The typical equipment of to-day involves a rudimentary system for "striking" a set by hoisting it out of sight. It is controlled by ropes or cables (lines), which are run to a slotted frame (gridiron) under the stage roof and then over pulleys to the pin-rail, where they are tied until the moment to "fly" them occurs. (See figure.) This gridiron, usually of iron and formerly of wood, is about 6o to 8o ft. above the stage floor. The pin-rail, formerly in a gallery about 20 to 24 ft. above the stage floor is now usually on the stage floor itself as each piece of scenery is properly counter weighted so that it can be raised and lowered with ease without being hauled up as dead weight. There are three lines to each large piece of scenery, called the long, middle and short line respec tively, according to the position of the pin-rail. Any particular piece of scenery can be brought level to the stage floor or "trimmed" (tilted) by pulling more on the long or the short line or vice versa. However, these lines are only practical for pieces of scenery that can be set parallel to the front of the stage. Others can be set obliquely, but obviously they cut off the use of the number of sets of lines that intervene. (There are usually 5o to 7o such sets on the average gridiron.) Such slanting walls, palace fronts and exteriors, where the lines would be visible against the sky, must be handled by lowering them to the floor, snapping off the lines for the set and reversing the process for the strike. For that reason shorter pieces, such as sides of rooms which set up and down the stage (perpendicular to the audience), garden walls, etc., are usually "stacked" (pushed off the stage) and carried on by hand. Those of the stage hands who "strike" and "set" are the carpenters. But the furniture, and all the other things, such as books, inkwells, papers, jugs, etc., which the actors use and handle during a scene, are brought by others called property-men. Ten to
fifteen stage-hands are usually required to make a comparatively simple scene-shift. A series of quick shifts may require as many as 20.
A single setting though seen as a whole is, therefore, made to set and strike in a number of pieces, and then lashed together. But even these units are bolted together from smaller ones in order to get the set into the theatre and for ease in transporting it from town to town when on tour. The height of the average freight-car door in the United States, 5 ft. 9 in. determines the basic unit of scenery there. These "flats" or units, are still con structed as they were in Serlio's day in Italy in the 17th century; they are built on wooden frames (battens) and covered with can vas which is painted to simulate the texture of an exterior or interior wall. Ornament such as door frame mouldings, window frames, etc., is applied and screwed to supporting battens behind. The element of weight due to the primitive and clumsy mechanics of current stage equipment, is an important factor in the design ing of scenery. Every set must be designed not only for the play, but with an eye as well on the problem of striking and setting it. Many intrinsically excellent ideas are therefore often discarded at the outset.
As an alternative the unit setting is often used. This consists of a structural frame which remains standing throughout the per formance. Inserts within it, small in size and easier to handle, are changed, thus giving the illusion of a change of locale. Such schemes stimulate the imagination of both the designer and pro ducer, and are often as welcome to audiences as the easier reliance on literal realism.
This kind of simplification has often been carried further, as in Jessner's production of Othello, in Berlin, when a single pillar sug gested the senate chamber, a bed on a platform, Desdemona's bed room. Nevertheless, such important playwrights as Shaw and O'Neill continue to write plays which require realistic settings. And the inability of playwrights in general to confine themselves to any one tradition makes a steady use of any method of styliza tion impossible. Theatrical productions have become unceasingly a matter of competitive private enterprises for which costly mechanical installation is too great an investment risk. Modern theatres are, therefore, still built, with rare exceptions, to house the equipment for scene-shifting described, which remains me chanically clumsy, crude, and wasteful of both time and labour.