Theatre Design & Technology - Feb 1972 - 6

the scenery took fire in the back of the house by
the raising of a chandelier; that the boy who when
ordered by some of the players to raise it, stated
that if he did so the scenery would take fire, when
he was commanded in a peremptory manner to
hoist it. The boy obeyed, and the fire instantly
communicated itself to the scenery. 6

Theatre personnel tried to put a good face on it
when they explained the circumstances of the fire
to an investigating committee. The report, however, shows that the stage was, quite typically,
loaded with highly combustible materials. The investigators were assured that there were no hangings backstage coated with varnish and that there
was only one paper scene hanging at the time of
the fire. The paper drop, according to the prompter, was six or eight feet upstage of the lighted
lamp.
Thirty-five scenes were at the moment hanging.
exclusive of the flies or narrow borders, which
represent the skies, roof, etc.--and of these, thirtyfour were canvas paintings; which though not extremely combustible on the painted side, are on the
other so well covered with the fibres of the hemp
as to catch the flames. 7

The theatre building itself was as yet unfinished.
It was in prime condition to burn: the roof was not
plastered or sealed; a sheathing of pine plank had
been nailed over the rafters; and shingles had been
put over these planks. Resin from the pine lumber
stood in droplets allover it, forced out of the
wood by the heat of the sun. The roof caught the
moment the fire touched it. In four or five minutes,
the whole roof was a sheet of flame. 8
A committee of townspeople appointed to investigate the fire was unique, perhaps, in the annals of investigating committees. They put the
blame where it belonged--on themselves.
It was the opinion of the committee that this ill
construction of the theatre itself, was principally
the cause. How numerous were the occasions on
which it had long before been said as the crowd
was slowly retiring at the end of a play. "Suppose
the house were on fire, what should we do?" Yet
we slept with too fatal a security over evil-we
trusted and we were ruined. New doors were not
opened; the winding stair was not straightened, the
access to the avenues of the street was not enlarged. 9

After the fire, Mr. Twaits, one of the managers,
was called on for his professional opinion of the
Richmond Theatre and was asked to compare it
with other theatres with which he had had some
experience. Twaits complained about the lack of

adequate entrances and exits at the Richmond Theatre and of the fact that the building was unfinished:
.but one entrance to the boxes and Pit; and
that so narrow, that two persons could hardly pass
at the same time-the way lying through a gloomy
passage to a winding stair case, which terminated
in a narrow lobby .... The rapidity of the conflagration must have been caused by the unfinished
state of the building, no plastered ceiling or wall to
prevent the communication of flame. 10

In his Recollections, William Wood commented
on the consequences of the Richmond fire for theatrical ventures across the country.
This awful event alone would have arrested for a
season the current of the best fortune. It seemed
to create a perfect panic, which deterred the largest
part of the audience for a long time from venturing into a crowd, either theatrical or other. II

The length of time that memories of the Richmond fire remained to plague theatre managers is
attested to by actor-manager Sol Smith, writing of
the period 1827-1835:
The cry of 'Fire!' in a theatre is a most alarming
sound. It is alarming anywhere, but in a theatre,
particularly so. Ever since the burning of the Richmond Theatre, whereby a great number of persons
perished, the least alarm of any kind among a
large assemblage is attributed to fire, and a rush is
sure to be made for the doors, the "Richmond
fire" being uppermost in the minds of all. 12

The second of the country's three worst theatre
disasters was the burning of Mrs. Conway's Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, on December 5, 1876.
Two hundred and eighty-five people died there.
Neither before nor since the Brooklyn Theatre fire
has New York experienced a similar horror. 13
A curious note is that the late Mrs. F.B. Conway, for whom the theatre was named, had died
while her company was playing The Two Orphans,
and it was during another performance of The Two
Orphans, just before the curtain opened on the
last act, that the fire which destroyed Mrs. Conway's Theatre broke out. 14
As the curtain opened on the last act of the
play, Kate Claxton, playing the part of a blind girl,
was lying on a straw mattress looking up into the
flies. She saw the fire start and watched the
flames racing through the scenery. Believing that
the fire could be brought under control by people
backstage, Claxton and the rest of the cast were

THEATER DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

FEBRUARY, 1972

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