There are several costume ideas I have been working on since my meeting with Rinde. We had talked about the actors wearing costumes that unified them and referenced Ningyōtsukai (Bunraku Puppeteers) and their style of dress. I also like the unified look of the Butoh performers. One of the many style of Ningyōtsukai hoods made from a square piece of fabric creates the effect of wolf ears!
Along with this element of costume I imagined the actors altering their ‘blank’ costumes with the use of chalk in primal and gestural ways like Native American warpaint. As the play progresses, the costumes would move from stark and clean to this chalk covered second skin. then the costumes would be washed between each performance. I am still experimenting on what this might look like.
Another element I have been working in is creating character through costume pieces and accessories made out of paper. The heavy builders paper comes readily in Brown, Pink, and Green. I have been experimenting with making simple costume pieces out of paper and made a pretty nice fedora hat. I also have been looking at how fashion has used paper as costume and especially like the Hugo Boss Paper suit from the 1960’s
Chalk could also be used on the paper costume pieces to add details, but these would not very very easy to clean off for each performance.
Finally I have a strong image of tall two-dimensional paper puppets of business suits or suited “shareholders” casting long shadows around the campfire. The ‘suits’ would be tall and abstracted, serving as the image of both suited shareholders but also the tall skyscrapers of the world Calub Prosper now lives in. Since the puppets are flat they could easily blend into the play space when not in use and only make an appearance for particular moments.
That is what I have thus far. I hope to do some drawings and make a mockup of the tall puppet for the meeting. Let me know what you all think!