- Objects:
(Lizzie’s/ origionally Ma Nelson’s) French gilt Clock in dressing room - always says midnight or noon - pretty, old fashioned, father time on top - scythe in one hand, skull in other
(Fevers’) Little toy sword - victory’s sword - carries it everywhere ‘sentiment and self protection’
Fevers merchandise - garters, stockings, fans, cigars, shaving soap, baking powder (up in the air goes your cake just like her)
(Mr Rosencreutz’s) Gold Medallion - a penis (maypole, lingam, sword depicting pallas?) aspiring upwards with wings/ being dragged downward by twinning stem and rose (rep female part) - woman dragging down man
(Madame Schreck) lantern - a penny candle in a skull
- Characters:
FEVERS - the Cockney Venus
hatched out of an egg - ‘Is she fact or is she fiction?’, the Iron Maiden
Dyed blonde hair -thick, long, course (yellow), vast blue eyes/ big purple pupils, big girl - 6ft 2, big feet, wings - naturally beige/ dyed lilac big white teeth, broad oval face - beautiful on stage/ not up close under makeup - coarse skin, red shiny face, wholesome (thin long legs, larger upper body), lumpy, dirty, thick pale lashes, big bosom
big phenomenon - Fevermania/ one of the ‘great Humbugs of the world’
outfits:
In dressing room: Dirty blue satin dressing gown, makeup less, hair in bun, stockings, pink fleshings, lips smeared with grease
On stage: illusion of nakedness (pink fleshing), sequins on crotch and nipples, 18 inch plumage on head plus giant wings, hidden hair, red plus, strained bodice - tits about to pop out - also before act red/ purple plumage cloak
Toddler: yellow pigtails, feathery wing buds, wreath of pink cotton roses, gilded toy bow and arrow - Cupid (of whore house)
Naked as a star - trying to fly as a teenager
Teen (14 - 17 while blossoming) : Large woman with a sword: hair/ wings powdered with white chalk, hair tied up with ribbon, white drapes navel - knee, rest of body dipped in wet white - the ‘Winged Victory’ - symbol for whore house again - not good for business - virgin - covered in wet white ‘like a death mask’ / an ‘artificial egg’ - on Ma Nelson’s ship - only object for men’s eyes
Madame Schreick's House -
MADAME SCHRECK:
a living skeleton - bony
long thin pony fingers, hard fingernails
long black dress and veil to her knees (like a Spanish window), mittnes
FANNY:
‘a bony lump of a girl’ wearing a shift and a blindfold
take of blindfold and open eyes - blue
lift up shift and open other eyes (had eyes instead of nipples)
COBWEBS:
Never smiles, face covered in cobwebs - eyebrows to cheekbones
SLEEPING BEAUTY:
Lays naked on a slab of marble all day - only awakes to be fed once a day
FEVERS:
Sleeping Beauty’s toumbstone angel ‘the angel of death’
stands naked, wings full spread at head
TOISSANT:
mouthless man with eyes of sorrow
- Locations:
THE WHORE HOUSE:
Exterior:
Whitechapel in East Londen, behind Ratcliffe highway, next to thames ’Old Father Thames, shining like black oilcloth, wherever the bobbing mooring lights of the waterman touched him', where Ma Nelson’s barge is moored - little garden of house goes down to river
5 storey, Old/ square/ red brick, plane/ sober facade, scallop shaped fanlight over front door, harmonious, little white steps to front door, tall windows/ white blinds always down, well proportioned pediments of doorway, window boxes with daffodils, pediment outside attic window, many chimneys and sloped roof down to gutter (trap door onto roof) - ‘a place of privilage’
30 ft cherry tree next to it in garden
neighbours gin shop
Interior:
go up mighty marble staircase (with banister of wrought iron - garlands of fruit, flowers, heads of satyrs/ marble banister) to drawing room on first floor
DR - dominated by amazing marble fire place (buxom marble goddesses support mantlepiece on palms) - lit, like a gentleman’s club, leather armchairs/ tables - copies of the Times, wine red walls, mythological paintings in heavy gold frames/ Leda the swan painting above mantlepiece, bolted shutters and crimson velvet drawn curtains, candles in crystal sconces, french gilt clock in glass case on mantlepiece, brass fire guard, persian rug below fireplace
also Library ..
The reality of the interior when the curtains are opened: (the illusion of pleasure/ luxury) - because everything has a dark twit in the book
the ‘artificial night of pleasure’
candles blown out
moth nippled upholstery, mice gnawed Persian carpets, dust cracked cornices
stains of damp and mould on the ceilings
damask ealls, tarnished guilding on mirrors, dust obscured mirrors
warn armchairs, smoke, thick dust covered paintings
Girls lit house on fire when it was taken away from them
MR ROSENCREUTZ’S MANSION -
A Gothic mansion - turrets, covered in ivy under ‘a fingernail moon with a star in its arms’
surrounded by wooded hills
Antique design, made of new raw brick
fumed oak front door - brass plates hammered into it to look like studs
door open, light flooding out
FEVERS’ DRESSING ROOM:
Dressing table with plush - topped backless piano stool and mirror (lightbulbs round it)
On table - Flute of champaign, bottle in a toilet bucket full of ice from a fishmonger (scales in it/ stinks), spilt dry rouge,
some parma violets in a jam jar, yellow metal hairbrush - encrusted plus matching comb and mirror, jars of lotion
Smell - perfume, sweat, greasepaint, gas - breathed in lumps
Massive wall sized poster with foot high letters ‘is she fact or is she fiction? - in French - written in charcoal Toujours, Toulouse,
horsehair sofa with a black iron mantlepiece jutting out over it
pouring of mantlepiece - nest of silk stockings, dirty/ all colours - also flowers
also on floor - ribbons, lace
big pair of frilly drawers draping french clock
pink iron maiden corset poking out of coal scuttle dragging pink tights
Also a washstand with a transparent bar of soap in a cracked basin
full dirty bath/ champaign crate behind canvas screen - ostrich plumes headdress shoved in grate
red and purple feather rope hung on wooden hanger from door
MADAME SCHREICK’S HOUSE -
Exterior:
gloomy house in Kensington
in a square with a melancholy garden n the middle - leafless trees, worn grass
facade blackened by soot
louring portico over front door, knocker bandaged in crepe
inner shutters barres
Interior:
MS’ bedroom - thick heavy black curtains drawn - only light from a little corpse/ night light (on mantel) - never lit fireplace/ firescreen
MS in four poster bed with embroidered hangings pulled almost shut
also chair facing bed, locked up desk with roll top and safe the size of a wardrobe with a massive brass combination lock
(in safe - piles and piles - golden sovereigns, diamond necklaces, pearls, rubies, emeralds, banker’s drafts, bills of exchange, foreclosed mortgages - all creating own light)
Fevers’s room - super bare/ plane
dark - iron bedstead, deal washstand
iron bars over window, see trees in deserted garden and a few distant lights
MS’ Museum -
lots of beams, damp flagstone floor, slimy walls
big locked door, lots of carved stone nieches with curtains (girls stood behind)
oil lamps in front of curtains - her ‘profane altars’
also pierced gothic fold screen wit harmonium behind
- Quotes:
Franny - “How can you nourish a babby on salt tears”
Madame Schreck - “Shall I open the curtain? Who knows what spectacle of the freakish and unnatural lies behind it!"
London (Dan Leno) - "a little village on the Thames of which the principal industries are the music hall and the confidence trick"
