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Show DRAMATIC NEWS AND COMMENT TH following is an Interesting article arti-cle printed under tho explanatory title, "Dramatizing Electricity," written by Edward Jyell Kox and published in the June issue of the Green Book; The theater Is In darkness Gripped by the theme of a hip play, the audience audi-ence Is silently waiting for the curtain to rise on the last Hcone of "The Bird or Paradise." Only a few minuton Uofore. thoy havo ecn a vague procession pro-cession pass ncroas a dimly-lighted drop Prineesa Tuana has ascendod I he slopes of Kllauca. The god of the Hawaiian volcano Is angrv; she must hurl herself into Its crater to , appease him. Eerie inusio rises from the orchestra, continues a moment and Is hushed. Through tho curtain cornea a distant rumbllns and hissing; hiss-ing; a. dot of red llsrht appcarn, spreading as (htf sound gains in volume. vol-ume. The audience wonders, then worries.. What if fire haa broken out far behind the proscenium! What The curtain rises. Uttlo pasps and cries come from over the. house. There-hchlnd There-hchlnd the footlights bolls the red crater of Kllauca a seething, hissinsr. tumbling maelstrom of fiery lava. On all sides mount nhadowy cliffs, and looking down Into tho crater stands a silent ligure a young Kanaka. Lu-anas Lu-anas lover. Rcyond. the purplo readies of a tropica night stretch away dimly. Then a sonorous, an angrier, rumble rises; long tongue-; of fire leap from the creator, llckmr tho air; and a deeper red, that instantly suggests disaster, plays over ihc boiling boil-ing lava tho curtain falls, lifts and falls again. "Wonderful!" they cry. "Wonderful," They Say. lights flare up all over the house. Tho audloncc pick up their hats and wraps and leave. In the lubby vou hoar: "Wonderful! -That crater was so realistic T alniopt felt tho heat of it! Think of that poor girl l.uana. jumping jump-ing Into thf red lava!" Then they go to the restaurant: or their homes, having no thought of what had been hidden from them. Of the hundreds of electrli- lights, a motor, mo-tor, a great wheel, they knew nothing noth-ing only the illusion. Now. It's :i. .shame to do nnythluc to dispel such Illusions. It's like telling a child that ban la Clans is only papa in a costumo cos-tumo that he has hired for tho day. Moreover, every Hilld re.'jrets the departure de-parture of Unit Illusion, and the only compensation that later vcars bring is the discovery of larger Illusions. Many ot these are to be round in the theater. So It Is t- help satisfy the mild thrill that comes with sullslled curiosity that shall write of dramatized drama-tized electrlcily. For electricity is the basis of all tho stngc illusions that you and I like so uoll to watch. i no siaKc manager of today ha taken his Mrci eonnnaiidnieiil from the hook of Genesis. It is "Let there be light." Perhaps it was the natural natu-ral Instinct of rtoelhe. turning toward prophecy, that made lilm whisper when dying. "More UkIU:" Ccrtuin it Is that light lias caused most pro-round pro-round modification in the modo"i stage. In the niodern playwright, and In the modern audience;. .Mho verv obviously It's electric light, and It 'h to show how that syslem f Illumination Illumina-tion liaa been dramatized that I shall write. Great Motor Wheel. Lei uk return to the "lilrd of 'iUa-dlse." 'iUa-dlse." Vou are standing with mo in the wings, for we're about m learn the secret of the crater tlx; lllu-moii lllu-moii that puzzled even the blasn critics of Xew Vork's papers. Only the ordinary, white light are in and wt- may Inspect the crater, stripped. ' a hare "property." YV see U s ;t groat wheel that revolves slouiv, driven by a motor below. Tli'ls uhf-d, almost twenty-four rM-t In diameter. Is covered with a -an vhh, to which are sown loose .-trips of clio.-seciot li. I-roui the wheel's center, two and three feet apart, are electric fans. Above, a groat cluster of electric light bulbs, painted red. arc visible against tin re Dee tors. .Vow tho while lights die out, the motor begins to rumble, the rans lo buzz: In twos and threes the red bulbs begin to glare. Now the wheel is turning; the canvas becomes u,i-dulating u,i-dulating lava; caught by thr- breezo from the fans, the Rheesccloth leaps into II cry tongues; noise-making ap-pllunccs ap-pllunccs make- inorfs :ionorous the runi-blo runi-blo of the motor; the last of tho overhead over-head lights are switched on, casting a terrible red glow over it all; the circles of black paint appear to bo troughs of sftethlng waves of tire. And peering above we sec batteries of violet vio-let light shedding the colors of nlcht on the. painted wings and drops. Our illusion Is'gone, The stage manager happens along and upon request u, shows uo tho machinery for dramatizing electricity. Jt stands In tho wings to the audience's audi-ence's left, and Is a huge slate switchboard, switch-board, about six feet wide and eight feet high. Near the top we seo a bank or thirty or forty "dimmers?." appliances llko levurs, which ralso or lower the light to any given, dorrco by regulating Uio resistance of the current. Below this are the switciies, forty or fifty of them- These control con-trol every lamp In the theater. Also there are six master switches that extinguish ex-tinguish or light a block section of bulbs. Passing to other wings wo discover "pockets" In tho surface of tho stage. In these electric plugs may bo inserted in-serted to make connections for "spot lights," "Hoods" or other species of lenses. The theater has four "borders." "bor-ders." Along tiieso are a hundred white bulbs and fifty oach of red, bluo and amber. In the footlights alone ther aro 190 bulbs. All In all, there are about 1250 sfcctoen-candle-powor bulbs behind tho "foots," and beyond in the "house-" nearly 2000. Everywhere- about the stage there aro "atrip lights," troughs six feet long filled with bulbs. These arc used to make illumination at the entrance or Indicate the light from anothor room. So much for the typlcnl electrical, equipment. Now let us go more Into detail and see something of the different dif-ferent lights and when and how they are used. Years ago whon Mary Anderson, An-derson, as Juliet, declaimed to "lh' inconstant moon," tho headlight of a locomotive held in the wings by a proud negro boy was the "moon." Today, by electricity, tho stage can bo thrown Into red dawn, intense daylight, mild twilight or purplo night. Audiences can sec actors In tho box-like depression behind Ihe prosonium as clearly as though i hoy-were hoy-were in the same room with Ihem. Softened illumination, barely discernible, dis-cernible, brings out the most delicate deli-cate shades of facial expression. All of which hints that tho man In charge of this work must be possessed pos-sessed of an alert mind, artistic In-stlnds In-stlnds and mechanical genius. Today the stage director Is an artist ar-tist in lights. He understands thoroughly thor-oughly the psychology of the spectrum. spec-trum. Ho paints with lights .lust as tho artist paints with colors on this palette. He knows that a steely blue illumination will produce bleakness: bleak-ness: that green lights will suggest wclrdness; that amber Hghl is cheerful; cheer-ful; that red light can be made both comforting and disturbing (the era- ter scene for Instance); that purple, according to its Intensity, suggests blooding or richness. These, however, how-ever, aro merely elemental. Let us suppose that a darkened room is to bo presented. The ensuing en-suing scene Is not to be tragic, but generally domestic The "dark" must have a certain warmth. This properly the electrician, standing before be-fore the great, marble swltchbonrd. has been Instructed to "mix" with his "dimmers." One of the characters char-acters In the nlav enters from tho rear, bearing a lighted candle. Immediately Im-mediately the electrician moves a lever and the illumination of the room increases slightlv. It la an her glow, for a candle gives oiitf tint. Now tho candle is not cienl to cast tho proper glow i the person carrying It, or to K out tins facial expression that h she must convey to the audlencsi aid this, "spots" and "floods" so manipulated as to re-onforca fluttering candle. Then the flj walks down one side of the stage crosses to the other- This noc tales more switch-moving. ,' glow easl by the candle must be plemonted by a movement of am lights across the "foots." Nom tail Is ho Insignificant," you ae,y not lo be worked out by the man' tho switchboard. i; All this is rather complicated, 1 extremely expressive. The staglny electricity, however, is only in lts j ginning. There are loo many diff cut systems. In Germany they d pense with the footlights In moat tl aters. They do their llshtlng from back and sides. Frequently an audience eees players casting shadows on a b drop I hat Is intended to sucgeat sylvan panorama of infinite dlstaii In many cases, however, this Iaf4 more- to economy than to ignoran For shadows on scenery can beti litem ted by the proper use of "apo and "Hoods" worked from tho win Another blunder In Ilia use of cl tiicity on Ihe stag.j la the too abr changing of lights. Tho differ tones should melt one Into the oli There aro times, though, when bob body errs and blue leaps suddenly ti red with none of the lntermodli shadows of cobalt, mauve, Iavend purple, crimson and scnrlet. Another Idea, as radical as the 0 man scheme, ia th,- device usedt Charles Frohman In the production "Chanterier." He directed Jila ma electrician to throw lights. Varto8 colored, on strips of gauze. These n wero selected so carefuly. with m detail to the psychology ot color, tl the bare gauze so Illuminated w gested trees, meudowinnd, hills 'l great perspective il But It Is not only for light or a tlvo power, such as wo Haw nioi Ihe crater-wheel, that electricity, employed on the stage. Let moi lustrato. -f In the llrfil act of a draiua ral "The Woman." now running, a ypt I olograph operator sits at a switi board In a Wellington hotel. C night a man, pronilnont In the N York Telephone company, attent the performain c and was :io impre with- the realism of the oneratj face, as lie woikdl at the ewH( board. ;uid the general myoiit of U phone booths nearl.j. lhat he ' a personal note or congratulation, the actress and Dald Belasco. 1 his surprise, Jje. Uanifj that his eft pany had been supplying a real te phone connection for every orij! Relasco's productions that used: 'phono on the stage. Verllv electricity ha? wroiiglit! wonderful change In play productK shlce the days whbn Dai Id Garr 'troduced footlights of candles fr France. J Famous Second-Acrt; Scono From Tho Bridge." Which Will Ba ''SflBi All Week of Willard Mack, Supported by tho Orphouiu TIWH " Orphoum, Beginning Tonifihtt j |