There are some things that are not considered “picture worthy.” I think it simply depends on who is taking the photo. A close friend of mine took a picture of the boiler in the basement of a Scottish Rite and it is a haunting image. She captured the rust and decay that had settled in over the decades and the image is a work of art.
I took a photograph of the old elevator at the Fort Scott Scottish Rite. It might not be considered art, but it to recorded a detail from this deceased Scottish Rite facility. The new building owners might not save this aged machine as current safety regulations could prohibit its continued use. I both loved and feared that elevator, becoming intimately familiar with it as I transported supplies up to the second floor theatre. The entire crew knew exactly how fast it could ascend to the second floor. After pushing the button, we could race up the thirty-seven-step curved staircase and arrive before the doors would even open. It was extremely slow and every trip became a gamble. Every time the door closed I wondered if we would get stuck between floors. As in McAlester, the metal gate had to be completely shut before the contraption would move and inch. Regardless of my fears, there was something nostalgic about that elevator. I was transported back in time whenever the door shut and the motor began to whirr, jarring the elevator into motion.
The entire building was a treasure trove of memories, filled with forgotten bits and pieces from the past. When I arrived on site during November 2015, the stage area was quite unkempt. The building had been vacant for over a year and there were piles of unwanted items scattered throughout the building.
These were all remnants from the previous year’s auction that liquidated almost all of the building’s contents. However, this rubbish did not detract from the former beauty of the stage and shadows of its former glory were still apparent. I could look beyond the grime, imagining the space with new wooden arbors and the shiny cable.
As I glanced at old stage equipment, it was difficult not to imagine standing under brand new scenery and border lights; the smell of fresh mortar, the scent of cut wood, and the acrid tang from new metal filling the space. An historic stage fills me with a yearning to experience the era of its creation.
As the weights were pulled from each arbor to remove a drop from the corresponding line, I was reminded of skeletal remains in a crypt. This rigging system had once been something quite special; effortlessly raising or lowering painted settings at a moments notice. The stage machinery had transformed the stage and once transported generations of men to far away lands. Now that the scenery was gone, leaving the counterweight system useless and out of date. It would eventually become disposed of as scrap metal.
Perhaps that is why both Rick Boychuk and I salvaged complete rigging sets from the Fort Scott theater. Not as simple souvenirs or personal mementos, but to save a theatrical landmark in the evolution of stage design and machinery. The intricacy of an arbor could provoke a conversation so this technology could be remembered in the future.
It is now difficult for me to separate the painted scenery from the rigging as they are both so entwined in my mind, two halves of a whole. For me, the landscape above the stage is almost as exciting as those painted scenes below.
To be continued…
Here is a link to Rick Boychuk’s work http://www.counterweightrigging.com/
