Costume Centre Stage: Re-membering Ellen Terry (1847–1928)

Abstract

Resurrecting the DeadThere is something uncanny about a costume on display: though inanimate, it is a garment which insists on the absent body. Indeed, the mannequin and its 'shroud' are consciously employed to resurrect the absent or deceased performer(s) who once inhabited it. To suggest that curators are engaged in resurrecting the dead, risks conjuring up images of body snatching, séances and melodrama. Whilst this evokes an atmosphere of dramatic spectacle appropriate to a discussion of theatre costume in the late nineteenth century, the spirits under consideration in this chapter have no malicious intent. To summon these benevolent spirits, costumes, rather than Ouija boards are required: these are, after all, garments which carry 'magic' in their fibres.Sybil Thorndike felt a particular reverence for costumes worn by her fellow actress Ellen Terry declaring that:Ellen's stage clothes became such a part of her that some magic seemed to belong to them. I know her daughter Edith Craig never liked them being cleaned, she said it spoilt them and the magic went out of them. 1