Re: Staging the crucifixion

How far away from the audience will it take place? In other words, how
well will they be able to see what's really going on? How the spear is
made, or that the nail is held between the actor's fingers rather than
going through his hand? Will they be able to see if you stick that
spear somewhere else than the actor's side (useful, for example, if you
want to pierce with some force)?

The major thing is how to support the actor up there.
How high will he be? He will need something keeping him up, and
something preventing him from slipping off that and falling down. I
don't know enough about this, I'm afraid... Some sort of harness under
his loincloth? :)

Spear:
Do you have anyone who can make stuff for you, or are you stuck with
what props etc. you can buy? If you don't, see what you can make
yourselves with a plastic-blade-on-a-spring theatre knife on a
Roman-looking stick.
If you do have someone who can build for you, the Roman pilum (
http://www.caerleon.net/history/army/pilum.htm ) look like they could
work - if you springload that long shank (like with the plastic blade)
you could get the spear to "penetrate" as deep as you want.

Blood:
Get a ziplock bag or condom, with a little theatre blood (you can make
your own) in it. Find theatre blood that's easy to clean off (and
possibly make the blood-exposed parts of the cross easy to clean, too),
since you'll have to clean them after every performance. Test how much
you need - there's no need to fill the thing with more than a little in
the bottom of the bag unless you're doing JCS as some sort of splatter
musical.

The bag can be attached to the spear and punctured by a pin or
thumbtack, but make sure you place the pin so you don't hurt the actor.
You could drive the blood bag onto the pin (so the pin is attached to
the actor, taped to his side or something), though that means that
you'll remove the blood bag when you pull the spear out...

You can use the blood bag for the hands too, to make the nails more
realistic.

Depending on how much force you want the blood to come out with, put
some tape on the bag.


....Of course, you could always do the whole scene with finger puppets.
=)

-Kjetil

.

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