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Urinating!


tabitha72

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Hi: I was wondering if you could help. We are doing an A level piece where a student has to urinate on stage (delightful). We are not really sure how to create this effect on stage simply, it's 3/4 of the way through the piece so whatever is used will have to be on him for about 45 minutes. With thanks,
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That one could quite easily be done with a small bag of water already in 'the area', with a thin lining which can be piereced with a pin just before as he wets himself. Obviously this'll have to be acted so he can discretely pop the bag, but is quite easy to cover up really. If you use a drawing pin, it'll go through trousers and into the bag but removes any risk of it stabbing you somehow as the pin is small!

 

Hope that helps

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That one could quite easily be done with a small bag of water already in 'the area', with a thin lining which can be piereced with a pin just before as he wets himself. Obviously this'll have to be acted so he can discretely pop the bag, but is quite easy to cover up really. If you use a drawing pin, it'll go through trousers and into the bag but removes any risk of it stabbing you somehow as the pin is small!

 

Hope that helps

 

I don't think I'd want the risk of a drawing pin appearing anywhere near my groin, thanks very much! How about a safety pin instead? The actor undoes the pin within his pocket just before it's required, feels for the bag, stabs it then re-does the safety pin safe in the knowledge that whatever happens to it as it rolls around in his pocket for the rest of the scene (and, indeed, previously) he's not going to get accidentally stabbed.

 

Better for the risk assessment?

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Even better would be to borrow a wash bottle from the Chemistry department and attach a long tube to it. Keep it upright taped to the side of the body and the actor can squeeze it with his elbow at the appropriate moment.

 

http://talmos.backwellschool.net/vle/Science/Chemistry/A%20to%20Z/chemprac/wash_bottle.JPG

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Looking at this laterally for a second, will water on the material to be used even be visible? That'd be the first thing I check so that when it came to the dress, you're not stood there with a soggy student and nothing visible to show for it.

 

E.G. Jeans won't even show any dampness on the outside for a while after the inside gets wet. How much water does it actually take to make the effect you're after?

 

Another thought is: How much of the water dispensed will actually be soaked up by the costume? If you've only got 50% of the water dispensed being soaked up and need 500-600ml to get the effect you need, that's 1-1.2l of water being dispensed and also, 500-600ml on the stage. This is easily enough to cause a slip hazard.

 

I'd be thinking about that before looking at the delivery system.

 

Josh

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Dare I suggest the "method" appproach, examples being Jane Horrocks or (more recently) Lisa Dillon. I'm not aware of any male actors doing this, and googling is likely to take you to some decidely dodgy results, but surely if ladies can do it on cue, then men can as well? The advantage of this is all equipment readily available, just drink a suitable quantity of liquid at a suitable point before the performance.. or perhaps eat chocolate. My school friend would never eat the stuff, as he swore it had a disastrously diuretic effect on him...

 

As to the question of visibility, this will depend on two things - the proximity of the audience and the colour of the trousers. Close liaison with the wardrobe department required.

 

As to the slip hazard potential, having on occcasion spilt liquid on my trousers, I would say that most of the liquid stays in the trouser, and very very little reaches the floor, so this can probably be discounted as "highly unlikely" in a risk assesment...

 

And regardles of whether the whole audience can see it, will the actor really be able to truly convey the emotional story behind the trouser-wetting without actually experiencing it? I suppose they could in the words of Sir Larry to Dustin Hoffman "just try acting".

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Dare I suggest the "method" appproach, examples being Jane Horrocks or (more recently) Lisa Dillon. I'm not aware of any male actors doing this, and googling is likely to take you to some decidely dodgy results, but surely if ladies can do it on cue, then men can as well?

 

There's always the danger of Stage Fright...

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However, wardrobe will not approve if they have to wash wee! Apparently the wash bottle, tube and a bit of tape is the 'approved' method of getting around urine testing - you just use somebody else's if you have something you don't want people knowing about!
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