Word: scrims
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...Clouds stampede over the northern New Mexico terrain, where hillocks perch like adobe huts. The kiss of two fine brown faces is silhouetted by an orange sunset, flaring into sympathetic melodrama. Night falls, and there's a rope of rainbow in the sky; a frosted moon smiles behind a scrim of mist. It makes for quite a pretty show. Nature has rarely gone to the movies in starker, more glamorous clothes...
...theatrical giants of the known universe, seems to have been a bit bewildered by this piece. His usual mastry of theatrical trickery has slipped, most notably during the first scene. A woman (Lucinda Childs) wanders across the front of the stage. Behind her a piece of white scrim is blown by a wind machine, representing the white wall of a terrific blizzard. A shrill voice booms through the P.A. system, then--Riiiip!--Frau von Kessel (Elizabeth Franz) and her servant tear the scrim and stick their torsos through it. It's supposed to look clever and mysterious, these two figures...
...right, along with the curlicues of wrought iron between his eye and the Baie des Anges, and the peculiar Moorish dome of a pier pavilion, and the curl of a dressing- mirror frame, and the flat black cover of a notebook on the vanity, and the way a scrim curtain hung and stirred in the faint breeze -- and all the rest...
...laugh. He doesn't care; he knows you'll soon be laughing with him. Perhaps by the first-act finale. A gigantic Statue of Liberty mock-up stands in center stage holding a candelabrum. Thirty-six Rockettes perform their automated scissors kick. Skyrockets flare on the back scrim. And then Glitter Beau Peep his bad self emerges from the stars-and- stripes Rolls-Royce in a red, white and blue hot- pants outfit and flourishes his baton like the most cunning majorette from Camp Camp...
...rake, they also must take care not to be swamped in the hugeness of the spacial void. At the same time, the stage crew is learning to time the raising and lowering of the various set components, including three enormous palm trees. Special care is given to the scrim, or see-through cloth; it belongs to the American Repertory Theatre and is said to be worth thousands of dollars. No one is anxious to see that sum appear on their term bill...