Periaktoi

[Brian]

Has anyone built/used Periaktos? I've been asked to look into using some later this year; I know how to build them but I'm wondering if anyone who has used them came across any 'gotchas'.

[paulears]

We made 6 of these at my old college three years ago for 'bye bye birdie' where we needed to change scenes. We made some severe design ####-ups that took a while to fix, so I can pass these on.

 

The initial idea was to make triangular timber frames that would have 6mm mdf panels attached. Height needed to be 3.5m, so we made up a 2.4 metre bottom, with one triangle half way up for bracing. The top piece was then added. What we didn't do, that we should have was cut a 60 degree angle on some other timber and use these a vertical corner braces. rotation wise, we simply put 3 3" casters on each one. Before painting they worked really well.

 

The damn things warped as soon as we painted them - nothing we could do as time ran out.

 

If you can live with the excess weight, then 12mm mdf would work better, the weight seems to actually work for you. If you need any specific on any other aspect, please ask. With student shows, plenty of bodies available to move them, and they work really well - I'd use them again if I had a similar lack of space to fly.

[Suzette]

I've used 4 together for several shows - the big problem is when you want to put them together in a line to form a wall/street/forest or whatever. There is always a gap between them which doesn't look good.

We had extensions on some of the sides which then overlapped the peri they were next to, in order to hide the gap.

I would suggest making a fairly detailed model of each one and work out where they are all going to go on stage and how they fit next to each other if needed.

The other problem is offstage storage if you only need some of them for a scene or two.

But having said all that - once we had worked through those problems they worked well.

[Brian]

Thanks Paul

 

it sounds as though fixing the three long edges together is the trick, I may investigate having someone bend me up some aluminium sheet into long 60 degree angles.

 

The idea is that they stay onstage for the whole show (panto) and that scene changes are choreographed and take place with tabs opens. Other scenic elements will transform into something else eg the fountain in the town square turns into the Kings throne etc.

[Suzette]

Ours were made for panto - made up out of 1" box steel tubing with 4mm ply riveted onto the frame. Fairly strong and able to put up being pulled about by actors/dancers in choreographed scene changes.

[paulears]

I have to say that I thought they'd be terrible, but once you get the graphic elements sorted, they worked really well. Disguising the gaps wasn't that hard thanks to clever artwork - one scene was a town square - all the building vertical lines were arranged to be on the edges - the odd lamp post hid some others. The woodland scene again had darker sections of the trees hiding the join. The other side was a clear sky top half - as soon as the carefully planned and focussed side light was removed totally - it looked ok. Alignment problems made sidelight create huge shadows when the 'rotators' were a little hurried, if you get my meaning.

paul

[Brixton]

I've been asked to look into using some later this year

Might I enquire as to why periactoids?

Every time I've come accross them they seem to be fraught with the problems mentioned. Gaps between, take up large amount of space on stage, hard to build, more waste and hard to re-cycle (to paraphrase a thread elsewhere) etc.

Could you perchance do the requied effect with something less problematical.

Flying pieces or, if no fly tower, Kabukis

Traditional Kabuki Theatre had no fly towers yet did not as far as I am aware use these big lumps. Even if you returned to the same scence a number of times 5 or 6 painted cloths are, I would submit, easier to prepare, less prone to mishap easier to store if you ever did the production again and cheaper

[Brian]

I've been asked to look into using some later this year

Might I enquire as to why periactoids?

It's more down to how the sets will look and more importantly how the transitions from one to another will occur. The intention is for all changes to happen in full view of the audience but without the dropping in/flying out a cloth look.

 

Luckily, I've got 7 months notice of the director wishes.

[Andrew C]

I've just been watching some VERY spectacular ones; finally got my DVD copy of Floyd's 1994 Pulse gig in London! :huh: :D

[Peter Tovey]

Hmmm - did some just over a year back but with a difference - ours flew in and out as well as rotated. We used a steel scaff pole for the central axis. Several bits of 18mm ply with 50mm holes in the centre were cut to the (plan) shape of the periaktoi and threaded onto the pole - the sides were bent (we had curved edges - some ply, some chicken wire and hessian) around these and attached, such that there were 'spacers' at regular intervals up the height of the pole. Used vertical battens along all the edges. Poles had a circle of ply (smaller then internal diameter of periaktoi) fixed (with kee-clamps) about 18" up. The bottom spacer had 2 castors on it which rested on this circle and rotated around it - thus providing a bearing for the periaktoi about the axis. This meant that the revolving edges could be kept about 5mm off the stage floor, and only the bottom of the axis rested on the stage (foot on scaff pole). This in turn meant they rotated very easily.

 

Biggest hint - by doing it this way, we were able to router shallow grooves in the supporting ply circle over which the castors ran. This gave the things natural 'deads' where the castors sat in the grooves. Easy enough to turn past them, but you could feel when the castors were sat in the grooves when turning the pieces, and when sat a knock wouldn't move them off the dead - so they were always perfectly aligned.

 

Funny mish-mash that show (Magic Flute). We had flying periaktoi, trucking scenery, a huge flying set-piece (a temple!), a backcloth or two and kabuki drops.

 

Pete

[Locksmith]

Just found this while googling and thought it may be of interest