From Page to Stage: Maggie, Agnes and Christina Mundy
This week I’ve decided to look at the final three sisters in Brian Frail’s Dancing at Lughnasa. I decided to do these characters as a trio as while designing all the sisters I looked at them in relation to one another and how they would contrast and complement one another onstage. As I mentioned in my previous Lughnasa post exploring the character of Rose, I did a lot of research into looking at outfits of rural women in Ireland in the 1930s to get a general idea of the look that we would need to go for. I then took these looks and individualised them for each of the sisters.
Let’s start with Maggie, played by the brilliant Molly-Rose Curran. Maggie is the second eldest sister and is like a beacon of life and excitement. She is the complete opposite of eldest sister, Kate, and seems to try and get the most out of every moment and has taken it upon herself to cheer up the lives of her sisters. I wanted her in a vibrant, life-giving colour like red or green to make her stand out from her sisters a little and give her a pattern as well. She is the only one of the five sisters who wears a pattern in their outfit to distinguish her and give her something more exciting on her clothing. She is also the only sister not wearing a jumper or cardigan. The idea behind this was that Maggie is so active and excitable that she’s warm enough without too many layers. I wanted her to be in a dress as well that was relatively loose while still in keeping with the time. I wanted her to look comfortable and practical.
Therefore, she is the sister with the shortest hem line and she wears boots with a practical dress to allow her to still work on the farm and look after the chickens without being restricted by anything. Maggie is the most opposite in disposition to Kate and therefore has the most opposite costume to her. Nyree and I were able to find the perfect green dress with a leaf pattern on it in the UEA costume store, that looked fantastic on Molly and I made an apron for her as well to go along with the other sisters. I liked the idea of the leaves on the dress as it really connected Maggie with nature, which I think really spoke to her character as she seems like a woman connected with nature. Molly also had quite short hair at the time but we decided to keep this even though it was slightly not in keeping with the period as it distinguished her further from the others.
From the very natural Maggie we move to Agnes played by the extremely talented Eleanor Morton-Smith. In my head Agnes is the most fashionable of her sisters. Along with Rose, she seems to be the one that does not fit in with her surroundings in rural Ireland, further highlighted in Michael’s final monologue explaining how Agnes and Rose run away to London. Therefore, I wanted Agnes to have a slightly more high-end look compared to her sisters. Further to her running away to London, it is also suggested that Agnes potentially had/has a fling with the father of her youngest sister’s (Christina) child, Gerry, which I think gave a further suggestion that there was a more sensual and forward character underneath Agnes’ seemingly quiet exterior, that I thought could be shown through her costume.
I felt like perhaps putting her in a beautiful dress with a fashionable jumper over the top might work really nicely and I wanted her hair to be in keeping with contemporary trends. I was very lucky that Eleanor was playing the character, she is a costumier herself, doing cosplay as well as doing costume design work, so she was did some her own research into the outfit and hairstyles of the time and was able to style her hair wonderfully for the part and provided a beautiful jumper and shirt combination that I think gave off a sense of Agnes being slightly more fashion conscious than her sisters. In my original design I wanted to place a flower in Agnes’ hair but unfortunately did not get a chance to do this in the show, but I think it may have singled her out too much from her other sisters, as she does fit in among them, unlike what I was trying to achieve with Agnes’ closest sister, Rose. Along with a fantastic long, flowing skirt I think this look worked really well for Agnes.
Last but certainly not least we come to the youngest Mundy sister, Christina, played by the wonderful Hannah John. Chris is the youngest sister and the only one who is seen to have a love interest and is the only one of the sisters to have a child, Michael, who acts as narrator for the play. Chris seems almost like a manifestation of hopefulness and belief. She seems to never falter in her hope that Gerry will be a better partner and a better father to her son. Her naivety with regards to love and especially with regards to Gerry is crushing for the audience who want to believe Gerry will get better but know that he will and does not, from how we see him act alongside Michael’s narration that is retrospective so is able to tell the audience the truth about his father. I wanted Chris to be dressed quite simply and practically, giving her boots, a long dress and a cardigan.
I wanted there to be a difference in Chris between the first and second acts as well. In the first act she has not seen Gerry for quite some time and I wanted that to reflect in how she was looking after herself, so I wanted her to be wearing an apron like her sisters and her hair to be a little bedraggled, so that in the second act, when she had been seeing Gerry a little more regularly she could have the apron removed and her hair neater as if she is ensuring she is putting more effort into her looks for Gerry, and because she was happier.
Hannah luckily had some wonderful clothes that created a really beautiful colour combination that I think worked perfectly for Christina on stage. If we had had more time it would have been great to have made Chris’ transformation between the two acts more drastic, but in the end I think I liked the subtlety of it and I think something more dramatic may not have read well.
I loved working on the designs for all the sisters and understanding the subtle differences between them while trying to keep them a relatively coherent group so that they all looked like they belonged in the same house and had grown up together.
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