As stated in our manifesto, STAMP Theatre doesn’t want their audience to be bombarded with visual spectacle in the palpable forms of set and costume design. Therefore, the costume for The Trial had to represent this. The Artistic Director discussed that she wanted very simple costume with clean lines which wouldn’t detract attention away from the actor wearing it. She also said that she didn’t want the costume to reflect any particular time period, just that it was clear to the audience that the time of the play was sometime in the past.

Starting with the character of Joseph K, it was important that the audience could see a resemblance between the character and the ‘everyman’ figure which they could relate to. As it is mentioned in the script that Joseph K is a manager in a large bank, I wanted him to look smart and presentable throughout the play as if he were ready to go into work and carry on with his everyday life. Therefore, the actor was to wear: black trousers with a white shirt tucked in, a neck tie which had a plain design on it, smart black shoes and black braces which were fastened to the trousers. I did consider having Joseph K in a smart blazer however, during our rehearsal period we discovered that the blazer restricted the actor in his movement and so I made the decision for the character not to wear it.

With the performance dependant on a chorus, I wanted the eight actors, except Joseph K, to have an item of clothing which they all wore. The reason behind this was to show that the actors were unified and bound together while they were on stage as the chorus. I did this by having every member of the chorus in the same white shirt which was buttoned up to the neck. I wanted to tea stain the shirts of the chorus to make them different from Joseph K’s white shirt. This meant that in comparison; the shirts were duller, looked older and discoloured. The reason behind doing this was to age the shirts. This also relates back to the Artistic Director wanting the costume to look like it was from the past. I aged the shirts by using the tea staining process which is as follows:

• Boil 2L of water and add to a large bucket with 10 Tea bags.
• Allow to brew for 5 minutes and then cool the liquid by adding 1L of cold water.
• Remove the tea bags from the liquid.
• Add the shirts to the bucket, making sure they are all completely saturated, and leave to soak for 15 minutes.
• Remove from bucket and drain off excess liquid and leave to dry.

With four members of the chorus playing female characters and the other four playing male characters opposite Joseph K, I also wanted the female members of the chorus to wear skirts. I felt this was important as every female that Joseph K meets throughout the play tries to seduce him in some form. Therefore I wanted the female chorus members to have a certain amount of femininity in what they wore. I purchased four black maxi skirts in a viscose fabric. The benefit of having the skirts in a viscose fabric was that the skirts were very stretchy and this meant that the female chorus would be able to move around the stage in them easily. After testing the skirts in rehearsal we found they were very figure hugging to the point where they looked too modern, they were also quite short on some of the girls because of their different heights. To combat this I added an extra six inches of stretchy black lace to the top of the waistbands on the skirts. This meant that the girls could pull the skirts down so that they fell to the floor and the extra material made the skirt look as if it had an ‘A- line’ structure, with the waist band fitting just underneath the bust. As well as this, I also added an extra ten inches of the same black lace down the side seam of each of the skirts. I did this by cutting along the seam of each skirt and then sewing the additional material onto the side of each hem.

The extra material meant that the skirts were not as fitting around the hips and I felt that it made the skirts look of an older fashion.

The male chorus members were to wear smart black trousers with the aged shirt tucked in and a belt. This was to show that there was some similarity between Joseph K‘s costume, to symbolise that male chorus could have been in a similar position to him in the past. All chorus members were to wear smart, black, hard sole shoes.