Reading over a melodrama, especially The Inchcape Bell, one may notice that there are a ridiculous amount of scene changes, and scene changes that require drastically different sets. Scene changes were not indicated in the dialogue, as seen in many Shakespeare plays. An Elizabethan play was about the words and the acting then the spectacle of the show. 19th century Victorian audiences like their spectacle, so a large backstage crew of carpenters and sailors were need to hoist set pieces in and out, and quickly, so the audience wouldn't get restless.
Where were all these scenic pieces kept?
High above the stage was the gridiron and was filled with flying mechansims and scenery pieces, and right below that was the fly-gallery, where the intricated painted scenes would hang. Hidden on the sides would be wings and shutters that could be slid on as other scenery peices (such as trees if an outside scene). It was average for theatres to have 4 sets of grooves.
And on top of all this, with pulleys and ropes everywhere, would be trap doors in the stage itself with places called "sloats," which were a system of bridges and traps and narrow cuts in the floor to raise up actors and scenery from below, or bring them down. (Booth, pg. xi)
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| Victorian theatre equipment, much of it salvaged and restored by Dr. David Wilmore from other theatres contemporary to the Gaiety http://iangrey.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html |
In The Inchcape Bell there are 8 completely different scenes. In the first act, the sets go from the exterior of a public house on the sea coast, to a Gothic Castle room, to a "miserable hut," then back to the castle, but this time behind it. (Booth, pg. 3-14) This is not unusual for gothic stories, according to Thomas Crochunis. Scenes are presented to contrast each other, and depict areas that constrain the characters (the pirate ship, for example), as well as establish a mood for characters and watchers. (Crochunis, pg. 160) All which boils down to the importance of the set in Gothic Melodramas.
One of the more complicated set pieces is in Act 1 Scene 4, which describes the back of the castle
"composed of a turret occupying half the stage, beyond which, over a rampart of rocks, the sea, by moonlight. A verandah and window, practicable in the turret, beneath which is a skylight; on the R, a rampart overhung by a tree; near the rampart, a ladder." (pg 14)
What makes this a challenge is that the verandah and window need to be able to be acted on and through, and the rampart also needs to be acted through. As well as having mutli-level scene pieces, a realistic and beautiful backdrop of the sea by moonlight would have been painted. These painted back drops would have been of the highest artistic talent, beautiful and realistic to appease the audiences expectation for book illustration performances. (Booth, pg. xiv)
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| Victorian Theatre 1950 http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/collection/4341/entertainment-ephemera/ |
* Over and over it is stressed in primary documents the importance of scene painters and their work, and if doing a more historical recreation of a Victorian melodrama, this is not something to overlook.
Resources Used:
Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.
Crochunis, Thomas C. "Writing Gothic Theatrical Spaces." Gothic Studies 3.2 (2001): 156. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.
M, H D. The two "Circuses and the two "Surrey Theatres". London: Theatrical Publisher, 89, Strand, 1866. google.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=j1ZDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=The+Surrey+Theatre+of+Blackfriars+road+dimensions&source=bl&ots=1oP5ZXXhgE&sig=xpIdTWt4VE0etsP0l4BLj-OGJ8s&hl=en&ei=MwN5TZ3UFoG-sQO73c>.
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