Agnes of God
Tailoring by
Janson Fangio
Nun's habits
I personally built, from scratch, both the black Mother Superior habit and the white novice habit for the CSFACTC 2014 production of Agnes of God. I also made the rosary, both the rosary crucifix and the pectoral crucifix as well as braided the Mother's cincture belt by hand.
John Pielmeier makes no mention of any specific order of nuns within his play. I therefore based the Mother Superior habit on those of the Sister's of St. Joseph, the order to which Sister Maureen Murphy, who in 1977 was indicted for first degree manslaughter in the death of her newborn baby and was thus the inspiration for Pielmeier to write the play, belonged.
This particular order's habit is very distinct and almost theatrical in how it follows and accentuates the feminine form rather than fully obscuring it; a perfect spring-board for my design. Notice, at left, the deep pleats cascading down the tunic, the unusual lack of scapular, leaving the cincture, and thus the waist, and rosary fully exposed to view; also the deep, rounded guimpe, the tall cornet and unlined, soft veil. I made the tunic by fitting a rounded yoke to the individual and then setting a large rectangle of fabric into it using deep knife pleats but leaving enough at the edges to wrap around to the side of the body, cutting out the lower portion of the armhole; the sleeves are full at the wrist but set smoothly into the armscye. I secured the pleats at the waist with machine stitching to ensure that they would stay in place regardless of movement. I used a poly/wool blend twill fabric which draped beautifully. The wimple, guimpe, and cornet are made from a poly/cotton blend; heavily interfaced and starched. The veil is made from a rectangle of the same fabric as the tunic, folded diagonally. It would seem from my research that the veils of this order were of something much lighter, like voile, but I could not find a color match in a lighter fabric...it's amazing how hard it is to match black to black under stage light!. This fabric was really a little too heavy to be comfortable and tended toward slippage, but the actress managed. The novice habit comprised of a tunic, a scapular with bias-roll collar and a veil. The fabric for all three is a poly/rayon, wool-like, twill suiting of medium weight. It worked out perfectly as it had a very nice hand and drape, much like wool, but it was very easy to launder. this was crucial due to the need to smear the front with liquid stage blood during every performance. we were able to simply launder it after every show in warm water with regular detergent without incident. The only stains it incurred were those from the makeup on her hands, a different consistency than the liquid blood, depicting her stigmata wounds.
The tunic was made in the same way as the black but with a more fitted sleeve with cuff. the scapular is simply a rectangle of fabric with a neck hole cut out and a bias roll collar sewn into it. The veil is of the same fabric as the tunic; a square folded in half diagonally, a cuff folded at the front and secured behind the neck. we decided to use a scapular for the novice, despite the Mother Superior not having one, to accentuate this character's'enigmatic and layered nature. Additionally, it provided a practical boon in that it took the brunt of the blood smearing and allowed the actress to hide her hands when needed throughout the action of the play Please consider the results: |
Mother Superior
I made all of the liturgical accoutrement, i.e. the crosses, rosary and cincture, primarily because I found it near impossible to purchase real ones for a decent price, if at all, or faux ones that I was happy with the quality and/or size of.
I made the rosary out of simple wooden beads from a craft store and bits of large paper clips to form the links. I had tried to use just metal jeweler's chain from a craft store but it constantly broke it's links on stage so I lighted on the idea of using paper clips. This proved to hold much stronger but took a tremendous amount of time to cut the pieces and form the links. An old pocket knife chain sufficed for the spacer lengths between the sections of beads. Rosary Y connectors are readily available at jewelry/craft stores.
the crosses I made out of simple pine strips from a craft store and popsical sticks for the raised relief parts. I fashioned the Corpus figures of Christ from hot glue on the side of an aluminum can, pealed them off once dry and painted them silver. I painted the crosses, both the wood color and the silver details free-hand. I used a sharpie to write the INRI inscription on the plaque of the Pectoral cross as well as to outline details and accentuate wood-grain. I took the trouble to paint the back of the pectoral cross to ensure that, if it were to flip around during the action of the play, it would still have some visual interest to it.
I used a purchased length of cotton rope for the novice habit's cincture, but had a hard time finding black rope or cord that was both long enough and thick enough for the mother superior's. I ended up getting thick polyolefin braided macrame cord from a craft store and braided a four strand, round-braid belt. I knotted the ends in "monk's" knots, one with tassels and one without.
I made the rosary out of simple wooden beads from a craft store and bits of large paper clips to form the links. I had tried to use just metal jeweler's chain from a craft store but it constantly broke it's links on stage so I lighted on the idea of using paper clips. This proved to hold much stronger but took a tremendous amount of time to cut the pieces and form the links. An old pocket knife chain sufficed for the spacer lengths between the sections of beads. Rosary Y connectors are readily available at jewelry/craft stores.
the crosses I made out of simple pine strips from a craft store and popsical sticks for the raised relief parts. I fashioned the Corpus figures of Christ from hot glue on the side of an aluminum can, pealed them off once dry and painted them silver. I painted the crosses, both the wood color and the silver details free-hand. I used a sharpie to write the INRI inscription on the plaque of the Pectoral cross as well as to outline details and accentuate wood-grain. I took the trouble to paint the back of the pectoral cross to ensure that, if it were to flip around during the action of the play, it would still have some visual interest to it.
I used a purchased length of cotton rope for the novice habit's cincture, but had a hard time finding black rope or cord that was both long enough and thick enough for the mother superior's. I ended up getting thick polyolefin braided macrame cord from a craft store and braided a four strand, round-braid belt. I knotted the ends in "monk's" knots, one with tassels and one without.