One town masters the art of standing still

As a moth flitted around one little girl cast member, she momentarily broke her pose to flit it away. "Thank goodness," a man in the audience whispered. "Now, I can believe it's real!"

To appear exactly as the original, many of the most difficult artworks demand detailing, such as Georges Seurat's pointillist masterpiece, "Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte," where the figures must appear flat in the park setting. Other complex paintings include postimpressionist Toulouse-Lautrec's "At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance," and Winslow Homer's illustrated remembrance, "Art Students and Copyists in the Louvre."

For Laguna's living pictures, there are no auditions, just casting calls run by Davy and key production personnel, many who serve without pay. Volunteers' statistics are filed by size and used to fill about 275 places with two casts which perform on alternate nights. There are no understudies. And the show always goes on.

"Even when a figure once slipped backstage just before curtain time," says Davy, "she valiantly posed with bleeding thigh and nary a twitch."

Another time, a member of the cast fainted just before showtime and a spectator in the audience was recruited. Before he knew what hit him, he was in makeup, costume, and "freezing."

The volunteers return year after year. "It's the camaraderie that brings them back," says Davy. Friendships form backstage amid chess games and Trivial Pursuit. Davy says the experience teaches the youngest volunteers responsibility and gives them a sense of pride in doing a job that is seen by thousands. They also glean an appreciation for the artist and art in general. But, best of all, says at least one volunteer, the pageant can create family togetherness.

Todd Nelson is a father of two who has been volunteering for 10 years. He was drafted when his daughter asked him to drive her for an audition. He got the part - he happened to be the right size - she didn't, at least not until the following year. Then his son, who felt left out, signed up, and the three of them appeared together.

"They've outgrown it, but I haven't!" he says with a laugh.

A stroll backstage gives a surreal glimpse into the wizardry. Clothes are painted and stiffened with white glue into their wind-swept attitude for Louis Maurer's racing painting, "The $500 Contest."

A southern belle's flowered skirt is plastered into a frontal view of layered crinolines, but its back is nonexistent.

A boy, who will appear in silhouette in a circus poster, sports makeup on one side of his face, culminating with a blue line painted down the center of his nose. Other volunteers, who will appear as Dresden porcelains, wear impasto spackling makeup, the crevices between their fingers painted a nutmeg brown.

It's all part of Laguna Beach's annual effort to prove that you can fool all the people, most of the time.

Page: 1 | 2