CARDBOARD THEATRE IN A PLAGUE YEAR
So I, as I am wont to do, did a thing, and as I am also wont to do, I put perhaps way too much time into it.
Mmm. Yes. Behold my very serious artistry.
Look. When I think of a dumb way to amuse myself, what am I supposed to do? Not that? Please.
Anyway, indulge me for a second while I talk about what was actually involved in filming this silliness.
All real artists work out of their kitchens, right?
Doing this alone, under quarantine conditions, was Not The Plan. I was going to lure people into my lair with nice snacks and drinks so that someone could hold the camera and other people could yank ropes and move levers and I could bustle around pretending to be important.
But that’s not possible under current circumstances, seeing as I am a cooperating citizen who does not want to expose my loved ones to any unnecessary danger, which meant that I had to find ways to do everything myself.
Most of that wasn’t too difficult. I just had to make a camera-holder out of a bookbinder’s sewing frame, and then improvise a few things with magnets and wires and strings.
But the opening scene was the devil. As you will have observed, three things have to move in that scene: the waves, the ship, and the theatre curtains.
The wave machine, the little dingus what revolves the moving waves around, takes two hands to operate.
See?
Were I a better machinist, I would have built it in such a way that it would not require two hands. Had I the ability to wander thoughtfully and problem-solving-fully down the aisles of a hardware store, I could work out a way to rebuild it now that would not require two hands. But I’m not and I don’t, so two hands it is and I needed to move the ship and curtains some other way.
Moving the ship was pretty straightforward. I tied a string to the ship, ran the string through a couple of pulleys, and tied it off to my left big toe. That done, I could pull the ship across the stage by extending my left leg out behind me in a graceful arabesque.
While also working the wave machine with both hands, of course.
In order to do the yanking without my hands, I made a counterweight (a messenger bag full of foreign language dictionaries), tied it to the curtain cord and hung it over the rung of a ladder. When the counterweight dropped, it pulled the cord and the curtains opened.
Fun fact: my mother hates it when I play with ladders because they provide me with so many opportunities to brain myself.
But I still needed a way to make the counterweight drop on cue. To do that, I tied another rope to it and threw that rope over a higher rung of the ladder. So long as I held the control rope, the counterweight stayed up. But I had to hold the control rope without using my hands. I tried holding it in my teeth, at first, but after a very brief time, I realized I was most definitely going to lose an incisor to the experiment and I didn’t particularly want to.
So I wedged the control rope beneath my right heel, instead. When I lifted my heel, the control rope slackened, and the counterweight dropped.
For those of you keeping score at home, this is what I needed to do during the opening thirteen seconds of my silly video:
a) Work the wave machine with both hands
b) Lift my left leg, ready to extend it behind me in a graceful arabesque
c) Stand on my right toe so that the control rope would slacken and the counterweight pull the curtains open
d) Stretch out my left leg
e) Still working the wave machine
f) Still standing on my right toe.
Elegance, elegance, toujours,elegance.
Do not ask me how many takes it took me. You do not want to know.
I am calling my little model stage the Teatro Hello Godot, because I never met a literary reference that I didn’t like and rhymes are pretty spiffy, too. I’m sure that you have not seen the last of it here, although the supplies at my disposal are not unlimited.
I’ll tell you what I still have in abundance, though. My place remains home to the Strategic Crayon Reserve of Ontario.
That isn't even all of them. Not even close.
Maybe I’ll see what kind of theatre scenery I can make with that.