all the way up to his knee. It was just a really unique combination and somehow it all worked, like the different sides and faces of his character.

Florizel's cape was kinda lame. Frilly and off one shoulder. Held on by a string that kept slipping off. Maybe it shows how insubstantial and pretty-boy esque his character was. He does take the cape off though, so maybe running away with Perdita is his growing up.

Paulina. Why did she make me think of a cranky British nanny? Well.. that's how they dressed her. I just couldn't get over how old and out of place she looked. But maybe that's a consequence of being the voice of reason, you feel out of place and get a bad name for it. And isn't she, in some ways, Leontes' nanny? She smacks him on the hand every time he does a "bad thing" and tries to be cheerful.

So there's my jumble of observations from a Winter's Tale. There's not really any opportunity to interpret a director's costuming decisions when we're just studying the text in class. So this was fun.
Until next time, Hakuna Mutata.

Oh, and P.S. don't forget the bear's costume. I'm so glad it didn't look like this: