Designing Punks
Posted by David Hyman on 1/29/2010
(David is the Costume Designer for punkplay, a part of the Visiting Company Initiative Garage Rep)
It’s almost 2am, and I find myself sitting on the floor of my apartment, surrounded by half-empty cans of spray paint, a roll or two of duct tape, a defaced Beatles t-shirt, what appears to be contents of at least three “junk drawers” and something that fell off of a streetlight that I’m using to create a makeshift leg brace for an expatriate of French Canada. When I wake up tomorrow, I will insert zippers in the side seams of a pair of blue jeans so that the actor can remove his pants without taking off his roller skates during a simultaneous costume-and-hair quick change that needs to clock in at five seconds or less.
punkplay tech begins in four days.
Designing the costumes for punkplay has been a series of exercises in creative problem solving, dramaturgically and logistically speaking.
When (Director) David (Perez) and I began discussing the play, we decided to really focus the design on not only what materials, but also what information would have been available to the characters in punkplay. In the days before the internet, how would Duck and Mickey have learned about punk? The bits and pieces of information would have been gathered from what they saw on the television, who they saw on the streets, what they heard from their friends or, at best, from any underground punk periodicals they may have had access to (though who knows how long after publication that might have been). On top of that, what materials would these suburban kids, miles and miles from any sizable city, have had access to? What everyday materials might they have used to improvise a “punk” aesthetic? These are questions I’m still asking myself, four days before tech, as the tacky faux-chrome handcuff pendant in the 25-cent machine at Jewel-Osco catches my eye.
Logistically speaking, this show is pretty epic. Written in the style of a mix tape, the play is a series of scenes, one after the other, with only the shortest pauses, if any, between them. However, the play spans four years, including the pre- and post-punk phases of these boys’ adolescent years and everything in between. During this time, Mickey gives Duck a mohawk, Mickey dyes his hair red and the boys reach varying degrees of success in crafting a “punk look.” I’m truly pulling out every bit of theatre magic I know for this one. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it all works according to plan!