On Thursday 9th of January, Years 7, 10 and Sixth Form students all went to see a wonderful performance of "Sleeping Beauty" at the Young Vic Theatre in London. You may imagine it was far from a pantomime, but a magical fairy tale that I felt effectively enchanted the audience throughout. I was especially interested in the design of the set, and costumes in order to aid my A2 level Art project. I found the methods and ideas they used were both inventive and original. Especially the use of trap doors below the circular stage, around which the audience was seated. Through these many interesting characters appeared, such as the fairy "Goodie" who in the first half was to tell us her woeful tale of how a beautiful princess was cursed to sleep in a mystical palace for all eternity. This spell could only be broken if a handsome prince would wake her from her deep slumber with a kiss, and undo the spell. This fairy however, was no ordinary fairy - and it was the idea for her costume design that intrigued me the most. She wore a strange wig, which made it look as if she were bald except for a large tuft of hair directly on the top of her head. She had a white face, with red streaks. She then wore a white dress of shredded rags, a short hooded grey woollen cloak which sparkled when ever she did magic, and poking out at the back were two small, shrunken silver fairy wings, she also had a small bag at her waist containing fairy dust which she blew when ever she told a tale. As you can probably tell this depiction is far from the traditional view of the small and pretty fairy, probably wearing a pink tutu and tiara.
