As audiences watch Turnblad, they’re going to comply with her transformation from an insecure, stay-at-home mother to a assured lady who believes she is gorgeous and worthy of affection and acceptance. In a means, Edna’s evolution has parts of a drag transformation — intentional or not — that add extra layers and dimension to her character.
“It is the ability of another person believing in you. And I feel that goes for a Drag Race fan or Drag Race aficionado myself,” Levitt explains. “You get to see that each season the place we see folks actually embrace their drag. Or in flip, actually embrace themselves. With Edna, we see that by means of her strains — that is Edna actually embracing herself.”
However the dialogue is barely a part of the story. Just like drag, Levitt’s transformation into Turnblad begins with make-up. Levitt identifies as a person, however it’s by means of the ability of make-up that he is capable of painting the character of Edna in such an genuine means. “Make-up is essentially the most highly effective storytelling device in my arsenal earlier than I stroll on stage and that is the identical with drag,” Levitt says when describing his craft.
Levitt shaved off his eyebrows to make Edna’s character really feel extra genuine. If he solely blocked his brows as many queens do, it could have taken away from the phantasm of the “dwelling, respiration lady” he’s working so onerous to create for the viewers. A forehead cowl would add one other layer to look previous with the intention to see Turnblad for who she actually is.
As Turnblad’s character evolves all through the play, her make-up follows go well with to additional illustrate this variation. “Once I’m beginning the present, Edna is closely contoured and shadowed. Her look will not be very welcoming — it is darkish and unhappy as a result of she hasn’t seen the sunshine in so a few years,” Levitt says. “Nonetheless, because the present continues, I am redoing the form of my eye to indicate how her character is letting the sunshine in and is now seeing the world in a different way.”
Levitt shared a few of his favourite merchandise that he makes use of to carry Edna’s transformation to life on stage. Relating to Edna’s eyes, Levitt often sticks to the identical colour story for your complete present. “Often, it’s totally in step with both a Morphe palette or MAC brown shadow that progresses all through the present. We go from a blue, to a purple-red, after which a purple-like burgundy, and at last, for the tip of the present, it is a vivid pink.”
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