I am watching Midsummer Night's Dream. I like the language but I don't like this ancient BBC production. Everyone's wearing roughly the same clothes, the Shakespeare-y things with the big collars. Which makes a nonsense of the one line where Oberon says you'll know Athenians by their clothes.
I'm getting distracted from the language by thinking how I'd dress them all if I was running it. And how I'd do their hair. The trouble with foofy clothes with big sleeves and lacy bits and spaniel hair or big curls of any of these COSTUME COSTUME LOOK AT ME sets is they tend to drown out the acting rather, or amplify it in ways the actors might not have got the hang of. Big gestures get a lot bigger when your sleeve is feet long. Plus, whenever I see some of these haircuts I'm stuck their going WTF people ever wore that? And not, for instance, listening.
I would dress the faerie folk from the charity shops, and the prop store, kind of at random. They don't wear clothes for the necessity of it, they're wearing pretties, so they've grabbed a bit here and a bit there and kept their favourites. None of this co-ordinated look. Wild.
I wouldn't quite use ordinary modern clothes for the Athenian nobles. They've got this pretty pretty language going, they need something more formal. Also there are some really sharp suits if you go back a few decades. Also I'm a goth - Victorian for the win.
... Steampunk dream? Oooh, shiny...
The dudes doing the play would be wearing ordinary clothes. They're the dudes we're supposed to *facepalm* about because we know someone just like them, so they should look most like the audience. Not tracksuits or hoodies unless the audience are likely to be wearing them. Amateur dramatic society dudes.
Right, hopefully I've got that out my system and can go watch the play.
... I may need a better version of the play. These BBC ones mostly highlight how fashions in performance change, even Shakespearean performance.
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