Saturday, October 24, 2009

One Quarter of All Renaissance Drama in One Little Line Drawing, Accurately Represented in Full Detail














I love drama disguise conventions. It's so very silly, and yet because the audience has to recognize the disguised character and not confuse him/her with someone who's doubling a part, it has to be simple.

When I teach disguise convention, I very dramatically take my reading glasses from their usual class place on top of my head, put them on, and say, "no one will recognize me NOW!" It always gets a laugh, but it makes the point about how simple the disguise can be.

ps. I love early modern titles!

5 comments:

  1. Yes, but the problem is that the audience has to know who is who, but also believe that say, Orlando will not recognize Rosalind when she is Ganymede. Or are you not thinking about the cross-dressing disguises?

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  2. Hee!

    I'm wearing a cat on my lap. No one will recognize me!

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  3. This is the Clark Kent approach: as long as he wears those horn-rimmed glasses, no one will recognize him as Superman. This is why poor Clark can never get contacts lenses.

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  4. Susan, So you didn't recognize this cross-dressed character? :) You're absolutely right; the problem is a bit more complex for cross-dressing disguises, but there's still the basic idea that the audience has to know it's the same character while being convinced that the other characters on stage won't know.

    Sisyphus, Ooo, the evil genius cat on the lap disguise! That's a sure-fire winner!

    Bev, That and the spandex. Who would recognize Superman without his spandex?

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  5. Ah that willing suspension of disbelief. It's so handy! Let me just slip on this riding hood so no one knows I'm the king of England. :-)

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