THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE.
A person can gain an idea of the extent of stage decorations and the
possibility of scenic illusions in the old English theatre by reading
a description of the theatre as it existed in its poverty of costume
and bareness of paint in the Elizabethan era. Rousseau has left a
description of the Paris Opera House as he saw it and it will be found
interesting to all who are acquainted with the methods and the absolute
magnitude of the theatre of the present day. It must be remembered,
however, when considering the smallness of the stage described by
Rousseau, that it was blocked up on both sides, as was the early
English stage, by the aristocratic section of the audience, who sat in
rows by the side of the singers while the plebeian music lovers stood
up in the pit. It was in exactly the same condition as the English
stage, when actors and actresses were interrupted and even insulted by
their lordly patrons;--as when Mrs. Bellamy one evening as she passed
across the stage at Dublin was kissed upon the neck by a Mr. St. Leger,
whose ears the actress boxed there and then; Lord Chesterfield rose in
his box on this occasion and applauded; the entire audience followed
his example and at the end of the performance St. Leger was obliged by
the viceroy to make a public apology to the actress.
"Imagine," writes Rousseau about the Paris Opera, "an inclosure
fifteen feet broad, and long in proportion; this inclosure is the
theatre. On its two sides are placed at intervals screens, on which are
curiously painted the objects which the scene is about to represent.
At the back of the inclosure hangs a great curtain, painted in like
manner, and nearly always pierced and torn, that it may represent at
a little distance gulfs on the earth or holes in the sky. Every one
who passes behind this stage, or touches the curtain, produces a sort
of earthquake, which has a double effect. The sky is made of certain
bluish rags, suspended from poles, or from cords, as linen may be seen
hung out to dry in any washerwoman's yard. The sun, for it is seen here
sometimes, is a lighted torch in a lantern. The cars of the gods and
goddesses are composed of four rafters, secured and hung on a thick
rope in the form of a swing or see-saw; between the rafters is a coarse
plank, on which the gods sit down, and in front hangs a piece of coarse
cloth, well dirtied, which acts the part of clouds for the magnificent
car. One may see toward the bottom of the machine two or three foul
candles, badly snuffed, which, while the greater personage dementedly
presents himself swinging in his see-saw, fumigate him with incense
worthy of his dignity. The agitated sea is composed of long angular
lanterns of cloth and blue pasteboard, strung on parallel spits, which
are turned by little blackguard boys. The thunder is a heavy cart,
rolled over an arch, and is not the least agreeable instrument heard at
our opera. The flashes of lightning are made of pinches of resin thrown
on a flame, and the thunder is a cracker at the end of a fuse. The
theatre is, moreover, furnished with little square traps, which opening
at the end, announce that the demons are about to issue from their
cave. When they have to rise into the air, little demons of stuffed
brown cloth are substituted for them, or sometimes real chimney-sweeps,
who swing about suspended on ropes, till they are majestically lost in
the rags of which I have spoken."
[Illustration: J. K. EMMETT.]
This sad condition of theatrical illusions cannot be regarded otherwise
than strange when it is recorded that decorations were of a higher
order in the reign of Louis XIV. Saint-Evremond is authority for the
statement that the sun and moon were so well represented at the French
opera during this period that the ambassador of Guinea, who assisted at
one of the performances, was decoyed into leaning forward in his box
and religiously saluting the orbs. Had Rousseau lived to the present
day, the wonders and mysteries of our stage would have made his great
heart leap within him. Modern art and modern mechanism have brought
stage representations so close to nature that the scenes seem to be
small sections, either of country or city, mountain or vale, lifted
from the face of the world and placed in all their beauty at the
stage-end of the theatre. Managers do not fear to go to any length in
mounting plays properly, and there is nothing in the outer world that
defies reproduction in the mimic sphere. Steam is freely used; fire
rages fiercely through folds of inflammable canvas; the lightnings
flash; Hendrick Hudson and his men roll nine-pins in the Catskills, and
the low rumble of the thunder, as the balls rattle down from crag to
crag, is distinctly heard by the audience; poor, demented old _Lear_
cries to the winds to crack and blow their cheeks, and they do so to
his full satisfaction; there is genuine rain in the shipwreck scene of
"The Hearts of Oak;" a plentiful fall of the beautiful snow for "The
Two Orphans;" a perfect reproduction of a mountain rivulet for "The
Danites;" steamboat and railroad explosions of a realistic character
in everything; an almost horizonless sea for the great raft scene in
"The World;" and gorgeous coloring, rich furniture, choice bric-a-brac,
rare paintings and the Lord only knows what, for the thousand and one
melodramatic and society plays that are now flooding the stage. Then
there are gems apparently rich enough to have come from the treasuries
of Khedive or Sultan, and robes so redolent of royalty in color and
material that the female portion of the audience is almost driven to
distraction in admiring and coveting them. Little does the average lady
patron of the theatre imagine that the finery she covets is often the
product of the artiste's own needle, and that the gaiety and glory of
an actress's career--with hundreds of admirers pouring diamonds into
her lap, and hundreds of others feasting upon her charms, while many
hang with reverence upon the words that fall from her lips--is but
the merest of dreams; and that the sister whose professional successes
cause her to look upon the stage as a place of pleasure only, may
live in a tenement surrounded by a poor family to whose support her
life-efforts are devoted; that she has few admirers; that she is pure
as the fairest and purest woman in private life, and that her only
sacrifice is made to the art which she loves and to which she has
consecrated herself.
[Illustration: JOHN T. RAYMOND.]
There are but few who have not an exaggerated idea of the value of
everything they see upon the stage. It is true that many actresses are
rich enough to wear diamond necklaces, and to otherwise sprinkle their
persons with brilliants of the first water; but it is equally true that
many others are poor, and that the gems they wear come from the cheap
stock of articles kept in the theatrical property-room. An amusing
story is told by Olive Logan, who was an actress, about the false value
placed upon stage jewels.
"While I was fulfilling a round of theatrical engagements in the
South, during the war," says Miss Logan, "I was compelled by 'military
necessity,' to pack up my jewels and send them to Cincinnati. Of course
there were a number of stage trinkets in the bag as well as some little
jewelry of real value, but as it happened a fabulous idea had got
afloat of the value of my little trinkets, and I was offered large sums
for the carpet sack, 'just as it stood,' after I had packed it to send
it to Cincinnati.
"'I'll give you ten thousand dollars for it without opening,' said one
gentleman; 'I want those ear-rings for my wife?'
"'No,' I answered, 'no; those things were given me in France, and I
shouldn't like to part with them.'
"'Are the ear-rings in here?'"
"'Yes,' I answered.
"'And the bracelet?'"
"'Yes.'"
[Illustration: KATHERINE ROGERS.]
"'Fifteen thousand--will you?'"
"'No, no,' I answered, and the matter ended. I couldn't help laughing,
for truly I might have made a sharp bargain if I had wished. Somebody
would have been sold, and that somebody not myself. I returned to
Cincinnati after my trip to Nashville, and there found my effects
awaiting me in good order. One day in the Burnet House I was accosted
by a pleasant-looking gentleman, who informed me that he had taken
charge of the bag from Louisville to Cincinnati.
"'Did not Mr. ---- send it by express?' I asked.
"'No. I was coming up, and he thought it best to entrust it to me.'
"'I'm very much obliged to you,' I said.
"'Indeed, you have cause to be,' he said, good-naturedly. 'I give you
my word it's the last time I'll have on my mind the charge of fifty
thousand dollars' worth of diamonds.'"
After an English lady of rank returned from the continent, she found
her trunk robbed of its jewels. Detectives traced the jewels to a
London pawnshop, where they had been sold for $5. The thieves were
arrested, and when one of them was asked why he had been so foolish as
to sell nearly one hundred thousand dollars' worth of diamonds for $5,
he answered: "Why, yer honor, we never thought for a minute as how they
were real jewels; we just thought the lady was some play-actor woman,
and that the whole lot wasn't worth but a few shillings."
[Illustration: JOSEPHINE D'ORME.]
The trinkets are no more deceptive than are many other means employed
to astonish and gladden the public. The production of thunder, the
simulation of rain-fall, the fictitious roaring of winds, and the
multiplication of suns, moons and stars are among the numerous
illusions that give to the theatre that marvellous charm under whose
spell thousands are nightly placed and held. In the olden times these
effects were produced in a simple and by no means mystifying manner,
but late years have made them so perfect in their application that
none but the initiated can even begin to think out the solution of the
wondrous effects in which the stage now abounds. A new effect, such as
the enormous stretch of sea and sky to be found in "The World," is
something that dramatic authors and stage mechanics are always seeking
after and are glad to find. The revolving tower in "The Shaughran" was
a puzzle to everybody. Now there are hundreds of effects of this kind
with folding and vanishing scenes that are even more wonderful than
Boucicault's tower. Viewed from the wings the simplicity of the means
employed to produce these effects makes them absolutely laughable. They
shall be explained in this chapter.
Thunder-storms are common efforts at realism, and they are sometimes
simulated in a way that makes them appear to fall very little short of
nature. The earliest style of stage thunder was effected by vigorously
shaking a piece of sheet iron which made a rattling and ear-disturbing
noise. Even now when a show is "on the road" and a hall without the
usual first-class accessories must be used, the audience, and the actor
too, must be satisfied with sheet-iron thunder. The modern invention
is known as the thunder-drum, and it stands over the prompter's desk
where it can be easily reached by a long stick with a thick, soft
padding at the end--similar to the sticks used in beating bass-drums.
The thunder-drum consists of a calf-skin tightly drawn over the top of
a box frame. With this instrument the low rumbling of distant thunder
or the long roll of the elemental disturbance may be attained, and,
following the sharp rattling of the shaken sheet of iron and the flash
of ignited magnesium an effect is produced that completely awes the
simple citizen who knows nothing of the mechanism of the stage.
The prompter, too, who by the way is a most responsible person among
the individuals who populate the mimic world, has control of the rain
machine. This is a wooden cylinder, about two feet in diameter, and
four or five feet long. It is filled with dried peas which rattle
against wooden teeth in its inside surface, as the machine, which is
in the "flies," is operated by a belt running down to the prompter's
desk. This reminds me that I have used the expression "flies" several
times without explaining what is meant. The "flies" is a term used
to designate the scenery and spaces above the stage, and as there is
a great deal of it, it has as much importance in a theatrical sense
as any other part of the back of the house. Well, to resume the
explanation, the prompter has the rain machine in the "flies" fully
under control and can turn out any kind of a rain-storm the play
may require; if a swirl of the aqueous downpour is needed,--such a
manifestation of wrathy lachrymoseness as you find in a storm that
at intervals beats mercilessly against your windows and the side of
your house,--one good, strong, sharp pull at the rope will effect it.
Less atrocious efforts of the elements may be obtained with a slighter
exertion of muscle at the rope or belt. The wind machine is a very
necessary adjunct of these storm effects, and it is to be found in
every large theatre, furnishing "a nipping and an eager air" or one
of those howling blasts that make night desolate and day disastrous.
The wind machine may be moved to any part of the stage. Sometimes it
is behind the door of a hut through which snow is fiercely driven, and
at other times it may be in the side scenes, or any locality to which
or through which the storm is rushing. It is an awful funny thing to
the man at the wind machine to think of the cold chill he sends down
the back of the sensitive play-goer as the wind whistles across the
scene in which poor blind _Louise_, in the "Two Orphans," figures, or
that scene in "Ours" where _Lord Shendryn_ is at the mercy of the
pitiless storm. The wind that makes the warm blood frigid under such
circumstances is very easily constructed. A cylinder from which extend
paddles is set in a suitable frame and above its top is stretched a
piece of grosgrain silk. The silk is stationary, but the cylinder and
paddles are operated by means of a crank and sometimes by a "crank."
Swift motion produces woeful gusts of the windy article, and a steady
blast may be duplicated by patiently working the machine. When the
property-man is driven to the necessity of providing rain and wind in
theatrical districts that do not boast of modern appliances he obtains
a rain effect by rolling bird-shot over brown paper that has been
pasted around a hoop, and the wind is raised by swinging around a heavy
piece of gas-hose. This kind of thing is called "faking" the wind or
rain.
[Illustration: FERDINAND AND MIRANDA.
MIRANDA:--If you'll sit down,
I'll bear your logs the while.
_Tempest, Act, III., Scene 1._
]
When real water is used on the stage to simulate rain, as in the
first act of the "Hearts of Oak," or "Oaken Hearts," as they at one
time tried to call a pirated edition of it, the effect is obtained by
carrying water to the stage lofts, during the day, where it remains
in a tank connected with a long piece of perforated pipe, back of the
proscenium border, and stretching across the stage. At night when
the proper time arrives the water is allowed to run into the pipe,
from which it of course falls in numerous small streams upon a rubber
tarpaulin that has been stretched below to receive it. So too in
mountain rivulets with "real water," as in "The Danites," a tank in
the loft must be filled daily with water to supply the nightly scene.
In all instances of this sort the effect is quite realistic, and never
fails to meet with a hearty appreciation by the audience.
[Illustration: LESTER WALLACK.]
The snow-storm is also usually a pleasing stage picture, and is brought
about in a most simple manner. White paper is cut into very small
pieces, which are carefully treasured by the property-man, whose duty
it is to see to everything of this kind in and around the stage, and
who regards the manufacture of a snow-storm as a very slow and tedious
piece of work. When the snow is ready it is placed in what is called
the snow-box, a long narrow affair with slats on the bottom leaving
room enough for the pieces of paper to sift through, when the box is
given a swaying motion. The contrivance is swung over the stage by
means of two ropes, and is operated by a third leading to one side
of the stage. When the chilled heroine comes upon the scene amid a
terrible fall of snow and draws her thin garments tightly over her
shoulder, while she shivers, the snow-box up above is swinging to
and fro, and the white flakes are only bits of paper frauds that the
property-man or an assistant will carefully sweep up after the scene or
act, to do duty again the following night and for many a night to come.
[Illustration: CLARA MORRIS.]
The snow-storm and the other illusions described above are only a
fraction of the things the property-man has to look after and keep in
order. He has charge of everything upon the stage and is responsible
for everything except the scenery. When a play is running that requires
handsome appointments, it is his business to provide. Within the past
decade or so of years it has become the custom to borrow expensive
furniture from generous local dealers who are often satisfied with
the simple and easy remuneration of a line or two acknowledging the
loan, in the programme; or a certain price is paid for the use of the
furniture during the run of the play; or the set is purchased outright
from the dealer and repurchased by him at a reduction when the theatre
is done with it. Nearly all theatres, however, are supplied with
suitably handsome furniture for an ordinary society play, and it is
only when gorgeousness is aimed at that managers are obliged to borrow.
Pistols, knives, helmets, lances, battle-axes, canes, cigars, money,
pocket-books, the vial from which Juliet takes the fatal draught,
the marble or majolica pedestals, the rich vases, sunflowers such
as are used in the æsthetic play of "The Colonel," the paste-board
ham, the tin cups, or cut glasses that the characters drink from,
fire-place, mantel, and looking-glass--these, and many other articles
the property-man furnishes the players, either placing the stationary
fixtures on the stage, or sending the call-boy to the performers
with the articles they require. The check-book that the rich banker
draws from his pocket when he hands $100,000, more or less, over to
somebody else in the play, the quill or pen he writes the check with,
and the bottle out of which he dips the imaginary ink, all come from
the property-room, and go back to it again after the act is over. A
list of the articles required for a play is furnished the property-man
when a play is to be put on, and these articles he must have when the
prompter calls or sends for them. Sometimes the property-man forgets,
and then there is trouble in the camp. It is related that having
forgotten to provide a Juliet with her vial of poison, in time, the
article being called for as the actress was about to go on the stage,
the property-man snatched up the first thing that looked like a vial
that he got his eyes on. It was a bottle from the prompter's desk, and
when Juliet placed the awful draught to her lips and took a pull at
the bottle, she discovered to her horror that she had swallowed a dose
of ink. The actress, who tells the story herself in her autobiography,
said, she wanted to "swallow a sheet of blotting-paper," when she made
the inky discovery.
[Illustration: HELEN DINGEON.]
I find in Miss Logan's book from which I have before quoted in this
chapter, the following funny inventory of properties furnished a new
lessee of the Drury Lane Theatre, London: "Spirits of wine, for flames
and apparitions, £12 2_s._; three and one-half bottles of lightning,
£--; one snow-storm, of finest French paper, 3_s._; two snow-storms
of common French paper, 2_s._; complete sea, with twelve long waves,
slightly damaged, £1 10_s._; eighteen clouds, with black edges, in good
order, 12_s._, 6_d._; rainbow, slightly faded, 2_s._; an assortment of
French clouds, flashes of lightning and thunder-bolts, 15_s._; a new
moon, slightly tarnished, 15_s._; imperial mantle, made for Cyrus, and
subsequently worn by Julius Cæsar and Henry VIII., 10_s._; Othello's
handkerchief, 6_d._; six arm-chairs and six flower-plots, which dance
country dances, £2." The same author adds another quotation that gives
a better idea of the quantity and character of the property-man's
possessions, saying:--
"He has charge of all the movables and has to exercise the greatest
ingenuity in getting them up. His province is to preserve the canvas
water from getting wet, keep the sun's disk clear and the moon from
getting torn; he manufactures thunder on sheet iron, or from parchment
stretched drum-like on a frame; he prepares boxes of dried peas for
rain and wind, and huge watchman's rattles for the crash of falling
towers. He has under his charge demijohns for the fall of concealed
china in cupboards; speaking trumpets to imitate the growl of
ferocious wild beasts; penny whistles for the 'cricket on the hearth;'
powdered rosin for lightning flashes, where gas is not used; rose pink,
for the blood of patriots; money, cut out of tin; finely cut bits of
paper for fatal snow-storms; ten-pin balls, for the distant mutterings
of a storm; bags of gold containing bits of broken glass and pebbles,
to imitate the musical ring of coin; balls of cotton wadding for apple
dumplings; links of sausages, made of painted flannel; sumptuous
boquets of papier mache; block-tin rings with painted beads puttied
in for royal signets; crowns of Dutch gilding lined with red ferret;
broomstick handles cut up for truncheons for command; brooms themselves
for witches to ride; branches of cedar for Birnam wood; dredging
boxes of flour for the fate-desponding lovers; vermilion to tip the
noses of jolly landlords; pieces of rattan silvered over for fairy
wands; leaden watches, for gold repeaters; dog-chains for the necks of
knighthood, and tin spurs for its heels; armor made of leather, and
shields of wood; fans for ladies to coquet behind; quizzing-glasses,
for exquisites to ogle with; legs of mutton, hams, loaves of bread and
plum-puddings, all cut from canvas, and stuffed with sawdust; together
with all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of a dramatic display. Such
is the property-man of a theatre. He bears his honors meekly; he mixes
molasses and water for wine and darkens it a little shade for brandy;
is always busy behind the scenes, but is seldom seen, unless it is to
clear the stage, and then what a shower of yells and hisses does he
receive from the galleries! The thoughtless gods cry 'Supe! Supe!'
which if intended for an abbreviation of superior or superfine, may be
opposite, but in no other view of the case. What would a theatre be
without a property-man? A world without a sun * * * Kings would be
truncheonless and crownless; brigands without spoils; old men without
canes and powder; Harlequin without his hat; Macduff without his leafy
screen; theatres would close--there would be no tragedy, no comedy, no
farce without him. Jove in his chair was never more potent than he. An
actor might, and often does get along without the words of his part,
but not without the properties. What strange quandaries have we seen
the Garricks and Siddonses of our stage get into when the property-man
lapsed in his duty! We have seen Romeo distracted because the bottle
of poison was not to be found; Virginius tear his hair because the
butcher's knife was not ready on the shambles; Baillie Nicol Jarvie
nonplussed because there was no red-hot poker to singe the Tartan
fladdie with; Macbeth frowning because the Eighth Apparition did not
bear a glass to show him any more; William Tell in agony because there
was no small apple for Gesler to pick; the First Murderer in distress
because there was no blood for his face ready; Hecate fuming like
a hellcat because her car did not mount easily; Richard the Third
grinding his teeth because the clink of hammers closing rivets up was
forgotten; Hamlet brought up all standing because there was no goblet
to drink the poison from, and Othello stabbing Iago with a candlestick
because he had no other sword of Spain, the Ebro's temper, to do the
deed with. So, the property-man is no insignificant personage--he is
the mainspring which sets all the work in motion; and an actor had
better have a bad epitaph when dead than his ill will while living."
[Illustration: SCOTT-SIDDONS.]