A Shadow Theatre

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 6, 5 August 1908, Page 33

A Shadow Theatre

AT this season of the year a novelty in the way of amusements is always welcome, and especially in these stage-struck days, when the novelty means a theatre in our own house; a real stage of our own, on the boards of which we can command the appearance of dramatic stars of the first magnitude without paying a penny in salary. The Shadow Theatre I am going to describe should prove an endless source of amusement to the youngsters, and even their elders, as all the favourite jokes of the pantomime can be repeated on their little stage. But this theatre at its best is more than a pastime, and capable of a development which Paris, the centre of things artistic and intellectual, realised to the full in the days when the worldfamous “Chat Noir” revived the decayed art of the Shadow Theatre. Not only were compositions arranged by wellknown writers and artists, but clever amateurs made great successes of their little theatres. One of these dramatised the “Thais” of M. Anatole France, a book full of Eastern splendour, all the riches of which he suggested to perfection with his little pasteboard silhouettes.

Our Shadow Theatre is not without its history. The “Ombres Chinoises,” as the French call them, originated in the East. The Chinese, the Japanese, and the Indians have had their Shadow Theatre for centuries. In India, the Wayang, as it is called, is quite an important affair, employing a staff of men, one to manipulate the figures, another to cut them out on leather and mount them on ivory, and another to recite. It was introduced into Europe in the eighteenth century, but it was of a very primitive nature, appealing mostly to children, although it is recorded that their Majesties the King and Queen of France and their suite often honoured the performance with their presence. The “Chat Noir,” that semi-Bohemian cafe so celebrated in its day for the

crowd of artists, musicians and poets who displayed their varied talents on its stage and charmed “le tout Paris” to its doors, saw the great Renaissance of the Shadow Theatre. A few elite souls in open revolt at the overstaging of great dramatic masterpieces, and the cabotinage of certain stars, seized on the idea of the Shadow Theatre to show how the grandeur of simplicity and self-effacement enhanced the beauty of masterly prose and verse. Caran d’Ache, the now celebrated caricaturist, drew large crowds by his exquisitely drawn silhouettes of Napoleon’s army. The soldiers filed across the stage to the accompaniment of martial song and music, shouldered arms, fired, and fell amidst the roar of cannon and clouds of smoke. When the smoke cleared the stage was seen strewn with the slain. But how is all this done, you will ask? The designing and mechanism of our little figures can be very complicated if perfection is the goal. But as my space is limited, and I have only undertaken to write on a novel pastime for the winter evenings, II will leave perfection alone and make the directions as simple as possible. To begin with the stage. Either the

folding doors between two rooms would be suitable, or a three-leaf screen with the upper half of the middle cut away, and placed in a doorway (or, failing this, in the room itself), so arranged as to hide the stage manager and reciter from tlie audience. A transparent tracingcloth or muslin dipped in water and well wrung out, must be strained across the opening. A drop or sliding curtain must be arranged over the stage, which must be high enough to admit of tlie operator standing or sitting at the back below. A very narrow ledge runs along the inside to rest the figui'4% on, so that they nearly touch the transparent sheet. They are held in the hand by a piece of cardboard or wood glued to the back (see Fig. IV.). of a screen is not available, the framework of a shallow box wou’.u do, the

transparent cloth stretched so as to leave room for the drop curtain in front. The box should then be suspended by ropes from its four corners and fastened to walls and floor, curtains being thrown over the ropes to hide the operators. A shadow stage is usually about one yard and a quarter wide and one yard high. A piano is placed in the front of the scene where the performer, with back to the audience, takes the place of an orchestra. The figures can be first drawn then pasted on to cardboard and cut with scissors or knife. But those wishing to go to work seriously and have a stock company of lasting, clean-edged shadows should cut them in zinc, as decorators do their stencils. If they are to move they must be jointed as in Fig. TV., which shows how a Gibson girl can be made to trail and sway rhythmically across the stage after the manner of her kind. The limbs arc ent off, and a piece of cardboard being added, they are replaced with wire and manipulated by means of cotton or string, kept in place by little wire hoops, thus preventing the string projecting, and becoming visible to the audience. The cardboard clowns sold in toy-shops which dance and gesticulate when a string is pulled would be of great help in understanding the mechanism of our little shadow figures. The arrows pointing to the forearm of Fig. IV. indicate that the arm has been jointed here, but replaced bv a knot of elastic, which gives a lifelike springy motion, without requiring to be manipulated with string. A pretty Dutch scene could be reconstructed bv taking a similar subject as Fig If. The mill (Fig. III.) could be fastened to the side of the stage, as shown in diagram to represent the middle distance. The sails, if fastened on according to diagram, have only to be touched to be set in motion. Subjects similar to Fig. 1., representing the fairv tale of the Princess of the Geese, will suggest themselves readily to those who

are fond of tolling fairy tales to childdren. Indeed, there is no reason why the telling of fairy tales, illustrated by a shadow theatre, should not prove a remunerative profession to ladies of ingenuity and artistic gifts. To those who can draw and design their own subjects a vast field is open to them. But those who cannot, and those who prefer to have their favourite actors and actresses on the stage must resort to

the theatrical periodicals and the picture postcards, which they can enlarge by means of the pantograph or ruled squares after (he manner taught in kindergarten schools. The figures are eut about half the height of the stage. Those

for the background must be cut smaller, according to the perspective, and each group for the background must be arranged so that one part of it can be fastened to the sides or top of the stage as in Fig. 111. As regards the lighting arrangementsr, an ordinary oil lamp with a tin reflector would do for all simple purposes, placed on a shelf or on the wall so as to shine on the middle .of the stage. Other stage accessories will suggest themselves to an ingenious stage-mana-ger as lie proceeds. Cigarette smoke or cotton wool is generally used to represent smoke, which, together with the firing of a squib and the noise of cannon is suitable for a battle scene or earthquake. Coloured gelatine can be used for lighted windows.

Sometimes the magic-lantern is combined with the Shadow Theatre. Thus two figures can be made to fight a duel in the snow by moonlight, or fishermen be represented drawing in their boats, with the sea in the background. But all those who feel the artistic possibilities of a Shadow Theatre must agree that the introduction of colour and the employment of too many stage tricks detracts from the staid and dignified simplicity which is its chief charm. A well-known writer once said of the Shadow Stage: -‘•lt will not. of course, kill the theatre, but it may perhaps teach its great confrere that simplicity is the soul of greatness and the chief characteristic of true feeling.” “Les ombres lie sont pas ce qu’un vain people pense, C’cst le rove par Tart, un monde, un monde immense.”

Flora Wiggins on London.

AMERICAN BOARDING HOUSE WAITRESS’ IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLISH CUSTOMS. (By Gertrude Quinlan.) Miss Gertrude Quinlan, who has been appearing in London as Flora Wiggins, the “slangy” boarding-house girl in “The College Widow,” by Mr. George Ade, the Chicago humourist, is a charming Bostonian, and in the following article she gives Flora Wiggins’ impressions of London. Flora Wiggins is the typical American boarding-house waitress. It is in the character and language of Flora —she of the cheap and gaudy attire, the frilled apron, the rhinestone jewels, and the marvellous Pompadour, with its amazing Alsatian bow —that Miss Quinlan has written the following article. “You ask me what does Flora Wiggins think about this old town? There

are others, maybe, who have told you what they think, but I say there’s only one Flora Wiggins, and that’s me. If you don’t believe me, ask George Ade. “Well, after a pretty swift jump from Liverpool to London, during which time I noted that all the fields looked as if a barber had been round clipping, I fell into my hotel, and next morning 1 met an English reporter. This put me wise to the fact that I must be some pun’kins in this village, and so must be careful of the line of dope that I shall hand out to von. This reportei- fellow was the politest thing that ever happened. He began: “I should be most awfully obliged,” and then he just blushed and collapsed. ‘Ge! isn't he smooth—he’s as good as a vaudeville act,” I said to myself. Then 1 just bad to say right out: “Come out of your trance, young man, and get in the game.”

HOT AIR. “Of course, at first I thought he was a shine, but when he started handing out some English hot air, I knew he was “it.” “He was ever so nice, and told me that the City Sheriff’s coach was in the courtyard below. I just flew down, and there was the coach, and when I saw it I asked my young friend as gently as I could if a circus had struck the town. Over home, if we heard that the Sheriff was around we would get to wondering who’d been doing the shooting or getting away with the goods, or figuring in a divorce matinee. On this side, it seems, the Sheriff is a perfectly quiet man, and not calculated to scare anyone. “I just walked round and round that coach, and I wanted to get right in, until I saw the coachman. He was grand. He was just as covered with gold as a Coney Island lion-tamer, and, having

a great thirst for news, I asked my young friend if the coachman had a police permit to appear in abbreviated trouserettes. When I managed to break away from the Sheriff’s coach I blew out into the Strand, so as to see the street show from the upper deck of a motor-omnibus. So I just stood at a corner singing “Me for the ’bus-top.” MOTOR OMNIBUSES. We have a few motor-omnibuses on Fifth-avenue, but, say, here —I Why, you get dizzy with them as soon as you start out, and what struck me most about them, apart from the seductive incense that they spread around, was the frigid hauteur of the chaffeurs. The first one whizzed by like a iiot streak, and I let it go. The second one whizzed a little slower, so I raised my hand and

gave the chaffeur the soft eye. But I didn’t get a come-back. Then I held up both hands (and my purse), and received the frozen face from the third chauffeur. Maybe six omnibuses passed me before 1 was dragged into one by a young man, who offered me the velvet mit. I fell into a heap in the corner, and everybody laughed. Motor-omnibus chauffeurs are a bunch of Indians. “I experienced a ‘Where am I?’ feeling when 1 struck the first store. The floorwalkers in London are just crazy about showing you upstairs. Now, there is one thing 1 have no use for, and that’s a roof, so when three floor-walkers had made me tired of their Alpine stories I passed them the ice-pitcher and hustled around next to myself. Gee! the politeness of the young things behind the counter! Over home our store ladies are all ‘Dethroned Empresses,’ with a sort of ‘you-needn’t-have-it-if-you-don’t-want-it’ set of expressions. Here they say ‘Thank you, madam,’ every time you cough or sieze your change. But I like it, and I think I’ll go on liking it. "1 shall take cabs ail the time I’m in London, and one day 1 shall take three taxi-hansome at sixpence each, just to tell friends over home about it. LONDON POLICE-iEN. “Everyone talks about London policemen, so I shall only say that when I struck the first one he was standing pat in the middle of the road, looking like a real king and keeping back two thousand wheels for me—and others—and I just had to say: ‘Well, that’s a scream.’ “I blew into a tea-shop when 1 came to after the shocks the cheap prices in the stores had caused me, and 1 struck one of the toughest biscuits that ever grew old from neglect. It reminded me of George Ade’s biscuit in the railroad saloon. Some went in for refreshment, and suddenly got next to a biscuit of the same species. After a careful examination it was discovered that on the face of that old biscuit were the words, ‘Forget me!’ (scratched with a diamond, maybe, by a previous victim.) “But the waitresses over here! Why, one of them said ‘Thank you!’ as she gave me the check, just because she had got next to me for ninepence.

“The waitresses out West wear ‘Pompadour rolls’ and Louis Quinze heels and big bows, and aprons about the size of a dollar. There is not four cents’ worth of ‘Thank you, madam!’ about those queens. 1 struck a small hotel out West when I was on a one-night stand, and the first dish that came along looked like nothing on earth, so I said to the waitress: “I don’t care for this fish.” The waitress carefully adjusted her ‘Pom.,’ clanked away on her Louis Quinze heels, and gave me the comeback, thus: ‘There’s no laws here to make you eat it. And it’s veal, anyway.’ epadouu arefullynhst “ynogwu’r’-nueuad “Last night 1 just splurged and threw on all my joyful jetsam and went to a London Theatre. Gee! the dresses and the men, looking as if they had materialised from the pictures of a smart set ad. I know I shall feel like a squab when the time comes for me to face a bunch like that. But I’ll stand for it, because I’m just tickled to death with London and Londoners.”