Act 1, Sc. 1: Elizabeth
looked up sharply. As the first woman to rule England, and with
enemies raising armies to oust her, she was always alert to possible
danger. She peered out from the fringe of her luxurious dark
tresses to... wait a minute... that's not right. Elizabeth
had red hair. It was curly red hair. There was no fringe, no
dark tresses. It was Curly. Red. Hair.
And there you have
it. The hair's the thing. Imagine watching a play in which
the Virgin Queen had a raven bob, or picture Desdemona sporting a
platinum 1950s bouffant. Imagine The Hunchback of Notre Dame
with monks in dreadlocks or a gypsy enchantress with a tight French
twist. It just wouldn't work. Hair defines the character as
much as anything the playwright puts on the stage, and that's why
Concord Players' hair designer Marc Capizzi worked so hard for
authenticity in the group's current production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
"Like
all aspects of a production the first step is research," he says.
"One has to research the many aspects of the era in which the play
takes place. I find the best resource is
portraits/paintings. They provide the most accurate images of the
time."
Once
he has a picture of the period and the look, he sets to work.
Whether it's with a wig, or by shaping the actor's own hair, the
designer's task is to make the actor (and the audience) see the
character. "It's important for the actor to wear the wig and not
have the wig wear the actor," Capizzi explains. "If the actor is
uncomfortable, it will pull the audience's focus away from the story,
and then the designer hasn't done his job."
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Marc Capizzi (left) with director Nancy Curran Willis (center) and Quasimodo actor Daniel Monopoli (right)
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Marc
has brought fastidious attention to detail in his work for this
production. Monks will have the short fringed hair we expect of a
medieval cleric but soldiers are different. Some have shoulder length
pageboys, typical of the time with bangs, others have unruly manes.
And
what of Esmeralda, the gypsy woman whose beauty intoxicates any man who
sees her? She is crowned with glorious locks of dark, cascading curls.
Those curls happen to belong to the actor who plays Esmeralda, but they
aren't enough for Marc. He's adding extensions to augment the
character's exotic allure, an allure that is central to the way the
story unfolds.
Marc's
meticulous care for this one aspect of the Concord Players' production
reflects all the designers' commitment to the show. They are all
following the lead of director Nancy Curran Willis who wants to convey
Victor Hugo's story with authenticity. "It's my goal to
create a production where the powerful story of the original book stands
out as much as the powerful and soaring score," she says. "In
story-theater format we will tell the dark side, the true side, of the
Hunchback story."
The
creative team has taken her direction to heart. Faithful Parisian
congregants might well have fallen to their knees in awe when entering
the majestic Notre Dame in medieval times Audiences to this show may
well want to do the same when they enter the Players' Notre Dame
designed by Brian Harris.
Costumers
Kathy Booth and Pat Kane and their team built not only monk's robes,
but the intricate and varied wardrobes of medieval Parisians as well,
from the highest born to the lowest supplicants. Colorful gypsy costumes
splash on the stage with the same vivacity as the dancers who wear
them.
And
then there is the music. The magnificent, soaring, heart-stopping
orchestrations of ecclesiastical sound that carry the audience through
both the holy and the profane. Music director Don Boronson has gathered
some of the regions finest voices to render the music in a chorus and
cast whose collective sound is both transcendent and transformational.
Concord Players' production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame will
be faithful to the values that Victor Hugo advanced in his story, and
to the period in which he placed it. For just a few hours,
audiences will be transported to 15th century Paris, where, within the
sacred walls of a great cathedral, we will see ourselves reflected in a
timeless, all-too-human tale.
