Stage English
Every once in a while you stumble across an unexpected gem while doing research. In many cases for me, it has absolutely nothing to do with what I was looking for on my quest. It just magically appears on the same page, or somewhere nearby. That is why I always like looking for books in the library; three rows over there might be a book that I would have never otherwise encountered.
Today’s discovery looks at something that is evasive, even for theatre technicians – stage terminology. It changes from country to country and decade to decade. Unless there is an article that clearly explains the vernacular for the stage at a certain point in time, we can only hazard a guess or piece together bits of information from memoirs, trade journals and newspaper articles. The current words that we are familiar would seem foreign over a century ago to our predecessors. I discovered an article from 1895 that defines “meanings of some behind-the-scenes technical terms.”
It was in a January 6, 1895, article for the Detroit Free Press titled “Stage English” (page 15). I am posting the article in its entirety, as it is extremely valuable for deciphering our past and should be available for my colleagues. The attached photographs are of a model that I recently built for the Matthews Opera House in Spearfish Matthews when I was asked to depict what their original 1906 Twin City Scenic Co. collections would have looked like at the time of delivery.
“Stage English”
“The patrons of the theatre hear a great deal about “flies,” “borders,” “tormentors, braces, wings, traps and many other things belonging to the arcana of the stag, but comparatively few have anything like a definite idea of their meaning. Some industrious recorder of facts has taken pains to make a cursory collection of these for the general information.
The pieces of canvas running across the top of the stage, representing sky, ceiling, and so on, are “borders,” and the “flies” are the galleries on either side of the stage, made continuous by “the paint-bridge” at the back.
The back scene is generally in two pieces called “flats,” but when the scene descends from above or ascends from beneath the stage an is one piece, upon a roller or otherwise, it is called a “drop.”
The narrow side scenes are “wings,” and they run, top to bottom, in “grooves,” which are divided into “cuts.”
The inclined platforms are “runs” and used in mountain scenes, battle scenes and so on. The small painted frames used to hide from sight the audience the “runs” are known as “masking pieces.” A “box scene” is a room with solid walls and ceiling, and you cannot “box in” a forest scene. The pieces of canvas overhead are “sky borders,” and the space over these, sometimes stretching up to a great height, is known as the “rigging loft,” and the intricate webs of ropes up there are all worked from “the flies.”
“The “paint bridge” is the continuation and connecting part of the two galleries constituting the “flies,” which are stationary galleries and immovable. But the “paint bridge” is made to rise and lower as the pleasure of the scene painters and others, and immediately behind it is the “paint frame,” also to be raised and lowered so as to bring within easy reach all parts of the scenery the artists may be painting.
The holes on the stage are called “traps,” and underneath them are the trap cellars.” The “star” or “vampire” trap is a hole in the stage through which disappear r shoot upwards some of the principles in the pantomime and other spectacular pieces.
The noise resembling the breaking of timber and the falling of houses is made by means of a gigantic rattle, moved by a handle. Against the wall of the stage, generally at the exit to the street, is the “call box,” upon which, or rather within which, are posted the “calls,” or notices of rehearsals and other important events to occur. A “sea-cloth” is a piece of canvas, which is painted to represent water, and is shaken to produce an imitation of waves. The instructions from the author to the carpenter concerning the scenes in the play are called “scene plots.” The particular part of the stage where the stage carpenter stows his scenes is called “the dock.” This term is elastic, however, and applies to any place in or out of the theater where scenery is stowed.”
To be continued…
