Yup. The TL;DR is that the flame doesn’t really produce that much light. Instead, it heats limestone, which glows a bright white-amber.
It’s also where the term “upstaging” comes from. The back of the stage is upstage, from when stages used to be heavily sloped (so audiences on the floor could see the performers in the back). Jealous performers would sometimes fight over who could be in the limelight. Since the limelights were spread across the front edge of the stage, the closer you were to the front of the stage (downstage), the brighter you were. So if you were trying to be noticed, you would move downstage (putting the other performers upstage of yourself). By moving closer to the limelights, you would upstage the other performers.
This took on a second meaning though. When you took a performer’s limelight away, they could force you to turn your back on the audience (which is a big no-no in theatre, because you can’t express things with the back of your head, and audiences can’t hear you when you’re facing away from them) by interacting with you. An improvised conversation, for example. By forcing you to turn around, (and by drawing attention towards themselves), they were upstaging your performance. Literally taking your performance and directing it upstage instead of towards the audience.
Finally, limelights were also part of the reason why theatre was so popular with the masses. When performers fought over the limelight, while dressed in their delicate lace and linen costumes, there was a very good chance that one of them would get too close to the limelight. And you know what is really fucking flammable? Lace and linen. When you bought a ticket to the theatre, there was a non-zero chance that you were going to get to watch a lady abruptly disrobe on stage when her skirt hem lit on fire. In an era where seeing an ankle was scandalous, an actress catching on fire would be something that you’d remember for the rest of your life.
Yup. The TL;DR is that the flame doesn’t really produce that much light. Instead, it heats limestone, which glows a bright white-amber.
It’s also where the term “upstaging” comes from. The back of the stage is upstage, from when stages used to be heavily sloped (so audiences on the floor could see the performers in the back). Jealous performers would sometimes fight over who could be in the limelight. Since the limelights were spread across the front edge of the stage, the closer you were to the front of the stage (downstage), the brighter you were. So if you were trying to be noticed, you would move downstage (putting the other performers upstage of yourself). By moving closer to the limelights, you would upstage the other performers.
This took on a second meaning though. When you took a performer’s limelight away, they could force you to turn your back on the audience (which is a big no-no in theatre, because you can’t express things with the back of your head, and audiences can’t hear you when you’re facing away from them) by interacting with you. An improvised conversation, for example. By forcing you to turn around, (and by drawing attention towards themselves), they were upstaging your performance. Literally taking your performance and directing it upstage instead of towards the audience.
Finally, limelights were also part of the reason why theatre was so popular with the masses. When performers fought over the limelight, while dressed in their delicate lace and linen costumes, there was a very good chance that one of them would get too close to the limelight. And you know what is really fucking flammable? Lace and linen. When you bought a ticket to the theatre, there was a non-zero chance that you were going to get to watch a lady abruptly disrobe on stage when her skirt hem lit on fire. In an era where seeing an ankle was scandalous, an actress catching on fire would be something that you’d remember for the rest of your life.