Stage machinery  

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Stage machinery is a general term for mechanical devices used to create special effects in theatrical productions. French filmmaker Georges Méliès used them in a great many of his films.

Rest of the article is a machine translation of German Wikipedia, 2/10/2022:

Machines and how they work

Theatrical machines in the original sense were used to make set pieces rise from or disappear into the immersion by means of running gears, drums and winches (from the so-called charon stairs), to show ships in high seas, to make dragons snort fire, waterfalls flow and clouds move, but also to offer fire offerings on altars. Figures could fly by means of a flying machine or celestial apparitions as deus ex machina (with the help of the mechane, a crane with which the deus ex machina descended on the scene) from the sky. Stage machines, however, were also used for the purely mechanical movement of the curtain, the prospectus, the scenery and the soffitte.

The Wind Machine had coarse linen stretched over a wooden wheel with a crank; when the wheel was turned, it rubbed against the fabric and produced the sound of a howling storm.

The rain machine was on a similar principle, a rotating drum filled with peas or small stones.

The thunder machine was a device for imitating thunder. It was located backstage in the theatres of the Greeks and Romans, who called it the bronteion (bronteum), and consisted of a brazen cauldron into which stones were poured from hoses, producing a thunder-like roar. At present, either a kind of kettledrum or a long, slanted wooden tube is used for this purpose, through which stones are let roll down, hitting the bars attached to the inside, or finally heavy wagons resting on square wheels, which are driven back and forth on the laced floor on tracks specially prepared for this purpose.

For the sinking, a flap used to be opened, the devil, for example, stood on the lift flap in the cellar, which resembled the stage floor, and helpers loaded stone weights onto a traction device. When the actor's weight was reached, the technicians would remove the latch and the devil would appear on stage.

The revolving stage is a rotating part of the stage floor, fixed in the middle of the stage or laid on as a platform (revolving platform). A revolving stage was already designed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1490, the Japanese Kabuki theatre was familiar with it since the 17th century, for the European theatre it was newly developed in Munich in 1896. It was originally introduced to enable the ponderous illusionist sets of the 19th  century to change scenes quickly. In the Viennese Volkstheater there was still a hand-operated revolving stage until the 1980s, in which a dozen stagehands, standing on the revolving disc, made it revolve with their feet by supporting themselves outside the disc against the stage floor with crutches.

Historical development

Antiquity

Already in the ancient Roman Colosseum there were facilities of a highly complicated stage machinery, such as trapdoors, ramps and lifts. With the help of a complex system of winches and pulleys, elaborate decorations and stage sets could be transported into the arena. Within a few minutes, for example, a complete forest or desert landscape could rise from the ground to the surprise of the spectators. The film Gladiator (2000) by Ridley Scott provides a good recreation of some of these set-ups in Gladiator battles. Automated theatrical machines with special effects were developed by Heron of Alexandria, who taught at the Museion of Alexandria.

The Deus ex machina ("God from the machine") was the divine authority in ancient theatre who, at the last moment before catastrophe, turned everything around by intervening. It is found in antique tragedy, especially in Euripides, where the god hovered over the playing area on a crane-like flying machine. Cranes with bottle hoists were known since 750 BC, namely as single-tree cranes tightened with ropes, which ran over three (trispastos) or five pulleys (pentespastos); around 225 BC Archimedes is even said to have constructed a crane with a multiple pulley hoist (polyspastos). Cranes were used in construction, in harbours and quarries; after all, they had to lift weights of nine tons more than ten metres high - for example, during the construction of the Parthenon in Athens.

Weights of nine tonnes more than ten metres high. In the theatre, on the other hand, slewing cranes were used. With their help, the intervening deity could be hoisted onto the stage from outside. A rolling platform (Ekkyklema) was also used, with the help of which processes that took place in the so-called Skene (behind the scenes) had to be transported to the stage.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Performances were staged at great expense in medieval cathedrals, for example to celebrate Ascension Day. In Florence, such a spectacle was performed with a theatrical machinery by Filippo Brunelleschi, in the course of which Jesus walked towards the Mount of Olives. A contemporary account describes the progress:

As he reaches the top, a rumble of thunder is heard. The sphaera hanging above this scene in the open roof of the church opens and God the Father appears in the glow of many candles. Boys representing angels circle him. Larger angels, painted on discs, also turn in circles. From this angel sphera, a cloud floats down into the nave. On it stand two boys dressed as angels with golden wings. [...] Christ then floats upwards towards the cloud with the help of seven ropes and at the same time blesses the two Marys and the apostles. When he reaches the cloud, the angels standing on it kneel before him. Many lights hidden in the cloud become visible and spread unearthly splendour. Christ, now accompanied by angels, continues heavenwards. But at the moment he reaches the sphaera with God the Father, the music suddenly stops and there is a clap of thunder. The Son of God has ascended to God the Father.

Brunelleschi also designed the machinery of an Annunciation scene at San Felice in Piazza in 1497 as an ascent and descent to the spheres under the church roof; the resurrection from death, on the other hand, was staged with moving healers and mobile funerary shrines.

In the Renaissance, especially in Italy, theatre buildings were often very strictly based on ancient models. The writings of Vitruvius in particular were central to the reception of the period. The stage design was typically determined by a fixed architectural construction at the back of the stage, often with three frontal stairways. This stage wall was decorated with Roman statues. A surviving example of this type of perspective stage is the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, opened in 1585. The stage itself rose sharply at the rear to enhance the optical illusion of depth, making this part of the stage unplayable. This very static stage design in Renaissance theatre can be attributed in particular to the focus on ancient dramas, which were usually set in one and the same place. Therefore, dynamic stage elements were not urgently needed. Nevertheless, special stage machinery already existed, such as periakten, or revolving prisms and angular frames, with the help of which scenes could be indicated through the doors of the stage back wall.

Simple machinery was also used in Elizabethan theatre, for example in Shakespeare's Macbeth' (1606), for example, to the words "Why does this cauldron sink?" a cauldron sinks into the stage floor.

Baroque theatre

From perspective stage to scenery stage

The innovations that made up the stage machinery of the Baroque were in many ways a further development of the tendencies that were already apparent in the Renaissance. In both periods, the illusion of depth created by perspective distortion was the central element of stage machinery. Beyond this concept, however, in Baroque theatre, switching as quickly and smoothly as possible between many different sets became a central part of theatrical technique. In contrast to the ancient dramas that had dominated Renaissance theatres, Baroque theatre - and especially the emerging opera - often called for a colourful variety of settings to be depicted with sumptuous stage decorations. Mechanical devices that provided dynamic elements were also intended to enhance the impressive effect. Characteristic of Baroque theatre were thus also faster scene changes, more often associated with closed curtains, as well as the increased use of even the backstage area, which had remained empty during the Renaissance. All these tendencies led to the establishment of the scenery theatre, the first of which was that developed by Giovanni Battista Aleotti (1546-1636) developed Teatro degli Intrepidi in Ferrara. The concept developed there was perfected by him in the Teatro Farnese in Parma, which was designed in 1618/19 and opened in 1628. Its design was to become trend-setting for European stage technology in the second half of the 17th century.

Dissemination of the Scenery Stage

Aleotti's pupil, Giacomo Torelli, in particular, popularised the scenic stage and additionally perfected its technical implementation, for which a smooth, synchronous movement of scenery and sofits was crucial. This scenery concept focused less on three-dimensional effect, and instead allowed for split-second scene changes using sophisticated pulley techniques and scenery guides. The backdrops, which were driven on scenery carts in appropriate guides and were often connected to each other in such a way that when one was moved sideways out of the stage another immediately moved in, took up more and more space. This led to ever more expansive theatre buildings, as they also had to accommodate side and lower stages. The lack of three-dimensional effect in this form of stage was made up for with ever more sophisticated perspective painting, and the illumination of the stage also became increasingly important, as skilful lighting helped to maintain the illusion of the stage. The famous stage architect Giulio Parigi, for example, was known for his lighting decorations, which used, for example, indirect bengal lighting behind transparent covered clouds. This element of light direction was to become a major feature of the theatre in the course of the 17th century. This element of light direction was to lead to an increasing darkening of the auditorium in relation to the stage in the course of the 17th century.

or example, the famous stage architect Giulio Parigi was known for his light decorations, in which, for example, indirect bengal lighting was used behind transparent covered clouds. This element of light direction was to become a major feature of the theatre in the course of the 17th century. This element of light direction was to lead in the course of the 17th century to an increasing darkening of the auditorium in relation to the stage.

Theatre architects such as Inigo Jones, who had already become acquainted with Aleotti's new concept of the scenery stage in Italy, sometimes used mixed forms of the techniques described: for example, a three-dimensional space could be created in the foreground with rotating prisms, to which a perspective-shortened landscape in the form of a scenery stage was added in the background.

Italian Innovations in Europe

As in the Renaissance, many lines of development in the Baroque period led from Italy to other European countries, a process that can be explained above all by the fact that theatre architects in the 17th  century often studied in Italy in order to have better chances of being hired in their homeland. Giulio Parigi, for example, ran a war and art academy in Florence, which was attended by Joseph Furttenbach, among others, who was later to carry what he had learned there to Ulm. Taught by these students of Italian stage machinery, techniques such as angular frames and revolving prisms initially caught on in other countries - Inigo Jones, for example, brought these techniques from Italy to England. In addition to this personal supremacy of Italy, the increasing writing down of theatre and stage techniques was also crucial to the developmental trends of the Baroque stage in Europe. In his 1638 book Pratica di Fabricar Scene e Macchine ne'Teatri, the theatre builder Nicola Sabbatini (1574-1654) was the first to systematically present a series of techniques for achieving stage effects. Until then, this knowledge was mostly guarded by individual theatre builders and only passed on to selected students. In his work, Sabbatini brought together a number of common stage design techniques, such as angular frames, periacts and roll-up curtains, and combined them with a mathematically sound stage design constructed using the vanishing point. Sabbatini's aim here was to evoke wonder and amazement in the audience. In this way, Sabbatini's book made a significant contribution to the dissemination of the methods he described, many of which were also widely used in the Renaissance and even earlier. In contrast, Sabbatini made no mention of the scenery stage, which had already been created. On the other hand, he was particularly known for movable elements such as his cloud machines, with which, for example, gods could be lowered from the laced floor.

The Pratica can thus be understood as a work of transition in which techniques from the Renaissance are combined with developmental directions of the Baroque.

Preserved Baroque Stage Machinery in Europe (selection)

• Drottningholm Castle Theatre (Sweden): Centrally adjustable scenery wings in original 1766 condition.
• Castle Theatre Český Krumlov (Czech Republic): Stage machinery with effect machines, prosceniums, understages and sinkings from 1680.
• Ekhoftheater Gotha (Germany): Oldest palace theatre in the world with completely preserved stage machinery (1683).
• Ludwigsburg Palace Theatre (Germany): centrally controllable stage machinery (1758).

Magic theatre in the 19th century

The magic play or magic play or its special form the magic opera is a theatre genre that was mostly realised with elaborate stage technology, which enabled transformations on an open scene, submersions and other spectacular appearances and exits.

The almost cinematic stage directions of the Zauberstücks called for new stage machinery. Goethe mentioned it in the Vorspiel auf dem Theater in Faust I' (1808):

[[Drumet mir an diesem Tag Prospekte nicht und nicht Maschinen schonet!

Use the great and small light of heaven, you may waste the stars;

There is no lack of water, of fire, of rocky walls, of beasts and birds.

So walk in the narrow board house the whole circle of creation

And walk with deliberate swiftness from heaven through the world to hell!

The machine comedy was a variant of the folk plays or folk theatres and made great efforts with stagecraft, costumes and propss and tried to constantly amaze. Frequent were transformations on open scene, such as a hut becoming a castle. Mozart's Magic Flute is in some respects a machine comedy (e. e.g. appearance of the Queen of the Night, wandering through fire and water).

In London, the particular country speciality of magic operas emerged, in which special effects played a major role. An important example is Handel's Alcina' (1735), but also compositions by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Henry Purcell, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Joseph Haydn and Claudio Monteverdis L'Orfeo. Handel's Rinaldo (1711) offered a wealth of opportunities for spectacular theatrical machinery of the kind that was appreciated at the time, and Handel's second opera Teseo, based on Racine, was also a feast of Baroque theatrical machinery and was a terrific success at London's Haymarket Theatre. In 2004 it was newly produced by the Goethe Theatre in Bad Lauchstädt. The Goethe Theatre (built in 1802 by Heinrich Gentz) is the only original classical theatre with functioning and wooden stage machinery in Europe.

During the Romantic period in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Spanish comedias de magia enthralled contemporary audiences with magic and technology, which increasingly worked together as the stage machinery was central to the realisation, for example in Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla.

The audience saw flying actors or other effects such as the sudden disappearance of people, transformations or the automatic lighting of a candle in the magical scenes of the comedias. But characteristic of the magic comedies were also the choruses, the dances and the visible showers of fire. The repertoire of techniques also included the trap door, which became fashionable at this time. In addition, there was a so-called caxa de truenos, with the help of which a thunderstorm could be caused.

In the 19th  century, with the advent of the Märchenspiel and the Melodrama, the stage machinery was enriched by numerous effects; in the Zauberspiels of the Alt-Wiener Volkstheater in the plays of Ferdinand Raimund (1790-1836), they played a major role in the blending of the world of fairies and the popular plot. In The Alpine King and the Enemy of Man (1828), for example, Rappelkopf fights the ghosts of his three deceased wives, the face of the fourth appears to him in the moon, when a lightning strike turns the forest into a sea on which the Alpine King appears in a boat: Template:Quote

For the Rhinemaidens scenes in Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold, the composer himself had special "swimming machines" specially constructed for the purpose, each steered by three stagehands and designed to make it look as if the Rhinemaidens were swimming. The singers lay in an inclined grid at the top of an iron frame about 6 metres high.

Modern times

In 1903, in Shakespeare's Summer Night's Dream, Max Reinhardt pulled out all the stops of the most modern technology in order to literally draw the audience into the stage action and thus make them part of the fantastic world that he had perfectly organised for them. The revolving stage, on which the forest and its inhabitants were installed, evoked enthusiasm. The spectator "swung himself in spirit onto the revolving carousel to join in the world of theatrical play".

Since Bertolt Brecht (in epic Theatre) and before that to some extent already with the Russian Constructivists, e.g. Kazimir Malevich or Tatlin, the disclosure of the stage machinery as a means of disillusionment began.

The revue became popular all over Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, presenting elaborate pieces that impressed the audience with huge expenditure on costumes and decorations, lighting effects and stage machinery, and which were adopted in other big-city theatres, especially in England and America, and in which the show arts were often transformed into an end in themselves.

In musical and other forms of modern show theatre, very elaborate stage machinery is used for the most part, a spectacular example being the chandelier falling onto the stage in The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Linking in as of 2022

A Grandmother's Story, A Moonlight Serenade, A Roadside Inn, Alexandra Palace, An Adventurous Automobile Trip, Baron Munchausen's Dream, Blue Beard (1901 film), Bourla Theatre, Cinderella or the Glass Slipper, Column wave, Cupid and Psyche, Edmund Simpson, Faust and Marguerite (1904 film), Francesco Saverio Quadrio, Giacomo Torelli, Her Majesty's Theatre, Hermitage Theatre, Il palazzo incantato, Il pomo d'oro, Jack Jaggs and Dum Dum, Jean Bérain the Elder, Jupiter's Thunderbolts, KJC King Dome, La Calisto, L'Arianna, Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour, Nicola Sabbatini, Orfeo (Rossi), Pau Rigalt, Peroni S.p.A., Perth Concert Hall (Western Australia), Phaëton (Lully), Pharmaceutical Hallucinations, Psyche (Locke), Red Riding Hood (1901 film), Rhinemaidens, Rip's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Scenic design, Schauspielhaus Bad Godesberg, Schlosstheater Schwetzingen, Semi-opera, Soap Bubbles (film), Teatro Sant 'Apollinare, Teseo, The Astronomer's Dream, The Brahmin and the Butterfly, The Chimney Sweep (film), The Christmas Dream, The Crystal Casket, The Damnation of Faust (film), The Diabolic Tenant, The Doctor's Secret (1909 film), The Dream of an Opium Fiend, The Dreyfus Affair (film series), The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon, The Enchanted Well, The Genii of Fire, The Good Shepherdess and the Evil Princess, The Impossible Voyage, The Infernal Cake Walk, The Inn Where No Man Rests, The Kingdom of the Fairies, The Knight of Black Art, The Knight of the Snows, The Masque of Beauty, The Mermaid (1904 film), The Merry Frolics of Satan, The Monster (1903 film), The Mysterious Island (1905 film), The Mysterious Retort, The One-Man Band, The Palace of the Arabian Nights, The Royal Opera, The Scheming Gambler's Paradise, The Treasures of Satan, The Vanishing Lady, The Witch (1906 film), The Witch's Revenge, The Wonderful Living Fan, Théâtre des Tuileries, Théâtre du Palais-Royal (rue Saint-Honoré), Theatre of Nations, Transformation scene, Tribulation or the Misfortunes of a Cobbler, Tunnelling the English Channel, Tyne Theatre and Opera House, Whimsical Illusions