Help with costumes for mummers play!

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Dec 02 - 12:25 AM

I do hope you'll have at least one character in 'motley,' lots of strips of rag hanging from an overcoat. It does make the wearer BIG.

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: alanww
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 08:27 PM

Just love the ideas for a giant!
Don't worry too much about the costume. Ensure that the performers feel happy to make fools of themselves and enjoy it. The audience will then enjoy it too!
In fact, this very evening I have been performing the Broadway Mummers Play (which is in the east of Worcestershire on the edge of the Cotswolds), as performed in circa 1885 and as collected by Oliver Morris and published in the Eversham journal in 1956 ish - and we did it in the village of Broadway!
I have been the the Captain of the Shakespeare Mummers from Stratford-upon-Avon for the last 18 years ish and our men have performed some 8 traditional local plays on a regular basis, including in the villages where they originated!
Traditionally, of course, the plays were performed by men but I know many plays are now performed by mixed or women's sides. I believe that the most important thing is top keep the traditions alive!
... my uncle Billy had a ten foot ...!"
[which is from one of the songs we sing at the end of our plays.]
Alan

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 04:03 PM

Thanks all for your suggestions! The PE teacher is going to loan me a football shoulder pad. I was going to just get some bright blue fake fur and give her a "Marge Simpson" bouffant hairdo, but this afternoon a friend gave me a big beautiful, frightful mask which fastens on the top of the head, showing the bottom of the actor's face but making her much taller (and UGlier!!)
I love the ideas, and I'm intrigued by the horse pattern- I'm bad at understanding written directions and wish I could follow the diagram better!

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: Tig
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 02:35 PM

I've been involved with Mumming in the UK since college days - and I'm definately of the feminine sex!

The giants usually try to make the heads on a frame which balances on the shoulders with eye holes in either the neck or lower down the body. Make it as light as possible or you get neckache!

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 12:43 PM

Can't help there, but this year we did a workshop on Mummers Plays.
One of the neatest things was the Horse. It was a piece of log about 8" diameter x 16-18" long. Cut along the centre line for about 6" then through the bottom to the centre for the mouth. A leather hinge for the mouth, nails for the teeth. A hole for a brush handle and another two for a piece of rope, the rope goes up through the hole near the handle along a groove in the top of the head and down through the top of the head into the lower jaw. This make dthe mouth snap up very effectively when pulled. Bailer twine for the mane and Tail and an old sheet for the body, attached around the head at front end and gathered at the back near the tail. Amazingly effective, especially when the person under the sheet wiggles their backside.
I hope this works.
                           SSSSSSSSS
                     -----S---------S--
                     I    S         S I
                     I    S         S I
                     I    S    INNNNSNI
                     I    S    I      I
                     -----S------------
                         SBH
                         SBH
                           BH   

SO S = STRING
   N = NAILS
BH = BRUSH HANDLE

In comes I, JohnB.

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 11:09 AM

How about some of those (horrible) platform shoes that are so popular again now?

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 11:05 AM

Female mummers are quite common in the US- I've been St. George a couple of times! I'm teaching at a public school where equal treatment is required and young Emily is doing a fine job!

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: John J
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 10:57 AM

I don't mean to sound sexist, but I didn't think females took part in mummers plays. They certainly don't appear in traditional Souling Plays.

Good luck with the costumes!

John

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 10:56 AM

You need to talk to Liz-the-Squeak about giants. Try PMing her.

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: MMario
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 10:36 AM

What about a yoke over her shoulders - with her head in the NECK of a dummy head...

Subject: RE: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 09:56 AM

I know nothing about mummers plays or the Giant in question, but do you know what a kataginu is? Sort of a short kimono with very wide shoulder wings......could you do something like that? Fabric with tagboard interfacing?

Subject: Help with costumes for mummers play!
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 06 Dec 02 - 09:06 AM

I didn't put a BS on it because it is folk-related, in a way!
My fifth graders are putting on a mummers play next week and I still don't have a costume for Giant Blunderbore. The actor is a tall girl who is doing a wonderful job with her arms and voice, so I don't want her holding a pole with head attached- how can I rig up something on her shoulders to put a head atop her own head, to make her look big?