Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1178754
Fall 2019 The Costume Designer 39 The Peacock's plumes are in the finest fabrics with tailor- ing that looks like it was cut with a scalpel. His strut is that of a dancer, always thinking three steps ahead so as not to muddy his polished shoes. Nothing has too much glitter, no color or pattern is too loud. The Peacock doesn't just pop on screen. He explodes. He preens and prances, but affects not to notice that everyone notices. Ruth E. Carter's depic- tion of Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) for Dolemite Is My Name puts the urban in urbane. When Julian Day portrayed Elton John (Taron Egerton) in Rocketman, he took on a char- acter who made actual peacocks look plain. Marie France and Louis Wells curated Prince's many incarnations in film and video so they hit every color of the rainbow, but made purple reign. Dressing to excess wasn't just the goal for Costume Designer Ariyela Wald-Cohain on Sherman's Showcase, it was the starting point. Dressing Sherman McDaniels (Bashir Salahuddin) was an exercise in extremes in which over the top was just right. "Somebody would show me something and the crew would get excited because it was so crazy and sparkly. And I would say, 'Is that too much?' And they would say, 'Nothing on Sherman's Showcase is too much.'" The premise of the show is freedom, and it is in embracing the ridiculous that the Peacock can truly stretch his wings. "One of the delightful things about comedy as a medium is you can use visual language to make the comedy even fun- nier," adds Wald-Cohain. That humor is heightened by the way the character embraces his costumes until it becomes infused with his personality so that he's "in character" even when not on stage. "Even off screen in some interviews with him, I gave him this really beautiful blue robe and he wears a colorful ascot and these fluffy, leopard slippers." But as outlandish as his costumes get, they never take over the performer, which may be the secret essence of the Peacock. He dresses to draw attention, of course, but ultimately, that attention goes to him as a performer. "They didn't want it to look like he's wearing costumes. As crazy as they are visually, the clothes are not wearing him, he is wearing the clothes." THE PEACOCK Photo: IFC Bashir Salahuddin as Sherman McDaniels.