Cloud 9 costume design

Before the holidays I had a chance to talk to Dora Award-winning costume designer Judith Bowden. Cloud 9 is a challenging piece to mount and the whip smart Bowden is definitely up to the task.

How did you get into costume design?
I did an undergrad in Clothing and Textile Design and one of my teachers said that my work was inappropriate for manufacture. I took that as a sign and did a masters in Set, Costume and Lighting Design.

What keeps you going?
I’ve been really lucky. I graduated in 1992 and have been working full time as a designer ever since.

What keeps me going is that there is an element that is collaborative. My design ideas are augmented by the people I work with: the directors, actors, set designers.

What inspires you?
In theatre design, you are trying to tell a story. It’s a plastic medium. Like all design it comes from a human base — in this case, the characters. You make style choices and conceptual choices, but the costume you create is in constant movement. Ultimately the design is driven by the actors.

What were the challenges of designing for Cloud 9?
Cloud 9 is highly theatrical for sure. It has a kind of Brechtian feel. The challenge was how to have the costumes in Act 1 [which is set in Victorian times and has a Magic Realism to it] relate to Act 2 [which is set in a grittier 1979]. How do you make it seem like they are in the same play?

Cloud 9 was first performed in 1979. Like many of the playwright’s early works, the play is an exploration of gender, class and sexuality. To keep the balance between the two acts, Bowden clothes for the first act are not totally period, but instead suggest the corsets, padding and stiffening of the Victorian era to illustrate the constraints of that age (see the drawings above). She also mixed in some 1970s-era pieces to “cross pollinate”.

As for Act Two, she scoured the second-hand shops for street clothing that was true to the ’70s, as opposed to shiny disco gear that has become shorthand for that decade.

Why did you choose real clothes for the second half?
By using street clothes, I’m trying to work against stereotypes. Not just in clothing but in behaviour. I didn’t want to be obvious so that the audience can react to or against the stereotypes that are explored n the play.

In Cloud 9, there is colour-blind casting as well as men playing the parts of women. How do you help the guys inhabit the clothes?
It’s funny, the guys are going to want to know how to walk in a long dress and high heels, but look around you. How many women walk around in a long dress and high heels? Yanna [McIntosh] wants to know how to sit in bustle too.

Another theme of Cloud 9 is Colonialism. Churchill originally linked Britain’s history of empire to sexual equality. The effects of Colonialism have been much parsed in the 30 years since the play débuted. What was raw and immediate in 1979 has itself become a period piece.

How did the creative team address this?
There’s no point in modernizing the play. The real question is: What is the point of the play? Sometimes [the passage of time] can add layers. For example, it’s interesting doing the play in Canada, itself a former colony. And sometimes the play is just supposed to wash over you.

Rhonda Riche is a Toronto-based writer, artist and gal-about-town. Her blog is Gracious, Good.