Playbill: Seeing the costumes in Broadway's Job—currently running at the Hayes Theater through October 27—it looks like the characters have just worn their own, regular street clothes. But behind that simplicity is a designer intimately linked with the text and subtext of the play and its characters. See costume designer Michelle J. Li reveal the care that went into her work on the Max Wolf Friedlich play in the video above.
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This is a beautifully articulated peek into the art of costume design. Michelle J. Li takes on the role of dramaturg on top of simply designer in order to make the scene feel like ‘a slice of life’, as if the audience stumbled into the scene by accident. As a collaborator and thinker, Li prioritizes analysis of the script to enrich every detail - especially considering there are only two characters. This is a direct contrast to the director-first culture of American theatre, so it’s refreshing to see its on- and off- Broadway runs. The costume design itself is, as the title states, deceptively simple. The characters dive into a reflective yet incredibly dark journey, and the costumes show the audience that such discussion of mental health is not restricted for the costumed, but open to the ‘mundane’. This is an incredibly important message to share, especially in the time of the post-pandemic.
In Block’s interview with Job designer Michelle J. Li, he emphasizes how he enjoys speaking with her not only as a costume designer, but as a thinker. I think part of the reason it’s so interesting to hear Li talk about her thought process behind Job is because it’s so clearly rooted in thought and character analysis. Although Broadway productions often call for high-budget, glitzy costumes, Job is a lot more nuanced. It is a character-driven story that requires equally nuanced, character-driven costumes. I loved Li’s analogy of treating her costumes like architecture. Because there are only two characters, every choice she makes has to be intentional and justified. I also love how passionate Li seems to be about Job. A costume designer I know told me that designers create their most successful work when they believe in the project. It sounds cliche, but I think Li reflects that really well in the way she speaks and her excitement about her work.
As someone who has always been interested in costume design, I found this video very interesting because I don’t often think about costumes that are ‘plain’ or made up of everyday clothing. When we generally think of a costume, the first thing that comes to mind is a ballgown, or a superhero cape, or something else out of the ordinary and expected. But when Li started explaining how she analyzes the script and the outfits of the characters naturally follows, I began to think about how costuming is so much more than the extravagant outfits and how really every piece of clothing someone puts on each day is a costume in its own way. When you get dressed to go to work, you are presenting a different character of yourself than when you get dressed to go out with friends. If you switched those two outfits, you would appear out of place and it would visually tell a different story. This thought of what fits in the story and works for each character is such an important part of a production. This video really made me think critically about the importance of costuming, even when it isn’t glamorous, and how the same amount of design still goes into the work even when the overall end product is simple.
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