Part 3

The arrangements for raising and lowering act drops, back cloths, curtains, etc., are described and illustrated elsewhere.

STAGE EFFECTS

There are few plays produced in which a stage ‘effect’ of some kind is not required. The following explanations of how these effects are produced will be found quite reliable, but the amateur stage manager will do well to bear in mind that each effect must be produced shortly before it is actually needed. Thus, if the stage direction says, ‘Horses heard without,’ it will not do to wait until the characters on the stage have reached the point in the dialogue. Otherwise, however good the stage effect may be from a practical point of view, it will seem absurd, because it will appear to the audience to have been dragged in just when it was required.

Possibly someone may say to this: ‘But the audience know that the effect is not real; they know that in reality there are no horses without; why be so particular?’

To this I reply: ‘If the stage manager and the actors know their business they will make the audience forget for the time that the things they see and hear are not “real.”’ If the play is produced and acted well everything will seem to be so perfectly natural that, for a time at any rate, the audience will forget that they are looking at a play; that is to say, they will forget the artificiality of it all. It is by attention to the smallest details of the production of a play that the stage manager will succeed at his work.

For instance, who has not seen at an amateur production of a play a man coming in from a long country walk—according to the play—wearing boots that had obviously just been cleaned? Or a man walking in from a snowstorm in an overcoat that was perfectly dry? It is the amateur’s inattention to little details of that kind that makes an audience smile indulgently at the stage picture. They say to themselves: ‘After all, they are only amateurs and we must make allowances.’ But there should be no need for such indulgence. A company of amateurs may not be able to succeed in playing a drama with all the skill of professionals, but there is no reason why their stage management should not be ‘clean’ and smart, because, after all, when once you have the knowledge, the production of stage effects is merely a matter of common sense.

The man walking in from a snowstorm should have a little common salt laid on the shoulders of his overcoat just before he enters, and his boots should be ‘made up’ muddy. When he removes his overcoat the ‘snow’ falls away and apparently melts—which, of course, is just what real snow does when a little is brought into a warm room.

The windows of a stage are usually the amateur’s bugbear—or rather one of his many bugbears. I have known an amateur to open a window of a house in a busy London street—according to the stage directions of the play—and, save for the fact that the audience has seen the window opened, there has been no attempt to deceive their sense of hearing; whereas, everyone should know that if you open a window of a house in a busy London street you naturally hear the sound of traffic.

Thanks to motor cars this sound of traffic is easily produced on the stage. Two or three motor horns will produce some of the sounds with which people are familiar, but to get the right effect the men using the horns must retire from the window; indeed, one of the horns should be some distance from it in the first place. The only way to get this effect of distance is to stand in the auditorium and have the horns sounded from different places behind the scenes.

HORSES ‘OFF’

The sound of horses trotting up to the imaginary road outside the imaginary house of stage-land is easily produced. The man whose business it is to produce this sound has a couple of wooden blocks, each fitted with a short band of webbing, into which he slips his hands. The blocks are knocked on a board placed on the floor of the stage, and when the horses are supposed to be very near the scene the board is discarded and the wooden blocks are knocked on a slab of slate or marble.

Some men prefer to use cocoanut shells instead of the blocks of wood; the shells, which must be cut or ground flat, give a better ring to the sound. The illustration will show how the blocks or shells are handled.

A THUNDER STORM

A thunder storm is imitated by the sounds of wind, rain and thunder combined. The thunder is produced from a sheet iron hung from the flies. At the bottom of it there is a handle which the thunder-maker grasps. He shakes the sheet as well as he can, and a sound of booming thunder is heard in the auditorium.

HEAVY RAIN

The sound of rain is produced by means of a rain box, fashioned in the following way. Two uprights are fixed on a common base and a large oblong box is fixed between them by means of a couple of pivots in its sides. This box is filled with small stones and the rain-producer stands at one end of the box and moves it up and down, thus tilting the stones to and fro in the box. Strange as it will appear to anyone not in the secret, this moving of small stones in a box produces the sound of heavy rain to those sitting in the auditorium. Of course, if rain is to be seen on the stage it may be the real thing—so far as the water is concerned—but it is seldom needed, and then only for a few seconds; in any case, a play that needs such an elaborate effect will probably not be looked upon with favour by any company of amateur players.

STAGE SNOW

The ‘snow’ that falls on a stage is white paper; if a snow scene is required the blocks of snow may be painted canvas or may be blocks of rock salt.

The snow that is to fall in a pretty snowstorm effect is gathered up in a large cloth with slits in it. This cloth is held in the flies by two men, who move it, in a rocking motion, backwards and forwards, so the paper is caused to fall through the slits in the cloth to the stage below.

That is one method. Another way is to have the ‘snow’ gathered up in a long frame of wire netting—something like an inverted ‘pea net’—and this is fixed in the flies and rocked gently backwards and forwards. With each forward movement some of the paper escapes and the effect of falling snow is produced.

Snow is mostly wanted for melodramas and pantomimes, and as the runs of these pieces are always considerable the snow is used over and over again. It is usually swept up with a broom and carried upstairs again in pails, but if this plan is not practicable—owing to the changing of a scene,—the snow is gathered up by an army of men with fans. They bend down close to the stage and fan the paper away into a corner. Which ever arrangement is used the amateur stage manager would do well to remember that if the audience are allowed to see a few pieces of the stage snow lying about the stage after the snow storm the illusion is spoiled. I have frequently seen this bad, careless mistake made at good theatres.

WINDY WEATHER

Stage wind is produced by means of a large drum or wheel made of slats of wood, with about three inches of space between the slats. This drum is fastened to two uprights and has a large handle attached to the centre, so that it can be turned round and round very easily. Above the drum is fixed a stout rod, from which hangs a large piece of moiré silk. This silk hangs over the drum, and when the drum is turned the sound made by the slats of wood touching the silk produces the sound of wind. The illustrations show how the appliance can be made.

RIPPLING WAVES

The effect of rippling waves is produced by means of a specially prepared back cloth. This has a number of slits cut in it (see illustration). Behind the back cloth is a machine consisting of two uprights, with a roller-blind attachment at the top, but in place of the blind there is a large sheet of American cloth perforated in the way shown in the illustration. Between this American cloth and the back cloth on the stage is a sheet of prepared gauze. This is necessary, because the strong light which is used to produce the effect of rippling waves must be diffused. The light is that of a strong ‘lime’ placed at the back of the American cloth. Now if the American cloth is pulled up and down by means of the roller on the upright, the effect of rippling waves is produced when one looks at the back cloth ‘from the front.’

MECHANICAL SOUND PRODUCERS

The continued success of motion pictures as an entertainment has made it necessary that some of the time-honoured methods of producing stage effects, should be replaced with instruments more adaptable to the limited space of cinematograph theatres. There is no room for instance for a thunder sheet in the operator’s box, or beside the pianist. Incidentally the legitimate stage is also the gainer.

The following devices here illustrated are the invention of Mr A. H. Moorhouse of Stalybridge.

In the first, Figs. 1 and 2, we have an instrument for imitating the trotting horses which can be tuned to any speed or strength. A number of cups are used. ‘A’ one fitting over the other and connected by a spring ‘B.’ The top cup has cuts round the edge to let the sound out. By turning the handle which has the tappets C1 and C2 mounted on its shaft, the top cup is thrown off the other (see Fig. 2) until the tappet C clears when it (the cup) returns making the necessary sound. Now each tappet can be set on the shaft at a different angle, so that the cups open and shut one after the other, thus producing a continuous trotting effect. In order to obtain distance effects the inventor has provided a foot lever by pressing which the platform of the lower cups is thrown out of the vertical, thus the tappet only partially strikes the top cup and the sound is consequently much fainter, but as the lever is gradually released the trotting increases in intensity. By having a suspended rod of sleigh-bells, with spring projections for the tappets to strike, effects of moving vehicles can be obtained.

The second drawing (Fig. 3) shows a drum fitted up for producing a variety of sound effects. ‘M’ is a kind of apron of woven wire, which is wound on a drum ‘P’ by means of the handle shown. When the drum is struck the skin on returning strikes the mat with a sharp crack or bang, a sound resembling the firing of heavy artillery. By winding up the mat on its roller the sound can be increased or decreased as desired. On another part of the drum ‘R’ is an instrument for producing the effect of a motor car travelling at various speeds. This can be attached to clock-work mechanism instead of using the handle or lever.

The handle can also be used for working the valve S (compressed air is admitted to the casings and can be made to operate on the various instrument V for producing imitations of wind, whistles, sirens, horns, or any sound producer) that is attached to the valve.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.