Live Transformation
How the Application of Theatre Make-Up Goes Beyond Face Value
Submitted by Jadon Fimon, Riverland Theatre Work Study Student
While watching a Riverland Theatre production, perhaps you’ve had a moment where you recognize a new performer on the stage you’ve never seen before. Maybe a thought crossed your mind about where their talent came from and where their acting ability will take them in the future.
These are great questions to think about because they tie perfectly into the other core focus of Riverland Theatre – its education programs. Riverland Theatre has a second central focus to help educate young actors in their craft and teach them methods of the masters. With a variety of classes, there’s a wide range of content at their disposal. One of these courses is the “Stage Make-Up” class, taught by Susan Hansen on-campus. For the past few weeks, I have been visiting this classroom to get some insight into its workings and have seen two projects completed.
When I first walked into the classroom, I was intrigued by all of the sketches that the students had drawn in preparation for their transformations. For a makeup class, I didn’t expect artwork! However, the portraits here were invitations into a unique world of character design. Every student had been asked to create a character that they would model their makeup off of. Each one had a unique setting and background: one character was a knight from the fantasy era securing a name for themselves in the world, while another one was a person in the current age who struggled with several illnesses, wondering if there were any places in the world even left for them. Deep passion went into constructing these slowly evolving fictitious lives; as new units were covered in the class, the students discussed how they would manifest their characters into physical form through the use of makeup and prosthetics.
I remembered the advice I first got when I started acting – the ability to understand your character so you can truly embody them on the stage. By doing this, even when the focus isn’t on me as an actor, the fictional world on the stage is enriched, as every performer stays within the illusion that the audience is meant to be drawn into. As students develop their characters, they can learn this mentality passively while also gaining more motivation for the “homework” they have.
The first week I came in was in the midst of a unit focused on old age. Therefore, I witnessed sketches of these characters at their final stages in life, and watched the students slowly design their makeup to resemble these features.
While the students completed their transformation, I was able to talk more in-depth with the instructor for the course, Susan Hansen, who takes us from basics to special effects in an overview of what is learned in the classes.
Slowly, the makeup expanded from just foundational application, such as eyeliner and blush, to the gentle trace of a brush down the crevices of their cheeks and forehead, developing wrinkles and bags under their eyes. Their age and hard work showed in more than just their knowledge after this lesson.
Just from these photos, I could picture the previous lessons of young age and middle-aged characters. Of course, after old age, there isn’t much to logically progress towards without getting a bit morbid.
Which is exactly the area the class leapt into, with its next class being fully about special effects – more specifically, blood and injuries.
What a contrast!
We went onto the stage to view the final projects from several different angles. From the seats of the audience, the makeup truly blended into the actors and felt real, though it also made me feel I walked into a horror movie versus a theater. Of course, I wasn’t actually looking at flesh and blood; it was simply revealed that the magical element was latex, being molded in order to stick out like wounds.
Once connected to the skin and glossed over with a helping of theater blood, the wounds took a life of their own.
Material like this is perfect timing for the Halloween season. Perhaps the lessons here will extend out of a theater classroom and will result in seasonal costume design! Of course, this Halloween, most of the students here will be performing in the showing of Carrie: The Musical, opening on the 30th of October. These skills will be put to use in the fiery tale, though most of the blood will most likely be kept for a specific scene.
If you dare to enter the world of Carrie this Halloween season, here are a few sneak peeks of the haunting tale to come:
In the meantime, between practice, perhaps some of the actors are working on developing their own personal stories and characters beyond the doors of the dressing rooms. Whoever said a makeup brush and a writer’s pen couldn’t make the perfect combo?