Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture, and the Body by Donatella Barbieri

Abstract

Reviewed by: Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture, and the Body by Donatella Barbieri Skye Strauss Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture, and the Body. By Donatella Barbieri, with a contribution from Melissa Trimingham. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017; pp. 264. Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture, and the Body provides a richly illustrated, compelling analysis of historical and contemporary costume design. The book successfully provokes a scholarly conversation that makes a marked departure from the kind of how-to book or fashion history that tends to dominate the shelves. The traditional mode of character-based and semiotic analysis usually stressed in design curricula is present, but the book also explores interdisciplinary theoretical territory and makes broader arguments about the function of costume within a variety of performance genres, time-periods, and sociopolitical contexts. The emphasis on the agency of costume in rehearsal and performance speaks in concert with other recent discourse on puppetry and performing objects. This book is primarily the product of Donatella Barbieri's joint research fellowship from the London College of Fashion and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). She made good use of her institutional connections while researching this book by cross-referencing paintings, marginalia, and physical artifacts with literary sources in pursuit of her arguments in chapters 1–4, 6. Her collaborator Melissa Trimingham, who wrote chapter 5, teaches puppetry and object theatre at the University of Kent. Her research on Oskar Schlemmer and the Bauhaus anchors her contribution to this volume. Their level of archival access makes the book well worth the attention of practitioners both inside the classroom and out by providing diverse images of garments, designers' renderings, and rehearsal photos. In her introduction Barbieri states that she "intends to provide thematic, analytical frameworks connecting past costumes that have left indelible marks via their performances, and to associate these with conversant examples of contemporary practice" (xxiii). Following this stated premise, each chapter traces a theme across a wide swath of history, from prehistorical cave paintings to twenty-first-century theatrical productions. Barbieri and Trimingham rely upon visual methodologies to connect disparate sources through recurrent motifs rather than following a strict chronology. The text is well-researched though accessible, and the breadth of coverage keeps the analysis of each case study succinct. Ultimately, beyond the scope of Barbieri's project, I hope this book serves as a provocation to theatre historians to research the production designs featured here in even more depth. Most chapters use theatre history, art history, and fashion studies as their primary touchstones. In chapter 2, "Costuming Choruses: Spectacle and the Social Landscape on Stage," Barbieri analyzes the link between audience and chorus in relation to various sociopolitical structures, from the community-building function of the theatrical event in ancient Greece through the Tiller Girls and the rise of modern, capitalist mass production. Chapter 6, "A Different Performativity: Society, Culture, and History on Stage," closes the book by focusing on the customary link between costume and character and how design has oriented itself toward the fashion industry and historical authenticity over time. The case studies and arguments in these chapters feel familiar in relationship to other theatre history and costume design texts. In other chapters Barbieri uses theory to propose interesting relationships between chronologically disparate primary sources. "The First Costume: Ritual and Reinvention" (chapter 1) cites anthropologists like Victor Turner as it defines ritual costume as "a material object through which the wearer becomes other than their everyday self for the benefit of the community" (2). Barbieri uses that definition to trace a path from the figure of the shaman in the cave paintings of Lascaux to L'Après-midi d'un faune at the Ballets Russes. The second connection to ritual focuses on a meeting of Eastern and Western traditions, positioning costume as a gateway to characterization, while analyzing intercultural performances like the Théâtre du Soleil's Les Atrides. In chapter 3, "The Grotesque Costume: The Comical and Conflicted 'Other' Body," Bahktin's carnivalesque and grotesque are used to connect costume to transgressive behavior and political commentary from historical Arlecchinos to the Harlequin-patterned balaclavas in Theatre NO99's production of King Ubu in Estonia circa 2006. Barbieri and Trimingham...