Oddball dye/theatrical question

[Hank Trent]

A discussion elsewhere about fake blood in reenacting got me to thinking: what would they have used for fake theatical blood in the period? It appears there really was a typical answer: rose pink and water (sources below).

I guess that's useless trivia, but interesting nonetheless. I'm curious though.

Since rose pink is/was a dye, wouldn't it stain costumes pretty bad, or would it rinse out easily? Was it toxic if accidentally swallowed?

I've tried to look up in dyeing manuals, but of course they only describe how to do it right, with a mordant and all, not cold water and rose pink spilled on dry cloth. And most dyers don't need warned about dribbling dye from their mouth. :) Complicating the question is the fact that several related substances apparently could all be referred to as rose pink in the period.

So anyway, any dyers have experience? How toxic and how staining would rose pink and water be? Is there a reason rose pink would be a particularly good theatrical choice?

Sources: "...it was not blood, but rose-pink and water; for I saw the property-man mix it up with my own eyes." (Life of Mrs. Siddons, 1834)

"...he observed a tall negro holding a teacup full of blood (rose pink), which was wanted almost immediately on the other side of the stage." (Theatrical Management in the West and South, 1868)

"...'tis the stage-keeper's duty to have a little blood (rose pink and water) ready in the chamber where Macbeth goes to murder Duncan!" (Memoirs of a Manager, 1830)

Hank Trent
knowing that one day, somewhere, somehow, I'll probably use that info
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Spinster]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Hank Trent
knowing that one day, somewhere, somehow, I'll probably use that info

:p:p And probably sooner rather than later, if I know you.

With the rare exception of a few dyes (known in the books as 'substantive' dyes) , the dye without a mordant will simply wash out--especially out of bast or cotton fibers. For an exceptionally brillant dye, it might take a bit more effort, but given the general period laundry techniques, one time through the wash pot is pretty well going to cure it.

Not knowing the specific things they are calling 'rose pink', but knowing that red dyes are somewhat rare in nature, I'm assuming rose pink has a cochineal base. If so, it is sent to the red range of colors by the addition of creme of tartar, which is, of course, food safe. Cochineal itself is also food safe, being used today in lipsticks and certain food coloring . If you have memory of eating red roses on a birthday cake prior to about 1980, that funny 'red' taste--somewhat funky tasting---is the taste of cochineal.

Speaking of trouble, and oddball applications, Selma is the weekend of April 19.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Thank you! On further checking, it looks like rose pink normally referred to Brazilwood, which could apply to several different kinds of wood. However, it seems to be less often used for a cloth dye and more often for a paint or dyeing things besides cloth--maybe because it did wash out as quickly on cloth or moreso even than other non-mordanted reds? That would certainly make sense.

Speaking of trouble, and oddball applications, Selma is the weekend of April 19.

Is David definitely planning to do the nitre works thing again and make it into a first person weekend, same as before? Someone asked me about being a doctor at another event that same weekend, and I said I hadn't actually heard from David yet but that you'd said the plans were still in the works for Selma.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[MissMaggie]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Mr. Trent,
This may be a case of period accuracy is better anyway if you are using a dye solution with no mordant. I'm a costuming major at school and we've used modern fake blood for several shows in the last few years and its actually a pain to get out of anything white. We were reduced to bleaching things and thus ruining the garment over the two week run. It once again reminds me that the modern world doesn't always have it right!

[Spinster]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Brazilwood is certainly a weaker dye than cochineal--again, the creme of tartar should send it towards a red range of colors, as its normally orange.

It stains my white countertops far less than cochineal, so that's a plus in the 'washing out' department. As a general rule, it performs poorly on cotton or bast fibers, even when you are trying. Its lightfast properties are mediocre at best, gone in a season or so, thus any stains that do occur could be banished with some time in sunlight.

I'll check on pending adventures when I'm down at Gaines this weekend.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Hallo!

" If you have memory of eating red roses on a birthday cake prior to about 1980, that funny 'red' taste--somewhat funky tasting---is the taste of cochineal"

And I thought it was just the beetles running around on it.
;)

Curt

[Spinster]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

:p:p Bad Curt.

Since I've about worn out the 'how to make indigo' story for making fifth graders holler and start shucking off their blue jeans, I've now taken to showing the teachers the little bugs that are in their lipstick. Makes 'em wiggle and holler too.

There are reasons besides altruism that I do school programs.....

[Stephen Shepherd]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

From the Oxford Universal Dictionary:

Rose-pink 1735 A pigment of a pinkish hue, produced by colouring whiting or chalk with a decoction of Brazil-wood, etc.

The wood is actually Pernambuco from which violin bows are made. Brazil is also the only country named for a Wood.

Stephen

[Professor Barclay]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

With the exception of a "Grand Guignol" type performance, was stage blood commonly used? I would think that audiences of that period would have been a bit more "squeemish" or sensitive to this...just wondering...

Rick

[Professor Barclay]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

...and after I wrote that, I checked online and found that the "Grand Guignol" didn't come to be until 1894...

Rick

[Hank Trent]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

With the exception of a "Grand Guignol" type performance, was stage blood commonly used? I would think that audiences of that period would have been a bit more "squeemish" or sensitive to this...just wondering...

Haven't found anything to indicate that, except a few complaints by the stuffiest of the Mrs. Grundies who weren't thrilled about the influence of the theatre in general. From the operas with their bloody stabbings to the lowest melodramas at the Old Bowery, violence seemed acceptable. Be curious if others have found anything different.

By the way, I need to hunt up a great quote from an 1850s gift book about how our youths are being corrupted by watching all the violence in operas and being stirred up by that horrible music. :)

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Hank Trent]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Here it is:

There is a sort of mad music, that answers no end but that of folly. The ear can comprehend nothing of it save its passions; and it is so decked with gaudy garments, and distorted by frantic gestures--so wedded to the wine-cup and the frenzies of fashion, that its reign is destructive of virtue and morailty... There [the audience sits] for two, or perhaps three, precious hours, to listen to what? The heart sickens to think; to riot and murer--to crimes, that, rolled about as they may be with soft modulations and melodious words, and the witchery of dulcet strains, are yet deadly, though robbed of their revolting coarseness and haggard brutality by the surroundings of gas-light--beauty--and diamond-sparkling fashion. ("The Organ Grinder," article in the gift book Home Memories, compiled by Mrs. Mary G. Clarke, 1858

Don't let your kids watch those violent operas!

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Professor Barclay]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Haven't found anything to indicate that, except a few complaints by the stuffiest of the Mrs. Grundies who weren't thrilled about the influence of the theatre in general. From the operas with their bloody stabbings to the lowest melodramas at the Old Bowery, violence seemed acceptable. Be curious if others have found anything different.

Hank, the more I think about it, I can understand why. Those who lived in the Victorian period, much less during the years of the Civil War, were very much accustomed to death from war, disease, accident, bacteria, etc. I could imagine that they wouldn't have balked too much at a death scene in a play.

Rick

[1stMaine]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Mr. Trent,
This may be a case of period accuracy is better anyway if you are using a dye solution with no mordant. I'm a costuming major at school and we've used modern fake blood for several shows in the last few years and its actually a pain to get out of anything white. We were reduced to bleaching things and thus ruining the garment over the two week run. It once again reminds me that the modern world doesn't always have it right!

Mam,

I have found that simple Ketchup is an excellent substitute for small amounts of blood on stage, and that, if treated within a short period of time, will come out of most anything. Another item we occasionally used was tempera paint with gelatin added. It, too, seemed to come clean, as it were. We used red with a tinge of blue to darken it, in that case.

Anyway, besides the period rose-pink & water, many companies continued to use bright ribbons or blossoms of cloth, concealing them in retracting blabes, hands, etc, so that they would spill out at the approprite time. Givin the audience's willing suspension of disbelief anyway, it's easy for them to accept such a substitute for liquid concotions.

One other point is that the use of such blood substitutes is, in my own view, much overdone. Many wounds do not bleed in the fishion we are accustomed to seeing in movies, plays, etc, and decent acting skills will certainly transfer the desired intent to the audience regardless of whether or not blood appears.

FWIW, my company managed to produce almost a decade's worth of classical plays without the need for fake blood, and that included several battle scenes and stabbings, etc.

Interesting subject, however.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Oddball dye/theatrical question

Not sure if this is related, but it's an interesting bit of trivia. When P.T. Barnum tried to turn the American Museum into something really grand in New York City, he decided to appeal to a broader audience than was already attending theaters. The museum contained a theater, but he insisted on calling it a "lecture hall," so people who believed the theater was wicked could congratulate themselves on attending something education and uplifting because it was a presentation in a lecture hall--even if it was just as lurid a melodrama as Ten Nights in a Barroom or Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Let me see if I can come up with something to show I'm not just making that up. Here we go: http://www.musicals101.com/bwaythhist2.htm

In 1841, the wily P.T. Barnum purchased the American Museum on Chambers Street, and started presenting plays in the spacious lecture hall. People who did not want to be seen entering a theatre had no qualms about visiting a museum, and "moral" dramas like The Drunkard (1850) made Barnum's one of the most popular venues in New York City. Barnum turned the hall into a fully equipped 3,000 seat auditorium, staging variety shows, musical farces -- anything that sold tickets. His success inspired a number of theatres across the country to call themselves "museums," a trend that continued through the end of the 19th century.

I'd disagree with the conclusion at the end--I think museums added theaters and live exhibitions, rather than theaters adding a few static displays, heading into the 1880s heyday of the dime museum. But maybe that's just because I'm coming at it from a museum direction rather than a theater direction.

But my point is that theaters, like novels, had a reputation in the early and mid 19th century of being wicked things which inflamed the baser passions--with or without explicit stage blood or gore. Which still didn't stop the bulk of the population from enjoying them, anymore than complaints about rap music or violent video games hinder their popularity today.

One other point is that the use of such blood substitutes is, in my own view, much overdone. Many wounds do not bleed in the fishion we are accustomed to seeing in movies, plays, etc, and decent acting skills will certainly transfer the desired intent to the audience regardless of whether or not blood appears.

From a purely artistic/interpretive viewpoint, I agree. The emotional effect on the audience is more dependent on their sympathy with the characters involved than the objective amount of gore.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net