The Farting Wife

[Illuminatio]

The scene is a room in a Japanese house, represented by three flats - a longer middle one, and a shorter flat hinged each side which fold against the middle flat so that the whole is free-standing. It is carried onstage for the scene and off at the end. the flats consist of a wooden frame backed by paper.

 

The piece is based on a traditional Japanese tale called The Farting Wife. At the climax of the scene the Wife farts so explosively that the paper is blown upstage out of the wall.

 

Because of tight scheduling, the damaged paper needs to be reset within an hour or so.

 

Any ideas how we can achieve this effect - preferably without pyros?

[Junior8]

This is a hard one given that the set has to be self standing and carried on. I wonder if the same effect could be achieved by using spring activated rollers which simply pulled the paper rapidly out of the voids downwards while at the same time some torn paper was fired from offstage. If the fart was loud enough it should hide the noise of the rollers working. This system would be easy to re-rig and could be boxed into the framework. Just a thought... If it were not free standing I think you could get an excellent effect by using a weighted line fixed to the middle of each sheet.

[pritch]

Use something or other (Extra layers of paper? Sticky labels? White gaffa?) to strengthen the four corners of the paper so that it's heavy enough to have fishing line or something similar sewn through them without tearing the paper. Use a low-strength adhesive (or even white tack) to hold it at each corner, so that it can be pulled off the frame at the appropriate moment.

[ImagineerTom]

If you're looking for "paper blown off" effect then actually you don't want paper at all as it is too fragile and rarely moves like you/your audience expect it to as well as being noisy. A very light fine-texture fabric (silk for example) will look and move like audiences expect it to but will actually be durable enough to survive the regular abuse.

 

If you're looking for a more destructive effect then a white spring roller-blind that snaps out of the way to reveal torn/tattered strips of paper (I'd use Tyvek - much more durable) will give you something that looks spectacular but again can be reset in 30 seconds.

[Jivemaster]

Paper will puncture to a big hole or will come off the frame Kabuki style, but by it's nature paper will crease so not be easily reusable.

 

Boatman gave drawings recently of his manual pull wire "Kabuki" release made using oval cable trunking (http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=67926&pid=543176&st=0entry543176 ). Colorama background paper ( https://www.manfrotto.co.uk/colorama ) is like half mm hard board, it's avaliable in some colours to 3.55m wide on the roll (heavy and expensive).

[paulears]

It's a long time ago, but we had in a play, something similar. We had a roll of wallpaper and a flat with a cutout. The play needed at one point to have a section of the wall split, on cue, to reveal words written on the 'real' wall behind. the flat had a hold cut in it and a length of the paper clamped in a couple of bits of 25x50 timber, which held the paper from the top. The bottom had a similar batten to clamp it and a sand bag on it to tension the paper - hanging near one end. To trigger the effect, near the top, a stanley knife blade just sliced into the paper, and the weight at the bottom let it rip right across. We used some thin battens on the front to disguise the fact that it was just a short section about 3ft high. It worked pretty well, but usually needed somebody to be there ready to give the sandbag a tug if the blade mis-cut. Could this be a possibility?