Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

128 Chapter 5 Designers and Technicians
Stagecraft
The Makeup Kit
While makeup in high-budget productions may be created
and applied by professional makeup artists, actors in most
productions—even on Broadway—design and apply their
own, and hence travel to the theatre with a well-stocked
makeup kit that consists of a foundation, color shadings,
and various special applications.
The foundation is a basic color applied thinly and
evenly to the face and neck and sometimes to other parts
of the body as well. Creme makeup, formerly (and still
commonly) known as greasepaint, is a highly opaque and
relatively inexpensive skin paint that comes in a variety
of colors. Cake makeup, or pancake, is less messy than
creme but also less flexible. Cake makeup comes in small
plastic cases and is applied with a damp sponge.
Color shading defines the facial structure and exaggerates
its dimensions to give the face a sculptured
appearance from a distance; ordinarily, the least imposing
characteristics of the face are put in shadow and the
prominent features are highlighted. Shading colors known
as liners come in both creme and cake form and are usually
chosen to harmonize with the foundation color, as well
as with the color of the actor’s costume and the color of
the lighting. Shadows are made with darker colors and
highlights with lighter ones; both are applied with small
brushes and blended into the foundation. Rouge, a special
color application used to redden lips and cheeks,
is usually applied along with the shading colors. When
greasepaints are used, the makeup must be dusted with
makeup powder to “set” it and prevent running. A makeup
pencil is regularly used to darken eyebrows and also to
accentuate eyes and facial wrinkles.
Special applications may include false eyelashes or
heavy mascara; facial hair (beards and mustaches, ordinarily
made from crepe wool); nose putty and various
other prosthetic materials; and various treatments for
aging, wrinkling, scarring, and otherwise disfiguring the
skin. A well-equipped actor has a makeup kit stocked with
glue (spirit gum and liquid latex), solvents, synthetic hair,
wax (to mask eyebrows), and hair whiteners—in addition
to the standard foundation and shading colors—to create
a wide variety of makeup effects.
and a door slammer (a miniature doorframe and door,
complete with latch) to simulate the sounds of domestic
life. All of these sound effects were ordinarily created by
an assistant stage manager. But the rapid development
of audio recording and playback technologies starting in
the 1970s and 1980s has led to a virtual revolution in the
area of sound design and the emergence of an officially
designated sound designer in theatres around the world.
Like musical scoring in cinema and sound engineering
in rock concerts, theatre sound is now almost entirely an
electronic art.
Augmented sound is now routinely used in theatrical
performances. Almost all musicals and many
“straight” (i.e., nonmusical) plays employ electronic
sound enhancement that reinforces the actors’ voices
and creates a “louder than life” sonic ambiance. In
such cases the actors usually wear miniature wireless
microphones—often concealed. The use of live or
recorded offstage sounds may establish locale (such as
foghorns), time of day (midnight chimes), time of year
(birdsong), weather (thunder and rain), and onstage or
offstage events (a ringing telephone, an arriving taxi, an
angel crashing through the ceiling). Stage sounds can be
realistic (an ambulance siren), stylized (an amplified,
accelerating heartbeat), stereophonically localized (an
airplane heard as crossing overhead from left to right), or
pervasive and “in-your-head” (a buzzing mosquito, electronic
static, a thousand ringing cell phones).
Music, as well as sound, often evokes a mood, supports
an emotion, intensifies an action, or provides a
transition into or between scenes. Music accompanying
a play can be composed for the production or (if legally
acquired) derived from copyrighted recordings; it can be
played “live” during the performance, often in full sight
of the audience, or be played back through a theatre’s
sound system or through onstage “prop” boom boxes).
Naturally, many combinations are possible. The sound
designer designs and oversees the implementation of all
of these elements, and, particularly if she or he is also the
play’s musical composer, this work may be of immense
importance in the overall production.
Sound design has rapidly escalated in importance
over the past two decades as playwrights and directors
incorporate the new sound technologies that have
swiftly expanded theatrical potential, first with audiotape
recording and now with highly complex digital
recording, editing, processing, and playback technologies
that grow more sophisticated every year. Contemporary
sound design is not without its detractors, however.
The electronic amplification of speaking and singing
voices is often derided by critics who prefera more natural
unamplified sound. The sound-mixing board, now
commonplace in the back orchestra rows of most Broadway
and larger regional theatres, is a visual reminder
of the contemporary technology that some feel diminishes
the “liveness” of “live theatre.” Extended musical