Jenna Lourenco
Theatre Researcher, Educator, Performer, Director,
Costume Designer/Costumer
Alice in War - Decapitated Rabbit
Alice in War, by Steven Bogart, was produced at the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School during my time with the theatre department there, as a student teacher and costume designer. In the play, there is a 6-foot-tall Rabbit who gets beheaded on stage, and it was my task to design and execute a wearable costume head that would allow for this without showing the human head underneath.
First, I created a rabbit head, from wire and buckram mesh, so that the actor would be able to navigate safely and breathe well inside the head. During the design/rehearsal process, the actor wore the rabbit head alone and the head with the neck extension to experiment with the best application for the desired effect.
Then I created a wire frame for the neck extension to fit the actor. It was required to be tall enough to hide his head completely when the rabbit head was knocked off, but it also had to hold the rabbit head securely in place for a good portion of the show.
It was decided during the design process that this would not be an overtly gorey beheading, and that the act of the head being removed was enough for the audience to understand what was happening, especially since the beheaded rabbit continued to move around afterward.
Hanger wire and floral wire was used because the budget was limited.
This hat form was added to help keep the head/neck in place and give more comfort to the student actor, once the piece was covered in buckram. This is before the buckram layer is completely stitched and molded, but we were experimenting with various ways to make it more comfortable for the actor and prevent any on-stage mishaps. We later added elastic for under the chin.
The actor was wearing a camouflage jacket, as the character was a soldier in the "war" of Alice's imagination world, so the neck was painted to match the camo print of the jacket, and the holes were carefully kept clear of paint so that the actor's visual field was not compromised any further than absolutely necessary. This is what the final product looked like, after it had been worn and taken a bit of a beating during the rehearsals.