The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1899-12-17

York. easily surpasses old
limits as theatric specta-
LIZ Gle. The wonderfully beau
tiful and impressive pic
lures 1t presents without hitch or a flaw
have never been attempted before. It
may be years before an effort will be
made to equal them.
Seventeen times the pictures changed,
each revealing new wonders In lighting,
scene setting and effective ensemble.
When seemingly the best had been ac-
complished still more remarkable pictures
arose in their place. Inventive skill
seemed able to make almost the unattain-
able its plaything.
The hundreds in the audience saw and
enjoyed the scenes only in their entirety.
Few stopped to consider them in their
component parts. Not one, perhaps, fully
realized the complexity, almost infinite
detail, work, patience. expense. time and
inventive and artistic skill that was in
volved in giving the spectacle of ben
Hur" its material form.
Yet to dissect this remarkable produce
ton is almost as interesting as to see 1t
as completed whole. Before the curtain
was raised on the first performance. and
when its success was still matter of
speculation, the books Of its producers
showed an outlay Of $4,000, covering a
period of seven months of preparation.
If the canvas used in it's seventeen
scenes were stretched out in Broadway
it would carpet the pavement from Forty
second to Fifty ninth street. The paint
used in its decorations would coat almost
any one of New York's sky-scrapers from
basement to roof. The panorama of the
chariot race scene alone required $500
square feet of cloth.
The development of the chariot race
into an actually may be considered the
triumph of stagecraft In this incident
eight horses and two chariots will be
shown apparently racing at break-neck
speed, the animals galloping with all their
power Four horses. ''the two blacks
and the two whites" are driven by Mes
sala, and the four Arabian bays by Ben
Hur. Messiah leads; Ben Hur smashes
the wheel Of Messala's chariot; the Ro-
man falls beneath the feet of his crazed
horses and Ben Hur wins the race.
Solving the problems connected with the
presentation of this race, and the con-
struction of the apparatus on which 1t Is
run, cost Klaw & Erlanger over S15.000
The next step was to secure the horses
that would fit the descriptions written by
the author. This required three months.
Over 100 horses that physically filed the
requirements were tried before eight sat
isfactory principals and four substitutes
were secured Their training began Sep
TENDER /.
A month ago the race apparatus was
built into the Broadway theater stage, re-
quiring its entire reconstruction. This
mechanism consisist Of two great cradles.
twenty feet In length and fourteen feet
wide, which are movable back and forth
on railways supported by bridge struc-
ture capable of upholding twenty tons.
The tops of the cradles are two inches
below the. stage level Each cradle bears
the four horses and the chariot Of each
contestant. On each cradle there are four
runways Cor treadmills OF hickory stats.
two inches wide, covered with rubber)
twelve feet long and two and one-half
feet wide.
On each of these treadmills a horse is
secured by invisible steel cable traces,
which hold him In place ana prevent him