At the end of the show all the Colonists, wretched and starving, march out of the fort into the vast wilderness and build America
Father Martin is the most wretched of them all. He’s spent most of Act II sick in his bed, only hobbling forth to say “Amen” now and then. Then he collapses in the sand and is carried back to bed. We don’t know what his ailment is and the director told me to decide for myself just what ails the Father. Lindsey (Dame Coleman) helpfully suggests that he suffers from severe syphilis. By Final March he is using a crutch to get around on and that is how he exits up the ramp.
As the scene and march is staged we enter, cross the stage, make a u-turn and cross back, and exit up the ramp. Father Martin is at the very end of the line so that he can dramatically go face first into the sand one more time before being helped up the ramp.
When my daughter Alice was in the show back in 1992 or so (she was 6) the props department made her a little crutch for that scene. She would limp out with the crutch under her downstage arm so that the audience would still see it and know how wretched she was. When she made the u-turn she would switch the crutch to her other arm, thus keeping it in view of the audience. That’s my Baby!
And folks – when Father Martin hobbles through the u-turn this year he switches his crutch to the other arm too!
I only steal from the best.
A few years later my son Max was working props and discovered his sister’s little crutch on a pile of discarded props scheduled to be burned. He retrieved it and brought it home. It resides in the umbrella stand by the front door.
Didn't Clarke make Alice's crutch? She was pitiful! She even was a calendar girl in the OBX Calendar looking forlorn with some other colonists.
ReplyDeleteYes - Props Master Clark Nicholson made the crutch and a couple years later Rob Alrutz added an extension because Alice grew.
ReplyDeletePoor pitiful thing.
That Alice... always thinking.
ReplyDeleteI found that piece of "y" shaped drift wood on the back rocks and I knew that it just had to be.
ReplyDeleteThe joint on the crutch utilized a really neat material that has since been effecitively discontinued called "Celastic". Don't worry, it won't be dangerous in your house.
ReplyDeleteIt was judged dangerous because when strips of it were soaked in Acetone to activate it, the damp combination could soak through the skin and possibly cause problems with the nervous system.
I thought that this was a poor reason to discontinue it because it was very handy but obviously should not be handled in it's wet state without rubber gloves. It seemed to me that by the same rational we should discontinue gasoline because if you have a lot of it on your skin over a period of time it can cause the same problems.
I understand that some theaters still use it but there are substitutes that have comparable qualities of molding and rigid durability, so that particular method of fashioning props is rapidly becoming a microscopic bit of theatrical history.
Anywaze.... I loved Celastic.
yikes - made a bunch of stuff out of celastic wilst wearing no gloves- explains a lot...twitch twitch flutter
ReplyDeleteThat is great! I love my Alice!
ReplyDelete