Costumes

idea of climax and going beyond. In the staging, it's interesting that one of the things Bob brought in recently is the bed. He has emphasized the bed In this production much more than he did last summer. And if you notice the word "bed" is thrown in lots of times as a subliminal hint or something. This summer the bed wasn't there, except when Alcestis dies. ... Actually, I've always felt that one of my strong points as a designer is my conceptual work and it is also reflected in the fact that I direct theatre. So it is frustrating for me sometimes. Sometimes I feel like a gifted tool. .And yet strictly as a designer there are few other directors who are working with the kind of sophistication or interest that Bob is. I don't know where else I could work like this. And where else would the work be conceptually as interesting? JOHN CONKLIN, COSTUMES I came as an observer to the workshop last summer. The set was there, the lights were there, but costumes interest Bob the least. Still from the beginning he did see certain things. He saw the man in the crocodile head. He saw the woman in her navy blue suit, pill box hat and sensible shoes writing on the wall. One day he came into the workshop and said he had seen an old man in a seersucker suit carrying a laundry bag. Bob said he found it very moving, carrying this white laundry bag. That image is still there in the Prologue . It's totally inexplicable. Most people don't even notice it. It's connected with death somehow. But it has remained as an image. For instance, the people lying on the platform are wearing seersucker pants. That's a clue to how he works. I can work instinctively, but I tend to want to systematize or build an intellectual structure. But not Bob. Take Seth, the boy wearing the bearskin. I would say, "Why do you see that?" I asked him that and I don't think he answered. But why? Well you begin to think, where is fur used? It's on Hercules, then it appears again on Seth. Is this character a young hero? I don't know. Then I suggested that the "woman in the theatre" in the Prologue-that's Diane-should have a fur stole. He agreed. It's a strange process, you don't know why things are happening . But the bearskin is absolutely right. Bob very rarely changes his mind. There are almost no major changes. The color or the fit may be slightly wrong. The images have been consistent here. He always thought Death should be a white bird. He always wanted the wrapped mummy.1 then took the idea of wrappings and shrouds and carried it further. The women under the shrouds are wrapped. Here's another example: the people sitting at the table. He saw the person in the crocodile mask, which he said should be Egyptian and very beautiful, in a red velvet smoking jacket. He saw the man with the glowing eye. The two women I came up with. I sat at the workshop last summer and drew a woman in an 1890s hat, and then he had the idea about the red lips. And a Diane Arbus photo of a woman in a strapless dress and mask suggested the other 90 woman, which he liked, but he added the illumination of the bra from within. The sense of glowing objects is very much his own. It's odd. You don't discuss what the feeling should be. And nothing is made up. Everything is based on something. At first I was trying to have him tell me what to do. But he wants you to do something and then he'll react. Apollo's costume is based on Buddhist robes. The men's chorus in the funeral scene is based on Japanese kimonos. The peasant things for the chorus were all based on real peasant clothes. He would say: ricepickers. So we would go off and do a lot of research on Oriental...