Jewels to to make a pope drool'

Costume designer thrills in sumptuous 17th-century 'period drag'

By Doreen Cudnik

Cleveland-From May 4 to June 5, audiences will be able to take a few shots at two of our culture's favorite targets doctors and lawyers as the Cleveland Play House presents Molière's The Imaginary Invalid.

The play, which was the last for Molière, who died after only four performances, centers around an obsessive hypochondriac, Argan, who brings out the absolute worst in the medical and legal professions.

Working at the Cleveland Play House for this show is award-winning costume designer Lindsay W. Davis, an openly gay man who has made a very successful career for himself in the theatre.

Davis has been associate designer at the Metropolitan Opera as well as designing for New York City Opera's televised production of A Little Night Music. His career has taken him around the world, and he has worked with celebrities Sandy Duncan, Kevin Kline, Helen Hunt, Morgan Freeman, Al Pacino, Tracy Ullman and many others.

During an interview in the Play House's busy costume shop, Davis said Molière's comedy, although set in the 1670s, touches on issues still relevant to audiences today. "When people are ill or imagine that they are ill, everyone seems to want to take advantage of them or get a piece of the pie," he said. "In this particular play, the wife wants him to die so she can inherit the money, the young girl needs his permission so she can get a dowry to be wed, the doctors all want him to rely on them. Each of them are fighting for his loyalty and attention so they can make money off him. It's such a good play in terms of timeliness, because the issues are extremely topical."

The costumes for this production are sumptuous, with some of the fabrics costing upwards of $100 a yard. Fabrics that bring to mind ecclesiastic themes were used for the head doctor's costume since, Davis said, "his character is sort of midway between doctor and god-figure."

"We gave him the most opulent costume, the biggest stones, the most wonderful fabrics, jewels to make a pope drool. With the big hair and the big hats and the big jewelry-it's really period drag.”

The costumes for the young lovers are equally luxurious, with some serious corseting for the women.

"Total body manipulation,” Davis says of his corseted creations-"all the breasts are sitting just below the chin-major, major cleavage."

While most people would not have a clue about how to design the "fontage" style of the late 17th century, Davis has done the period so many times that "after a while, you really do start to absorb all the details." Colorful, multi-tiered skirts for the women and full-skirted men's coats, hats and wigs accentuate the play's characters.

Davis said he first discovered he liked to dress people up when he was fourteen years old, and doing his first year of summer stock. "We were told that we either had to build scenery or work in the costume shop and I said, 'There is no choice there!' So I chose home ec over shop, as I did in high school. Although in my school it was called 'bachelor living,' and our big project for the semester was making a barbecue apron and matching napkins. I, of course, made a threepiece velvet suit,” he recalls with a laugh.

Working with some well-known people has provided Davis with some insight into human nature.

"No matter where you go, women are women and men are men," Davis says. "Every woman, no matter how thin they are, no matter how famous they are, they are always concerned about how much they weigh and how old they look. The most famous women

still need to be told that they look fabulous. And who else but the designer can do that?"

Men, Davis says, are concerned about the same things"Am I tall enough? Can I have lifts in my shoes? I've put more lifts in people's shoes than you can imagine. With people who are very famous it's a trap, because people anticipate them looking a certain way. You need to look that way to have that expectation fulfilled. Height for men is their biggest concern. I guess that comes from people coming up to them a hundred thousand times and saying, ‘Oh, I thought you were taller.' All of a sudden they need to live up to the expectations of the fans."

Davis wisely opted not to name any names, commenting, "I want to continue to work!"

One of Davis's favorite jobs was working with the Rockettes at New York's famous Radio City Music Hall.

those home es over shop, as life in high xhool, and our big project or the semester was making a barbeque apron andl matching napkins. 1, of course, made a bree-niere velvet suit.”

DOREEN CUDNIK (2)

"There are forty Rockettes," Davis said, "and forty of anything just looks so fabulous. One is great, forty is just startling." Davis designed seven costumes for the Rockettes in this show, and his reputation as a perfectionist was challenged by the shop crew.

"They would say in the shop, 'We don't have to do this-you can't even see it on stage.' And I would say, 'Yes, we have to bag this out, this should be pressed better, and all that."

In this case, the shop crew was right, Davis admits.

"By the time I got off the stage and to the back of the auditorium, a person is the size of your thumbnail-so the hatband on the derby is like the size of a hair. So the stitching on the hatband, they could have sewn it with magenta thread and you never would have seen it."

He laughingly says that co-workers would agree that he is a perfectionist—“to the point of alienation."

When he is not on the road seven or eight months out of the year, Davis makes his home in Louisville, Kentucky, often working with the renowned Actors Theatre of Louisville and the Kentucky Opera.

"After living in New York for 25 years I moved to Louisville so I could live like a grand dame in a big ol' three-story Victorian, which I do," he said.

This is not his first time working with the Play House. The Harvard graduate recently designed costumes for their productions of The Old Settler, A Russian Romance, A Wonderful Life, The Importance of Being Earnest, Quilters and The Lady from the Sea.

"Cleveland Play House does wonderful work in the costume shop," Davis said. That, and his genuine love for the people who work in the Play House's shop makes him likely to come back.

"Because my life is so committed to my work in general, if I like the people in the shop and I like the city, it dramatically affects my willingness to go to that city. While in

town, Davis stays in the "lovely Shaker Square" area, he says.

That Molière died doing the role of hypochondriac Argan is very interesting to Davis.

"During this period is when they were discovering that bacteria were causing diseases, but the medical community in general was totally resisting this because they really wanted you to take an expurgative so you'd throw up, or give you an enema, or bleed you. Those were your three options as a patient. To me, that feels so topical. Today, for instance, we know so much about the bodymind connection, but that is slow to be embraced by the medical community.

After The Imaginary Invalid, Davis hopes to be off to Massachusetts to do the costumes for Burning Blue, about a squadron of Air Force pilots who, because of their love for each other, make it impossible for an investigator to find out which two are gay.

"None of the [straight pilots] are talking, none of them will point the finger and say "He's the homosexual." It's a wonderful, wonderful play," Davis says.

He'd love the opportunity to do the more butch costuming for Burning Blue, especially after the lavishly romantic designs of The Imaginary Invalid, but he cautions, "I have to get the job!

From the looks of his résumé and his work with Cleveland Play House, my bet is that Davis will be spending his summer at the Cape.

The Imaginary Invalid will run through June 5 in the Play House's Drury Theatre. To order tickets call 216795-7000.