A musical you’re sure to get a kink out of
Birrie le Roux on why costume designing is no drag
HOT on the heels of designing the set and the costumes for the acclaimed production of Kunene and the King, Birrie le Roux is hard at work on the musical Kinky Boots.
This award-winning production comes to the Fugard Theatre next month and promises to be a swashbuckler of a show with 27 cast members, dance, superb acting and colourful costumes.
Le Roux straddles two worlds as costume designer for stage and film. She has been responsible for designing a host of shows going back to the 1980s.
If you cast your mind back to some of the more recent stage shows, Le Roux’s name is the one that appears in the programme as the costume designer: Shakespeare in Love; King Kong; Funny Girl; Marat Sade, Endgame and movies like Johnny is nie Dood Nie.
It’s fascinating to talk to Le Roux, who studied theatre design at the University of Pretoria.
She began work on Kinky Boots more than year ago. She explains it’s an enormous challenge as two worlds co-exist in the show – the world of drag and the world of a shoe factory.
The storyline centres on Charlie Price, who has reluctantly inherited his father’s shoe factory, Price & Son, which happens to be on the verge of bankruptcy. Trying to save the family business, Charlie finds inspiration in the form of Lola, a colourful entertainer in need of some sturdy stilettos. Together they work to turn the factory around and find they have more in common than they ever imagined. This feel-good musical brings with it the message that when you change your mind about someone, you can change your world.
Inspired by true events, it was first brought to life on the big screen in 2005 before being transformed into a stage show, winning six Tony and three Olivier awards.
Le Roux refers to it as a massive work and says that, as with each show she commits to, she reads the script and then rereads it, picking up on the nuances and what it involves.
Here it’s a big undertaking with a large cast and three different versions of some of the same characters.
She needs to inspire the utilitarian garb of the factory workers and then the more glitzy outfits of the drag queens.
She shows me drawings of her visions and the shoes and amazing boots that will be worn. With high, high heels and platforms, it must be an acrobatic feat to wear them, especially when you are dancing.
Le Roux says there is a gap for her between reading the script and waiting for characters to be cast.
“I love the research and all the stages that go into the design. It’s amazing when you can bring the script and the actor together. I love the design phase and the second phase when you have the fittings and sometimes have to improvise when it doesn’t fit.
“It’s also incredible when the whole thing starts to fall into place; it’s all so uplifting when it comes together. With some people you just know what works on their bodies.”
Le Roux says there have been many highlights in the work she has done and among shows that she has particularly enjoyed designing for is Show Boat, among others.
She says, “It was revived and revived and when it came back about five years ago after touring abroad, I enjoyed the fact that while I had been working in film, people started to notice my stage work again.”
She says Endgame was “just one of the those productions that simply gelled and I also loved the costumes of West Side Story”. For Shakespeare in Love she notes that it was the first time she had to design Elizabethan costumes. “I love the detail in period costumes,” she said.
Kinky Boots offers different challenges but Le Roux says she’s looking forward to seeing it come alive on stage.
It features a score by Cyndi Lauper and the book is by Harvey Fierstein. It’s the winner of a Tony Award for best musical, best original score, and best choreography and a Laurence Olivier Award for best new musical and has played to sold-out houses on Broadway and in the West End since 2013.
Creating the role of Charlie Price is Darren Craig, with Earl Gregory playing drag queen Lola. Namisa Mdlalose is Lauren, Amy Campbell is Charlie’s girlfriend Nicola and Nathan Ro plays Don. The role of Young Charlie will be shared by Alexander Wallace (10), Daniel Wolson (12) and Finn Newham Blake (11), while Young Lola will be performed alternately by Seth Ellis (13), Oswald Pieterse (12) and Travis Turner (9).
Direction is by Matthew Wild, musical direction by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder and choreography by Louisa Talbot.
Kinky Boots will be at The Fugard Theatre from June 11, Tuesdays to Saturdays at 8pm with a matinee performance on Saturdays at 3pm. Sunday matinees at 3pm from June 30. Tickets through the box office at 021 461 4554 or www.thefugard.com