In light of the upcoming summer festival season, I have decided to post this long over-due piece on our 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' costumes from last years Trinity Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Molly O'Cathain and Stage Manged by Sophie Cairns, the festival took place at the start of June, 2013.
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| All the cutie cast - Conor, Aoife, James, Jack, Colm, Ellie, Colm, Honi, Kate, Alex, Mollie, and Sean |
Our costume designer was the excellent Emily Collins, who I had the pleasure of working with also on our recent second year show The Machinewreckers. Among Emily's and the cast's clothes, a colourful collection arose that was the perfect look for our show to tour around primary schools.
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| The Fairies - Honi, Colm, Mollie, Kate, and Alex |
The fairies were especially cool in my mind (not biased at all) as we had wings! Although we look sugary sweet, I loved the funky undertones in our dark dresses like in Queen Titania's (Mollie's) gothic goddess dress. The Peter Pan-like look of Puck
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| Puck - Honi |
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| Fairy Girlos - Alex, Mollie, and Kate |
had the sense of taking a modern look and using the simple but effective idea of the fairy wings to bring this magical world to an audience.
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| The Lovers - Ellie, Aoife, Conor, and Colm |
The Lovers were typical stereotypes of the awkward teen years. Hermia, The Princess and Helena, The Geek were said to portray Shakespeare's own daughters and they show how appearance was still very much an issue in the Elizabethan times. Let's face it, no girl wants to be 'ugly like a bear' or to be called an acorn! The boys showed the battle of Abercrombie Boy vs. Rocker/TooCoolForSchool Guy, often with explosive consequences.
The Mechanicals were the builders in the bunch so our clothes consisted of lots of high-vis gear and flannel. As Alex and I were double-roling, a lot of hilarious and frantic costume-changing between scenes occurred...it was usually just me who fell over though.
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| Mechnicals - Jack, James, Alex, Kate, and Sean |
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| James - the beautiful Thisbe |
In the tragic play-within-the play 'Pyramus and Thisbe' performed by the Mechanicals at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jack (Bottom) and James (Flute) performed the two lovers.
This involved the beautiful transformation from worker Flute to terrific Thisbe.
This dress was definitely one of the fashion highlights of our production!
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Sealing it with a Kiss - Jack and James
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We also put on a production entitled 'Dirrty Midsummers' during the week which was enjoyed by all but found to be a truly harrowing experience...
'Parting is such sweet sorrow'
All in all we had a glorious time generally just having the craic with each other during rehearsals and travelling around bringing our own bit of silly Shakespeare to the masses.
Photos from Du Players
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