Kabuki Drop

Effects – Kabuki drop from Eugene Onegin by Callum Howie

The main stage effect in Eugene Onegin is a kabuki drop, I will explain the effect and how we achieved it in the show, and I will also describe how to make one on the cheap.

Kabuki is the traditional style of Japanese theatre and the kabuki drop is the most common effect export from the style. The effect is when a flown cloth drops to the floor. As the cloth falls the air pressure on either side of the cloth causes it to fall straight down with small ripples in it. The effect is used to reveal the scene behind.

See this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIzHGg3lhOs

There are many different types of mechanisms to make the drop both mechanical and electronic which are available to buy or hire.

The kabuki drop used on Eugene Onegin was an electromagnetic drop which is owned by Scottish Opera. The way this system works is a barrel with pins is attached to a standard flying bar. This barrel is loose and is able to spin; the barrel has two “arms” which are set inline with the pins. The arms have half of the electromagnet on it; it reaches to a platform which is fixed to the same flying bar. When in preset the arms are located to the platforms and the pins are pointing up. The ties are then able to sit securely. Again in the preset the magnets are attracted to each other with no current passing through the system, this is so that if there is a power failure the cloth will not drop.

When the system is fired the current pushes the magnets apart and the weight of the arms spins the barrel and makes the pins point downwards and the ties simply slip off.

The version of the drop we used in Eugene Onegin was altered slightly from a standard drop. Firstly the cloth was, by design, only half depth so the cloth had cord extensions to the ties from the cloth up to the bar. The cloth also had ties rather than eyes as well which it should have been for the way the Scottish Opera Kabuki drop works.

To make your own Kabuki Drop on the cheap is very simple.

• Get a wooden baton across the length of the drop.
• Lay out your cloth and mark on the baton where your ties are.
• place two screw eyes where each of your ties sit
• place a stage pin in between the two eyes
• Run a control line across the length of the baton also tie off to the end of the baton so the pins do not whip across the stage.
• From each pin tie up to the control line so that when you pull the control line all pins fall from the eyes.
• Tie your cloth to the pins.