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Our Country's Good

I worked as designer and maker on Bedlam's 2018 production of Our Country's Good. 

The colour palette I was given for this production was orange and blue, to reflect the land of Australia and the sea. This colour was used to separate the characters into two clear groups, convicts with blue and the Marines with orange. 

The cast multiroled each playing two characters, often one from each group, and were present on stage at all times so costume changes had to happen on stage and without help. They all wore the same simple shirt with a variety of earth toned garments as their base costume and changed key pieces to signify character changes.

 

The Marines were given jackets, made from hand dyed calico, reminiscent of the military jackets worn in the 18th century. These had varying amounts of decoration to distinguish their ranks. Most characters wore cummerbunds which were reversable, orange on one side and blue on the other, which could be flipped to show their change in character. The convicts' blue pieces were printed with a broad arrow, a symbol which was used by the British government to mark their property and was used on some uniforms of convicts in penal colonies.  

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