Visiting the Backstage: Rubber Costumes, Wooden Masks and Puppets

A lot of work goes into putting on a theatre show – most of which the audience doesn’t even get to see. Thespians Anonymous went to the Theatre Museum in Kaapelitehdas in order to shed light on the world backstage. Even for a theatre enthusiast like yours truly, the visit was not only fun but also educational.

Backstage, a permanent exhibition at the museum, shows the different aspects of theatre and all that goes into making a production. In the audience, you mostly concentrate on the acting and the story. You might look at the costumes and the sets, and perhaps you even notice the different lights, sounds and music. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Before that, someone has built a miniature layout of the stage and planned the sets. Someone has drawn the costumes and hunted down different kinds of fabrics, and someone has been sitting up at night making a wedding cake out of Styrofoam, fabric and beads.

It’s a lot of fun to see how different materials can be used in unconventional ways and you won’t be able to tell the difference. The costumes gave me ideas on how to make clothes and sets on a small budget or with materials that might be considered strange, such rubber, which was used for a costume for Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades.

Talking about strange, there are also aspects of theatre that may seem weird or old-fashioned to us, like the use of masks or puppets. Then again, masks force the actor to concentrate on other things than facial expression, like movement and body language. Because the walk of an old person or a little child can be just as different as the walk of an elephant or the flight of a bird.

Puppet shows are primarily seen as children’s shows, but just like you can set a story in a different time or a magical place and address a problem that way, puppets can comment on social matters and get away with it. Especially in the Czech Republic, where puppet theatre is an old tradition, the shows were an underground way for people to express their political opinion during times when theatre was censored by the government. Because who thinks about checking what goes on at a children’s show?

Now, let’s skip the educational and get to the fun part: we got to try on costumes! Because that’s really what we love: to dress up and act as someone else.

 

Lotta Heikkinen is an addicted thespian and has been part of Thespians Anonymous since autumn 2009. She enjoys seafood & British period drama and will one day live in a castle and rule Scotland. Or, alternatively, sell her soul for some cheesecake.

On 22nd February, 6 eager members of Thespians Anonymous took part in a guided tour at the Theatre Museum in Ruoholahti, Helsinki.  Our thanks to the Theatre Museum.