The Villian Wore Red: Costumes for Victorian Melodramas

As the 19th century progressed, Victorian theatre audiences began to expect realism onstage, in sets and in costumes. However, before that, historically accurate costumes was not required. 

What the hero or heroine might wear would be fashions of the time:

http://www.victoriana.com/Victorian-Fashion/

http://www.victoriana.com/Victorian-Fashion/

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For the villains of the show, they did something a big more menacing. Tom Robertson describes the transformation of the "Heavy man" of the company into his pirate's costume:

"The baggy trousers of private life are discarded for the tight-fitting pantaloons of the brightest red. The well-trodden boots, familiar with the pavement, give place to a pair of patent-leather curiosities, which run up the leg considerably higher than the knee, and which are lined with morocco as scarlet as the tights...A short white shirt, bordered with a broad stripe, still redder than the tights or the morocco of the boots, descends from the waist to his knees...A striped Guernsey shirt cover his herculean chest, over it he wears a scarlet waistcoat, infinitely more scarlet than the hem of the petticoat-trousers, the morocco fo the boots, or the colour of the tights"

The description goes on to the wig "With a black wig, black whiskers, black mustaches, black eyebrows, and a broad black line under each eyes, intended to represent black eyelashes, every trace of the good-humor of his face has vanished." (Robertson, Theatrical Types No. X)

Victoria Theatre Scenes 1880 Russian Trotting Horses

The illustration to the left is from the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, June 10 1880, and the top section was from a show done at the Victoria Theatre. The gentleman in the center looks how I imagine the Villain Pirate Hans Hattock would have looked.

Resources used:

Robertson, Tom. "Theatrical Types. No. X: Heavy Men and Character Parts" Illustrated Times, 26 June 1864

Victoria Theatre Scenes 1880 Russian Trotting Horses. 1880. Old-print.com. Google.com. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. http://www.prints-4-all.com/cgi-bin/item/MAR1057241/7/19%2DVictoria%2DTheatre%2DScenes%2D1880%2DRussian%2DTrotting%2DHorses#