Here we are in another day of quarantine. There are of course variations. The temperature is warming up, which is inviting. The sour dough starter is on the counter doing the bubble dance. I hope to begin another quilt with some special batiks I have been saving.
It's all quite different than what has been on my calendar since January. Beauty and the Beast was scheduled to open this weekend. But those costumes are themselves trapped at the theater wondering what happened. I had no chance to explain. Twenty silver vests, and twenty blue are lined up and ready with nowhere to go.
Fabric and the garments we construct from it are patient. While it is possible they feel annoyed at the delay, they will be no worse off for the time elapsed between when I first held cloth in my hands and when it finally slips over the well sprayed hair of an actress and swishes onstage.
Belle's dress had already endured a long wait. She hung deep in the storage room, with a dozen other wedding dresses. It is anyone's guess in what decade the bright eyed bride brought her home from the fancy department store. What flowers were nestled against her heart as the young woman whose name I will never know stepped from a solitary life to a shared one?
Somewhere along the line a costumer needed her to be cocktail length, and hastily hemmed her by twelve inches. Luckily for me the seamstress was not so rash as to chop off the excess, and when I found the forgotten gown I could gently pick the stitches and let her relax into past glory. The girl cast as Belle came for a fitting. It could well have been made for her, the seams so nearly matched the lines of her body.
Beast, too, pulled on the velveteen coat, silk vest, and burgundy ascot as if they were bespoken for him.
The plot, if you are not familiar, rests heavily on patience. Beast must wait until a woman finds him worthy of love. Belle is expected to be content with her books and the isolation of living in a palace with but one brusque companion.
Strangely familiar.
