THEATRICAL COSMETICS: MAKING FACE, MAKING “RACE”

By Jessica Clark

eno_as_Sister_Anne_1901 In the world of British theatre, nothing marks the holiday season like the
annual pantomime. A traditional panto features all the requisite elements of family entertainment:
a wicked villain, slapstick that delights both young and old, and, perhaps most importantly, the
archetypal dame, a male actor in female costume. While all panto characters wear some form of
makeup, the pantomime dame’s overdrawn brows, gaudy eye shadow, and exaggerated lips are especially
emblematic of this particular theatrical form. Despite evoking feminine beauty traits, the dame is
embellished to the point of farce.


Theatrical makeup like that of the Dame has a long history in the Anglo world, dating back to
Elizabethan productions on the south shore of the Thames. By the late nineteenth century, actors
created their stage looks using greasepaint, a major development in modern theatrical makeup.
Greasepaint was a German innovation created and refined by two different theatre men. Endeavouring
to conceal the seam of his wig in the 1860s, Carl Baudin of the Leipziger Stadt Theatre first mixed
a concoction of yellow ochre, zinc white, vermillion, and lard. By 1873, Ludwig Leichner, a Berlin
chemist who moonlighted as an opera singer, marketed a stick greasepaint that would become
ubiquitous in the theatre world.


But what did theatrical performers use before the invention and marketing of commercial
greasepaint? Actors relied on a range of time-honoured techniques to provide coverage and
illumination in the glare of nineteenth-century footlights. At times, common cosmetics were used to
fashion looks for the stage: vermillion for rouging the cheeks, Indian ink for contouring the eyes
or eyebrows, and violet powder for refining the complexion. But it was also possible to alter
recipes for run-of-the-mill paints to make them suitable for the theatre. For example, “Rouge de
Theatre” was created from “Rouge Vegetal” – a natural concoction of safflowers and carbonate of
soda – by adding mucilage of gum tragacanth, which hardened the rouge into a dry, vivid powder.


In other cases, actors relied on ingredients better suited to the chemist’s laboratory than a
dressing room. No actor’s makeup kit was without powders like dry whiting (finely powdered chalk),
burnt umber (calcified brown earth used as a pigment), and fuller’s earth (a hydrous silicate of
alumina). Actors mixed such powders with grease or lard to create vibrant unguents, which they
applied to the face. By the mid-nineteenth century, enterprising businessmen sold these powders as
part of elaborate “Make-Up Boxes,” but individual ingredients were as readily available at the
local druggist.


Yet, theatrical powders and paints were not merely used to brighten the cheeks and highlight the
lips. English theatrical guides of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries highlight
other, problematic cosmetic practices that were, until quite recently, common in the Anglo theatre
tradition. White actors dominated the profession and relied on makeup to “transform” into
characters of different ethnicities. Theatrical guides from the period foreground this history,
offering detailed instructions on “making up” the Othered face. Guides included step-by-step
processes for creating “the distinctive colourings of the English, Italians, Japanese, Indians, or
Africans,” simultaneously eliding race, nationality, and ethnicity.


Cosmetic recipes and techniques were key to fashioning these stereotyped “national” looks. To
create “Indian” characters, for example, actors mixed lard with a pigment known as “Mongolian” to
produce a light brown colour for the face and hands (“Mulattoes may be treated in the same matter,”
suggested one American author). To portray black characters, actors used lumps of burnt cork “as
large as a hazel nut,” which were reduced with water and applied to the face with both hands. By
the early twentieth century, the racial underpinnings of theatrical makeup were codified in
commercial greasepaint sticks; the lightest shade was known as “No. 1: Very pale flesh colour,”
while Nos. 18 through 20 were characterized as “East Indian, Hindoos, Filipino, Malays, etc.,”
“Japanese,” and “Negroes,” respectively.


Ultimately, theatre functioned as a site of fantasy in the modern Anglo world, whisking audiences
away from the drudgery of daily life. Theatrical makeup was central to the construction of this
fantasy, and actors became masters at creating illusion via powder and paint. At times, such
illusions had the potential to challenge dominant social and gender norms, as in the case of the
late-Victorian dame with her pencilled brows. However, as the creation of “national” looks
suggests, theatrical makeup also functioned to reify essentialized notions of race and nationality
circulating in the Anglo imperial world.

panto

                   mim (slang)

requisite

                   nezbytný

overdrawn

                   přehnaný

gaudy

                   křiklavý, nevkusný

emblematic

                   symbolický, typický

embellished

                   ozdobený, zkrášlený

greasepaint

                   divadelní makeup

endeavouring

                   snažící se

to conceal

                   zakrýt

seam

                   šev

concoction

                   směs

vermillion

                   rumělka

lard

                   sádlo

to moonlight

                   pracovat v noci/ na černo/ druhou práci

ubiquitous

                   všudypřítomný

complexion

                   pokožka

run-of-the-mill

                   obyčejný

safflower

                   saflor

mucilage

                   klih

burnt umber

                   pálená umbra

alumina

                   kysličník hlinitý

unguent

                   mast

to foreground

                   zvýraznit

eliding

                   opomínaný

lumps of burnt cork

                   hrudky páleného korku

underpinning

                   podstata, základ

respectively

                   v tomto pořadí

drudgery

                   dřina

to reify

                   zkonkrétnit

essentialized

                   základní