After an initial discussion about staging the play with a greyscale colour code as the makeup artist my mind went directly to mime makeup and makeup used during the silver screen era of Hollywood.
Both mime and silent screen makeup are designed to emphasise the facial expression of the performer. On a practical level this would enable our expressions to be seen from the back row but also meant the smallest of facial movements, or lack of, becomes amplified – linking to my carnival and clown ideas of Woyzeck.
- Ok, so Ms. Leigh wasn’t a silent movie actress… shh you!
However, this isn’t to say I had one idea and stuck to it. In my research I also looked at makeup worn by Geishas, the Beijing Opera and Kabuki as they are of a similar white and black theme but use a limited colour palette to extend the mask. The research into Geisha was primarily for Sam’s character as she plays all female roles.
While on the subject of the female characters; in the event that we wanted the makeup more naturalist I also looked a portraits from the 1830s and 40s. Considering that in the previous century, notoriously to vice and licentiousness, makeup had been widely used by the aristocracy – white lead paint, black beauty marks to cover pox scars and little butterfly lips similar to Geisha – in the 1800s there was a move for a more natural appearance.
As you can see in the portrait above it would appear she is wearing little to no makeup. After a heavy makeup period there was a preference for women to appear fresh faced (think Jane Austen), and even the pinkness of their cheeks was made by pinching themselves rather than blotting on rouge. It was a very virginal look and totally different from the rococo that had come before.
Above is the first experiment with Sam’s makeup. Without time to go offstage to change makeup I had to make something which would work with the virtuous Minna, the dance for Leonce and Lena and an unfaithful Marie. I can’t back this up with historical fact but I would assume that at some point Buchner would have come in contact, whether through portraits or backstreet theatre performances, with the aforementioned Rococo style. Not only would the makeup work as gender defining during the dance but the link between the images conjured by that sort of Georgian, French aristocrat makeup and Marie’s infidelity in Woyzeck added some weight to Marie’s character. The black makeup was also discreet enough to go unnoticed during her Minna scenes.
For the rest of the characters it was somewhat simpler. Sylvia was adamant that she be given a moustache and since Buchner had one in real life I couldn’t argue. For the performance we decided that she be given a thin point goatee similar to mine (see picture below) as it was more caricature like. I also put a lot of focus on the mouths by only applying a thick black outline while leaving the middle of the lips bare. This created contrast between face, lip line and lip and emphasises the shape made by the performer’s mouth.
I applied a similar affect with Naomi’s makeup though without a moustache as we thought it would be inappropriate for Leonce who is/was too young to have fully developed proper facial fuzz. To combat the lack of uniqueness I opted to give Naomi some smile lines based on the idea again of Leonce being the young lover and that Friedrich was the more optimistic of Buchner’s friends.
Last but not least me! I do have a thing about appearing as the villain. Strictly speaking in the script there is no villian except for Robespierre…who I played… and, although facilitate Woyzeck’s downfall, none of the characters in Woyzeck are truly evil. So sinister is perhaps the better word for my makeup. Unlike the others I didn’t raise the height of the eyebrows, instead I drew them on, roughly the same place as my own, and brought them down the bridge of my nose to created a furrowed look – a little intimidating when not making a ridiculous face like in the photo – and similar to Naomi’s smile lines I drew in frown lines. The Dick Dastardly goatee was an attempt to masculinise my face but when thinking of silent movies my mind jumped to the old cliche of the damsel in distress being hog-tied to the train tracks by the moustached villain. Therefore…
