Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2005 - 56

FIGURE 6
Diagram from U.S.
Patent No. 996,452

21 and 22 respectively). A platform is provided (at 26) so that
the person manning the wire supporting the rider/s can keep
it properly vertically aligned (of course this person is out of
audience view). Essentially, the design allowed even unskilled
riders to give the illusion of authentic circus riding.
An interesting side note is found in Burgess' acknowledgment that this mechanism, and the horses it incorporates in
performance, is noisy. Therefore he suggests incorporating
another of his designs, U.S. Patent No. 784,919, an applause
machine, to conceal the unwanted noise generated by the primary device.
For those in search of theatrical spectacle, the advantages
of U.S. Patent No. 924,632 are obvious. The support allowed
the "rider" to perform what looked like expert feats of
mounted acrobatics, while the treadmills and harnesses allowed the horses to move realistically although "in place."
The second design, U.S. Patent No. 996,452 (figure 6),
also catered to those desirous of spectacular, but not necessarily authentic, equestrian performance onstage.
This inspired design featured a treadmill (at 5) on which
a moving horse was to be tethered via a girth-like band (at 12)
so that it appeared that the horse was wearing a saddle that
was actually an independently supported platform masquerading as a "pad saddle" (at 14) and was completely unattached
to the horse directly beneath it. The girth-like tether kept the
horse in place, allowing neither forward nor backward movement. It also gave the appearance of holding the "saddle" in
place on the horse.
Burgess described this device as "a means whereby a realistic semblance of riding under actual conditions is obtained." (Burgess 1911, Patent No. 996,452)
It is interesting to note that in his attempt to make an actual equestrian performance more immediate by bringing it
out of the ring and onto the stage, Burgess actually succeeded
in almost eliminating the equestrianism and substituting for it
an illusion of equestrianism. In a very real sense, this progression into illusion at the expense of reality foreshadowed the
transference of spectacle from the stage to film, a change that
would sound the death knell for spectacular theatre, especially
hippodrama, in the very near future.
Before the end of hippodrama, there was to be one last
great play, a play that surpassed all others in terms of spectacle. This play best illustrates the heights to which spectacular
theatrical realism rose in its attempts to present the illusion of
exciting high-speed forward motion onstage and it is BenHur; specifically, Klaw and Erlanger's 1899 production of William Young's stage version of Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur. The
story of Ben-Hur had previously attracted theatrical attention
in April 1874 when Barnum's circus first entertained audiences at a 10,000-seat hippodrome with a dynamic interpretation of its great chariot race. This race, run around the
hippodrome's huge track in Barnum's presentation, became
the climactic scene and most memorable of the play when the
story was dramatized on the American theatrical stage nineteen years later in Klaw and Erlanger's production. The spectacular effects in this latter production were facilitated by
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