Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-01
MADE FAT IN FIVE MINUTES. b.
An Amusing Pantomime Trick Never
Before Explained.

From the New York World
One OF the most amusing and astonishing Of
pantomime tricks ever originated was that Of
the fat man, which was done by the Ravels.
One Of the actors in the pantomime sits at a
table and ravenously eats dish after dish Of food
that servant brings to him. Presently the
man who. like most ravenous eaters, was rather
thin and scrawny, begins TO grow plump. His
clothes fit him snugly. His waistcoat steadily
swells out under the very eyes Of the audience
All the while he is eating like a sausage ma
chine. In few moments he has grown 10 be a
giant, eight or nine feet tall and with the pro-
portions of an inflated balloon.
The sight always brought forth roars of
laughter. 1t is comparatively easy TO produce
it after you know how. The food eaten is all
property food" made of tissue paper, that the
actor chews up into little balls and takes out of
his mouth whenever occasion offers.
His clothes are all of rubber and made TO at
air tight around the wrists and neck. In sitting
down he puts the heel of one boot over little
trap III the stage. An assistant below immedi-
ately couples tube running from bellows 10
hole in the boot-heel. Then he blows him up.
1t must be a rather unpleasant sensation 10 the
actor to feel that he is nothing more than a
wind-bag; but actors are made to suffer. BY the
time that the suit has grown so big that the in
habitant has to have a lantern TO move around
In II the wind supply is cut off and the boot
heel plugged up. Then, by an ingenious ar
rangement OF springs under the actors feet,
the height is acquired.
There is a beautiful chance in this trick for
some practical ioke-loving property-man to
blow In gas that would lift the unfortunate
actor off his feet and send him sailing about
over the heads of the audience
The smashed clown" is another well-known
trick of former years that has never been ex-
planned. A big milestone falls on a clown. and
when 1t is lifted up the clown is picked up
nattened out as thin as a pancake. lie is in
sensible and is placed on table: another actor
places the nozzle of bellows in his mouth and
gradually initiates him to his normal size, when
the clown jumps off the table and is himself
again.
The trick requires deft work and consider
able machinery. The milestone is hollow. OF
course and has spring trap in the bottom, so
that when 1t falls ii takes the clown into it AT
the same time trap in the stage opens and lets
him down. The dummy clown, all iattened
out, is placed on the trap and il is sprung back
to Its place under the milestone. The actor
meanwhile lays himself out at length on
another trap that rises up above the stage to
the top of the table where the dummy is
placed. Only the outline of the clowns body
is exposed above the table. The dummy drops
down on another trap behind il. and as it goes
the body of the real clown is slowly raised
above the table to give the effect of being filed
out by the bellows
Another trick is that of a big man
standing up in nonchalant sort of way. while
another man dives head first through his
stomach. This trifing with the calm re-
pose of his dinner SO annoys the big man
that he promptly turns into a steamboat and
pulls out his disgust in clouds of smoke
ltwould be almost impossible TO make any
one but stage mechanic understand the COM
plicated workings of the trick. A trick back
net is used, so that when the little man dives
through him the big man can be lifted up hori-
zontally TO the rear, so that his clothes and his
head remain in the same position and to the
audience he seems not to have moved.
As soon as he begins to be a steamboat he is
jerked out of sight through the back scene, and
the steamboat comes up in sections to a trap
inside his clothes, falls over them and pulls ont
like a telescope until il becomes a river steamer
with its decks full of people. who are shot up
to their places by spring traps. The smoke Is
easily brought by pipe from under the
stage. 1t requires thirty-five stage hands TO
work the trick, and they don't have niue h time
for loafng either.