'The Bluest Eye'
Co-Directed by Margaret Laurena Kemp and Janni Younge
Puppets by Janni Younge
Costume Design and Production: Karola Luettringhaus
​
​All photos by Luke Younge
Further description:
The costume design centers around the meaning of color and around the fragility and around the fragility and sensitivity of the material used: paper.

Length: 90 minutes
​Costume Designer's quote:
Analysis of Color in Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye' by Karola Lüttringhaus

Color takes on its own narrative, which can be compared to the double narrative in opera; the text and scene tell one story, but the music itself speaks it's own language and can be decoded precisely to reveal the actual meaning of the piece.

Color is elevated from an illustrative descriptive element to a significant carrier of meaning both historically as well as emotionally and culturally. Morrison tells of the collective pain and reverberation of trauma through a community. Color is perhaps an expression of memory and invisible ties to other, better, more diverse times.

Saumitra Chakravarty in her essay “ The Use of Color Imagery in the Novels of Toni Morrison” describes Morrison as creating a 'mythical African significance of its own' through color. In a place far from the US, color is richly radiant and available. In the US, this is only an undercurrent, like a life-line, an invisible bond. I sense that Toni Morrison draws on African color symbolism to build a bridge to the ancestors and the inherited culture and identity. Chakravarti further states:' Can the colors ‘black’ and ‘red’ be stripped off their horrifying connotations in the slave past and even the comparatively moderate present within the black consciousness?

Within the black-white binary she associates a range of colors not only with racial superiority or inferiority but the social, economic and cultural privileges--or lack thereof-- associated with it. Are forgiveness and peace of mind even possible? There are therefore the ‘neutral’ colors like green, yellow, blue which are able to surmount racial conflict and bring peace to the Black consciousness at war with itself.' I wouldn't say that yellow, green, and blue are neutral, but I would agree that they lessen the impact of the negative colors through the positive aspects. Yellow though is always mentioned in connection with little white girls' hair. Yellow is also mentioned in connection with Cholly: ”he came big, he came strong, he came with the yellow eyes, flaring nostrils and he came with his own music”. Yellow has a certain power, or danger inherent in it. So does orange which is often mentioend in connection with humiliating events. Orange is a perhaps empowering color, a derivative of red. Claudia is mentioned wearing orange in the play, and Claudia does exhibit hatred and destructive behaviour towards white dolls, and white girls. Orange is the color of ember, and the weaker, yet also, soothing and warming, form of fire. “The puke swaddles down the pillow onto the sheet, green-gray with flecks of orange. It moves like the insides of an uncooked egg.” Adding specks of orange to green puke adds warmth as well as pain to a sickness that is endured often and for long periods of times. History and future merge, spinning an entanglement of meaning and personal suffering. Colors are used symbolically which gives them the power of adding and altering the meaning of scenes. At times, the color imagery is sickening, at other times it is elating. Color tells its own story. Knowing about the color symbolism will open up a whole new novel to discover. 

The white of the specs on fingernails, or the brown specs of decay on tooth enamel, heightens the reader's awareness to the severity of the impact of racism, its internalization. In western culture, white is the presence of color, of all colors, and this metaphor translates to opportunities in life. All life has to offer is reserved for white people. Black is the absence of color, and the absence of opportunities.

Early in the book we read: 'We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seed in his own plot of black dirt.' This statement is cruel and harsh and speaks of pain deeply rooted and beyond comprehension. The first person narrator, Claudia, almost obsessively uses color to illustrate the emotional and psychological state of situations, their larger affects on the social network and the intimate lives of the characters. She uses color to tie current day events to lineage and spirituality.

Color is used to signal the outcomes of events. The persistent mention of colors makes the reader also aware of the arbitrariness of society's rules and color order.

Color is another player in the narrative, sometimes God's interference, sometimes nature, sometimes spirits. The profound mistakes we make as humans in understanding and interpreting the world around us leads to pain and suffering and to the futile desire of a little girl to think differently of herself, and to see the world through white eyes. In a world of black and white everything that is beautiful is overlooked. Blue Eyes Attaining blue eyes, sure, means wanting to be white, but to me it is equivalent to going blind and denying every fiber within oneself.

​Pecola goes blind. She attains blue eyes but nobody else can see them, and she is blinded to the world around her, to her own reality, and to her own worth.
Set-up:
More background and process: ​
Length:
90 minutes
Supported by:
And private donors.
 

UC Davis website about 'The Bluest Eye'
​