Did Shaw provide any costume notes in his original stage directions?
But I made design choices that suited our production and our actors. They should feel the costumes illustrate their vision of their characters. In the script, Shaw describes the entrance of the heroine, Ann Whitefield, “She comes in wearing her own contrived mourning outfit of violet and black.” Ann’s character is so fussy and fashionable that she must add color to her mourning dress, a lavender-and-white barberpole-striped cummerbund. In another scene, a character comes in with “a whole dead bird on her hat.” Since the protests were going on outside our costume-shop window, the milliner for the show, Randie Saxxon, made it into a peace dove with an olive branch in its mouth. How are subtleties of character distinguished by costume, for instance between Violet Robinson and Ann? Ann is more of the vamp, while Violet blossoms into a beautiful young matron with standing in the community. She also softens as her marriage becomes public. We made good use of feathers: Ann was puffy, light ma
