From Patricia
A play like The Hummingbirds provides an exciting challenge to create a world that is near to our own but is not. Set in an unspecified, possibly near-future time period, the costume design needs to have a current sensibility that feels familiar, and yet portrays a detached sense of place and timelessness. The environment that our characters, One and Two, try to survive in is a regimented world of anonymity. As bureaucrats, their grey uniforms have few details that reveal rank, individuality, or even gender. For most purposes, they are interchangeable, and stand apart from the hapless job seekers they are tasked to help.
When I designed these costumes, I drew my inspiration from a number of different sources and influences. To pick up the flavor of a technologically retro, dystopian society I looked at the shapes and silhouettes of films such as the 1927 Fritz Lang Metropolis, and 2013 Oblivion. In addition I also looked at the authoritarian and social equalizing clothing styles that were dominant in the People’s Republic of China during the Mao Zedong and Red Guardera. What I try to achieve ultimately is not so much a political statement, but how the play’s restrictive reality and limited free choice are reflected in how the characters see one another, their world – and how we, as the audience, might respond to them.
As NJ Rep's resident costume designer since 2000, Patricia's work includes: The Housewives of Mannheim, The Color of Flesh, Old Clown Wanted, The Good Daughter, Place Settings, Bookends, Engaging Shaw, Puma, Noir, Broomstick, View of the Mountains, Swimming at the Ritz, Dinner with the Boys (with Dan Lauria), Closure (with Wendy Malick, Gary Cole), Nobody's Girl, Butler, Mad Love and Iago to name just a few. New York: Southern Comfort—The Musical (The Public Theater 2016 Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics, Drama Desk Award Nominations with Annette O'Toole, Jeff McCarthy); Dinner with the Boys (The Acorn Theatre) Academia Nuts (2014 NYMF Best New Musical); The Devil's Music (St. Luke's); The Goldman Project (Abingdon Theatre); Freed, Fall to Earth, Poetic License, The Housewives of Mannheim, Butler (59E59th St Theatres); Love Therapy (DR2) Regional: Alley Theatre (past resident designer), Barrington Stage, Cleveland Play House, Merrimack Rep, Florida Rep, Penguin Rep, Engeman Theatre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Montreal Jazz Festival Member: United Scenic Artists Local 829.
