greerwatson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greerwatson) wrote2012-09-29 05:45 am
greerwatson) wrote2012-09-29 05:45 am
A day in Stratford!
I never expected to be going to Stratford this year. I don't have a car; and, in any case, it's a long day's trip on your own. However, I have a friend, Norma R., who is a member of the Arts and Letters Club. (For those who are Forever Knight fans, the auction in "Queen of Harps" was filmed in their building.) They had laid on a special day trip; and she asked me if I'd like to come along as her guest. Well, of course, I said yes!
Now, I'd already read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
foxy11814's review of Henry V; so I knew a bit about the current production, which was what we were going to see. However, there were other entertainments arranged as well. Before the show we were scheduled for a trip to the Archives; then to have lunch. After the show we attended the actors' chat, before boarding the bus for the return journey. (In this post, I'm just going to talk about the Archives. The play, I'll leave till later.)
Of course, to fit all this in, the bus was going to leave Toronto at 8:30 a.m. Now, I'm hardly an early bird! I had to be up before seven (eep!), snatch a bite to eat, and then walk down to Norma's apartment. We shared a taxi to the club, where they had coffee and cookies for us to nibble while the company assembled. Then we were loaded into the bus. It took quite a while to wend our way through the city up to the 401: in all, the trip was a couple of hours. However, I have to admit that, once we got on the highway, I napped most of the way. The seats were comfortable enough as far as padding was concerned; but I think you get more space in tourist class on an airplane.
Once we got to Stratford, our first stop was at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Archives. This is a huge warehouse with walls of some sort of plainish siding and no windows. Inside, of course, it's all climate-controlled.
They have a limit on the size of parties they take round. Most people went straight into the back area for the talk; but the last people were told to wait. I don't think they'd counted heads, for the two groups were of quite uneven size. It did mean, though, that a handful of us—maybe eight or so—were left hanging around by the entrance, feeling rather bored, but wary of wandering off where we weren't supposed to.
The entrance area itself had a front desk and washrooms; but then you turned a corner into the area where they store costumes from previous productions. I mean, it looked like acres of costumes! Not literally; but the ceiling was high, and there were tiers upon tiers, and, when you looked down the main aisle, you could see side aisles going off. It was like some big box store, just for costumes! Everyone was obviously longing to take off and look round; but we knew we weren't supposed to. Nearest to us, though, there were a couple of costumes that had been set up on mannequins so you could see them properly. They'd obviously been selected for their weirdness: one was a mermaid costume from a production of Peter Pan, and the other was a dinosaur costume, complete with a gigantic toothy head.
Eventually, one of the women working there decided we needed amusement, and led us off to an area that had been set up with chairs. It didn't take much long-distance reading of labels to realize that most of the things there came from last year's production of Camelot. And I'd heard a bit about Camelot, of course, becausefoxy11814 had gone to it, and later reviewed it in her blog.
We then got a little talk, followed by a short Q&A. I stuck up my hand, and asked if one were permitted to take pictures. The answer was yes!
This is how the demo area was set up:
There was an arc of several rows of chairs facing a dais; and it was there that the curator stood. She had some demo materials, which were laid on the dais ready to hand. There were a couple of programs from years when very famous actors had appeared; but there were also things about the making of props. On the far left of the dias, for example, you can see a stencil. This was used in making the pattern on the dias, which was apparently extended in a false floor that was laid over the stage for Camelot.
Next to it is a board on which were stuck samples of some of the materials that are used in making the sets. A very lightweight steel is used for the basic structure of large pieces, such as the trees. Then gold or silver foil is glued on. You can see the result here:
Yes, that is indeed the very tree in which King Arthur was sitting at the beginning of Camelot! (Or should I say, "The very tree Geraint Wyn Davies was sitting in"? After all, he was the one playing King Arthur last year.)
Construction can be a bit more complex, of course. For a tree like this one—
—the trunk was made of a sort of macramé made of heavy ship's rope, which was first braided and then sprayed gold.
In the same area, they also had some costumes set up. One was a soldier's costume from another play; but they also had costumes for Arthur and Guinevere. It was explained that each costume requires work from multiple departments—not just Costuming, as you'd think. They do the sewing. However, anything that involves the assembly of cut-out pieces (such as armour) is made by the Props department. And there's another department, called Bijoux, that creates the jewellery.
You will note that both of the costumes have fur; but we were assured that it's almost always fake fur nowadays. Sometimes they use old fur that's been donated; but not for either of these costumes.
After we had the little speech, I wandered around the demo area, snapping quite a few pictures from different angles. However, I didn't have time to head back into the main aisle of the storage area, because some of the people from the first tour group came out of the Archives proper; and another curator came and told us it was our turn.
First, we were taken to a room with several round tables for the audience; and there we got another talk, this time about the history of the collection, and what it contains. Stratford has the largest collection devoted to a single theatre, though there are bigger general collections. It has a huge library of newspaper reviews, all bound into volumes. It has many of the costumes. It has "representative" props selected from every production. And it also has much of the preliminary, preparatory material.
For example, every costume has its own "book"; and every book is stored. They include all of the preparatory sketches, samples of all the cloth used, and the actor's measurements, as well as photographs. When a show is in production, the costume department has a sheet for each costume, with a photograph of the actor dressed up, and a list of every piece involved "from the skin out", so that the dressers can be sure to have everything on hand. And, after the show ends, it all goes to the archives. We were told, though, that many of the costumes can be rented for new productions. (Not for Halloween! I know that because someone asked!) How much they charge depends on who is using them. I gather they let high schools have them fairly cheap; and the kids are, of course, thrilled to get real costumes to use.
As we got the talk, we kept being interrupted by small clusters of people from the first group, who had lingered, and now were slowly drifting out. Finally, one of the organizers from the Arts and Letters Club came out, shepherding the last of them, and warned the curator that we'd have to leave in about fifteen minutes. So we were hurriedly ushered into the back to see the selection of props that were on display. And yes, I asked if we could take photos. I was told, "Not usually, but for you we'll make an exception."
This is basically the way the place looked: filled with a jumble of odds and ends of things that had been selected to keep from a variety of productions. Most of them are in long-term storage, of course. These are just a selection—sometimes particularly unusual items from years gone by, but also things from recent productions. I think they make a point of having things from the previous year, since visitors are most likely to have been to the festival recently, and hence they will be delighted by the unexpected familiarity of props they remember seeing on stage.
In just this area here, for example, there were several horses (in whose construction I could clearly identify the "light steel" that we'd been shown earlier). The one you see here was in an earlier production of Camelot, back in 1997. You can also see a fine camel from My One and Only in 2007. It was designed by Douglas Paraschuk, and is pretty well life-sized. The bear is actually a costume from Love's Labour's Lost in 2008. I know this because one of the photos I took was a close-up of the sign in the middle, which has all the details—and, it was because I read it closely that I made sure to take this photo:
Yes, those are the horns that Falstaff wore in The Merry Wives of Windsor last year! I also spotted these horses down at the end:
They were apparently originally constructed for a production of Richard II in 1999, and designed by Daphne Dare. They were redecorated for use in Camelot last year. Usually, props are kept permanently in the Archives; but they are sometimes reused. However, if so, the Props Department is forbidden to alter them—though I guess re-caparisoning the horses must have been permitted.
One of the things they keep in the Archives are the small models that are created for the sets before anything actually gets built. A couple of these were also on display, tucked safely away in glass boxes. When I realized that one of these was the set design for Camelot (which, you will gather, featured rather prominently in the things out for vistors to gawk at), I took several pictures of it.
This is what the display looks like in its box. It's actually quite small, perhaps two feet across at most. The things inside are very miniature.
Another view, closer up, shows the things that were included in the display:
I've also cropped out a couple of details. (They're so close-up that you can see the dust on the glass box!) This is from the centre of the display:
If you zip back up the page, you can compare the tiny trees in the model with the real props, which I had photographed in the demo area. They look so tiny in the case; but they actually must be fifteen feet high at least, with big twisted metal branches and those rope macramé trunks. We were told, though, that they were less than 300 pounds in weight—had to be because the apparatus that "flew" them up for the set changes couldn't take more weight than that.
Another detail from the model shows Guinevere's tent:
It's very tiny in the model, perhaps only a couple of inches tall. However, there was a gigantic swath of cloth from it out in the demo area: it's the turquoise background that you can see behind the costumes for Arthur and Guinevere. It was made of silk; and the design was carefully added.
If you look carefully, you can see the pattern. It's made of a cluster of fleur-de-lys, with a stylized G in the middle, standing for "Guinevere".
Well, because we were in the second group, we had much less time to inspect the actual props. On the whole, though, we didn't do too badly. I don't think anyone was actually chivvied out before getting around the whole room—though I guess anyone wanting to look at everything really closely was out of luck.
After that, we all piled back on the bus to go to the theatre, which was only a few blocks away, where we all had a buffet lunch. There were only a few free minutes at that point—Norma went to the shop, and I browsed round the gardens—and then the play began.
But more of that later.
Now, I'd already read
foxy11814's review of Henry V; so I knew a bit about the current production, which was what we were going to see. However, there were other entertainments arranged as well. Before the show we were scheduled for a trip to the Archives; then to have lunch. After the show we attended the actors' chat, before boarding the bus for the return journey. (In this post, I'm just going to talk about the Archives. The play, I'll leave till later.)Of course, to fit all this in, the bus was going to leave Toronto at 8:30 a.m. Now, I'm hardly an early bird! I had to be up before seven (eep!), snatch a bite to eat, and then walk down to Norma's apartment. We shared a taxi to the club, where they had coffee and cookies for us to nibble while the company assembled. Then we were loaded into the bus. It took quite a while to wend our way through the city up to the 401: in all, the trip was a couple of hours. However, I have to admit that, once we got on the highway, I napped most of the way. The seats were comfortable enough as far as padding was concerned; but I think you get more space in tourist class on an airplane.
Once we got to Stratford, our first stop was at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Archives. This is a huge warehouse with walls of some sort of plainish siding and no windows. Inside, of course, it's all climate-controlled.
They have a limit on the size of parties they take round. Most people went straight into the back area for the talk; but the last people were told to wait. I don't think they'd counted heads, for the two groups were of quite uneven size. It did mean, though, that a handful of us—maybe eight or so—were left hanging around by the entrance, feeling rather bored, but wary of wandering off where we weren't supposed to.
The entrance area itself had a front desk and washrooms; but then you turned a corner into the area where they store costumes from previous productions. I mean, it looked like acres of costumes! Not literally; but the ceiling was high, and there were tiers upon tiers, and, when you looked down the main aisle, you could see side aisles going off. It was like some big box store, just for costumes! Everyone was obviously longing to take off and look round; but we knew we weren't supposed to. Nearest to us, though, there were a couple of costumes that had been set up on mannequins so you could see them properly. They'd obviously been selected for their weirdness: one was a mermaid costume from a production of Peter Pan, and the other was a dinosaur costume, complete with a gigantic toothy head.
Eventually, one of the women working there decided we needed amusement, and led us off to an area that had been set up with chairs. It didn't take much long-distance reading of labels to realize that most of the things there came from last year's production of Camelot. And I'd heard a bit about Camelot, of course, because
foxy11814 had gone to it, and later reviewed it in her blog.We then got a little talk, followed by a short Q&A. I stuck up my hand, and asked if one were permitted to take pictures. The answer was yes!
This is how the demo area was set up:
There was an arc of several rows of chairs facing a dais; and it was there that the curator stood. She had some demo materials, which were laid on the dais ready to hand. There were a couple of programs from years when very famous actors had appeared; but there were also things about the making of props. On the far left of the dias, for example, you can see a stencil. This was used in making the pattern on the dias, which was apparently extended in a false floor that was laid over the stage for Camelot.
Next to it is a board on which were stuck samples of some of the materials that are used in making the sets. A very lightweight steel is used for the basic structure of large pieces, such as the trees. Then gold or silver foil is glued on. You can see the result here:
Yes, that is indeed the very tree in which King Arthur was sitting at the beginning of Camelot! (Or should I say, "The very tree Geraint Wyn Davies was sitting in"? After all, he was the one playing King Arthur last year.)
Construction can be a bit more complex, of course. For a tree like this one—
—the trunk was made of a sort of macramé made of heavy ship's rope, which was first braided and then sprayed gold.
In the same area, they also had some costumes set up. One was a soldier's costume from another play; but they also had costumes for Arthur and Guinevere. It was explained that each costume requires work from multiple departments—not just Costuming, as you'd think. They do the sewing. However, anything that involves the assembly of cut-out pieces (such as armour) is made by the Props department. And there's another department, called Bijoux, that creates the jewellery.
You will note that both of the costumes have fur; but we were assured that it's almost always fake fur nowadays. Sometimes they use old fur that's been donated; but not for either of these costumes.
After we had the little speech, I wandered around the demo area, snapping quite a few pictures from different angles. However, I didn't have time to head back into the main aisle of the storage area, because some of the people from the first tour group came out of the Archives proper; and another curator came and told us it was our turn.
First, we were taken to a room with several round tables for the audience; and there we got another talk, this time about the history of the collection, and what it contains. Stratford has the largest collection devoted to a single theatre, though there are bigger general collections. It has a huge library of newspaper reviews, all bound into volumes. It has many of the costumes. It has "representative" props selected from every production. And it also has much of the preliminary, preparatory material.
For example, every costume has its own "book"; and every book is stored. They include all of the preparatory sketches, samples of all the cloth used, and the actor's measurements, as well as photographs. When a show is in production, the costume department has a sheet for each costume, with a photograph of the actor dressed up, and a list of every piece involved "from the skin out", so that the dressers can be sure to have everything on hand. And, after the show ends, it all goes to the archives. We were told, though, that many of the costumes can be rented for new productions. (Not for Halloween! I know that because someone asked!) How much they charge depends on who is using them. I gather they let high schools have them fairly cheap; and the kids are, of course, thrilled to get real costumes to use.
As we got the talk, we kept being interrupted by small clusters of people from the first group, who had lingered, and now were slowly drifting out. Finally, one of the organizers from the Arts and Letters Club came out, shepherding the last of them, and warned the curator that we'd have to leave in about fifteen minutes. So we were hurriedly ushered into the back to see the selection of props that were on display. And yes, I asked if we could take photos. I was told, "Not usually, but for you we'll make an exception."
This is basically the way the place looked: filled with a jumble of odds and ends of things that had been selected to keep from a variety of productions. Most of them are in long-term storage, of course. These are just a selection—sometimes particularly unusual items from years gone by, but also things from recent productions. I think they make a point of having things from the previous year, since visitors are most likely to have been to the festival recently, and hence they will be delighted by the unexpected familiarity of props they remember seeing on stage.
In just this area here, for example, there were several horses (in whose construction I could clearly identify the "light steel" that we'd been shown earlier). The one you see here was in an earlier production of Camelot, back in 1997. You can also see a fine camel from My One and Only in 2007. It was designed by Douglas Paraschuk, and is pretty well life-sized. The bear is actually a costume from Love's Labour's Lost in 2008. I know this because one of the photos I took was a close-up of the sign in the middle, which has all the details—and, it was because I read it closely that I made sure to take this photo:
Yes, those are the horns that Falstaff wore in The Merry Wives of Windsor last year! I also spotted these horses down at the end:
They were apparently originally constructed for a production of Richard II in 1999, and designed by Daphne Dare. They were redecorated for use in Camelot last year. Usually, props are kept permanently in the Archives; but they are sometimes reused. However, if so, the Props Department is forbidden to alter them—though I guess re-caparisoning the horses must have been permitted.
One of the things they keep in the Archives are the small models that are created for the sets before anything actually gets built. A couple of these were also on display, tucked safely away in glass boxes. When I realized that one of these was the set design for Camelot (which, you will gather, featured rather prominently in the things out for vistors to gawk at), I took several pictures of it.
This is what the display looks like in its box. It's actually quite small, perhaps two feet across at most. The things inside are very miniature.
Another view, closer up, shows the things that were included in the display:
I've also cropped out a couple of details. (They're so close-up that you can see the dust on the glass box!) This is from the centre of the display:
If you zip back up the page, you can compare the tiny trees in the model with the real props, which I had photographed in the demo area. They look so tiny in the case; but they actually must be fifteen feet high at least, with big twisted metal branches and those rope macramé trunks. We were told, though, that they were less than 300 pounds in weight—had to be because the apparatus that "flew" them up for the set changes couldn't take more weight than that.
Another detail from the model shows Guinevere's tent:
It's very tiny in the model, perhaps only a couple of inches tall. However, there was a gigantic swath of cloth from it out in the demo area: it's the turquoise background that you can see behind the costumes for Arthur and Guinevere. It was made of silk; and the design was carefully added.
If you look carefully, you can see the pattern. It's made of a cluster of fleur-de-lys, with a stylized G in the middle, standing for "Guinevere".
Well, because we were in the second group, we had much less time to inspect the actual props. On the whole, though, we didn't do too badly. I don't think anyone was actually chivvied out before getting around the whole room—though I guess anyone wanting to look at everything really closely was out of luck.
After that, we all piled back on the bus to go to the theatre, which was only a few blocks away, where we all had a buffet lunch. There were only a few free minutes at that point—Norma went to the shop, and I browsed round the gardens—and then the play began.
But more of that later.