Something that I found very interesting about Bertolt Brecht and Charles Laughton's conversation in regards to making the play suitable to be performed for American audiences was that emphasis that Laughton was putting on the costumes of the performers. Laughton had gone to the extent of hiring a Disney Studio sketch artist to come in and sketch drawings of what he was looking for to accompany the visual aesthetic. In the words of Bertolt Brecht, "What pains he took over the costumes, not only his own, but those of all the actors!" (Brecht 132). Brecht also goes on and explains how they looked at pictures of 6th century people to find ones without fancy dress, after this they continued to put costumes in social classes, and then finally the color scheme.
The question that kept floating through my head while thinking about this was why do you think that Charles Laughton put such an emphasis on the clothing of the actors? What do you think this says about the average American person that they are trying to convince to come see the performance? Perhaps a judge a book by its cover ordeal?
No comments:
Post a Comment