“MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27166, 23 August 1949, Page 2

“MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING”

Effective Work by Wardrobe

Mistresses

Plumed hats, doublets and hose, short swinging cloaks and stately Elizabethan dresses transformed the cast of ” Much Ado About Nothing ” as they went through their final rehearsals yesterday. Every now and then a character came on minus a piece of apparel, or making a late appearance for a scene, and explained to the patient producer that he had been ” in the hands of the dressmaker.” Viewing the actors critically from the stalls, the wardrobe mistresses sallied out at the end of a scene to make minor adjustments in the costumes. Period plays call for a great deal of backstage work. Dresses and costumes are collected from all over the Dominion, or, if made out of what look very unlikely materials, they need skilled cutting out and ornamenting One lovely dress of reseda green and coral brocade had been brightened with an inset panel of pale green silk embroidered with jewelled paillettes; another of silver brocades with a vermilion silver embroidered panel and lime green sleeves has been lent to the society by Mrs Hugh Sutherland. In these dresses. Hero and Beatrice, accompanied by ladies in waiting dressed in apricot satin and black and gold, were practising deep curtseys, for not even New Look evening frocks have the amplitude and sweeping contours of these Elizabethan models. After them came Dogberry, Verges and the watch in the homespun of the Elizabethan working man. They were having their clothing troubles, too, and some school girls’ wardrobes will doubtless be raided to-day. A wardrobe mistress for a costume play has some compensation, however, to make up for all the hard work she puts into the production. Costumes must be correct or out they go. so there is not the same need for tactful, careful handling as when amateur players dress themselves for a modern production.