Properties used in performance at the National Theatre are usually the responsibility of one of the assistant stage managers. He or she liaises with the director to find the necessary objects which can range from the commonplace (a watch, a pram, or a book) to the extraordinary –
a fake and an edible severed human tongue used in
The UN Inspector . The props are usually laid out and labelled on tables placed on either side of the stage ready for the actor(s) to use.
‘Props’ can often lend meaning to a play, for example a character wearing a watch studded with diamonds could be seen as vulgar, or certainly rich, and a character who carries a small hip flask from which he frequently takes a drink, signals to an audience that perhaps he is insecure and dependent on alcohol. If the diamond-watch-wearer is, say, the President’s wife in The UN Inspector , and the hip-flask-user is her husband the President, then the choice of those two properties can help an audience ‘read’ those characters in performance.
In
The UN Inspector , the prop maker Dan Frye not only had to create
a fake but life-like human tongue for use in the performance, but he also had to make a substitute tongue that also looked like the real thing but which could actually be eaten by one of the characters!
Finding the right substance for the edible tongue proved quite a challenge! The props department also created
fake hors d'oeuvres such as sushi to be laid out for Martin Gammon at the presidential palace.
