Therefore, I was talking to some of my friends in other universities about ways of making wigs, and I got loads of great suggestions using bits and pieces, very DIY, very makeshift, but equally effective and endearing. I think at this point, it'll probably be a case or purchasing a bald-cap (or painting a swimming cap) for every child playing a witch, decorating it beautifully with scabs and boils (LITERALLY CAN'T WAIT), and then creating each child a bespoke 1940s style wig using a hair-net or an oranges bag or netting and elastic, and sewing on bits and pieces to create 1940s hairstyles, that do actually look like hair styles, but at the same time are obviously made of bits and bobs. I better start looking out for materials that might be good for this purpose!!
I think the difficulty here is that, unlike Salome- my theoretical project, I need to understand that for this production it is not as appropriate for me to take an 'intellectual' depth to designing it. The important thing is that it's practical, within budget, and accessible for all ages, there is no point therefore in focusing on some 'far-out' concept that seems highly unnecessary for a 1-night kids' show for a lovely local youth theatre group. It needs to be fun, and have a sense of humour about it, which I'm hoping might play to my natural strengths, as people ALWAYS seem to laugh at my costume designs anyway!!!
So thinking about the wigs has lead me to deciding on the overall design concept of the play. I still need to discuss this with the director, but once I've made a mood-board and done some research, I will take my sketchbook to show him, or email him.
I think the key to 'The Witches' is to approach the design with a child-like naivety, using imagination to project another life into mundane objects. I think, what I'd like to do with the set and costumes is explicitly show my workings, so create workable and recognizable costumes but shamelessly and obviously made out of other things- cheap things like toilet rolls tubes, plastic bottles, yoghurt pots.... your basic recycled materials. I want the feel of the production to have an essence of that sort of 'improvisation' they make you do at 'drama club' where there's a random object in the middle of the circle and each person has to pick it up and pretend like it's something different...
So the same set-pieces and same prop-pieces are used from scene to scene, but what might be the stern of a boat in one scene, could be the steps on a hotel in the next.
I think my costume designs really need to focus on easy costume changes, rather than a deep underlying concept, and instead of focusing on the 'conceptual' need to focus on the 'practical instead'.
I'm going to start looking at other companies for research and inspiration...
I'd like to look at Michel Gondry and his films and music videos, which always posses a child-like 'home-made' quality to them, showing how you can do amazing things with every day objects. I will look back at Forkbeard Fantasy, Faulty Optic, and even at the westend production of Lion King, seeing how different shows with different budgets, still show-their-workings and lo-fi techniques to the delight of the audience.
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I have also been thinking about how to get the witches' teeth blue. I remembered that as a child at school we were given these weird 'plaque tablets' that would illuminate all the plaque in your mouth by dyeing it a certain colour. I thought maybe I could get these in blue? (although I remember them being red) so that the children could just chew a tablet, have a blue mouth for one scene, then all they'd have to do is use a bit of mouthwash and a toothbrush to have a normal mouth for any character changes....
I don't know if this will work, but I'm sure it's worth looking into.
