Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2009 - 53

for long side-locks framing his face. A long thin beard hangs
from his chin, and small clown white triangles at his eyebrows
complete his stylized old-age makeup. Estragon's cinched robe,
patterned with faded reptilian checks, leaves part of his chest
exposed, the bony ribs emphasized by makeup. He has wide
cuffed sleeves, too long, that he flourishes with much the same
bravado as Vladimir does his water sleeves. His baggy calflength boots, with curled up points at the toes, appear to have
lain in centuries of wet garbage. During much of the action,
he plays barefoot, his abandoned boots giving mute testimony
to life's struggle. He too wears a ragged turban, distinguished
from Vladimir's by an insouciant topknot. His hair, similar to
Vladimir's, is complemented by long thin white eyebrows, dangling to his chest. The white makeup on his chin and upper lip
hints at whiskers and clown.

7
photo courtesy contemporary legend theatre

of Pozzo and Lucky, who use the apron for entrances and exits, the stage fills with more light. During these extended sequences of odd social intercourse, Lin warms and mottles the
platform, then gradually introduces long blue shadows as the
scene draws to a close. As Pozzo and Lucky exit, the warmth
starts to bleed away, and by the time a melody played on the
qin has broken mid-phrase, the tramps are left alone in the
dwindling blue light, singing of the passage of time. The small
light from the tree reemerges briefly on the increasingly mottled floor. When the Boy enters on the apron, the platform is
swathed in deep blue, except for a pale blue glow in the corner
that he steps into. After his departure, we gradually become
aware of the crescent moon upstage, and two avenues of cold
light appear at center as Estragon leaves his boots silhouetted
on the apron. Almost immediately the light and the moon fade
away, leaving the tramps visible only in skeletal highlights on
their hair and the lighter parts of their costumes. The tree light
appears again, then the light from the opening in the scrim in
which they entered. Again, we see their frozen long shadows in
the long blue rectangle of light, the tree above them, the silhouette of the boots below the platform; then, to the strains of the
qin, all fades to black.
Approaching the costumes for Contemporary Legend's
Godot, Huang Wen-Ying asked herself about the title character's identity, concluding that the question has no answer.
Vladimir and Estragon are "two old men who have become impatient with life but find no way out." Having seen all there is to
see, they are surrounded by emptiness. "I have always felt that
they are waiting for death," says Huang. "However, Death never
shows up and along comes a child. The contrast creates a sense
of absurdity. These dual relationships of imbalance and contrast, repeated and exaggerated in the play, became the basic
concepts of my design." Following these concepts, she chose
not to draw the costumes from a specific historical period but
"to depict a general flavor of the classical orient with a certain
sense of modernity."
As Wu Hsing-Kuo notes, Huang's costumes for Vladimir
and Estragon pay tribute to both the clowns and beggars of
Chinese opera and recall "the theatrical convention of dressing poor characters in patched rich garments." Fabulous fabric
sculptures, they certainly convey both imbalance and contrast.
In their bulky, floor-length attire, which seems to consist of
nothing but rags, the tramps suggest water and earth, Vladimir
in shades of blue, Estragon in grays and browns with white accents (figure 5). Both wear shapeless trousers that may once
have been full-length but now have long tatters, revealing a
good deal of bare leg. Vladimir wears a loose shirt, its dangling
"water sleeves" hanging through the cuffs of his open robe, the
remains of a yarn scarf at his neck. His tattered robe has the
vestiges of an elegant collar and layers of patches and pockets
that appear as crusty excrescences. Its principal pattern of long
pale blue streaks suggests the walls of a damp basement. Shod
in decaying black slippers, he wears a ragged, turban like hat
over his full head of long gray hair, which is tied back except

Pozzo's shiny black helmet suggests the mating of Darth
Vader with a cape buffalo (figure 7). His red, white, and blue
face paint joins circus clown to Chinese opera. His bald pate is
fringed with lavender hair, and a rusty red beard hangs ear to
ear beneath his chin. Huang has translated the overcoat suggested by Beckett into a full-length sleeveless robe in black fur
with white trim. He has lost the robe when he returns, blind, in
Act II. Beneath it he wears voluminous ankle-length pantaloons
in aubergine satin and a rich red-brown cut velvet doublet with
huge dangling triangulated sleeves. From a thin girdle at his
waist hangs a long, pointed white satin panel, embroidered and
bordered in black, at the top of which he stashes his tasseled
pipe. Rather than the spectacles specified by Beckett, he carries a magnifying glass in an inner pocket of his robe. Black
slippers with white platform soles complete his larger-than-life
appearance, half bandit nobleman, half buffalo demon king.
In contrast, Lucky seems weighted down by his servitude,
his shoulders stooped, his arms dangling in simian fashion.
Perhaps a captured barbarian, he wears black slippers, gaiters,
knee britches, and a wrap-around tunic. This drapes over his

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2009

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2009