“Lighting and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.”
This is a quote from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzshe that is included in the director’s notes for the show “Rope” which is currently playing at Renton Civic Theatre. The show is a thriller by Alfred Hitchcock and Patrick Hamilton, which follows two young men over the course of an evening as they attempt to get away with the “perfect murder”.
Before the show starts, the two young men, Wyndham Brandon and Charles Granillo, strangled their peer to death and put his body in a chest before hosting a dinner party in the very room that is the scene of their crime.
The show starts by plunging the audience into darkness as Brandon and Granillo, played by Cody Clark and Joshua M. Erme, argue. Where Brandon is maybe too confident in their ability to get away with the crime for the whole show, we see Granillo start to crack under guilt and stress.
None of the attendees of the dinner party are overly suspicious for the majority of the play, aside from Rupert Cadell, played by Adam Granato. Granato captivates with his performance and long-winded monologues regarding subjects such as death and the morality of murder.
Morgan Morgans is the costume designer for the show, who made a point to dress the character Brandon in dark red shoes to represent the not-so-subtle blood on his hands.
Morgans got into costume design for community theater in winter of 2022, while at the University of Washington Tacoma. Dr. Maria-Tania Bandes B. Weingarden got them started as a costume assistant for the show “The Happiest Song Plays Last” at Tacoma Little Theater, as well as doing stagehand work.
By August of 2022, they started at Centerstage Theater in Federal Way, where they still regularly work. As for how they ended up at Renton Civic, they say, “Because of my guild, I have contacts into other theaters […] I just talk to people, that’s what theater is.”
“Rope” is a period piece, set in 1929, and when the Thunderword asked if Morgans had a preference for working on contemporary or period pieces, they said, “Period pieces and small casts. I would rather work on a period piece from the 1910s to the ’60s, that would be my personal cutoff, or a modern show with small costume changes or two per character that I have a very clear vision of what the director wants.”
As for how they find costumes, they say, doing the research is the easier part. They start with having a meeting with the director and having a conversation about what their vision is for each of the characters, and, from that vision, they start researching.
The character Leila, for example, is a young flapper, so she wears a sparkly pink flapper dress.
As for the men, “[Their] style hasn’t changed in a very long time. The buttons moved around a little bit, but that’s about it. So, the formula that I use for men – shirt, vest, jacket, pants, shoes. And then something around the neck, and a belt or suspenders. In this case, usually suspenders,” said Morgans.
When asked if there’s much of a difference between costuming for a period piece versus a contemporary piece, Morgans said, “Kind of, yes. Dressing for a period piece for men, they dressed formally all the time, it didn’t matter where they were.”
This show specifically, Brandon and Granillo are at home, so the only difference between their costumes and the costumes of everybody else – they don’t wear dinner jackets.”
As for contemporary pieces, men “dress like whatever they want to dress like,” and for women, “I could talk forever on how women’s fashion has changed in the last fifty years alone, and that doesn’t even reach the ’20s,” said Morgans.
They say, for period pieces, “Women in the ’20s didn’t dress as formally but when they dressed up to go out to a party, they dressed up! They went sparkles, they went pearls and heels. Women basically wore heels all the time, unless [they] were over the age of 40 or so.”
Be it through costuming or the rest of the overall presentation, audiences were wowed that night at the Renton Civic Theater, and the show’s return is widely anticipated. You can visit their website for more showtimes and make sure you don’t miss out on the near constant entertainment in your local art scene.