Cast preps for ‘Pride and Prejudice’

By Megan Bowers, Senior Staff Writer

The scene on the stage at Studio 88 is an unexpected one.

The girls are wearing long skirts, corsets and ballet flats over their yoga pants and tank tops. The boys wear boots higher than their knees over their blue jeans.

This unusual combination of modern and historic clothing is an everyday occurrence on the set of the theatre department's production of "Pride and Prejudice."

The directors have been adding in different pieces of the costumes each week to help the cast adjust before the quickly approaching opening night.

"We introduce the shoes maybe about a week before going into tech just to see if they are going to work, if there's any problems with pinching or if they're sliding," said costume director Kaela Smith.

The addition of the shoes and other costume pieces not only allows them to get adjusted on stage, but also helps them adapt to the posture of the time period.

"It definitely does help you get into character because, when you're in the clothes, it makes you want to stand up straight and use the mannerisms more," said junior Josh Stothfang, who plays Colonel Fitzwilliam. "It's really cool to see, as the show gets closer, these costumes come to life."

For a show that takes place in the 18th century, mannerisms are everything.

In order to effectively represent the time period, the actors brought in a choreographer to help them with the specifics.

"They brought in someone to help us with movement, so she is really who I got all my ideas from," said first-year Kate Boissoneault, who plays Anne De Bourgh and a servant.

Boissoneault's roles in the cast each move in different ways depending on their place in society.

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"Each servant for each different house needs to behave differently," said Boissoneault. "The Bennett family would want me to move quicker, with more urgency, whereas in the Darcy house I'm more elegant."

Other actors chose to refer directly to the text to create the mannerisms for their characters.

"The text and dialogue show you how your character interacts with other people and how that shapes the way the character views themselves and the way other people view the character," said senior Madison Ellis, who plays Charlotte Lucas.

The cast also had to work with a dialect coach to perfect the British RP, or Received Pronunciation, and dialect used during that time period.

"We started back at the end of last semester," said Julia Guichard, dialect coach and head of the Department of Theatre. "We did a boot camp, like a real quick, 'here's how you do the dialect.' Then I recorded a lot of generalized resources for them about what kind of sounds they needed to make and where the dialect is placed."

There are three main legs of dialect the actors had to work on - the placement and tone, the pitch pattern and the specific sound substitutions or changes.

"Pitch is very difficult for American actors to get because Americans tend to hit things really hard for emphasis whereas the British sort of lift it," said Guichard.

Although they have spent extensive time working on the dialect, it will never be absolutely perfect.

"There are 15 people speaking in this play, so there are different levels with their facility with the dialect and different levels in terms of their ability to integrate that dialect into character," said Guichard. "But they have all come a long way and they have all really done a good job of improving."

All of the added lessons have definitely contributed to the success of the show, but the costumes are what pulls off the 18th century look.

"This adaption of the show is really based on first impressions and how people seem when we first see them versus how they end up," said Smith. "I actually started my research by looking at period artwork from the 1810s and that was how I came up with my [costume] color palette."

Every choice made in terms of costuming is deliberate - from what they are wearing to the color of their fabrics, everything adds to the overall image of the show.

"There were a lot of jewel tones and a lot of pastels," said Smith. "It really got me thinking about how these two worlds are divided with the Bennett family being in very light, flowy colors and everyone else kind of being a little darker."

About half of the costume pieces used in the show are actually rented from other places, like Kent State University and Cincinnati in the Park.

"A lot of what I did as a designer was piecing together these looks from everywhere else and creating one cohesive world," said Smith.

Pride and Prejudice opens at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 24 in Studio 88. Tickets are $8 for students and can be purchased at the H.O.M.E. box office in the 129 Campus Avenue Building.