Tag Archives: Reenacting

“Exteriorizing,” or, Showing the Past: Part I

15 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by in History, Living History, Reenacting

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This guest post was written by Sharon Burnston. Sharon and I will be co-teaching an interactive workshop on first person impressions this June. “Exteriorizing” is an important part of developing an impression that works not just to represent a character, but to tell a story. Part II will appear tomorrow.

John Gilmary Shea, The Story of a Great Nation (New York: Gay Brothers & Company, 1886)after 444, says "page 475" University of South Florida clip art collection.

John Gilmary Shea, The Story of a Great Nation (New York: Gay Brothers & Company, 1886)after 444, says “page 475” University of South Florida clip art collection.

The first time I was ever “abducted” at a living history event was during an F&I scenario 35 years ago. I was dragged off into the bushes by scary looking strangers, and it was all very well researched and convincing.

But one thing I realized, upon reflection afterward, is that a really accurately portrayed scenario isn’t always in all ways the “best” scenario, for the participants or the public. In real situations that are terrifying, the usual physiological/behavioral responses are those described as Flight, Fight or Freeze. That’s what real people do when that sort of thing really happens. At the time I was abducted by “the French and the Indians”, I put myself into the moment, imagined how I would really feel if it were actually happening, and I froze. I portrayed terror so well, my abductors looked at me oddly, wondering if I was okay. But y’know what? The spectators, standing 30 feet or more away, couldn’t see my face, couldn’t hear my shallow breathing, and they got nothing out of it.

The Abduction of Daniel Boone's Daughter by the Indians. oil on canvas by Carl Wimar, 1853. Washington University Kemper Art Museum. Gift of John T. Davis, Jr., 1954 WU 4335

The Abduction of Daniel Boone’s Daughter by the Indians. oil on canvas by Carl Wimar, 1853. Washington University Kemper Art Museum. Gift of John T. Davis, Jr., 1954
WU 4335

I realized that I had actually failed to do justice to the interpretive moment, I should have done something less lifelike and more communicative. I should have screamed for help, in detail, loudly, and at length. In real life, this would have been a risky thing for a captive to do, but in a reenactment interpretive setting, it would have been useful. I mean, I knew precisely why my character was terrified, but did the public? If I had screamed and carried on, it would have given me an opportunity to put into words what the 18c abducted woman knew about what was going to happen to her. It would have been a better scenario in terms of educating the public if I had, in a word, exteriorized what my character was feeling into words, for everyone present to hear.

The problem with my having learned this sort of thing experientially and so long ago, is that I tend to blithely assume that other folks whom I regard as skilled 18c role players also know it, because to me it is by now so obvious.

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Last summer I participated in a brilliant re-creation of a different kind of abduction, a reenactment of the British naval press gang that abducted American sailors out of Newport RI harbor in 1765. Over 60 of us from all across New England worked hard for months to research and develop our impressions in order to make this event as convincing and accurate as we could. For the most part, we succeeded magnificently. But I came away dissatisfied and I think some of the public I talked to did also. That was a helluva scenario, meticulously planned and carried out, and we did it so well! But I think we could have done it one or two notches better, and here is why I think so.

First person role playing has far more of theater about it than perhaps we living historians care to admit. Drawing upon theatrical strategies can allow us to better communicate our knowledge to the audience, by exteriorizing our characters’ thoughts or feelings into dialogue the public can hear, even if doing so might slightly violate the strictest historical purity of our role playing. After all, don’t we claim to be doing this in order to educate the public?

The strategy I have in mind is the collaborative trick referred to in improvisational theater as “Yes, and”.

“Yes, and…” refers to a basic concept in improv theater. If a participant throws a gambit at you, don’t shut it down. Accept it, whatever it is (“Yes”) and then add something of your own (“and…”) to expand on the idea and keep it going. “Yes” means being receptive to the contributions of others. “And” means offering something back, to further the collaborative process.

How would this notion apply to a living history role playing scenario? Stay tuned to find out!

My Life as a Chair, or, Warm in Winter

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Clothing, History, Living History, Making Things

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Can I get an “Aw, yiss” for being warm outdoors?

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After the aftermath. Photo by Drunk Tailor.

They may not be the most accurate <cough>machinestitchedoffabolt<cough> quilted petticoat and waistcoat, but they sure do make a difference.

These aren’t exactly base layers– a white wool flannel shift would not be amiss–but the quilted layers make a big difference to a day in the cold. When I added up the layers, I came to 8 without counting accessories like neck handkerchiefs and stockings:

  • Shift
  • Stays
  • Waistcoat
  • Lightweight Wool Petticoat
  • Heavy Wool Petticoat
  • Quilted Petticoat
  • Gown and Stomacher
  • Cloak
The underneaths. Photo thanks to Drunk Tailor.
The insides.

It isn’t always pretty, but in cold, wet weather, function trumps fashion (not that I’m not pretty pleased with this upholstery). The waistcoat ties on, so you have some adjustment should your weight or shape fluctuate. The petticoat, in this case, works like every other petticoat, with the sole exception of a short pocket slit on one side due to operator impatience (this was finished just a few days before it needed to be packed for Princeton).

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Thanks to Drunk Tailor for more patience.

The quilted fabric (originally intended, I am sure, for a bedspread) is lined with a plain weave wool for extra insulation and body; the waist band is bound with wool tape, as is the hem. Down in the basement, there’s a camblet- wool batting- linen lining sandwich on a frame, ready for quilting, if I only I would drag it up stairs and start, and I know it would be both more insulating and more accurate.

Does it all fit? Well…pretty much! An open robe with stomacher makes it easier to fit all these layer underneath, and, happily, I don’t have the best sense of my own size, so my clothes tend to be a little bigger than they must be. Fortunately, historical clothing generally involves adjustable closures that make fluctuations and layering easy to accommodate.

After Anna B’s and Anna K’s comments on the overview of the event, I was reminded that these are the confessions of a known bonnet-wearer, and I will humiliate self for history, so in case you are wondering: no, I didn’t wear drawers of any kind, or leggings, or long underwear. A pair of silk stockings under a pair of wool stockings kept my lower extremities warm, but my nethers were sometimes chilly, in a highly specific, localized, but small way. I think this may be where the wool shift comes in– or one that fits a bit better than my current garment, which is a tad too large.

On the porch at Morven, a range of head coverings. Photo by Matt White

On the porch at Morven, a range of head coverings. Photo courtesy Matt White

When it comes to ears, you can see that we adopted a range of solutions. Ear-covering caps under bonnets, under straw hats, and under kerchiefs, were worn by some. At far left, my cap perched on top of my head, so I tied my bonnet on with a kerchief and pulled my hood over all of that. Mistress V (at far right) wore a cap, a kerchief and a hat (which was summarily removed in the afternoon, by Mistress S at her left). Mistress F, holding the cream colored blanket with a wide black stripe, wore a wool hood over a cap and under her straw hat. Wear enough layers– and the right layers, meaning mostly wool and silk– and you will be warm, perhaps even sweaty if you’re active. Still, I might trade in my “Hobo Woman of Princeton” look for a quilted silk hood if the right one came along.

Fashion, Fantasy, and Intention

13 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by in Art Rant, Clothing, Living History, material culture

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Fort-based: as military as I get.

Fort-based: as military as I get.

I am not a costumer, not really. But I’m not really a re-enactor in the classical sense: I no longer roll with a military unit and my military experiences are typically fort-based domestic activities. My favorite events have me representing women’s work in the past, the quotidian experiences of ordinary people. Documentation is my thing: what happened on a particular day, in a particular place. Who was there? What were typical clothes? The foods in season? The gossip of the day?

A Lady's Summer Promenade Dress, 1800.

A Lady’s Summer Promenade Dress, 1800.

And yet. Everything I do is really a fantasy, even when it’s work. We are not [yet, always] using the actual words people spoke or wrote. We typically inhabit characters who are grounded in fact but for whom we do not have full documentation. We are representations. We are playing, more than we are being.

I could easily be persuaded to take a walk along a sea wall  or coast to collect seaweed samples for pressing. This would inch me into Austen territory, especially if my friends will join me. I’ve even gone to the lengths of acquiring an appropriate hat, and to make another gown is but nothing in the pursuit of happiness.

Mary Gunning, Countess of Coventry. Jean-Étienne Liotard,.

Woman in a Turkish interior Pastel on vellum, Jean-Étienne Liotard, 1749. Museum of Art and History, Geneva.

If I could truly be a fabulist, I might be tempted to adopt a style a la Turque, for a portrait by Copley or for my paramour. This portrait by Liotard– who was known for his Ottoman works—  is a great temptation, with her patterned overdress and belt with golden clasps, though she is thirty-three years earlier than The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart’s comedic and trendy 1782 opera.

If I made myself a Turque (and Reader, it is tempting though useless), I will confess it would be for the multiple pleasures of wearing it, knowing why it had been worn in the past, and for the pleasure of having it taken off me. Because we forget what the European fascination with exoticism and Orientalism meant: they meant sex. The Abduction itself is, in essence, a tale of sex trafficking.

And that is something we do forget about the past, that the clothing we adopt as we portray the past had meaning– sometimes a meaning we miss, when we layer costume upon clothing. Wives and mistresses alike were portrayed a la Turque, and some theorize that this style of portraiture was chosen to portray the sitter in timeless, classic dress. For Copley’s sitters, it was a way to be at the height of London fashion; for Lady Mary Montagu, Turkish dress allowed her to travel freely in the Ottoman Empire. But portraits of women in Turkish dress situated in Turkish interiors were also allusions to polygamy and to sexuality, and there is no way of escaping the fact that paintings of women were largely made for men.

So what, then, of fantasy dressing in the past? What sense can we make of historical representations of “Oriental” fashion? How do we understand what our clothing and our appearance means? Every choice we make is layered with meaning, in the present and in the past.  For women, routinely objectified by society, the meaning of our clothing is particularly important, even when, or perhaps especially, when it is not what we want to focus on.

 

Documented Fantasies

08 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Clothing, Events, History, Living History, Museums, personal, Reenacting, Research

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It was three years ago on a warm August afternoon in the museum room we’d turned into a photo studio when I quipped, “All my fantasies are documented.” It’s been hard to live down ever since.

With Mrs B watching Miss B self-perambulate upon the sidewalk.

With Mrs B watching Miss B self-perambulate upon the sidewalk.

Documentation, research: we all do it, everyone who reads this blog does it. What matters is how you use it– or, maybe even more importantly, how well you understand how you are using your research. This past weekend was the Salem Maritime Festival, and round number three for me in the West India Goods Store (WIGS, which sounds far more political than it is). The year was 1804, and as you may recall, that required a new dress.

Reader, I wore it. And it survived!

Yes, it is made from an IKEA curtain. The pattern is my own, derived from examples in Janet Arnold, at Genesee, and the KCI. Once again, I discovered the power of upper body strength and leverage. It’s not that my stays are too big necessarily. The busk is too long, that I will grant you. But I think the shoulder straps are as well, and the shift– that slattern! She was rolling a la Renaissance Faire, which is completely unacceptable, of course, as she slid down my right shoulder by the end of the day when the shop had been unpacked into the conveyance.

So let us focus on the non-slattern part of the day, when a mercantile enterprise briefly overtook the WIGS.

Behind the Counter

There was some custom, though numerous debts were recorded in the ledger.  (Somehow, there are no images of Mr K sweating over the figures in the book, though I recall them clearly.)

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The shop was hot, but we attempted to stay fed and hydrated, as we discussed the various kinds of goods imported to places like Salem and Providence in 1804. Politics were rather difficult to discuss, as Mr K has a marked antipathy for Mr Jefferson that caused a mild agitation; expanding the country does seem a bold and perhaps unconstitutional move, given the deal Mr Jefferson has struck with Bonaparte, but perhaps this is for the best. The Indians will surely benefit from Christianity and education.*

It’s engaging in the moment, and we’ve done our research. But it’s a fantasy nonetheless, a kind of happening grounded in primary sources and material culture. I’m OK with that– I understand what I am doing– but I wonder sometimes if the people I’m watching on social media understand what they are doing with the fantasies they portray.

 

 

* To be SUPER clear, I’m staying in character here. I worked in Missouri and I have enough understanding of “manifest destiny” to disagree with this point of view.

15 Ways to Have a Bad Living History Event

13 Friday May 2016

Posted by in Events, Snark

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The Enraged Musician. Chaos has a long history, and often I am for it.

The Enraged Musician. Chaos has a long history, and often I am for it. But not always.

For Organizers

  1. Do not advertise. Having no audience makes an event super-lame.
  2. Have no attendance limits on a closed site. Intense crowds and no security makes an event scary. Add alcohol for intensity.
  3. Do not publish participant standards or a schedule. Confusion and laxity breed chaos.
  4. Publish standards, but do not enforce them uniformly. Creating the appearance that standards are only enforced for people you don’t know erodes trust and credibility and discourages participation, reinforcing adolescent clique behavior.
  5. Do not highlight (or provide) participant amenities like water, toilets, or dry firewood.
John Greenwood, Sea Captains Carousing in Suriname. Good times, no?

John Greenwood, Sea Captains Carousing in Suriname. Authentically bad behaviour.

For Participants

  1. Don’t bring your own lunch, water, or powder.
  2. Don’t follow the rules at a new event. Standards are for chumps. Text your friends while minding a rope line and acting as an interpreter.
  3. Get drunk. Who doesn’t love an inebriate around gunpowder? Safety, schmafety. Besides, drunkenness is authentic.
  4. Smoke cigarettes on the field. You can always hide your hand behind your back, next to your cartridge box…what can go wrong? The captain will never notice.
  5. Make critical comments about the public and other reenactors just within their hearing. Don’t smile.

For the Public

The Death of General Wolfe, Benjamin West. NGC

What, no dogs? The Death of General Wolfe, Benjamin West. NGC

  1. Bring a dog. Dogs love guns, drums, and cannons. “Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war,” right?
  2. Ride your bicycle through the crowd. Make disparaging comments about the crowd interrupting your ride.
  3. Touch things and people. Touch reenactors’ tools, weapons, clothes, children, food. Heck, use their tools. It’s not real, it’s history, so it has to be safe–right?
  4. Interrupt people answering your questions, or better yet, someone else’s questions, and answer yourself.
  5. Get drunk, especially on a hot, humid summer day or night.

Stop.

Breathe.

Think.

Then speak or act. Think about what you’re doing. Is it sensible? Is it kind? Is it how you would like to be treated? Does you behaviour foster a pleasant and welcoming environment?

If not, don’t do it.