‘She’s too big I hope for me to compass’: Fat suits, costuming and the construction of femininity in contemporary stagings of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors

The fat suit exists in a liminal space in theatre semiotics. On the one hand, it is an item of costume that influences how the body is read in performance, while on the other, it is an extension of the actor’s body, altering the way in which costume on that body reads. In a performance context in which thin is the standard beauty ideal, the fat suit is a contentious item: a politically charged decision that is bound up with contemporary constructions of gender, beauty and desire. This article will explore the ways in which costuming, and particularly the fat suit, has been used to depict the grotesque corporeality of the character of Luce in Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. Exploring the performative quality of fat, it will demonstrate how fat is used as a signifying shorthand for all that is undesirable and grotesque about the character.