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The Unreality of Stage Realism

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I found the following passage quite interesting. It is from an article written by Elisabeth Hunt in 1912, at the dawn of the New Stagecraft movement:

We are roused to full consciousness of what we have long dimly felt — that costly stage realism has o’erleapt itself and begun to create unreality. Practical properties are all very well; but when they are so ingenious and expensive as to attract attention to themselves, they are as disillusioning to an audience as if they were cheaply and absurdly impractical. Distraction is distraction, as fatal to dramatic illusion when it results from foolish extravagance as when it is mere poverty of resources.

For example: A genuine telephone switchboard on the stage becomes at once the most unreal thing in the world. Being where it does not belong, and where it must have been difficult to place, it makes a sensation—which it would not in life. To the audience it is a constant reminder that the stage where it is fixed is a stage, and not the room which it pretends to be.

As a matter of fact, a cheap, make-believe switchboard that could not be manipulated at all would not destroy the illusion more completely.

It continues:

As to the statement that realistic surroundings inspire the actor, somehow that does not ring true. And when extreme examples are urged, they sound positively puerile.

In one of the plays of last season, a certain stage represented a doctor’s office with the usual furniture, including a large desk and a stack of card index boxes. The public was privileged to know — press notices, probably — that the desk was completely filled, drawers, pigeonholes and all, with letters and papers such as a physician would accumulate, all addressed to the stage doctor or signed with his name; that the stationery spread before him had his name and address on letter heads and envelopes; and that, to crown this triumph of managerial art, the index boxes were full of cards, every one of which was completely made out.

The actor who played the part of the doctor was experienced and accomplished. It really seemed possible that he might have kept his impersonation, even if some of those cards had been left blank. In fact, any actor who has hard training back of him is apt to resent the idea that his concept of a part can be made to depend on preposterous realism which is invisible or meaningless to the audience. An imagination that is superior to footlights, open flies, and canvas walls is not likely to suffer from the consciousness that an unused drawer in a desk is empty. Moreover, if an actor’s hold on his part can be strengthened by mechanical means, it may as easily be weakened, in case some contraption is forgotten in setting the stage. What inspires the intelligent actor more than anything else that can be furnished him in the theater is a comfortable, commodious, well ventilated dressing room. Such humane accommodation could not, perhaps, be made to figure in a startling press notice; but it would quite conceivably encourage better art.

Nearly a hundred years later, and it’s sounding all too familiar.

You can read the entire article, entitled “Acting Scenery”, at Google Books.

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The Gore of Grand Guignol

The fan of both horror and theatre is sure to have heard of Grand Guignol. Though a producer of a variety of works, the infamous Parisian theatre is best known for its horror plays performed in the years leading up to World War II. Founded in 1894 by Oscar Méténier, Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol offered up stories such as Le Laboratoire des Hallucinations, by André de Lorde: A doctor performs gruesome brain surgery his wife’s new-found lover. The man is turned into an insane zombie and plunges a chisel into the doctor’s brain. Anyone familiar with EC Comics will recognize the kind of plots this theatre performed.

When a theatre regularly displays amputations, burning in acid, eviscerations, stabbings and all other manner of violent actions, a prop person may ask: how realistic were these effects, and how were they pulled off?

Perhaps one of the best kept secrets of the Grand Guignol was their fake blood. Many sources speak in fascination that it would congeal after a few minutes like real blood. Mel Gordon, a theatre Professor at U.C. Berkeley and Grand Guignol expert, says that the base is made of a heated mixture of equal parts carmine and glycerin (Callboard magazine, April, 1996). Carmine is a bright red pigment made by boiling dried insects; you can find paints which use that pigment, though finding it in its pure form is more difficult and necessitates looking for specialty online stores. You can still buy glycerin at drug stores and online. It is often added to stage blood to give it a bit of sheen under the lights. Further justification for this theory is found in a Time Magazine article entitled “The Theater: Murders in the Rue Chaptal” from March, 1947:

The theater has a secret recipe for blood; when the stuff cools it coagulates and makes scabs. Thrill-hungry customers in the small auditorium get a dividend when they overhear the hoarse backstage whisper: “Vite [tr: quickly], Edmond! Warm up the blood.”

Edmond Beauvais was the chief propman of the theatre in the mid-1940s. The last director of the theatre, Charles Nonon, personally mixed nine different shades of blood daily (Time Magazine, November 30, 1962). We learn more about the possible ingredients of this fake blood from two articles about the tour of Grand Guignol which hit San Francisco in 1950. Director Robert T. Eley called on local druggist Barnes-Hind for a 2 percent solution of “methyd cellulose” (Five Star Final, April 10, 1950) and (Pace, Michael Farriday, March 1951). I’m going to make the assumption that both of these articles are actually talking about “methyl-cellulose”. It thickens in cold water and gels when heat is added. You can buy it in its pure form or find it in popular constipation medications; it was used to make the ectoplasm in Ghostbusters. Blood which did not need to flow could be made from currant jelly (“The Relationship between Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol and the Cinema 1897-1962”, Sean J. O’Leary, 2005).

Eva Berkson applies blood to an actress' neck before a scene from "The Hussy". Photograph by Hans Wild, 1947
Eva Berkson applies blood to an actress' neck before a scene from "The Hussy". Photograph by Hans Wild, 1947

Nonon also made viscera from red rubber hose and sponges soaked in blood. Taxidermists supplied animal eyeballs, which he coated in aspic (a clear jelly made from meat stock) and stuffed with anchovies marinated in blood (Time, 1962). Sheep’s eyes were popular, but any animal would suffice because then the eyeball could bounce when dropped (Callboard, 1996). Edible eyeballs were made by a local confectioner’s shop (Pace, 1951). A tongue that was ripped out was made of rubber (Five Star Final, 1950) and (Pace, 1951). According to The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama, Paul Ratineau, the stage manager, depended on the daily delivery of fresh animal parts by local butchers.

In order to deliver the goods, a variety of devices and trick props were required. These included rubber knives, concealed bladders, tubes and small, strategically located steam pipes (See Magazine, March, 1950), a dagger squirting “blood” from a vial hidden in an actor’s hand, quick flaming powders, a table with props hidden in upstage drawers (The New York Times Magazine, P.E. Schneider, March 1957). Daggers with retractable blades could also squirt blood from the handles; Mel Gordon explains that “a turkey baster, rubber ball, or an eye dropper could provide a good base for building a blood squirting knife” (Callboard, 1996).

In the photograph below, we see how some trick knives are like the classic “arrow-through-the-head” gag prop, where the two halves are separated by a metal clasp which fits around the actor’s limb.

Simone Gérard demonstrates a trick knife. Photograph by Hans Wild, 1947
Simone Gérard demonstrates a trick knife. Photograph by Hans Wild, 1947

Gordon also explains how the Guignol-eurs chopped off a man’s hand:

An actor cuts off his hand. Photograph by Hans Wild, 1947.
An actor cuts off his hand. Photograph by Hans Wild, 1947.

Cutting off a man’s hand is easier than it sounds. Stiffen a glove with glue water so it holds it’s shape and paint it like a real hand. The actor wearing the glove should still be able to move his fingers a bit. When the hand is chopped off the “chopper” removes the glove and the “chopee” moves his hand up into his cuff which is reinforced with a cardboard tube and fitted with a blood pack. The stiffened glove should hold it’s shape perfectly as the unwilling amputee writhes in pain (Callboard, 1996).

Edmond Beauvais, prop master, prepares a removable hand with the actor
Edmond Beauvais, prop master, prepares a removable hand with the actor

Another eye-popping effect involves hiding a fake eye in the hollowed-out handle of a spoon. Conversely, an actress could wear a plaster or latex quarter mask which holds a fake (sheep’s) eye, lactose powder, and a blood capsule. If she wears her hair over that half of her face (“Veronica Lake” style), the effect would be quite flawless (Callboard, 1996). Mel Gordon describes a more complicated eye-gouging device:

The retractable blade of the knife moves into the handle which squirts blood when pressed against the victim’s face. Affixed to the end of the handle is a piece of adhesive “skin” (latex or lamb skin) with a slit to allow the blade to move through it. As the handle is pressed against the victims eye the sticky “skin” is pressed to the eyelid leaving a gory empty eye socket. When the knife handle is pulled away the blade is released back into position. The actor with the knife squeezes a air pump in the handle and a rubber eyeball on the end of the knife inflates. The eye appears to be impaled on the tip of the knife. Many magic shops sell an inflatable ball and pump mechanism that could work as a base for this prop (Callboard, 1996).

Crime in a Madhouse. Photograph by Hans Wilder, 1947
Crime in a Madhouse. Photograph by Hans Wilder, 1947

Much of the development of the theatre’s effects are due to the above-mentioned Paul Ratineau. Many of the tricks were secret; some were even patented. Most were devilishly simple though. Their power and Ratineau’s cleverness did not come solely from the tricks though. He overcame a number of challenges. First, the stage itself was only twenty feet by twenty feet large, with the audience close enough to shake hands with the actors (“Theatre du Grand Guignol,” The Drama Review. Frantisek Deak, 1974). Second, the tricks needed to work consistently, in full view of the audience, and while the actors performed in character with other actors in the height of often-crazed emotions.

It should be no surprise then, that Ratineau also developed much of the Grand Guignol’s characteristic lighting. Besides setting the mood, the lighting could hide the imperfections in the prop trickery as well as guide the audience’s eyes to where it was desired. Similarly, the arrangement of the scenery and objects on stage combined with the blocking served to direct or misdirect the audience’s attention (O’Leary, 2005). Sound effects (also pioneered by Ratineau) were critical in bridging the gap between what an audience sees and what they imagine they are witnessing. Finally, dramatic tension and the power of marketing helped sell the bloodshed portrayed on stage by warming the audience up to a heightened level of expectation. The mystery of the special effects themselves added to the legend surrounding the Grand Guignol. In other words, the actual trick props, while clever, might seem crude and unrefined when studied under normal light and out of the context of the performances.

When money became tight, the theatre would prefer to stab women rather than men, because their smaller costumes were cheaper to clean. For head wounds, men were the victims because their short hair was easier to wash (Schneider, 1957). Schneider goes on to recount some of the more serious mishaps and accidents:

Naturally, all this gruesomeness is sheer illusion, but the sham is not always devoid of risk. Once, during an actress’ simulated hanging, the protective device broke and she almost did get hanged. Another recently was burned by the flame of a revolver. In “Orgy in the Lighthouse,” the heroine suffered even more; on one night, she almost caught fire; on another, her male partner began to live his part a bit too much and beat her up in earnest, so that she was forced to go off to the country to nurse a nervous breakdown.

See? Gore and horror aren’t always happy fun times.

Useful Sites

New Links for Fall

Here are some of the hot new links for Fall:

  • Rebuilding the Boardwalk, pixel by pixel. A great article about recreating 1920’s Atlantic City for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. With all the challenges you can imagine for such a task, one of the most difficult, according to the article, was finding the right chairs.
  • The Gizmologist’s Lair. W. E. Johns has such a plethora of articles and links on his site, I’ve barely scratched the surface and already have discovered so many great things. He has projects, reference for all sorts of technical and technological bits and more.
  • A Big List of Sites that Teach You How to Do Stuff. Pretty self-explanatory. I haven’t checked out all the sites they list, but I do know eHow is a big waste of internets.
  • The History and Geography of Inventions. A quick reference for you to see when and where many things were invented.

Have a great weekend!

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Busy Stage Workers the Public Never Sees, 1910

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(The following was originally published in The New York Times, September 4, 1910)

Busy Stage Workers the Public Never Sees

A Little Army of Them Required to Set the Scenes and Handle Mechanical Side of Every Production

There are fully 1,500 men appearing on the stage in New York every night that the audience never sees and very seldom hears one or two of them pounding cocoanut shells on board – or it may be the more modern horseshoe shaped mallets striking a smooth stone slab – and thereby suggesting the invisible presence of a galloping steed. Sometimes, too, when the music is playing softly, the audience sitting near the stage catches a rumbling sound of heavy things being moved, or hears a muffled voice or two.

But for the most part this little army of people in the profession is never seen or heard during a performance, and is almost as little appreciated as the man who pays off the actors or the artist who designs the posters.

They are the men who tie the scenery together, who bring in the furniture, who manage the lights, and pull the strings, literally, that make the houses and mountains and things stand around in their proper places. At the Hippodrome – and there, by the way, they often are seen by the audience – they are the chaps who drag the ton-weight carpets around and put up marvelous structures for the acrobats and others to stand on – the men who seem to know how to do anything. They call them “rough necks” in a circus.

Just because their union is making an effort toward an increase in pay and certain other privileges, these men have been brought to the public’s attention in the last few weeks. Since heavy sets and elaborate mechanical effects arrived the force back of the curtain line has increased to the point of having strict discipline and, according to some of those in the business, to having a pride of work. Almost without exception stagehands are interested in the success of their part of the performance nowadays, and take almost as much pride in having things right, and having them right in the shortest possible time, as the actor does in receiving a “hand” at the end of a scene.

There are four divisions of stagehands, all under the immediate direction of the stage carpenter, who is boss back of the curtain line after the stage manager, and in some things before him. There are the “grips,” who handle the scenery and nothing else; the “clearers,” who handle the movable properties, from pins to locomotives, but who will not touch a piece of scenery; the “flymen,” who take care of the ropes above the stage and whose duty it is to haul up and let down the “hung” scenery, and the electricians and “operators,” who take care of everything relating to the lighting of the stage, and in their case alone they overflow to the front of the house and look after the lighting there.

Theoretically, these divisions never overlap. A “grip” simply will not handle a “prop,” and a “clearer” may not so much as look hard at an electrical “fixture,” even though the fixture is about to fall off from its insecure attachment. If a scene has a practical fireplace, with a grate and a nice red electric light to make the fire glow, the “grips” take away the painted chimney piece, the “clearers” remove the grate, and the electricians carry away the incandescent bulb and the wire attached thereto.

There is a story told of an occasion when a portable bathtub full of water was used in one scene. The bath was a “prop,” to be handled by the “clearers.” No “grip” had any right to touch it. One night – this was on the road – the “clearers” put the tub down in a passage way leading to that particular theatre’s “scene dock,” where the “flats” not in use were slid away until needed. They forgot the tub, which was a big tin affair painted green, having completed the clearing of the stage and gone to the side door for fresh air. The “grips” went after the painted “flats” to complete the setting of the stage. One after the other they came to the tub, climbed laboriously over or around it, hauled out the scenery, lifted it over the obstacle, and climbed back again. They simply had no right to move the tub, or in any way interfere with the work of the clearers.

When specialization began to set in and stage hands became organized, there was considerable discussion as to where the duties of the various divisions ended and began. There was a dispute months long as to whether a grass mat used in an exterior scene was a “prop” or a part of the scenery, and also into which category a movable fence should come. Now everything that is used to “dress the stage” is considered a “prop”; the carpets, hangings, pictures on the wall, growing plants, real waterfalls – everything that does not belong directly to the scenery.

As soon as the curtain is down and the possibility of it going up again in response to plaudits of the multitude has disappeared, the stage hands leap to their work. The clearers began to take off the “props” of this act, through the doors first, and then through the open space left by the grips when they have begun to move the scenery. The stage is usually free of all “props” by the time all of the “flats” are down and stacked out of the way. Then the properties for the next act are brought on and put in the middle of the stage, while the setting of the walls – if it be an interior scene – is being brought out and put in place. While the walls are being built with that strange flapping sound that the audience sometimes hears from the front – that is made by the ropes used in tying the sections together – the clearers are putting the furniture in the locations suggested by the author of the play, or, more likely, by the same director.

It is all done on schedule. Every grip and every clearer knows exactly what he is to do and how he is to keep from interfering with what some one else is doing. When the order is given to “strike,” which means clear the stage for the next act, each man in the gang leaps for the particular “prop” or piece of scenery delegated to his care, and hustles it out of the way with a total disregard for the shins of whoever may be in the way. When the stage is being cleared or set it belongs to the stage hands only, and even the star of greatest magnitude has no right to be in the way. The stage manager of the company is the only person who may remain with impunity in the precincts of the mechanics’ quarters. And he stands as close as possible to the curtain line, out of the way, but where he can see what is going on, and gives whatever directions are necessary about the lowering of the “borders,” and the arranging of the scenery and props. It is the stage manager who gives the signal for the curtain to be raised after he has looked over the work of the stage hands and found it good.

The stage force in the theatres in New York averages from twenty to fifty men to each house, depending on the nature of the attraction current there. This average holds, of course, in all first-class theatres in other cities, and in most of the one-night stand places. That there are fully 1,500 men employed back of the curtain line and out of sight of the audiences in New York is somewhat within the actual figures, but it is a close approximation. This week, for example, one big musical production that has been running all Summer will end its local engagement, and the number of men at work will be reduced just that much, so far as this one theatre is concerned. On the other hand, new plays coming into the city will demand the aid of some, if not all, of these men. Of course, they are all members of the union, of the “T.M.A.,” the Theatrical Mechanics’ Association. The number of union stage hands in every city is generally in excess of the number of workers required, because there must always be enough authorized workers to take care of the largest kind of theatrical productions.

When a “road” attraction is about to arrive in a town the local stage carpenter receives a “scene plot,” sent on ahead of the company, which tells him just how many grips, how many clearers, how many fly men and electricians will be needed. He has them ready when the production arrives in town. The company carries at least a carpenter and a property man of its own, and in unusual cases, when the settings are particularly heavy or intricate, it carries several trained stage hands besides. The company carpenter has charge of the setting of the scenery, though the local stage hands are under the direction of the local carpenter. When the attraction remains for any length of time in one theatre the company carpenter sometimes turns over the entire stage to the local man after the play has been given for several performances.

In the case of a “New York production,” when the play is coming in for a hoped-for long run, the stage force is rehearsed for the opening performance. Before the “first night” three or four scene and light rehearsals are given for the purpose of familiarizing the crew with the scenery and the running of the play, and then a further rehearsal at the time of the final full company dress rehearsal, immediately before the play opens. When the attraction opens out of town a short time, before coming into the city is usually the custom to take at least a part of the crew to the other city, so that they may have the scenic side of the play down pat by the time it comes to New York.

One large musical comedy now running on Broadway may be taken as an example of how the force is divided and how many people are needed. This play has two or three heavy sets, and also requires several quick changes of scenery. Its stage crew consists of a head carpenter and assistant, seventeen “grips,” head property man and his assistant and seventeen “clearers,” six flymen, two chief electricians, and fourteen “operators,” or assistant electricians, which does not include four men on electrical duty in the front of the house – sixty in all. The record for setting the heaviest scene complete is thirty seconds. At the Hippodrome the force runs well past 100, with the proportion of the “clearers” much greater.

The “clearers” it must be remembered, are responsible not only for the movable scenery on the stage, but for the things the actors and chorus people carry in their hands. In the musical play mentioned it was found necessary to give each “clearer” a number, plainly displayed on his cap, so that the members of the company could recognize the man from whom each was to receive his or her “prop.” At the Hippodrome, where sometimes as many as 1,000 “props” are required for one scene, such as the ballets, there is a real army of “clearers” on duty. One division gives out the “head props,” such as helmets and fancy head dresses that do not form an integral part of the costumes, and another division has charge of the “hand props,” which consist of spears, guns, wands, baskets of flowers – everything that is to be carried in the hand.

In vaudeville there are different laws and different customs, after the general rules of the union. There each of the seven or eight acts on the bill is a company in itself, with different scenic and property requirements. The principal member of the “act” is supposed to pay for the special work done for his part of the programme, outside of the necessary moving of scenery and handling of staple “props.” The payment is generally done in the form of gratuities at the end of the week’s engagement, and the average performer is usually very glad to do the paying. In vaudeville a property man or a “grip” while attending strictly to his business can often cause a performer considerable annoyance – “crab the act” according to the vernacular – and by a slight zeal beyond his actual duties he can add much to the success of the actor. Vaudeville stage hands, too, frequently have a chance to play parts.

Stage hands are recognized as good authorities on plays. The head carpenter’s prophesy at the end of a first performance is usually worth listening to, and it is not often that the property man makes a mistake. And after two weeks of an attraction there is not a stage hand in the theatre who does not feel that he could play any part in the piece. Not as the vaudeville stage hand plays parts, by being the butt of the comic juggler’s comedy or coming on as a bellboy or a waiter, but as the actor plays them, only in the stage hand’s own mind, a good deal better.

Sometimes they try it. One Christmas time the stage hands at the Belasco Theatre, which is now the Republic, put on a burlesque of “The Rose of the Rancho” for Mr. Belasco’s benefit, and surprised the “governor” and the other invited guests by their histrionic ability. And last Spring, at a performance given for the Hippodrome Sick Benefit Fund, the stage crew from the Bijou gave an act of “The Lottery Man” so well that the regular company began to be worried.

Many of the workers on the stage “hold down” other jobs. They are required only six nights and two afternoons during the week, except when scene rehearsals are called. Almost any daylight occupation can be attended to without interference with the work at night. A very incomplete census of the stage hands in town indicates that a good proportion of them are married. At one big house they have got into the habit of marrying members of the chorus, and one of the happiest of the big force over there this season is a “clearer” who was excused from rehearsals one day last week to go home and see the new baby. Last Winter its mother was one of those who went down into the water and astonished out-of-town visitor by not coming up again.

– first published in The New York Times – September 4, 1910

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Writing for Vaudeville

The following is excerpted from “Writing for Vaudeville” by Brett Page, published in 1915:

Into the mimic room that the grips are setting comes the Property-man–”Props,” in stage argot–with his assistants, who place in the designated positions the furniture, bric-a-brac, pianos, and other properties, that the story enacted in this room demands.

After the act has been presented and the curtain has been rung down, the order to “strike” is given and the clearers run in and take away all the furniture and properties, while the property-man substitutes the new furniture and properties that are needed. This is done at the same time the grips and fly men are changing the scenery. No regiment is better trained in its duties. The property-man of the average vaudeville theatre is a hard-worked chap. Beside being an expert in properties, he must be something of an actor, for if there is an “extra man” needed in a playlet with a line or two to speak, it is on him that the duty falls. He must be ready on the instant with all sorts of effects, such as glass-crashes and wood-crashes, when a noise like a man being thrown downstairs or through a window is required, or if a doorbell or a telephone-bell must ring at a certain instant on a certain cue, or the noise of thunder, the wash of the sea on the shore, or any one of a hundred other effects be desired.

…

In the ancient days before even candles were invented–the rush-light days of Shakespere and his predecessors–plays were presented in open court-yards or, as in France, in tennis-courts in the broad daylight. A proscenium arch was all the scenery usually thought necessary in these outdoor performances, and when the plays were given indoors even the most realistic scenery would have been of little value in the rush-lit semi-darkness. Then, indeed, the play was the thing. A character walked into the STORY and out of it again; and “place” was left to the imagination of the audience, aided by the changing of a sign that stated where the story had chosen to move itself.

As the centuries rolled along, improvements in lighting methods made indoor theatrical presentations more common and brought scenery into effective use. The invention of the kerosene lamp and later the invention of gas brought enough light upon the stage to permit the actor to step back from the footlights into a wider working-space set with the rooms and streets of real life. Then with the electric light came the scenic revolution that emancipated the stage forever from enforced gloomy darkness, permitted the actor’s expressive face to be seen farther back from the footlights, and made of the proscenium arch the frame of a picture.

“It is for this picture-frame stage that every dramatist is composing his plays,” Brander Matthews says; “and his methods are of necessity those of the picture-frame stage; just as the methods of the Elizabethan dramatic poet were of necessity those of the platform stage.” And on the same page: The influence of the realistic movement of the middle of the nineteenth century imposed on the stage-manager the duty of making every scene characteristic of the period and of the people, and of relating the characters closely to their environment.” (The Study of the Drama, Brander Matthews.)

On the vaudeville stage to-day, when all the sciences and the arts have come to the aid of the drama, there is no period nor place, nor even a feeling of atmosphere, that cannot be reproduced with amazing truth and beauty of effect. Everything in the way of scenery is artistically possible, from the squalid room of the tenement-dweller to the blossoming garden before the palace of a king–but artistic possibility and financial advisability are two very different things.

…

In the argot of the stage the word “property” or “prop” means any article–aside from scenery–necessary for the proper mounting or presentation of a play. A property may be a set of furniture, a rug, a pair of portieres, a picture for the wall, a telephone, a kitchen range or a stew-pan–indeed, anything a tall that is not scenery, although serving to complete the effect and illusion of a scene.

Furniture is usually of only two kinds in a vaudeville playhouse. There is a set of parlor furniture to go with the parlor set and a set of kitchen furniture to furnish the kitchen set. But, while these are all that are at the immediate command of the property-man, he is usually permitted to exchange tickets for the theatre with any dealer willing to lend needed sets of furniture, such as a desk or other office equipment specially required for the use of an act.

In this way the sets of furniture in the property room may be expanded with temporary additions into combinations of infinite variety. But, it is wise not to ask for anything out of the ordinary, for many theatre owners frown upon bills for hauling, even though the rent of the furniture may be only a pair of seats.

For the same reason, it is unwise to specify in the property-list– which is a printed list of the properties each act requires–anything in the way of rugs that is unusual. Though some theatres have more than two kinds of rugs, the white bear rug and the carpet rug are the most common. It is also unwise to ask for pictures to hang on the walls. If a picture is required, one is usually supplied set upon an easel.

Of course, every theatre is equipped with prop telephones and sets of dishes and silver for dinner scenes. But there are few vaudeville houses in the country that have on hand a bed for the stage, although the sofa is commonly found.

A buffet, or sideboard, fully equipped with pitchers and wine glasses, is customary in every vaudeville property room. And champagne is supplied in advertising bottles which “pop” and sparkle none the less realistically because the content is merely ginger ale.

While the foregoing is not an exhaustive list of what the property room of a vaudeville theatre may contain, it gives the essential properties that are commonly found. Thus every ordinary requirement of the usual vaudeville act can be supplied.

The special properties that an act may require must be carried by the act. For instance, if a playlet is laid in an artist’s studio there are all sorts of odds and ends that would lend a realistic effect to the scene. A painter’s easel, bowls of paint brushes, a palette, half-finished pictures to hang on the walls, oriental draperies, a model’s throne, and half a dozen rugs to spread upon the floor, would lend an atmosphere of charming bohemian realism.

Special Sound-Effects fall under the same common-sense rule. For, while all vaudeville theatres have glass crashes, wood crashes, slap-sticks, thunder sheets, cocoanut shells for horses’ hoof-beats, and revolvers to be fired off-stage, they could not be expected to supply such little-called-for effects as realistic battle sounds, volcanic eruptions, and like effects.

If an act depends on illusions for its appeal, it will, of course, be well supplied with the machinery to produce the required sounds. And those that do not depend on exactness of illusion can usually secure the effects required by calling on the drummer with his very effective box-of-tricks to help out the property-man.

…

ARGOT.–Slang; particularly, stage terms.

GLASS-CRASH.–A basket filled with broken glass, used to imitate the noise of breaking a window and the like.

GRIP.–The man who sets scenery or grips it.

OLIO.–A drop curtain full across the stage, working flat against the tormentors (which see). It is used as a background for acts in One, and often to close-in on acts playing in Two, Three and Four.

PROPERTIES.–Furniture, dishes, telephones, the what-not employed to lend reality–scenery excepted. Stage accessories.

PROPERTY-MAN.–The man who takes care of the properties.

PROPS.–Property-man; also short for properties.

WOOD-CRASH.–An appliance so constructed that when the handle is turned a noise like a man falling downstairs, or the crash of a fight, is produced.

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