Constricted and Swallowed Up
Words, photos and video by David LamHow stage actor Toni Turilli's dress informed her monologue in episode two.
Toni Turilli portrays Barbara Undershaft in a monologue from George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara.
In the second episode of season one, stage actor Toni Turilli delivered a raw and emotional monologue from the play Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw. The character she portrays is Barbara Undershaft, a Major in the Salvation Army in London, who works to help the needy.
Turilli speaks about the dress she wore for the performance, a professional and cumbersome garment that mirrored the constricting and oppressive environment in that Barbara finds herself. "It's very heavy because of the material. And I was thinking about this character because in this moment, she feels very swallowed up by her father, by her family," she says.
The dress helped Turilli embody the character and better understand the societal expectations placed on women in the early 20th century. "I am a woman in the early 1900s who has to sit up like this, because if she doesn’t like her corset's going to bust open," she explains.
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Toni discusses her love for storytelling, the bold, statement-making outfits she wears to concerts, and why she prefers thrifting to traditional retail.
Credits
Featuring
Antonia Turilli (Instagram: @toniturilli)
Camera, sound, graphics, edit & production
David Lam
Music
“In This Way” by Jacob Lavellee
100% Clearance through Musicbed
Listen on Spotify
Monologue
Excerpt from Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw
Additional photo
The Court Theatre 1904-1907: a Commentary and Criticism, 1907 by Desmond MacCarthy
Filmed in
Boston, MA, United States, October 2022