AN IMMERSIVE THEATRE PIECE BY LIBERTY BRAMALL
CONCEPT....................................3
RESEARCH...................................5
SYNOPSIS...................................10
SET DESIGN.................................14
DEVELOPEMENT...............................20
FINAL ILLUSTRATIONS........................47
FINAL MAKE.................................62
“The Bloomsbury Set” is an Immersive Theatre piece that combines fine art with drama to produce a contemporary performance that is both visually evocative and thought provoking. The performance will use costume as a stimulus to begin the storytelling process and to engage with the audience throughout. The performers’ clothing and accessories will be sensitively decorated to present each costume as a piece of art in its own right. The costume and the set will work as one to introduce audiences to the lives of the artists behind the famous paintings and literature that was produced by the influential group of writers and artists who resided in a farmhouse called “Charleston”. In 1916 the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved to Sussex with their unconventional household
when Grant, under the terms of his exemption from military service was employed at a nearby farm.
THEY LIVED
IN SQUARES
& THEY LOVED IN TRIANGLES
Over the following half century Charleston farmhouse became the country meeting place for a group of artists, writers and intellectuals now known as The Bloomsbury Group. They created a hub of artistic and intellectual activity with visitors including Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Clive Bell and many others. The rooms within the old farmhouse formed a complete example of the decorative art of the Bloomsbury artists: murals, painted furniture, ceramics, objects from the Omega Workshops, paintings and textiles. The house is a testimony to their decorative style within a domestic context, representing the fruition of over sixty years of artistic creativity.
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Inspired by the pioneering lives the Bloomsbury Group led, I have created a performance that pays tribute to the legacy they left behind. The piece will offer audiences the opportunity to connect with the interesting and influential past residents and visitors of Charleston farmhouse. Guests will be invited to join performers in a modern set that is an artistic representation of the existing farmhouse. The set will connect audiences to the hive of creativity that once filled the Sussex cottage, The aim is to understand the pioneering relationships and interactions of the Bloomsbury Group and give a greater insight into the faces of those behind their paintings and books. Dorothy Parker once stated that the Bloomsbury Group had “Lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles�. Inspired by her witticism I have
designed a set of 5 rooms that are linked through a series of doorways and passages to allow the cast to guide the audience around the rooms in a circular motion. The box shaped rooms are symbolic of the squares that the group were said to have lived within. Each room represents an existing space at Charleston and will reflect the character who inhabited the room through its colour and art. The set will have designated standing areas in each room to provide space for audiences to watch. The visitors will consist of 6 guests for each performance. This will ensure the show is intimate and personal as the audience will be able to closely watch the action unfolding in the different spaces. The set can be erected in many locations, perhaps even at Charleston grounds or in various country gardens around the United Kingdom. From the outside the set appears as a minimalist piece
of contemporary sculpture. The rooms are clad in a natural beech wood which will age with its environment. The spaces have clear glass ceilings to allow natural light to enter the set and to reflect the open attitudes of the characters represented. Inside each room there will be a strong colour scheme and the artwork on the walls will appear like a gallery space with a few pieces of sparse furniture to give a subtle insight into the function of the room within the home, such as a simple bed frame in a bedroom or a small desk in a study. The piece combines music, dance and physical theatre. The actors will have a loose script but will improvise often and interact with each other through a serious of conversations and dances. The costumes will transform and link the characters with their artwork and their home. The clothing can reveal both who the character is
and the context in which the character exists. The costume will be decorated with patterns inspired by the original pieces of art produced by the Bloomsbury group and the paintings at Charleston. The costumes will be incorporated into the exchanges between the cast. The actors will lead the audience around the rooms (which should feel like both a gallery space and a performance area). The lighting and the music in the separate spaces will introduce a level of staging that would lift the immersive set from being solely a series of rooms into an atmospheric and dramatic theatre location. The audience will be able to observe the artwork as they move around the set, whilst the actors will perform simultaneously. The decor, costumes and action become one and the stories are revealed through both costume and set.
The Bloomsbury group included some of the twentieth century’s most pioneering artists, writers and thinkers – people who believed in debate, creativity, beauty, innovation and truth and whose work was guided by a sense of fun, freedom and irreverence.
The performance will showcase the Bloomsbury Group’s experimentalism, internationalism and anti-establishment approach, their new ideals for living and their belief that the arts and freedom of expression are fundamental.
VANESSA BELL AND DUNCAN GRANT TOGETHER IN THE GARDEN.
The piece will promote the legacy of the Bloomsbury Group through an intricate performance that aims to inspire artistic and intellectual freedom. The selected Bloomsbury Group figures in the script will be carefully costumed to transform into their home (represented by the set design). This transition symbolises the link between the group’s personal lives and their art. The costumes will use pattern and colour to hint at small details about the characters’ stories and their careers.
PHOTOGRAPH OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF VANESSA BELL IN THE WALLED GARDEN AT CHARLESTON FARMHOUSE, IN FIRLE, SUSSEX.
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Charleston House, the former home to the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, is a place where colour, design and radical thinking take centre stage.
THE OUTSIDE OF CHARLESTON HOUSE.
The former residents were pioneers of a movement that took art beyond the canvas and their house is a testimony to their vision with painted furniture, ceramics and textiles running through every room.
Illustration of a bedroom drawn to reflect the Bloomsbury interior design. I have used distinctive elements from a combination of the rooms, such as wardrobes, rugs and lamps, in order to portray the particular aesthetic of Charleston house.
CHARLESTON HOUSE AND GARDEN. VANESSA BELL’S BEDROOM AT CHARLESTON.
THE DINING ROOM AT CHARLESTON HOUSE.
THE INTERIORS The Bloomsbury Group turned “Charleston” in to a living work of art. When the two artists moved to Charleston they began to paint, not just on canvas, but over every available surface - walls, of course, but also tables, chairs, bedheads and bookcases. The house blazed with swirls and spirals of colour and pattern. It was a home that was full of life and vitality and a far cry from the conservative and conventional monochrome interior decoration of the time.
ILLUSTRATION INSPIRED BY OBJECTS FOUND IN THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP’S HOME.
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The Omega Workshops Ltd. was a design enterprise founded by members of the Bloomsbury Group and established in July 1913. The group wanted to remove what The overlap between fine art they considered and design can be seen in to be the false many of Omega’s products. divisions between The designs, particularly the decorative those for textiles, showed and fine arts, the influence of modern art. and give artists They featured the bold colours an additional and simplified forms of postincome opportunity impressionist, cubist and in designing fauvist artworks. furniture, textiles and other household accessories.
DECORATED LAMPSHADES WITH THE ARTISTS ORGINAL PAINTINGS OF PATTERNS AND FIGURES.
Several commissions arrived to decorate private houses. Omega Workshops were also invited to show their interior designs at the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1913. They designed a sitting-room for the exhibition with designs inspired by the movement of dance. Hand dyed cushions, printed curtains, upholstery and murals all fetured these influences.
They offered a wide range of individual products, such as painted furniture, painted murals, mosaics, stained glass, and textiles. The Omega Workshops also offered interior design themes for various living spaces.
A PAINTED WARDROBE WITH THE DISTINCTIVE BLOOMSBURY CIRCLES.
The Bloomsbury artists Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Quentin Bell were commisioned to apply their remarkable Omega Workshop style decorative scheme in Berwick church. The paintings are now of national and even international importance as they are critically the only example in the country of the complete decoration of the interior of an ancient parish church by twentieth century artists of repute.
OMEGA LAMPSHADE STANDS:These 1913-1919 stands promote an appreciation of mass colour and form, as seen in PostImpressionist painting. Decorative objects such as these can be used to train the eye to appreciate these characteristics.
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To begin the audience would be taken by the front of house team to their starting positions. The audience of six would commence the performance stood outside of the five rooms. The transportable set would have a small garden space that serves to replicate the grounds of Charleston. Existing photographs of the Bloomsbury members often show them sat together in their garden, which conjures up the feel of a summer evening spent with friends. It is this sense of togetherness that the first scene will capture, as guests have their first insight into the story that will unfold as they spy a lady perched on a bench painting: Vanessa Bell. Vanessa Bell is the lead figure in the show, connecting all the characters together and giving context to their individual stories.
Bell would lead them first into her unlit bedroom through a set of French doors. Once inside she would take off the large brimmed hat she is wearing and place it on top of a nearby stand. This action would trigger the lights to slowly come on and fill the set with a dull glow. The hat that was once a component of her costume would now have been transformed into a functioning lampshade. She would then sit on her bed and take off her over-skirt revealing the plain skirt beneath. Once the skirt is removed she would lay it down as a throw on the bed. The skirt and the hat will add decoration to the bedroom and Bell would then begin to talk about her life, including her move to Charleston, her relationships and her work in one long monologue. This would give the audience an insight into the world they had just entered.
Most notably she would talk about her husband Clive, his work and their loveless but mutual marriage and the humour they shared. The audience would hear a laugh from the next room and a male voice call out for Bell. In response Vanessa Bell would guide the audience through a passage into the next room, Clive Bell’s study. Here they would meet her husband who would be leaning against a desk dressed in blue to represent his cool and calm presence. The pair would talk amicably and dance softly and jovially around the room. As they dance sections of the floor would have strips where their footprints would leave patterns. Clive’s shoe would leave a geometric print and Vanessa’s would leave a series of female nudes. The patterns they mark the floor with symbolise the art
that fueled their relationship and their attitudes towards art. During this dance Clive Bell would remove small tiles from his long jacket and place them in slots on a mosaic table standing in the center of the room (a table inspired by an existing feature in the study at Charleston). This act would symbolise how, although he was not a permanent resident at Charleston, he left his mark on the home. Vanessa would also slowly remove the tiles from her husband as they danced together and as she spoke to him about their family. The pair are two friends but they are not two lovers, eventually Clive Bell leans once more, with his book in hand, against his desk and disengages with the audience who are left with just Vanessa again. The audience follows Vanessa into the
next room which is Duncan Grant’s bedroom. When the audience enter the music will intensify and Vanessa and Duncan will begin to dance with passion and excitement. Duncan Grant is wearing a red suit to symbolise his desires with two large triangles attached either side of his spine on his jacket. Whilst they dance their footprints will become entangled on the floor (Duncan Grant’s print being that of male nudes) and they will eventually passionately kiss. Following their embrace Duncan Grant will take out both of the back pieces from his suit and uses them as door wedges to open up both the passageways. He will return to Vanessa and kiss her once more, but with none of the passion and excitement seen earlier, and then the audience watch as Vanessa Bell leaves through the same
door she entered from and goes back to Clive Bell’s study. The door will close behind her and the audience will follow Duncan Grant as their new guide into the next room. The next room the audience enter is the studio, which is both yellow and red to express the art created by both Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The audience will see a male model stood posing behind a canvas with a large skirt, a headpiece and a neckpiece that are reminiscent of the table and the objects in the still lifes the artists painted. In this room slow music will play and Grant will begin to paint the handsome male figure. The actor wearing the large vase style headpiece will talk in a flirtatious manner to the artist as he draws him and as the scene continues the music will quicken and the exchange will become more passionate.
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The life model will quickly start to take off the various elements of his costume; dropping the skirt, unhinging the neckpiece and lifting off the headpiece until he stands completely nude in front of Duncan Grant, who paints more and more expressively. During this scene the pair will gradually move closer together until they are almost touching and only the easel separates them. We then hear a shout for Grant from the next room (from Vanessa Bell) and as the music dies down and the lights come back on, the two men carefully re-dress the scene and each other to resemble their starting positions. At this point a heavily pregnant Vanessa clothed again in a long skirt in the colour of green to symbolise her pregnancy with Clive (blue and yellow combined) enters the room. She beckons Grant to leave his work and come join their guests in the dining room. He puts down his paints and the audience follows the two of them through to the final room. The dining room has a large circular
table (to symbolise the circles they painted within) in the middle. Clive Bell is seated at the table alongside his wife’s sister Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard Woolf. The Woolfs both remove their hats in order to lay the table. The headwear becomes plates and Leonard Woolf’s top hat becomes a cake stand. Vanessa Bell will also remove her own headpiece which will be another decorated plate that can form the centerpiece. The two sisters are both carrying handbags that contain more plates which they can use to scatter around the table and decorate the room. Vanessa Bell will also detach the top layer of her skirt and lay it down as a table runner. Once the table has been set the group will begin to dine and the audience will watch as they discuss art, writing and politics together. During this scene the audience should feel like they are a fly on the wall and have the chance to listen in on extinct conversations. The actor’s movements across the table
would be expressive and as they pass around the plates in time to the music and their speech: it will become a dance. After a while the characters would start to slowly disperse to their various rooms within the set via the doors in the dining room. We see Duncan Grant look across at the pregnant Vanessa Bell before leaving her behind and going back into his room alone. She would then leave looking sorrowful and enter Clive Bell’s study. Virginia and Leonard would be the last two figures seated at the table and before they both exit the scene they would invite the audience to each take a place at the now empty table. The audience would then take the place of the Bloomsbury set as they each take a seat at the table where the actors had previously been dining. With none of the cast present in the room the audience would become immersed in a live sound installation. Speakers will play a series of conversations appearing to come from within
the surrounding rooms. The noise will include doors opening and closing, whispered conversations and light footsteps. Slowly through the overheard interactions the drama would unravel and it would be revealed that Vanessa Bell was in fact pregnant with Duncan Grant’s child and not with Clive Bell’s. Following this revelation, the sound would fade out until the room was left in total silence, and then the lights would go out. Whilst the audience sit in total darkness a crack of light would be seen and a single figure would enter from Duncan Grant’s room. This character would be Angelica Bell (the daughter of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell). Like Vanessa Bell did in the opening scene, Angelica Bell would also take the large hat she would be wearing and place it on a stand. This action would light the dining room and she would then remove her overskirt and throw it down on the floor before introducing herself
to the audience. Angelica Bell will talk to the spectators with fondness regarding her experiences growing up amongst the Bloomsbury set and her life spent at Charleston House. She will explain the fascinating lives her parents and their friends led, whilst explaining the action that has unfolded during the performance piece and reinforce the importance of her story for audiences today. She will end her speech by concluding in Dorothy Parker’s words - “They lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles”. Angelica Bell will turn off the lampshade and leave the room in darkness. To finish, each of the Bloomsbury group would emerge from their respective rooms and enter the dark dining room once more. The actors would form a triangle around the circular table where the audience are seated, and the cast will each stand by a member of the audience and invite them to leave the set together through the final open door.
“Words are an impure medium.....Better far to have been born into the silent kingdom of paint.� VIRGINIA WOOLF
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ROOMS: Experimenting with shapes to deconstruct the circles they painted within, the squares that they lived in and the triangles that they loved in to begin to develop a theme for the rooms.
SET DESIGNS : Exploring the use of pattern and lighting in seperate rooms. Taking shapes that feature in the paintings by the artists at Charleston and projecting the chosen forms directly onto the objects and furniture in the various rooms.
THE LAYOUT: Building a structure for the set which encourages fludity. The rooms are interlinked to allow the actors and the audience to move around the set in a circular motion with ease.
Box shaped rooms to symbolise the squares they lived in or cylinders to represent the circles they were said to have painted within. Looking at how the rooms could be laid out and the potential to use ladders and stairs to allow the audience to climb from one room to the next or building tunnels or passageways which could connect the rooms.
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A scale model of the set to show how the five rooms will function together.
From the outside the set is clad in a grey beech wood. This wood exterior will age with the environment that it is erected in. It would be possible for the set to be left assembled even after the performances are finished as it could then function as a gallery/creative space for communities to enjoy.
The clear glass roof will allow for sunlight to enter into the set. The glass will also invite the surrounding area and greenery to reflect on the rooms and contextualise the experience for the audience. If the set was erected in the gardens of Charleston it would offer an opportunity for this conceptual piece to ground itself in the history of the location that its story is based upon.
The colour of each room is specific to the action that will unfold within its walls and the character who inhabits that space. The walls are painted in a colour that reflects the tones within the characters’ artwork.
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COLOUR SCHEME Each room shall correspond to the character who inhabits that space and is painted in response to the pictures and the transforming costumes that will fill the room. An example of this is the yellow walls in Vanessa Bell’s bedroom and the painting of a female nude standing next to a bath tub which stretches across the wall (“The Tub, 1917”. Bell’s costume will consist of a range of transforming garments and as she takes off the different elements of her costume the room will become decorated in a warm and light tone that will reflect the art surrounding the theatre.
PAINTINGS: Displaying the art on the walls gives the set the feel of a gallery space so as to crate another layer of visual intrigue for visitors, who will be able to draw parallels between the art that fills each room of the set and the action that unfolds within the context of that room ,thus clarifying the connection between the artist, their work and their life.
MINIMAL: The paintings would all be hung in the same simple wooden frames with the purpose of ensuring that there is a uniformity to the minimal set before the costume transormations take place: only once the various items of clothing and furniture are removed do the audience begin to see the decorative pallette of the Bloomsbury Groups’ designs emerge.
NUDE/ STILL LIFE/ PORTRAIT: The subject of the paintings links with the character who the room is paired with. An example of this is the Duncan Grant’s room, which is full of male nudes, representing his relationships with other men throughout his life. Similarly, to portray Vanessa Bell’s position as a powerful female force, her room was covered in female nudes. Then in the studio where both Bell and Grant would paint, the two worlds collide and the walls are both red and yellow and male and female.
The choice of colour has arisen out of research into the art produced by the characters and the stories that they share. For example, Vanessa Bell was given yellow as her colour of choice due to this being a prominent tone in her paintings and representing a feeling of happiness and well being that I felt was entangled in Charleston house.
ROOM 1 : VANESSA BELL’S BEDROOM : YELLOW : Female nudes. ROOM 2 : CLIVE BELL’S STUDY : Blue : Portraits / still life. ROOM 3 : DUNCAN GRANT’S ROOM: RED: Male Nudes. ROOM 4 :THE STUDIO: RED/ YELLOW : Female/ Male nudes. ROOM 5 : THE DINING ROOM: MULTI COLOURED : Nudes/ Still life/ Portraits
Red prevailed in Duncan Grant’s paintings and also symbolised his passion and his lust. Then ,when Angelica Bell enters the set her costume and her furnishing are both yellow and red fabric, presenting her true parentage with a subtle nod to her parents’ colour scheme.
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‘There was that sense of, why don’t we just paint the walls? It doesn’t matter if we don’t do it perfectly, we just want colour and decoration, It is art that has jumped off the canvas onto the things that you live with: walls, chairs, tables, cups.’ Virginia Nicholson.
THE PAINTED FIREPLACE: The simple shapes that cover the fireplace transform the wood into a canvas. Grant’s work here is bringing art into the everyday and blurring the line between studio and home.
LEFT: Duncan Grant’s Bedroom at Charleston is an example of the surface decoration that the group were famed for with vases painted on the fireplace and the doors,
Close up painting of a vase on the wooden door in Grant’s bedroom showcasing their distinctive Bloomsbury style.
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The cool tones of blue have been combined with the dark yellow hues that run throughout my research.
Inspired by the Geometric prints poduced by the Omega Workshop, particuarly looking at their rug designs and the simplicity of the lines that they use.
Clive Bell’s concept of ‘Significant Form’, which separated and elevated the concept of form above content in works of art has played a key role in my explorations of shapes.
The still life drawings produced by the painters at Charleston show a passion for colour. Furthermore, they all have in common similar compositional devices. They show a strong emphasis on closed curvilinear forms which often evoke organic shapes. Most of their subjects can often be effectively simplified to their essential components.
The striking colours of their work and the unusual compositions of classic interior set-ups exemplify the style of The Bloomsbury Group.
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‘It was about freedom. There were no rules - nobody ever stopped you doing anything,’ Virginia Nicholson, 60, Quentin Bell’s daughter and deputy chair of Charleston’s trustees.
Bell’s paintings show how modernism can be used to give dignity to the representation of women in art. Picasso’s paintings of monumental nudes inspired the Bloomsbury Group’s work. The group’s still life paintings always give a sense of the pleasure of touch, with warm earth colours, and these are also features in their appraisal of young nude figures.
Bloomsbury was very much about throwing off the shackles of Victorian polite society; rejecting that life for bohemianism, pens and paintbrushes.
Line Drawings of female nudes layered of a still life scene.
over an oil painting
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Male nude silhoutte and a still life.
It was a household of artists. Painting was what you wanted to do because painting was what everyone did. There was a sense of experimentation which was just incredibly freeing and liberating.’ Virginia Nicholson.
After looking at the shapes and colours that cover the surfaces at Charleston, and how the Omega Workshop produce was designed to be integrated into the home, making everyday objects into pieces of art. Functional and decorative. I began to explore how I could use costume to create a similar process.
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Through the Omega Workshop the Bloomsbury group attempted to fuse the worlds of art and fashion. The conception, design, structure and making all took place seamlessly. The normal hierarchy (with designer and seamstress with distinctly different status) melded to become more democratic, more collaborative. Old Photographs of the gowns, and jackets evoke a sense of daring and fun. The colours were bolder and more distinct and drew attention to the wearer, rather than blending in.
TWO LADIES WEARING OMEGA WORKSHOP TEXTILES
COSTUME TO SET: Looking at how accesories can become furnishings. Exploring the relationship between what we wear and how we live.
Looking at how skirts could become rugs or throws, hats could become lamps, sleeves could become placemats, headpieces could become plates and bags could become stands.
The interior of Charleston House and the produce from the Omega Workshops have been carefully combined to embody the relaxed fashion that was favoured by the Bloomsbury Group.
Patterns from the paintings and the objects made by the artists are beginning to adorn the surfaces of the garments.
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Having grown up in Victorian households, the Bloomsbury Group openly rejected the old Victorian ideals from their childhoods and adopted more liberal and progressive attitudes, values that they applied to their wardrobes too. They saw Victorian society as prudish and narrow-minded, they chose to live freely and unrestricted. In short, they were determined to reinvent society, at least within their own circle and thus what they wore was less about adhering to the restrictive dress-codes of the time and more about wearing clothes that allowed them to live freely. The fabric will become a canvas. Their art and prints will adorn their garments and what they wear will collide with the art that they produced and critiqued. This decoration will fuse costume and set and will inform the drama unfolding.
ANGELICA BELL THE DINING ROOM
Angelica Vanessa Garnett, (25 December 1918 – 4 May 2012)
When interviewed about her early life at Charleston House shortly before her death, Angelica Garnett (following her marriage to David Garnett) said that the farmhouse still looked just the same as when she was a small child. She reminisced about running in to help Grace, the housekeeper, bake cakes and summers spent cutting paths through brambles around the pond with secateurs, or setting paper models alight in the front garden. Good behaviour could be bought for a sixpence which was what she was paid for sitting for portraits for Grant and Bell.
The illegitimate daughter of the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, Angelica grew up thinking that the art critic Clive Bell was her father (although her true parentage was an open secret among her parents’ friends). When she was 17, she was informed by her mother that Grant was her father, and then told never to mention the subject.
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LIFE DRAWING MODEL The Life Drawing Model appears when the audience enter The Studio
THE STUDIO GEORGE MALLORY
“He had a strikingly beautiful face. Its shape, its delicately cut features, especially the rather large, heavily lashed, thoughtful eyes, were extraordinarily suggestive of a Botticelli Madonna.” Arthur Benson
The life drawing model is based on George Mallory, an explorer who reguarly sat for Grant to paint. Mallory’s connection to the Bloomsbury group apparently also brought him a trial run with homosexuality. In the storyline this is represented by the model who displays evident chemistry with Grant during their shared scene in the studio.
Experiments with using ceramics to form a millinery piece for the headdress. This design portrays the idea of using costume to represent the lives of the characters as the model is quite literally turning into the still life drawings that the Bloomsbury Group painted so often.
The scene would begin with the actor fully clothed in all the transformable garments and resembling a still life scene. The objects scattered across the table and perched on the hat will resemble the objects such as pieces of fruit and wild flowers that the Bloomsbury Group would paint.
The flowers used in this costume could be picked from the grounds where the production is shown. This would link the story to the environment in which it is set.
The table/ skirt would be another removable aspect of the costume. The model would be able to take off the skirt and could be erected on the floor to be used as a functional piece of furniture.
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The Bloomsbury group were influenced by the philosophy of G.E. Moore, who in his Principia Ethica argued for the untranslatable quality of things in themselves. According to Moore, that which is “good”, or “yellow”, cannot be put into other words.
Vanessa Bell wrote of her life at Charleston House; “It will be an odd life, but ... it ought to be a good one for painting.”
VANESSA BELL An appreciation of Bell on her own, apart from her sister and her lovers, is long overdue which is why I have chosen her to be the protagonist of the story. The piece will celebrate the period when Bell was first married and having children, as well as discovering the liberating effects of postimpressionism. These years were full of the imagined freedoms of modernity. Bell’s 191013 paintings epitomise this sense of energy, explosive curiosity and wonder about this new world that they were emerging into.
A PHOTOGRAPH OF VANESSA BELL
Bell is often presented as a kind of earth mother, withdrawing from London to her Sussex farmhouse to grow children and vegetables, painting the chairs and her lovers.
VANESSA BELL’S BEDROOM ENSUITE
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The “Bloomsberries� as they were called, were privileged and well-educated members of the upper-middle-class. Yet, what separates them from other intellectual groups at the time was that they were the only group to support gay rights, women in the arts, pacifism, open marriages, uninhibited sexuality and other unconventional ideas. Their forward thinking perspectives translated to their clothing. They favoured comfort over the restrictive dress of the period. The women wore long, floaty dresses often mid-length with loose knits or long coats over the top. The men favoured loose fitting suits in linen or wools.
Various colourways are beginning to appear to show how printed textiles can attain a freedom of expression comparable to painting on canvas. A skirt, jacket or even just a belt can draw comparisons with the very boldest abstract paintings of the period.
With reference to photographs and paintings from the time a bohemian aesthetic is emerging.
PAINTING BY VANESSA BELL
VIRGINIA WOOLF IN A LONG COAT
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VIRGINIA WOOLF
Adeline Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941)
Woolf was an English writer, who is considered one of the most important modernist 20thcentury authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
A PORTRAIT OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
THE DINING ROOM
CLIVE BELL
Arthur Clive Heward Bell (16 September 1881 – 18 September 1964
CLIVE BELL’S STUDY
CLIVE BELL OUTSIDE AT CHARLESTON HOUSE
Bell may, indeed, be the least liked member of Bloomsbury. Bell has been found wanting by biographers and critics of the group – as a husband, a father, and especially a brother-in-law. It is undeniable that he was a wealthy snob, hedonist, and womaniser, a racist and an anti-Semite (but not a homophobe), who changed from a liberal socialist and pacifist into a reactionary appeaser. Bell’s reputation has led to his being underestimated in the history of Bloomsbury.
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The Bloomsbury Set has been catagorised as “a largely imaginary group of persons with largely imaginary objects and characteristics�.
VANESSA BELL PREGNANT Vanessa gave birth to a daughter at two in the morning on Christmas Day. The child was registered Helen Vanessa but finally called Angelica. Vanessa later recorded: ‘It was very romantic that first Christmas of peace and a most lovely moonlit, frosty night. I remember waking up - the early morning after she had been born and hearing the farm men come up to work singing carols and realising it was Christmas Day and it seemed rather extraordinary to have a baby then . . .’.
VANESSA BELL’S BEDROOM
PAINTING OF A PREGNANT VANESSA BELL BY DUNCAN GRANT.
Vanessa Bell, Pregnant with Angelica 1918.
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He cuts a very slim figure and is often notably smarter than the more permenant residents of Charleston House. His fondess for hats is shown through his headpiece which will tranform into a plate and bowl set. LEONARD WOOLF, THE HUSBAND OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, IN THE GARDEN
Leonard Woolf held several roles during his long life: son, brother, uncle, husband, colonial servant, Marxist, Socialist, key figure during the formation of the Labour Party in Britain, novelist, journalist, reviewer, editor and husband of author Virginia Woolf.
In my designs the Woolfs come as a pair. They join the dinner that takes place within the Dining Room in the final scene. They are dressed in the same colours and wear the same prints to reflect their partnership. There is a sense of depths not plumbed, a character still yet to be wholly revealed. Leonard was an important founding member of the group, yet he happened to marry a woman who blossomed into one of the most intriguing and enduring novelists of the 20th century, a pairing that has subsequently overshadowed his many achievements.
THE DINING ROOM
LEONARD WOOLF Leonard Sidney Woolf (25 November 1880 – 14 August 1969)
DUNCAN GRANT Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978)
Duncan Grant, with his softspoken, wayward manner and ineffable gentleness, would not seem an obvious candidate for the central role he played in the Bloomsbury Group. A handsome, slightly impish character, who blinked nervously when he talked and often seemed charmingly detached,
DUNCAN GRANT’S BEDROOM
Grant was one of the most celebrated artists of his day. An impassioned colorist who eschewed the cautious naturalism of the Edwardians, he painted lush, vibrantly lighted canvases that shimmered with feeling.
Grant’s clothing had a relaxed feel to it. He would wear loosely fitted shirts with suit trousers and a jacket or with linen shorts in the summer. His wardobe felt like its sole purpose was to assist Duncan in his devotion to his painting.
DUNCAN GRANT LENING AGAINST THE WALL RELAXING OUTSIDE
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TRANSFORMATIONS: The tiled jacket with removable panels. The panels that run down the front of Bell’s long coat are magnetic and can be detatched. During the dance piece perfomed in his study Clive Bell will remove the tiles, with the help of his wife, and place them on to a small table to form a mosaic.
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DUNCAN GRANT
TRANSFORMATIONS: The suit jacket with removable back panels. There are slots in the back of the jacket from which the two pieces will slide out. The two back triangles once reomved from the jacket will be used as doorstops to wedge open the two doors in Duncan Grant’s room so they stay open. This will enable Vanessa Bell to leave from one and Grant from the other.
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TRANSFORMATIONS: The hat that becomes a large dining plate and the bag becomes a plate set. The millinery will be removed from the actor’s the head and the matching plates will be taken from the bag in order to lay the table. Virginia Woolf uses her costume in the Dining Room to help her sister to lay the table by decorating it with her multiple removable costume elements. When Grant enters the room for dinner she will take off her hat and place her bag on top of the table and begin the removal process.
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Her clothing is yellow, as is the room she inhabits to reflect the colour palette of her paintings, whilst the nude screen prints on her clothing represent her strong identity as a powerful female.
TRANSFORMATIONS: The hat that becomes a dining plate. The millinery will be taken off the head and the plate removed to lay the table. When Vanessa Bell calls grant to join the others in the dining room for dinner she will take off her hat and place the decorated plate on to the table.
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TRANSFORMATIONS: The skirt will become a table, the neckpiece will become another smaller table and the hat will become a tray and a vase. The skirt will fold down to become a circular table and the neckpiece will be unhinged to become another smaller coffee table. The large hat will be taken off the head and placed on to the bigger circular table. In the studio the transforming costumes are on the largest scale. When the audience first enter the model will be posing and the costume will be a cross between a still life and a nude painting. Once Grant begins to paint the model the posing actor will remove each item they are wearing till they are in very few clothes. The model will then begin to put the items back on and set the initial scene once more.
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TRANSFORMATIONS: The hat that become a cake stand. The millinery will be taken off the head and the top hat will become a cake stand that will form the centrepiece of the dining room table. Leonard Woolf will help his wife and her sister to lay the table by taking off his hat and adding it to the large circular table in the centre of the room. It will have a homemade cake put on top of it to symbolise the regular dinner parties that the Bloomsbury Group and their friends would enjoy.
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TRANSFORMATIONS: The hat that becomes a lampshade, the bag become the base for the lamp and the skirt will become a throw. The large hat will be taken off the head and placed on to a stand where it will become the lamp next to the bed in Vanessa Bell’s bedroom and will illuminate the room. The bag will become the base for the lampshade to stand on. The skirt will be untied and thrown over the bed like a blanket. In the first room of this immersive piece the audience will meet Vanessa Bell and have their very first experience with the transforming costumes. When the hat lights up the story will begin to unfold and The Bloomsbury aesthetic will be revealed.
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TRANSFORMATIONS: The hat that becomes a lampshade, and the skirt will become a throw. The large hat will be taken off the head and placed on to a stand where it will become the lamp next to a chair in the Dining Room and it will illuminate the room. The skirt will be untied and thrown over the chair. In the final room of this performance piece the audience will meet Angelica Bell and have their last experience with the transforming costume.It will feel as though the narrative has gone full circle and when she sits down on the chair with the throw the lamp will be next to her and the lamp will add light to the room as she clarifies the story and ends the piece after her speech by turning off the light.
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“Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes.” Virginia Woolf