Lucie Minty
Specialist Practice
Witches in Different Contexts
Wicked
I looked at the theatre performance of Wicked as it has one of the most famous witches in the performance, 'Elphaba' known as the 'Wicked Witch of the West' from the 1939 film 'The Wizard of Oz'.
Her appearance in the performance is very traditional with the green skin, black witch hat and long dark hair. Although unlike in the film she doesn't have a big nose or chin, instead is very attractive. Her face has been contoured and eyes have been enhanced. This could be due to the fact in the theatre performance you sympathies with the character where as in the film she is portrayed as the villain.
For my witch character I want to stay away from the traditional appearance of the witch. I am going to have to consider what role in the film I want her to have (If she's good or evil) as from my research this has a big effect on the hair and makeup and final image of the character.
In the image to the left is an image of characters Elphaba and Glinda the "good and bad witch" The comparison when they are stood next to each other signify good and evil which the play is based on people judging Elphaba by her green appearance and associating her with evil and someone to be afraid of.
wicked.wikia.com
wicked.wikia.com
variety.com
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Matthew Bourne's
Sleeping Beauty, A Gothic Romance
I also looked at the ballet version of Sleeping Beauty, the performance is quite dark with witch and vampire inspired characters. The play appears to be targeted towards an older audience with the dark gothic interpretation of the classic story Sleeping Beauty. Although this performance still has a fairy tail like theme to it like the theatre performance of Wicked everything about it is much darker and haunting, making it clear it isn’t targeted towards the same younger audience as Wicked.
The hair and makeup is very theatrical with the dark makeup and elaborate hair. I looked in particular at the character interpretation of the role of Maleficent from the film. There is no resemblance to the hair and makeup from the original Disney Sleeping Beauty film (1959) although she does appear to be very dark and witch like with the dark eye and lip makeup and dark hair. Her hair and makeup along with her dark red and black costume is a big signifier to the audience that this character is evil.
The Witches
In first year we went to The Globe theatre and watched Shakespeare's play Macbeth. This play has three iconic witches who have been adapted and recreated in other films like the three witches in Hercules and Percy Jackson. In these films just like in the Macbeth play all the witches are blind and use a eye to tell the future.
During this play adaptation the witches are completely human looking but have a slight voodoo influence with regards to their clothes and makeup. There was what appeared to be white powder/paint on their hands and face. This is a quick visual way to clearly distinguish the witches from the people for theatre.
The witches in this theatre performance appear to be for a much older audience than the witches in the performance of 'Wicked'. The costumes are a lot less elaborate and the makeup is a lot more minimalistic and natural. It looks a lot more true to a modern voodoo cult.
My images from the Witch Craft Museum:
Macbeth
Here is the witches chant from Macbeth. The chant includes various animal sacrifice, which has been a common recurrence when researching into witchcraft and voodoo.
As I am planning on creating a character suitable for a 12 rated film and after research understand that this means it needs to be suitable for 12+ children so I wanted to have a look at how witches were illustrated in books. There were many different books for children, teenagers and adults which included witches in, so found it difficult to know where to start looking, so started with one of the most famous stories I knew from being a child, Roald Dahl 'The Witches' This book illustrates the witches to be un attractive and scary to children. On the cover of the book the head witch has a traditional pointed witches nose and long black hair while the others behind her are all bold, quite plain and have crooked/pointed noses as well. Throughout the book there are various illustrations of the witches dressed as their human identity and as the ugly monster looking witch disguised under the mask, representing witches as being evil and something to be afraid of to children.
To expand my knowledge of how witches are represented in different contexts and to different aged audiences I looked at a variety of performances and interpretations of the witch character and looked how the different contexts portrayed the image of the 'Witch'.
The Classic Image of a Witch
To the left is a cartoon drawing of a witch from Punch magazine in 1911. This image in my opinion is the stereotypical image of a classic witch with the black hat and cat, pointed nose and chin and dark out of control hair. This image of a witch is used a lot in children's books and older films which include witches in. The image of the 'witch' has developed over the years but a lot of images and characters of witches still use some of these classic stereotypes associated with witchcraft. This might be so the audience instantly recognise the image/character as a witch.
Marshall, R. (1998). Witchcraft: The history and mythology - Richard Marshall - hardcover - only from B&N books. Barnes & Noble Books.