Early in the Ghosts rehearsal process, Goldstein had put Lily Rabe, who plays Mrs. Alving, in a red dress; he’d outfitted her in a similar shade when he costumed a 2012 production of The Merchant of Venice, in which Rabe was Portia opposite Al Pacino’s Shylock. “This time the red didn’t quite cut it,” Goldstein confessed. “It had been a while since I’d worked in the Newhouse” -- he has done five plays there and won a Tony for a LCT staging of The Rivals, in the Beaumont -- “and I’d forgotten just how intimate the space is. You have to be careful with bright colors.”
The costumes in Ghosts are “shopped”: not built but found online or at stores. “Lily for herself likes to buy things from a place in NoHo called Maison Mayle. I’m grateful to them for their help on this Ghosts and to Lily for putting us on to them.”
Costume design had no Internet sourcing when Goldstein started out. After study at the Yale School of Drama (he later taught there for 30 years), he quickly acquired his first Broadway credit, for a musical called Charlie and Algernon, in 1980. “In those days,” he said, “you started the process on paper, with sketching. These days, even if you do sketches the director isn’t likely to focus as intently on them as they used to. Directors now are used to getting more immediate changes in tech, from lighting or set designers. Costume design has evolved, but you can’t change a look with just a few strokes on a computer keyboard.”
Throughout a varied career, Goldstein has found fittings the most enjoyable part of his process. “Observing how actors react in the mirror when first trying on their costume/clothing is invaluable,” he said. “Even in period clothing you have to believe that their characters would have chosen that garment for themselves.” He added, “I have to outfit the performers so the story can best be told. And I always say: my job is making clothing work on the actor.”
As for costuming the five Ghosts actors, Goldstein said, “Each of them, the two young ones as well as the three veterans, gave me invaluable information. We were in this collaborative process together.”
Brendan Lemon is a freelance journalist in New York.
