'THE BIRTHDAY PARTY'

Petey, Stanley, and Meg at breakfast, ACT 1

Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party opens this Monday, July 28 at Signal Ensemble Theatre.

The Birthday Party is one of my favorite plays, and I was very happy to have the opportunity to design costumes for director Aaron Snook's production.

The costumes and set for this production were very naturalistic. We wanted to create a realistic world in which Goldberg and McCann could create a psychological disturbance, but leave the surface in Meg and Petey's home unchanged. Goldberg and McCann's disturbances were underscored by Julie Ballard's lighting design.

Meg and Petey at breakfast, ACT 1

The color scheme for Melania Lancy's set was grayed cream and beige - a dried up and withered palette. This made an excellent backdrop for my costumes. Meg, Petey, and Stanley's colors were moldy and deteriorating while still keeping their vibrancy.

Stanley and Petey wore mainly plaids and stripes. These patterns created a barred in and jailed aura around the characters.

Petey and Stanley, ACT 1

McCann and Stanley, ACT 2

I gave Meg a boldly floral teal dress for Act 1 and 3. The scooped collar and large flowers gave Meg an agelessly youthful appearance; yet the blocked and linear layout of the flowers added to the overall trapped feeling of the play.

I wanted Meg's party dress to look like a little girls 'special dress-up dress'. I knew at once that it needed to have a puffy skirt, a large bow, and some sort of rhinestoned brooch, all adding to a youthful air while staying in the same vibrant molding color scheme.

Meg's house dress ACT 1 & 3 and party dress ACT 2

Goldberg and McCann wear dark suits, ties, and black fedoras - a uniform complete with small insignia lapel pins. When Stanley enters in Act 3 McCann and Goldberg have dressed him in this same uniform, although Stanley's uniform is slightly ill-fitting - as though it has been years since he has last worn it.

McCann and Goldberg, ACT 1

Lulu entered in Act 1 in a sweet red floral jumper and white cardigan; the epitome of the girl next door. Lulu was the only character who came from the outside world, grounded in a truly natural, 'modern' reality. Meg, Petey, and Stanley have a very closed off existence, very little contemporary influence from the outside world, few visitors, and Stanley rarely leaves the house. I dressed Lulu more flashy colors that the other characters. She brought life, and fresh air, into Meg and Petey's house that could only be illustrated with a cheerful floral dress and girlish sweater.

Stanley and Lulu, ACT 1

When Lulu enters for Stanley's birthday party she is wearing a much more mature and fitted red dress. This vibrant sexy, yet sweet dress expresses Lulu desire to both attract and retain her girlish innocence.

The party with McCann, Lulu, Stanley, Goldberg, and Meg, ACT 2

Some reviews:

"The design team — Melania Lancy (set), Julie E. Ballard (lights), Elsa Hiltner (costumes) and sound (Anthony Ingram) — has done impeccable work."

-The Birthday Party' Celebrates a Perfect Moment, by Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times

"Snook is also measurably assisted by Elsa Hiltner’s elegiac costuming, Melania Lancey’s quaint set and Julie Ballard’s moody lighting. All three elements add up to create a world of lyrical realism."
-'The Birthday Party', by Brian Kirst, Chicago Free Press

"The production values, always high caliber in a Signal Ensemble show, are evidenced by Melania Lancy’s quaint cottage-like set with Elsa Hiltner’s costume design together with Julie E. Ballard’s lighting and Anthony Ingram’s sound design."
-'The Birthday Party', by Tom Williams, ChicagoCritic.com

Intelligent Birthday Party; Partial 'Torch Song', by Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune

'The Birthday Party'
-Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago

'The Birthday Party'
-Jack Haffenkamp, Edge-Chicago

'The Birthday Party' (Signal Ensemble Theatre)
-Rob Kozlowski from The Rob Kozlowski Chicago Theatre and Vintage Film Medicine Show

Tension Crashes Intriguing 'Birthday Party'
-by Barbara Vitello, The Daily Herald

Theatre: 'The Birthday Party'
-Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City Times