(costume sketches by Anna Cordingley for the 2010 Malthouse
Theatre season of The Threepenny Opera)
Where did you look for
inspiration for the costumes in The Threepenny
Opera?
All over! The Threepenny Operareference pool was
ridiculously disparate. Michael Kantor the director and I
looked at Japanese FRUiTS magazines, kitsch 18th Century
Chinoiserie as appropriated across the Continent, Kathoei - or Thai
Ladyboys - and other contemporary and traditional transgender
fashions. We observed the extravagance of TV's World
Wrestling Entertainment, Melbourne during the Spring Racing
Carnival and we watched early gangster films. Peter Doyle's
compilation of Sydney police shots from the early 20th Century to
the 1940s was pivotal too. So, a little high and a lot low
art involved.
Did you love playing dress
ups as a child? What was your favourite childhood
costume?
I did love playing dress ups! Our dress up box was a monitor-top
trunk filled mostly with remnants of fabric my mother had bought in
India and Sri Lanka. So we - my sisters and I - became adept at
folding and tucking lengths of cloth into regal trains, quick
little capes and elegant (if peculiar) Saris.
When/why did you decide to
become a costume designer?
I was taken to see an Opera Australia's Marriage of Figarowhen I was
eight and, because the tickets were complimentary, my father and I
sat separately. I sat amongst strangers in the first row of
the circle and I think a combination of the brilliance of the set
design (I design sets & costumes) and the independence I felt
perched there alone instilled, then & there, a real desire to
work on stage.
Which costume designers do
you most admire?
I could watch Peter Greenaway and his team of collaborators until
the cows come home. They're dated works, of course, but
there's wit and style in every design decision. The Draughtsman's Contractfrom 1982 is my favourite. Cinematography was Curtis Clark,
art direction by Bob Ringwood and costumes by Sue Blane.
What is the best costume
you've ever created for a fancy dress party?
Sacrificial Virgin. The party rule was 'S' nouns and
concepts. I wore a wedding dress with a metal tent zipper
sewn up through the middle, the bust torn out and lacework
nuked. It improved throughout the evening as wine was spilled
across the pearly satin.
What is your favourite
costume that you have designed for a theatre
production?
I loved dressing Julie Forsyth in Dario Fo's Elizabeth: Almost By Chance A
Womanat the Malthouse Theatre in 2010. The
indulgence we were afforded for all things design was a wonderful
treat.
What is the biggest
challenge of being a costume designer?
There's something a little special about the last week with a
costume before it goes off into the theatre. It's the
precious time you have to give the items - usually of
brand-spanking new material and sassy made-to-measure structure -
character. Every play demands something different, but the
costumes ought to feel lived in and loved for an age before the
audience intercepts the action. That's a challenge.
Just the right amount of sun-bleach on a collar or scuff mark on a
toe.
What's the best part of your
job?
Researching and drawing. Ad infinitum. Well, not ad
infinitum. Deadlines draw you to a halt and you race to a
presentation date. But I love getting lost in the research
phase.
Briefly describe the process
you used to work with Set Designer Peter Corrigan and Director
Michael Kantor on The Threepenny
Opera.
Peter is one of the most audacious set designers I know and I was
prepared for him to create a wild world, one that appropriates the
lewdness and crassness of our own and reforms said themes into
expressionist forms. Often of not-so-pleasing colour and
texture. That's his way and I rather adore it. It's not
shy. So I watched his world evolve and then stitched my world
of Chinoiserie, WWE, FRUiTS and Kathoei within it, borrowing from
his palette and flavour.
What is the one costume you
would love to design one day?
I'd love to design The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny,
actually. I've often imagined marrying Gertrude Stein's
The Good Annawith
Fatty and Moses.
How important is the
personality of the actor to the creation of a
costume?
Enormously. The actor makes the costume - there's nothing
more disturbing than watching an actor struggle in their
skin. The costume needs be an amalgam of overarching design
concept and detail arising in the rehearsal room.
What is the most complicated
costume you have ever designed?
Chunky Move's Connected, which played in
Sydney earlier this year, could easily take that award. Dance
costumes are something else again and in this instance, I designed
very low profile harnesses with pick-ups strong enough to take the
tug of Reuben Margolin's 220-stringed kinetic structure.
Little body lugs were placed upon the main hinging points of the
body; shoulders, elbows, waist, knees et cetera. We turned
the dancers into armatures - satisfying but incredibly
complicated.
The Threepenny
Opera,Sydney Theatre, 1 - 24 September, 2011.