On building a theatre / Stage construction and equipment for small theatres, schools and community

by Irving Pichel

Next, the dramatist and producer make their demands—the light shall reinforce the mood and meanings of the play. By its intensity or dimness, it gives “atmosphere”; by its color it has a direct psychological and physiological effect on the spectator, sensitizing him to values in the play he might not perceive were it enacted in light of another sort. Dramatist, director and designer, in the lighting of a play, if nowhere else, should be so much at one that it is easy to understand Gordon Craig’s wish that one man should combine the functions of all three.

Light, in the theatre, then: (1) illuminates the stage and actors; (2) states hour, season, and weather, through suggestion of the light effects in nature; (3) helps paint the scene (stage picture) by manipulation of masses of light and shadow and by heightening color values; (4) lends relief to the actors and to the plastic elements of the scene; and (5) helps act the play, by symbolizing its meanings and reinforcing its psychology.

To achieve these five functions of stage light, five different kinds or sources of light are not, of course, needed. One light may combine several, or all, of these functions. In Joseph Urban’s lighting and setting of the last act of Tristan and Isolde some years ago at the Boston Opera House, a beam of late afternoon sunlight struck across the stage to the figure of Tristan lying beneath a great oak tree. Slowly, as the day waned, the sun patch crept from the figure, until, at his death, it had left him in cool shadow. Thus, a light that illuminated, that told the time of day, that gave the figure of the singer and the bole of the great tree high relief by striking from only one side, also aided symbolically and psychologically in the interpretation of the drama. Thus to make light function in many ways is to use it with a sense of its ductility and subtlety as a medium of theatre art. In it we have the only single agency in the theatre that can work with all the other agencies, binding them together—that can reveal with the dramatist, paint with the designer, and act with the actors.

The machinery by which this medium is brought to the stage and through which its wonders are wrought commands a deep respect. Tradition has already laid its heavy hand here, and innovation in lighting equipment moves slowly. It is almost wholly within the last five years in the United States that lighting units of marked novelty have been introduced.

Of first importance is the machinery of control, the switchboard and dimmers. The customary place for the board in American theatres is at one side of the proscenium arch, either on the stage floor level, or on a perch raised some nine or ten feet above the stage floor. The manifest disadvantage of this location is that the operator cannot see the whole of the stage, and must depend for his cues upon a stage manager. It has, therefore, become the practice in many European theatres to place the operator in a pit directly in front of the stage, shielded from the auditorium and facing the actors. From here he can watch the action and see the effects of his lights constantly. Telephone connections with lamp operators at the back of the stage enable him to keep them under his control.

The construction of the board and mounting of the switches are strictly prescribed by boards of fire underwriters in various cities, and need not be detailed here. The important consideration at this point is that, so far as possible, each light unit on the stage shall be subject to central control from a vantage point from which the stage can be seen; that each unit shall be subject to separate control; that groups of like units, classed by location or color, shall be subject to group control, apart from other groups; and that the stage light, as a whole, shall be controllable apart from the house lights.

That is, assuming, for purposes of illustration, the arrangement of lights common to most theatres, the white lights of the first border shall be controlled by a switch apart from that controlling the white lights of the second border or the third or the fourth. So, likewise, for each color circuit of each border, separately. Then there should be a white border main switch, controlling the white lights of all the borders, and a blue border main, etc. Above these, there should be a border main switch controlling all the border lights simultaneously. And thus with each division of the stage lights. Over all, one stage main switch should control all the lights of the stage. The auditorium lights, with their own switches, should be controlled from the same board as the stage lights.

The outstanding item of expense in building a good switchboard is the cost of dimmers, the resistance devices by which the intensity of the light is controlled. They vary in capacity with their wattage and type. But the dimmers, more than any other part of the control system, contribute to the flexibility of the machine. In a modern theatre they are indispensable.

So far as possible, there should be a dimmer for each switch on the board, controlling each light unit separately. With “master” levers, related light units can be ganged and controlled simultaneously. When only a limited number of dimmers can be afforded, it is possible so to construct the switchboard that circuits to be dimmed can be “shunted” through the dimmers, while circuits that need not be dimmed remain on constant. A very ingenious board of this type was designed by Mr. Bassett Jones for the Artists’ Guild Theatre in St. Louis. This board has eight dimmers which can be used for any eight light units on the stage, giving it a far greater flexibility than it would have if only a particular eight could be dimmed. It is, however, rather complicated, with its dual system of constant and dimmer plugs and connectors, so that only great familiarity with it makes it quick in action.

In addition to the switchboard type of dimmer, there are also smaller dimmers made for use with nitrogen lamp spots and floods. Where these are used I believe they should be set by the main switchboard, rather than on the lamp itself. Attached to the lamp they require an additional operator and break up the centralization of control.