2 Invention in the
Rehearsal Room

Different Approaches

Performance that is created not from a script but through collaborative work in the rehearsal room presents particular challenges to the designer. The excitement in the opportunity to invent and improvise the costume side by side with the actors and director far outweighs the fact that rehearsals are often infuriating and exhausting, and call for much patient, silent participation. Work where the company collaborates in this sort of process has a wavelike rhythm. There are times when all flows easily and almost effortlessly and ideas coalesce without problem - and there are times when it feels as if you are wading through treacle, and when a wave that is full of power and potential just refuses to break and give up its secrets. The designer has the opportunity, in these moments, to produce inventive solutions, which give new inspiration and confidence to the process.

THE DESIGNER'S VIEWPOINT

Designers can read a script and use their skill, research and imagination to support the invention of the writer and the concept of the director. They can pull information from the words on the pages and work with the director and the rest of the creative team to bring the page to life. The arc of the narrative will be in place; the characters will exist in the words written for them to say and the context the author has created for their lives. Much of the subsequent design work is spent alone in research and in the studio so that a model of the set and a batch of costume designs can be shown to the company on the first day of rehearsal. Everyone has a good idea of what they will be wearing before they begin to move as their characters.

None of these facts may be in place before the first rehearsal of a devised piece. All the designer may bring to the company on that first day may be a pencil and an empty sketchbook. The bulk of the invention is sparked by the action in the rehearsal room and design ideas are developed publicly and collaboratively. The quiet time in the studio often becomes a late night scrabble to make practical sense of the inventions of the day in time for the next day's rehearsal. The designer's picture begins to grow at the first introduction to the stimulus, usually some time before the first rehearsal. The details of it will come from the improvisation and movement of the performer.

Dance, drama, physical theatre and community work all need design. It is not just a case of the audience seeing something beautiful: the visual effects help place the work in a context, give the characters depth and rigour, and underline and support the emotional content of the work. The nature of devised work lets a designer work with the director and performer to build the characters and the place of the story, and to work right at the hub of the process.

The value of this invention stems from its viewpoint. Performers, however generous and imaginative, are not in a position to watch their own performance. Directors must consider the work from a range of different viewpoints and their input is usually vocal and considered. A designer's most important sense is sight, and a visual response is their instinctive and first reaction. The ideas that tumble into your head when you imagine a situation are pictures. This makes you useful in a collaborative rehearsal, as long as you can manage to explain those ideas, because no one else in the room is looking from your uncomplicated viewpoint, except possibly the lighting or sound designer if they are there. You become the eyes of the audience.

Early work on a scripted performance. (Photo: Christine Jarvis)

.and on a devised show. (Photo: David Hockham)

Many actors do not know where their waist is - do not trust their own measurements.

Notes from an early discussion of a project.

THE VISUAL ASPECT OF PHYSICAL WORK

The body's movement, and the way it uses the performance space and reacts with other bodies, give costume design for physical performance a particular importance. The genre, often without words or a narrative line, has a more abstract quality than most scripted work, and uses the way that people react instinctively to light, silhouette and colour in a direct and demanding way. Think of the traditional but still used ballet dancer's tutu: it leads the audience to see a tiny waist, fragile, bare shoulders looking more tender than ever above the crisp, light-catching wheel of the skirt and the long, slim length of leg extended by the pointe shoes. The dancer bends to touch her pointed toe, and the grace of the line of her body is extended by the upward tilt of her skirt behind her.

The audience do not think about this illusion any more than they think of the muscles, sweat, and pain; they see an unearthly beauty floating in the white spotlight. It's a very different matter in the harsh light of the rehearsal room when layers of well worn vests, knee pads, elastic supports and legwarmers show the difficulty of the job.

Both outfits have surprising similarities as work wear. The shoulders are free, the line of the arms and neck uncluttered, and the movement of the hips and ankles is unrestricted. The clown's costume of huge, baggy trousers and enormous shoes serves the same purpose, as does the sparkling bodysuit of the trapeze artist. These traditional costumes have developed and stay with us as symbols of a particular type of performance, though they say little about the character of the role. Their theatricality hides the fact that they are working dress, and that whatever the costumes look like, if the performer cannot work in them they are useless.

Dramatic stripes turn these three clowns into a chorus. (Photo: Lisette Barlow)

The style of most physical theatre work is less rigid than ballet and the costume less rigid than the tutu, but they are both designed not only for their effect on the audience, but also to allow and enhance the quality of movement in the work. It is vital that the design does not limit this in any way, and is a constant danger in both the design and the making of the costumes. Imagine lifting your leg above your head and then think how much more difficult it would be with the weight of a kilo or two of velvet hanging from it in the form of a skirt. But as a designer you might long for the royal richness of light and depth of colour that velvet would give.

Balancing these decisions, and finding ways to give both audience and performer the best experience, is a skill that needs careful thought, discussion and imagination. You can't make decisions like this without seeing the sort of movement that is being created in rehearsal. And you can't tell how the performer is most at ease in their clothes until you see the way they use their body to express their feelings.

THE VALUE OF CHAT, WATCHING, AND REHEARSAL CLOTHES

The value of chat to discover the points people love or hate about clothes cannot be overestimated. Performers, like all humans, are happiest and most physically and emotionally confident when they feel they look good in their clothes and right in their bodies. Even people who are not particularly conscious of their personal appearance like to feel comfortable. Physical performance is often exhausting and sometimes dangerous, and the designer must make it possible for its players to forget what they look like and concentrate on their job. For this to happen they must trust the designer's judgement. It is not surprising that it takes time for this trust and easy communication to be established, and the designer's presence in rehearsals, and his ability to see his work from the performers' as well as the audiences' point of view takes time, talk, and a certain flexibility in decision making.

If breasts stay in a low cut bodice in a backbend, they will probably stay in through any other activity.

You can tell a lot from the sort of clothes that the performers choose to wear for rehearsal. Some may like tops that cling tight to the body, while others prefer a floppy shirt. There are people who like to work wearing as little as possible, and others who have layers of an assortment of t-shirts, vests, leggings, sweaters, hats and tracksuit bits. People dress for comfort and practicality, and there's a charming lack of personal vanity in the room once the work gets going. This frankness shows a designer the cut of costume that helps a performer to work his best. The challenge is to use that cut in a costume that also tells the audience the story of the character without limiting the actor's instinctive freedom of movement.

An image that could provoke a dozen stories. (Photo: Marie Rosendhal Chemnitz)

Stimuli

With regard to the practical application of visual and tactile stimuli, there is no limit to starting points for devised work, and no limit to the number of directions in which a company can go when they begin to devise round a subject.

It may be useful for outdoor rehearsal to have some old gym mats to cut up for actors to stand on; they will stay warmer.

STORY

The most common way for a devised production, physical or otherwise, to begin its life is a true or fictional story. Everyone has the same story to read, and the whole company can start their creative experience for a show from the same point. The designer's reaction to...