Costume design by Hugh Stevenson for Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra in a programme of scenes from Shakespeare, British Council tour, early 1950s

Costume design by Hugh Stevenson for Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, showing a full length front facing female figurewearing Elizabethan style dress in deep rose red with pink orange petticoat with bistre and purple bands to the hem. Around the neck is a bold flat black collar, fringed in bistre and decorated with ovals in ochre yellow with deep rose red centres, edged with bistre dots and at the lower edge a wavy mauve line; a matching deep band is worn on the left wrist. Across the body from the left shoulder is a transparent stole in palest yellow green with orange pink motifs and from the right shoulder hangs a trail of orange pink forming a puff sleeve at the top. The design is inscribed with the name of the role and is signed and dated.
The ochre paint is used to indicate gold braid or metal.

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

This is one of 25 designs by Hugh Stevenson for a programme of excerpts from Shakespeare devised for a British Council tour in the early 1950s. It was performed by a small company led by Walter Fitzgerald and called for costumes that would clearly indicate the different characters while allowing for quick changes. This Stevenson achieved by creating a basic costume in the Elizabethan style for each actor to which were added robes, tunics, overdresses or accessories.
The designs are part of the collection that came to the Museum from the dance historian and publisher Cyril Beaumont and may originally have formed part of the London Archives of the Dance.

Historical significance: A group of designs showing how a designer solves the problem of creating costumes for a programme of extracts from various Shakespeare plays (which means allowing for quick changes), by creating several basic costumes which can be adapted, or to which accessories can be added, to indicate specific characters

S.163-2000