One town masters the art of standing still

When a pigeon landed on the head of the Statue of Diana, the "goddess" didn't flinch; but the audience gasped.

Diana is actually a real woman posing on stage in a reproduction of the Vatican's Roman statue, and not even the pigeon could tell she was not really made of stone.

This experience in trompe l'oeil (fooling the eye), an artistic extravaganza once featured on "Ripley's Believe It or Not," takes place not in Hollywood, but 50 miles south in the hilly coastal art colony of Laguna Beach. Quiet most of the year, and filled with white water, surfers, and artists, the village comes alive every summer as it hosts the Laguna Beach Art Festival and the internationally acclaimed Pageant of the Masters, where a cast of thousands have mastered the art of holding still - for about 90 seconds.

For seven weeks every summer (July 6 to Aug. 29), local residents take their positions against painted backdrops and pose like the painted or sculpted figures in reproductions of great works of art from Monet and Leonardo de Vinci to Japanese woodcuts and Steuben glass.

Thanks to special lighting effects, makeup, and costumes, members look exactly as if they are painted on canvas, carved in marble, or etched in glass.

They are celebrating a tradition conceived in 1933 by civic leaders who adopted the old art form of tableaux vivants (living pictures), to accompany their summer art show.

"Few performers [all unpaid volunteers - from teachers to lifeguards and architects] realize they are upholding an ancient tradition of tableaux vivants dating back to medieval Europe when church fathers held pageants to recreate stories from the Bible," explains pageant director Diane Challis Davy, now in her eighth year as creative commander in chief.

This year's theme is "Seasons." Selections will run the gamut from the traditional favorite of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" to nostalgic Americana, Norman Rockwell's "First Day of School" and Edward Hopper's "Summer Evening," as well as selections of marble, bronze, Wedgewood, and woodblock prints.

Even when the stage hands assemble a presentation in front of spectators, as they do at least once during each performance, the sold-out audience of 2,600 remains incredulous. It's like watching a magician teach a trick. During the two-hour show, as many as 50 works of art may be reproduced. Some are set on the main stage. Others are shown in niches at the sides of the main stage, on the upper stage, the hillsides, even on the roof of the building.

To recreate Pissaro's "The Gleaners," four young girls walk across the main stage in costumes mottled with blue shadows and misshapen hats streaked with red paint. They climb into the backdrop and take their positions on raised metal steps inserted into a flattened field of yellow. Then, after a momentary blackout, full lighting reveals the rolling honey-wheat field of "The Gleaners," in its deep three-dimensional glory; the four girls appear as women rolling and harvesting wheat.

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