The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-05
BUTTONS DESTROY POMPEII.
BEHIND THE SCENES AT PAINS
FIREWORKS SHOW.
Simple Means That Bring Down Temples
and Palaces--The Weather and the
Noise the big Sources Of worry--SOme
Performers Can't Get Used TO tho Latter


Performers Can't Get Used TO the Latte
| As the Vesuvian peak was exploding
and the Pompeiian pillars falling. az high
priests, dancing girls and centurions ran
screaming between the Senate House and
the Coliseum and Glaucus padded Nydia
and lone into safety across the Neapolitan
Bay, Arbaces ran into hysterical flower
girl behind the Temple of Isis, in Man
haitian Beach's big fire show, last week.
Sixteen pounds Of dynamite were going
off behind them. From above, comets,
eruptions. voleys and assorted charges
were descending in fiery cloud.
son." gasped the flower girl, Il wish
people wouldn't like quite so much noise. "
Probably none OF the spectators who
beyond the Bay of Naples were preparing
to pile ont backward was inclined to echo
the wish. This, however, was because
none of them realized how much worry
their fifty-five minutes of volcanic joy
had cost.
The worry attached to getting up great
fire show nowadays does not arise from
fear of premature explosions II is in re-
gard to both the nerves and the weather.
The first cause, as in the case of the flower
girl, results from having half a pound Of
dynamite go Off against ones tympanum
and then, as you cork up the ear with q
finger stopper, having the other drum
palsied by blast on the other side. The
show il twenty-one years old. But even
the oldest supers still vince at the eight
pound blast which announces the fall Of
the Coliseum pillars.
The chief worry however, ia over the
weather. Trust in God and keep your
powder dry is the pyrotechnist's most
constant maxim Mr. Pain has finally
become so versed in practical weather
prophecy that he can make the Govern
ment bureau look like the city hall clock
after it has been struck by thunderbolt.
Saturday a week ago was but slightly
overcast
mo show on Monday" Mr.. Pain never
theless announced, Oni the supers conse-
quently received the forty-eght hours
notice that saves days pay.
All Sunday Manhattan Beach was bathed
in sunshine. The stage director fidgeted
But Mr. Pain only squeezed his cards a
little tighter, waited for the pot to be
opened and passed And, Of a truth,
the celestial pot that was opened up last
Monday was a big one Cards drawn in
it would have netted Mr. Pain fifteen
hundred-dolar loss. Sometimes however.
even Mr. Pain makes a mistake. He fol-
lows a strange policy when rain takes
him in the middle of show
"Give EN- their moneys WORTH" are his
Instructions; and within three minute
of the first rain drop every bomb, rocket
and candle has been exploded in a single
grand pyrotechnic crash.
The scenery, being painted in oil, cannot
he hurt by water. 1t il, indeed, washed
down either by rain, dew or hose every
night. But the costumes can be hurt
Even without aid from above the togas
and drapcries have to be renewed every
six weeks, and in the women's dress
ing room three sewing machines are kept
whirring constantly all day repairing
rips and rents But it takes surprisingly
small number of rainlrops TO put tilmy
ballet skirt out Of business.
ound-racked nerves and unexpected
cloudbursts are by far the greatest of the
fireworks exhibitors worries Other
ingy simple.
Distance from the spectators and the
incidental nature of the ballet makes the
training of the dancers a matter Of but a
few days work Those few days. on the
other hand, are strenuous while they last.
Director Rose put this years raw chorus
through their preliminary PAGES during
forty-aight hours OF torrentill downpour
three weeks ago As the two rehearsals
We're held under the open sky, there was
no dress rehearsal at all.
The danger of accidental explosions Ia prac-
tically nil. How far the science of harmless
noise making has progressed is shown by
the unriffied condition of the marsh grass
above which is suspended the wire on which
are exploded night after night, The wire
hangs only five feet from the ground
The mortars, which, unguarced, are quite
capable of reproducing another Madison
Square disaster, are buried in a great trench
and covered with heavy timber Both
dynamite charges and mortars are set in
a marsh forty or fifty feet behind the stage
the fame and smoke seen issuing from the
crater being only innocent limelights.
pink pots and gerhe'. These latter are
stretched on the hmsiest of wooden
- lffoldings, behind the mountain, and
don't even shake it. The wonder of WISH
tors behind the scenes is, indeed, that so
much erect can be produced by such
seemingly insignificant means.
The whole destruction of Pompeii is
brought about by score Of trick lines,
thirty-four electric buttons, a two-pound
weight and diminutive representative of
London'S mechanic art. The last-men-
toned cau.ative il John Craig, who has
been with Pains various shows from the
age Of Ia and now has the larger part of
Pompeii in his brain and at his fingertips
He it is who rouses the fre-becher,
explodes the mines and crumbles the city's
walls; and le does it all with small thirty
four button battery box connected with
a plunger and with the various combustibles
that mine the neighborhood Above the
battery and pasted against the rear of the
Coliseum is n list of what each button does.
Button lights the pink lights which usher
in the procession of guards priests ard other
cnlehrants of Arbacess honor, Apis, the
golden bull would be carried down the
temple steps in darkness Were it not for
button ?. The might of Craig's fingertip
only begins to he shown with the pressing
of button g. His cue is the killing Of Ar
baces by Gaucus, the mountain being the
deus or machine, which then permits the