Final+Project

Uchechi Ohanu Mr. Richmond THEA 2000 28 April 2017

Costume Design for //The Rose Tattoo// by Tennessee Williams  //The Rose Tattoo// is set during the 1950s somewhere along the Gulf Coast around Louisiana/Mississippi in a Sicilian village. We all know stereotypically what the 1950s in the United States were. It was a picturesque period of social conservatism, high materialism, and supposed peace and happiness. Everyone wanted to fit in to the standards and customs set by society and just be ‘normal’ like everyone else seemingly. Pre-marital sex was looked down upon vehemently. Ladies sported a short “bubble cut” or ‘beehive” hairstyles while men kept their hair short and neat with gel. Families were close and nuclear, and lived in suburban areas. The mom took care of the household and the children unquestioningly while the strong, beloved father went out to work to pay the bills. The wife respected her husband, under every condition and knew her place ultimately. Religion played an important role in the homes—during this period Americans’ commitment to religion (Protestant Christianity) and virtuous lifestyles peaked. Even Roman Catholics like the Sicilians in this play assimilated at least a little to the American ways. This background of this prime period helped contribute to the designing of the costumes of the characters in William’s play. The characters weren’t fully American though—they were Sicilians living in the United States.  Serafina is the main character who goes from a happy, blissfully unaware, and loyal wife to a miserable, paranoid, jaded widow for most of the play. In the beginning, she was voluptuous and vivacious. I pictured her as a young 50s housewife and mother who worked in her own sewing business. She worshipped her husband Rosario, a strong, tall Italian man, and was fully satisfied in their marriage, sexually and emotionally. She had a long mane of dark hair and she was beautiful. In the play, rose was an occurring sigma—from the tattoo on Rosario, their daughter named Rosa, the rose that used to be pin in Serafina’s hair, to the pale rose silk that used to adorn her figure before she became depressed and wild after finding out about her husband’s death and affair secrets. Therefore, for scenes 1-5 in act 1 I would dress the actor playing Serafina in a nice floral dress, 50s vibes of course, one that is made of “pale rose silk” as stated in the play numerous times. This dress in the first part of the play would be flowy and mid-length and exude an aura of happiness and peace. However, the piece I chose for her main outfit was a pale pink/rose slip of a dress-an undergarment. For most of the play she is “barefooted”, unkempt, and wearing a slip of a dress, in “deshabille”. She’s miserable and doesn’t care what she looks like after she finds out her husband may have been cheating on her; therefore, she doesn’t care enough to actually fully get dressed. As Williams wrote, there were “dark stains of wine on the rayon slip”. Father de Leo, the main Catholic priest of the village mentioned directly of her undergarment slip and greasy hair. For Father de Leo, I dressed him in typical priest clothing of the 1950s—all black robes. Also, in the play Serafina reprimands Father de Leo, stating “You—padres—wear black because of the fact that the facts are known by nobody!”. One of Serafina’s close friends is an elderly lady named Assunta. I imagined a plump sweet grandma-type figure who wore a gray shawl all the time over a floral granny dress. There’s also an old hag who is Serafina’s neighbor, but she calls her The Strega, which means witch. She’s not the most important character so I didn’t sketch her but I imagined her as very old, with scraggly gray hair. She would probably be wearing old rags for clothing, all black and white, and very simple. Her daughter Rosa is 15 and beautiful and completely innocent. She’s passionate and intelligent for her age and in everything she does. She loves her mother, but she’s getting older and starting a life of her own. For her, I chose a mid-length flowy white dress that hugged at the waist and then flared out—with short sleeves. White represents purity, perfection, innocence and openness. Rosa is just now beginning her ‘adulthood’ with her recent graduation from school and her new journey of falling in love with a sailor named Jack Hunter. She has so much to learn still, and she still is naïve and young, which is why I chose a youthful white dress for her—it almost represents the blank canvas that is her life since she still has a lot to experience. For her young sailor boyfriend Jack, obviously, I dressed him in a typical sailor outfit with the hat and a necklace of the cross, since he is also Catholic. His sailor outfit is composed of all white with a little bit of navy blue components, such as the blue handkerchief or ascot tied around his neck. Rosario’s mistress, Estelle, was thin and blond and not mentioned much throughout the play. In the beginning, when she goes to get a clothing sewn from Serafina, the play stated that she was glossy and probably upper class, so I followed the script and imagined her in an Egyptian dress with the same 1950s vibes. She has gloves on and a hat/bonnet and a swirly dress with Egyptian stripes and markings. When I think of Alvaro, Serafina’s new love interest, I remember the play described him as “short in stature”, but awkwardly and clumsily handsome—handsome like Rosario and built like Rosario—but still attractive in a weird way. The book stated that when Serafina and Alvaro first met he was wearing an undershirt beneath his company jacket. The undershirts in the 1950s, especially the Italian ones like in the TV show //I Love Lucy// gave me inspiration for his costume. Alvaro would have a tight white wife beater on underneath and since Serafina lent him Rosario’s rose silk shirt while she sewed his ripped shirt, I designed a rose silk short-sleeved button up over his wife beater, and left unbuttoned. He would either be wearing blue since he was a truck driver for bananas.