King Lear: Costume design (including hair and make-up)

King Lear: Costume design (including hair and make-up)

Visual Interpretation through Costume Design

  • Costume design in King Lear contributes significantly to an audience’s understanding of a character’s personality or position.
  • For example, King Lear’s initial opulent royal attire coveys his power and ego, but as the play progresses, his attire becomes progressively more ragged and disheveled, symbolising his mental deterioration and loss of power.

Hair and Makeup as Character Insights

  • Hair and makeup are essential tools for portraying changes in character, especially regarding age, status and emotional state.
  • King Lear is often portrayed with long, unkempt hair as the play develops, symbolising his declining mental state and the chaos around him.

Significance in Colour

  • The use of colour within costume design can symbolise various aspects - black signifies death or evil, white can often illustrate purity, and red may indicate passion or anger.
  • Goneril and Regan are often portrayed in darker shades, reflecting their dark and evil actions. In contrast, Cordelia’s innocence and purity are commonly shown through lighter shades.

Costumes Reflecting Social Hierarchy

  • The social hierarchy can also be portrayed through costume and make-up, distinguishing between the nobles, the servants and the fool.
  • Courtly attire communicates affluence and royalty against more common, basic clothing of the servants or the half-dressed, jester costume of the Fool.

Hidden Meanings with Attires

  • The Fool’s costume, being the only comic character, is typically eccentric or colourful, drawing upon traditional jester iconography playing upon the paradox of his character - a fool who frequently provides wise insights.
  • Cordelia’s plain and simple costume signifies her sincerity and lack of pretentiousness when compared to her sisters.

Stage Effect and Grandeur

  • King Lear’s transition from regal attire to a raving ‘infant’ in the storm, clothed in basic rags, is a powerful visual manifestation of his tragic fall from power.
  • This costume transformation induces sympathy from the audience, making Lear’s journey more visceral and tangible.

Importance of Period Authenticity

  • The choice of period attire can set the tone for the era being portrayed.
  • Styles from Elizabethan England can provide authenticity, though more contemporary adaptations may choose different periods or mixes to infer connections or parallels between the narrative of King Lear and certain eras or political climates.

The role of Makeup

  • Makeup is often used to highlight or speed up the aging process, especially for Lear as he gradually descends into madness.
  • Likewise, Regan and Goneril’s harsh and strong make-up could reflect their manipulative and evil natures, while a more natural look can be used for Cordelia, emphasising her innocence and purity.

Symbolic Transformation

  • Edgar’s transition to Poor Tom is perhaps the most radical costume change underpinning his shift in identity. His shift to a beggar’s rags signifies his own artificial ‘madness’ as well as the mad world around him.