Spatializing material–corporeal entanglements: A new materialist approach to the agential work of costume in the stage adaptation of The Lovely Bones (2018)

Abstract

This article argues for the value of conceptualizing the agency of costume in performance when it is not worn directly upon the body. I employ a new materialist framework to examine the spatial dynamics of the shifting corporeal–material relations established when costume is set apart from an actor onstage and, unworn, asserts its agency as an independent force distinct from the performer. My investigation is supported by a close analysis of Bryony Lavery’s page-to-stage adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel, The Lovely Bones (2002), directed by Melly Still and performed at the Royal & Derngate, Northampton in 2018. Drawing upon the observation of rehearsals and performances encountered as an embedded researcher, my discussion centres on the live practices of theatrical production. Employing Bennett’s new materialist thinking laid out in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010) and Bill Brown’s ‘Thing Theory’ (2001, 2015), my discussion of The Lovely Bones shows costume to be an active participant in a ‘distributive agency’ enacted between garment and performer, the contours of which are amplified when the two are set apart. The spatial disentanglement of the material and corporeal, evidenced in the performance of costume in The Lovely Bones, thus provides an opportunity to present a fuller understanding of the material agency of the stage.