Pitfalls and Pratfalls

For the past few years the Old Colonel has been exercising his inner thespian and with the resurgence of Runnels Summer Camp, shall do so again by Crom!  Up here at the Old Place, we actually had a small community theater.  It opened back in the thirties and ran steady until the war.  Shakespeare was the standard fare of course along with less well-known productions of “The Barretts of Wimpole Street,” and “The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife.”  So, What's It Got to do with Safety?  

Safety challenges abound in the theater just as they do on the job site.  Actors are expected to be able to energetically battle with swords, dodge falling chandeliers, and even fly!  Like any other form of elevated work, full-body harnesses literally carry the load although their mission is very different.  Fall protection on the job site has to be able to sustain the incredible shock loading of falls from up to 6 feet!  Unlike fall protection, the flying harnesses of the theater will experience little to no shock loading so their design can be lighter and practically invisible which is necessary for the illusion.  Also, the worker whose life is saved by his personal fall arrest system usually ends up in the hospital anyway because of the G forces applied to his body.  We cannot afford to hurt our flying actors, so their setups are vastly different.  Also on the job site, we move everything from a 600-ton tank to a Georgia buggy full of scrap wood.  Moving sets around can be just as challenging.  Sets must be built on rollers light enough to move easily yet solid enough to dance on or maintain an odd shape.  One such item is a three or four-sided monster referred to as a periaktoi, which is Greek for “revolving.”  (Most of us just call it a pterodactyl and be done with it.)   Periaktoi tip over easily, because they are often 12 to 15 feet tall and must be moved quickly but cautiously.  Out on the jobsite craftsmen bustle over uneven ground, dump trucks lumber by and backhoes wobble through with seeming disregard for each other.  Not so in the theater!  One of the director’s toughest jobs is what we call “Blocking;” the coordination of which rivals the best offensive lines to ever play the game.  Each actor, whether star or window dressing must move from mark to mark with the precision of a Blue Angels high-speed fly by, one slip, one person not where the other actors expect them to be and the whole scene can literally collapse, hopefully without injury.  Lastly, people.  The deeper into the jobsite you get, the more diverse a people you will find: Carpenters, fitters, welders, electricians, crane operators, and yes even safety men must all find a way to get along and work together, meshing their various crafts and tasks to complete the job on time and on budget.  In the theater there are writers, and directors set builders, and set movers, light and sound techs, costume designers, and lest we forget (and many a director would like to) the actors.  Wildly diverse personalities, motivations, visions, and dreams must coalesce to tell the story. The object of all this intertwining is to create a visual so natural we call it, “suspension of belief.”  The audience forgets it is watching a contrivance of talent, lights, facades, sounds, and movement and becomes immersed in the story. 

The great director John Huston once said, “I relieve myself of the rigors of directing by correctly casting the movie.”  Employers would do well to emulate this idea when starting a company or when manning up a jobsite.  After all, the show must go on.

Sitting in a rocker at the Old Place, I am, Col. Jim.