Unseeing and Disbelieving
“Ghost? What ghost? I saw no ghost, but I got very tired sitting up there all that time without anything happening.” So says the gentleman from the audience when he returns to his seat, and it is not until he has seen it all happen to some one else that he will believe anything really did occur.
Fig. 1.—Arrangement of stage for ghost-producing.
He is probably provoked when he finds that the next apparition takes the form of a fascinating young lady who vainly endeavors to make the young man who has taken his place kiss her. Indeed, such indifference is astounding, and all her pretty wiles and enticements are as wasted upon him as though he did not see her. As a matter of fact he does not know what pleasant temptations surround him.
In [Fig. 1] the stage is shown in section, and the phenomenon is explained. C, G is the stage, upon which is a chair, H, occupied by the gentleman from the audience, I. A sheet of plate glass, A, B, rises from the floor of the stage to the flies, and extends from one wing to the other. This sheet of glass is tilted forward at an angle to be determined by circumstances. Between the footlights, D, and the end of the stage, C, is a space or well, to be occupied by the original of the ghost, K.
When the curtain is raised, the glass, A, B, is quite invisible to the spectators owing to its transparency, and the extinguishing of the footlights at D renders the whole of the stage more or less dark. The space, D, G, is also invisible to the spectators, to whom the stage appears to present nothing more exceptional than an ordinary chair.
Mr. I, as he may be called, is brought up from the auditorium, round by the wings and taken to his chair, whence, looking into the theater before him, he sees nothing of the plate of glass intervening.
Fig. 2.—The coffin trick.
Being already dressed in the conventional garb of a ghost, the actor, K, places himself in the space between D and C, whereupon strong lights on the walls, D, E, and C, F, are switched on, throwing their glare upon the actor.
Owing to the principle of reflection mentioned above, the glass, A, B, having a fairly dark background, becomes a mirror upon which is cast the reflection of the actor K. Of course, Mr. I in his chair is visible the whole time, but the spectators see in addition to him the reflection of K, which naturally appears transparent, and moves about the stage exactly as K moves in the space D, C.
The position of the chair, H, is already known to K, who is accordingly able to kneel in his space in such a position that his reflection appears kneeling to I, to go through the rest of the performance with perfect ease, and to leave our friend I perfectly ignorant of what has occurred. Returning for a moment to the example of a pane of glass in a lighted room, it must be remembered that the spectators are in the position of the persons within the room and see a reflection of what is their own side of the glass, whilst I is like a person outdoors who looks into the room unhindered. To him the stage and the audience remain the same throughout the whole performance.