Human suspension

Factual Questions
1

I’m one of the behind-the-scenes people in an amateur community theatre group. We’re working on a new play that takes place during the Spanish Inquisition (I know, nobody expects . . .). At the beginning of the second act, a woman is to be suspended upside-down (by her ankles), and she has to stay that way throughout the act.

The actress in this role weighs about 160 lbs., and will not be wearing anything on her feet. What would be a safe and comfortable way to suspend her? Is a horizontal 2x4 strong enough to hold her? And to add to the problems, she has to be hoisted up and attached by two women who are not exactly bodybuilders. Does anyone have any ideas on how we can do this? And of course, we can’t use any post-1490s technology.

I suspect one solution would involve a big wheel; attach her like the Vitruvian man, then rotate 180 degrees. But I don’t think that would have the right effect.

(I used to have a friend who was into s/m that included suspension; he’d know exactly how to do this, but he’s no longer around.)

2

A variant of the wheel idea would be a table that will go nearly vertical. Strap her to it with leather for show (head downstage), but might also want to use a flying harness for actual support. Tilt into position. Cheat it off vertical to allow the table to support some of her weight. Still not going to be comfortable for her.

I suspect the wheel is a safer/easier alternative…

3

I have no idea on any of the safety issues involved. Do not attempt this until you have consulted, preferably in person, with someone who is conversant in the safety issues. But on this point, at least, I can advise you. The easiest way would probably be using a block and tackle (pulley system). With enough turns, you can make a load arbitrarily easy to lift. The tradeoff is that the more turns you add, the slower the load will be lifted. But, of course, it might be good for dramatic effect to hoist her slowly, anyway.

4

I’d be worried about circulation problems if all her weight was supported by her ankles on a hoist. A flying harness with quick connect/disconnect clips on the upstage side might help with that. You could rig it so that the actual lift is controlled offstage while the actors turn a wheel or something to look good…

But a freehanging actress is maybe gonna swing, and that’s not a good thing. I’d really prefer to have something to keep her stablized…
Prolly should have asked this earlier, but do you how are you staging this? I’ve been assuming a proscenuim stage with fly loft…

5

My friend recently did this for the role of James in the Lieutenant of Inishmore. His ankles were attached to a chain that was looped over a pulley up in the rafters.

Jeff said it was easier to do this in the second locale on Broadway, because the roof was higher, and he was able to swing around a bit more without staying upside down the whole feckin’ time.

Jeff started out the scene hanging, so I know he was securely fastened by one of the technical crew. I have no idea how you’d guarantee the person in your amateur production was securely trussed up.

6

heehee. We used to call that “actor proofing”. The idea is you have to make it so simple even an actor can’t screw it up :smiley:

7

Did anyone else read the title and imagine humans stirred up in a big beaker of water?

Anyway… We did a gag for a film where a guy is hanged. I designed the rig and the director and I put it together. He tested it before we put the actor in it. This is what we did: We got a climbing harness and a chest strap from REI. We also picked up some carabiners and a hundred feet of 3/16" cable. We attached a 'biner to the climbing harness and attached the cable to it. We put another 'biner on the chest strap (on the actor’s back) and passed the cable through it. (Since he was supposed to be hanged by the neck, the chest strap with the cable attached to it kept him upright.) We looked for a pully strong enough to hold a 160 pound actor, but could not locate one at the local hardware store. Instead we attached another carabiner to a fire escape. We passed the cable through it and attached the free end to the trailer hitch on my Jeep. Using extreme caution, one of the crew (who happened to be a cop, so we figured he knew how to drive) inched the Jeep forward to take up the small amount of slack in the cable. (Not the best idea! What if his foot slipped on the accellerator? :eek: )

So now we had a cable attached to the climbing harness the actor was wearing, that went up the actor’s back through a carabiner on the chest strap, stright up to the 'biner on the fire escape, and then diagonally to the Jeep. The diagonal part of the cable was out of frame. We had three strong guys out of the frame who pushed down on the cable, lifting the actor about four feet off the ground.

Hanging your actor upside down presents a problem if our rig were used. The harness fits like a pair of shorts (more or less – legs through the hole, top around the waist). Wouldn’t be so good inverted. You’d have to find a full harness. We were originally going to use a surplus parachute harness (check your surplus stores), but it would have been too much work to cut the unneeded bits off and remove the hardware. We then looked for a similar harness for climbing. Unfortunately the only ones we found were child-size. We had very little time to come up with the rig, so we did what we did. If you have more time you could try to locate a full harness. (IIRC there are industrial safety/OSHA ones, only we didn’t have time to order one.)

Once you have the harness you can do the carabiner thing. Put one on the back of the waist strap. Put straps on the ankles and put a 'biner there to keep the actor from tipping. It’s better to use a pulley than to use a carabiner. (We did notice some wear in the 'biner from repeated hoisting.) You could use a single pulley and a diagonal cable, or you could use two cables so that the free end would hang down offstage. You could securely attach sandbags to it as counterweights.

I would not trust an actor’s safety to a 2 x 4. Make sure the structure is strong and stable.

This is probably not going to be comfortable. It probably won’t be excruciating, but still…

When we did our gag, we tested it before putting the actor in it. I know I already said that, but it bears repeating. The director had a good 30 or 40 pounds on the actor too. We knew that the harnesses were designed to hold a human who is climbing up a rock face. Eighth-ince cable would have worked, but we chose to use stronger cable for an extra margin of safety. The ‘noose’ around the actor’s neck was designed to fail under very little stress. We had two or three ‘football player types’ standing by to rescue the actor in case anything went wrong. We told the actor to signal us if he were in trouble by clutching at his neck and flailing his legs.

We had never done this before. We planned it out carefully before we made the rig. We made sure all of our components were up to the task. We made sure the fire escape was in good condition. We did a lot of testing to make sure it was as safe as it could be. We knew it would work. But we still took every precaution we could to ensure that the actor would not be harmed if something did go wrong.

Bottom line: Suspending an actor seems like a simple thing. Who hasn’t hung upside down on the monkey bars? But there is a lot of potential for disaster – especially with the actor hanging upside down. As Chronos said: Do not attempt this until you have consulted, preferably in person, with someone who is conversant in the safety issues.

8

Do you even know if the actor can stay upside-down for the requisite length of time?

Inversion can be very uncomfortable for some people, regardless of how they’re suspended. If this is unknown territory for them, try to rustle up an inversion table. (they’re usually marketed as a thing for yoga or back pain sufferers) Some sporting goods shops sell them and have them on display so they could try it for a few minutes to get a feel for whether or not their eyes will feel like they’re going to pop. :eek:

9

What gotpasswords said. Gut reaction is that the long inversion realllllly doesn’t sound like a good idea.

10

Any way you could use bit of stage magic. Instead of actually suspending her upside down, have her stand normally in what ever rig that you are thinking of using and then have a camera turned upside down and project that onto a screen ?

Declan

11

Hair and soft bits would look totally wrong.

12

No, I thought it was going to be about some kind of vehicle - possibly a bicycle - where the elasticity and resilience of the rider’s legs would be used to cushion the ride.

13

But you’d have to add some kind of surfactant, or else they’d join hands and coalesce and sink to the bottom of the beaker, forming a layer of “human mud” that you’d never get back into suspension again.

(I once had to throw out sodium suspension that did that. You gotta keep agitating it.)

14

What about those “Gravity Boots” that were popular in the 80’s?

15

My second thought was of the legs.

16

That’s pretty much what the inversion tables are, minus needing a doorframe - they grab you at the ankles so you can freely dangle.

Just occurred to me - inversion tables are designed for safely holding people upside-down, so if the actor can handle it, your prop department can probably dress the thing to look like torture equipment. They sell for somewhere in the $300-400 range, last I saw.

They’re also not a binary up or down - the person gets on at nearly vertical, then the table has full range of motion so you could freely have them upside-down for a while, and bring them back up, or to horizontal, as needed.

17

I’ve been doing theater for twenty years and I agree with this. A fully inverted hang, with all weight suspended from the feet, is going to be difficult for the actor to sustain for more than a few minutes.

It might be helpful to know what the actual play is, so we can consider how it’s been staged before. Title, author?