Prop: Wind machine
Appearing in: “The Dresser,” Steppenwolf Theatre Company
When Shakespeare’s King Lear is in an onstage storm, sophisticated sound equipment creates the effect of wind blowing. But high-tech is not the solution in “The Dresser,” set in wartime England. The play, starring Tracy Letts, John Mahoney and Alan Wilder, takes place backstage and in the dressing room of a slightly mad actor. When Mahoney portrays Lear on stage, audience members only hear Mahoney’s voice as they watch special effects being created “backstage.”
Steppenwolf’s properties master Jim Lichon and his assistant Charlie Moser had to make an historically accurate version of a wind machine, a hand-cranked barrel covered with a flap of canvas that rubbed against it to make the sound of wind.
Moser crafted the barrel. “He dovetailed all the joints of the slats into the frame,” says Lichon. “We had two vintage chairs, so he used four antique screws from them. The audience isn’t going to see all that, but he did it to have fun–carpenter’s fun.”
Lichon attached one end of a piece of heavy canvas to the barrel. The other end of the fabric was weighted down by a pipe so the canvas would rub against the rotating barrel. Lichon and Moser attacked the bottom of the frame with hammers and chisels to simulate the appearance of water damage and painted it with a fine spray of dark gray paint. “It’s supposed to have been backstage at an old theater for a long time, so it has to look dusty,” says Lichon. “But you can’t use real dust because it will get on the costumes.”
Actor Linsey Page Morton operates the wind machine. “I’m a tiny person so turning the crank and getting the momentum going to get the full effect takes a warm-up period,” she says. “Since I know the secret to how the sound of the wind is made, some of the magic is taken away, but I think the audience will be fascinated by how the sound is created, which is part of the magic of the theater.”
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“The Dresser,” through Nov. 14, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.; $38-$60, 312-335-1650.