No One Meaner Than A Vacuum Cleaner
You might think that nothing could prepare
a designer to create a 15' vacuum cleaner
that explodes on stage while being worn
by an opera singer, but actually, you’d be wrong.
Vinilla (aka “Vin”) Burnham, costume designer for
Terry Jones’s new opera, Evil Machines, gained useful
prior experience as part of the team that created
Mr. Creosote, the character in The Meaning of Life
who succumbs to the temptation of a “wafer-thin
mint” and explodes very messily.
The opera features wild cars and other evil
machines, pitted against friendly household appliances,
including a beautiful egg whisk and the alarm
clock that loves her. Veteran costume designer and
Monty Python movie alum James Acheson had a
hand in designing the opening chorus of six evil
vacuum cleaners. The chorus is joined by a 15'
giant evil vacuum cleaner, who—with the help of
an inflatable body, a fan, and some CO2—literally
bursts with pride, showering dust and bed bugs over
the orchestra and the first few rows of the audience.
Burnham, a veteran costume effects designer
on such films as The Fifth Element, Labyrinth, and
Tim Burton’s Batman movies, is quite comfortable
working on 3D costumes. “I am known for being a
special effects costume designer because I came to
it through creatures and puppets,” she says, “and
when I started my career way back at the Royal
Opera House, I was in props.”
 One of the biggest hurdles to overcome on this
project was making the costumes wearable enough
for a performing singer. “If Evil Machines had been
a movie, the costumes would have been worn by stunt men or dancers,” Burnham says.
To accommodate opera singers, however,
they couldn’t constrain the neck
and chest area or be too heavy. None
of the costumes exceeds 15lbs: the gas
pump and telephone suits clock in at
just under 14lbs, and the motorbikes
are around 9lbs. Most of the weight
is taken by a very basic harness that
straps on like a backpack, and the
costumes all have back zips or Velcro,
and can be stepped into or lifted up
over the performers’ heads.
Burnham had previously worked
on the animals for a Gerald Scarfe designed
production of The Magic
Flute at LA Opera but obviously was
unable to sit down for a chat with
Mozart. On this production, however,
she and composer Luis Tinoco worked
together on quick changes and timing
to allow the performers the mobility
to negotiate some steep ramps on the
stage of Lisbon’s Sao Luis Theatre.
She says, “The timing was crucial.”
Burnham initially wanted to sculpt
the costumes, but because of time and
budget constraints, she had to fabricate
them from polyethylene foam. Her
main concern was to avoid a doughy,
“preschool” look. “I thought people
would feel shortchanged if they didn’t
see anything evil, so I wanted them to
have a hard edge,” the designer says.
“I didn’t want them to be cute and
cuddly.” She chose FB-FX in London,
the model makers who created the
armor for Gladiator, for their masculine
atmosphere. “In their workshop,
they always have chassis and engines
lying around, and they love breaking
them up,” she says.
 Once the costumes were fabricated,
they were sprayed with FB-FX’s
patent-pending laminate of polyurethane
and polyethylene skin, which
Burnham says, “miraculously adhered
to the polyethylene foam. Most
things, including paint, just fall off.”
The skin dried to a hard, shiny finish,
giving her the edge she wanted.
Burnham did find room for
some whimsy in her design. One
costume for a parking meter features
seven-sided British 50 pence
pieces for teeth, “because, you
know, they just eat money,” and a
stove is kitted out with smoke capsules
in his chimney hat.
Because most of the production
crew members were in Britain, and the
opera was staged in Portugal, Burnham
faced some logistical problems,
but fortunately, the opera was cast
months in advance, so she was able
to get accurate, unchanging measurements.
Distance created other issues.
“The hardest character was Lester
the Vesper,” she says. “He didn’t seem
to be working. I wanted him to be a
whole machine, not a man-with-amachine,
but when we got to Lisbon,
the singer put it on, and he was the
missing link that made it work. Whatever
you do, the performer’s personality
contributes so much.”
Most of the characters move
around under their own steam, but
at one point, an evil scientist wheels a
tumble drier on stage, really a singer
with a basket of laundry on her head,
who can turn laundry into toast, and
what could be more evil than that?
Hannah Kate Kinnersley
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