Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2023 - 11

For the Lost Children of Paris
While sequestered in her apartment
during the pandemic, distinguished veteran
costume designer Carrie Robbins
rediscovered the book, The Lost Children
of Paris. She found primary research
about these Jewish children kidnapped
from Parisian schools and murdered in
Auschwitz during the second World War.
She began drawing the children, and the
drawings begat the puppets, text, and a
Bunraku-inspired puppet performance of
For the Lost Children of Paris. The play
focuses on a single classroom of children
who were deceived and kidnapped
by a female German Lieutenant. A major
theme in the work is deception, and adult
puppeteers manipulating the child puppets
create a tense power dynamic. In
her artist statement, Robbins mentions
the bombed theatre of Mariupol with the
sign " Children " spray-painted on the building,
and the deportation of Ukrainian children
to Russian families. This work also
evokes the haunting aesthetics of Tadeusz
Kantor's The Dead Class as well as WWII
figurative memorials to children, such as
the monument at Lidice, Czechia.
Superterranean and Ocean Filibuster
While Robbins' work focused on historic
loss and devastation, costume designer
Olivera Gajic's work focused on current
and future losses and devastation related
to climate change. Gajic had two projects,
Superterranean and Ocean Filibuster
accepted into the U.S. exhibition. Ocean
Filibuster was commissioned by the
American Repertory Theater with support
from the Harvard University Center
for the Environment and produced by
PearlDamour. The aim of the project was
to bring awareness to climate change
through a musical story about a future
Global Senate pitting humans against the
ocean. The creation of Ocean Filibuster
was interrupted by the pandemic and collaboration
moved online for two years. As
seen in Wislar's Othello, Gajic's environmental
awareness (and the very subject of
the project) inspired her to use recyclable
materials to make a small environmental
impact in production. In her artist statement
Gajic stated: " My small steps of
collecting the plastic bottles and making
hundreds of organic shapes out of them to
recreate oceans' flora give me a purpose
during these two COVID years. Making
the ocean out of objects that pollute it gave
Olivera Gajic's Superterranean projected on the USA National Exhibit, installed at the 2023 USITT Conference
in St. Louis.| Photo by Jim Lile.
me a dual purpose, both to contribute to
saving the ocean and also fulfilling my life
purpose of making art that was essential
for my survival during these times. "
Gajic's other PQ entry also related to
future relationships between humans and
the environment. Conceived by designer
Mimi Lein, Superterranean produced
by the Pig Iron Theatre Company in
Philadelphia explored the unseen physical
urban infrastructures that affect the
bodies and feelings of humans. Produced
in 2016, the story expresses humans as
small, isolated, and vulnerable compared
to the large infrastructures impacting
their daily lives. The wardrobe included
hazmat suits as one example of costume
choices foreshadowing the pandemic.
Mad Dash: Le Cirque
Michael Grasso/Jazz's performance, Mad
Dash: Le Cirque, a fast-moving quickchange
feat for two performers in 12 " ideations, "
addressed the curatorial themes
of identity and coming home to the self in
its many possible forms. Grasso indicated
in his design statement that form followed
function: " The design process became a
representation of my material ecosystem,
calling upon questions of access, budget,
and scarcity (scarcity of funding, materials,
and time; time for fittings, finishings,
and alterations). In New York, we are
fortunate to have access to some of the
FALL 2023 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | 11

Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2023

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