Theatre artists go costume shopping at street markets

Cinema and art are a reflection of culture and costume plays an important role in theatre when it comes to connecting with the audience.
It even creates a culture of its own. It is said in the beginning of the Gujarati theatre, women were not allowed on stage. Jaishankar Bhojak, who is also known as Jaishankar Sundari used to play the female characters.His saree draping skills and signature walk were so perfect that women from royal families used to come to him to learn his draping skills.
For instance, Mallika Sarabhai wearing a silk chaniya choli in Kadak Badshahi or women characters of Akoopar dressed in the traditional maroon and black like women of Sasan Gir or even the khadi sarees with minimal borders in Kasturba left a mark on the audience.
With costumes playing such a significant role in building a character, we try to find out what goes behind the selection of these clothes.
Budget issues
Unlike regional cinema, budgetary issues don’t allow theatre producers to hire independent fashion designers to style the actors. Most theatre actors end up being their own fashion designers along with the director and co-actors. Actress Netri Trivedi says, “Full-fledged commercial plays have the perk of collaborating and getting costumes designed, but experimental play actors have to arrange their own clothes. I buy clothes from different stores of Ahmedabad, and invest them in a way so that these can be worn somewhere else too.”
In plays like Patli Pin Ka Charger and Meri Favorite Shirt, Netri says they borrowed clothes from “our wardrobes. The clothes were decided according to the scenes and keeping co-actors’ costumes in mind.”
“In Kadak Badshahi, certain roles were related to influential personalities so the clothes were given by Darpana which has staged several history centric plays,” Netri added.
Actor-director Abhinay Banker shares his experience of visiting public markets and old city to buy costumes for his plays. “As we can’t afford a fashion designer, we have to go to different places to shop for costumes. My play Chalta Phirta Bambai was set in 1950s, so we wanted costumes of that era. After a lot of struggle, the team visited Ravivari and got lots of props and costumes suitable for the play. While we didn’t get too many variations in clothes, the props were interesting and authentic,” he said.
Value addition
Depending upon the storyline and its rural or urban setting, the clothes, make up, and aesthetics of a play is decided. If one of them is not in sync, the play looks incomplete. Those in the field, say it is one of the toughest task in theatre.
“In our play Dhaad, costume wasn’t a struggle because of the film Dhaad which was shot 10 years ago. And one of the team members from the film asked if we want the dresses as it was not of any use to them. So getting those costumes of the film was a great help”, shares director Aditi Desai.
Yadavan Chandran, director of Kadak Badshahi, says, “Generally actors arrange their own clothes and the same happened for this play too. Whenever we wanted a particular kind of costume, we used to go back to Darpana’s closet. They have a huge variety as they have been performing different plays since a long time. And Mallika (Sarabhai) has an eye for the right kind of costume. While I pay attention to the colours of the set up in the play, she takes a closer look at which colour will suit which actor. So for us, it was a smooth process.”
Challenges galore
“When we did Kasturba, it was challenging to find the exact costume that she used to wear at that time. To find that right combination with borders, I visited almost all Khadi Bhandars. In some plays like Akoopar, based on the Maldhari community of Sasan Gir, the characters had to dress according to the region shown in the play. We visited Sasan and travelled 80-100 km to find the right kind of clothes and ornaments. Some clothes were bought from the forest department’s shop while for men, we asked the local tailors to stitch those,” said Aditi. She added that even the buttons, border, colours and fabric mattered when it came to aesthetic quality.
Tarika Tripathi who along with Alisha Prajapati essayed the role of conjoined twins in Lali Lila, said, “To select clothes for these characters was the toughest task in the whole play. Alisha played a happy-go-lucky and extrovert girl whereas I played a mature and introvert person. So even the colours of the clothes needed to suit the personality. She wore all the bright colours, while I wore soft colours.”
On her ordeal, she said, “Earlier, we couldn’t find a tailor who could understand what we wanted. We had to buy fabrics which were durable because a lot of times during rehearsals and sometimes on stage too, the clothes would tear. We had extensive shopping schedules and bought lot of t-shirts and kurtas. After a lot of trial and error, we are still working on our costumes. Fortunately, now we have a tailor who knows how we want our clothes to be.”
Costume maintenance
After the theatre artists are done with selecting and wearing the costumes as per their characters, they also have to maintain these clothes for other shows.
“If we are given clothes by the team, we have to be extra careful that there is no damage to the costume. Not just that, before returning them, we have to wash and iron them to ensure hygiene,” shares Netri.
So, next time you go to watch a play, you’ll know there’s a lot that has gone into selecting that perfect dress which will stay in your mind for a long time.