A STAGE FIRE.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2556, 16 March 1877, Page 3

A STAGE FIRE.

' The representation of a conflagration on the stage, now so familiar, has been brought almost to perfection. So lately as thirty or forty years ago, a stage fire was symbolised rather than represented, a few blazing cressets being waved to and fro inside the building that was being consumed. But now the glaring embers are seen, the walls crack with the heat, the charred rafters tumble with a crash, the flames roar and blaze, the air is charged with a crimson glow ; in fact it is impossible to distinguish the mimic from the real conflagration, so perfect is the imitation. It is to be noted that the success of such representations is to beset down to a true principle cf scenic illusion, not to the poor reproductive imitation of a fire. A real fire, were such a thing j producible on the 1 stage, would have but a ' poor scenic result. The effect of the fire was really produced by means almost opposed to those present in the reality* The art consisted.in discovering whatj under the conditions of the 'stage, would have the same' appearance. In a piece by-Victor Sejour> "La Madame dcs Roses," there was shown a spacious ball in a palace, with a terrace and staircase at the back, which were being consumed in the flames. The effect of the servants and others flying through the flames to make their escape, of the falling rafters, the sparks, the lurid red which filled the whole scene, was so complete that the spectators rose from their seats in alarm. Nothing was more simple than the agency employed. -The ordinary lime light, turned on to the full, suffused the stage with,a flood of light, and seen through crimson glasses imparted a fierce glow of the same tint. Any vapour of the whitest kind moving in such a medium would at once give the notion of. volumes of lurid smoke. Accordingly, a few braziers filled with a powder known as "lycopodium," are placed at the wings, each fitted with a sort of forge bellows, each blast , producing a sheet of flame and smoke. The 1 lights in front being lowered, rows of I little jets, duly screened, are made to fol- ' low the lines of the beams, rafters, &c, 'and thus make these edges stand out I against the fierce blaze. The view, therefore, from behind, has thus an almost prosy and orderly aspect; but the effect is complete. There is all the literal form and surface, as it were, of fire, without the material of fire.—New Quarterly Magazine.