Theme Of Costumes In A Raisin In The Sun

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A Raisin in the Sun tells the story of an African American family called the Younger’s who are living on the South Side of Chicago during the 1950’s. When designing the costumes for A Raisin in the Sun careful consideration must be taken in order to make sure that the costumes fit the time period. The choice of costumes is very important for the performance of the play because costumes can indicate a character’s sex, occupation, status, position, flamboyance/modesty and degree of independence. As a costume designer there are the following main objectives: to help set the tone and style of the production, to establish the locale and period in which the play takes place, to indicate the natures of the characters or groups in the …show more content…
Colors as well as the choice of clothing could be very useful in order to represent the feelings of different characters. In the case of Mama darker colors would represent her sadness and mourning. For happy characters like Travis who does not have a care in the world, his clothing could be lighter and more jolly. The clothing of Travis would also have to be age appropriate in order to showcase the fact that he is considerably younger than anyone else in the play. During the 1950’s in Chicago racism was extremely prevalent. In order to help display the divide between blacks and white I would have to make a distinction between the black characters clothing and the white characters clothing in the play. On slide 7 of my PowerPoint there is a great picture from a Broadway show of the Younger family sitting down with Karl Lindner who is the only white character in the play. I would like to imitate the costume choice of the characters in this picture because Mr. Lindner sticks out like a sore thumb. The entire Younger family is dressed very casually and Mr. Lindner is dressed in a full suit. The clothing in this image further marks the distinction between the black and white conflict during this period. The clothing that Mr. Lindner is wearing also suggests that he has a good deal of

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