The Madison Square Theatre: Stage Practice and Technology in Transition.

Though remembered today primarily for its novel technology, the Madison Square Theatre was possibly the most influential American theatre during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Built in New York under the direction of Steele MacKaye in 1880, the theatre opened to immediate success. Its many novel features made the workaday inadequacies of contemporary theatres obvious, specifically their backstage technology and staging practices. Indeed, this new building not only changed the way New York theatres were designed, but also helped to change the kinds of plays commercially produced for the remainder of the century. An architect writing in the late nineteenth century discussed the standard theatres of the period and stressed the impact the Madison Square had:

   The American theatres were planned more or less on the same broad lines (as
   London buildings). For some score or so of years the theatre erected
   afforded very few points of difference; many being built from one set of
   plans. During the seventies, however, a great influx of theatre-building
   took place, but it was not until the close of the decade that a small
   theatre erected in New York introduced a new era of American theatre
   architecture: the Madison Square Theatre.(1)

The arrival and success of the Madison Square Theatre motivated other New York theatre owners to rethink and retool their buildings to keep pace. Perhaps the biggest challenge to standards of the day was the theatre's diminished size. While theatres typically sat over 1500 spectators, the Madison Square sat 700 (See Figure 1).(2) MacKaye's drastic reduction in auditorium size puzzled on-looking theatre owners who saw only a reduction in paying audience (something made up for by higher ticket prices). However, this shift in size of audience affected the size of the stage. Like the auditorium, the stage was small by contemporary standards. But the stage was not shrunk simply to give spatial balance to the auditorium. Rather, technological innovation in staging was the main motivation. The Madison Square Theatre's smaller stage area allowed for its doubling. The result was two stages, arranged one on top of the other and switched through an elevator-like movement that led to its casual reference as an "elevator stage." Thus, from its beginning the theatre was marked for this remarkable invention. Over time, the Madison Square's double stage has been historically positioned as a clear expression of the rising verisimilitudinous stage practices on the commercial American stage, and one that prefigured practices of Naturalist theatre artists in Europe of the late 1880s. However, close examination suggests that the double stage was far more transitional than has been recognized. The initial technology of, and the practices on, the Madison Square's double stage had less to do with the rising influence of a European Naturalist aesthetic, and more to do with the aesthetic of pictorial illusionism, the mode of representation which dominated the nineteenth-century stage.

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At the heart of the Madison Square Theatre was Steele MacKaye (1842-1894) an actor, director, inventor, and playwright who was one of the more influential men of American theatre towards the end of the century.(3) He had a desire to spiritually elevate the theatre of New York from the moral basement of commercial entertainment to a level of high art. The Madison Square was expressly designed to do this, as suggested by one promotional picture. The illustration in question was of the theatre's interior, and evoked the sense that the Madison Square's sophisticated decor was to attract a sophisticated audience (See Figure 2).(4) This double duty was not lost on the public; the idea of elevating the theatre caught public interest, but the physical elevation of the stage kept interest high. Many people were curious as to how such a feat could be practically achieved and what advantage might be gained in doing so.(5)

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While the exterior of the building did not move beyond the norm in architectural design the auditorium and backstage areas were remarkable (See Figure 3).(6) The auditorium decor was designed by the stylish Louis C. Tiffany, who was undertaking one of his first commercial commissions. The results were strongly received by New Yorkers, as one critic noted: "Not to have seen the Madison Square Theatre is to be behind the age in theatrical intelligence and artistic knowledge."(7) Adding to the auditorium's innovation was the introduction of the first active ventilation system in an American building.(8) While no elevation plans for the theatre exists, an illustration of this ventilation system, accompanied by several patents for the double stage device allows a solid understanding of the most important novelty of the theatre's interior: the double stage. The two stages, stacked one on top of the other, worked like a two floor elevator; moving one setting up or down and offering the next setting to the audience as quickly as the time it took for the stage to sink or rise to the appropriate level (See Figures 4, 5, 6, 7).(9) This was far different from the typical practices of scene changing (i.e., intermissions of twenty to forty minutes that were necessary to shift scenery or carpenter scenes).(10) The device's patent clearly stated its rationale: "It will be seen that ... the time formerly lost between the acts in setting the scene for the succeeding act will be saved, and the audience spared the long and fatiguing waits that often intervene between the acts of elaborately-mounted plays at modern theatres."(11) Discussing the double stage in an interview, MacKaye suggested that among its "chief" advantages was the ability "to produce scenic effects impossible upon any other stage."(12) The scenic effects involved using greater numbers of scenic objects and properties on stage than was the standard practice.

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The period of theatre in which the Madison Square appeared saw much change. This was predominantly fostered by a monumental shift in the relationship between stage scenery and play structure. The underlying principle of scenic employment used at the Madison Square was a relatively new one: each act presented would have only one scene (or one location) within it. The theatrical result of such a dramaturgical consideration was an important step in the movement towards greater verisimilitude on the stage. The Madison Square allowed for demanding and substantial changes of scenery from one act to the next. Before such a device, carpenter scenes were a necessary staging method. These were "scenes painted on a mere curtain, ... near ... the footlights, ... [which gave] time for building more elaborate scenery behind."(13) While such a scene played in front, the audience often overheard "the carpenter's hammer and the sounds emerging from behind."(14) The Madison Square eliminated the use of carpenter scenes by promoting the writing and production of plays that had acts consisting of single locations. This movement, which the Madison Square embraced, was not an innovation by MacKaye but one that had been gaining ground for a considerable time. In 1879 one critic noticed that "the tendency in small houses is towards simplification. Plays are written or rewritten to promote this change. Where a few years ago three pieces would be given in one evening, one of them at least with many changes of scene worked with the old-fashioned flats and wings, now a single comedy suffices, each act being one elaborate scene, realistic in the extreme, and prepared for the express purpose."(15) Of course, this trend was not without criticism: "For the last ten years the fashion has been adopted of making each act one scene, to the detriment, it must be said, of variety, and dramatic interest."(16) Nevertheless, the Madison Square helped popularize this convention; clearly demonstrating that elaborate and varied settings could be created by working within the confines of this dictum. By 1887 the critical tide had turned: "For no play ought to be elaborately mounted if there be a change of scene in the middle of an act. The consequence of neglecting this law is disastrous.... What can be more inartistic than this violent succession of different conventions--than this alternation of sham and substance?(17) The continued "substance" of all composed pictures in every act of a play was key to the Madison Square's illusionistic innovation. This theatre put picturesque staging above all else, ensuring "variety and dramatic interest" with its detailed settings on stage.

To understand the aesthetic of pictorial illusionism, one must consider its increasing significance through the century. As early as 1827 the concept that the stage and all things placed on it form a picture was commonly expressed by theatre artists. A British publication titled A Guide w the Stage (1827), that was popular enough to be revised in America in 1872 mentioned this emerging trend: "Always bear in mind the important fact, in scenic philosophy, that ... [the actor is] to the audience as a picture, or part of one...."(18) While this belief was expressed by a variety of theatre artists, the clearest articulation of pictorial illusionism strove for by artists on the stage is perhaps expressed by Georges Moynet in 1873:

   If the staging is done with care, the settings are well painted, and the
   properties and costumes conscientiously planned the spectators are able to
   believe themselves transported into the precise environment in which the
   author has placed his characters. This is true illusion.(19)

Of course, the concept of illusion is markedly different from the concept of placing reality on stage. As Moynet suggest, the effect of an illusion is based on the continued awareness that the view perceived is not actual. It is no coincidence that the performances undertaken by magicians are called illusions for the same reason. A magician's audience knows that it is impossible to actually cut a living person in two pieces and then reassemble them. As such, the continued awareness that the action they see occurring is not actual creates a visual thrill for a live audience that only an illusion can offer. This is different from later stage practices employed by Naturalist artists who asked the audience to forget that the staging was an illusion. Admittedly both aesthetic principles exist on the same continuum of stage effects. However Naturalism was more orthodox in the devices used to create such effects.(20)

The very conception behind the Madison Square exposes MacKaye's own theatre sensibility as one primarily concerned not only with creating illusionary stage pictures, but more importantly, creating a variety of elaborate stage pictures (linked by a story). MacKaye's aesthetic of pictorial illusion as expressed in this theatre was seen by critics as "perfect," not only because of the consciously-rendered, formally-arranged pictures framed-in on a small stage, but more significantly because of the rate at which such "perfect" illusions could be transformed into succeeding pictures (ones equally staged with considerable compositional skill). There was no inartistic intrusion of different conventions from scene to scene. MacKaye thus eliminated a constraining burden that hampered other theatre artists' creations of elaborate stage pictures during this period of time. In creating the double stage, MacKaye was able to unleash an innovative and powerful theatrical concept: the ability to compose detailed stage pictures one immediately after another. The increased level of illusion, along with its speedy transformation, was clearly desired and appreciated by audiences, judging from its positive reception.

Because of the existence of the double stage at the Madison Square, some scholars have taken as a foregone conclusion that all plays staged there used box sets. Barnard Hewitt implies this in his gloss on the theatre when he writes: "[A]n entire box setting with heavy three-dimensional pieces ... could be removed and replaced by another in forty seconds."(21) This would seem to be the natural extension of the practical use of the double stage. Yet, the scenery employed at the Madison Square actually fits into a transitional period between wing and borders, and complete box sets. (Notably the Scientific American illustration clearly shows that the stage did not use grooves.)(22) The Madison Square in its initial productions did not use "box sets," as the term is now generally understood. While box sets have horizontal "canvas ceiling[s]," the Madison Square used borders.(23) This is confirmed in a description that accompanies the double stage's counterweight patent in 1881 (See Figure 7).(24) However, the theatre did employ side flats (or "raked flats") braced from the back, to make up interior walls, thereby "boxing" in the three sides of the stage. In this way the Madison Square was clearly transitional, not entirely a wing and border theatre, nor a box set theatre, but rather something in between. At this time, the combined three walls made of flats were not typically referred to as a box set but were rather a part of the staging strategy known as "set" scenery. More specifically, these flats were only one of the many components involved in set scenes. Generally, set scenes involved any scene that stood "on the stage and is not flown, that is to say, any scene that is not a drop scene, and that, in its turn, is to say that is not a flat scene [i.e., wholly painted on a single drop]."(25) A set scene was "essentially one that can ... only be placed in position previously to its being disclosed to the audience s eyes.... A set scene is a pre-set scene."(26) Before the double stage, set scenes required carpenter scenes. The elements that made up set scenes needed to be shifted on stage out of sight of the audience to have any aesthetic impact. Witnessing the assembly was thought to distract the audience from an appreciation of the combined effect of the "set" elements. Such set scenic arrangements varied from exterior landscapes (painted onto cut-out flats anchored to the floor by braces, and placed "one behind the other" to create a locale--and thereby functioning much like the older wing system)(27) to employing raked flats painted and arranged to create interior spaces (which eventually developed into "box sets"). Furthermore, this alternation of exteriors (mostly made up of "set" elements and back drops) and interiors (mostly made up of raked flats) was a dominant staging strategy of the period.

As represented in the Scientific American illustration of the Madison Square stage, much of the set scenery employed raking flats. As Richard Southern writes: "Raking flats were flats set along the sides of the stage from the front to the back, and joining the back flats to form the three sides of a room. They could ... contain practical doors and `large windows' built into their framework, and so serve as a step on from the old wing and cloth to the modern box set."(28) As the use of raked flats became more popular, their width (originally that of the old wings) was slowly reduced to make them less awkward to handle.(29) In the Scientific American illustration, flats that make up the wall in the lower stage are depicted as quite narrow (See Figure 4). The braces that held up these flats became "the method which has superseded the grooves."(30) Furthermore, the Scientific American illustration shows many other scenic practices (Figure 4). The Madison Square not only used back flats, but also back drops. In the illustration it appears that the lower stage was made up of "raked flats"--no backings on the flats are shown in the upper stage. The down-stage right arch on the upper level is not supported by any means other than a pipe at the top, suggesting that it is a canvas drop. The illustration of the upper stage does not show any braces (although the lower stage flats are clearly braced) which further suggests that side drops were also used like raking flats. Additionally, in the upper stage of the Scientific American illustration there is a side drop that contains an arch, yet the thickness of the arch suggests that it is a flat.(31) Examining the importance of drops in this theatre expands the issue. The great number of drops rolled up in the fly gallery as depicted in Scientific American suggests that they must have been used somewhere other than just at the back of the stage. This use of a combination of flats and drops makes the Madison Square more transitional. It used set scenery, raked flats, along with side drops in interior scenes, cut drops and back drops for exterior scenes; all mixed side by side and from act to act. The Scientific American illustration clearly shows a raked flat being moved on the upper stage that is similar in design to a canvas drop hung from a pipe (See Figure 4). In all, an interesting combination of scenic devices.

Set scenery was a catch-all term for everything placed on the stage. However, it was composed of specific materials and items. The exact make-up of the furnishings and adornments used on the Madison Square stage helpfully received mention in MacKaye's patent for the double stage. Here, the major components of set scenery that required shifting were categorized: "the scenes, furniture, and properties."(32) "[S]cenes" clearly consisted of the raked flats, small "set" scenery (i.e., ground row-like elements) and painted canvas drops, all of which made up the largest stage component that needed shifting; the second category, "furniture," included chairs, tables, cabinets and rugs; the third category, "properties," were those smaller materials which characters made reference to or which they used during the act (i.e., hand properties). These specific categories are exceedingly similar to elements mentioned in a contemporary newspaper article that broke down the staging materials that required shifting at the Madison Square into "scenery," "furniture," "carpets," and "bric-a-brac."(33) Similarly, the Scientific American illustration shows flats, originally placed upon the stage, being "taken down" at the same time as furniture is "shifted" onto the stage (Figure 4). That smaller items were placed on stage is mentioned by one precise reviewer who discussed specific features of the theatre's first play, Hazel Kirke, and its second-act setting: "The floor is carpeted, rich furniture adorns the apartment, statuettes upon brackets hang upon the walls, and numerous small articles of bric-a-brac ... are visible upon ... [a portable stand]."(34) While much remained painted and "set" on the stage, it was a place increasingly filled with actual objects.(35)

The shifting of scenes in theatres at this time was traditionally initiated by a backstage whistle from the stage manager or prompter. In French theatres a bell signaled "to each foreman and his crew the precise moment that everything should be put in movement."(36) A similar device was used at the Madison Square to make the workers aware that the elevator was about to move. The number of stagehands necessary for running the stage was fewer than in most theatres because of the double stage. The Scientific American illustration shows seven workers, not including the gas man. (In comparison, Henry Irving employed one hundred thirty-five stagehands for his 1881 revival of The Corsican Brothers.)(37) Some of these workers are shifting flats. Once backstage, the flats were "`run' or slid upright on their lower edge" into a scene dock.(38) Such was the method of moving flats at the Madison Square as illustrated in Scientific American. Here, two separate flats are shown being shifted individually on the floor. One stagehand pushes a flat off stage while another pulls a flat into the stage area (See Figure 4). The scene shifting on the upper stage of the Scientific American picture .suggests that the process was time-consuming and awkward.(39) By allowing the flats to be taken down with more care and ease, the double stage also saved the wear on the flats themselves, as any damage to flats typically occurred during their movement. "But in truth any shifting entails damage and wear and tear," one critic remarked, noting that "the painting flakes off and the canvas gets frayed."(40)

Shifting was not the only way to wear out scenery. Painted canvas drops were important to this theatre and they also became worn by repeated storage. Obviously, because there was no fly system at the Madison, the painted drops were rolled up when not in use. Of course, the repeated rolling of painted canvases was a prime reason for their flaking. Scientific American shows not only the numerous rolled-up drops located at the top of the scenic grid, but also shows the backwall gallery that was used by the scenic artist in painting the drops (See Figure 4).

Not only was the backstage area used for furniture storage and scene painting, it also served as an active continuation of the on-stage setting, a technique "realists" increasingly stressed later in the century.(41) The Scientific American illustration shows that on the main-floor stage, in the upper stage-right region is a doorway. Downstage of this, behind a raking flat, is a gas standard shining past and into the entrance. Within the on-stage view of this doorway is an upholstered armchair clearly illuminated by the gas light. Upstage of this entrance is a meter-tall vase also partially lit, as is an ornate side table. Combined, these objects continued the onstage environment. This "lighting" of the backstage was a familiar technique by this time, having been employed as early as 1857.(42) A similar stage extension was achieved with another device: pointing off-stage light onto the stage. Speaking of 1860, but applicable to the Madison Square, one scholar has noted that "[s]trong beams of light passing obliquely through a window" were often used to create a greatly admired effect.(43) Similar off-stage lighting offered by the "movable standards" employed behind stage provided an alternative to traditional wing lights.

While the double stage proved to be linked thematically with MacKaye's call to `elevate' the theatre, its practicability is problematic on closer inspection. The major feature of the double stage was that it allowed for more complicated scenic elements, increasing the illusion of reality on stage, while at the same time speeding set changes. Since properties were not being moved on and off stage between acts while the audience waited, a more extensive, detailed, and heavier set could be constructed for any scene, resulting in greater verisimilitude on stage. The elaborately prepared stage picture would then be flown in quickly, creating a tour-de-force effect of speed and beauty for the audience to view. "Audiences who one see its advantages will in due time demand that all theatres use a double stage, and then shall be an end of the misery of `waits,' "declared one observer.(44) Yet, in mounting a play with more than two settings producers would run into difficulties. Little discussed, the practical problem is singular but considerable. W.R. Fuerst and S. Hume in their book, Twentieth-Century Stage Decoration, queried: "How is a setting which has been used in the lower section, and has consequently been struck in the space below stage, to be returned on the upper section if required? If no elevator exists by which scenery may be raised from below stage into the flies it is difficult to imagine any group of stagehands complacent enough to be willing to carry it that distance."(45) Conversely, two identical sets may have been made, one below stage and one above, allowing any setting always to be available for either elevator. However, such an expensive duplication of scenery was financially impractical in a commercial theatre (besides doubling the amount of material stored backstage). The only solution was to mount shows that never had this problem, as suggested by the initial play on the double stage. Specifically, in Hazel Kirke, act one was the exterior of the mill, act two was the posh interior of a country cottage (Fairy Grove"), act three was the interior of a mill house and act four (where MacKaye might have run into problems with his double stage if he had wanted to return to the act one setting) was the same as act three, the interior of the mill house.(46) As long as plays were produced with this limitation in mind, there was no problem. That all shows were in-house productions, and thus could be written and planned with this consideration, obviously helped.(47)

Photographic evidence concerning the Madison Square which might express staging practices at the time of its opening does not exist. However, a few of the earliest photographs taken on stage in American theatres are from the Madison Square three years after its opening. The reason for photography's relatively late use in recording actual performances on stage was that "it was not until 1883 that electrical technology had advanced sufficiently to permit the photographing of a complete scene on stage."(48) Two productions photographed on the Madison Square stage in 1883 correspond to other accounts of the staging practices at this theatre. The two plays were: A Russian Honeymoon, by Mrs. Burton N. Harrison (adapted from Scribe's La Lune de Miel, and first produced April 9, 1883); and The Rajah, or Wyncot's Ward, by William Young (first produced June 5, 1883).(49)

The closing tableau of act two of A Russian Honeymoon, as photographed on the Madison Square stage, shows the interior setting of a "spacious shoemaker's home," made up of raking flats on the sides and a canvas drop creating the back wall of the building, bringing about the effect of an enormous three-sided room (See Figure 8).(50) The canvas walls create a strong illusion of reality because of a clever painting technique that renders the horizontal planks fully textured through the application of appropriate shadows. There was no attempt at creating a ceiling, thus the painted walls continued up to the top of the photograph; possibly met by borders. The lighting of the scene is a general illumination from foot and border lights, though significantly, the upper stage region receives light spilling through the rear windows. This set of high windows (nine panes tall by eight panes wide) centered in the up-stage wall reveals a further backdrop on which a forest is painted. The entire stage is half as deep as it is wide, though the side-ways shoe-box appearance is broken up by the raking flats angled towards the center of the stage. Helping this is a set of double doors opening on stage, which come out on an angle from the upper stage-right corner. The apparent thickness of one of the doors suggests that they are solid. Besides the twenty-five actors filling the stage (nineteen men, mostly costumed as soldiers, and six women) there are two benches, one chair, a table, and a spinning wheel. All these items are used in some manner in the scene by the actors, except for the wheel. The actors carry various hand properties; the soldiers carry muskets, while an older man clutches a cane. There is a bear skin rug center stage, while stage left of this a samovar highlights a small table. Apart from these furnishings, the room's decorations are painted on canvas. However, items on the wall are a curious mixture of painted and real objects. While the ornate window and door moldings are clearly painted (as are shelves and their contents) hanging from other areas on the wall are actual items (i.e., furs, satchels, stag horns, and a birdcage with parrot). Most of these objects are hand properties turned into relief pieces by hanging them from wall brackets. This climactic tableau is balanced by having the main action take place front-stage center, visually supported by placing all the incidental characters' attention onto this area. The staging is complicated by using two levels of playing space. In the upper stage-left corner a raised bed area situated above a tiled double-stove is occupied by two men looking down upon the center-stage activity. This feature of the stage picture balances the prominent doorway in the upper stage-right corner and the large crowd of characters located there.

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The photographs from The Rajah clearly depict the three settings used in this four-act play (See Figures 9, 10, 11).(51) By never returning to the act one location, the play adhered to the constraints of the practicability of the double stage. Furthermore, the photographs of this play's widely different settings emphasize the Madison Square's capability to vary location between acts, and to offer, with much detail, a different stage picture in each act. The photograph of the first act setting depicts the exterior of "Wyncot Lodge, England" (See Figure 9). The second act moves to a palatial "drawing room" at the Lodge (See Figure 10). Act three returns to an exterior scene: "a glade" in the park of Wyncot Lodge (See Figure 11). Act four moves back to the act two setting of the drawing room. The variety of each act's stage picture is further emphasized by the exterior and interior contrast of the concurrent acts. Even in using the double stage, the great amount of detail found in each setting would have taken a long time to set on stage. Three years into the running of this theatre, the photographs of this production show how the scenic painter and director fully used the capacities of the double stage to construct elaborate stage pictures. At the same time, this play used staging techniques similar to those found in The Russian Honeymoon, and those possibly used in productions mounted in the previous three years. This similarity centers on a strong employment and combination of side flats and canvas drops, painted in an extremely sophisticated fashion to create the necessary illusion of the interior and exterior locations. As found in The Russian Honeymoon, appropriate set scenery (and furniture in The Rajah) visually support the painted raking flats in the "boxed" interior scene (See Figure 10). At the same time, set scenery is also used in exterior scenes, as represented in act one and act three of The Rajah, where two-dimensional trees are employed (See Figures 9, 11). The act three setting creates a dense and spectacular forest out of a careful combination of side flats, backdrops, and "set" trees (a combination of cut drops and supported relief tree trunks) which at one point masks the edge of a creek running through the center of the stage (See Figure 11). The creek, and the short bridge spanning it, are positioned as a focal point for the act and the photograph. (Here a servant keeps watch on two women.) In the second act's interior location, raking flats and cut drops are painted to a sophisticated degree [with highlights and shadows re-creating detailed wall moldings of a drawing room (See Figure 10)]. The flats and drops are visually supported in their three-dimensional appearance by having actual furniture placed next to them. The mixed style of scenic construction in this act is best expressed by the two-dimensional columns (painted on canvas) set on stage to hold up the fireplace. Similarly, the upstage balustrade is a flat piece of canvas painted to appear three-dimensional, and set before the staircase that leads off stage. These scenic elements are placed before the flats to increase the depth and illusion of the stage picture. The photograph of the drawing room of The Rajah's second act (See Figure 10) significantly shows a staircase that leads off stage. This probably employed a backstage, stair device (a "practicable") which allowed the offstage actor to safely step down from the height he had reached in exiting from the stage stairs.(52) Such a practicable--necessary if the stairs were to be used in act two of The Rajah--is clearly represented in the Scientific American illustration of the upper stage where workers carry furniture down a set of stairs onto the stage (See Figure 4).

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The photograph from act two of The Rajah also shows a strong off-stage light streaming forth from an upstage-right window, casting its beam firmly on the floor, and highlighting the action pictured on the stage (See Figure 10). Similarly, the motivated source light for the well-lit up-stage staircase wall clearly comes from backstage. Projected off-stage light was necessary for the desired atmosphere of this act. More importantly, all the interior scenes of the plays performed at the Madison Square, as shown in illustrations or photographs, employed large oversized up-stage windows that reached to the ceiling (See Figures 2, 8, 10). While allowing for a maximum amount of light to enter the scene area from backstage, these windows importantly motivate the lighting of the upper stage area. Thus, a convention of the period regarding the rendering of interior locations (at this theatre) was to employ large up-stage windows so atmospheric (and motivated) light would brighten the stage. (Such naturally motivated lighting was a prominent technique in later theatres.)(53) This window feature, coupled with the backstage light, illuminated the upper portion of the stage most effectively, and would have eliminated any shadows cast onto the backdrops created by actors moving before the unfocusable gas border lights in the rear of the setting. Furthermore, with the conventional use of raked flats for interior scenes, any sort of lighting from either side of the stage would not have been usable except in "window" locations. This lighting technique was adopted when traditional wing lights were abandoned with the introduction of the double stage.

This method of creating motivated stage illumination through the arrangement of setting was one of the few identifiable staging features used at the Madison Square as late as 1904. A production photograph from the theatre at this time shows how much, and how little, staging techniques changed in twenty years. In a photograph from act two of G.B. Shaw's Candida, a drawing room is depicted, though only a side and back wall are shown (See Figure 12).(54) The walls of this room consist of flats painted with elaborate moldings and wainscoting in the fashion of twenty years earlier. In contrast, a huge up-stage center window, going as high as the ceiling, employs relief molding, as well as a set of functional curtains. Most importantly, light enters the upper portion of the stage from this window, and brightens an area that otherwise might have been extremely dark. The characters gather around a solid fireplace that protrudes from the stage-right wall, markedly different in this regard from the painted fireplace mantle in The Rajah's drawing room. The shelves and books located above the fireplace in the Candida photograph are actual objects placed before the walls of the set, as is a second bookshelf placed further up stage. Furniture and bric-a-brac are distributed around the room: fire irons, coal bucket, numerous armed chairs, a desk, and framed paintings hanging from the wall. The lighting is less uniform than that found in the earlier photographs of the Madison Square stage. Shadows are cast up-stage, as illumination comes mainly from a low downstage-right angle, motivated by the fireplace placed there.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Clearly, in twenty years the Madison Square moved from less reliance on painted scenery and general lighting to ,an increased reliance on relief scenery and more atmospheric lighting, all the time retaining the composition of a formal picture. The shift in application of these two distinct aesthetic approaches is clearest in comparing Figure 9 (1883) and Figure 12 (1904). In the design of the 1883 exterior scene the techniques employed (set scenery and cut drops) constantly remind the audience that they see an illusion of a forest. The flatness of the trees allows audiences to marvel at the painting technique employed that create the illusion of a three-dimensional tree where one does not exist. With Figure 12, the interior's design from 1904 consistently tries to hide from the audience that this is not an actual room. This is primarily achieved by having the presented space conform to the amount of space in an actual room. While the glade of Figure 11 also presents the outdoor space as actual, the treatment of the material in the space highlights the space's artificiality. In Figure 12's interior setting the arrangement of objects within the space attempts to hide the presentational mode of display that is fundamental to pictorial illusionism and replace this mode with the representational display strategy common to Naturalist theatre. Audiences are to see an actual room, not the presentation of an illusion of a room. It is, as Martin Meisel succinctly says in discussing the decline of pictorial illusionism towards the end of the century: "Where the theatre could reconstruct the playing space to conform with real space, built to scale and solidly furnished, problems of perspective and even of composition nearly evaporate."(55) This shift ushered in representational settings. It was the Madison Square Theatre's small stage that provided a playing space that conformed with real space. Similarly, it was the double stage technology that allowed scenes to be solidly furnished and presented to audiences without lengthy intermissions. The above comparison of photographs demonstrates this shift in scenic aesthetic practices over a twenty year period. The shift is from pictorial illusionism. However, with this shift came a simpler stage picture, as suggested by the less extravagant scene design in the 1904 photograph; possibly the result of the public's increased calls for representations of everyday reality.(56) In accordance with this call, the box set capabilities of the double stage were extensively underused initially. The creation of heretofore unseen extravagance in detailed set dressing was achieved in the beginning mainly through the illusionary practices of scenic painting. MacKaye created a box set theatre before this concept became fully fashioned in the theatre world, and it was for this reason that he did not initially fill it with what has become known as box settings. That the theatre could be used to create box sets was the reason why it remained active until 1904. As staging styles of pictorial illusions increasingly shifted away from scenic painting to the placement of properties and fixtures on stage, the Madison Square easily adapted.(57) These actual elements were obviously embraced by audiences starved for the closer representation of actuality on stage.(58)

That this transition in scenic practices (so important to the development of American theatre design techniques of the twentieth century) can be located as occurring over a twenty year period in a single theatre is significant. The identification of this occurrence makes the relationship between the invention of stage technologies and their use in this period easier to identify and understand. As the Madison Square Theatre demonstrates, a technology's existence does not guarantee its immediate use or influence on the practice of theatre. Here, the box set potential of the Madison Square generally assumed to be a touchstone to rising Naturalism in American theatre is shown to have been first used to perfect pictorial illusionism. Indeed, Steele MacKaye himself spoke of this intention in an interview after the opening of the theatre: "It was my deep desire to present perfect pictures of artistic merit to pleased audiences which led me to the invention of the `double stage'."(59) That the technology for creating artistic pictorial illusions could be used by later theatre artists for creating simpler, more verisimilitudinous settings suggests the malleability of technology to changing aesthetic practices.

Notes

(1) Horace Townsend, "American Theatres," American Architect, (9 January 1892), vol. xxxv, no. 837, 29, as cited in Susan Eaker, "Steele and Percy MacKaye: Their Theories and Practice in the Theatre," master's thesis, Cornell University, 1940, 71.

(2) See appendix Figure 1: "Madison Square Theatre," Kimball and Wisedell, architects, Iconography 180, Baker Special Collection, Dartmouth College Library, (hereafter abbreviated as D.C.L.).

(3) See J.A. Sokalski, "The Theatre of Steele MacKaye: Pictorial Illusion on the American Stage," dissertation, University of Toronto, 1997. See also Percy MacKaye's expansive and frequently biased biography on MacKaye, Epoch: The Life of Steele MacKaye, Genius of the Theatre, In Relation to His Times, and Contemporaries, 2 vols., (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927; rpt. Grosse Point, Michigan: Scholarly Press, 1968).

(4) See appendix Figure 2: Newspaper engraving "Interior of the Madison Square Theatre, showing the new position of the orchestra" (1880), unmarked newspaper, unmarked scrapbook, 37, D.C.L.. Also reproduced in Epoch I: plate 46, opposite 323.

(5) While Elisha Otis created the first passenger elevator in 1853, its development was relatively slow until this steam-driven device was changed over to electrical power in the mid-1880s. The first commercially installed electric passenger elevator was in 1889 ("elevator" in Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed.). In contrast, MacKaye's elevator stage was powered by counterweights. See also Spencer Klaw, "All Safe, Gentlemen, All Safe!: How the Elevator Forever Altered the American Skyline," American Heritage, vol. 29, no. 5, (August/September, 1978), 40-47.

(6) See appendix Figure 3: Commercial poster "Madison Square Theatre," unidentified source, as found in "New York Theatre Views: Madison Square Theatre--exterior," at Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University.

(7) Spirit of the Times, (4 February 1880), as cited in Epoch I: 340.

(8) For extensive analysis of this ventilation system see: Sokalski 115-136.

(9) See appendix Figure 4: "Movable Theater Stages," Scientific American, vol. L, no. 14, (5 April 1884), 208. See appendix Figure 5: "A cross-section illustration of the Madison Square Theatre" as taken from a diagram that accompanies the article: James Hogg, "On the Ventilation of Public Buildings," Scientific American Supplement, 250, (16 October1880): 3980-3982. See appendix Figure 6: "Steele MacKaye's Double Stage Patent (1879)," from Steele MacKaye U.S.Patent 222,143 (granted 2 December 1879), as cited in Epoch I: Appendix xl-xlii.. See appendix Figure 7: "Nelson Waldron's counterweight patent for a Double Stage (1881)" from Nelson Waldron, U.S. Patent 245,895 (granted 16 august 1881), as discussed in Raoul Fenton Johnson, "United States and British Patents for Scenic and Lighting Devices for the Theatre from 1861-1915." dissertation, University of Illinois, 1966: 70, 180.

(10) See The Daily News (London 1869) as cited in John Hollingshead, Gaiety Chronicles (London, 1898), 106, as cited in Richard Southern, Changeable Scenery: Its Origins and Development, (London: Faber and Faber, 1952), 267.

(11) Steele MacKaye, U.S. Patent 222,143 (granted 2 December 1879), as cited in Epoch I: Appendix xlii.

(12) Steele MacKaye, unidentified newspaper interview, (November, 1879), as cited in Epoch I: 323.

(13) The Daily News (London, 1869) as cited in John Hollingshead, Gaiety Chronicles (1898) 106, as cited in Southern 267.

(14) New York Dramatic Mirror, (14 February 1880), as cited in Barnard Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A.: 1668-1957, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), 235.

(15) John A. Fox, "American Dramatic Theatres VII," The American Architect and Building News, vol. vi, no. 193, (6 September 1879), 75.

(16) Percy Fitzgerald, The World Behind the Scenes, (London: Chatto and Windus, 1881), 34. Also cited in Southern 21.

(17) Edwards F. Spencer, review of Mary Anderson's A Winter's Tale in The Artist (December, 1887), as cited in Southern 264-265.

(18) n.a. The Guide to the Stage; How to Enter the Theatrical Profession, Obtain an Engagement, and Become an Actor: Founded on and Partly Taken From Leman Rede's Book. New Edition. New York: Samuel French, 1872. Emphasis added.

(19) M.J. Moynet, L'Envers du Theatre (1873) Rpt. French Theatrical Production in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Marvin Carlson, (Binghamton: New York State University, 1976), 1.

(20) Confirming the dominance of pictorial illusionism during the larger part of the nineteenth century is the authoritative work of Martin Meisel. See his: Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983).

(21) Hewitt 237.

(22) For an early argument on the faults of the wing system see: "Scene Painting," The Penny Cyclopedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (London: Charles Knight and Co., 1842), as cited in Southern 324.

(23) Richard Leacroft, The Development of the English Playhouse, (London: Eyre Methuen, 1973), 239.

(24) See appendix Figure 7: Nelson Waldron, U.S. Patent 245, 895 (granted 16 August 1881), as discussed in Raoul Fenton Johnson, "United States and British Patents for Scenic and Lighting Devices for the Theatre from 1861-1915." dissertation, University of Illinois, 1966: 70, 180.

(25) Southern 264.

(26) Southern 269-270.

(27) Fitzgerald 7. Also cited in Southern 265.

(28) Southern 328-329.

(29) Southern 329.

(29) Edwin O. Sachs, and Ernest A.E. Woodrow, Modern Opera Houses and Theatres: Examples Selected From Playhouses Recently Erected in Europe, 3 vol. (1896-899), uncited page reference, as cited in Southern 388. Emphasis added.

(31) "Scene Painting," The Penny Cyclopedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (London: Charles Knight and Co., 1842), as cited in Southern 324.

(32) Steele MacKaye, U.S. Patent 222,143 (granted 2 December 1879), as cited in Epoch I: Appendix xl.

(33) Unmarked newspaper clipping, unmarked scrapbook, 65, D.C.L..

(34) "City Summary," New York Clipper, (14 February 1880), 374. Emphasis added. According to this source, "Properties" at the Madison Square were organized by Frank Goodwin, while D. Grover Stockley was the "Upholsterer." By counting Hughson Hawley (the scenic painter) with these two men, it is possible to conclude that three different people were responsible for supplying the three different types of objects moved on and off the stage.

(35) See M.J. Moynet, L'Envers du Theatre, 1873, rpt., French Theatrical Production in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Marvin Carlson, (Binghamton: New York State University, 1976), specifically 130. See also "Stage Furnishings," The Stage (25 January 1884), as cited in Michael Booth, Victorian Theatrical Trades, (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1981), 48.

(36) M.J. Moynet 143.

(37) Fitzgerald 49.

(38) Southern 292.

(39) Edwards F. Spencer, review of Mary Anderson's A Winter's Tale in The Artist (December, 1887), as cited in Southern 265.

(40) Fitzgerald 242.

(41) See Jean Chothia, Andre Antoine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 63-64.

(42) Costa Bergman, Lighting in the Theatre, (Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell International, 1977), 269.

(43) Terence Rees, Theatre Lighting in the Age of Gas, (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1978), 143. This technique's repeated use at the Madison Square is discussed later with other iconographic evidence.

(44) Unmarked newspaper clipping, unmarked scrapbook, 65, D.C.L..

(45) W.R. Fuerst and S.J. Hume, Twentieth-Century Stage Decoration, 2 vols., (London: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), 1:90. See also Donald C. Mullin, The Development of the Playhouse: A Survey of Theatre Architecture from the Renaissance to the Present, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 145-146. Unfortunately, Mullin's issues are unreferenced and unsubstantiated.

(46) This hints at a possible study for future scholars interested in seeing how frequently the double stage was used after MacKaye quit the Madison Square. It would involve investigating the plays performed and their setting requirements and how these were met by the double stage.

(47) A later discussion of the productions of The Russian Honeymoon, and The Rajah, show that these plays worked within the noted scenic confines. Typically the fourth act returned to the location of the third act or the second act.

(48) Stanley Appelbaum, The New York Stage: Famous Productions in Photographs: 148 Photos, 1883-1939; From the Theatre and Music Collection of the Museum of the City of New York, (New York: Dover, 1976), iii.

(49) The photographs of these two plays located in the appendix as Figures 8, 9, 10, and 11 are taken from Appelbaum 1-4. For more information on these productions see Gerald Bordman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1869-1914, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 189, 191.

(50) The photographer of this scene was Benjamin Joseph Falk, according to Gerald Bordman who also described the goings-on in this specific scene of the play from which this photograph was taken. See Bordman 189.

(51) See appendix Figures 9, 10, 11: taken from reproductions in Appelbaum 2-4.

(52) For more on "practicables" see M.J. Moynet 110.

(53) In 1887 the Theatre Libre was noted for this method of lighting scenes. See Chothia 63.

(54) See appendix Figure 12: taken from Appelbaum 22.

(55) Meisel 44.

(56) This trend to less extravagant scenes is most visible in the chronological placement of the photographs found in Appelbaum's book.

(57) See Appelbaum 1-4, 22. Three productions from the Madison Square are photographed, ranging from 1883 to 1904. These show a shift from "set scenery" to "box" set scene design. Clearly the theatre was able to successfully move from one style to the other over these twenty years.

(58) See Debra J. Woodard, "The Plays of Steele MacKaye: The Beginning of a Movement Toward Realism," dissertation, Northwestern University, 1981, 65.

(59) Steele MacKaye, interview, Chicago Courier Journal, (23 May 1881), in unmarked scrapbook, MacKaye Family Collection, D.C.L.. Emphasis added. A careful study of MacKaye's career makes it evident that he conceived of "artistic" pictures as illusionary. See Sokalski.

J.A. Sokalski is Assistant Professor of Drama at McMaster University. His work has appeared in Nineteenth Century Theatre and Societe & Representations. In 2000-2001 he is the Stanley J. Kahrl Visiting Fellow in Theatre History at Houghton Library, Harvard University.