Designing Miss Julie: Creating drama on stage through costume

November 7, 2011 by Carol Turner 

Set and costume design are symbolic in UNLV’s newest play

Putting a play together successfully is a complex collaboration, especially for the designers who come together to create the world where actors perform.

UNLV Theatre MFA candidates Ann-Marie Pereth (director), Jason Wright (set designer), Josh Wroblewski (lighting designer) and Alexandra Lambert (costume designer) have joined forces for Miss Julie, set to open Friday.

The dramatic play by Swedish playwright August Strindberg tells the story of a headstrong and aristocratic young woman who is strong-willed and despises men.

Throughout the play, the specter of Julie’s father, the Count, looms over everything and everyone. The set is dark to show the masculine power structure implicit to the plot.

To emphasize this dramatic factor, set, costume and lighting design work together to show the Count’s importance to the meaning of the story by a strategically placed pair of his riding boots and gloves which are highlighted during climatic moments.

Costume design in a theatrical production is one of the most important ways to set a mood and further the dramatic effect.

Lambert said that the play takes place in 1883, but the set is not realistic in a traditional sense.

“The costumes tie in the period,” Lambert said, adding that there are symbolic contrasts of female or feminine characteristics and death in her design choices.

Lambert dresses Julie in a blood-red skirt, symbolizing death in the future and with a pale brown lace apron, symbolizing death in the past. Throughout the play, Lambert dresses Julie in corsets that trap her in female garb, and heavy leather belts that comfort her in masculine dress.

“Costumes of Miss Julie reflect her confusion of her masculine and feminine identity,” Lambert said. “[And] the red skirt, symbolic of the blood that will be spilt in the course of the play.”

Miss Julie opens Friday at the Black Box theatre.