WHAT ACTORS REALLY " EAT" ON THE STAGE.

Northern Advocate, 13 August 1913, Page 3

WHAT ACTORS REALLY " EAT" ON THE STAGE.

Did you ever happen to notice a dinner scene at the theatre, where the servant poured out a thick,

creamy soup, or ladled it out for the guests? was sawdust.

All sorts of things were tried to get the right effect of soup. Actual coloured liquid did not look right under the powerful stage lights, and it proved a difficult " prop " to handle. Finally, some clever stage manager or property man tried ordinary sawdust. The effect was perfect, and since then sawdust is used to represent soup at a dinner scene or gruel in a sick-room scene. Under the lights it has every appearance of a liquid.

Tempting slices of boiled ham — at least they look tempting to the audience —are nothing more or less than pieces of ordinary linoleum, with the red or under side uppermost. Salads are made from cabbage leaves, and tomaties sliced up give every appearance of a delicious boiled lobster. Bananas are served for fish.

" Chicken " generally consists of a small, well-browned Vienna-shaped loaf of bread with painted wooden legs stuck in; a turkey is made in the same manner from a larger loaf of bread.

A roast of beef is generally made from sponge cake, browned with gravy. It carves easily, and has every appearance of meat. Slices of toast cut in proper shape and frilled with paper on one end look just like chops and cutlets, and may be nibbled by the actors. A steaming hot pie is a pan with a brown paper covering, and inside of this is a dish of boiling hot water or boiled potatoes.

The hot water or boiled potatoes furnish the " steam " that arises from the " pie " when the paper is cut, and looks quite as appetising as the genuine article. Tea, it is generally known, serves for whisky on the stage, and when coloured with grenadine or some such colouring matter it is wine. Ginger ale supplies the sparkling "champagne," but when milk is called for no substitute is used, if it is to be drunk. Even water has its substitute. This is not water for drinking, however, but for garments where an effect of being Avet is wanted. An actor might come upon the stage actually wet to the skin in real water, and aside from his dripping hair he would not look wet. To make an actor look actually wet a great quantity of vaseline is rubbed over his clothes, when, with hair dripping wet, and the lights reflected upon the vaseline on his clothes, he has every appearance of having just been fished out of the river or ocean, or whatever particular body of water he is supposed to have fallen or been thrown into.