Film is an art medium that is able to flash the audience forward and backward in time, place, and costume. Live theatre often strives to create cinematic realism onstage, but always seems to fall short since the audience can sit in the dark and see every part of the transitions during the blue out. Fresno State's University Theatre is currently tackling a play that is written in a way that only films and books can easily portray. "Native Son" by Nambi E. Kelley is based on the novel by Richard Wright, and in books, anything can happen because it doesn't cost extra to have humans or dinosaurs in a novel, for instance. Kelley does, however, really capture a cinematic feel with her stage adaption of the story by utilizing flashback and dream sequence to help the audience see what is going on in the mind of the main character, Bigger Thomas.
Bigger is a young African American man growing up in the 1930s Chicago, where white people rule, and he is considered no more than a "black rat son-of-a-b****." The audience is swept into Bigger's mind as he remembers everything about the day his life was changed forever when a young white girl named Mary, the daughter of his new bosses, leads him into a situation that could get him fired, and much much worse. The first half of the play rotates between Bigger's memory of his mother reminding him of his job interview in the early morning at home, the pool hall later that day with his little brother Buddy, the movie theatre where he first sees Mary Dalton, his interview with Mary's mother, and the moment after the biggest accident of his life. The second section of the show focuses on the investigation that is caused by his mistake with Mary and how the press, the police, Mary's boyfriend Jan, and Bigger all react to the investigation, which of course is constantly rotating throughout the day, just like the first part of the show. Finally, the last third of the show is called "Flight" and the audience is thrown into a whirlwind chase while Bigger fights his physical needs and his psychological terrors that chase him through the streets. There is a lot of movement and the actor playing Bigger is never without something to do, which is mostly talking, crawling, and running everywhere.
As the costume designer for this production, I was faced with a huge obstacle - the constant rotation between time and place. How was I to show the audience that time had rewound itself as a flashback through costume without the ease of film where they may shoot all the flashback scenes all at once? The answer is small accessory changes. Bigger and his family can't afford much, so the idea of a full costume change was impractical anyway. Bigger, and his super stylish devil on his shoulder called The Black Rat, are constantly going inside buildings, then out, then in again with almost no time in the transitions, because they also have to move all of the furniture as well. So, I told our actor playing Bigger to just put his coat and hat on outdoors, and lose them when he was indoors, and he makes those transitions look flawless onstage. As for The Black Rat who is constantly with Bigger as a figment of his imagination, I gave him the same direction so that the audience can help connect the two actors. That duo makes flashbacks look easy!
There were also many other ways outside of wearing their coats and hats together that I took into account to make Bigger and The Black Rat appear as one. Now, first of all, Bigger is a poor man in the 1930s and The Black Rat is a mental creation, so he appears in the top of the line fashions of his time, which posed the question of how to make the two still look like part of the same man. The Black Rat struts across the stage in a three-piece brown pinstripe suit, complete with a chocolate brown fedora, and spectators made of white leather and brown alligator skin, while Bigger is wearing worn and hand-me-down clothes. The key to keeping them similar was subtlety. The pinstripes in Black Rat's suit match the stripes on Bigger's coat, also Bigger's broken down and sun-stained fedora is a ratty twin of Black Rat's fedora, and even their shoes are the same style with Black Rat's shiny and brand new, and Bigger's dirty and worn.
Beyond the obstacles of flashbacks, actors never leaving the stage, and dream sequences, the director, Thomas Whit-Ellis, wanted to create a world reminiscent of the struggles of race that transcended skin color and bled into their furniture and clothing's colors. Ellis asked for the world of the African American characters to be in shades of brown, and for the Caucasian characters to be in shades of gray - almost like they were on a black and white television. This opened up a whole new world of possibilities to go further into this segregation of fabric color. For the brown world, the warmth of the brown tones really helped to speak to the warmth of hope that the African American characters still have while they struggle to live in a world that won't let them do anything. As for the gray world, I put the characters in shades ranging from black through grayscale to white based on how sympathetic they were to the brown world or how black and white they believed the world to be.
This may seem like a lot of detail and thought that seems unnecessary for a play, but even our films have designers who choose that exact red long sleeve top with a boat neck for a character because it means something to the character or the story or even symbolically stands for something of value to the narrative. I invite you all to see "Native Son" running through November 4th at Fresno State to witness first hand the plight of Bigger Thomas and the very adept ability of Thomas-Whit Ellis and his phenomenal cast to portray flashbacks, dream sequences, and beyond as if it were a film. Visit the Fresno State Theatre Department website for information on times and tickets: http://www.fresnostate.edu/artshum/theatrearts/ .
