How a play is produced/The Electrician

by Karel Čapek

Layout 2

The Electrician

 

THE chief electrician has his centre of action beneath the boards of the stage, or in the portal, and plays on a kind of organ composed of lights; every one of these switch-boards, levers, or buttons releases some mysterious source of illumination, white, yellow, orange, red, blue, moon-yellow. Here you have the footlights and the overhead lights, the upper “Two,” “Three,” and “Four” funnels in the wings, or on slides, further sources of light in the portal, lamps in the gallery, portable thousand-candle-power lamps, corner lights, bulb-reflectors, free contact funnels, tubes, searchlights, batteries, pocket-lamps, projection apparatus, the cloud film, transparents, and Heaven knows what else.

It does not seem so very remarkable to the spectator when the hero is standing well in the “limelight”; but reflectors are blazing down on him from the flies and the wings, and a searchlight from below. Meanwhile, these lamps are getting gradually hotter and hotter, indeed, until they are almost red-hot, and the poor electricians have to hold them in their bare hands in an atmosphere that resembles that of a furnace. Perhaps it is impossible for the light to reach a certain corner, or shadows are thrown in the wrong place, or the lighting is as dull as in a school-room, or the producer would really like to conjure up something wonderful with the lighting: but the electrician has no more cable to spare; alas! Perhaps the ten-thousand candle-power lamps are burning without producing the desired beautiful effect and the electrician would like to illuminate the scene with his own eyes and fingers to satisfy the difficult demands of the producer. He mixes all the colours, drags cables about the stage, turns all the switches on and off, drives his men hither and thither, until all of a sudden the producer cries “Stop! Now it’s quite all right. Make a note of it quick.” And with trembling fingers the electrician scribbles cryptic notes on his piece of paper. Yes: but it is all to no purpose. This miraculous lighting effect is never realized again. For in the theatre, do what you may, something always goes wrong. But I must remark that we are only at the beginning of the technique of lighting. As for the producer, the dramatic director and the scenic designer they have already been dealt with; but there still remains the Stage Inspector.