CHAPTER III.
PROVISION FOR BACK-STAGE WORKERS
I havenoted in an earlier chapter that the architecture of the theatre is always governed by the function of the drama performed in it. The use to which the stage is put determines always the shape and style of the auditorium. There is no doubt that some great change is soon to overtake the theatre; the drama will assume a new form, demanding a new mode of presentation, and so a new theatre. Presently I shall discuss what forms this new theatre may assume, but for the moment it is enough to observe that it will be marked by a closer bond, one way or another, between the audience and the players, between the audience and the play.
For a long while, the theatre has shrouded itself in a sort of pseudo-mystery. “Back-stage” has had the lure for the layman of a hat from which rabbits are drawn by a conjurer. Of course, under inspection, such a hat is found to be as empty as any other, bearing even, in most cases, the mark of a respectable maker. And the inspection deepens the mystery. The stage has shunned this sort of scrutiny, because our drama of to-day and our theatre live mostly by “effects”. And if the effect is stripped of wonder, the theatre is almost as good as dead. What a sign of weakness this is! If the snowstorm is seen to be bits of paper shaken out of a bag, and if it is found that the imitation wind is produced by the scraping of paddles on canvas, the public will lose interest in the theatre.
And the people of the stage! How hungrily necks are craned for a glimpse of the popular actor or of the beautiful actress, should one pass in a hotel or on the street. They inhabit that mysterious, unexplored back-stage. And a clever manager will encourage this sort of curiosity by advising his people not to show themselves in the street, except unavoidably. The matter of seeing the actors close may be dismissed with a quip,—they might be found respectable upon acquaintance, or, more likely, dull. But the truth about the back of the theatre is the truth about the conjurer’s hat,—there’s nothing there to see, except the pitiful little bag of tricks, the snowstorm and the wind. There is not even the maker’s label. But this emptiness is not all, for as with the hat, it’s quite engrossing while the rabbits arethere. The worst of it is that it is so poor, so mean often, so dirty, so cramped and littered, to the last, dark cranny, that we wonder how the actor-rabbits endure it all and keep their fur so white.
A rudimentary shame on the part of the managers, and a very human pride on the part of the actors, have helped to keep these matters from the theatregoer. Out front, there is warmth, light, comfort, elegance. The spectator is lulled into forgetfulness of work, and the play casts its spell over him. But a glimpse of the wretched barrenness of the dressing-room or shop would make short work of his peace of mind, just as a knowledge of the tricks sheers them of illusion.
These things are becoming known, because the bond between the spectator and the theatre-worker is already being formed. When it is full grown, such facts will not be discovered; they will no longer exist. For two movements that are bound to affect the theatre of the future are bringing the lay public clambering over the footlights and crowding in at the stage door. One, the Little Theatre Movement, is almost altogether a lay insurgency. In scores of communities, it has made its way; tradesmen, students, clerks, mechanics, people of leisure and working people with a little leisure, have come together and in a short time have plumbed the silly little mysteries of back-stage, and have brought into their theatres a little bit of the real Mystery of life and art that belongs there. And the more extensive, democratic Community Drama movement is making play-actors and theatre-workers of thousands who have heretofore been auditors. There will always be a professional group of artists of the theatre, but in their theatres there will be a close understanding and perhaps a physical connection between the audience and the stage; in the great, popular theatre it is conceivable that there will be very little distinction between the auditorium and the stage. It may be that they will be interchangeable or be one and the same. Then, it is certain that the conditions of comfort and convenience that apply to the one shall apply fully to the other, that the actor shall be as well cared for in the theatre as the public.
Let those who are building to-day look to this: Visit the dressing-rooms, see the workplaces of the other workers of the theatre,—the carpenter, electrician, property-man, and wardrobe workers. Consider these workplaces, not only in comparison with the front of the house, but as fit places for human beings to spend as much as an hour a day. Consider them as places where work that should have in it joy and beauty may develop.
The community theatres that are going to be built within the next few years are bound to be a blessing to those who have access to them. But, for the most part, their projectors and builders are laymen, knowing little of the vast work of preparation that must be done before a play is ready for an audience. Where the commercial theatre builder does not care how the actor and the theatre mechanic fare, the lay builder is a little likely to overlook their existence. I have seen dozens of clubs and schools, with fairly adequate stages and auditoriums, but with no more than two small dressing-rooms, one for men and one for women. I have seen several with no more than one, originally intended for a closet but set aside as a dressing-room when it was discovered that something of the sort is indispensable.
Aside from the fact that the players and the workmen are human beings, quite often of the same tastes and breeding as those who occupy the front of the theatre, they have a long and exacting work to perform, most of which can be done only in the theatre. And their domain is the part of the theatre behind the proscenium line. The actors must rehearse for several weeks before the play can be acted. They must be in the theatre some time before the curtain rises on the play and they leave it some time after the play has ended and the audience has gone home. For they must dress and “make-up”, and should be allowed a little while to shake off John Smith and enter into Hamlet. There is, moreover, scenery to be built and painted, furniture and properties to be made, lights to be arranged, effects to be devised, costumes to be cut, fitted and sewed.
How should these activities and these workers be taken care of?
First, the actors.
For their rehearsals, first of all, the stage should be used. If the stage is otherwise occupied, with scenery, or with the rehearsals of another production, as it often is in busy theatres, there should be another place in the same building where rehearsals can be held, a room with as large a floor as that of the stage proper. But, as often as possible, the stage should be used for rehearsals.
Then, for their preparation to appear in a performance, their dressing and make-up. Dressing-rooms must be provided, sufficient in number to accommodate the cast of the average play without crowding more than two people to a room. Under ideal conditions, each player will have a separate room, so that he can prepare for his performance, mentally as well as physically, without disturbance. The rooms should be not less than eightby ten feet, should each have a window, and should be heated in winter. Against one wall there should be a long shelf or table, about eighteen inches wide. Above it, should be a good mirror, with lights so placed that the face of an actor seated at the shelf and looking into the mirror will be well illuminated. Under the shelf, there should be a drawer in which make-up materials may be kept. Each dressing room should be provided with a washstand and with hot and cold water. There should be a high clothes-closet or wardrobe in which costumes may be hung. Where this is impractical, there should be sufficient hooks to accommodate a number of costumes, and means of covering them with a cloth to protect them from dust. Above the clothes hooks, or at the top of the closet, should be a shelf for hats, shoes, etc.
It is well to provide from eight to twelve dressing-rooms, each large enough to accommodate two persons. In addition, there should be two large rooms, each with space for about a dozen persons, these to be used for chorus, supernumeraries, or players of small parts.
On each dressing-room floor there should be proper toilet accommodations for each sex. Also, the ideally equipped building will have shower baths. In these days of Dunsany, Hindus and Arabs and Ethiopians may be met in many a town en route from the little theatre to their homes, there to wash themselves white.
It has been noted that, to preserve the unbroken wall space of the stage as far as possible, dressing-rooms should not open directly upon the stage floor. In many theatres, they are ranged off galleries above the stage. On the whole, this is inadvisable. A dressing-room door, inopportunely opened, will let a beam of light fall upon the stage, often spoiling the lighting of a scene. The slamming of doors, sound of voices, and other noises are almost unavoidable. And the argument usually advanced for so arranging dressing-rooms—that the actors can hear what is going on on the stage and thus be in time for their entrances, is fallacious. This very fact breeds in them a confidence that makes them careless, and they are more often late than if they were required to wait for their cues on the stage.
One more thing should be provided for the actor, not indispensable, but making for fellowship and comfort—the feature known in German theatres as the Konverzations-Zimmer and in older English and American theatres as the Green Room. Thisshould be a comfortable lounge, furnished more as a room in a home or club, than in a theatre, and stocked with books and periodicals relating to the theatre.
With the actor carefully considered in the matter of cleanliness and cheerfulness backstage, a new pleasure will come into his work. Likewise, with the other workers of the theatre. Closest to the actor, perhaps, the wardrobe people. In the ideal theatre two rooms should be set aside for the wardrobe, one for the making of clothes and another for their storage. The sewing room, needless to say, should be well lighted, should have a space partitioned off as a fitting room, should be provided with proper closets in which to hang dresses in the process of making, and should be large enough to allow for a number of seamstresses and a large cutting table. There should be a built-in closet equipped with shelves and drawers in which to store cloths, trimmings, findings, etc., for the making of costumes. For the costume storage room, a loft space that might otherwise go to waste can often be utilized. This room should have long closets, fitted with bars on which dresses can be hung, and should have drawers in which other items of dress can be packed—hats, shoes, wigs, stockings, tights, etc. These drawers should be numerous enough to allow for the sorting out of costumes by colors or periods, and should be properly labelled.
Each of the mechanical departments should likewise have its two rooms, one a shop and the other for storage. The carpenter, if the scenery is built in the theatre, often can use the space under the stage for building. If he cannot build his scenery there, either another place should be set aside or the scenery should be built outside the building. He should not use the stage. It must be kept free for rehearsals. He should have, however, a room in which to keep his tools, draw his plans, and file his ground and framing plans, bills, time-sheets, etc.
The matter of storage space for scenery is to be determined wholly by the amount of space at the builder’s disposal and the use to which the theatre is to be put. If many productions are to be made, a space should be provided for a scene-dock, adjacent to the stage but separate from it, unless the building is small, in which case a storehouse elsewhere may be used. Scenery should not be allowed to accumulate on the stage. The theatre of the Carnegie Institute of Technology at Pittsburgh has an excellent dock, shown on the ground plan, Figure 4.
The property department needs a shop for the making of furniture, papier mâché work, etc., and a storage room in which furniture and other stage furnishings can be stored. Often one large room can be made to do for both.
The electrical department likewise must not be overlooked. There must be closets for the keeping of incandescent bulbs, lamp dyes, plugs, connectors, cable, wire, and other electrical hardware, gelatines, color frames, etc. There must be provision in the shop for the dyeing of lamps, testing, repairing, etc.
The property and electrical departments, like the carpenter’s, must also be fitted in a sense as offices, for the keeping of electric and property plots, full records relating to past and coming productions, bills, orders, receipts, time sheets, and like data.
It may be objected at this point that these various demands presuppose a large-sized plant with elaborate equipment. As a matter of fact, they apply quite as much to the tiniest of little theatres—even more so, for in such, proper ordering of space and isolation of separate activities is equivalent, in getting efficiency, to more ample space less carefully sub-divided. For, inevitably, these various kinds of work must be done in the theatre, and the people who do them must find space here or there for their work, and the things they make must be kept somewhere. Unless each job and each product is assigned its proper corner, the building is soon a clutter of stuff, accumulating dust, getting jostled about and broken. Then we are back at the old, dark, dirty theatre we are trying so hard to improve upon. The provisions discussed above, though they are not on the stage, are very much a part of it, and go far toward making it an instrument of precision.
In community buildings and schools, the various workshops, rehearsal room, etc., can often be combined with rooms serving other purposes. In any case some provision for them is quite as important as the open stage itself.