ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CURTAIN

The theatre has been the focus of attention since time immemorial. And not just as an art form. The life of actors off stage has always aroused as much interest as their life on it. But no-one has ever had a passionate interest in those who create on stage a world of fantasy and wonder surrounding the heroes who, at the will of the playwright, perform great deeds and sweep young ladies off their feet with their irrepressibly ardent feelings and impetuous fantasies. Someone thought of calling them the "the invisible people behind the stage". But this definition doesn't even go halfway towards describing what goes on behind the curtain, way beyond the stage. There were studios there which were once called workshops - creative workshops where costumes, props and scenery and make-up were made, where there were cobblers' shops and canteens. There was lighting and sound, engineers and other backroom staff. Those who helped the actors to create the illusions the audience loved were always busy in these workshops. Now these workshops are called studios, and they all belong to one common theatrical unit called the production section. There you will also find magicians helping to create these illusions. But they never get the bouquets or the applause. Success should be shared among everyone, but in fact, in gratitude for a performance, the spectator applauds the actors and actresses. He doesn't even think that actress N. was marvellous today because the make-up artists did an excellent job on her; or actor Z wielded the sword as though he had been doing it since he was a child, simply because the prop-artists made such a good job of it that you could not tell it from the real thing! What precisely is it that links the work of everyone who serves the capricious goddess of the theatre? Let us take a look inside the studios of the Russian Drama Theatre and find out what the people who help the actors create these illusions actually do. We will begin at the studio which is called stage props and design. This means that here they create the designs and make the property which in the theatre are simply called "props" for short.

Props

The word butaforiya, in Russian, like the theatre, came from Italy - butta fuori (to throw out) - and meant the director's order to the actor go out on stage. Literally it means "simulation". Later it came to mean a type of activity by a person on stage behind the scenes providing the players with props and objects (a book, a letter, flowers, etc). Then the word came to be used to define fake articles which were specially made for performances, such as furniture, crockery, sculptures, ornaments, food, weapons, etc. Props are a decorative element in the putting together of a performance. As a rule, props are not an exact copy of the original, but they must be durable, simple and cheap and stand out for the accentuated expressiveness of their configuration. If a play requires a huge vase of the Tang Dynasty then the props people make it out of papier-mache. 

Aleksandr Fedorov, head of the stage props and design studio, merited cultural worker:

Papier-mache is a moulding which is usually made from soft paper and an adhesive substance - PVA glue or paste made in the studio. The technology of papier-mache is used in moulding, for example, the head of this diva made by the artist Elxan Rahimov (this refers to a prop for a performance of "The botanist, Monsieur Jourdan, and the sorcerer Mastali Shah" - editor's note).  And if we have to make a large vase we use a technique of gluing torn strips of paper in layers. Usually, if we are making a large piece we use pages of newspaper, but you can also use toilet paper, paper towels or table napkins. To make objects for a play we use clay and paste because it is difficult to mould using glue alone, and paste on its own doesn't give the right durability. Sawdust can be added to increase strength. But this depends on what is required on stage by the director.

When creating an object the props artist is aware that he is making it for the public. Take an apple, for example. If it is to be held by an actress he makes it in its natural size. But if it is to hang on a tree he will make it bigger, because it will have to be seen from the back row of the stalls. The technology of modern props making enables ornaments and any objects to be made without spending a lot of time and money. And this is not because the theatre is short of money for real furniture or objects for a production. It is a law of the art of the theatre. Some people are of the opinion that genuine articles, and not props, destroy the illusion and spoil the audience's interpretation. One old textbook on the art of props making says that it is bad if there is little money for a theatrical production, but if there is a lot then that is much worse! Where natural silks and expensive rugs begin is where the magical art of the theatre ends. A true props artist can create a masterpiece out of any discarded material - foam rubber, bits of hose-pipe, paper, sawdust and so on. Sometimes you can't tell false baklava from the real thing! Tales of amazingly talented props artists who could create real masterpieces of make-believe food such as cakes, rolls with caviar, and so on, are handed down from generation to generation and told by actors with great pleasure. For example, there was one actress who always wanted to lick a fake ice-cream, taking it for the real thing, and another actor, who loved after the show to eat one of the accessories (real, not artificial food) and tried really hard to eat a dummy roll with red caviar! The objects in a props studio must work on the audience's imagination like music, costumes, singing or dancing, getting the reaction the director requires. It is quite often that for this reason the profession of a props designer is called the profession of "hot-air salesmen".

The props artist

To put it simply, a props artist is a member of the theatre staff who makes various articles of stage property. But it is not quite as simple as that. A props man is, first and foremost, an artist, a creative individual, pure and simple. He is responsible for the making of objects in accordance with the designs of the production artist.  He must be skilled in many things, more than the production artist or anyone else. What sets a good props artist aside from a bad one? A good one examines his object closely and thinks to himself: "I don't have such-and-such material, such-and-such tool and the right conditions to work on this object. So what can I do?" He starts to ponder how he can make something out of nothing. And he does! The profession of a props artist is all about making a creative fantasy in a single object. And a good props artist is not easy to find (especially nowadays when the theatre is going through a crisis!) It is a profession in which he must be able to see even beyond the artist's original drawings. Unfortunately, there are virtually no really talented individuals left in this field. Whereas 20 years ago this profession could be acquired in the colleges of Moscow and St.Petersburg, today the situation is much more complex. We have no such colleges and no such experts to carry forward the skills of this profession, the secrets of which could be passed on to a new generation of artists. The training of handicrafts experts for theatre studios has become a real problem. Practising experts in this profession can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There is no educational base for this type of handicraft. Consequently, the professional skills and secrets of the masters of making sweets from improvised means are also a thing of the past. The state programme for acquiring an education in Russia does not provide for teaching theatrical arts and crafts. They send for training those who want to be actors or directors, but never those who could return after training to arts and crafts studios. Theatrical studios were once called the production part of the theatre. And this title corresponded more to what was done in these studios. Today, there is almost no-one left of the makers of those sweets which fired the imagination of audiences and helped to create the right atmosphere for actors. And so it turns out that the theatre is resorting more and more often to using not props but real articles and objects. And, as we mentioned earlier, this is destroying the illusion of the theatrical fairy tale, not in terms of its genre per se, but its emotional content and impact.

Young people with an arts education - Elxan Rahimov and Huseynaga Karimov - have come to the RDT. They have an aptitude for artistic creation and the gift of imagination. They are adopting the experience that Aleksandr Fedorov, the head of the studio, can pass on to them. But there is not enough of this today.