Fringe Costume Thoughts: A Day in the Life of Miss Hiccup & The Duck Wife

Shoshinz photographed by Charlie Kawamura

OK, it’s official: I have seen my favourite costume.


And it comes to us courtesy of Japanese clown Shoshinz.


A Day in the Life of Miss Hiccup  is an absolutely charming piece of nonsense theatre, with sweet, poignant, funny moments liberally scattered throughout. But the costume, the costume is amazing.


I had an opportunity to speak with Shoshinz after her first performance about her costume, which she told me was entirely made by her and a friend. What you can’t see under that fantastic yellow skirt are a pair of blue bloomers and a pink crinoline.


This costume is a riot of colour and has inspired me to combine yellow, red, emerald green, and white into one outfit this summer.


A Day in the Life of Miss Hiccup is playing for four more shows, today through Sunday, in the Arts Court Library. Check the Ottawa Fringe website for show times. Once again, $10.00 at the door with your Fringe button. See this show.

Jenn Doan photographed by Tristan Brand

But for now, it’s time to move on to The Duck Wife . I met a few of the performers before the show sitting on the steps of Arts Court (a Fashion of the Fringe feature is going to be coming up about one of them soon), and looking at them gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect from the aesthetic of the show.
I was looking for American Apparel meets DIY cool, and that’s exactly what I got. (I actually made a note in my book that reads, “Show or AA Fall 2010 runway show?”)


While there was the typical problem of unfinished edges and the inscrutability of a couple of the male dancer’s costumes (was that recycled from a production of Alladin?), a few shining elements were standouts. To transform into “ducks”, the female dancers added small strips of feathers and bustles made of layers of taffeta and tulle. With a change in posture, they really did become birdlike.


While I didn’t fall in love with this show like some of my fellow (I must admit, younger) theatre-goers did, it was definitely a visual treat.


There are three more shows left, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, all at different times, in the Arts Court Theatre. Tickets for this one are $12.00, so go get yourself a little treat.

Fringe Costume Thoughts: Impassioned Embraces & Mixing Boal: Kitchen of the Oppressed

Two ensemble casts. Two shows. Two different venues. Both enter the Fashion Forum. Only one will leave.

No, not really. That’s how it feels being a fashion blogger sometimes during the Fringe festival though–like I’m being asked to judge costume decisions based on other shows. “How did X compare to Y?” And to be honest, it’s hard to get out of that headspace sometimes.

But right now I want to look at two shows, and I’ll try to keep them separate from each other.

The first, Impassioned Embraces, was put on by students from the Ottawa Theatre School. Knowing that this was a student production going in, my expectations were low for the costumes for the piece. And a good thing too.

While the actors wore mostly street clothing for the play (which isn’t something I necessarily have a problem with, although it didn’t look like they had put too much thought into it), it seems like after every performance they just shoved their clothing into their bags and left it there until the next show. Everything was crumpled and rumpled, and not intentionally so. To be fair, the female cast members seemed a little more put-together. One scene in particular comes to mind–two characters are in a job interview. The male actor’s suit is not only crumpled, it has visible threads hanging from the back of it.

Surely you would put more care into your clothing if you were going to a job interview? Why are you not putting more care into what you are wearing on stage to portray that? I was so angry about those hanging threads that I couldn’t pay much attention to the scene.

In another scene, two characters are at a wedding. The groom and a bridesmaid are dancing at what is said to be a moneyed wedding. Which you would not have gotten from the costumes. From the mismatched vest and pants on the groom, to the cheap, flimsy-looking, tacky dress on the bridesmaid, once again I was too distracted to realize what the scene was even about.

I came out of the show with pages and pages of notes on the other scenes (eight in total, I believe), but those were the lowlights. Nothing really stands out. (You can read Andrew Snowdon’s review of the show on Fully Fringed.) You can still catch Impassioned Embraces at Café Alt Wednesday through Sunday for a $10.00 ticket. Check out the Fringe website for information on times (it plays at a different time every day).

Moving on to Mixing Boal: Kitchen of the Oppressed, this year’s production from Counterpoint Players, I feel slightly better about the costume choices.

But only very slightly.

The highlight for me was Daniel MacIvor’s getup as the host of the game show – black dress pants, a purple dress shirt, patterned vest and… Converse All-Stars. A cheeky little hint that this isn’t going to be your average game show/Fringe Festival production.

However, everything else fell pretty flat. While I saw where they were going thematically with each costume, I feel that due to the over-the-top nature of the piece they could have gone much, much further than they did with the costumes. The women were all from different Ontario towns named after more famous European cities (Athens, Paris, etc.), and that was trying to be linked in with their costumes, but it just fell short.

This is unfortunate, because it was an enjoyable show. And this is coming from a girl who does not enjoy audience interaction.

Here’s what Eleni Armenakis has to say about Mixing Boal on Fully Fringed. You still have three more chances to see Mixing Boal on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday in Academic Hall at various times. Once again, check out the Ottawa Fringe website for time details.

Phew. I managed to not compare them. That's a relief.

As for Fringe, I have a lot more to say! There’s a lot more to come!


*EDIT* Yes, I do mean that the host is played by Zach Counsil, not Daniel MacIvor. Thanks for the great catch, Andrew Alexander!

Fringe Costume Thoughts: Initial Reactions on Thursday's Shows

Call me a snob. You won't be the first. I love good design. I love good craftsmanship. Most importantly, I love when it seems that people have put thought and care into what they put on their bodies.


I also love theatre. I love when a show's costume design doesn't distract me from the show itself. I love when the costumes are appropriate to the place and time of a show.


And I hate hate hate hate hate when costumes are poorly executed. Avant garde shouldn't be code for looking cheap.


I've been to see a lot of shows at the Ottawa Fringe Festival, and I am sad to say that there are only a smattering of them whose costumes didn't downright make me angry.


The first show I saw was The Last Goddamn Performance Piece, which is a send-up of performance art in general. While I get what they were doing with their costumes (plain black movement wear), I was more than a little disappointed that the female performer's shirt had a visible stain on the front. It distracted me the whole show. (You can read Andrew Snowdon's full review of the piece here.)


Next up on Thursday night was The Rooftop Guy, a piece which takes place in a government office. While the costumes were generally pretty spot-on (especially the character of Jason, whose mismatched shirt and tie paired with his horrible green and yellow leather jacket perfectly portrayed a young man in an adult world who doesn't know how to cope with aging), one of the major plot points in the script is the fact that Dave is wearing a fish tie.


Which was... Handmade? I guess? Poorly. It can't be that hard to find a fish tie! (I just did a Google search for "fish tie" and came up with over 80,000 results.) Now, I understand that Fringe shows are on a budget. But the major turning point of the plot is about this tie. Come on, now... (Andrew's review for Fully Fringed is here.)


My blood really got boiling with Art DeXo, a modern dance piece. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know anything about modern dance, or dance wear, but I do know one thing: hems should be finished. Several of the costumes used in the piece had unfinished hems, or worse yet, little scraps of fabric with unfinished edges hanging off of them. While I understand that these little "beebobs" and "doodads" (as my mother would say) probably were meant to have some meaning and echoing the fluidity of the body and whatnot, most of the time I was left saying, "What?" Or worse yet, "Ugh, cut those things off."


Specifically, in one of the pieces lovely one-piece emerald green jumpers in drapey jersey have their flow and lined ruined by what looks like pieces of blue security blanket pinned (yes, that's right, pinned) to the hem. (Katrina Marsh writes more about Art DeXo here.)


Basically, what it all comes down to seems to be pride. If artists are putting enough time and pride into their piece to direct, preform, and in some cases write and tour a piece, it stands to reason that the way they present themselves onstage should also be a reflection of that. Thursday night left me with a bad taste in my mouth when it came to costumes.


Luckily, there are lots more nights of Fringe to write about...