After a viewing of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new spin on Arden of Faversham, it is easy to dismiss the production as merely quirky. From the staging to the physical comedy, the entire production gives off a kitschy, and at times almost tacky, vibe. The costumes especially, can be overlooked as simply designed to enhance the quirky feel of the entire production. However, upon closer inspection, the costumes can serve as a surprisingly accurate shorthand for the morality of the characters. As the play goes on, the characters’ costume changes serve as an indicator of their increased moral bankruptcy.
In the very first scene of the play, we are presented with many characters, the most prominent of which being Alice, the wife of Arden of Faversham. When the audience first sees Alice, her outfit is loud, with the print of her blouse and skirt not entire matching and her jewelry being very bold, but all around fairly put together. As the play goes on, however, Alice’s appearance becomes more and more disheveled. With every appearance of her character, Alice piles on more and more jewelry, culminating in her final scene, where she wearing at least five separate necklaces and as many bracelets on each wrist. This increased gaudiness of her character corresponds nicely with her characterization throughout the play. In the opening scene, a minimal jewelry-wearing Alice wants her husband dead; but when push comes to shove, she prevents him from actually eating the poisoned breakfast she prepared for him. By the time she has piled on all of her jewelry, however, she is ready and willing to stab her husband, which she eagerly does in the final scene.
Other characters we are introduced to in the opening scene are Michael and Susan, employees of the Favershams. In this opening scene, there is very little to distinguish Michael visually from the rest of the factory workers: he is dressed in a basic forest green jumpsuit. Susan, likewise, is very plainly dressed, and almost dowdy looking in her long skirt and loose-fitting shirts. While both are in some ways already guilty at this point, as both know of Alice’s plot to kill her husband, both of them are clearly hesitant and uncomfortable with the idea. By the end scene, however, where both characters assist with the disposal of the body, they are dressed in ways very subtly different from how they were first presented. Michael is now wearing a very bright green jumpsuit, while Susan’s skirt has come up a few inches and her tops have been tied to show of her waist. Most notably about Susan is her makeup. While she is wearing makeup through the entire production, by the final time she steps onto the stage, she is wearing almost clownish face paint. The increasing loudness and ostentatiousness of the two employees’ outfits showcase the increasing levels of moral compromising they are willing to make their mistress happy.
Another example of the increasing ostentatiousness of these two characters can be seen in the gifts that Michael gives to Susan. In the second scene of the play, when Michael is still uncomfortable enough with the idea of murdering Arden that he ultimately foils an attempt on his master’s life, he chooses to send a rather small trinket to Susan: a small windup heart, which parallels the still innocent nature of both characters. Just before he leaves with Susan to dump Arden’s body in the meadow, however, he chooses to propose to Susan with a large, light-up plastic ring, an object that practically oozes tackiness, which serves a nice mirror to how decayed both characters have become ethically.
Some of the characters, however, go through very minimal to no costume change during the course of the play, such as Mosby or Greene. During his initial introduction, Mosby is wearing a bright purple velvet looking suit, which he wears for the entirety of the play. This makes sense, as he does not go through any changes in his morality throughout the play. From the very beginning, it is implied that it was Mosby who first came up with the idea to kill Arden, and Mosby is the one to contact the painter for his assistance in killing Arden. Throughout the entirety of the play, Mosby takes the lead in the actual masterminding for the murder, culminating with him taking the first stab (literally) at Arden. Likewise, Greene does not change out of the head-to-toe logo-print running suit that he is introduced in. Seeing that he is instantly sold on the idea of killing Arden to regain his land and never waivers on this point, there is no need for the character to change his wardrobe to signify a change in his moral standing.
Many of the characters of Arden of Faversham are either almost entirely morally bankrupt, or at least have become so by the final scene of the play, demonstrated by their active encouragement, or at least implicit acceptance, of the idea of murdering another man. The audience is treated to an easy shorthand for how morally gone a character is at any given moment: the more ostentatious their outfit is, the more morally compromised they are, with differences in a character’s outfit between the opening and closing scene demonstrating how morally decayed a character has grown to be.