Buying Flying Rocs and Sailing Ships December 15, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
There is always a joy in imagining yourself in those fabulous nineteenth-century pantomime production where glitz, technology and spectacle came together and left audiences in London, New York, Chicago and Manchester speechless. It is only rarely though that we get to look behind the magician’s curtain, to see how things really worked, with very few exceptions the contraptions of productions past do not survive. This extract comes from an 1884 advert paid for by the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. The Gaiety decided to sell some of its old tricks, perhaps to provincial houses, though, God knows how they got to move them out.
The Working Roc: This bird works from the flies in 3ft of space [error? 30ft], is built on the concertina principle, with working Head, Beak, Tongue, Eyes and Wings. The Wings measure from tip to tip 24 ft. Also Practicable Egg [did this drop from the bird?] with Iron Fittings Complete.
By great good fortune a picture survives from the 1892-1893 season from the Gaiety, which surely suggests that they did not sell the roc and, in fact recycled it. The egg is shown there in the poster: did it perhaps hatch? That word ‘practicable’ is full of promise. Readers may remember that in his fifth voyage Sinbad’s men broke open the egg of the roc. The roc then finished Sinbad’s ship off by dropping rocks upon it: Sinbad did not get picked up by the bird though.
The Gaiety also threw in a ‘Vampire, on which Sinbad was taken up by the Roc’. Before anyone get excited here the vampire was a stage mechanism that allowed people to drop through the air, or through the stage without breaking bones. At least, that was the theory…. Type ‘vampire’ and ‘accident’ into a nineteenth-century archive and you’ll come across some nasty stories. If this is not enough to whet your appetite then the Gaiety was also offering Sinbad’s ship.
The Ship is full rigged, will carry twenty-five people, provision for living, figure-head, measure from stern to stern 24ft., width 7ft., height to top of masts 21 ft. This Ship is constructed to sail round the stage, turning with her bowsprit over the orchestra [!], presenting a fine aspect as she sails away with her yards manned by juvenile sailors.
There are also some other elusive objects that would have been wonderful to see in action: what about ‘Twenty-five light electro-dynamic machine, cost £50,’. Are these, flying machines presumably? There are also a pair of ‘fairy wings with electric fittings’: Beach sees a terrified ten-year-old with a wand and a stutter floating about forty feet over the first violin. Or for pure aesthetics wouldn’t you have wanted to have seen ‘the barbaric ballet, complete, forty-two dresses’.
Any more Sinbad memories: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
