Not Just a Costume

Spore and Fossum bring to light the different functions and types of costumes; these are more commonly associated within today’s theatre community and in the past century.  However, in the past era’s, costumes not only incorporated Spore’s three functions but they were the audiences only visual aside from the actors.  According to the website The History of Theatre: Costumes, “When plays began being performed, even through Shakespearean times, there were never props, backdrops, or other decorations to show the audience where the play was taking place (History of Theatre, paragraph 1).”  Since there were no forms of visual elements, the actors relied heavily on costumes to help the audience understand the play’s and to clearly express the time period, time of day, and etc.