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diff --git a/40148-0.txt b/40148-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8823fca --- /dev/null +++ b/40148-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5940 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40148 *** + +[Illustration: "_Plays are put up in packages and sold at the +delicatessen shops_"] + + + + + THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT + + BY + + CHANNING POLLOCK + + + WITH 50 FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY + WARREN ROCKWELL + + RICHARD G. BADGER + THE GORHAM PRESS + BOSTON + + + Copyright 1911 by Richard G. Badger + + All Rights Reserved + + + The articles that make up this volume originally appeared, at + various times, in Collier's Weekly, The Saturday Evening Post, + The Associated Sunday Magazines, The Smart Set, Munsey's + Magazine, Ainslee's Magazine, Smith's Magazine, and The Green + Book Album. The author desires to thank the editors of these + periodicals for permission to republish. + + THE GORHAM PRESS BOSTON, U. S. A. + + + TO THE LADY WHO GOES TO THE THEATER WITH ME + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +_Wherein, at union rates, the author performs the common but popular +musical feat known as "blowing one's own horn"_ + +THE THEATER AT A GLANCE + +_Being a correspondence school education in the business of the +playhouse that should enable the veriest tyro to become a Charles +Frohman or a David Belasco_ + +SOME PEOPLE I'VE LIED ABOUT + +_Being reminiscences of the author's nefarious but more or less +innocuous career as a press agent_ + +THE WRITING AND READING OF PLAYS + +_Being a discussion as to which pursuit is the more painful, with +various entertaining and instructive remarks as to the method of +following both_ + +THE PERSONALITIES OF OUR PLAYWRIGHTS + +_Being an effort to outdo Ernest Thompson Seton and Charles G. D. +Roberts at their own game--which is speaking literally_ + +STAGE STRUCK + +_Being a diagnosis of the disease, and a description of its symptoms, +which has the rare medical merit of attempting a cure at the same +time_ + +ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY + +_Being an account of intrepid explorations in the habitat of the +creatures whose habits are set forth in the preceding chapters_ + +WHAT HAPPENS AT REHEARSALS + +_Being something about the process by which performances are got ready +for the pleasure of the public and the profit of the ticket +speculators_ + +THE ART OF "GETTING IT OVER" + +_Being the sort of title to suggest a treatise on suicide, whereas, in +point of fact, this chapter merely confides all that the author +doesn't know about acting_ + +SOMETHING ABOUT FIRST NIGHTS + +_Wherein is shown that the opening of a new play is more hazardous +than the opening of a jack-pot, and that theatrical production is a +game of chance in comparison with which roulette and rouge-et-noir are +as tiddledewinks or old maid_ + +IN VAUDEVILLE + +_Being inside information regarding a kind of entertainment at which +one requires intelligence no more than the kitchen range_ + +WITH THE PEOPLE IN STOCK + +_Concerning Camille, ice cream, spirituality, red silk tights, Blanche +Bates, Thomas Betterton, second-hand plays, parochialism, matinee +girls, Augustin Daly, and other interesting topics_ + +SITTING IN JUDGMENT WITH THE GODS + +_Being an old manuscript with a new preface--the former dealing with a +lost art, and the latter subtly suggesting who lost it_ + +THE SMART SET ON THE STAGE + +_Wherein the author considers comedies of manners, and players who +succeed illy in living up to them_ + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +PAGE + +_Plays are Put up in Packages_ + +_First catch your play_ + +_If actors roamed about at will_ + +_A Stalwart Individual pushing a church_ + +_The guild of Annanias_ + +_Anna Held bathing in milk_ + +_Sometimes things really do happen to actors_ + +_The Theatrical Women's Parker Club_ + +_It is very difficult to identify a good play_ + +_A woman cut her play in half_ + +_Clyde Fitch's ability to work_ + +_Augustus Thomas shouts instructions_ + +_Eugene Walter was lodging upon a park bench_ + +_Margaret Mayo built a villa_ + +_The malignant disease_ + +_"You're William A. Brady, ain't you?"_ + +_A wrinkled old lady confided her desire_ + +_How sweet to meet one's own image_ + +_The Great White Way is a recumbent letter I_ + +_The actor and the rest of the world_ + +_Allan Dale came three nights running_ + +_Gets eighteen dollars_ + +_If actors really "felt their parts"_ + +_The first time the director has seen them_ + +_The interruption came on the spot_ + +_Matches that cannot be lit_ + +_Ensconced in a swing and two silk stockings_ + +_Thought seems as material a thing as a handball_ + +_Gillette flicked the ashes from his cigar_ + +_Lady Macbeth swore that he grew during the performance_ + +_A playwright whose stock has soared a hundred points in a single +evening_ + +_A Boston audience at train time_ + +_Trilby died in every known way_ + +_The author--as you imagine him, and as he is_ + +_Venus rose from the sea_ + +_Danced before a statue of Antony until it bit her_ + +_You need bring to a vaudeville theatre nothing but the price of +admission_ + +_Their agents search every capital of Europe_ + +_Known as a stock company_ + +_Master Betterton had his nerves shaken_ + +_The actress giving time to dress-makers_ + +_Evening up matters on his books_ + +_The great actors of an earlier time_ + +_A play censor with a club_ + +_Reputable scoundrels kill by machinery_ + +_Comstockians wear blinders_ + +_The peculiarities of royal love-making_ + +_The lady may have come to prepare a rarebit_ + +_Why women sin_ + +_It simply isn't done_ + + + + +AN INTRODUCTION + + Wherein, at union rates, the author performs the common but + popular musical feat known as "blowing one's own horn." + + +"Good wine", according to the poet, "needs no bush." With the same +logic, one may argue that a good book needs no introduction.... But +then--how be sure that it _is_ a good book? + +Hallowed custom provides that every volume of essays--especially of +essays on the theater--shall begin with a preface in which some +celebrated critic dilates upon the cleverness of the author. However, +celebrated critics are expensive, and, moreover, no one else seems to +know as much about the cleverness of this author as does the author +himself. In consequence of which two facts, I mean to write my own +introduction. + +One obstacle appears to be well-nigh insurmountable. It will be easy +to inform you as to my merits and my qualifications, but I don't +quite see how a man can speak patronizingly of himself. And, of +course, the patronizing tone is absolutely essential to an +introduction. Nobody ever wrote an introduction without it. I shall do +my best, but I hope you will be lenient with me in the event of +failure. + + * * * * * + +"Of the making of books there is no end." + +And, even to the most enthusiastic student of the stage, it must seem +that a sufficiently large number of these books deal with the theater. + +At least, they deal with the drama--which is slightly different. It is +in this difference that one finds some excuse for the appearance of +"The Footlights--Fore and Aft." Here are a collection of papers in +which the reader finds no keen analysis of plays and players; no +learned review of the past of the playhouse, no superior criticism of +its present, no hyperbolean prophecy for its future. The book, in +fact, is unique. + +One might wish, indeed, that there were more substance to these +essays, which reveal the impressions of a reporter rather than the +excogitations of a thinker or a philosopher. Mr. Pollock severely lets +alone the drama of Greece and Rome. His field is the drama of +Forty-second Street and Broadway. He has rendered unto Brander +Matthews the things that are Brander Matthews', and unto William +Winter the things that are William Winter's. + +"The Footlights--Fore and Aft" contains nothing that might not have +been set down by anyone with a sense of humor and the author's +opportunities of observation. It is true that, in his case, these +opportunities have been exceptional. Born in 1880, Mr. Pollock's +contact with the theater began as early as 1896, when he became +dramatic critic of the The Washington Post. Subsequently, he served in +the same capacity with various newspapers and magazines, was reporter +for a "trade journal" of "the profession", and acted, for a +considerable period, as press agent and business manager. The +practical side of play-making and play-producing he has learned in +eight years' experience as a dramatist, during which time he has +written ten dramatic pieces, among them "The Pit", "Clothes", "The +Secret Orchard", "The Little Gray Lady", "In the Bishop's Carriage", +and "Such a Little Queen." + +Considering the narrow confines of the world he describes, its +comparatively small population and its rather meager language, Mr. +Pollock should not be blamed too much for a certain sameness +throughout "The Footlights--Fore and Aft." There are not more than a +dozen prominent managers and a score of well known playwrights in +America; whoever elects to write a hundred thousand words about the +theater must choose between mentioning these names repeatedly and +inventing new ones. Nor is it possible to avoid the recurrence of +explanations and instances. You will find something about stage +lighting in "The Theater at a Glance", because it belongs there, and +something more about it in "What Happens at Rehearsals", because much +that follows in this account would not be clear without it. The author +did not flatter himself that you would carry his first description +with you through a hundred pages, and, perhaps, he didn't want you to +spoil a nice book by thumbing back. + +In articles written at various times for various readers, there is no +reason to suppose that he devised two phrases where one would serve or +searched for two examples where one would do the work. Undoubtedly, +many of these reiterations were weeded out in the course of +compilation, and, as undoubtedly, many of them remain. All collections +of stories by the same author--especially when they treat of one +subject--are marred by similarity. The remedy for this rests with the +reader, who is recommended to take such books in small doses--say, one +essay every night at bedtime. + +Generally speaking, the matter that follows will not be found +unpalatable. At least, the author gives us no reason to suspect that +he is displeased with it or with himself. "The capital I's", as +someone has said of another series of articles, "flash past like +telegraph poles seen from a car window." Mr. Pollock scolds +considerably, too, though, for the most part, in perfect good humor. +Indeed, whatever their faults, it must be said that these essays +display some wit, and a rather delightful lightness of touch and +brightness of manner. They penetrate the recesses of the topic, giving +an agreeable impression of confidence, of familiarity, and of +authority. + +Books and plays are judged by their price and pretence. With the price +of this book neither the author nor the prefacer has anything to do. +It pretends to very little, and, judged by that standard, it may be +acquitted. + + CHANNING POLLOCK. + + The Parsonage, Shoreham, L. I., + August 25, 1911. + + + + +THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT + +I + +THE THEATER AT A GLANCE + + Being a correspondence school education in the business of the + playhouse that should enable the veriest tyro to become a + Charles Frohman or a David Belasco. + + +A man who passed as the possessor of reasonable intelligence--he +"traveled for" a concern that manufactured canning machinery, and his +knowledge of tins was something beautiful--once said to me: "Are plays +written before they're produced?" + +"No," I replied, indulging myself in a little sarcasm; "they're put up +in packages and sold at the delicatessen shops. Comedies cost twenty +cents a box and dramas from twenty-five cents to half a dollar. It +would be a great field for you, old chap, if you could induce a +fellow like Augustus Thomas to pack his plays in cans." + +Even my friend the "drummer" saw through that. I'm afraid my wit lacks +subtlety. Still, two or three other people of my acquaintance would +have been a bit uncertain whether to take me seriously or not. Most +laymen, though they wouldn't believe in the package explanation, +cherish a vague idea that theatrical presentations are miracles +brought into being by the tap of the orchestra conductor's wand. +Managers are quite willing to foster this opinion, agreeing with the +late Fanny Davenport, who felt that the charm of the playhouse lay in +its mystery, and that to elucidate would result in loss of patronage. +In this verdict it is impossible for me to concur. I learn something +new about the theater every day, and the more I learn the more I love +it. You can't interest me in a thing of which I am ignorant--at least, +not unless you start to clear up my ignorance. + +Henry Arthur Jones, writing about "The Renascence of the English +Drama," observes: "I wish every playgoer could know all the tricks +and illusions of the stage from beginning to end. I wish that he could +be as learned in all the devices and scenic effects of the stage as +the master carpenter.... Compare the noisy, ill-judged, misplaced +applause of provincial audiences with the eager, unerring enthusiasm +and appreciation of the audience at a professional matinee, where, so +far as the acting goes, everyone knows the precise means by which an +effect is produced, and, therefore, knows the precise reward it should +receive." That's warrant enough for me. + +The theater is an extremely curious blending of art and business. Its +art is lodged back of the curtain line and its business in front of +the footlights. Between these two boundaries the manager stands when +he is directing rehearsals, and, since his work is a mixture of both +things, that four feet of cement constitutes a sort of intellectual +no-man's-land. The people of the stage and the people in "the front of +the house" have little in common, that little being chiefly a mutual +feeling of contempt for each other. + +You know the recipe for cooking a rabbit--"first catch your rabbit." +The same recommendation applies in the matter of producing a play. +Good plays are the one thing in the world, except money, the demand +for which exceeds the supply. Consequently, dramatic works cost a +trifle more than "twenty cents a box." Most managers think they cost +altogether too much, but there never has been advanced a completely +satisfactory reason why an illiterate little comedian should be paid +more for appearing in a piece that makes him a success than the author +should be paid for providing a piece that all the illiterate little +comedians on earth couldn't make a success if the vehicle itself +weren't attractive.... Kyrle Bellew in "The Thief" drew $10,000 a +week; Kyrle Bellew in "The Scandal" didn't draw $4,000; that's the +answer. + +If you were a manager and wanted a play by a well-known author you +would go to his agent--Elisabeth Marbury or Alice Kauser--and ask +if he had time to write it. Should his reply be in the affirmative, +you probably would pay him $250 for attaching his name to a contract +stipulating that the manuscript must be delivered on such and such a +date. Before that time, he would send you a scenario, or brief +synopsis, of his story. If you accepted that, you would give the +author another $250; if you rejected it, all would be over between +you. The acceptance of the completed "'script" would be likely to cost +you an additional $500, and the whole $1,000 would be placed to your +credit and deducted from the first royalties accruing to the +dramatist. + +[Illustration: "_First catch your play_"] + +Authors' royalties usually are on "a sliding scale." Such a one as we +have in mind might get 5 per cent. of the first $4,000 that came into +the box office; 7 per cent. of the next $3,000, and 10 per cent. of +all in excess of that total. Thus, the playwright's income from a +production that "did $8,000" a week would be $510. The agent would +take 10 per cent. of this sum. Some dramatists receive better terms +than these and some get worse; I have given the average. It is +possible for an author to profit by such a property as "The Lion and +the Mouse," which has been acted pretty constantly by two or more +companies, to the extent of a quarter of a million dollars. +Occasionally, a shrewd manager and an author without experience or +self-confidence make a deal by which a play is sold outright. This is +an unpleasant subject. + +"How does the dramatist know the receipts of his play?" you ask. From +a copy of the statement by which the manager knows. Did you ever hear +of the operation called "counting up?" About an hour after the +performance begins, the affable young man who takes your money through +the box office window counts the tickets he has left, and subtracts +the number of each kind from that which he had originally. The result +is the number sold. That number is written on a report handed to the +manager of the company appearing in the theater by which the young man +is employed. He and the young man then count the sold tickets taken +from the boxes into which you see them slipped when you give them to +the official at the door. That result should be precisely the figure +on the report. If it is greater the young man pays for the difference; +if it is less nothing is said, since some people who bought tickets +may have remained away. The statement of what has been disposed of, at +what price, and with what total, is then signed jointly by the +representative of the house and the representative of the company. +Each keeps a copy of this statement and an additional copy is sent to +the agent of the author. The transaction seems simple, but, if you +will think the matter over, you will see that it is a nearly perfect +method of preventing dishonesty. + +The contract made between manager and author ordinarily provides that +a play must be performed before a given date and so many times a year +thereafter, in default of which all rights revert to the dramatist. +One of the first requisites of a production now-a-days is scenery. +Consequently, supposing still that you are the manager, you turn over +your manuscript, act by act, to a scene painter, or to a number of +scene painters, expressing your ideas on the subject, if you have any. +The scene painter reads the play, formulates some ideas of his own, +familiarizes himself with the time and place treated, and makes a +model of each setting. The model is a miniature, usually on the scale +of an inch to a foot, and it incorporates the necessaries described by +the author with the luxuries imagined by the manager. Moreover, it is +as accurate and beautiful as skill can make it. If the producer +approves of the model a bargain is struck, a builder constructs the +frame work which is to hold the scenery, the painter covers the +canvas, and, for a while, at least, the matter of settings is off your +mind. The setting of an act may cost $500 and it may cost $5,000. +Generally, it comes to about $1,000. + +In a play of modern life the actors are supposed to furnish their own +costumes. Sometimes, when the dresses are to be exceptionally +elaborate, this rule is varied. Should your property be a romantic +drama or a comic opera, however, you have a conference with a +costumer. The great producers, like the Shuberts and Klaw and +Erlanger, maintain their own establishments, but this hardly will +apply in your case. Now you will see costume plates instead of scene +models--little paintings on card-board that frequently are exhibited +in front of the theater in which the piece is running. These once +passed upon, the contract for making the clothes will be let. +Naturally, the cost is governed by the number of persons to be clad +and by the nature of their garb. The gowns worn by one woman in the +production of a Clyde Fitch society comedy came to $3,100. The +costumes for a comic opera may foot up $20,000, irrespective of +tights, stockings, slippers and gloves, which principals and chorus +girls are obliged to find. + +Engaging a company is a simple matter in comparison to what it used to +be. A few years ago you would have been compelled to choose from +thousands of applicants and to make personal visits to an actors' +agency--say, Mrs. Packard's or Mrs. Fernandez'. Now metropolitan +casts are composed chiefly of well known people. You have seen these +people often, you know what they can do, you select them with an eye +to round pegs and square holes, and you write to them or their +representatives. In a week your cast is ready. Salaries range from +$400 a week, paid to a popular leading man or woman, to $20 a week, +the stipend of a player of bits. Chorus girls usually get $18, though +especially handsome "show girls" are worth as much as $60. Your star +probably insists on having from $300 to $500, and a percentage of the +profits. + +A stage manager is the man who does the thinking for actors. He +directs rehearsals, devises "business" and effects, and often has a +great deal more to do with the play than the author himself. Any +author will tell you that this was true in the case of a failure; any +stage manager will tell you it was true in the case of a success. In +all seriousness, a stage manager is a mighty important individual. If +actors roamed about at will in a play, as most laymen suppose they +do, you couldn't tell a first night performance from a foot-ball game. +Every actor in a piece knows just where he must stand when a certain +line is spoken, and when, how, where and in what manner he must move +to get in position for the next line. Smooth premieres are not +accidents; they are designs. Sometimes, as in the case of David +Belasco, producers are their own stage managers. Frequently, as with +Charles Klein, authors stage their own plays. Almost always they have +something to do with it. + +[Illustration: "_If actors roamed about at will you couldn't tell a +first night performance from a football game_"] + +The chorus of a musical comedy or a comic opera rehearses apart from +the principals, and begins earlier. Putting on a piece like this is +more difficult than putting on a legitimate comedy or a drama, and +such a director as Julian Mitchell or R. H. Burnside may be paid +$15,000 a year. The production of a "straight play" often is piece +work, bringing about $500 for each piece. Costumes, scenery and +properties are unknown until the last rehearsal. Two chairs represent +a door or a sofa or a balcony in the minds of everyone concerned. +"What is the woman doing on the bench?" I inquired once at a stock +company rehearsal of "Mr. Barnes of New York." + +"That isn't a bench," the manager replied. "That's a train of cars +just leaving the railroad station at Milan." + +While these things are going on in borrowed theaters or rented halls, +two departments in your enterprise are preparing other details of the +business. First, there is your booking agent. His task, like the +matter of engaging a company, has been simplified. Formerly, he wrote +to the manager of the theater you wanted in every city you wanted to +play, and kept on writing until he had contracted for a route that +would not involve your jaunting from Philadelphia to Chicago and then +back to Baltimore on your way to St. Louis. Railway fares, even at two +cents each per mile and one baggage car with every twenty-five +tickets, eat up profits. Now-a-days your booking agent goes to the +booking agent of one of the two big syndicates, each of which +represents half of the theatres in the country, and that gentleman +arranges a route while you wait. Sometimes it may not be a route worth +waiting for, but that is determined by your importance and the +estimated drawing power of your attraction. Theaters are "played on +shares", the shares depending again upon the drawing power of your +attraction and upon the size of the city booked. In Chicago you will +get 50 per cent. of the receipts; in Newark 60 per cent; in +Springfield or New Haven 70 per cent. A New York house keeps 50 per +cent. and, unless your production seems promising, you will be obliged +to guarantee that the theater's share will not fall below a certain +figure. + +Next, there is your press agent. He used to be a newspaper man, and he +is worth $100 a week or not more than a dollar and a quarter. In his +office is a stenographer, a mimeographing machine, and a list of six +hundred daily newspapers. If he is worth $100 he knows just what each +of those newspapers will print and what it will not. It is his +business to cover a pound of advertising so completely with an ounce +of news that the whole parcel will not be consigned to the +waste-basket. Out in Milwaukee and over in Boston you have observed +journalistic items like these: + + Augustus Thomas is at work on a new play for Charles Frohman. + The piece is to be called "The Jew," and will be produced in + September. + +That's the press agent! + +He also designs bills, gets up circulars, sends out photographs, +invents "fake stories", and takes the blame for whatever happens that +shouldn't have happened. If you have several attractions you will need +a press agent in New York and one with each company on the road. In +the parlance of the profession, the road press agent is "the man ahead +of the show," while the acting manager is "the man back with the +show." The terms are self-explanatory. "The man back with the show" +keeps the books, "counts up," pays salaries, "jollies" the star, and +maintains communication with his principal. During the course of your +connection with the theatrical business you will have dealings also +with the advertising agent, who supervises the posting of bills; the +transfer companies, which haul your production to and from playhouses +and railway stations; and scores of other people. You must learn about +them from experience. + +The stage is a land of wonders the geography of which must be pretty +thoroughly understood before you can receive any idea as to the +working of the miracles that occur in the ten minutes the curtain is +down between acts. Of course, you know that the opening through which +you witness the performance of a play is called the proscenium arch. +The space between the base of this arch and the footlights is known as +the "apron." That region into which you have seen canvas disappear +when it is hauled up from the stage is the "flies." Directly under +the roof is a floor or iron grating from which are suspended the +pulleys that bear the weight of this "hanging stuff," and that floor, +for obvious reasons, is called the "gridiron." The little balcony +fastened to the wall at one side of the stage or another is the "fly +gallery." The loose ends of the ropes attached to the "hanging stuff" +are fastened here, and it is from this elevation that the "stuff" +aforesaid is lifted and lowered. Scenery is of two kinds--"drops" and +"flats." Of the latter more anon. "Drops" are curtains of any sort on +which are painted the reproductions of exteriors or interiors, and one +of the ordinary size weighs about two hundred pounds. In common with +everything else suspended in the "flies," these "drops" are +counterweighted, so that a couple of men can move them with ease. The +other things suspended may be "flies," or "borders," which are painted +strips that prevent your seeing any farther up than you are expected +to see; "ceiling pieces," platforms, and "border lights," which are +tin tubes as long as the stage is wide, open at the bottom, and +filled with incandescent globes of various colors for illuminating +from above. + +"Flats" are pieces of painted canvas tacked on a framework of wood. In +the old days these were held in position by "grooves," or combinations +of little inverted troughs that fitted over the tops of the "flats." +These "grooves" were in sets four or five feet apart running along +both sides of the stage, and their position gave to various parts of +that platform designations that are used still in giving directions in +play manuscripts. Thus, "L.2.E.," or "Left second entrance," is the +space between the first and second of these sets on the left of the +stage. The long "flats," slid in to join in the center and make the +rear wall of a dwelling, for example, constituted "_the_ flat" and the +short ones on your right or left were "wings." Then a room could be no +other shape than square or oblong, and the doors and windows had to be +in certain specified places, no matter where they would have been in a +real house. It is laughable now to consider how this purely physical +condition limited the dramatist. + +At the present time the building of a house with "flats" is not unlike +building one with cards. Each "flat" is placed where it is desired and +held up from behind by a "brace," one end of which is screwed to the +setting and the other to the floor. That particular "flat" is then +lashed to its neighbors with a "tab line," much as you lace your +shoes. When the walls have been constructed in this way, with doors +and windows wherever they are wanted, a ceiling is lowered from the +"fly gallery," and the dwelling is complete. If you are supposed to +see a landscape through the window, a "drop" on which a landscape has +been painted is lowered t'other side of the rear wall. An "interior +backing," representing the wall of another room, usually is in the +form of a large screen standing behind the door where it is needed. +Corners of this kind are illuminated by "strip lights," or electric +lamps placed on a strip of wood and hung in place. + +Stage lighting has undergone a complete revolution in the past few +years, the step from incandescent lamps to calciums meaning even more +than the step from gas to electric lamps. Formerly, the illumination +came from the footlights and the "borders" exclusively; the sun rose +and set directly over-head in open defiance of the Copernican theory. +Now the stage is full of minature trap doors, and to the metal beneath +these may be attached wires that will throw light from anywhere. There +is a "bridge" in the "first entrance" on the "prompt side" on which +sits a man with apparatus to reproduce almost any effect known to +Nature. You have seen the busy and important individual who controls +"lamps" in the dress circle or the gallery, and without doubt you have +observed that nowadays there is very little to keep such a stage +manager as David Belasco from doing whatever he pleases with his +electricity. + +There are five classes of men at work on the stage, all under the +direct supervision of the master carpenter. The men in these classes +are known as "flymen," "grips," "clearers," "property men" and +electricians. Each of these has his own labor to accomplish, and goes +at it without loss of time or regard to the others. The "flymen" haul +up and lower whatever hangs in the "flies." The "grips" attend to any +scenery that must be set up or pulled down. The "clearers" take away +the furniture and accessories that have been used, and the "property +men" substitute other furniture and accessories from the "property +room." The work of the electricians has been explained. In these days +of elaborate calcium effects, there must be a man at each "lamp." + +All these matters are attended to as though by machinery. When the +curtain has fallen on the star's last bow, the stage manager cries +"Strike!" This cry means labor trouble of a very different sort from +that usually created by a call to strike. The stage immediately +becomes a small pandemonium. The crew in the "fly gallery" works like +the crew on a yard arm during a yacht race, hauling wildly at a +greater number of ropes than were ever on a ship. In consequence of +their energy, trees and houses soar into the air as though by magic. +Samson wasn't such a giant, after all. He only pulled down a +building--these fellows pull buildings _up_! + +They are not mightier, however, than their colleagues, the "grips." +There walks a stalwart individual carrying a folded balcony or pushing +along the whole side of a church. Another permits a porch to collapse +and fall into his out-stretched arms. How useful these "grips" would +have been in San Francisco! Meanwhile, the "clearers" and "property +men" have been mixing things up in great shape. The last act was an +interior; the next is to be an exterior. Consequently, you note a fine +spot of lawn growing directly under a horsehair sofa and the trunk of +a huge oak reclining affectionately against a chest of drawers. +Gradually, the signs of indoor life disappear, and then, suddenly, +springing out of absolute chaos, you see a forest or a broad public +square. The "lamps" sputter a moment and blaze up, bathing the scene +in the warm red of sunset or the pale blue of moonlight. "Second act!" +screams the call-boy, running from dressing room door to dressing room +door. The stage manager presses a button connected with a signal light +in front of the orchestra conductor, and you hear the purr of the +incidental music. He presses another button once--twice. "Buzz!" +hisses something in the "fly-gallery," and "buzz!" again. The curtain +lifts and the play is continued. Everything has been done in perfect +order. Even now the stage manager stands in the "first entrance," +pencil in hand, noting the exact moment at which the act began, the +minute at which each song was sung, and how many encores it received. +You--my friend, the manager--will get that report to-morrow morning. + +Here, omitting a dictionary of details, you have the theater at a +glance. I feel tempted, like the magician after he has garbled some +explanation of a difficult trick, to say: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, +you can go home and do it yourselves." But you can't. I couldn't. +The thousands of important trifles, the thousands of quick decisions +that must be made and of clever things that must be done--these are +the results of genius and work and of long, long experience. Many an +American who has "French at a Glance" on the tips of his fingers, so +to speak, has to cackle in imitation of a hen when he wants to get a +soft-boiled egg in Paris. + +[Illustration: _"A stalwart individual pushing along the side of a +church_"] + + + + +_SOME PEOPLE I'VE LIED ABOUT_ + + Being reminiscences of the author's nefarious, but more + or less innocuous career as a press agent. + + +A press agent, as you may have gathered from the preceding article, is +a person employed to obtain free newspaper advertising for any given +thing, and the thing usually is a theatrical production. This +advertising he is supposed to get as the Quaker was advised to get +money--honestly, if possible. Since it isn't often possible, the press +agent may be described in two words as a professional liar. + +There is neither malice nor "muck rake" in this assertion. The press +agent knows that his business is the dissemination of falsehood, and +he is proud of it. Go up to any member of the craft you find on +Broadway and say to him: "You are a liar!"; you will see a smile of +satisfaction spread itself over his happy face, and his horny hand +will grasp yours in earnest gratitude. Victor Hugo and Charles +Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray were liars, too, according to +his way of thinking, and not overly ingenious or entertaining liars, +at that. Their fiction was spread upon the pages of books, as his is +spread upon the pages of the daily journals, and their mission, like +his, was the enlivening of a terribly dull little planet. This +altruistic motive really lurks behind the prevarications of the press +agent with imagination. He conceives his philanthropic duty to be the +making of news to fill a demand largely in excess of the supply. If +the pursuit of this purpose brings him an income hovering about that +of a United States Senator he cannot be blamed. + +I became one of the guild of Annanias some ten or eleven years ago, +coming fresh from the position of dramatic critic on _The Washington +Times_, and I think I may say without undue egotism that, during the +period of my membership, I lied industriously, conscientiously, and +with a fair degree of success. There have been and are more able +falsifiers than I, but the confessions of one man cannot in honor +include the deeds of another, and so I must omit them from this +chronicle. Suffice it to say that the stories of Anna Held's bathing +in milk, of Mrs. Patrick Campbell having tan bark spread in the street +in front of the Theater Republic to deaden the rumbling that annoyed +her during performances, and a score similar in nature remain +conspicuous examples of the cleverness manifested by brilliant press +agents in attracting attention to the actors and actresses in whose +behalf they labored. + +The successful launching of a "fake"--so they are known to the +profession--like these is not at all the simple matter it would appear +to be. The mere conception of the story is only the beginning of the +task. It is not enough to decide that such and such a thing might +happen, or to swear that it has happened; it must be made to happen. +Moreover, the occurrence must be so natural, and the plans leading to +it so carefully laid and concealed, as to prevent suspicion and baffle +investigation. Whenever it is possible, the press agent should be +ostensibly unconnected with the affair, and, whenever it is not, he +must hide his knowledge behind a mask of innocence in comparison with +which the face of Mary's little lamb looks like a selection from the +rogues' gallery. + +[Illustration: "_The guild of Annanias_"] + +There are other requisites to the spinning of a yarn which shall be +valuable in an advertising way. In the first place, it is necessary +that the story shall not injure the reputation or lower the standing +of its hero or heroine, and equally desirable that it shall have no +"come back" that may make enemies for the press agent. The +announcement that Mrs. Patrick Campbell had won a large sum from +society women at bridge whist, made during an engagement of the star +in New York, was given all kinds of space in the newspapers, but it +brought down upon Mrs. Campbell's devoted head such scathing +denunciation from press and pulpit that she lost no time in sending +out a denial. The publicity given the matrimonial enterprises of De +Wolf Hopper, through no fault of his advertising staff, seriously +injured that capable comedian for a time. A good "fake" is bizarre and +picturesque enough to be interesting, will defy the prober after +truth, hurts no one and so creates no journalistic grudges to be +fought down in the future. There must be no limit to the number of +times that the press agent can stir up excitement when he calls +"Wolf!" + +So many of the stories invented by theatrical Munchausens possess the +qualification first mentioned that it is by no means unusual for the +inventor to take the newspaper man into his confidence. Of course, +before doing this he wants to feel sure of his newspaper and of his +man. Dailies there be that prefer fact to fiction, however prosaic the +former; that treat the stage in so dignified a manner that, if the +Empire Theater burned to the ground, they probably would print the +information under a head reading "The Drama"; that scorn the press +agent and have only contempt for his handiwork. The most rabid of +these, strangely enough, is the very paper that once, for its own +amusement, tried a "fake" about wild animals escaping from Central +Park Zoo which succeeded so well that for twenty-four hours business +was practically suspended in New York. At least half the journals in +town do not inquire too closely into a tale that is likely to appeal +to their readers, especially if the tale in question is obviously +harmless. When the publicity promoter conceals his machinations and +buries clues leading to his connection with a story--"and the same +with intent to deceive"--he must plot with great care, for woe betide +him if the truth leaks out. + +[Illustration: "_Anna Held's bathing in milk_"] + +An excellent example of the kind of "fake" in accomplishing which one +may rely upon the co-operation of the Fourth Estate is the incident of +Margaret Mayo writing a play in twenty-four hours. Miss Mayo, who +since then has written many plays, notably "Baby Mine" and "Polly of +the Circus," at that time was appearing with Grace George in "Pretty +Peggy" at the Herald Square Theater. The season had been dull, if +profitable, and I was casting about for any item likely to get into +print, when the idea of having someone go Paul Armstrong two better in +rapidity of accomplishment occurred to me. Obviously, it was +impossible to involve Miss George in the episode without making her +appear ridiculous, and so I cast about for a likely member of her +company. + +Miss Mayo's name suggested itself to me because of the fact that, even +then, she was at work on several plays, and I obtained her consent to +my plan. Shortly afterward it was announced from the Herald Square +that Miss Mayo had wagered a supper with Theodore Burt Sayre, author +of numerous well known dramas, that she could begin and complete a +four act comedy in the space of a single day. The test was to be made +on the following Sunday at the residence of Miss Mayo, who was to have +the benefit of a stenographer, and, to guard against her using an idea +previously worked out, the advantage of a synopsis furnished by Mr. +Sayre. This synopsis was to be delivered in a sealed envelope at six +o'clock one morning and the play was to be finished at six o'clock +the next. Mr. Sayre, an intimate personal friend, had been furnished +with these details over the telephone, and affirmed them when called +up by the reporters. Our announcement was printed by nearly every +newspaper in town. + +The stenographer provided Miss Mayo on that eventful morning was my +own--a bright, quick-witted Irish girl, whose name, unfortunately, I +have forgotten. The synopsis of the play was Miss Mayo's. She had it +made from an old piece of her own, which had been freshly typed a day +or two before. Saturday night, sheets from this manuscript were +generously distributed about the room, the remaining sheets were +hidden in a bureau drawer, the typewriter was put in position, and our +scenery was ready. Business took me to Philadelphia on a late train, +and the beginning of our two little comedies--that to be written and +that to be acted--was entrusted to Miss Mayo. + +I got back from the Quaker City shortly after noon on Sunday and went +direct to the scene of action. I rang the front bell, the door opened +automatically, and I climbed the stairs to the apartment. From the +hall I heard a nervous voice and the click of a typewriter. Somebody +admitted me and mine eyes beheld as excellent a counterfeit of fevered +energy as it has ever been their luck to fall upon. Miss Mayo was +pacing the floor wildly, dictating at least sixty words a minute, +while the stenographer bent quiveringly over her machine. That portion +of a manuscript which Arthur Wing Pinero might possibly prepare in six +months lay on the table. The typist broke the charm. "Why!" she +exclaimed; "it's Mr. Pollock!" + +"Oh!" said Miss Mayo. "I thought you were a newspaper man. Sit down +and have a biscuit." + +This pretence was continued all day. When reporters came we struggled +with the difficulties of rapid-fire composition; when they didn't we +ate biscuits and manifolded epigrams which afterwards were sent to +waiting city editors and quoted as being from the twenty-four hour +play. Miss Mayo was photographed several times and we had a delicious +dinner at six. Afterward, we named our product "The Mart" and +separated for the night. Despite our thin histrionism, there wasn't a +newspaper man among our visitors who didn't know in his secret soul +that the whole thing had been cooked up for advertising purposes, yet, +a newsless Sunday aiding and abetting us, we had more space the next +morning than might have been devoted to the outbreak of a revolution +in France. + +Similarly, no intelligent person could have questioned for a moment +the purpose of the matinee which De Wolf Hopper gave "for women only" +soon afterward at the Casino Theater. "Happyland," the opera in which +Mr. Hopper was appearing, made no especial appeal to the gentler sex, +while the presenting company included so many pretty girls that a +performance "for men only" would have been infinitely more reasonable. +As a matter of fact, I first conceived the idea in this form, but +swerved from my course upon taking into account two important +considerations. The announcement of an entertainment "for men only" +must have created the impression that there was something +objectionable about the presentation--an impression we were extremely +anxious to avoid--and it would not have given the opportunities for +humorous writing which we hoped would serve as bait to the reporters. +Foreseeing that upon the obviousness of these opportunities would +depend the amount of attention paid to so palpable an advertising +scheme, we took care to guard against a dearth of incident by +providing our own happenings. Among the number of these were the +entrance of a youth who had disguised himself as a girl in order to +gain admittance, the appearance of a husband who insisted that his +wife must not remain at a performance from which he was barred, and +one or two similar episodes. We found, in the end, that these devices +were superfluous. On the afternoon selected, the interior of the +Casino fairly grinned with femininity, the audience looked like a +Mormon mass meeting multiplied by two, and even so dignified and +important a news-gathering service as the Associated Press +condescended to take facetious notice of the "Women's Matinee." + +If you recollect what you read in newspapers, it is not at all +impossible that, even at this date, you will find something familiar +about the name of Marion Alexander. You don't? Perhaps your memory can +be assisted. Miss Alexander was the chorus girl supporting Lillian +Russell in "Lady Teazle" who sued the late Sam S. Shubert for $10,000 +because he had said she was not beautiful. The story of this slander +and of the resentment it provoked went all around the world, though it +is unlikely that anyone who printed it was deceived as to the +genuineness of the lady's fine frenzy. The Marion Alexander tale had +all the journalistic attractions of the "Women's Matinee," in that it +was unique and admitted of breeziness in narration, but it had in +addition an advantage that no press agent overlooks--it was +susceptible to illustration. Newspapers always are eager to print +pictures of pretty women. The average New York journal had rather +reproduce a stunning photograph of Trixie Twinkletoes than the most +dignified portrait of Ellen Terry or Ada Rehan. Miss Alexander _was_ +pretty--I haven't the least doubt that she still is--and, while this +story was running its course, the Shuberts paid nearly $300 for +photographs used by daily papers, weekly papers, periodicals, +magazines and news syndicates. + +In the course of the controversy Miss Russell took occasion to side +with Mr. Shubert--she didn't know she had done so until she read her +paper the next morning--and ventured the opinion that no brunette +could possibly be beautiful. As had been expected, this statement +aroused a storm of protest. There are a million brunettes in New York, +and to say that we succeeded in interesting them is putting it mildly. +When "Lady Teazle" departed for the road they were still writing +indignant letters to _The American and Journal_, and nearly every +letter gave added prominence to Miss Russell. I wrote a few indignant +letters myself and had them copied in long hand by the telephone girls +and stenographers in the building. It is quite needless to say that +Miss Alexander's suit never came to trial. + +Twice during my career of prevarication, managing editors became +interested in my humble efforts at the creation of news and demanded +proofs that were not easily manufactured. While "Fantana" was running +at the Lyric Theater, I discovered a chorus girl whose dog wore an +exquisite pair of diamond ear-rings. To be quite accurate, neither the +chorus girl nor the dog had thought of any such adornment when we +three became acquainted, but a ten cent pair of jewels stuck to the +animal's head with chewing gum and the popular belief that "the camera +does not lie" were expected to make the discovery seem convincing. An +iconoclast on _The World_ made it necessary for us to borrow ear rings +from Tiffany's and bore holes in the flesh of a poor little canine +that might never have known what suffering was but for the shocking +skepticism mentioned. + +If the beast in this case was martyred in the interest of science--the +science of advertising--the staff of the press department at the Lyric +had its share of agony a little later on. We had sent out ingenuously +a trifling story about what we were pleased to call a "chorus girls' +rogues gallery", detailing the manner in which the records of the +young women were kept on the backs of photographs filed away in a room +arranged for that purpose. _The World_ wanted the tale verified and +inquired blandly if it might send up a reporter to inspect. We replied +with equal politeness that it might--the next day. That afternoon we +bought a rubber stamp and nearly a thousand old pictures, and all +night long six of us worked on a "chorus girls' rogues' gallery" that +would live up to its reputation. Our reward was a page in colors. + +Sometimes things really do happen to actors and actresses, and so, not +infrequently, there is a grain of truth in the news printed about +them. Only a grain, mind you, for if a tenth of the events in which +they are supposed to take part were actual, the inevitable end of life +on the stage would be death of nervous prostration. The wide-awake +press agent is quick to plant the grain of truth aforesaid, growing +therefrom stories no more like the originals than a radish is like a +radish seed. Grace George once telegraphed me to Chicago that she +would not open at the Grand Opera House in "Pretty Peggy" on a Sunday. +She felt, quite rightly, that eight performances a week was the limit +of her endurance. Staring at a pile of printed bills announcing an +engagement beginning on the Sabbath, I concluded that this ultimatum +had reached the limit of mine. Then an inspiration. Up went the +original bills, to be covered a day later with others advertising the +first performance for Monday. The newspapers were curious as to why +the change had been made and we were willing, not to say eager, to +satisfy their curiosity. Miss George did not believe in giving +theatrical performances on Sunday. At least a dozen clerygmen read +this and told their congregations about it the day before the +postponed advent of "Pretty Peggy." + +[Illustration: "_Sometimes things really do happen to actors_"] + +Caught in a blizzard at Oswego, N. Y., eight years ago, I was informed +that the only chance of my joining Miss George that night at Syracuse +lay in making the trip in a special locomotive. That necessity got +printed throughout the country, a vivid description of Miss George +driving an engine through banks of snow in order to reach Syracuse for +her performance of "Under Southern Skies." The woman who actually made +the trip was a waitress from an Oswego hotel and she received $10 for +it. + +William A. Brady wanted a thousand girls in September, 1902, for his +Woman's Exhibition at Madison Square Garden. They could have been +obtained without the knowledge of the police, but secrecy was not the +_desideratum_. "Wanted--1000 Women at Madison Square Garden at 8 P. M. +on Friday" was an advertisement which brought down upon us nearly +thrice that number, together with a small army of newspaper reporters +and photographers. This was the first gun fired in a campaign of +advertising for a show during the existence of which we obtained +nearly six hundred columns of space in New York. + +Truth is never important in a press agent's story, and there are some +occurrences that he actually suppresses. Accounts of small fires, +accidents, thefts and quarrels do not get into type if he can help it. +Several kinds of news items have been "faked" so often that no one +would attempt to have them mentioned journalistically should examples +of their class really happen. He would be a brave publicity promoter, +for instance, who sent to an editor the tale of his star stopping a +runaway, no matter how firmly the tale might be based on fact. Miss +George had stolen from her a valuable diamond necklace while she was +playing in "Pretty Peggy" and knew better than to permit my sending +out an announcement of the theft. "An Actress Loses Her Diamonds!" You +laugh scornfully at the very idea. The papers no longer publish +accounts of people standing in line before box offices all night in +order to secure good seats in the morning, though I succeeded in +obtaining mention of this feature of Sarah Bernhardt's last engagement +but one in New York by injecting into the yarn a few drops of what +theatrical managers call "heart interest." Five dollars and a little +careful coaching secured for me a picturesque looking old woman who +convinced her inquisitors that she once had acted with the Divine +Sarah in Paris. Her vigil in the lobby of the Lyric received more +attention than did the _bona fide_ line of three thousand persons that +I rose at five to have photographed on the morning following. + +This imposter's husband afterward figured at the Casino in the role of +a man whose visit to "Happyland" was the first he had made to a +theater since the night on which he had witnessed the shooting of +Abraham Lincoln. The tale we told was that this spectacle had so +affected him that the soothing influence of forty years was required +to bring him again into the precincts of a playhouse. Interviewed by +the representatives of several journals, he made a comparison between +theatrical performances of ante bellum times and those of today that +could hardly have been more convincing had my confederate's price not +included two seats for the preceding evening at another place of +amusement under direction of the Shuberts. This story, which went the +rounds of the country, cost, all in all, ten minutes work and three +silver dollars. I mention it as an instance of the simple "fake" that +sometimes proves most effective. + +An equally simple story, used almost simultaneously, came near being +less inexpensive. Henry Miller was about to produce "Grierson's Way" +at the Princess Theater, and, rehearsals not progressing to his +satisfaction, he determined to postpone the scheduled date of opening. +This determination we resolved upon turning to our own account. We +advertised widely that Mr. Miller had lost the only existing +manuscript of the play, without which the performance could not be +given, and that he would pay $500 reward for its restoration. Two days +afterward Mr. Miller called me up on the telephone. "An awful thing +has happened!" he said. "I've actually lost a manuscript of +'Grierson's Way.'" + +"What of it?" I inquired. + +"What of it!" echoed Mr. Miller. "Supposing somebody brings the +'script to me and demands that $500?" + +Fortunately, "Grierson's Way" was found by a stage hand who was +satisfied with a small bill and an explanation. + +It seems hardly probable that anyone will recall how a barber once +delayed the beginning of a performance of "Taps" until half past eight +o'clock, yet that tale was one of the most successful of simple +stories. The only preparation required was posting the chosen +tonsorialist and holding the curtain at the Lyric. Herbert Kelcey, +according to the explanation given out, had been shaved when he +discovered that he did not have the usual fee about him. "I'll pay +you tomorrow," he had remarked. "I'm Herbert Kelcey." + +"Herbert Kelcey nuttin'!" his creditor had replied. "Dat gag don't go! +You stay here until you get dat fifteen cents!" + +A messenger, hastily summoned, was said to have released the actor +shortly after the hour for "ringing up." The idea that a barber could +keep a thousand people waiting for their entertainment was both novel +and humorous, and, in the vernacular, our story "landed hard." The +strike of the Helen May Butler Military Band at the Woman's Exhibition +was arranged with equal ease and proved equally good. That exhibition +was wonderfully fruitful. Almost anything the women did seemed +amusing, and the show itself was so extraordinary that its smallest +features were interesting. + +As elaborate a tale as, for example, the famous Anna Held milk bath +story, to which I have referred, requires more plotting and arranging +than would the founding of a revolutionary society in Russia. One may +spend weeks of work and hundreds of dollars on such a "fake," only to +trace its subsequent failure to some trifling flaw in the chain of +circumstance. Widely though a successful story of this sort may be +chronicled, the reward is absolutely incommensurate with the labor +involved, and I think few press agents would ever attempt one were it +not for a gambler's love of excitement. + +It was during Judge Alton B. Parker's presidential campaign that I +evolved what I consider my most magnificent "fake." At that time I +represented several attractions in New York, chief among the number +two musical comedies, entitled "The Royal Chef" and "Piff, Paff, +Pouf." I wired Judge Parker's secretary that the choruses of these +productions had formed a club, which was to be known as The Theatrical +Women's Parker Association, and the purpose of which was to induce +male performers to go home to vote. Would Judge Parker receive a +delegation from this society? The wire was signed "Nena Blake," and, +in due time, Miss Blake received a courteous and conclusive reply. +Judge Parker would not. + +That message was a stunner. In the face of it, there was only one +thing to do--send along our delegation on the pretence that no answer +to our communication had ever been received. Nine chorus ladies were +picked out in a hurry, placed in charge of a shrewd newspaper woman +who passed as another show girl, and the whole outfit was dispatched +to Aesopus. The newspaper woman had instructions to register at a +prominent hotel as a delegation from the Theatrical Women's Parker +Association, and to parade herself and her charges before all the +alert correspondents in the little town on the Hudson. That done, we +who had stayed behind got ready photographs of the pilgrims and +waited. + +The wait was not long. By nine o'clock that night the bait had been +swallowed at Aesopus, and my office was crowded with reporters anxious +to verify the story wired from up the river. Judge Parker, with +characteristic kindness, had lunched the party, allowed it to sing to +him, and sent it away rejoicing. Most of the boys "smelled a mouse," +but the thing was undeniably true and much too important to be +ignored. The Theatrical Women's Parker Club, "Piff, Paff, Pouf" and +"The Royal Chef" were well advertised the next morning. + +It was the failure of a prominent newspaper to mention either of our +plays by name that drove me to further utilization of this scheme. +Such an omission is always unfair and unjust. A story is good enough +to be printed or it is not; if not, nobody has cause for complaint, if +it is, there is no reason why a newspaper should deny the expected +compensation. Resolving that I would compel this payment, I +immediately arranged for a public meeting of the Theatrical Women's +Parker Club. The Democratic National Committee furnished us with a +cart-load of campaign literature and with three speakers, one of whom +was Senator Charles A. Towne. The other orators we provided. They were +Eddie Foy, Dave Lewis, Nena Blake, Grace Cameron and Amelia Stone. The +juxtaposition, I felt confident, was sufficiently grotesque to +provoke comment. + +[Illustration: "_A public meeting of The Theatrical Women's Parker +Club_"] + +I wrote nine political speeches for the occasion, held two rehearsals, +and, when our advertisements failed to draw an audience, secured a +fine one by sending to such congregating places as the Actors' +Society. The affair passed off beautifully, Senator Towne adapting +himself to circumstances and making one of the most graceful and +agreeable addresses imaginable. I heard it from a nook in the fly +gallery, where I remained until the meeting was adjourned. This "fake" +accomplished its purpose, the delinquent newspaper falling in line +with the others in publishing the story. + +It would tax your patience and your faith in the existence of modesty +were I to go into detail regarding a score of similar "fakes" which +come to mind. How this same Nena Blake was kidnapped from the Garrick +Theater, Chicago, and sent to New York in the costume she wore in "The +Royal Chef"; how her sister, Bertha, was sent to Zion to kiss the +unkissed son of John Alexander Dowie; how a supposed German baron +threw across the footlights to Julia Sanderson a bouquet from which +dropped an $18,000 diamond necklace; how a chorus girl named Thorne +created a sensation at a Physical Culture Show in Madison Square +Garden by declaring the costume she was expected to wear "shockingly +immodest"; how a niece of Adele Ritchie changed her name to Adele +Ritchie Jr., and Miss Ritchie herself was sought in marriage by a +Siamese millionaire--all of these anecdotes must pass with the mere +mention that they were successful "fakes." + +The manner in which a good story may go wrong merits more extended +description. While an extravaganza, yclept "The Babes and the Baron", +was in town, I resolved upon a news event so complicated that I wonder +now at my temerity in undertaking it. The idea was that some well +known doctor should find on his doorstep one morning a young and +pretty girl, fashionably dressed and intelligent-looking, but quite +unable to recall her name or to give an account of herself. The +doctor, naturally enough, would report the affair to the police, who, +in turn, would give it to the reporters. These gentlemen, deceived by +the fact that no possible advertising could be suspected in the case +of a woman who looked untheatrical and who did not even know her own +name, were expected to give untold space in the evening papers to the +mystery. After the journals in question had been published, the girl +was to be identified, so that her name and that of "The Babes and the +Baron" might be printed in the morning. + +It was necessary that, at this time, the victim should be able to give +a good reason for her condition. The reason selected was as follows: +During the performance of the extravaganza, some question had arisen +as to the young woman's courage or cowardice. To prove the former, she +had volunteered to hide in the Eden Musee and to remain all night in +the "chamber of horrors." The terrible sights of this place had +frightened her into hysteria; the porter, hearing her scream and +believing her to be intoxicated, had ejected her; a kindly old +gentleman had found her in the street and started to drive her to a +hospital, when, becoming alarmed, he had decided instead to place her +on the doorstep of a physician's house, ring the bell, and get away. + +Anyone will tell you that the first essential to having roast goose +for dinner is to get your goose. At least twenty chorus girls must +have been interrogated before I found one willing and competent to try +the experiment. Mabel Wilbur, afterward prima donna of "The Merry +Widow", was chosen, and she spent eleven days being instructed in the +symptoms of the mental disease known as asphasia. The officials of the +Eden Musee, glad to share the advertising, carefully coached the +porter in the story he was to tell. The stage manager of "The Babes +and the Baron" was admitted into the secret and a bright journalist +was engaged to hover about and superintend affairs. Of course, my +appearance in the neighborhood of the sickroom would have been fatal +to the "fake." + +Miss Wilbur was left on the doctor's doorstep shortly after four +o'clock one mild morning. From that time until night the scheme worked +like a charm. Miss Wilbur, bravely enduring all sorts of physical and +mental tests, passed the scrutiny of a dozen detectives and medical +men. After vainly buying a dozen editions of the evening papers in an +anxious effort to learn how matters were progressing, I suddenly found +the journals filled with the affair. "The Mystery of a Hansom +Cab--Pretty Girl Left on Doctor's Doorstep in Dying Condition" and +"Police Have New Problem" were headlines that flared across front +pages. Up to that point the story had been a huge success. There +remained only the matter of identification to connect with the other +story, like two ends of a tunnel meeting, and this promised to be a +delicate matter. Say "chorus girl" to a newspaper man and he +immediately becomes suspicious. Our hardest work was before us. + +At nine o'clock the stage manager of "The Babes and the Baron" was +sent around to recognize Miss Wilbur. It was he who had challenged her +courage, and, alarmed at her failure to report for the performance, he +had hastened to pick up the clue given him by the evening papers. Miss +Wilbur's identity was established in the presence of a score of +reporters and photographers, none of whom seemed to suspect anything. +"At the hour of going to press" we all felt certain that we had +"pulled off" the biggest theatrical "fake" known to history. + +Every paper in town had the story the next morning--but it was the +true story. A City News Association man had recognized my bright +journalist, at that time passing himself off as a brother of Miss +Wilbur, and the net result of our fortnight's toiling and moiling was +some six columns of ridicule. + +These confessions would be incomplete if I did not admit here and now +that this story was the most ill-advised of my career. It brought +discomfit and discredit to a dozen persons, it involved an attempt to +deceive some of my best friends, and it put me in a bad light at the +very time that the approaching premiere of a play from my pen made +that most undesirable. A great many city editors have never forgiven +me my part in this particular "fake," although the owner of an evening +paper wrote me the next day: "I was fooled from first to last. You're +a wonder. Congratulations." + +Another bad mistake was my story regarding the willingness of the +management to pay $50 a week for exceptionally beautiful chorus girls +to appear in "Mexicana." The story was printed all over the world, but +it caused critics to stamp as ugly one of the most attractive +ensembles ever brought to New York. "If any of these girls," said _The +Sun_, "gets $50 a week her employers are entitled to a rebate." I +cannot place in the same catalogue Madame Bernhardt's appeal to the +French Ambassador at Washington to protest against her exclusion from +playhouses controlled by the so-called Theatrical Syndicate. Madame +denied this over her own signature, but, from a press agent's point +of view, it was an exceedingly creditable falsehood. + +It is possible to discuss at endless length the real value of the +"fake" and its place in theatrical advertising. Perhaps no one ever +went to a theater merely because one of the performers at that theater +was supposed to have bathed in milk or to have stopped a runaway +horse. On the other hand, I am sure that no one ever went to a theater +because he or she had seen the name of the play acted there posted +conspicuously on a bill-board. The mission of the bill-board is to +call attention to the fact that there is such-and-such an +entertainment and that it may be seen at such-and-such a house. There +is no question in my mind but that this much is done for a production +by "fake" stories concerning it. In rare instances, where the story +accentuates the importance of the presentation and its success, or +awakens interest in some member of the presenting company, the service +performed may be even greater. At all events, the average manager +expects this kind of advertising from the publicity promoter to whom +he pays a salary, and, naturally, the publicity promotor feels that it +is "his not to reason why." The press agent realizes that to any +failure on his part will always be attributed the misfortunes of the +management with which he is connected. Productions do a good business +because they are good productions, and a bad business because they +have bad press agents. + +Every theatrical newspaper man knows the anecdote of the German +cornetist _en tour_ with a minstrel company. The organization was +toiling up a steep hill that lay between the railway station and the +town. The cornetist was warm and he was tired. "The camel's back" +broke when at last he stubbed his toe against a stone. Picking up the +obstruction, he threw it as far away as he could. "Ach!" he exclaimed. +"Ve got a fine advance agent!" + + + + +_THE WRITING AND READING OF PLAYS_ + + Being a discussion as to which pursuit is the more painful, + with various entertaining and instructive remarks as to the + method of following both. + + +At my side lies an advertisement reading: "I will teach you to write +plays for $10!" + +If the professor means that he can teach you to write plays that will +bring you ten dollars, he may be speaking the truth. If he means that +for ten dollars, or a hundred dollars, or a hundred thousand, he can +teach you to write plays, he is a liar! + +Aunt Emma, who represents the palmy days of the stage, and "used to be +with Booth and Barrett", once gave me her opinion of schools of +acting. "One can learn to fence", she said, "and to walk and +articulate properly. But one cannot learn to think or to feel, and +without thinking and feeling there is no acting." Precisely the same +thing may be said of playwriting. + +Of course, there is a great deal that the dramatist must know about +drama. W. T. Price's interesting volume on the subject contains about +a hundred iron-clad principles that should be read, and re-read, and +then forgotten. Such of the number as cling to your subconsciousness +can't do you any harm, and probably will do you a lot of good. The +others might help to make you a capable mechanic. Rostand's rooster, +once he had been told how to crow, couldn't crow--fell to the ground, +as it were, between two schools. Bronson Howard, asked to compile a +book of rules for playwriting, declined on the ground that he feared +being tempted to follow them. + +To learn to do anything--do it! If you would know how to write plays +write them, read them, go to see them. Then think a while, and write +some more. If you feel sure you have a big idea--and sometimes it +seems to me that the big ideas come most often to people who can't +use them--pool it with the skill of someone who is willing to give +craftsmanship for inventive genius--and watch him. Avery Hopwood +collaborated on "Clothes" before he went single-handed at "Nobody's +Widow", and, midway, he leased his experience to the novelist who +furnished the plot of "Seven Days." Harriet Ford helped Joseph Medill +Patterson write "The Fourth Estate", and now Mr. Patterson is +exhibiting signs by which one may predict that he will do something +alone. Wilson Mizner worked with George Bronson Howard on "The Only +Law", and with Paul Armstrong on "The Deep Purple", and we may expect +soon a piece that will bear only the name of Wilson Mizner. + +"What a lucky fellow!" we say occasionally of some new author who +springs into notice. "His first play, and a huge success!" But every +professional reader in town could tell you that this success _wasn't_ +"his first play." While I was reading for the firm of Sam S. & Lee +Shubert, I saw three or four manuscripts from the pens of Rachel +Crothers and Thompson Buchanan. "The Three of Us" did not surprise me, +nor "A Woman's Way." I knew, and every man in my profession knew, that +Miss Crothers and Mr. Buchanan had spent years turning out pieces they +could not sell. They worked, and they studied, and they went to the +theater thoughtfully until they could write pieces that would sell. + +Poets may be born or made, according to the field they occupy, but +playwrights must be born _and_ made. However, there isn't the least +use of dwelling on this fact. To the end of time men and women who +wouldn't think of trying to fashion a horseshoe without first having +served an apprenticeship with some blacksmith will go on endeavoring +to create comedies and tragedies without having made the least effort +to shape their talents--even to whet their instincts. + +Once upon a time, in a speech delivered somewhere, I said that, +everything else being equal, the author who had never produced a play +had the best chance of producing a good one. I was wrong. It is true +that the newcomer is likely to have fresher ideas than the old stager, +and that generally he dramatizes a lifetime of experience, instead of +dramatizing only what he has gleaned between contracts. That accounts +for the fact that some tyros never repeat their primal successes. But, +even in this period of the novice, when appreciation of novelty +submerges appreciation of skill, statistics prove that a majority of +the pronounced hits are the work of established authors. + +We believe the contrary, as we believe that most marriages turn out +badly, because beginners at authorship and enders of matrimony attract +attention. Much was said of the novices who won laurels last season, +and yet every single piece that ran a hundred nights or so on Broadway +was by an Avery Hopwood, a Winchell Smith, or a David Belasco. Any +number of brilliant young men flashed into view, and probably will +remain in view, but, as yet, of necessity, they are conspicuous for +promise rather than for fulfillment. The greatest originality, the +most synthetic ingenuity, and the sharpest wit were displayed by H. S. +Sheldon, in "The Havoc"; by Philip H. Bartholomae, in "Over Night"; by +Anne Caldwell, in "The Nest Egg"; by Tom Barry, in "The Upstart"; by +Al Thomas, in "Her Husband's Wife", and by George Bronson Howard and +Wilson Mizner in "The Only Law." + +The danger faced by new men is that they may be snuffed out by their +first failures. Such an ungenerous reception as was given "The +Upstart", for example, might well discourage an author to the utter +ruin of his career. Managers, too, are likely to judge by the box +office rather than by the play--an exceedingly short sighted policy in +a "business" whose future depends upon the proper nursing of its +infants. The fluttering fledgling of today is the eagle of tomorrow. +Porter Emerson Browne, Jules Eckert Goodman, Edward Sheldon, Thompson +Buchanan, Avery Hopwood, James Forbes, the debutants of yester-year, +are the leading dramatists of this. + +Naturally, everybody is trying to duplicate their experience. +Everybody writes plays. Some time ago an ambitious individual walked +into my office and announced that he had come from Rochester to submit +a tragedy in blank verse. I suggested that he need not have gone to so +much trouble and expense. "It wasn't any trouble or expense", he +replied. "I had to come anyway. I'm a conductor on the New York +Central." + +Theodore Burt Sayre, who wrote "The Commanding Officer", and who is +the reader for Charles Frohman, told me not long ago that his most +persistent visitor was a policeman, who had composed a farce in six +acts. He also showed me a letter the author of which declared "I seen +menny plays that cost a doler and wasn't won-too-three with my play." +Every manager in New York has received a Brooklyn shoemaker who feels +certain he has produced a comic opera infinitely superior to the best +efforts of Gilbert and Sullivan. Of the would-be dramatists in the +learned professions, I should say that physicians are rarest as +playwrights, that journalists provide the best material, and that +clergymen produce the most and the worst. + +With so many Cinderellas attempting to crowd their feet into the shoes +of Pinero and Jones, there can be no limit to the number of +manuscripts submitted each week to well known producers. The general +idea, I believe, is that managers are quite buried beneath piles of +plays. This is not absolutely true. Such an office as that of Henry B. +Harris, in the Hudson Theater, or of The Liebler Company, in Fifth +Avenue, may be the destination of from six to ten manuscripts a week. +About a third of this number come from agents, and these are likely to +receive quickest consideration, since the reader knows that, if they +were utterly without promise, they would not have been sent him. The +crop of flat and cylindrical packages fluctuates with altered +conditions. The manager who makes money out of the work of an unknown +author is sure to receive far more than his share of contributions +during the next year or two. William A. Brady got a thousand plays a +month from obscure aspirants immediately after the production of "'Way +Down East." + +It is a fallacy widely current among new writers that their "copy" is +returned unread. One of the first theatrical stories I ever heard +concerned a woman who put sand between the pages of her rolled +manuscript and found it there still when the piece came back to her. +Nowadays, when the demand for material so far exceeds the supply as to +have become almost frantic, it is true not only that every play is +looked into, but that almost every play is looked into by every +manager. Round and round the circle they go, being judged from a +hundred viewpoints by a hundred men who know that a lucky strike means +a fortune, and who are eager in proportion. It is my firm belief that +all the good plays, not to speak of a fair number of bad ones, have +been or are about to be produced. Any piece that is not utterly, +hopelessly valueless is sure to find some appreciator in the end. +There are instances of manuscripts that, like "My Friend From India", +travel up and down Broadway for years, only to be accepted and staged +at last. + +I have said that the dramatist who "arrives" generally has announced +himself first through various rolled and typewritten visiting cards. +The parcel that comes from Findlay, Ohio, or Omaha, Nebraska, bearing +the address of some one of whom the reader never heard before, is +pretty certain to be without promise. Usually, the manuscript betrays +itself in its first ten pages, and what follows rarely contains an +idea that might have been valuable even if its owner had learned his +trade. When the manager does discover a story worth while, or the +suggestion of a story, usually he is quick to put its originator in +touch with a literary manicure. + +Charles Frohman, who frequently is styled "The Napoleon of the Drama", +takes no such Napoleonic chances. If you will look over one of Mr. +Frohman's budgets you will find that two-thirds of the plays he +announces have been presented abroad, and that the other third are +from the pens of such celebrities as Augustus Thomas. Naturally, this +is the safe, sane, and more-or-less sure method, and yet, even when +judged from a purely commercial view-point, it has its disadvantages. +If the system does not entail such losses as other managers suffer, +neither does it render possible such gains. Mr. Frohman paid George +Ade royalties for "Just Out of College", which was a failure, far in +excess of those granted by Henry W. Savage for "The County Chairman." +Popular dramatists turn out pretty poor stuff at times, as Mr. Frohman +was reminded when he produced William Gillette's "Electricity", and +excellent material may come from an unexpected source, as Wagenhals & +Kemper discovered when they purchased "Paid in Full" from a man whose +only previous work had been the unlucky "Sergeant James." As to the +invariable wisdom of offering here plays that were hits in Paris and +London, I can say only that sometimes we in America differ with our +cousins in France and England. We differed widely in the cases of +"The Speckled Band", "The Scarlet Pimpernel", and "The Foolish +Virgin." It would appear to be a much safer expedient to turn over +doubtful pieces to stock companies in one provincial city or another +and then to abide by the result. This expedient, by the way, has the +advantage of being inexpensive. + +It is very difficult to identify a good play. When I was sixteen years +old, and didn't know whether manuscripts were an inch thick or a mile, +I felt quite sure that the manager who produced a bad play was a fool. +I used to say this frankly in the newspaper on which I was employed, +just as a lot of other cock-sure young men have been doing ever since. +Latterly, however, I have observed that a great many experienced +producers average about three failures to every one success, and I +leave the superior attitude to the literatti whose cleverness is +valued by their employers at from fifteen to fifty dollars a week. The +late A. M. Palmer, after a long life-time of experience, said to me: +"There does not live a man who can tell a good play from a bad one by +reading it. If there _were_ such a Solomon he would be worth half a +million dollars per annum to any manager in New York. Personally, I +have refused so many money-makers and accepted so many money-losers +that I select material now-a-days by guess work. I tossed a coin once +to decide whether or not I should buy what afterward proved to be one +of the biggest hits of my career." + +I have said that it is difficult to identify a good play; it should +not be difficult to pass upon a bad one. Some of the things that reach +our stage are so very bad that nothing in the foregoing paragraph +excuses or explains their production. Several years ago there was +referred to me a romantic drama, written by a visiting Englishman. I +advised against it, but my employers were determined in its favor, and +the piece was presented soon afterward at the Princess Theater. + +On the opening night, just after the second act, Louis De Foe, +dramatic critic of The World, came to me, and said: "I got here +late, and so lost the thread of the story. Can you tell me what the +play is about?" + +[Illustration: "_It is very difficult to identify a good play_"] + +I tried and failed. + +One of my employers stood nearby. "Let's ask him?" I suggested. We +did--and _he_ didn't know. "Haven't you seen it?" inquired Mr. De Foe. + +"Yes", quoth the manager, "and I've read it, and--and it has something +to do with love, but I--I forget the details." He suggested that we +wait until after the performance and speak to the author. + +That gentleman told us that the story concerned a soldier of fortune, +who was about to do something or other--I don't remember what--when he +received a letter that altered his intentions. + +"So I observed", said Mr. De Foe. "But why should it have altered +them? What was in the letter?" + +The author looked at him blankly. "By Jove!" he explained. "I don't +know. I never thought of _that_!" + +The next day he drafted a letter that would explain matters and asked +me to have it printed in the program. But, as the piece was to close +the following night, it didn't seem worth while. + +Of course, no play as bad as this should ever find its way to the +footlights, and yet I am obliged to confess that a great many do. In +fact, fifteen years of observation have forced me to the conclusion +that the finer the texture of a play, the more unusual its theme, the +smaller the author's chance of finding a manager for it. Also, one +must admit, the smaller that manager's chance of finding a public. +Though they are not so numerous as one would like to see them, we have +producers of keen artistic sensibilities; some of them, like Charles +Frohman, George Tyler, Henry B. Harris, David Belasco, Henry Miller +and Wagenhals & Kemper, men who are not averse to losing money on a +worthy enterprise or, at least, to taking a long chance of making it. +For these men we should be grateful, and, though the New Theater has +brought out nothing remarkable from an untried pen, we should be +grateful, too, for an institution whose purpose is producing the best, +whether the best is profitable or not. + +So many mental qualities are essential to the correct appraisal of a +play. For one thing, the manager must see not only what it is but what +it may become. Often the hardest work in playwriting has to be done +after the play has been produced. Pieces that seemed hopeless when +they were acted initially have been turned into huge successes. Scenes +are switched about, lines changed, often whole acts reconstructed. I +know a woman who was compelled to cut her play in half after it was +produced. Ordinarily one minute is required to act each page of +typewritten manuscript, but this work, which contained only one +hundred and fifty pages, ran nearly five hours. Difficult as such +condensation must have been, the task that confronted the author in +question was not to be compared with that of lengthening a play. It is +not advisable for embryonic dramatists to cut too closely according +to pattern. To tone down a strong play or shorten a long one is easy; +to build up a weak play or successfully pad out a short one is +impossible. + +Most of the manuscripts that come to the desk of the reader do not +prompt sufficient doubt for any manager to be willing to try them. A +great many would seem to be the product of lunatics. Not long ago I +had a dramatization of a Russian novel that contained eleven acts and +twenty-one scenes. The adapter simply had melted down the whole six +hundred pages of fiction and was trying to pour it onto the stage. +Another offering, called "The Dogs of Infidelity", proved to be an +argument against atheism in five acts and seven scenes. The scoundrel +of this masterpiece was Robert G. Ingersol, and the play was +accompanied by a cartoon showing the agnostic fleeing from two police +officers, marked "Logic" and "Sarcasm", who were pursuing him at the +bidding of Justice, in the person of the author. Beneath this picture +were typewritten the favorable opinions of a number of people who +claimed to have read the piece. Standing in the center of the stage, +the villain of a melodrama still in my possession is supposed to +commit suicide by exploding a dynamite cartridge in his mouth. Beneath +the directions for this bit of business, the author has written: "The +performance concludes here." I should think it might! + +[Illustration: "_A woman who was compelled to cut her play in half_"] + +Of course, it is not often that one gets plays as absurd as these. If +it were, the reading of manuscripts would not be so dull and profitless +a task. The ordinary play is notable only for its crudity, its +artificiality, its lack of color, and its hopeless failure to rise +above the conventional and the commonplace. Dramatists follow each +other like sheep, and the smaller the dramatist happens to be the more +closely he follows. Thus it is that whenever somebody produces a piece +with a situation that creates comment, every second manuscript one +reads from that time on contains exactly the same situation. A long +while ago I grew so much interested in the likeness between plot and +plot that I catalogued two hundred plays according to their general +character. The result was as follows: + + Dramas in which woman goes to man's + rooms at midnight 37 + + " in which woman betrays man and + then saves him 19 + + " in which wronged woman gives evidence + at end of play 6 + + " in which man unwittingly falls in + love with woman meant for him 9 + + " in which woman unwittingly falls + in love with man meant for her 3 + + " in which wealth is unexpectedly + derived from a mine or a patent 22 + + " built on the question of "love or + duty" 24 + + " built on the question of the fitness + of a reformed man or woman + to marry 16 + + " in which man or woman reforms + the person he or she loves 3 + + Comedies in which husband or wife ends + the philandering of wife or husband + by seeming to condone it 20 + + Farces based on mistaken identity 31 + + " built around the necessity of a man + lying to his wife 28 + +The total of the table is not two hundred, because several of these +plays had none of the features mentioned, while others had more than +one. + +Of course, it is well-nigh impossible for any dramatist, no matter how +well-meaning, to devise unparalleled characters, situations and +stories. Just as the fact that there are only so many notes in the +scale has been urged as an excuse for composers whose music is +reminiscent, so I would insist that there are only so many strings in +the heart. There is a limit to the number of situations that can be +brought about in real life, and, of course, there is a much more +definite limit to the number of these situations which have dramatic +value. In certain elemental facts all plays must be alike. For +example, it is inevitable that a large number of plays shall have +what is known as the "dramatic triangle"--which means the conflict of +two men and a woman or of two women and a man. It is inevitable that a +great majority of plays shall deal with that one great elemental +emotion--love. Once, when I was very young indeed, I experimented in +writing a comedy in which nobody was in love. The piece was presented +in Washington, and, to the best of my recollection, it lasted two +consecutive nights. This convinced me that there might be a line +beyond which one could not go in the effort to be unique. + +There are a great number of things, however, that are so hackneyed and +conventional that it is no longer possible for an author to attempt +them. I do not think any manager would buy another play in which the +crucial situation was the concealment of the heroine in the apartments +of the hero or the villain. From time immemorial this has been the +stock episode for the third act climax in a four act play, and +audiences have begun to expect it as they expect supper after the +fourth act. Personally, I am free to confess that I should not be +likely to recommend the purchase of any drama in which the conclusion +of the third act did not bring a surprise calculated to make an +audience sit up and take notice. No author of today would dare begin +his work with a conversation between a maid and a butler. Neither +would he care to conceal one of his characters behind a screen or to +conclude his play with the finding of a bundle of papers. The +cigarette is still the hero of the society drama, and it is still true +on the stage that the happy conclusion of the love affair between the +juvenile and the ingenue usually is coincident with the conclusion of +the love affair between the leading man and the leading woman. We +begin to have heroes who are not too angelically good, however, and +villains who have motives more human than the mere desire to be +beastly and draw a hundred and fifty dollars a week for it. Very +slowly and gradually the perfect woman, the high-hatted knave, the +wronged girl, the comic Irishman, the naval lieutenant of comic +opera, the English butler and their associates are passing from our +midst. Peace to their ashes! + +Plays have their epochs, just as books do, and there are fashions in +the drama as pronounced as those in dress. Always one successful work +of a particular class brings about a host of imitations, and, for a +time, it seems as though the public would never tire of that +particular kind of entertainment. "The Prisoner of Zenda" was +responsible for a hundred romances laid in mythical kingdoms; "Lady +Windimere's Fan" brought drawing room comedy into vogue; "'Way Down +East" bred a perfect epidemic of pastorals; "Sherlock Holmes" created +a demand for plays concerning criminals. All of these varieties of +entertainment, save possibly the last, have been laid on the shelf, +and we now are going in vigorously for frothy farce and comic opera in +long skirts. The manner in which one author follows the lead of +another, as demonstrated above, extends beyond the selection of such +important things as stories, and reaches even to titles. Ten years +ago we couldn't have a name without the word "of" in it. On the +bill-boards were advertised "The Whitewashing of Julia", "The +Manoeuvres of Jane", "The Superstitions of Sue", "The Stubbornness of +Geraldine" and a score of others. Then somebody christened a charming +sketch "Hop-o'-My-Thumb", and for a while it seemed that we could get +nothing but hyphenated titles, such as "Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire" and +"All-of-a-Sudden-Peggy." Now-a-days the vogue seems to be the +combination of an article and a noun--"The Boss", "The Nigger", "The +Gamblers" and "The Concert." + +Please do not understand that, in calling attention to these +similarities, I intend to accuse anyone of plagiarism. Deliberate +theft of ideas from contemporary offerings is likely to result in +law-suits, and I don't believe that there are left in the printed +dramas any ideas worth stealing. I used to hear an interesting story +of Paul Potter's writing original plays in the Boston Public Library, +but it seemed to me that much of his work was too good to have been +filched from the old fellows whose publishers bound their vulgarity, +their leaden dialogue and their uningenious situations in yellow +covers. It is very difficult, as I have said, to squeeze new +situations out of a dull world, from the manners and morals of which +about four hundred dramas have been pressed every year during the past +half century. It is especially hard to devise original material in +America, where prudish restrictions hedge us about and anything deep +and vital in life immediately is set down as immoral. American authors +cannot wring novel incidents from the emotions; they must profit by +such circumstances as the invention of wireless telegraphy and the +automobile. The telephone and the motor car are speedily becoming +bulwarks of the drama in the United States! + +The possibility of giving subtle and original treatment to familiar +phases of life, together with the attendant possibility of revealing +human nature in the theater, hold forth the chief promise along this +line. Clever twisting and turning will make a new incident from an +old one, as is best demonstrated in what Beaumont and Fletcher did +with Lope de Vega when they adapted "Sancho Ortez" into "The Custom of +the Country", and playwrights are learning to turn little things to +vital account in the construction of their plays. A glance at a +photograph now-a-days is made to convey all what was indicated in a +five-minutes talk between butler and maid twenty years ago. + +As to the matter of heart interest, that, after all, is the thing that +counts most, and that is eternal and inexhaustible. Charles Klein, +author of "The Music Master", put this to me neatly not long ago in an +attempt to prove the advantage of the realistic drama over the +romantic. "Supposing a man comes to you", he remarked, "and says that +his wife has just fallen out of a balloon. You're not sorry, because +you can't understand why his wife should have gone up in a balloon. +Let the same man say to you, however, that he is out of a position and +that his family is starving, and see how quickly the tears will come +into your eyes. So far as modern audiences are concerned, the old +duel-fighting, hose-wearing romantic heroes are up in a balloon. We +want sorrows and joys we can comprehend." + +It is this creed that makes the new dramatist an entity worth seeking. +If it proves difficult to discover him among the thousands who write +plays, it at least is worth while to cultivate him when he is found +among those who write promising plays. "By their works ye shall know +them" is particularly applicable to the men who will some day succeed +Barrie and Pinero. They will bear watching. If I were a producing +manager I should keep in touch with the men whose first pieces +indicate the possession of ability. I would set them at work, not at +tailoring plays to fit personalities, but at realizing their ideas and +their ideals. Certainly this great country is full of material waiting +for dramatization, and it must be equally true that it is full of +authors capable of accomplishing the task. They will not be the +illiterate glory-hunters who deluge theatrical offices with their +manuscripts, nor will they be the celebrities whose brains have been +pressed dry. It were wise to look for them among the people whose +professions draw them into close touch with the real world and the +theater; among the newspaper men and the enthusiastic play-lovers; +among those whose first and second efforts are now the financial +failures on Broadway. + + + + +_THE PERSONALITIES OF OUR PLAYWRIGHTS_ + + Being an effort to out do Ernest Thompson Seton and Charles G. + D. Roberts at their own game--which is speaking literally. + + +Not long ago an intelligent young man walked into a meeting of the +Society of American Dramatists and Composers, at the Hotel Astor, and, +after scanning the faces about him, inquired: "Is this the Cloak and +Suit Manufacturers' Association?" + +Don't blame the young man. If tomorrow you undertook on a wager to +tell a prosperous tailor from a celebrated author, your safest plan +would be to select the individual who looked more like a tailor, and +say: "That is the author!" Among persons whose acquaintances do not +figure in the public prints, except as "Old Subscriber" or "Vox +Populi", the playwright is still supposed to be distinguishable by +long, curly hair, a flowing tie, a high hat, and a frock coat, worn +with the right hand inserted in the space between the first and second +buttons. + +As a matter of fact, this description fits only the quack doctor and +the vender of patent medicines. There _are_ flowing-tie playwrights, +but generally they belong in the ranks of the ineffectual and the +unproduced. One sees them oftener at studio teas than at "first +nights." In whatever other respects they may differ, our dramatists +are pretty much alike as regards the commonplaceness of their manner +and appearance. Most of them regard the writing of plays as a +business, and go about it as a baker goes about making his loaves or a +plumber about mending a pipe. + +On the whole, it is easy to understand the disappointment of a +hero-worshipper to whom a companion pointed out Charles Klein. The +author of a dozen successful pieces tells the story with great gusto. +"It was on a ferry boat," he relates, "and two young chaps were +standing near the forward doors. As I strolled past, one of them +remarked: 'That's the fellow that wrote "The Gamblers."'" + +"My chest had already begun to expand when I caught the rejoinder. +'Him!' exclaimed the other. 'Well, I'll be damned!'" + +Augustus Thomas and David Belasco are two dramatists who would rob no +layman of his illusions. Mr. Belasco, whose clerical collar and +spiritual face have been pictured in numberless newspapers and +magazines, looks every inch a poet, and his soft voice and far-away +manner help sustain the impression. Mr. Thomas more evidently belongs +to our own mundane sphere; he is a man of the world, distinguished by +his poise and polish, by the suavity, reserve and equilibrium that +come with confidence and after long experience. The late Clyde Fitch +had these qualities, too. He was an artist to his finger tips, a +thinker of fine thoughts and a dreamer of great dreams. This article +originally began with an account of him, and, since Clyde Fitch was +much more than a transient figure in our theater, I see no reason why +he should be left out of it now. + +"Mr. Fitch", I wrote the day he sailed for France, never to return, +"is the son of a former army officer, forty-four years old, graduated +from Amherst College, and has spent much of his life traveling about +Europe. He is quite tall, rather thickly built, and has a heavy, dark +mustache. My acquaintance with him dates from the performance of my +first original comedy, 'The Little Gray Lady', and is due to a +friendly feeling for the new-comers in his profession that is one of +his finest traits. + +"'The Little Gray Lady' was being presented in the Garrick Theater, +and I was somewhat excited, the morning after its premiere, at +learning that a box had been secured for Mr. Fitch. That night I +stationed myself across the auditorium, so that I might judge how he +enjoyed the entertainment. My heart almost stopped beating when, soon +after the curtain lifted, the object of my interest arose from his +seat, and manifested every intention of departing. 'Good heaven!' I +exclaimed to myself. 'Is the piece as contemptible as that? And, even +if it is, what an affront; what a rude thing to do!' My mortification +was short-lived. Mr. Fitch and his party did walk out of their box, +but only to take orchestra chairs, from which they had a better view +of the stage. The next morning I received a generous letter. '"The +Little Gray Lady" is a big "Little Lady", I think.' And would I lunch +tomorrow at Mr. Fitch's town house, in East Fortieth Street? + +"This house has afforded a wide-open outlet for its owner's +constitutional lavishness, and is, perhaps, as luxuriously appointed +and as exquisitely fitted as any residence of its size in New York. +Mr. Fitch loves beautiful things, and invests in them with a +prodigality that would frighten the heirs of a copper king. 'It +doesn't matter how much money I make,' he said to me one afternoon. 'I +spend a big income as quickly as a little one.' The Fortieth Street +domicile is literally crowded with paintings, carvings, ceramics, and +other objects of art. A gentleman who dined there recently had his +attention attracted by three curiously wrought cigarette cases that +stood on the table, one at each plate. He supposed them to be beaten +brass, set with rhine stones, and was amazed when his wife discovered +that they were of solid gold and diamonds. 'Their intrinsic worth,' he +said, 'could not have been less than ten thousand dollars. Imagine my +horror when I remembered that I had been on the point of inquiring +whether they were meant to be dinner favors!' + +"Mr. Fitch maintains two establishments beside the place in New York; +one at Greenwich, called Quiet Corners--a young woman I know insists +upon speaking of it as 'Cozy Corners'--and the other an estate of two +hundred acres at Katohna, in Westchester County. James Forbes, who +wrote 'The Chorus Lady' and 'The Travelling Salesman', relates an +experience of a visit to the former residence. Here he found a stable, +which, in lieu of horses, held hundreds of masterpieces in marble and +bronze which the collector had not been able to resist purchasing, +but for which he had no room in his house! + +"Managers who make contracts with Clyde Fitch will tell you that he +appreciates the value of money, but that commodity certainly doesn't +cling long to his fingers. However, a responsible man can afford to be +irresponsible, and an industrious man to be extravagant. Mr. Fitch has +written fifty-four plays in less than twenty years, an average of one +play every four months! When you stop to consider that an ordinary +manuscript consists of about one hundred and thirty typed pages, and +that each piece must be thought out, drafted and re-drafted, rehearsed +and produced you will admit that the labor involved in making such a +record must have been Herculean. + +"Nevertheless, Mr. Fitch never seems to be hurried or worried. He +entertains a good deal, goes to the theater frequently, and takes a +boyish interest in trifles. It is this interest that fills his work +with human touches, the small topicalities of the moment. I saw him +one night at 'The Three Twins', and he commented laughingly upon +the catchiness of the song, 'Cuddle Just a Little Closer.' Two months +later I found that air as the motif, almost the Wagnerian theme, of +his comedy, 'The Bachelor.' + +[Illustration: "_Clyde Fitch's ability to work under any +circumstances_"] + +"The secret of the Fitch productiveness undoubtedly lies in his +ability to work under any circumstances, in odd moments. Austin +Strong, author of 'The Toymaker of Nuremberg', and one or two other +guests were spending a rainy week-end in the living room at Katohna, +when their host excused himself, and, sitting at a desk the other side +of the room, began writing. 'Go on talking', he said; 'you don't +bother me.' He had plunged into the second act scene between Mabel +Barrison and Charles Dickson in 'The Blue Mouse', and he finished it +that afternoon. Mr. Forbes saw him one morning in Venice, gliding +about in a gondola and scribbling as fast as his pencil could cover +the pages. That exquisite bit of 'The Girl Who Has Everything', in +which Eleanor Robson punished little Donald Gallagher by compelling +him to strike her, was indited upon a pocket pad while the chauffeur +was repairing the playwright's car, which had broken down between +Greenwich and New York. + +"Mr. Fitch abrogates to himself the task of producing his works, +taking personal charge of everything, from the selection of the +company to the designing of color schemes and the purchase of five and +ten cent articles of bric-a-brac. Most people have heard of his skill +at rehearsal. He and Mr. Thomas are two of the best stage managers in +America. Seated quietly in a corner of the auditorium, or standing +just back of the footlights, Mr. Fitch gives the directions that make +his performances perfect mosaics of marvelously life-like minutae. Of +stories bearing upon his quick perception, his instinct for detail, +and his understanding of cause and effect there are enough to make a +saga, but one anecdote will serve the purpose of this article. + +"It was at the dress rehearsal of 'Girls', toward the end of the +first act, when the young women were climbing into their roosts and +saying 'good night.' A property man appeared with a radiator, which +the author had insisted upon having in the setting, 'because I never +saw a flat without one.' The stage hand set down his burden and was +about to tip toe into the wings, when he was stopped by a sharp +command. 'Wait!' exclaimed Mr. Fitch. + +"The property man waited. 'Excuse me', he muttered. 'I didn't mean to +interrupt--' + +'Never mind that!' the dramatist continued. 'Look here! Miss Maycliffe +says "Goodnight!" You wait two seconds and then hammer like blazes on +a piece of iron behind that radiator. I want the noise that steam +makes in the pipes--' + +"'I'm on!' grinned the property man. So were the others. Everybody in +that house had been awakened in the dead of night by the malicious +clanking of the steam pipes, and everybody recognized the bit of +every-day. The audience the next night was not less quick of +perception, and the diversion proved, as you probably know, to be one +of the most effective bits of comedy in 'Girls.'" + +All this was written two years ago. Quiet Corners and The Other House +are deserted now, and the beautiful things that filled them, and the +residence in Fortieth Street, have been distributed. A part of the +collection was willed to the Metropolitan Museum. It is pathetic to +reflect that the first Fitch play to win unqualified praise from the +critics was produced after the death of its author. Yet "The City" was +not a better piece than "The Climbers", or "Her Own Way", or "The Girl +With the Green Eyes", or "The Truth." Clyde Fitch was dead; therein +lay the difference. The living Clyde Fitch always was treated by the +journalistic reviewers as a sort of malefactor, as a man whose +deliberate intent was to do bad work. Only his intimates know how +keenly he felt this. "Newspaper praise," he said to me once, "is for +the dramatist on his way up or his way down; never for the dramatist +at the top." Clyde Fitch was the most brilliant man who ever wrote +for the stage in America. Heaven rest his soul! + +Augustus Thomas conducts rehearsals from an orchestra stall in the +body of the theater, whence he shouts instructions through a +megaphone. I have often printed the story of the retort courteous +which he is said to have made to J. J. Shubert when that impressario +interrupted a rehearsal of "The Witching Hour", but, in this +connection, perhaps the tale will bear repetition. + +According to my informant, the author of "Arizona" was intent upon a +serious scene when Mr. Shubert, who was financially interested in the +production, stopped the players, and, turning to Mr. Thomas, remarked: +"I think this would be a good place for some witty dialogue." + +"Yes?" replied Mr. Thomas. "As for instance?" + +He is a bold and a foolish man who throws himself upon the point of +the playwright's verbal poignard, for, among those who know him, Mr. +Thomas is as famous for his skill with speech as for his skill with +the pen. He smiles as he thrusts, but the results are none the less +sanguinary. "I thought Thomas was a man", Paul Armstrong is reported +to have said of him, "until I saw him take a handkerchief from his +sleeve. Men have hip pockets for their handkerchiefs." + +"_I_ had," quoth Mr. Thomas, when he heard the remark, "until I began +to have my clothes made by a _good_ tailor!" + +This ready wit makes the dramatist one of the best, if not the best +post prandial speaker in New York. Never a banquet at which he talks +but the street rings the next day with quips of his making. "The +trouble with amateur carvers", he said at the Friars' dinner to John +Drew, "is that the gravy so rarely matches the wall paper." On another +occasion he characterized a fatuous argument as being "like a chorus +girl's tights, which touch every point and cover nothing." + +[Illustration: "_Augustus Thomas shouts instructions through a +megaphone_"] + +Mr. Thomas finds time for many activities outside of his profession. +Everyone knows of his energetic work for the cause of William Jennings +Bryan. Throughout the three Bryan campaigns the dramatist made +speeches, organized political meetings, and otherwise labored beneath +the standard of the Commoner. Mr. Thomas' long suit is organizing. +Upon the death of Bronson Howard, he succeeded to the presidency of +the American Dramatists' Club, which he has metamorphosed into the +Society of American Dramatists and Composers. The parent body was deep +in the slough of despond, seeming to have no other purpose than +proving that genius really is an infinite capacity for taking food. +Mr. Thomas awakened the fraternal spirit, got committees to work on +suggestions for plan and scope, benevolently assimilated a club of +women playwrights, and created an association that is likely to be a +power, instead of being merely a pow-wow, in the land. + +The greater part of the year, Mr. Thomas lives at New Rochelle, but +during the summer he goes frequently to his cottage, The Dingle, at +East Hampton. He is a man fifty years old, and of particularly +striking appearance. Tall, finely proportioned, smooth-shaven, with +resolute face and hair just beginning to turn white, he would be +observed in any gathering. As I have said, his manner is marked by +complete self-possession, and a good deal of self-satisfaction. To +this he certainly is entitled. A close friend of his believes that Mr. +Thomas dramatized himself when he created the part of the quiet, +masterful gambler, Jack Brookfield, in "The Witching Hour." + +Charles Klein is of very small stature--a fact that probably accounts +for the anecdote related earlier in my article. None of his family has +been a sky-scraper. Manuel Klein, the composer, is not above five feet +six, and Alfred Klein, another brother, who originated the role of the +elephant tamer in "Wang", owed much of his success as a comedian to +his brevity--that being, as you know, the soul of wit. Charles is the +embodiment of dignity, and takes himself and his work most seriously. +I think I have never seen a photograph of him that did not show him in +his library, either writing or reading some ponderous tome. He has a +fine head, with a lofty brow that grows to be a little loftier every +year. + +No estimate of Mr. Klein could be called complete which did not take +account of his grit and stick-to-it-iveness. Connected with the +theater from his earliest youth--he was call boy in the company with a +relative of mine--he produced his first play when he was hardly more +than twenty. His misses were many, and his hits few and far between, +but he kept on trying, until, with David Warfield's first starring +venture, "The Auctioneer", he struck the bullseye of public approval +squarely in the middle. Today he probably is the wealthiest of our +dramatists, and a couple of years ago it was estimated that his income +could not be less that $3,000 a week. He owns a charming home, called +Shirley Manor after the principal female character in "The Lion and +the Mouse", at Rowayton, Conn. In the same town he operates a hat +factory of which his son until recently was the manager. + +In the adamantine quality of his "hard luck story", no one far +surpasses Eugene Walter, whose income used to hover about that quoted +as Mr. Klein's. It is told that this young man was lodging upon a park +bench when Wagenhals & Kemper produced his "Paid in Full", but, +personally, I am inclined to regard this tale as more picturesque than +accurate. In need of money he may have been, but the parental Walters, +who live in Cleveland, were quite able to prevent his lacking real +necessities, and 'Gene himself has always been in the way of earning a +living in the newspaper or the theatrical business. He served an +apprenticeship as press agent of various attractions, and it was while +both of us were acting in this capacity that we met at the Walnut +Street Theater, in Philadelphia. + +Mr. Walter's initial effort, "Sergeant James", had just been +produced, and had scored an unquestionable failure. He told me the +story of the piece, and "it listened good", but I could not believe it +possible that the man opposite me was capable of winning a place in a +profession of letters. Eugene Walter is not impressive to the naked +eye. I had him in mind chiefly when I spoke of the ease with which one +might mistake a dramatist for a prosperous tailor. Mr. Walter looks +more like a neat and gentlemanly mechanic. He cannot be above thirty +years of age, and his height and weight--he is five feet five and tips +the scales in the neighborhood of a hundred and forty--make him seem +to be about twenty-four. My recollection of his dress is that he +usually wears a flannel shirt. I may be wrong as to this detail, but, +in any event, his style and general appearance are such as to create +the impression. + +[Illustration: "_Eugene Walter was lodging upon a park bench when +Wagenhals & Kemper produced his 'Paid in Full'_"] + +His demeanor suggests neither culture nor education, though, as I have +said, he comes of a good family and had excellent schooling. The value +of erudition, even so far as it concerns the technique of the drama, +in the writing of plays he denies absolutely. In fact, I believe that +his horror of being thought what he calls "a high brow" leads Mr. +Walter to assume a contempt of art and letters, though he has it not. +He has an intuitive appreciation of the beautiful, and yet, at a +recent exhibition of the paintings of a great Spaniard, his only +comment was, "Don't let's waste any more time in here!" "Playwrights +are _born_", he has gone on record as observing. "You can't _learn_ +anything about playwriting." + +If genius is the quality of doing by instinct, without great thought +or labor, obeying the commands of a _something_ outside of one's self, +Eugene Walter is certainly a genius. If it is, as some philosopher has +said, "an infinite capacity for taking pains", he is nothing of the +sort. He works by fits and starts, idling unconscionably for months at +a time, and then completing a play in a fortnight. "The Easiest Way" +was written in ten days. Mr. Walter's method of composition really is +nothing more nor less than improvisation--the method children employ +when they "make things up" as they "go along." + +The tools necessary to the process are one large room, one outfit of +furniture, and one exceptionally rapid stenographer. Mr. Walter and +the stenographer enter the room. The door is locked, and work is begun +by placing the furniture as it is to be placed on the stage--in other +words, by setting the scene. Then the young dramatist begins to act. +He is all the characters in his play. He rushes about the apartment, +quarreling with himself, making love to himself, now standing here as +one person and then racing to the opposite end of the apartment to be +another. All the time he is speaking the words that come into his mind +as natural under the circumstances, and the stenographer is taking +them down at top speed. At the end of an hour or two an act is +finished, an invisible curtain is rung down, and, if the amanuensis +hasn't fainted, as two did in one day of labor on "Paid in Full", the +stage is set for the next act. + +Of course, you understand that, before the play reaches this point, +the story, the situations, and even some details of dialogue must have +been carefully thought out. In connection with Mr. Walter, I _should_ +say that they must have had time to assemble in his mind, having +popped in, like Topsy, already grown. He goes about with what he +himself described to me as "a seething mass of stuff in my head" until +the "seething mass" cries for release, and then--the impromptu +performance before the audience of one. The quickness of Mr. Walter's +conception, the instantaneousness with which drama is formed for him, +is illustrated by an experience of last winter. + +We had been to witness a bad play--one doomed to close the following +Saturday. "Hopeless!" I said, as we left the theater. + +"Hopeless", repeated Mr. Walter, "but not without possibilities. If +that idea had been mine, I should have commenced with the big +situation of the third act. Then I should have worked backward, using +the story of the--" + +In five minutes he had sketched a new play, constructed around the +theme of the old one, and it was a corker! + +As everyone knows, Eugene Walter was married recently to Charlotte +Walker, the actress, and it is common knowledge, too, that both were +bitterly disappointed at David Belasco's refusal to assign the +principal role in "The Easiest Way" to Miss Walker. For this +disappointment her husband tried to atone by fitting her with "Just a +Wife", but the piece failed sadly at the Belasco Theater. The Walters +live in the Ansonia Apartments, in upper Broadway, but they are +contemplating the erection of a home near Long Island Sound. The man +who writes plays, or, for that matter, any other man who performs +labor requiring close concentration, finds it impossible to do his +best in New York. "The very air is laden with distraction", says +George Broadhurst, author of "The Man of the Hour." "When I want to +work I get as far as possible from Forty-second street." + +A dramatist of a pattern with Eugene Walter's, though drawn in bolder, +blacker lines, is Paul Armstrong, to whom theater-goers owe "Salomy +Jane", "The Heir to the Hoorah" and "Alias Jimmy Valentine". Mr. +Armstrong's contempt for the ordinary amenities, the graces of +every-day, is own big brother to Mr. Walter's. He is a big, +fine-looking fellow, characterized by tremendous vigor and virility, +by what he himself would call "the punch." He is aggressively +self-confident, where Augustus Thomas is only passively so; combative +by disposition and much inclined to talk in superlatives. His +broad-brimmed hat and his black imperial suggest the Westerner, though +most of his life has been spent in New York. He was formerly a +well-known authority on pugilism, writing for the _Evening Journal_ +under the nom de plume of "Right Cross." + +Mr. Armstrong's hatred of theatrical managers used to be a by-word, +but it has been less so since he himself undertook the production of +his own melo-drama, "Society and the Bulldog." His experience with one +impressario, A. H. Woods, to whom he sold "The Superstitions of Sue", +is as amusing a story as I know. + +"The Superstitions of Sue" already had been accepted by the two senior +members of the firm of Sullivan, Harris & Woods, and Mr. Armstrong had +an appointment to read the piece to the junior member at eleven +o'clock one bright Sunday. Promptly at that hour, he appeared at the +Woods residence, in Riverside Drive, accompanied by two friends. +Introductions followed, and the friends sat down, with Mr. and Mrs. +Woods, to hear the new farce. + +Mr. Armstrong had hardly begun when the visitors burst into a roar of +laughter. They howled afresh at every line, including descriptions of +characters and "business", and the rendering was concluded with the +pair rolling about in a perfect ecstacy of mirth. Mr. Woods regarded +them with sober suspicion. His risibles hadn't been touched, but, when +Mrs. Woods joined in the merriment, he determined that he didn't know +humor when he met it, and, the seance being over, closed a contract to +present "The Superstitions of Sue." + +When the men had gone, Mr. Woods said to Mrs. Woods: "I suppose I'm +dull, but I thought that play duller still. Of course, Armstrong's +friends were _brought_ to laugh, but when you began laughing, too, I +knew the piece _must_ be funny." + +"Why", responded Mrs. Woods, "I only laughed because the others did. I +wanted to be civil." + +"The Superstitions of Sue" was one of the worst failures of its year. + +I have spoken of Eugene Walter's method of work, but that method is +not more remarkable than the faith in a special environment held by +James Forbes. Even while he smiles at his own credulity, Mr. Forbes +believes firmly that he can put forth his best effort only in Room +371 of the Bellevue Hotel, in Boston. Whenever he "feels a play coming +on", he boards a train, journeys to The Hub, and locks himself up in +the apartment which bears that number. There he composed the scenarios +of "The Chorus Lady", "The Travelling Salesman," and "The Commuters." + +"I can think more clearly on a railway train than anywhere else", +declares Mr. Forbes. "A chair car is the ideal place for +concentration." This young fellow differs from his colleagues in his +inability to work in the country. He owns and occupies a veritable +palace at Croton-on-Hudson, but he never attempts anything important +there. He says: "I find my surroundings too alluring. Only conscience +keeps me at a desk anyway, and conscience is weaker than the charm of +outdoors." One rather fancies that Jimmie's conscience--he is "Jimmie" +to his friends--is pretty rigid. He comes of Scotch ancestry, and was +reared in a Scotch Presbyterian community in Canada. "The theater was +held up to my youthful attention as a dreadful place", he told me one +night, when we were lingering over supper. "The stock story in my +family concerned a playhouse in Edinboro, which, being used +sacreligously for the representation of a scene in heaven, was +promptly burned, with every soul in it, as a divine judgment. + +"This tale stuck fast in my memory. At the age of nine I stole away to +see 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and, when the transformation showed Little +Eva in Paradise, I slipped out and waited in the street for the +theater to burn down. I was terribly disappointed that nothing of the +sort happened, and, after hanging around for the better part of the +afternoon, I went home a confirmed agnostic." + +Jimmie drifted from Scotch Presbyterianism into dramatic authorship by +easy and natural stages. First he was employed in a wholesale grocery +store, then he became an actor, a newspaper man, a press agent, a +manager, and, finally, a playwright. A short story, which he had +published under the title of "The Extra Girl", suggested "The Chorus +Lady", and an acquaintance with Rose Stahl, who had been leading woman +of a company in which he had acted, lead to her being chosen for the +principal role in the one act play of that name. Mr. Forbes soon saw +the possibility of amplifying the sketch into a four act comedy, and, +though Miss Stahl was not enthusiastic about the idea at first, he +induced her to assume the part in which she has since appeared more +than a thousand times. + +Mr. Forbes is a boyish-looking young man, small in stature, nervous in +manner, with a swarthy skin, and an ocean of forehead into which +descends a peninsula of glossy black hair. He is general manager for +Henry B. Harris, and has numberless business duties to perform in his +comfortable little office in the Hudson Theater. He writes exclusively +for Mr. Harris, and has an interest in the profits of his plays, +besides the regular royalties, so that he has made a considerable +fortune out of three big successes. Mr. Forbes probably is the only +dramatist in the world who, in addition to writing his play, stages +it, attends to the details of business management, plans the +advertising campaign, and supervises the press work. + +Winchell Smith, who made the comedy, "Brewster's Millions", and who is +author of "The Fortune Hunter", says he chose dramatic authorship +"because you don't have to be grammatical in plays." "I couldn't write +a magazine article for a million dollars", he adds, "but dialogue +comes easy to me." However, Mr. Smith, like many others of his cult, +hates "the drudgery of composition." He likes to plan a new piece, but +wishes that the manuscript "could be got out of my head by a surgical +operation." Mr. Smith is a tall, slender, diffident young man, with a +keen sense of humor and a varied experience. He began life in the +grain and feed business in Hartford, and acted for many years in +support of that still more celebrated Hartfordian, William Gillette. +Langdon Mitchell, author of "The New York Idea", and John Luther Long, +author of "Madame Butterfly", both are Philadelphians. Mr. Mitchell +won fame as a poet, under the pseudonym of John Philip Varley, before +"Becky Sharp" brought him to the attention of theater-goers. Mr. Long, +whose ethereal fancies are so charming, pretends to practice the +prosaic profession of law at 629 Walnut street. + +Eugene Presbrey, grey-bearded, vibrant, intense, devotes himself +mainly to the adaptation of novels. "I want the novel that can't be +dramatized!" he declares, and, for this reason, he found much pleasure +in doing "Raffles." It seemed a hopeless task to win sympathy for a +confirmed criminal, and Mr. Presbrey had about abandoned the task, +when, one evening in Seventh Avenue, he saw a man running at top +speed, a crowd in pursuit, and heard the cry: "Stop thief!" "The +fellow was just behind me", says the author, "and, turning around, I +got a good view of his hunted, desperate expression. Before I knew +what I was doing, I whispered: 'Get up the alley!' _And I didn't tell +the policeman._ 'No sympathy for a criminal!' I exclaimed to myself, +when I had leisure to analyze my action. 'Why, every human being is a +criminal at heart! He knows that, under certain circumstances, he +might be the fugitive, and he feels sorry for the other fellow in +proportion.'" Mr. Presbrey wrote "Raffles" in three weeks, and it has +been acted in every country that boasts a theater. + +I have at my side a list of some thirty men and women who write plays +and of whom I could chat indefinitely. Each of these authors is so +interesting, all of them have lived so many stories, that it is hard +for me to admit a space limit and forebear being their Boswell. There +is George Broadhurst, lean and business-like, who made a reputation by +his farces, and then, when that had been forgotten, made another by +his serious dramas. There is Paul Potter, white-haired, rotund, +genial, the intimate friend of Charles Frohman, and the adaptor of +"Trilby." There are earnest young William C. De Mille, author of +"Strongheart"; Paul Kester, a wisp of a lad, timid and self-conscious, +who glories in swashbuckling melodramas and who did "When Knighthood +Was in Flower"; Thompson Buchanan, newspaper reporter to his finger +tips, who landed a big success in "A Woman's Way" and afterward wrote +"The Cub"; Sydney Rosenfeld, the wit and dreamer, one time editor of +Puck, who refused to turn out a book sub rosa with Augustus Thomas +because he objected to any scheme "which involved pooling our separate +fames to become anonymous"; and there are a whole army of brilliant +young chaps, like William J. Hurlbut, of "The Fighting Hope", who +lives a stone's throw from me at Shoreham, L. I., and Avery Hopwood, +who collaborated with me in producing "Clothes", and with Mary Roberts +Rhinehart in producing "Seven Days." + +I should like to tell you about pretty Margaret Mayo, who has built a +villa from the proceeds of "Polly of the Circus", and whose first fame +as a playwright was achieved under circumstances described elsewhere +in this book. Rachel Crothers is a sedate, New Englandish young +woman, who used to teach acting in the Wheatcroft School, and whom I +met when she was going from office to office with the manuscript of +"The Three of Us." Rida Johnson, famed for "Brown of Harvard" and "The +Lottery Man", is tall, dark, fine-looking, and her professional career +began when she was leading woman for her husband, James Young, in her +first play, "Lord Byron." I can't make you acquainted with people in a +line--only Kipling can do that--and a proper description of all our +playwrights would fill a volume. + +They are, for the most part, a quiet, unassuming lot, constituting, of +course, the brains of the theater, and lacking wholly the pose and +self-importance of their creature, the actor. They are of the stage, +and yet singularly apart from it, the glare of the footlights being +merged for them with the soft red glow of the library. I am glad to +have been their press agent this little time, for the majority of them +are almost unknown to the very throngs they entertain vicariously. The +wig-maker has his name on the program in larger letters than they, +and the chorus girl receives infinitely more attention from the +newspapers. More than any other class of men, I believe them to be +actuated by the desire to do fine things. "I want to write plays that +add to the joy of life!" exclaims one of the cult, looking over my +shoulder. "I shall never write a play that does not contain something +of hope and happiness!" + +[Illustration: "_Margaret Mayo built a villa from the the proceeds of +'Polly of the Circus'_"] + + + + +_STAGE STRUCK_ + + Being a diagnosis of the disease, and a description of its + symptoms, which has the rare medical merit of attempting a cure + at the same time. + + +"From the stern life of an officer in Uncle Sam's Navy to a merry job +carrying a spear in the chorus of a musical comedy may be a far cry", +but that is the step which a metropolitan newspaper recently recorded +as having been taken by a young man named in the story whose beginning +is quoted above. On another page of this same newspaper was an article +which announced that "because pink teas, bridge whist, and dances no +longer amused her", a certain "society woman" had joined the chorus of +a company appearing at the Casino. These two cases composed a single +day's list of casualties from the malignant disease known as +stage-fever. + +When my eye had finished its journey over the accounts of the +"society woman" and the naval officer, I paused to wonder whether +either of these aspirants would be checked by seeing spread-headed +over the first page of the journal in question the horrid details of a +theatrical suicide. The night before, an actress of reputation--a +woman who had won everything that these new-comers had but a faint +chance of winning--had killed herself in an hotel in Baltimore. Of +course, it had not been shown that this "star" was influenced by any +circumstance connected with her work, and, of course, it is true that +people of various professions are self-slain, and yet--I wondered. + +[Illustration: "_The malignant disease_"] + +If the naval officer was restrained in his resolve it was not for +long. A week or so later I saw this impetuous youth, who couldn't +stand "being bottled up on a battle-ship", on the stage of an up-town +theater. He was standing near the middle of a row of young men, waving +his hands at stated intervals, and singing "yes--yes" at the end of +every second line rendered by the principal comedian. He had but to +wave his hands a moment too soon or too late in order to incur a fine +or a reprimand. Perhaps by this time he has discovered that there are +worse misfortunes than being "bottled up on a battleship." + +Whether he does or not, the stream of the stage-struck will continue +to flow like the brook poeticized by Tennyson. There is no stopping +it. Youth has a better chance of missing measles or scarlet-fever than +of escaping that consuming passion to "go on the stage." Nearly +everyone struggles with the mania for a time; the wise conquer it, the +foolish make up the comic opera choruses, the unimportant road +companies, and the stage-door-keeper's list of "extra ladies and +gentlemen." From every class and walk of life, from every town and +city troop the victims, abandoning their vocations and their homes, as +though they had heard the witching notes of a siren song. They come +with high hopes and bright dreams, most of them to the great, gay city +of New York, where they besiege the agencies, and the managers, and +the teachers of acting until their dreams fade, or their money gives +out, or they are smitten with realization. There is hardly a community +in the country so small as to be without its "amateur dramatic club", +and no one even distantly connected with the theatrical profession has +lacked his or her experience with the innoculated unfortunate who +knows that "I could succeed if I only had a chance." + +Some time ago I happened to be in Syracuse, and used the long-distance +telephone to communicate with New York. My conversation over, I sat +down in the hotel lobby, and had just lit a cigar when a page +announced: "Long distance wants you." I returned to the booth. "Yes?" +I inquired. A woman's voice replied: "I overheard enough of your talk +with New York to judge that you're in the theatrical business." + +"I'm indirectly connected with it", I replied. + +"Well", said the voice, "I'm the long-distance operator, and I want to +go on the stage. Please get me an engagement." + +I explained my misfortune in being acquainted with no manager who was +likely to consider extensive training in enunciation of "hello" and +"busy" sufficient education for the stage. The lady probably didn't +believe me, for it is the popular impression that anyone concerned in +the business of the playhouse has only to ask in order to receive a +contract for whomever he wishes to assist. That song-heroine, who +declared herself "an intimate friend of an intimate friend of +Frohman", has her prototype in real life. Moreover, no aspirant to +footlight honors ever can be convinced that actors must be made as +well as born, and that there may be a few people in the world, who, +given the opportunity, would not become Modjeskas and Mansfields. + +William A. Brady once was served at dinner by a waitress whose +surliness astonished him. He made no remark, however, and at last the +waitress addressed him. "You're William A. Brady", she said; "ain't +you?" + +Mr. Brady confessed. + +[Illustration: "'_You're William A. Brady, ain't you?_'"] + +"Well", exclaimed the duchess of dishes, "my name's Minnie Clark. I've +been a waitress since I was fourteen years old, and I think I can +stand it until about next Wednesday. Give me a job, will you?" + +David Belasco had a less amusing experience with a chambermaid in +Attleboro, Mass., where he spent a night with the organization +supporting David Warfield in "The Auctioneer." This girl, whose tap at +the door interrupted the wizard producer while he was blue-penciling a +scene, had just heard of his presence in town, and lost no time +approaching him. She had been stage-struck since childhood. Hearing of +Mr. Belasco's success in teaching dramatic art, she had determined to +visit him in New York. "I saved my money for three years", she said, +"and then I went up to you. I called at your office every day, but +they wouldn't let me in. When all my money was spent I came back home, +and began saving again. I had about half enough when I found that you +were coming to Attleboro." Mr. Belasco was unable to give the girl +the least encouragement. She was wholly illiterate, and, moreover, her +death warrant was writ on her face. She was suffering from an +incurable disease of the lungs. + +Collin Kemper, one of the managers of the Astor Theater, recently had +a letter from an elderly priest, who, after twenty years in the +pulpit, felt that he wanted "a larger field of expression", and +yearned to play Shakespeare. A wrinkled old woman of sixty sought the +late Edward Marble, when he was conducting a school of acting in +Baltimore, and confided in him her desire to be seen as Juliet. This +desire she had cherished nearly half a century when the death of a +relative gave her the means of gratifying her ambition. Daniel Frohman +once received a young man, who laid on his desk a letter of +introduction from an acquaintance in the West. "Ah!" said Mr. Frohman. +"So you wish to become an actor?" + +"Yes", replied the young man. "I'm puh-puh-puh-perfectly wa-wa-willing +to ba-ba-ba-begin at the ba-bottom--" + +[Illustration: "_A wrinkled old woman confided her desire to be seen +as Juliet_"] + +He stuttered hopelessly. + +The most astonishing feature of stage fever, however, is that its +ravages are not confined to the ranks of people who would be bettered +by success in their chosen profession. My wealthiest friend, a silk +importer, who owns a charming home in Central Park West, dines alone +while his wife stands in the wings of a dirty little theater in Paris, +where their only daughter earns a hundred francs a week by dancing. A +successful literary man of my acquaintance, who would cheerfully +devote his entire income, something more than fifteen thousand a year, +to making his young wife happy in his cozy apartment yields per force +to her wish to appear in vaudeville. The most valuable member of the +staff of an out-of-town newspaper, recipient of a big salary, suddenly +threw up his position two years ago, since when he has been employed +seven weeks, and that seven weeks in an organization presenting "The +Chinatown Trunk Mystery." + +A. L. Wilbur, at the time when he conducted the well-known Wilbur +Opera Company, printed in the program of his performances an +advertisement for chorus girls. Successful applicants were paid twelve +dollars a week, yet recruits came by the dozens from the best families +in the territory through which the aggregation was touring. Scores of +the young women who play merry villagers on Broadway today are well +born and bred victims of the virus. "Society" has contributed even to +the ranks of the chorus men, whose caste is far below that of their +betighted sisters. When Maybelle Gilman opened her metropolitan season +in "The Mocking Bird" a male chorister, whose weekly stipend was +eighteen dollars, electrified the management by purchasing nine boxes. +This Croesus of the chorus proved to be "Deacon" Moore, a Cornell +graduate and son of one of the biggest mine operators in the West. + +The germ of stage fever frequently is as slow to get out of the system +as it is quick to enter it. Douglas Fairbanks is a clever comedian, +who, after a long apprenticeship, has been elevated to the stellar +rank by William A. Brady. Mr. Fairbanks fell in love with the daughter +of Daniel J. Sully, and, according to report, was given parental +permission to marry her if he would abandon his profession. Mr. +Fairbanks retired from the stage, and was out of the cast of "The Man +of the Hour" for a trifle less than two months. Margaret Fuller came +to town a few years ago with an ambition to star. She enlisted the +help of a well-known manager, who told her that he would give her a +chance to play Camille if she could get rid of twenty pounds of +superfluous flesh. Miss Fuller presented "Camille" at a special +matinee, and has not been heard of since. She is still in the +theatrical profession, content with minor roles, but clinging +tenaciously to the vocation. There are hundreds of men and women +haunting the agencies in New York, promenading that graveyard of +buried hopes, The Great White Way, who might be enjoying the comfort +of luxurious homes and the affectionate care of doting relatives. + +In nine cases out of ten the mania to go on the stage is prompted by +pure desire for glorification. Love of excitement, and the fallacious +notion that the profession is one of comparative ease and luxury, may +be alloying factors, but the essence of the virus is vanity. No other +field offers the same quick approval of successful effort, and no +other climber is quite so much the center of his eventual triumph. In +the other arts, approbation follows less promptly and is less direct. +The fortunate player hears the intoxicating music of applause a dozen +times every evening and two dozen times on matinee days. He struts +about his mimic world, the observed of all observers, conscious of the +strained attention of the thousands who have paid to see him, +profiting not only by his own achievements but by those of the author, +the director, the scene-painter and the orchestra. The newspapers are +full of his praise and his photographs, recording his slightest doing +and giving to the opinions expressed by him, or by his press agent, +an importance scarcely less than might be accorded the President of +the United States. In the course of time he even begins to arrogate to +himself the heroic virtues of the characters he impersonates. It is +sweet to see one's name on the cover of a novel, sweet to scrawl one's +autograph in the lower left-hand corner of a painting, but O, how +doubly and trebly sweet to meet one's own image lithographed under a +laudatory line and posted between advertisements of the newest +breakfast food and the latest five cent cigar! + +The temptation is the stronger, as the rewards are more numerous, if +the aspirant happens to be a woman. The gentler sex may not have +greater vanity than the stronger, but it takes greater delight in +commendation and it has keener appreciation of luxury. If the +much-mentioned "society belle" longs for the glitter and gaud supposed +to exist behind the footlights, how can one blame the daughters of +poverty and squalor who make up the rank and file of the chorus? +James Forbes has embodied the minds of these girls in his Patricia +O'Brien in "The Chorus Lady." What wonder that they try to escape the +sordid commonplaces of their poor lives for the glory of the theater, +and delight to strut their "brief hour" in a palace, even if that +palace be of canvas and scantling? The prospect of diamonds and +automobiles cannot exert a stronger appeal to the men and women who +dwell in dreary drudgery than does the hope of becoming _somebody_, of +enjoying even a temporary illumination of their obscurity. + +Charles Dickens vividly explained the psychology of this longing for +prominence in his chapter on "Private Theaters" in "Sketches by Boz." +In his day there were scores of these institutions in London, each +"the center of a little stage-struck neighborhood." In the lobby of +each was hung a placard quoting the price for which willing amateurs +might play certain desirable parts. To be the Duke of Glo'ster, in +"Richard III", cost £2, the part being well worth that amount +because "the Duke must wear a real sword, and, what is better still, +he must draw it several times in the course of the piece." We have no +such private theaters on this side of the water, but there are nearly +two hundred amateur dramatic clubs in Brooklyn, while other +communities possess these organizations in proportion to their size. + +[Illustration: "_How sweet to meet one's own image_"] + +There are three well-trod roads to the stage. One wanders through +membership in a society like those mentioned, another and straighter +is by way of the dramatic schools, while the third, and most +frequented, goes direct from the home to the office of agent or +manager. Of dramatic schools the number is legion, but only those +conducted by dishonest adventurers promise employment to the enrolled +student. "Be an actor for $1", is the alluring caption of an +advertisement carried weekly by a number of periodicals, but the +aspirants who make it profitable for that institution to go on +advertising must be exceptionally gullible. New York has many +"academies" in which useful technicalities of the art are carefully +taught, and the managers of several of these "academies" keep in close +touch with the producing interests of the country. While they +guarantee nothing, they frequently are able to place their graduates +in small parts. Grace George, Margaret Illington, and other well-known +stars have come out of these schools. + +The direct path to which reference has been made is full of +difficulties and obstacles. Agencies are established with the purpose +of helping communication between managers and the actors most in +demand. They are busy places, with little time to devote to the +novice, and the average impressario is not more nearly inaccessible +than their executive heads. Every year the producing manager is less +inclined to see applicants or to make opportunities for people of whom +he knows nothing. It is all very well to be recommended by some +acquaintance of the man who "presents", but friendship is only +friendship, and nobody will risk the success of a production that has +cost thousands of dollars merely to please an associate. The current +method of selecting a company is quick and simple. A copy of the +play's cast is sent to the manager, who writes opposite each character +the name of the actor whom he thinks most likely to interpret that +role to advantage. Then the manager's secretary sends for the +fortunate Thespian. This system is undeniably hard, and perhaps unjust +to the beginner, but such sentiment as gets into the theater comes in +manuscripts, and, in these days of severe critical judgment, the +investor in drama has the fullest right to minimize his risk. + +Out of every hundred tyros who come to town in search of an engagement +ten may secure the coveted prize, and not more than one person out of +that ten makes a decent living from his or her adopted profession. It +is too much to say that one aspirant in a thousand achieves real +success. The average salary in the chorus is $18, and for speaking +parts in dramatic performances it cannot be more than $40. No one is +paid during the period devoted to rehearsal, and a long season lasts +somewhere between thirty and thirty-five weeks. The sane way of +computing wages in the theatrical business, therefore, is to multiply +by thirty and divide the result by fifty-two. Following this system, +it will be seen that the seeming $40 a week really is only $23. The +most ardent and ambitious among the stage-struck will admit that this +is not an income permitting the employment of a chauffeur or the +purchase of a palatial residence on Riverside Drive. + +Nor is the matter of remuneration the only disappointment connected +with entrance into the theatrical profession. This is the one vocation +in which the worker must begin again every year. If the +fairly-successful actor "gets something" for the current season, he +will find almost equal difficulty in getting something else for the +season to follow. Unless he has made a prodigious hit--and prodigious +hits are very rare--he finds himself no farther advanced next June +than he was last September. Should he be lucky enough to remain in New +York, he occupies a hall room in a boarding house, and, failing in +this doubtful good fortune, he faces a long term on "the road." +Excepting only solitary confinement in prison, the world probably +holds no terror surpassing that of touring the "one night stands." +Lost to his best friends and companions, travelling at all hours of +the day and night, grateful for board and lodging that would not be +tolerated by a domestic servant, the player with a small road company +has ample reason to repent his choice of a career. To illustrate the +universal dread of this fate, I quote the lines printed under a comic +picture in the Christmas issue of a prominent dramatic weekly: + + DOCTOR--You're pretty badly run down, my friend. I should + advise change of scene. + + PATIENT--(Just returned from thirty weeks of "one night stands" + with the Ripping Repertoire Company). Heaven have mercy on me! + (He dies). + +Of course, it is quite futile to recite facts like these to the +victim of stage fever. That unhappy individual is certain that he or +she will positively enjoy such discomforts as your feeble fancy can +paint, and doubly sure that the ugly present will fade into a roseate +future just as it does in the transformation scene at the end of +"Uncle Tom's Cabin." Tell this adventurer that one histrion in a +thousand succeeds and your reply is bound to be: "I'll be that one." +And, to speak truth, he or she _may_ be that one. Celebrated actors +are made from queer material sometimes, and the roster of well-known +people on our stage includes the names of men and women who were +originally plumbers, waitresses, floor-walkers and cloak-models. The +beginner may be positive, however, that these players did not advance +while they still had the intellects and the training required in the +occupations mentioned. No person can possibly succeed on the dramatic +stage without the foundation of genuine talent and a superstructure of +culture and education. A woman whose pronunciation betrayed the +baseness of her early environment could not win enduring fame if she +had the temperament of a Bernhardt. + +Generally, however, the woman who thinks she has the temperament of a +Bernhardt really has only anaemia and a great deal of vanity. If she +has not mistaken her symptoms, and, besides genuine ability, has a +good education, some money, infinite patience, an iron constitution, +and a mind made up to the bitterness of long waiting and constant +disappointment, she may eventually win a position half as important +and a fourth as agreeable as that which she pictured in her +imagination. + +She is far luckier if her desire to go on the stage proves akin to and +as fleeting as the average small boy's desire to be a burglar. + + + + +_ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY_ + + Being an account of intrepid explorations in the habitat of the + creatures whose habits are set forth in the preceding chapters. + + +The Great White Way is a recumbent letter I. It is recumbent because +the _habitues_ of the Rialto have used it to the point of exhaustion, +and because streets are never vertical except in Naples. The Rialto is +the name by which The Great White Way was known before the present +reckless mania for electric signs suggested the more significant +appellation. In that long-ago time one who spoke of the district in +question referred to Broadway between the Star Theatre and the office +of The Dramatic Mirror. The Great White Way is bounded on the South by +the Flatiron Building, on the West by the Metropolitan Opera House, on +the North by an enormous incandescent spread-eagle advertising a +certain kind of beer, and on the East by the Actors' Society. +Around these material landmarks runs an invisible but insurmountable +wall of clannishness and complacent self-satisfaction. To be on the +Great White Way you have only to leave the Subway at Times Square; to +be of it you must follow the Biblical camel through the eye of a +needle. + +[Illustration: "_The Great White Way is a recumbent letter I_"] + +There isn't another Great White Way on the face of the earth. Paris +has its Place de l'Opera, London its Strand, and Vienna its +Ringstrasse, but these resemble New York's theater path only as a +candle resembles an arc light. They are streets given up to seekers +after pleasure; the Rialto is a street given up to seekers after +pleasure, and to seekers after seekers after pleasure. It is not the +moths attracted to the flame that lend particular interest to the +Great White Way; it is the flame itself, coruscating, scintillant, +multi-hued and glowing. Broadway, within the limits set down, is a +street of players and playhouses; the only mile of pavement in the +world devoted entirely to the members of one profession. + +Two newspaper buildings rear themselves defiantly in this portion of +New York. They seem out of place, though newspaper men are +night-workers, too, and come nearer than any other class of men to +being _of_ The Great White Way. A few tailors and haberdashers have +intruded themselves into the district, settling beside wig makers and +sellers of grease paint, but they are neither numerous nor +ostentatious. Broadway, as you walk from Twenty-third Street to +Forty-seventh, unfolds itself to the view as a line of theaters, +theatrical offices, agencies and all-night restaurants. Outsiders go +there to see performances and to eat; insiders make of it a world of +their own--a queer little, blear little world of unclear visions, +abnormal instincts, unreal externals and astigmatic sense of +proportion. + +Parisians call their actors "_M'as-tu-vu_", which means "Have you seen +me?" That is because the first question a French actor asks is "Have +you seen me in such-and-such a role?" Your true American actor doesn't +waste time with a question of that sort. He feels a peaceful +certainty that not to know him argues yourself unknown, and he +wouldn't like to hint at such obscurity for an acquaintance. Take all +the talk of all the year on The Great White Way, run it through a +wringer, and you will have that same letter I, with vanity dripping +from every inch of the texture. Such egotism as the rest of creation +entertains is watered brandy to that of the Thespian. He thinks of +only one thing, he can talk of only one thing, all the affairs in the +world are inconsequential in comparison with that one thing, and that +one thing is himself. Stand at my elbow while I halt my friend Junius +B. Starr at the corner of Fortieth and Broadway. "How are you, old +man?" say I. + +"Fine", is his reply. "Been playing the 'heavy' with Florence Rant +since November. Everybody said I 'hogged the show.'" + +Half a block farther along we will have occasion to mention a business +matter to Sue Brette. "My agent tells me you would go into vaudeville +if you had a 'sketch.' She mentioned the possibility of my writing one +for you." + +"Yes. I spoke to her about your giving me a part like the one I played +in 'The Greatness of the Small.' You know that was the engagement I +lost because I was so much better than the leading woman. She took the +piece off and revived 'Across the Divide', and I handed in my notice. +The play ended with me dancing on the table--" + +Twenty minutes later we saunter on with a store of minute information +regarding Miss Brette's performance, and how it was enjoyed by the +world at large, but with our minds still in Darkest Africa so far as +the business of the meeting is concerned. + +Most people are self-conscious when they speak highly of themselves. +Not so actors, to whom such statements as "Everybody said I was the +best they had ever seen" or "Alan Dale came three nights running just +to watch me" are simply a matter of course. Long thought in this +strain has so accustomed the people of the stage to talking in the +same fashion that they find nothing extraordinary about it. Then, too, +his distorted sense of proportion makes the actor see himself so large +and the rest of the world so small that he cannot conceive of any mind +which will not grasp, with unalloyed delight, at first-hand +information regarding himself. Newspapers have flattered your average +histrion into the idea that an eager humanity waits impatiently for +accounts of his most unimportant doings. During the term of my press +agency, a certain comedienne whose specialty is burnt cork ran after +me along Broadway one afternoon, crying: "Stop! I've got a great news +'story' for you." + +[Illustration: "_The actor sees himself so large, and the rest of the +world so small_"] + +I stopped. "What is it?" I inquired. + +"A man came up to me as I was leaving the stage door and said: 'Why, +you're not really colored, after all!'" + +A star of my acquaintance recently dismissed an excellent business +manager because that individual mentioned the author of the play in +his advertising. "You're not working for Scribble; you're working for +me", was his comment. Another has ceased to be a friend because I told +him that I didn't care for his performance. A third has clippings of +the criticisms that have treated him best pasted on the inside of his +card case and shows them to you if he can get your ear and your +button-hole. + +Everybody talks shop a good deal, but shop is the _only_ thing talked +on The Great White Way. Art and science and literature, politics and +wars and national calamities have no interest, if they have so much as +existence, for the player. "Awful catastrophe that earthquake in +'Frisco!" I exclaimed to an intimate I met at breakfast five or six +years ago. + +"By George, yes!" said he. "Costs me twenty weeks I had booked over +the Orpheum Circuit." + +Your shoe dealer, though he converses about shoes from eight in the +morning until six at night, at least drops the subject during the +evening. The typical histrion reads nothing in the papers except the +theatrical news and refuses steadfastly to discourse on any other +subject. This is equally true of the manager. + +[Illustration: "_Alan Dale came three nights running_"] + +The theatrical world is as much of and to itself as though the Rialto +were a tiny island isolated in the waters of the Pacific. It has its +own language, its own daily journal, its own celebrities and its own +great events. The jargon spoken would be absolutely unintelligible to +a layman. "I doubled the heavy and a character bit because the Guv'ner +said cuttin' everything down was our only chance to stay out. We hit +'em hard in Omaha, and it looked like a constant sell out to me, but +the Guv'ner swore the show was a frost and we was playin' to paper." +What would be your translation of this, gentle reader? Doesn't sound +like English, does it? Yet it is--English as you hear it on Broadway. + +The Telegraph is the organ of the theatrical profession. It is a +morning paper published at midnight for the benefit of a clientele +that has plenty of time for reading between that hour and bed time. +The Telegraph is the connecting link between the last editions of the +"yellow" evening papers, most of which, by the way, are pink, and the +"bull dog editions" of the regular morning papers. It is the one daily +in the world devoted exclusively to sport and the theater. To its +editorial staff and its readers a declaration of war between England +and France wouldn't be worth half the space given to a street fight +between two matinee idols. The followers of this journal might be a +trifle shakey as to the identity of Christopher Wren, but they could +answer without hesitation any question relating to "Ted" Marks. They +are awake to conditions, physical and domestic, utterly strange to +outsiders, and understand personal allusions that would be Greek to +the best-informed editorial writer on The London Times. If you picked +up a newspaper and read "Famous Sayings of Great Men--Charles Hepner +Meltzer: 'If it's hair it's here'" you would be mystified, yet fifty +thousand theatrical people read that quip on the day of its +publication and laughed at it heartily. + +The populace of The Great White Way is not more sharply individual in +its mentality than in its personality. You could not possibly mistake +the types that congregate on street corners or shuttle to and fro on +business bent. The stoutish, smooth-shaven, commonplace-looking young +fellow who passes you with a stride is a well-known dramatic author +whose latest play is in its third month at a near-by theater. The +long-haired man behind him whom you notice because of his deep-set +eyes, his tapering fingers and his important bearing is not the great +genius that you may suppose him, but an ambitious provincial come to +town to market his first comedy. Sybilla Grant, whose real name is +Carrie O'Brien, and who gets eighteen dollars per week for wearing a +five hundred dollar gown conspicuously in the chorus at the Casino, +drives to the door of Rector's, while the most prosperous and +profitable woman star in America walks quietly down Broadway, a demure +little figure in a gray tailor-made gown. The old actor, with frayed +linen and threadbare suit, idles about, a trifle the worse for +liquor, inquiring after opportunities; the young actor flaunts along +in company with a well known theatrical lawyer or a soubrette +conspicuous for the fearfulness and wonderfulness of her millinery and +her coiffure. Dogs you see in plenty, attached and unattached, but no +children. The Great White Way is a childless path. + +There are so many celebrities on Broadway that, if you are a familiar +of the street, you cease to regard them with awe. Men and women whose +names fill newspapers and whose pictures crowd magazines meet you at +every turn. During the hour's time required for lunching I have seen +in one hotel eating room Henry Arthur Jones, Charles Klein, John +Kendrick Bangs, Winthrop Ames, George Ade, Paul West, Edgar Selwyn, +Roy McCardell, Victor Herbert, Reginald De Koven, Raymond Hubbell, +Manuel Klein, Archie Gunn, Hy. Mayer, David Warfield, Frank Keenan, +Robert Hilliard, William Faversham, Wilton Lackaye, Theodore Roberts, +Henry Miller, Arnold Daly, W. H. Crane, Francis Wilson, Edmund +Breese, Henry Woodruff, Sam Bernard, Charles J. Ross, Daniel Frohman, +Henry B. Harris, Lee Shubert, Fred W. Whitney, Charles B. Dillingham, +J. W. Jacobs, Ben Roeder, David Belasco, Joseph Brooks, Marc Klaw and +Abraham L. Erlanger. The gentleman who was sharing my table called +attention to the gathering and remarked that if the building should +tumble about our ears, the result would be temporary paralysis in +theatricals. + +[Illustration: "_Gets eighteen dollars per week for wearing a five +hundred dollar gown_"] + +The Great White Way has certain hostelries at which certain classes in +"the profession" lunch, dine and sup habitually. Nearly every manager +of importance in New York goes to the Knickerbocker, the Madrid, or to +Rector's, the former place being popular also with the better sort of +actors. Shanley's, the Astor, the Cadillac, Browne's Chop House and +Keene's, which is in the old home of the Lambs Club, also are popular, +while the faster set, notably including the well known women of +musical comedy, affect Churchill's. In the vicinity of The Times +Building, and again in the neighborhood of The Herald, are a number of +little restaurants in which unlucky players and very busy managers can +get food cheaply and quickly. These places are to be recognized +generally by the white enamel lettering on their windows and by the +fact that they employ women as waiters. The busy manager aforesaid +goes into them fearlessly; the unlucky player contents the inner man +in the rear of the room and then stands complacently smoking his five +cent cigar in front of the more expensive eating-house next door. + +There is the same divergence of character in lodging places on the +Rialto. Above Forty-second Street one finds fashionable apartment +houses in which prominent players keep rooms the year around. Farther +down are hotels in which the less-successful histrion stops when he is +in town, and the cross streets still closer to the foot of the The +Great White Way are full of theatrical boarding houses, in which a +good room may be had at four dollars per week and food and lodging at +sums varying from seven to ten dollars. The four clubs that appeal +especially to "the profession" are the Lambs, the Players, the +Greenroom and the Friars. The first of these is the most expensive, +the most luxurious, and the most liked by the gilded set. It occupies +a new and beautiful building on Forty-fourth Street near Broadway. The +Players, founded by Edwin Booth, is quiet, conservative and elegant, +inhabiting now, as it did in the beginning, an old-fashioned structure +in Gramercy Park. The Greenroom Club and The Friars are younger and +crowd themselves into less pretentious quarters on Forty-seventh and +Forty-fifth Streets. The Greenroom caters especially to managers, and +The Friars was founded by press agents. + +The theaters near Broadway are too well known to call for much +comment. They include all the playhouses of the better class, about +thirty-five in number, beginning with Wallack's and ending with the +New Theater. A great majority of the big--I'm not alluding to +physical appearance--producers have their executive offices in these +Temples of Thespis. The Knickerbocker Theater Building shelters many +of them, as do the Broadway Theater Building, the Gaiety Theater +Building and the Putnam Building. Charles Frohman works in a tidy and +well furnished apartment in the Empire Theater Building, which is +tenanted almost exclusively by his staff. The Shuberts have +headquarters in what was once the Audubon Hotel, opposite the Casino, +at Broadway and Thirty-ninth Street, and Klaw and Erlanger transact +their business in the New Amsterdam Theater Building. The New York +Theater Building, the Hudson Theater Building, the George M. Cohan +Theater Building, the Astor Theater Building, and even that home of +burlesque, the Columbia Theater Building, all are honey-combed with +offices. + +The word "honey-combed" is used advisedly. All day long, all year +'round these offices are veritable hives of business. The layman has +not the least conception of the amount of activity necessary to +theatrical production. It is not too much to say that such an office +as that of Klaw & Erlanger is visited by no fewer than two thousand +persons _per diem_ and that as many letters are dispatched from it. +Such buildings as those mentioned are most crowded from July to +December. Regardless of the fact that theatrical companies are made up +nowadays almost entirely by the process of sending for the players who +are wanted, thousands of men and women in search of work begin their +annual promenade late in June. They wait patiently, hour after hour, +in outer offices, where the men usually find seats and the women +generally stand. The matinee idol who last season nightly shouldered +the blame for a great crime in order to shield the brother of the girl +he loved, pushes past scores of girls somebody loves in order to be +first before the desk of the manager. Through the long summer months, +The Great White Way, whiter than ever in the dazzling heat of the sun, +is thronged with seekers after employment in the most overcrowded +profession in the world. From place to place they go, from manager's +office to agency, securing nothing more definite than the suggestion +that they leave their names and addresses. + +Of late the Rialto in summer has been so crowded with loungers that a +special squad of police has been required to keep the way open to +ordinary pedestrians. Knots of players, the men recognizable by their +smooth-shaven faces and mobile mouths, the women by that peculiar +independence of convention which characterizes the feminine portion of +"the profession", group themselves everywhere. Seeing a hub of people, +with projecting spokes made up of dogs on strings, you may be quite +sure of the conversation. "I could 'a' been with 'Get-Rich-Quick +Wallingford', but everybody had it touted for a failure, so I signed +for stock in Minneapolis. We only lasted two weeks. If the manager'd +had any nerve, I think we'd 'a' won out. The whole town was talking +about my work in 'Salomy Jane', and, my dear, you know what I could +'a' done in 'Brewster's Millions'!" + +The soil most favorable to the growth of these groups is in front of +the Actors' Society, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Knickerbocker +Theater Building, and the Putnam Building. The "sportier" class of men +congregate before the Hotel Albany, where they cooly ogle the women +who pass. Never by any chance does one find a manager in a gathering +like this--not even a salaried manager or a press agent. "Hold +themselves aloof", you think; and they do, not only from these folk of +the lower crust, but from the best class of actors as well. Race +hatred and political prejudice are as nothing in comparison with the +feeling between the business man of the theater and the player. Each +despises the other, more or less secretly, and, except on the neutral +ground of the Lambs', each "herds" alone. + +The Great White Way is most nearly deserted at nine in the morning. +Then the rounder has gone to bed and the workman has not yet risen. +Surface cars laden with humanity pass and repass, but they do not +disgorge in the Rialto. The shop doors yawn widely, displaying blank +faces to the straggling typists who wander by. Hotel dining-rooms are +deserted, chairs piled upon the tables, and sleepy waiters leaning +disconsolately against the walls. Lowered curtains betray the +tardiness of the people whose duty it is to open the offices of +agents, play-brokers, and managers. Even the theater lobbies are +vacant. Ten o'clock brings prosperous-looking men, hustling to and +fro; and eleven sees the beginning of the actors' parade. By noon +Broadway is a river of humanity, flowing steadily to the sea of +Ambition. + +It is not until night, however, that it becomes clear why the street +should have the name that has been given it. Then the hundreds of +queer-looking signs you have seen through the day suddenly take on +light and life; burning blue birds fly "for happiness", glittering +chariot-horses race beneath illuminative memoranda of the virtues of +table waters, sparkling wine pours itself iridescently into a glowing +glass; millions of little electric jewels flash in the darkness; +whole buildings burst into premeditated flame; facades blaze like +giant fireworks ignited for a festival; and Broadway becomes in truth +The Great White Way. Standing beside The Herald Building and staring +northward, one sees a horizontal tower of glistening globes, the +"river of humanity" with a wonderful electric display on its banks. +The cars now begin to give up throngs from their lighted interiors, +pedestrians block the sidewalks, policemen shrill their regulation of +traffic, at Forty-second Street and Seventh Avenue the crush of +carriages is well-nigh impassible. Fifty thousand people pour into the +playhouses, to pour out again three hours later, super-man to become +supper man, and to add his grandeur, and his lady's, to the crowded +lobster palaces that line this dazzling path of pleasure. These are +darkened in time, and there are left only the all-night restaurants. +The streets grow quiet, and the pink dawn, unseen save by the +watchmen, unfolds itself over the house-tops. One by one the stars +disappear, fading into the day, as will those other stars, so little, +so infinitesimal, so transient a part of that tiny world which they in +their vainglory have christened The Great White Way. + + + + +_WHAT HAPPENS AT REHEARSALS_ + + Being something about the process by which performances are got + ready for the pleasure of the public and the profit of the + ticket speculators. + + +"You see, I've been fishing, too." + +"Hello! Only you--" + +"Wait! Mr. Leeds, I've told you a dozen times to count five before +that entrance!" + +"I thought I--" + +"Never mind what you thought! Go back! Now!" + +"Hello! Only you two here! What's become of--" + +"Wait!... Flynn, take this entrance for the sunset cue. Dim your +borders and throw in your reds.... Now, Mr. Leeds, once more!" + +Doesn't make sense, does it? Yet this is a commonplace passage from an +ordinary dress rehearsal. Anybody really connected with theatricals +could translate the extract at a glance, but intimate knowledge of the +stage, and its language, is gained only by actual experience. Of the +method of producing plays, more has been written and less is generally +understood than of any other common process. The outsider who devotes +an hour to watching a rehearsal is as well qualified to describe that +function as you or I, after seeing a ship steam down the bay, would be +to pen a treatise on the science of navigation. + +Most laymen have a vague idea that theatrical performances spring into +being full-fledged, like birds which prestidigitators hatch by the +simple expedient of shooting at the cage. If this statement seems +far-fetched, you have but to read the stories of the playhouse written +by clever men, like O. Henry and Hamlin Garland, whose wide knowledge +of most things under the sun does not seem to extend to things under +the calcium. + +Rehearsals are much more than aimless walking and talking, as +navigation is more than the turning of a wheel. Their direction is a +fine art, a very fine art, not the least unlike the painting of a +miniature, and one must comprehend something of this art to explain or +describe it. + +There are many points of similarity between a performance and a +painting, which must create an impression without reminding the +spectator of the brush-strokes which made that impression possible. +The preparation of a play is a succession of details. It is +astonishing how small a thing can cause the success or failure, if not +of the whole work, at least of an incident or an episode. A pause, a +movement, an expression, a light or a color may defeat or carry out +the intention of the dramatist. + +William Gillette's melodrama, "Secret Service", has a scene in which a +telegraph operator, dispatching military orders, is shot in the hand. +When the piece was given its initial hearing, Mr. Gillette, in the +role of the operator, upon receiving the wound (1) bandaged his hand +with a handkerchief, (2) picked up his cigar, and (3) went on +"sending." There was no applause. The second night the "business" was +changed. The operator (1) picked up the cigar, (2) bandaged his hand, +and (3) went on "sending." The audience was vociferous in its +approval. This particular instance of the importance of trifles is +easily explained. That a wounded man's first thought should be to care +for the wound is not remarkable, but that his first thought should be +of his cigar suggests pluck and intrepidity which the spectators were +quick to appreciate. Frequently, however, author and actors experiment +for months before finding the thing that makes or mars a desired +effect. + +The play-goer who believes himself a free agent does not understand +the art of the theater. That art being perfect, he restrains his +laughter and waits with his applause until the precise moment when the +stage director wants him to laugh or applaud. It often happens that a +laugh may spoil a dramatic situation, or that applause may not be +desirable at a particular time. For example, if an audience is +permitted to vent its enthusiasm over some stirring incident just +before the end of an act the applause after the act will be +appreciably less, and the number of curtain calls will be smaller. It +is a simple matter of mechanics to "kill" a laugh or a round of +applause, just as, in many cases, the impression made by an actor in a +situation may depend, not upon himself, but upon a detail of stage +direction. + +When two actors have an important dialogue, each wants to stand +farther "up stage"--which is to say farther from the footlights--than +the other, because the person fartherest "up stage" is most likely to +dominate the scene. "It's no use", I once heard William A. Brady say +to a veteran, who was rehearsing with a young woman star. "She knows +the tricks as well as you do, and she'll back through the wall of the +theater before she'll give you that scene!" + +The position of the player being of such consequence, it will be seen +at once that actors do not, as is commonly believed, roam about the +stage at will. In point of fact, they are practically automata, +reflecting the brain-pictures of the director and working out his +scheme. It is not unusual for the man in charge of a rehearsal to +instruct one of his puppets to "take six steps to the right at this +speech", or to "come down stage four steps." No person in a +performance ever "crosses" another person--that is, passes behind or +in front of that other person--without having been told just when and +how to do so. That movement which seems least premeditated often has +been most carefully planned, and you may be sure that, at the +performance you are witnessing, everybody on the stage knows to the +fraction of a yard where he or she will be standing at a given moment. +Edwin Booth's reply to a novice who inquired where he should go during +a long speech--"Wherever you are I'll find you"--would not be possible +from a stage director of today. + +While this pre-arrangement may appear to the layman to be opposed to +any semblance of life and spontanaeity, it is absolutely necessary to +the giving of a smooth performance. If actors really "felt their +parts" they would be about as dependable as horses that "feel their +oats", and the representation in which they took part would soon +become utterly chaotic. Fancy the awkwardness of Bassanio, in the +trial scene of "The Merchant of Venice", looking around to find +Shylock before inquiring: "Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?" + +Nor would this uncertainty be the worst effect of such unpreparedness. +On the stage every move, every gesture means something; conveys some +impression. Thus, in a dialogue in which one character is defying +another, a single step backward will produce the effect of cowardice, +or at least of weakness and irresolution, in the person who retreats. +The whole tension of a scene may be lost if one of the parties to it +so much as glances down or reaches out for some necessary article. + +In the enactment of "The Traitor", a dramatization of the novel by +Thomas Dixon, Jr., we found that a certain passage between the +"lead", or hero, and the "heavy", or villain, failed of its intended +effect. The hero, John Graham, is brought into court handcuffed, and +seated in the prisoners' dock. Steve Hoyle goes to him with a taunt. +It was thought veracious, even suggestive of manliness, that Graham, +hearing the taunt, should rise angrily, as though prevented only by +his bonds from striking his foe. After two weeks of guessing and +experimenting, we discovered that this very natural movement, for some +reason still inexplicable, gave the impression of weakness. It is +minutae like this that must be considered at rehearsal, and taught so +carefully that the actor moves, as it were, in a groove, swerving from +the determined course only as a needle in a sewing machine swerves in +its downward stroke. + +Accent and facial expression are planned by the stage director with +the same absolutism that marks his attention to manouvre. Few actors +can be counted upon to read every line intelligently, and frequently +the person in charge must stop a rehearsal to point out an +underlying thought. "You blur that speech", the director may say to +the actor. "You don't define the changes of thought which it implies. +See here! Jones says: 'I'll go to her with the whole story.' You +listen. Your first emotion is surprise. 'You will?' Suspicion enters +your mind. 'Then you----' The suspicion becomes certainty. 'Then you +love her, too!'" Thus, more frequently than will be believed by the +hero-worshipper, the much admired tone in which some big speech is +delivered is the tone of the teacher. + +[Illustration: "_If actors really 'felt their parts'_"] + +So much, so very much, may depend upon the emphasis given a single +word. The art of speaking, however, is not more part and parcel of a +perfect performance than the art of listening. The director not only +rehearses the manner of giving a sense, but the manner of receiving +it. He must note pronunciations, too, and, if there is an odd or +foreign name in the play, he must take care that all his people +pronounce it alike. The length of pauses, the tempo of comic or +serious conversations, the light and shade of the entire +representation depend upon his competence. + +Drama is the Greek word for action, and so, in a play, what the people +_do_ is even more important than what they _say_. Practically every +motion made on the stage, except that of walking, comes under the head +of what is known technically as "business." Laymen who believe that +mummers act on their own initiative, even "making up" lines as they go +along, will be surprised to learn that the manuscript of a workmanlike +play contains more "business" than dialogue. The performer picks up a +photograph or lights a cigar or toys with a riding whip, not because +it has occurred to him to do so, but because the author has written +down what he must do, and how and when he must do it, and the stage +director has taught him properly to interpret the author. + +Here is a page from the "prompt copy" of "Clothes." The unbracketed +sentences are dialogue; those in parenthesis are "business": + +WEST. + +I'm going to marry you in spite of---- + + (Checks himself suddenly. Gets his hat and brushes it with his + sleeve. Laughs a little.) + +Pardon me. My temper is a jack-in-the-box. The cover is down again. +Goodnight. + + (Walks quickly to door L. C., and exits. OLIVIA stands still a + moment, then throws herself into chair R. of table, and + indulges in a torrent of tears. The bell rings. She sits + upright and listens. It rings again. She rises and runs to door + L. 2. E. The MAID enters.) + +The capital letters--L. C., R., and L. 2. E. are abbreviations of +terms that indicate exact spots on the stage. You see, it is not left +to the discretion of West by which door he shall leave the room, nor +of Olivia into which chair she shall throw herself. This "business" +the director works over at rehearsal, elaborating, amplifying, making +clear. West is told precisely where he must find his hat, with which +arm he must brush it, in what tone he must laugh. If this were a case +where a pause would heighten the effect of an entrance, the maid would +be informed, as was the mythical Mr. Leeds in my opening paragraphs, +how many she must count, which is to say how long she must wait, +before entering. + +The more experienced an author, the more definite, exhaustive and +significant his "business." When a play goes into rehearsal, however, +there are always places where speech may be exchanged for action, and +often, after a dramatist has seen his work on the stage, he is able to +cut whole pages, the sense of which is made clear by the appearance, +the manner, or the "business" of his people. + +There are various kinds of "business", and of different purpose. The +old-fashioned stage director used to invent dozens of meaningless +things for actors to do, merely to "fill in", or give the appearance +of activity. It is related that, when the farce, "It's All Your +Fault", was being rehearsed, the man in charge insisted that Charles +Dickson, who was supposed to be calling at the room of a friend, +should "fill in" a long speech by taking a brush from a bureau drawer +and brushing his hair. + +"But", protested Mr. Dickson, "I'm simply visiting. I can't use +another man's brush." + +"Can't help that!" said the director. "There are long speeches here, +and you must do _something_ while they are being spoken." + +This kind of stage management, however, is no longer general. It is +understood now that the best way to make a speech impressive is to +stand still and speak it, so that actors are not often given by-play +without some good reason. + +"Business" may supply "atmosphere", as the spectacle of a man rubbing +his ears and blowing on his hands helps create the illusion of intense +cold. In the original production of "In the Bishop's Carriage", Will +Latimer, impersonated by a very slight young fellow, was supposed to +cowe Tom Dorgan, a thug of enormous bulk. The scene never carried +conviction, until our stage director hit upon an ingenious bit of +"business." He put a telephone on the table that stood between the two +men. Dorgan made a movement toward Latimer. Latimer, without flinching +or taking his eyes from Dorgan's face, laid his hand on the telephone. +That gesture suggested a world of power, the police station within +reach, law and society standing back of Latimer. It saved the +situation. + +Much "business" is obvious and essential, as Voysin's fumbling in his +wife's dressing table, in "The Thief", since this fumbling leads to +the discovery of the bills upon the purloining of which the play is +built. If a small article is to be used importantly in a performance +it must be "marked", so that the audience will know what it is and so +that it will not seem to have appeared miraculously to fit the +occasion. The paper cutter falls off the table in the first act of +"The Witching Hour", not by accident, but by carefully thought out +design, so that the audience will know where the instrument is and +recognize it when Clay Whipple uses it to kill Tom Denning. +"Business", in a word, may be the smashing of a door or the picking up +of a pin. It is the adornment that makes an otherwise bald and +unconvincing narrative seem real; that translates mere dialogue into +the semblance of every-day life. + +Many plays--even most plays--are substantially altered at rehearsal. +Dion Boucicault, the great Irish dramatist, said: "Plays aren't +written; they are rewritten." It has been proved utterly impossible to +judge the effect of a play from the manuscript, to know the merit of +any story or episode until it is visualized, translated into action. +Some time ago, William Gillette finished a farce, "That Little Affair +at Boyd's", to which he had devoted the greater part of a year, and in +which, therefore, he must have had considerable faith. Yet, after a +week's rehearsal, he dismissed the company engaged and abandoned the +idea of producing the piece. The soundness of his judgment was +demonstrated later when this farce, re-christened "Ticey", was revived +and failed utterly. + +When defects manifest themselves at rehearsal, the director does not +hesitate to make or to suggest changes, the directness of his course +depending upon the standing of his author. No dramatist is a hero to +his stage director. Also, while we're parodying maxims, it's a wise +author that knows his own play on its first night. + +The playwright is quick to learn humility. "Who's that meek-looking +chap?" somebody once asked Augustin Daly during the course of a trial +performance. "That!" returned Daly. "Oh, that's only the author!" If a +director is employed, the writer makes his suggestions through that +gentleman. Sometimes the experience of the producer, who brings a +fresh mind to the subject, is surer than the instinct of the author, +who may easily have lost sense of perspective from long association +with his work. + +"The Three of Us", a well-known domestic comedy, depends for its chief +interest upon a scene in the third act, where Rhy MacChesney pays a +midnight visit to Louis Berresford. When the piece was put into +rehearsal, the idea was that Berresford, hearing a knock at the door, +bade the girl hide herself, which she did, only to be discovered +later. George Foster Platt, the stage director, who recently filled +that post at the New Theater, objected that this was trite, +conventional, unnecessary. "Why shouldn't the young woman tell the +truth--that she came on a perfectly legitimate errand, meaning no +harm, and that she has nothing to fear--and refuse to hide?" The +author adopted his view, a new scene was written, and the play, +largely because of the unexpectedness of this turn of affairs, ran for +an entire year at the Madison Square. + +The knowledge of the stage director must cover the mechanical features +of production as well as the literary. It is essential that he should +understand the full value of light and scenic effects, and how to +produce them. A stage may be, and generally is, illuminated by means +of five different devices--from the "borders", which are directly +overhead; from calciums, in the balcony or on either side of the +stage; from spot lights, which really are calciums whose light is +focused upon one spot; from footlights, and from "strips", which are +placed wherever light from more remote sources would be obstructed. + +The "borders" are long, inverted troughs, stretching from the extreme +left of the stage to the extreme right and suspended from the roof of +the theater. When it is said that the light coming from the "borders", +or, indeed, from anywhere else, may be raised or lowered, may be white +or blue or red or amber, or a combination of these colors, reproducing +the glow of a lamp, or the first gray glimmer of sunrise, it will be +understood that the director has a wide range of effects at his +command. + +Just as the reading of a line may alter the impression created by an +entire passage, so may the least variation in illumination. Comedy +scenes, for example, must be played in full light, as sentimental +scenes are helped by half lights. If you could witness the second act +of "Charley's Aunt" performed in the steel blue of moonlight, and the +last act of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in the glare of "full up", you +would be amazed at the result. + +Color has as subtle an influence. I have seen the people in a play +fairly melt into the background of a yellow setting, causing their +action to seem vague and illy-defined. Augustus Thomas' "The Harvest +Moon" had a scene in which the same subject matter was repeated +successively in different settings. Unless you had witnessed this +performance, you would hardly believe how wholly unlike were the +impressions produced. Costumes and music have an equal portence, and +both call for the exercise of nice discretion. + +The personality of the stage director, and his manner at rehearsal, +are vital considerations. In acting, more than in any other art, the +feeling of the artist reaches through his work. Everyone who has +watched rehearsals has come to the conclusion, at one time or another, +that actors are something less than human. As a matter of fact they +are simply children, calling for the patience, the forbearance, and +the flexibility of view-point necessary in a nursery. Wholly +self-centered, having little contact with the outside world, their +standards, their emotions, their false valuations make constant +difficulties for the man who has to play upon them as upon a piano. + +The dramatic instinct and the egregious ego form a provoking blend. I +have known an actress, at a dress rehearsal, the night before the +public performance of a play, to go into violent hysterics, apparently +reduced to a nervous wreck by the strain of her work. "Great heavens!" +I have said to the director; "she won't be able to appear tomorrow." +"Acting, my boy", that gentleman would reply. "Acting for our benefit +and her own. She'll be all right in ten minutes." And in ten minutes +this same woman, done with her scene, would be advancing most logical +reasons why she should have somebody's dressing room and why somebody +else should have been given hers. I don't know exactly what +temperament is, but most actors think they have it. + +Player folk are full of superstitions, and many of these relate to +rehearsal. Few actors will speak the "tag", or last line, of a play +until its premiere. If that line were spoken the play would fail. +Managers are not exempt from similar ideas, a mixture of ignorance and +experience. A good final rehearsal is supposed to forecast a bad first +performance, and this notion is not without reason, since the people, +made sure of themselves, are pretty certain to lose the tension of +nervousness. When the actors like a play at rehearsal the manager +grows fearful. An actor usually likes best the play in which he has +the best part, and that is not invariably the best play. + +Small, indeed, is the share of glory that goes to "the power behind +the throne." His name adorns no bill-boards, and, on the program, you +will find it most frequently among the announcements that the shoes +came from Hammersmith's or that the wigs are by Stepner. The manager +knows the stage director, though, and respects him, reputation of this +kind being more profitable than reputation with the great, careless +public. + +Some few managers, like David Belasco and Collin Kemper, attend to the +staging of their own productions, and, indeed, are most noted for +their skill in this work. Many authors, among the number Augustus +Thomas, James Forbes and Charles Klein, "put on" their own plays. Then +there are "General Stage Directors", like William Seymour or J. C. +Huffman, employed at so much per annum by big firms like those of +Charles Frohman or the Shuberts. There are also detached directors, +who contract to stage a play here or there at sums varying from five +hundred to a thousand dollars for each piece. Julian Mitchell, R. H. +Burnside and George Marion head the list of men who make a specialty +of producing musical comedy, which is a field in itself. A broad +distinction exists between the stage director and the stage manager, +the province of the latter being only to carry out the plans of the +former. + +A dramatic composition is rehearsed from two to four weeks, the +rehearsals usually lasting from ten o'clock in the morning until five +in the evening, with an hour for luncheon. The play being finished +and accepted, the manager turns the manuscript over to the stage +director. This gentleman reads it carefully, realizing possibilities +and devising "business." I have known authors to write, and directors +to read, with a miniature stage beside them. On this stage, pins would +take the place of people, being moved here and there as one situation +followed another. The exact location of the characters at every speech +was then marked on the manuscript, so that little or no experimenting +was necessary at rehearsal. + +After he has read the play, the director consults with the author and +the manager and the scene painter. He helps the manager decide what +actors had best be engaged, and the four determine every detail of the +settings to be built and painted. Miniatures of these settings are +afterward prepared by the artist and officially O. K.'d. The manager +interviews such people as he thinks he may utilize, and comes to terms +with them. Actors are not paid for time spent in rehearsal, and, if +they prove unsatisfactory before the initial performance, may be +dismissed without notice and without recompense. + +It is an old custom, now in the way of being revived, to begin +operations by reading the play to the company. The first rehearsals +may take place in a hall, but, whenever it is possible, a stage is +brought into requisition. In the centre of the stage, directly back of +the footlights, is the prompt table, at which sit the author, the +director, and the stage manager. The players, when they are not at +work, lounge in remote corners, leaving the greater portion of the +floor space cleared for action. There is no scenery, no furniture, no +"properties." Two stools, with a space between them, may stand for +Juliet's balcony, for the Rialto Bridge, or merely for a window in a +modern apartment house. The casual observer may be puzzled at hearing +some Thespian harranguing to four vacant chairs, until it is explained +that these four chairs mark the corners of a jury box in which twelve +good men and true--same being "supers" yet to be employed--are to try +the hero for his life. + +In the beginning the actors read lines from their parts. A "part" +contains the speeches and "business" of the actor for whom it is +intended, with "cues", or the last few words of each speech preceding +his, so that he may know when to speak. An extract from the "part" of +the Queen in "Hamlet" (Act III; Scene I) would look something like +this: + + (You enter L.3.E.) + Did he receive you well? + ----free in his reply. + Did you assay him to any pastime? + ----he suffers for. + I shall obey you. Etc. + +The director shows the actor where he shall stand, and where go, at +every speech, and the stage manager notes on the manuscript such +"business" as is not already written in it. Also, he sets down +memoranda for the raising and "dimming" of lights, the ringing of +bells, and other things to be done "off stage." + +After a couple of days' rehearsal the players may be told that they +must have the lines of the first act committed to memory within a +certain time. "Letter perfect on Thursday!" says the director. "Don't +forget; I want to hear every 'if, 'and', and 'but' spoken on +Thursday!" + +So, act by act, the piece is learned, and, within a week, "parts" are +put away, and the real work of rehearsal begins. By this time, the +"roughing out" of the production has been done, positions have been +taught, and the director begins devoting himself to details. +Throughout the first fortnight he interrupts frequently; compels the +people to go back a dozen times over this scene or that; halts, thinks +out trifles, suggests and experiments. When the rehearsals are +two-thirds done, however, he and the author break in less and less +often. They sit, notebooks in hand, jotting down their observations, +which are read aloud to the company at the end of each act. + +Meanwhile, the director has attended to several important matters with +which the cast has no immediate concern. He has made out a list of +"properties", or small articles to be handled in the performance, and +has given it to the manager. This list requires care. For example, if +matches are needed in the play, it must be ascertained what kind of +matches were used at that period, and sulphur, parlor, or "safety" +matches must be specified. The manager must also be given lists of +furniture and draperies. Later on, a table of "music cues" must be +made out for the orchestra, and one of "light cues" for the +electrician. The play must be timed, so that it may be known to a +minute at what hour the curtain will rise and fall on every act. +Generally, a page of typewritten manuscript will occupy a minute, but +guess work on this point does not suffice for the director. The +players begin to consult him about their costumes, too, and he must +take into account the blending of colors, the fashions of the period, +and the personal characteristics likely to manifest themselves in +attire. + +I wish I could make you see a theater during the progress of a +rehearsal. The great auditorium is dark and vacant, but for two or +three cleaners, who may be sweeping and dusting. White cloths cover +the seats, and hang over the facades of the boxes. Through the center +of the stage, just behind the footlights, a gas pipe rears itself to a +height of five or six feet, and a single jet burns at the end of it. +Close beside this pipe is the table I have mentioned, where, with +their backs to the auditorium, sit three very busy, very attentive +gentlemen. Farther on the stage, which is bare except for a couple of +tables and a few chairs, stand two or three actors, attired in street +dress, talking in a fashion utterly out of keeping with their +every-day appearance. And on all sides are little groups of men and +women, who pay no attention to the people in the scene and to whom the +people in the scene pay no attention, who laugh and chat in subdued +tones until some "cue" brings them into the action. + +One day a notice appears on the call board. The company will leave +from the Grand Central Station the next morning at 7:20 o'clock. The +destination may be Syracuse, N. Y. The hotels in that city are +so-and-so. The theater is the New Wieting. There will be a dress +rehearsal there tomorrow night at 8. "Everybody will please be made up +half an hour earlier." + +[Illustration: "_This is the first time the director has seen them +'made up' and he is likely to have many suggestions_"] + +The dress rehearsal is the crowning ordeal in the business of +producing plays. It is the summing up of everything that has gone on +before; the concentration into one evening of all the work and nervous +strain of the past month. It is safe to say that in no other +profession is so much labor and agony crowded into a single effort. +Very often dress rehearsals last from eight o'clock at night until +eight the next morning. Sometimes they last longer. The dress +rehearsal of "The Burgomaster", at the Manhattan Theater, New York, +began at noon on Sunday and continued, without intermission, until +eleven o'clock Monday. Frequently, coffee and sandwiches are served in +one of the dressing rooms, or on the stage, and the tired players +snatch a bite or two between scenes. + +The director has been in the theatre all the afternoon, superintending +the setting of scenes and the "dressing" of the stage, which means +the placing of furniture and the hanging of curtains. Half an hour +before the rehearsal begins, the members of the company come from +their rooms, one by one, for an inspection of costumes. This is the +first time the director has seen them "made up", and he is likely to +have many suggestions. This wig isn't gray enough, that beard is too +straggling, the dress over there isn't in character. Back go the +actors to remedy these defects, and after a time the rehearsal is +started. + +Dress rehearsals invariably are prefaced by the managerial +announcement that there will be no interruptions, but I have never +seen an uninterrupted dress rehearsal. The leading man stops in the +middle of a love scene to inquire what he shall do with his bouquet, +or the leading woman to complain that the property man hasn't placed a +bundle of letters where it ought to be. I remember that, when we came +to the final rehearsal of "The Little Gray Lady", the manager, Maurice +Campbell, finished his remarks about interruptions, and called upon +the orchestra to begin the overture. The orchestra promptly struck +up "The Dead March from Saul", and the forbidden interruption came +on the spot. + +[Illustration: "_The interruption came on the spot_"] + +A dress rehearsal is supposed to be an ordinary performance without an +audience. But it isn't. There is no excitement, no enthusiasm, no +inspiration. Speeches fall flat, dialogue seems inordinately long and +wearisome, bits of "business" that have appeared all right before look +wholly different in changed surroundings. The actors, finding +themselves for the first time in the setting to be used, are utterly +lost. By-play with small articles, rehearsed twenty times, is +blundered over when the player finds the "prop" actually in his hands. +To observe the most experienced actor, and man of the world, handle a +tea cup or a card case at a dress rehearsal you would swear that he +had never seen such a thing before in his life. + +And, O, the wickedness of inanimate things--doors that will not shut, +matches that cannot be lit, table drawers that positively refuse to +open! Whenever something of this sort goes wrong, the carpenter or the +property man has to be called upon, and the scene stops, to be +resumed later with a flatness commensurate with the length of the +halt. Above all other sounds rings the clarion voice of the director, +shouting to electricians, stage hands, actors. Everybody makes notes, +to be quietly gone over with the company on the morrow, just before +the actual performance. + +At last, when the gray dawn is peeping in at the windows, when +everyone concerned has reached the ultimate stage of exhaustion, the +rehearsal is dismissed. The director makes a few remarks--sufficient +censure to prevent over-confidence, mixed with enough hope to give +courage. "Pretty bad", he says, "but I look for you to pull up +tonight. We'll get together for a little chat at four o'clock in the +smoking room of the theater." + +Thus ends the period of rehearsal--a period of hard work, trials, +tribulations, constant nervous strain. And it may all go for nothing. +In three short hours the labor of years on the part of the author, of +months on the part of the manager, of weeks on the part of the +players, may be proved utterly worthless and without result. This, +however, depends upon the public; those concerned have done all they +know, all that can be done, not by random and haphazard work; but by +skillful following of what is at once an exact science and a variable +art. The philosophic author shrugs his shoulders as he leaves the +theater. + +[Illustration: "_Matches that cannot be lit_"] + +"Well?" inquires the stage director. + +"Well", he replies. "We've done our best. It's on the knees of the +gods." + + + + +_THE ART OF "GETTING IT OVER"_ + + Being the sort of title to suggest a treatise on suicide, + whereas, in point of fact, this chapter merely confides all the + author does not know about acting. + + +Even in a dictionary of slang, inquisitive reader, you will not find +the phrase, "getting it over." "Art has its own language," and the +language of dramatic art sometimes is fearful and wonderful to +contemplate. In this particular idiom, "it" stands for an impression +or expression, and the precise boundary that the impression or +expression "gets over" is the footlights. Do I make myself clear? As +to the art of "getting it over," that is a thing about which no two +people are likely to agree. When, on the first night of F. Ziegfeld's +"Follies of 1910," a lady named Lillian Lorraine, ensconced in a swing +and two gorgeous silk stockings, was projected into the tobacco smoke +above the third row of orchestra seats, a great many star-gazers +united in the idea that her manager had solved the problem. + +[Illustration: "_A lady, ensconced in a swing and two gorgeous silk +stockings, was projected above the third row of orchestra seats_"] + +Paul Potter's comedy, "The Honor of the Family," was a melancholy +failure at 8.40 o'clock on the evening of its premiere in the Hudson +Theater. At 8.42 Otis Skinner, in the character of Colonel Philippe +Bridau, his aggressive high hat tilted at an insolent angle, his +arrogant cane poking defiance, had walked past a window in the flat, +and the piece was a success. Without speaking a word, without doing +the least thing pertinent to the play, Mr. Skinner had reached out +into the auditorium and gripped the interest of sixteen hundred bored +spectators. This is so fine a demonstration of the thesis that my +article really should be advertised as "with an illustration by Otis +Skinner." + +"In that instant," the rescuer said afterward, "I knew I had them." +Any actor would have known. "Getting it over," vague as the phrase may +be to a layman, is almost a physical experience to the man or woman +who accomplishes it. The thought sent out seems as material a thing +as a handball, "and," once remarked Richard Mansfield, "I can see it +go smashing past the footlights and into the brains of my auditors, or +striking an invisible wall across the proscenium arch and bouncing +back to the stage." + +The ability to send the thought smashing is surprisingly separate from +the art of acting. Many schooled and skilled performers, whose names +are omitted from this chronicle because I don't want to swell the +waiting list of my enemies, have never got into an auditorium without +coming through the door back of the boxes. Knowledge may be power, but +it isn't propulsion. Nothing is more brainless than a mustard plaster, +yet it draws. George W. Lewes wrote several illuminative works on +histrionism, and we have the word of A. B. Walkley that his Shylock +made tender-hearted persons glad that Shakespeare died in the +seventeenth century. + +On the other hand, there are mediocre mimes who possess the faculty of +establishing immediate communication with an audience. All of us +have applauded the chorus girl who, while endeavoring conscientiously +to put her best foot forward at the exact moment and in the precise +manner that thirty other best feet advanced, has scored a distinct +individual success. A young woman did that on the first night of Peter +Dailey's "The Press Agent" at the Hackett. She was fined $5 for it, +but another chorister, whose name is Elsie Ferguson and who attracted +attention in "The Girl From Kay's," is starring this year under +direction of Henry B. Harris. + +[Illustration: "_The thought sent out seems as material a thing as a +handball. Sometimes, I can see it striking an invisible wall and +bouncing back to the stage_"] + +Call it art, truth, intelligence, personality, magnetism, telepathy, +hypnotism--Edwin Stevens, in a recent interview, called it +hypnotism--or the _wanderlust_ of a personally-conducted aura, the +fact remains that there is a something by which some actors, without +visible effort, convey a distinct and emphatic impression. We have +seen John Drew step upon the stage, and, even while the applause +lingered over his entrance, shed a sense of elegance, manner and +mastery. We have responded to the charm of John Barrymore and A. E. +Matthews before they opened their mouths to speak. We have absorbed +the radiance of May Irwin's good humor, we have felt unbidden the +piquancy of Marie Tempest, we have laughed at a look from Bert +Williams, and we have been awed when William Gillette, walking on as +though there was nothing in the wind, has portentously and with +sinister purpose flicked the ashes from the tip of his cigar. + +No, friends and fellow dramatic critics, this is not acting. The art +and experience of acting may go into it, but acting can not be held to +account for what happens before a man begins to act. The curtain +rising on the second act of "Such a Little Queen" discloses two girls, +a telephone operator and a stenographer, chatting obliviously while a +clerk, at the other end of the office, robs the mail. It is important +that the robbery should register, else much that follows can not be +understood. For a long time, when we were rehearsing, it seemed +impossible to get this theft over the footlights. The girls were +pretty, their dialogue was breezy, and, for catching the mind, a word +in the mouth is worth two conveyed by pantomime. Our clerk, a capable +enough young fellow, simply could not get the attention of the +audience. After he had failed to do so at several trial performances, +Frank Keenan, who was staging the play, mounted the rostrum and took +his place. Mr. Keenan did exactly what had been done by his +predecessor. His movements, like the other man's, were according to +the book; his facial expression was the same, and, of course, he did +not speak. But he held us--Heavens, how he held us! Every eye was on +him the instant the curtain lifted, and, for all the notice they got, +the girls might as well have been painted on the proscenium arch. Even +after that, the original couldn't do it. While he was robbing the +mails, we had to rob the females of every distracting line of +dialogue. Wherever Frank Keenan sits is the center of the stage. + +[Illustration: "_William Gillette portentously flicked the ashes from +his cigar_"] + +If you ask me--and we'll assume that you _have_ asked me--what is +responsible for this sort of an achievement, I shall answer "self." I +don't mean personality. I mean that, whether he wishes it or not, what +"gets over" isn't so often what a man thinks or desires, but what he +_is_. The same thing is true of painters and sculptors and +novelists--"For," said Walter Bagehot, "we know that authors don't +keep tame steam engines to write their books"--and how much more +likely is it to be true of the artist who is himself the expression of +his art. In the footlight trough of a burlesque theater in the Bowery, +invisible to the audience but staring the performers in the face, is +the legend: "Smile, ladies, smile!" Yet these ladies, thus, +perpetually reminded, never spread the contagion of merriment and good +humor for which a Puritan community would have quarantined Blanche +Ring. Don't tell me Miss Ring is an artist. She isn't, but she's +jolly! + +The board of governors, or the house committee, or whatever it is that +directs the destinies of the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau isn't far +wrong, if, as is reported, it insists upon purity in its Madonna and +beneficence in its Man of Sorrows. Imagine a woman of notoriously evil +life, or even of evil life that wasn't notorious, impersonating Sister +Beatrice in the marvelous miracle play of Maeterlinck's. A gentleman +who had driven four wives--tandem--to death or the divorce court would +have been an offense as Manson in "The Servant in the House." Mr. +Forbes-Robertson is an admirable artist, but it was his spirituality, +his asceticism that "got over" in his delightful portrayal of The +"Third Floor Back". Certainly, it isn't the frankness of lines, verbal +or anatomical, that makes the difference between a musical comedy and +a salacious "girl show." It's the intention; the character of producer +and produced. + +"Robert Loraine isn't a good actor," William A. Brady said to me once, +"but he's sure to be a popular star, because of the vigor, the +virility, the fresh young manhood, the breath of outdoors that he +sends over the footlights." Consider the lilies in the cheeks of +Billie Burke, and then, if you can tear yourself away from that +floricultural exhibition, consider the box-office value of the youth +that spills itself from the lips of Wallace Eddinger and Douglas +Fairbanks. All the genius of Mrs. Fiske couldn't make an audience +believe in her motherhood in "The Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch"--"I wouldn't +trust her with a baby of mine," whispered a woman in the first-night +audience at the Manhattan--but how we felt the maternalism of Jennie +Eustace in "The Witching Hour," and, in another way, of Jessie +Millward in "The Hypocrites." Hedwig Reicher is a capital actress, but +she is also a self-reliant woman, and her skill couldn't win sympathy +for her supposed helplessness in "The Next of Kin." + +Two years ago I was trying terribly to make prospective audiences +sense the pitiful plight of poor little Anna Victoria in "Such a +Little Queen." I wrote a dozen lines as to the discomfort of +starvation, the inconvenience of being put into the street. They were +things that I thought, and then I remembered that, when I came to New +York with nothing but my "cheek" a woman might say under the +circumstances, I and two dollars in money, I used to look out of the +windows--the window--of my top-story room and think: "In all this +great city there isn't a human being who cares whether I live or die." +These very words I put into the mouth of Anna Victoria, and, of all my +fine speeches, that was the only one that really "got over." + +It "got over" because it was true, and because, whatever else truth +may be--has any one ever satisfactorily answered Pontius Pilate?--it +is the best bullet one can shoot across the footlights. Vicarious +experience sometimes does the trick, but only for persons of highly +developed mimetic faculty. I remember a woman in a play who was +supposed to receive her death blow with an "Oh, my God!" She was +particularly requested not to scream it, or to groan it, or to do +anything else conventional with it. It was to be a helpless "Oh, my +God!", a hopeless "Oh, my God!", an "Oh, my God!" that sounded like +the thud of a hammer at the heart. One night she got the tone. "How?" +we asked. "I heard a woman say it in the street. An ambulance surgeon +had told her her baby was dead." + +The first principle of "getting it over," then, is being, feeling, +believing. It is a principle that draws interest. Believing is very +important. Do you think John Mason could have held his audience +through the episode under the electrolier in "The Witching Hour" if he +hadn't believed in it? I don't. Perriton Carlyle, in "The Little Gray +Lady," made a mistake. It was a bad mistake, composed chiefly of a +hundred dollars that didn't belong to him. I never knew any one in my +life who hadn't stolen something sometime, and many of my friends are +pretty respectable now. I believed that Carlyle's foot had slipped, +and that, in spite of the accident, he might walk straight the rest of +his days. I couldn't get an actor to believe it. Edgar Selwyn didn't, +and Eugene Ormonde didn't, and, while they played the part, nobody +did. John Albaugh, Jr., an actor inferior to both of them, felt sure +of the inherent goodness of Carlyle, and so made possible the success +of a piece that could not have succeeded without universal sympathy +for its hero. + +Well, we've ridden a long way astride of a hobby. Let's get back, and +admit that we like sugar on our strawberries, which is to say art with +our nature. For, after all, a generous admixture of skill is required +in the expression of instinct, just as the peach-bloomiest complexion, +displayed in the high light of the theater, must have rouge upon it to +seem what it really is. Every stage manager knows the genuine society +girl who is engaged to lend verisimilitude to a drawing-room drama, +and who, at rehearsals, regards her teacup as though it were some +strange and savage animal. + +Edwin Booth's Othello was the triumph of an artist. He made audiences +forget that his embodiment of the Moor was a thin-chested, undersized +student of sensitive face and dreamy eyes. Charles Kean's first +appearance in London was as Macbeth, and his Lady Macbeth, a great +woman in both senses of the word, refused to play opposite a leading +man who "looked like a half-grown boy." Afterwards, she swore that he +grew during the performance. Salvini drawing tears from an audience +ignorant of his tongue by counting from one to an hundred; Bernhardt +scolding an actor in the death tones of Camille; Margaret Anglin +repeating "Poor little ice-cream soda" until her hearers broke down +sobbing--these are examples of pure artistry, of "getting over" +impressions without even a thought behind them. No one who knows the +first thing about the theater can underrate, be it never so slightly, +the value of training, of experience; the effectiveness of +carefully-thought-out "business", of inflection, of nuance, of pitch, +of rhythm, of all the things that require years of study, labor, and +perseverance. + +Tully Marshall, whose Hannock in "The City" was the finest, and seemed +the most inspired, acting of last season, tells me that he worked +out, almost mechanically, every thrill in his big scene at the end of +Act III. Mr. Marshall made so convincing the degeneracy, the +besottedness of the character that I have heard laymen insist he must +be a drug fiend. Yet this actor knows exactly how he produced his +effects. Ethel Barrymore, on the other hand, knew only that she had +striven for years, and had never quite felt herself "go smashing past +the footlights and into the brains of her auditors." + +[Illustration: "_Lady Macbeth swore that he grew during the +performance_"] + +Then, on the first night in New York of John Galsworthy's "The Silver +Box," when, as Mrs. Jones, charwoman, she stepped down from the +witness stand, silent, but thinking with all the force that was in her +of the wretched, squalid home to which she was returning alone, and +the curtain fell between her and the vast stillness of the awed +audience, she knew that at last she had "got it over." + +"And, oh!" says Ethel Barrymore, "I found the knowledge sweet." + + + + +_SOMETHING ABOUT "FIRST NIGHTS"_ + + Wherein is shown that the opening of a new play is more + hazardous than the opening of a jackpot, and that theatrical + production is a game of chance in comparison with which + roulette and rouge-et-noir are as tiddledewinks or old maid. + + +While the curtain was rising and falling after the third act of "Seven +Days", then being given its initial performance in New York at the +Astor Theater, a woman behind me remarked: "I'll bet Hopwood is the +happiest man in town at this moment!" + +The person to whom she alluded was Avery Hopwood, collaborative author +of the play in question, and almost any auditor in the house would +have declined to take the other side of the wager. "Seven Days" was an +obvious success, an unexpected success, and a success that had arrived +something after schedule time. Mr. Hopwood had shared with your humble +servant the credit for his first work, "Clothes", and his second and +third works, "The Powers That Be" and "This Woman and This Man", had +not called the fire department to the Hudson River. Those watchful +gentlemen, the managers, who measure a dramatist by the line in front +of his box office, were beginning to wonder whether "Hopwood really +can write a play." Here was a vociferous answer to the question--an +answer destined to be repeated, with greater emphasis, a year later in +"Nobody's Widow." "Certainly", I thought, "Hopwood _is_ the happiest +man in town at this moment!" + +Subsequently, on my way out of the Astor, I came within an ace of +running into "the happiest man." He was standing on the curb, half a +block north of the theater, and he didn't "look the part" with which +he had been invested. His face was white and set, his brow puckered +into deep wrinkles, and his chief occupation seemed to be the nice one +of nibbling the skin from his knuckles without actually lacerating +them. "Well", he inquired, with agonized anxiety, "how did it go?" + +"A knockout!" I replied, in the vernacular. + +"On the level?" he asked. "You're not trying to jolly me?" + +There was no suggestion of insincerity in the query. It was evident +that Diogenes, if he had returned to look for the happiest, instead of +for an honest man, must needs have gone farther than the author of +"Seven Days." + +From contact with other victims and from personal experience, I feel +qualified to say that the most terrible ordeal known since the days of +the inquisition is a theatrical "first night." Dramatist, manager, +actors and even stage hands are tortured by it, and their sufferings +are not to be gauged by the number of times they have undergone the +horror. The "first night", moreover, is a thing unique in art. A +painting may hang for weeks before the painter learns whether he has +succeeded or not; a book may be on the market nearly a year without +its author knowing the result of his effort. In either case, +criticisms are many and varying. The verdict on a play, however, is +given with the suddenness and force of a blow, and sometimes it is +equally conclusive. Failure in any other field leaves something in the +way of assets; theatrical failure sweeps away everything. Realize +this, put yourself in the place of those most concerned, and you will +understand the effect of a "first night." Suppose that all your +possessions, representing the labor of a life-time, were tied together +and suspended by a string over a bottomless abyss. The feeling with +which you would watch that string as it stretched to the breaking +point would be akin to the feeling with which the dramatist watches +the audience come to pass judgment on his work. + +Of course, it is not always, or often, true that a single production +either makes or breaks those concerned in it, but even a single +production is so large an element in this making or breaking that it +becomes of vital importance. Sometimes, too, "first night" gatherings +are wrong, and performances which they condemn afterward prove great +artistic and financial hits. This, however, is rare; the say of the +initial audience, made up of professional reviewers and experienced +theater-goers, is likely to be conclusive. Henrietta Crosman, then an +unknown actress from the West, came to New York with "Mistress Nell" +on October 9, 1900, and opened to receipts under two hundred dollars. +A single day later the sums being paid into the box office were +limited only by the seating capacity of the house. Helen Ware, after +years of unrecognized good work in small parts, achieved stellar +honors within the three hours of her first metropolitan appearance as +Annie Jeffries in "The Third Degree." No chronicle short of a +six-volume book could begin to give an account of the playwrights and +players whose stock has soared a hundred points during the course of a +single evening on Broadway. + +Failures determined with equal promptitude have been so numerous +during the past few seasons that it seems idle to recapitulate. One +night proved a sufficiently long time in which to guess accurately at +the future of "Septimus", "Drifting", "A Skylark", "Mr. Buttles", +"Miss Patsy", "The Heights", "The Upstart", "The Scandal", "The +Young Turk", "The Foolish Virgin", "The Next of Kin", "The Fires of +Fate", "Children of Destiny", "Welcome to Our City", and "A Little +Brother of the Rich." Two or three of these had been great triumphs in +London and Paris, half a dozen were by famous Englishmen and +Americans, nearly all represented extravagant expenditure on the part +of experienced managers, but neither precedent nor prominence +disturbed the "first night" jury in New York. Augustus Thomas' "The +Ranger" was voted impossible a few years ago at Wallack's with as +little hesitation as though it had been written by John Jones instead +of by the author of "Arizona." Frank McKee cancelled the bookings of +Hoyt's "A Dog in the Manger" while the second act was in progress at +Washington, and "The Narrow Path", offered for a run at the Hackett, +never had another performance there--or anywhere else. + +[Illustration: "_A playwright whose stock has soared a hundred points +in a single evening_"] + +With such possibilities as these before his eyes, with "Mrs. Dane's +Defence" at one end of the pendulum's reach and "The Evangelist" at +the other, do you wonder that the playwright is nervous on a "first +night"? + +Unfortunately, it is not alone the behavior of the "death watch" in +front of the footlights that gives cause for anxiety. Actors and +actresses are uncertain creatures, while inanimate objects seem to +have a perfect genius for going wrong at critical times. No amount of +rehearsing can be depended upon to prevent a moon wobbling as it rises +at an initial performance, or to make the crash of thunder sound +unlike Bridget taking it out of the pots and pans after dinner. A +laugh at a serious moment may decide the fate of a play, the fate of a +play may make a difference of several hundred thousand dollars to its +manager, and, this being true, what the manager says to the property +man or the electrician after a _faux pas_ like either of those +mentioned is a problem you can solve in half the time you once devoted +to discovering the age of Ann. + +I remember vividly the primal performance at Hartford of Paul Arthur's +melodrama, "Lost River." One of the mechanical effects in this piece +was a bicycle race, during which the contestants pedaled wildly on +stationary machines. The effect of passing landscape was given by a +panorama and a fence that moved rapidly in the opposite direction. At +least, they were supposed to move in the opposite direction, but on +the occasion of which I speak they didn't. The race became one between +the bicyclists and the surrounding country, and the surrounding +country was far in the lead when an irate stage manager rang down the +curtain. This accident never happened again, but, had the "first +night" been in New York instead of on the road, once would have been +enough. + +The late A. M. Palmer used to tell a story illustrative of the fact +that players, under stress of "first night" excitement, often share +"the wickedness of inanimate things." Mr. Palmer produced "Trilby" +when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb, and upon the consequences +of the performance depended his immediate future. Paul Potter's +dramatization opened in Boston, and gave no cause for worry except in +the matter of its extreme length. Half the population of Boston is +also the population of suburban towns, and Sarah Bernhardt, George +Cohan and a Yale lock couldn't keep 'em from leaving a theater at +train time. Consequently, when eleven o'clock came and the last act of +"Trilby" had just begun, a frown settled on the classic brow of the +ordinarily imperturbable Mr. Palmer. + +Virginia Harned, neither as experienced nor as clever then as now, was +playing Trilby, and she felt that her portrayal had been more or less +overshadowed by the Svengali of Wilton Lackaye. There is no better +part in the drama than that of the hypnotist, while the opportunities +of the name role are limited. Miss Harned's first chance to make her +talent conspicuous came with the death of the model in the last act. +"Trilby began to die at 11:10", declared Mr. Palmer. "The audience had +already commenced looking at its watches, and a photograph of my +thoughts would have developed into a blue print. Miss Harned, on +the contrary, approached the scene with joy, too wrought up to take +into consideration the fact that the people in front had begun to be +more interested in Newton than in the affairs of Little Billee. Trilby +died in every way known to medical science and the art of acting. She +died of heart disease and consumption and cerebral spinal meningitis. +She died a la Bernhardt and Marlowe and Clara Morris. She died on the +sofa and the piano stool and two of the rugs, and, just when I thought +she had breathed her last against the door R. I. E., she found +strength to take a few steps and do it all over again in the center of +the stage. Little Billee was waiting in the wings, but, as you will +understand if you remember the play, no one could come on until Trilby +had shuffled off her mortal coil. And Trilby, on this occasion, simply +would not shuffle. It was nearly 11:30 when she finally gave up the +ghost on a davenport L. C., in the presence of that portion of the +audience sufficiently Yankee to be determined upon missing nothing it +had paid to see. That death scene, abridged and expurgated, afterward +became a most powerful and effective bit of acting, but I confess that +on the evening in question the quality of it was somewhat obscured by +the quantity." + +[Illustration: "_Sarah Bernhardt, George Cohan, and a Yale lock +couldn't keep a Boston audience from leaving at train time_"] + +Dramatic authors, likely to be the victims of incidents of this sort, +cannot be blamed for manifesting marked peculiarities as regards +"first nights." When my best and least successful play, "The Secret +Orchard", was given its premiere at the Lyric, I trotted off to see "A +Knight for a Day" at Wallack's. James Forbes spends his evening behind +the scenes. After the opening of "The Commuters", which ran six months +at the Criterion, he locked himself in a dressing room, convinced that +the piece was a dismal failure, and refused to come out, even when +implored to do so in order that the leading woman might get into her +street clothes. Throughout the performance of his maiden effort, "Her +Husband's Wife", "Al" Thomas walked up and down the block in front of +the Garrick. Few men are able even to assume the insouciance of Harry +B. Smith, who, at the primal presentation of his "The Bachellor +Belles", smoked a cigar in the lobby throughout the first act and went +home in the middle of the second. + +[Illustration: "_Trilby died in every way known to medical science and +the art of acting_"] + +Until constant ridicule broke up the practice, most authors needed +little urging to induce them to address their audiences on "first +nights." As recently as the Fall of 1909, during the performance of +"On the Eve", Martha Morton, its adapter, made a speech from her box +at the Hudson. The man behind the pen has so little chance to get into +the limelight--poor fellow!--that to speak or not to speak will always +be a mooted question with him. Either course is likely to be mistaken +by the critics, who put down the unfortunate scribe as a vainglorious +person if he appears and as a poseur if he does not. Personally, I +feel that the average author is much more favorably represented by +what he writes than by what he says, and that neither he nor the +player has any real justification for mixing his own personality with +those of the puppets he creates. It is disillusioning, after having +spent some time in witnessing stirring deeds and hearing +high-sounding words, to be confronted with a little, stoop-shouldered +man, his face white in the glare of the footlights and his hands +anxiously seeking a refuge in his ill-fiting and pocketless dress +trousers, and to realize that this grotesque figure is that of the +inventor of all the splendid beings you have seen. + +New York audiences are almost the only ones in the country that ever +manifest any particular desire to gaze upon the dramatist. I heard a +man cry "Author!" once at a "first night" in Chicago, and the ushers +were about to eject him when the manager explained to them that the +enthusiast was acting with perfect propriety. + +I have told you, in another part of this book, of the oratorical +talent of Augustus Thomas, who is the most impressive of +before-the-curtain monologists. He makes a fine appearance on the +stage, self-possessed and well-dressed, and his little talks +invariably are brief and witty and well-rounded. So, too, are those of +Eugene Presbrey. Paul Armstrong's undiplomatic words have been known +to prove a "last straw" on the graves of his failures, and Edith +Wharton and Charlotte Thompson, clever women both but not +prepossessing, almost turned into burlesque the "first night" of "The +Awakening of Helena Richie." Charles Klein is not big enough +physically to fill the eye, and David Belasco, with his trick of being +pushed violently to the front and of fingering his forelock, creates +an impression of insincerity and preparedness. William Gillette has +all an actor's skill in appealing to an audience, and, I am told, +saved the day--or, rather, the night--for his "Sherlock Holmes" in +London. George Ade and Sydney Rosenfeld are amusing on "the apron", +but other brilliant men, like Edwin Milton Royle and Richard Harding +Davis, are not at their best when obliged to say "thank you." Mr. +Davis figured in a neat bit of good humor in New Haven, where, after +the third act of Mr. Thomas' adaptation of his "Soldiers of Fortune", +Mr. Thomas assumed his identity and he pretended to be Mr. Thomas. + +[Illustration: "_The author--as you imagine him, and as he proves to +be_"] + +English playwrights are much more at ease than are American. Henry +Arthur Jones, A. W. Pinero, Henry V. Esmond, and even young Hubert +Henry Davies look well and talk well when they have occasion to "speak +out in meeting." George Bernard Shaw's witticism when somebody in the +gallery hissed while he was making a curtain speech has become famous. +The Irish Voltaire had just referred to the play of the evening, the +third act of which had been concluded, when this sound of +disapprobation cleft the circumambient atmosphere. "Ah!" said Mr. Shaw +to the disturber, "you and I are quite agreed, but we seem in the +minority." + +I cannot pass by the subject of "first night" addresses without +relating to what extent Washington is indebted to me for a chatty five +minutes with Mr. Thomas on the occasion of the production of "The +Hoosier Doctor." At that time, I was dramatic critic of The Washington +Post. I was riding horseback, and, at five in the afternoon, found +myself six or eight miles from town, and in the presence of Mr. +Thomas. He had been bicycling and his machine had broken down. "Lend +me your horse, like a good fellow", he begged, when we came together. +"I want to get back for the performance of 'The Hoosier Doctor.'" + +"Can't!" I replied. "I've got to write a review of that same play." + +"Well", returned the author, smiling in the midst of his perplexity, +"my claim is the stronger. 'The Hoosier Doctor' can be performed +whether your criticism is written or not, but your criticism cannot be +written unless 'The Hoosier Doctor' is performed." + +In the end, the public was obliged to forego neither play nor review, +since Mr. Thomas galloped to the city on my horse and I was picked up +soon after by a farmer in a wagon. + +A list of the "first nights" that have gone down into histrionic +history would vie in length with a record of the bits of the true +cross on view in Europe. Primarily, one would be obliged to record +premieres at which riots have occurred, and since, at one time a +century ago, it was easier to hold an Irish election without a fight +than to give an initial dramatic performance without one, this would +take much space and research. The initial representations of great +works, such as those of Shakespeare and Moliere, and the professional +debuts of celebrated actors, like Thomas Betterton and Peg Woffington, +would baffle the descriptive powers of so humble a chronicler as +myself. Assuredly, a whole book might be written about the reception +originally accorded "Hamlet," and I am certain that we should all like +to know precisely what happened at the Boston Theater on the evening +of Monday, September 10, 1849, when Edwin Booth made his first bow to +the public. Nearly everyone remembers the interesting story of the +"first night" of "A Parisian Romance" at the Union Square Theater on +January 10, 1883, when an obscure young man named Richard Mansfield +made the minor role of Baron Chevrial the biggest part in the play and +himself the most-talked-of actor in America. + +My own most notable "first night" was at Rome, some time in May, +1890, when, as a youngster, I heard "Cavalleria Rusticana" sung for +the first time on any stage. My recollection of the event is not +vivid, but I recall that the composer, Pietro Mascagni, wept, and that +the audience joined him, having already done every other emotional +thing you could call to mind. This sort of enthusiasm is not +exceptional among the Latins, and "first nights" in Madrid, Naples, +Brussells and Paris always are likely to be extremely spectacular. +Berlin, Vienna and Prague are less excitable, though I witnessed +rather a remarkable demonstration at a performance of an opera called +"Die Hexe" in the metropolis last mentioned, and saw a crowd draw home +Charlotte Wolter's carriage one evening in Vienna. + +The stalls in a London playhouse hold men and women as reserved and +conservative as any in the world, but the pit, which signifies +approval by the conventional applause, has made its disapprobation +dreaded at premieres. The "boo!" of the Cockney who has paid "two and +six" for his place and is resolved upon getting his money's worth or +knowing the reason why is a potent damper. Disorder in the pit may not +even have been caused by the poorness of a production; persistent +enthusiasm on the part of a claque or the appearance of a foreign star +often provoke it. I shall never forget how near several patriotic +Americans, myself among them, were to provoking a riot against Nat +Goodwin at the opening of "The Cowboy and the Lady" in the Duke of +York's Theater. + +New York, which never commits itself with a "Boo!" or a "Bis!", which +never hisses and somewhat rarely applauds, provides the most terrible +ordeal in the world for author, actor and manager. The "first nighter" +is as much a type here as in London. A small percentage of him are the +tired and idle rich, the majority being made up of wine agents, +bookmakers, professional "dead-heads", ladies of uneasy virtue, and +dramatic critics. Of an opening audience at Weber & Fields' it was +said once that "there wasn't a woman in the house who hadn't changed +her hair and her husband within the year." + +These boulevardiers have seen everything produced in town during a +decade, or perhaps two decades, and are absolutely pleasure-proof. +Their attitude expresses the defiance: "I _dare_ you to satisfy me." +One of their number, asked as to the fate of a comedy, is reported to +have replied: "I'm afraid it's a success." If it were only that these +people knew everything, and were hard to please, nobody would have the +right to object to them. The trouble is that they are pleased with the +wrong fare. Witty lines and subtle construction, delicate sentiment +and simple sincerity, except for their appeal to the reviewers, must +wait for recognition until the second night. Legs and lingerie, +_double entendre_ and bald suggestion, the wit of the slap stick and +the melody of the street piano are the chosen diet of this "death +watch", which "sits in solemn silence", with impassive faces and row +after row of masculine shirt bosoms rearing themselves in the darkness +like tombstones in a pauper graveyard. + +How to avoid this chilling influence is a puzzle that has agitated +every producer on Broadway. Your New York manager has a list of the +seats regularly occupied by the critics, and these go out first. Then +the wine agents and book-makers aforesaid buy the tickets laid aside +for them. Next the general public has an opportunity, of which it is +slow to take advantage, and then whatever has been left is given away. +Nobody ever saw a small "first night" audience in Manhattan, nor one +in which there were not at least three hundred enthusiastic persons. +This enthusiasm deceives no one--least of all the newspaper men for +whom is it intended--and it rebounds like a ball against the hardness +of the general imperturbability. Many a time, while the gallant three +hundred were splitting their gloves and callousing their hands, I have +seen traveling from critic to critic that glance of understanding and +disapproval which has sealed the fate of so many thousand plays. + +The New York critics are about a score in number, and, during the past +few years, there have been many changes in the corps. Its dean, +William Winter, resigned from The Tribune, where his post is filled by +Arthur Warren. Alan Dale, of The American, continues to be the most +widely known of our writers on theatrical topics, and we still have +with us, as stand-bys, Adolph Klauber, of The Times; Louis De Foe, of +The World; Rennold Wolf, of The Telegraph; Acton Davies, of The +Evening Sun; Charles Darnton, of The Evening World; Rankin Towse, of +The Post, and Robert Gilbert Welsh, of The Evening Telegram. The Press +has been carrying on a lively theatrical war, and, perhaps for that +reason, its reviews manifest not only ignorance but the most bumptious +disregard of general and expert opinion. Arthur Brisbane having +declared against "abuse", The Evening Journal finds good in +everything; The Sun has had no regular critic since it lost Walter +Prichard Eaton, and The Herald boasts that it prints only "reports" +of performances. "First nights" are arranged, when that is possible, +on different evenings, so that all the critics may be present at each, +but, when there is a conflict, every man picks out the opening he +considers most important and either lets the others go until later in +the week or sends his assistant. + +There are thirty or forty reviewers who represent magazines and +periodicals, but, for the most part, these are _de classe_. They flock +alone in the lobbies during intermissions, when the men from the daily +newspapers congregate in groups to exchange a word or two about the +play and to discuss other matters of common interest. These foyer +gatherings pronounce a verdict that, as we have seen, is +seldom--perhaps too seldom--overruled. Many a manager has leaned +against his box office after the third act of a new piece, +eavesdropping to learn what intelligence, experience, keen judgment +and careful reading and rehearsing have not told him. + +For there are two "anxious seats" on a "first night" in New York: One +in the author's box and one in the manager's. + + + + +_IN VAUDEVILLE_ + + Being inside information regarding a kind of entertainment at + which one requires intelligence no more than the kitchen range. + + +Variety is the spice of life. So is vaudeville. If you doubt it, +consider Gertrude Hoffmann, Valeska Suratt, Eva Tanguay, and other +beauties unadorned of "the two a day." + +Time was when "continuous performances" offered the best means of +convincing Aunt Jane that there were harmless theatrical +entertainments besides "The Old Homestead." Variety, of course, had +been a word to excite horror. But vaudeville--well, vaudeville was to +variety what "darn" is to "damn!" + +And, as the advertisements have it, there was a reason. B. F. Keith, +when he took the curse off a type of amusement generally associated +with dance halls, "stag" houses, minstrel shows and "The Black Crook", +had his eye on Aunt Jane. Vaudeville, born in France during the +Fifteenth Century, and named after Les Vaux de Vire, the home of its +father, Oliver Basselin, stood for something just a little more ribald +than variety. Mr. Keith resolved to stand for nothing of the kind. +Beginning in Boston, he soon invaded Philadelphia and New York with +shows so religiously expurgated that they couldn't have drawn the +slightest protest from a Presbyterian Synod. + +Oaths might not be spoken at Keith's. Betighted damsels were banned +and barred--forbidden fair. Short skirts were permitted under certain +rigorous restrictions. One of the restrictions was that ladies who +wore short skirts must not wear silk stockings. I remember wondering +wherein the silk worm was more immoral than the cotton-gin, and +concluding that, despite the phrase "ugly as sin", Mr. Keith had +defined sin as anything attractive. + +Virtue and vaudeville were synonymous for something over a decade. I +don't know precisely when people stopped going to hear the new +ditties, and began going to see the nudities. "Living pictures" began +it. "Living pictures", you may recollect, were ladies in pink union +suits. They were supposed to be popular because of artistic draping +and grouping, but the minimum of drapery always brought about the +maximum of popularity. It was but a step from union suits to non-union +suits; from fleshings to whitewash and bronze varnish. In 1906 London +went quite mad over a Venus whose entire wardrobe was applied with a +paintbrush. Eventually Venus rose from the sea in America, but, by the +date of her arrival, our own performers had so far outstripped her +that she didn't create even a mild sensation. + +Koster & Bials' had paved the way with Charmion, who disrobed while +seated upon a flying trapeze. Oscar Hammerstein had done some +astonishing things at his Victoria Theater. Salome, driven out of the +Metropolitan Opera House, had taken refuge in vaudeville, garbed--if +one may use the word in connection with a costume somewhat less +extensive than a porus plaster--in a fashion that made it easy to +understand why John the Baptist lost his head. Maud Allen, in England, +and Ruth St. Denis, in the United States, were reconciling the +authorities to the nude in art, and making possible any sort of +display that had dancing or diving as an excuse. Annette Kellarman, +attired in a bathing suit that clung to her like a poor relation, +wakened wonderful interest in aquatic sports, while Lala Selbini +showed herself to be of the opinion that clothing was inconsistent +with good juggling, and a female person whose name escapes me +demonstrated that bare legs were a great help in playing the violin. + +[Illustration: "_Venus rose from the sea_" (_With apologies to +Botticelli_)] + +The Princess Rajah, an "Oriental" dancer who had attracted attention +at Huber's Museum, journeyed to Broadway, where an excuse for her +undress, and her wrigglings, was found in the faint pretence that she +impersonated Cleopatra. "Placing a snake in her bosom", read a note on +the program, "she danced before a statue of Antony until it bit her." +Remarkable as this behavior may seem on the part of a Roman General, +it was not wholly incomprehensible to theatre-goers who witnessed the +antics of Cleopatra. According to Rajah, the Queen of Egypt +demonstrated her sorrow chiefly by seizing a kitchen chair and +whirling round and round with it in her teeth. + +Of the degeneration of vaudeville the most regrettable feature is that +it has brought about no change in the character of vaudeville +audiences. Perhaps I should say in their personnel, since their +character _must_ have been affected by all this tawdry bawdry and +sensationalism. True, one or two of the down-town theaters have become +noted for the "sporty" aspect of their audiences, and, necessarily, +all these houses have lost the patronage of women shoppers, country +people and stay-at-homes that once were so assiduously courted. +Mostly, however, the crowds that flock to such performances are made +up of young girls, shop assistants, and respectable middle-class folk +who look and listen unblushingly at sights and to sentences they would +not tolerate in their own circles. It does not seem possible that +this sort of thing can be without its influence upon their lives. + +[Illustration: "_Danced before a statue of Antony until it bit her_"] + +When vaudeville was written down as "spice", however, I had in mind +not so much its offences against propriety as its appeal to palates +that would reject solid food. Vaudeville addresses itself to amusement +seekers incapable of giving, or unwilling to give, concentrated and +continuous attention. This kind of entertainment calls for orderliness +of mind no more than does the newspaper headline. There is no sequence +of thought to be preserved, no logical procession of ideas to be kept +in line; the impression of the moment is sufficient and supreme. +Naturally, such a performance is attractive to undisciplined brains, +to empty brains, and to lazy brains. You need bring to a vaudeville +theater nothing but the price of admission.... It is this same asking +little that has made the popularity of moving pictures. + +Vaudeville has about the same relation to the "theatrical business" +that insurance bears to other business. When a business man has +failed at everything else he tries selling insurance; when a +prominent actor has "closed" twice or three times in rapid succession +he "goes into vaudeville." The better element is infused without +fusing. The regulars are inclined to look askance at these volunteers, +resenting the fact that the latter use as a make-shift what _they_ +have adopted as a profession, and insisting, often not without +justice, that, "while big names may draw the crowds, it is our work +that holds 'em." I'm afraid the attitude of many recruits does not +tend to lessen this friction. "Is there a 'star dressing room?'" a +well-known prima donna inquired loftily as she entered the theater +where she was to make her debut in "the two a day." + +The juggler to whom the question was put, replied: "Yes ... for +falling stars!" + +However, many of these "falling stars" perform the strange +astronomical feat of climbing back into the heavens. A very large +number of the men and women at present heading their own companies +have descended into vaudeville, as Antaeus occasionally descended +to earth, to renew their strength. One attractive play and Mr. V. +Headliner becomes Mr. Broadway Star. Robert Hilliard had been in the +varieties for years when he was restored to "the legitimate" by Porter +Emerson Browne's "A Fool There Was." Sarah Bernhardt, as everybody +knows, appeared at a music hall in London _en route_ to fill her +latest engagement in America. Here we have no "Divine Sarah", but +vaudeville has sung its siren-song successfully to Mrs. Patrick +Campbell, Lily Langtry, Charles Hawtrey, Henrietta Crosman, Henry +Miller, Arnold Daly, Lillian Russell, and numberless other mimes of +great reputation. This song is most aggravating to producers of +musical comedy, whose performers, when the librettist insists upon the +preservation of some of his text or when their names do not appear in +sufficiently large type on the program, always are ready to "go into +vaudeville." + +[Illustration: "_You need bring to a vaudeville theatre nothing but +the price of admission_"] + +A list of people at present offering one-act plays discloses no fewer +than twenty actors and actresses of recognized ability. There is +Marietta Olly, who did capital work in "The Whirlwind" at Daly's, and +Nat C. Goodwin, who, truth to tell, draws a big salary less because of +his histrionic than because of his matrimonial versatility. Frank +Keenan, Edward Ables, and Maclyn Arbuckle, who has made a hit in +Robert Davis' clever comedietta, "The Welcher", have been stars within +the twelvemonth and are now in vaudeville, as are also Amelia Bingham, +W. H. Thompson, Charles Richman, William Courtleigh, George Beban, +Lionel Barrymore, McKee Rankin, Edwin Arden, Sam Chip and Mary Marble. +Vaudeville produces its own luminaries, too--Cissie Loftus, for +example, and Elsie Janis, who "did a specialty" for years before she +was taken up by Charles Dillingham. + +Many of the cleverest entertainers in the world are identified +exclusively with the varieties. There are Yvette Guilbert, Albert +Chevalier, Harry Lauder, and Alice Lloyd, each of whom has a following +as large and appreciative as that of Maude Adams or John Drew. Other +players, less widely known, go round the circuits year after year, +making themselves solid with a class of theater-goers that has come to +depend upon them for half an hour of amusement. Cressy and Dayne are +among these, as are Mr. and Mrs. Perkins D. Fisher, Clayton White, +Carrie de Mar, Irene Franklin and Tom Nawn. George Cohan's career +began in vaudeville, and no one who has owed twenty minutes of +laughter to his ability as a racounteur will ever forget the late Ezra +Kendal. Such men as Jesse Lasky and Joseph Hart, recognizing the +opportunities of "the two a day", have made elaborate productions of +what really are little musical comedies, and have presented them as +part of regular variety bills. Mr. Lasky's "The Love Waltz" and "At +the Country Club" were as pretentiously staged as any single act in a +comic opera. + +It is not my desire or disposition to deny the cleverness of these +people or the attractiveness of their "turns." I doubt that today the +most wearied theater-goer could find a vaudeville bill without one or +two numbers that would entertain him. The point is that this +amusement-seeker would be obliged to take a vast quantity of chaff +with his wheat, to review an endless procession of clog dancers, trick +bicyclists, wire walkers, trained animals, tramp comedians, acrobats +and equilibrists before coming to that part of the program which might +interest him. Most of these fillers-in are notable chiefly for the +awe-inspiring quality of their English, and for their persistence in +performing dangerous feats that, when performed, add nothing to the +sum total of human happiness, knowledge or pleasure. I haven't been +able to discover why anybody should want to see a lion stand on its +head, or a gentleman tie his legs in a true lovers' knot, and I shall +never understand the public _penchant_ for hearing "The Anvil Chorus" +played on tin cans, since it can be played so much better on a piano. +One always thinks of the wit who, being informed enthusiastically that +some stunt or other was "very difficult", replied: "I wish it were +impossible." + +The worst of the matter is that, there being comparatively few +performers of merit, the same people, doing the same things, return +again and again to the same theaters. I remember having seen one team +of comedy acrobats, Rice and Prevost, seven times in the space of a +single season, at the end of which period I had ceased to laugh +uproariously when one of the two humorists fell from a table and +struck his face violently upon the floor. Half the "turns" at the +Victoria this Saturday may be at the Colonial next Monday, so that, +unless you wish your entertainment, like your wine, well-aged, you +would do well to make your vaudeville excursions to one theater. It is +too much to expect the average variety performer to change his act +more often than once in a decade, and then he is likely to retain +everything that has been especially well received. Of course, you +remember George Ade's friends, Zoroaster and Zendavesta, who, at the +end of five years, substituted green whiskers for red, and advertised: +"Everything New." + +The managers certainly are doing their best to be rid of Zoroasters +and Zendavestas. Their agents search every capital of Europe for new +talent, and no one makes a hit in the music halls of London or Paris +or Berlin without immediately receiving an offer to come to America. +Nor is there any limit to the figures mentioned in such an offer. The +salaries paid, both for imported and for native talent, were supposed +to have reached their utmost height in the palmy days of Keith and +Proctor, but they have doubled since Oscar Hammerstein announced on +his billboards that he was paying $1,000 a week to Marie Dressler. +There are half a dozen performers now who get $2,000, and one or two +who are reputed to receive even more. Any number of headliners earn +five hundred dollars, or seven hundred and fifty dollars, which, you +must remember, probably is in excess of the amount tucked into the +yellow envelopes of Otis Skinner or Ethel Barrymore. + +There is one important difference between the salaries paid in +vaudeville and those paid "legitimate" players. The former cannot +consider their earnings as "net", since they are obliged frequently to +engage small companies, sometimes numbering twelve or sixteen people, +whose wages come out of the sum given their principal. Variety +performers defray their own travelling expenses, too, and those of +their assistants, together with such other expenses as agents' fees, +advertising bills, and similar incidentals. Formerly a great deal of +time was lost in long jumps, and between engagements, but managerial +combinations have considerably lessened this waste. The successful +vaudevillian rarely experiences a break in his bookings now-a-days, +and, especially if his act does not depend upon acoustics, he fills +out his season with roof gardens, summer parks, and perhaps a circus. + +[Illustration: "_Their agents search every capital of Europe_"] + +Variety people make up an individual nation in the theatrical world. +They have their own language, their own view-point, their own +ambitions and grievances, besides their own clubs, hotels and +newspapers. The most important of these societies are The Vaudeville +Comedy Club, which has rooms in Forty-sixth Street and gives an +annual benefit, and The White Rats, an aggressive organization that +has conducted spunky fights against greedy agents and the blacklist of +the United Booking Offices. The White Rats publish a weekly +periodical, yclept The Player, but the real trade paper of the +profession is issued in a green cover and called Variety. + +The vaudeville performer--he insists upon alluding to himself as "the +artist"--actually appears on the stage about forty minutes a day. His +labor, however, is not quite so light as these figures make it seem. +He must put on and take off his makeup afternoon and evening, and he +must be in the theater during a good deal of the time that he is not +engaged. Monday morning he rehearses with the orchestra, and is +assigned a number on the program of the week--vaudevillians, like +convicts and hotel guests, being identified by numbers. His place in +the bill depends upon the length of his "turn", the stage room +required for it, and its nature. Acts that can be given in front of a +drop "in one" must be sandwiched between "full stage" acts, so that +scenes may be set for the latter without interrupting the performance, +and the experienced stage manager arranges his material with a keen +eye to variety. + +As important as the star dressing room to a leading woman, as vital as +full-faced type to a star is his place on the bill to a vaudevillian. +By their numbers ye shall know them. Headliners are given a position +midway in the entertainment, and insist upon it as "legitimate" actors +upon the center of the stage. Minor acts open or close a show, and the +prejudice against being assigned to either end is so great that many +stage managers must sympathize with the Irishman who, being informed +that a large per centage of the victims of railway accidents are +passengers in the last car of the train, inquired: "Then, bedad, why +don't they leave off the last car?" + +A layman may ask reasonably how the managers of variety houses are +able to pay double the salaries that prevail in other theaters, while +they exact only half the price of admission. The explanation is +simple. In the first place, as has been explained, they pay _nothing +but_ salaries--neither railway fares nor the cost of costumes and +paraphernalia. They are not compelled to make big and expensive +productions, to remunerate authors, or, most important of all, to +split returns with the managers of theaters in which their shows are +given. Henry B. Harris, or Frederic Thompson, presenting "The Country +Boy" or "The Spendthrift" at the Chestnut Street Opera House, +Philadelphia, or the National Theater, Washington, must divide +equally, or nearly equally, with the lessees of those places of +amusement. The vaudeville impressario assembles his own show in his +own theater, and takes the entire amount paid in at the box office. +Even in these times, an exceedingly good bill can be put together for +$3,000, and, if the running expenses of the theatre are $2,000, there +remains a wide margin of profit. + +The United Booking Offices, which do business at 1495 Broadway, is as +complete a trust as any in America. The "offices" are maintained by a +combination that includes all the powerful vaudeville managers, and +all the big vaudeville circuits, from New York to San Francisco. There +has been sporadic opposition, like that recently made by William +Morris, who had the American and Plaza Music Halls in New York and a +few others throughout the country, but the end of this opposition +always has been compromise or defeat. Performers claim that they are +not permitted to play for rival managements under pain of being placed +on the dread "blacklist", and that, once so placed, they may as well +retire from the business. Whether this be true or not--it probably is +true--and however highhanded the conduct of the combination, the +observer must concede that business-like system, economical methods +and complete order have been established by the United Booking +Offices. + +This combination includes the Hammersteins, father and son, who have +the Victoria Theater in New York; Percy Williams, who controls the +Colonial, the Alhambra, the Bronx, and two theaters in Brooklyn; B. F. +Keith, who operates theaters in the metropolis, in Boston, in +Philadelphia, and in Providence; and the heads of great circuits like +the Orpheum, and Sullivan and Considine's. There are eight handsome +vaudeville theaters on Manhattan Island, not counting the burlesque +houses and the places at which moving pictures form a large part of +the bill, and it is easy to estimate that, if each of these holds +fifteen hundred persons at a performance, twenty-four thousand men, +women and children witness a variety entertainment every week in New +York. This estimate does not include the "sacred concerts", which, in +spite of clerical and legal opposition, continue to flourish. On the +Sabbath, apparently, the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts +of song and dance, and every vaudeville theater in town runs full +blast on Sunday. + +However bitterly their success may be resented, it is to the +newcomers, to the recruits from the "legitimate", that vaudeville +owes its steady advancement. One may sympathize with the acrobat who, +after a life time spent in acquiring proficiency in his specialty, +sees the big salaries being paid to men who devoted a week to +rehearsing some sketch, and who couldn't turn a handspring to save +their souls. The fact remains that vaudeville's claim to the +consideration of intelligent people rests largely upon these tabloid +comedies and dramas. The vogue of such clever little plays as "At the +Telephone", "The Man From the Sea", "Circumstantial Evidence", "In Old +Edam", "When Pat Was King", "The Welcher" and "The Flag +Station"--which, by the way, was written by Eugene Walter, author of +"The Easiest Way"--marks a step forward in the possibilities of "the +two a day." It enables such men as Will Cressy, whose whole output has +been of sketches, to venture upon higher ground, and it banishes more +surely the mixture of buffoonery and maudlin sentiment that formerly +passed as playlets. + +The progress made in this sort of entertainment is indicated by the +unequivocal success of Frank Keenan in "The Oath", an intense little +tragedy, founded upon a theme used by Lope de Vega. Only ten years ago +this same Frank Keenan suffered complete lack of appreciation of his +fine work in an adaptation of Poe's "The System of Dr. Tarr and +Professor Feather." Many well-made sketches, logically planned and +skillfully written, still owe their presence in vaudeville wholly to +the reputation of their stars. "The Walsingham", as Walsingham Potts +used to say in Madison Morton's farce of "A Regular Fix", "is a sort +of guava jelly in which you swallow the bitter pill, Potts." Other one +act dramas of great merit fail altogether. + +London successes like "The Monkey's Paw", and Paris successes, like +"The Submarine" and "After the Opera", have ended miserably in New +York. Such authors as Clyde Fitch have seen their work retired after a +fortnight's trial. Two tabloid pieces, "Dope" and "By-Products", from +the pen of Joseph Medill Patterson, author of "The Fourth Estate", +after scoring triumphs of esteem in Chicago, have not been given +bookings in the East. It is not yet true that any three one-act plays +in vaudeville, if given continuity and put together, would make a +passable three act play, but there are optimists among us who feel +that that time will come. We believe that, without being less +entertaining, less diversified, or less easily enjoyed, vaudeville +will come to be made up of fewer "Jewish" or "Irish" comedians, fewer +"sister acts", fewer trained seals, and a greater number of people who +have something really clever to offer in song or speech or +impersonation. + +The place of the tabloid drama is secure, since it bears the same +relation to the ordinary drama that the short story does to the novel. +One day we shall have a Theatre Antoine or a Theatre des Capucines in +New York. The popularity of the short play, with all its opportunities +for skillful construction and good acting, will follow as the night +the day. The nudities and lewdities of last year and this are but a +passing phase. Whatever vaudeville was in the past, or is in the +present, it offers endless promise for the future. + + + + +_WITH THE PEOPLE "IN STOCK"_ + + Concerning Camille, ice cream, spirituality, red silk tights, + Blanche Bates, Thomas Betterton, second-hand plays, + parochialism, matinee girls, Augustin Daly, and other + interesting topics. + + +"Why is a resident theatrical organization known as a _stock_ +company?" Blanche Bates repeated after me one afternoon when she was +playing in "The Dancing Girl" at the Columbia Theater, Washington. +"Simply because the people in it work like horses." + +Miss Bates, whose name at that time probably was as unfamiliar to +David Belasco as any word in Arabic, knew whereof she spoke. She had +been for several seasons with T. Daniel Frawley in San Francisco, she +had had four roles and a row with Augustin Daly inside of two months +in New York, and finally she had cast her lot with a combination that +was whiling away the summer months by producing a new piece every +week in the hottest city in America. After a little time I'm going to +tell you just what labor is involved in producing a new--or, rather, a +different--piece every week. For the present, suffice it to say that +Miss Bates' witticism was founded on a whimsical view of facts, and +that the modern stock company is exclusively responsible for the +existence of that amazing anomaly, a hard-working actor. + +Most actors are kept fairly busy three weeks each year, that period +being devoted to rehearsing the one play in which they appear during +the course of a season. Throughout the remainder of eight months they +are actually occupied about four hours per diem, and at the end of +these eight months they count on having four months for rest, +recreation and relaxation. This is not at all true of the man or woman +"in stock", who, in the language of the street, "is on the job" +twenty-four hours a day and, when there is special need of exertion, +gets up an hour earlier in the morning to make it twenty-five. + +The great bulk of New York theater-goers, with the parochialism +that characterizes them, know practically nothing about stock +companies. Perhaps, the chief reason of this is that within the memory +of man they never have had fewer than five at one time. Stock +companies in Philadelphia or Boston they might have studied at long +distance as curious institutions, but never stock companies so +unappealingly near as Fifty-eighth Street and Lexington Avenue. Your +blithe Broadwayite leaves such places of amusement to the people in +their neighborhood, and sticks to musical comedy in the vicinity of +Times Square. + +[Illustration: "_Known as a stock company ... because the people in it +work like horses_"] + +Broadway used to keep close track of stock companies when the two +Frohmans had fine organizations at the old Lyceum and at the +Empire--when John Drew and Henry Miller and Georgia Cayvan were seen +in such new pieces as "The Grey Mare" and "The Charity Ball." Fifth +Avenue is beginning to re-make an acquaintance with the scheme of +resident organizations, through the medium of that at the New Theatre, +and Charles Frohman recently has announced his intention of +establishing an important stock company under the directorship of +William Gillette. This announcement brings with it high hopes; the +very suggestion calls to mind the departed glories, not only of the +Empire and the Lyceum, but of the Union Square, Daly's, and the +Madison Square. + +The stock company with which we have become familiar of late has been +a very different kind of affair. Its field has been limited, and the +purpose of its managers merely the giving of old plays at popular +prices. If you have been in the world long enough to learn that +whatever is cheap in price is cheap in quality--that no merchant +deliberately sells at a loss--you will have little difficulty in +understanding that, with rare exceptions, the performances offered +have been mediocre. Sixteen, eighteen or twenty fairly competent +actors and actresses are formed into a cast that prepares a different +play every week in its season. The plays generally have had their day +in the hands of regular traveling organizations. It is not often that +the result has in it more than three letters from the word +"artistic." Such aggregations have held forth in Gotham at various +times on the stages of the American, the Fifty-eighth Street, the One +Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, the Yorkville, the Fifth Avenue, the +Murray Hill, the West End, the Plaza, and other theaters. They used to +be particularly indigenous to that portion of our metropolitan soil +known as Harlem, but now are confined almost entirely to Brooklyn. + +This brand of stock company, which we may as well label "The +Contemporary Brand", had its origin in some large Eastern city where +an enterprising theatrical manager planned to provide summer amusement +for such of his patrons as wanted to stay in town through the hot +weather--and for the husbands of those who didn't. The traveling +troupes had all shut up for a few months, so this manager was obliged +to form an organization of his own. I'll bet that, at the same time, +he originated the story about installing a pipe system for +distributing cool air throughout his house--a pleasant little +Christian Science lie that since has become classic. However that may +be, the venture paid. Imitation is called initiative in the theatrical +business, and the following year there were fifty "summer stock +companies." Then somebody discovered that these combinations, playing +at low prices, had attracted a _clientele_ of their own, that they +drew people whose purses would not permit their visiting the best +theaters, and whose taste stood between them and the other houses. So +somebody else tried running a stock company all through the season, +and succeeded. Within a little time there were enterprises of this +sort in most cities of the size of Pittsburg or Cincinnati; then they +crept into towns like Hartford and Providence; now-a-days any village +populous enough to boast of two saloons, a church and a dry goods +store has also its opera house and its stock company. + +In the big cities these aggregations of histrionic talent generally +offer a fresh play every week; in some of the smaller places two are +given in the course of seven days. One play a week is the usual thing, +however, and the amount of labor it involves is stupendous. Not only +must that one play be prepared in the time mentioned, but +simultaneously the company must be thinking of and acting another +play--that already being performed for the benefit of the public. Dr. +Doran, in his "Annals of the Stage", speaks of the hard work +accomplished by actors in the Eighteenth Century, when Thomas +Betterton "created a number of parts never equaled by any subsequent +actor--namely, one hundred and thirty." The good doctor, who waxes +quite enthusiastic over Betterton, adds: "In some single seasons he +studied and represented no less than eight original parts--an amount +of labor that would shake the nerves of the stoutest among us now." +Dr. Doran's esteemed friend, Master Betterton, probably would have had +his own nerves a good deal shaken had he found himself in this year of +our Lord 1911--say at the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. + +Victory Bateman, a charming actress whose health recently was reported +to be seriously affected by the strain of the work she had done in +stock companies, played twenty leading roles in five months. Of these +and the number of words in each she gives the following account in a +book she wrote in collaboration with Ada Patterson: + + Mrs. Winthrop in "Young Mrs. Winthrop" 7,000 + + Floradilla in "A Fool's Revenge" 6,750 + + Louise in "The Two Orphans" 7,250 + + Cecile in "David Laroque" 6,500 + + Adrienne in "A Celebrated Case" 7,000 + + Camille in "Camille" 7,300 + + Carmen in "Carmen" 7,200 + + Portia in "Julius Caesar" 6,500 + + Eliza in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 7,500 + + Ruth in "The Wages of Sin" 6,000 + + Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" 7,500 + + Dora in "Diplomacy" 6,900 + + Portia in "The Merchant of Venice" 7,600 + + Ophelia in "Hamlet" 7,000 + + Mrs. Gregory Graxin in "The Tragedy" 6,500 + + Desdemona in "Othello" 7,000 + + Alice in "In Spite of All" 7,500 + + Frou-Frou in "Frou-Frou" 7,000 + + Vera in "Moths" 6,000 + + Roxane in "Cyrano" 8,000 + ------- + Total 140,000 words + +[Illustration: "_Master Betterton would have had his nerves a good +deal shaken_"] + +Some of the details of this statement strike me as being erroneous. I +do not believe, for example, that Roxane is a longer part than Juliet. +One thing I do not doubt--that the average stock leading woman learns +140,000 words in a season. And 140,000 words, we must understand, are +the number contained in two fair-sized novels or "fourteen pages of a +large newspaper." + +The mere statement that so much matter has to be committed to memory +does not give a fair idea of the amount of work that has to be +accomplished by the actor or the actress--especially the +actress--under these conditions. In addition to learning each role she +must rehearse it. These rehearsals will occupy every morning of the +six days whose afternoons and evenings are devoted to the public +performance of another part. In addition, the actress must figure on +giving time to dressmakers, since each character must be properly +costumed; to wig makers and to allegedly unavoidable social duties. +The inevitable result is a crudity and carelessness in the +interpretation of plays that would not be tolerated by any +theater-goers in the world except those that do tolerate it. This can +be better understood when one learns that the average time spent in +the preparation of a piece to run in New York is something like three +weeks--three weeks in which the players have nothing else to occupy +their minds. + +The members of the ordinary stock company scarcely pretend to know +their lines before the third repetition of the comedy or drama in +hand. John Findlay, a fine old actor, used to complain to me that +always he "had just begun to understand what a piece was about when +they took it off and put on another." I remember an amusing incident +in connection with a rendering of a certain light comedy by a stock +company in Baltimore. A scene in this comedy was divided between two +men, one of them seated at a desk and the other standing before that +article of furniture with his hat in his hand. Both actors having +forseen opportunities of concealing their manuscripts where they could +see them and the audience could not, neither had learned a single word +of the dialogue. The first player had his part on the desk; the second +hid it in his hat. But the second man had forgotten that, at a +critical moment, the office boy was supposed to take that hat. The +moment arrived, the boy took the hat, and the unlucky Thespian, at his +wits' end, could think of nothing better to do than read the remainder +of his speeches over the shoulder of his colleague. + +[Illustration: "_The actress must figure on giving time to +dressmakers_"] + +Opening nights with stock companies would be dreadful affairs, but for +that kindly provision of Fate, "the old stock actor." There usually +are three or four of this man and woman in an organization, and each +of the three or four, at one time or another, has played nearly every +part known to his or her "line of business." Your "old stock actor", +who need not be old as to years, will be familiar with half the roles +entrusted to him or her in a season, so that a little study serves to +prompt recollection of the lines, and even such memory of details as +may be of great assistance when communicated to the stage director. + +Unfortunately, scenery and other accessories cannot share this +advantage. The small town stock company possesses eight or ten regular +settings and a scene painter, whose efforts usually are confined to +retouching shabby spots on the canvas and to coloring furniture, +cannon, trees and similar trifles. Occasionally he paints new wall +paper and pictures, which, with the blessed aid of the stage +carpenter, who can change windows from left to right and doors from +right to left, transform the banquet hall of some Roman noble (Period +40 B. C.) to the front room of a Harlem apartment (Period 1911 A. D.) +A week doesn't allow much time for accuracy, and mine eyes have seen +the tent of Mark Antony electric lighted, Louis XVI chairs in the +palace of Macbeth, and a Queen Ann cottage occupied by Shylock and his +daughter Jessica. + +When melo-drama is produced worse horrors than this are likely to +intrude themselves upon first nights. Balky locomotives _will_ refuse +to run over prostrate heroines, and I once witnessed a _premier_ +matinee of "The Gunner's Mate" at which the jib boom displayed a most +distressing _penchant_ for knocking off the helmet of the ship's +Captain. Stage management frequently is responsible for even worse +blunders. + +The theater-goers who frequent the homes of stock companies--they are, +for the most part, wives of sign painters and journeyman +printers--don't seem to mind things of this sort in the least. Early +in the season they begin to pick favorites in the organization, and +they follow the annual progress of such play-acting pilgrims with +great care. The value of a man or woman to his or her stock company +depends largely upon his or her personal following, and I have known +leading men to be so sure of this following that, upon being +dismissed, they have harangued crowds on the street in front of their +theaters. This very episode, by the way, occurred only a few years ago +in New York. + +Matinee idols achieve popularity, not according to their own deserts, +but according to the heroism of the folk they impersonate in the +course of a season. It might be estimated safely that one opportunity +at Sydney Carton, one at Armand Duval, and one at Romeo would +establish the least prepossessing of leading men in the marshmallowy +affections of the stock company matinee girl. These young women and +their neighbors have singularly distorted ideas of good acting, and +their partizanship makes them blind to the imperfections of their +favorite players. In Brooklyn it used to be a common thing to hear +that Cecil Spooner was much better than Mrs. Leslie Carter as Zaza, +and a little time ago Pittsburg did not hesitate to put Sarah Truax +above Mrs. Fiske for her impersonation of Nora. + +The manager who successfully pilots a stock company through the shoals +and shallows of forty weeks must have uncommon perspicacity. Not alone +must he secure players who are likely to become popular, but, more +important still, he must select plays that will appeal to all of his +patrons all of the time. Too much tragedy and he is quite sure to lose +the men in his gallery; too much comedy and the girls in the orchestra +begin to thin out. Then, too, his purse must be considered. The rental +of popular plays is high. When first the piece was released for stock +the royalties asked for "Peter Pan" were a thousand dollars per week. +Few plays bring as much as this, but royalties rarely are under one +hundred dollars and generally range between two hundred and fifty and +four hundred. Of course, there are many dramatic works whose age makes +them anybody's property, and the skillful manager balances his profit +and loss neatly by sandwiching these in with the costly ones. When +you see that your pet stock company is to follow "Salomy Jane" with +"Camille" you may be sure that its manager is evening up matters on +his books. + +The same degree of skill that is required in other theatrical +advertising is required of the man who conducts a stock company. +Various odd schemes have been tried with effect, the best seeming to +be that of giving things away. There are now various theaters at which +food and drink is served between acts, generally eliciting real +evidences of appreciation. Personally, I cannot see how a bad +performance of "Too Much Johnson" with ice cream would be more +endurable than the same performance without, but apparently this +failure on my part indicates a unique state of mind. Receptions on the +stage, at which the public meets the players, have proved an +attraction, and they have the additional merit of helping to establish +the necessary _entente cordiale_. The distribution of actors' +photographs, the inauguration of guessing and voting contests, and +similar features, keep alert the brain of the man at the helm of the +small town "stock." + +[Illustration: "_Evening up matters on his books_"] + +To the most casual reader even this very casual article must have made +apparent the disadvantages of the average resident aggregation. First +among these, perhaps, is the impossibility of producing new plays +under a system which requires the presentation of fresh material so +frequently. A new play cannot possibly be rehearsed in a week. This is +a misfortune to the company, which must develop its best talent in +unhackneyed vehicles; a misfortune to the public, which must tire of +seeing second-handed comedies and tragedies; and most of all a +misfortune to the inner circle of theatrical folk, to whom the stock +organization should offer unrivalled opportunities for the quick and +inexpensive testing of untried manuscripts. + +Since new plays are not within the range of these organizations, it +seems a pity that they cannot be allowed more leisurely preparation of +the old. Performances never can be good, much less artistic, while +they are made ready as rapidly as is necessary at present. Neither can +they be good so long as a certain small body of people must divide +among them whatever parts offer, regardless of equipment or natural +tendencies. Because Minnie Jones is suited to the _ingenue_ role in +this week's farce it does not follow that she will be ideal in the +_ingenue_ role of the tragedy done next week. + +We hear that this sort of thing means excellent histrionic training, +but there is no law compelling audiences to attend training schools, +and the results of putting square pegs into any old sort of hole are +often too ludicrous. It is appalling to reflect that the lady who +plays Mrs. Micawber today may be cast for Du Barry tomorrow. I +remember one poor little girl who had been engaged to "do" soubrettes +at the National Theater, Washington. She was a charming little thing, +and for a whole season she successfully met all comers of her weight +and age. In "Esmeralda" I recall having thought her the most ethereal +of women. Two weeks later she became the comic opera star in "All the +Comforts of Home," and I discovered that what was spirituality in +"Esmeralda" became emaciation in red silk tights. + +Much as I have harped on the disadvantages of the stock company, I +believe most solemnly that its advantages are over-balancing. Even bad +bread is better for the system than good whiskey, and a crude +performance of "Romeo and Juliet" is to be preferred to the best +possible performance of "The Girl and the Outlaw." The prices for +these "attractions" are about the same, and the people who now go to +see "Romeo and Juliet" are precisely the people who otherwise would go +to see "The Girl and the Outlaw." Slowly but surely, even the current +stock company interpretations educate the taste of theater-lovers, +until they begin asking for better things, and, seeking, find. In +addition, there seems no doubt that these organizations provide +exceptional schooling for young actors, who, by their aid, play two or +three hundred parts in a period during which otherwise they would +play five. It has been urged against this that they also acquire +habits of haste and carelessness, but I always have found actors with +stock experience superior to those without it. The consequence of this +particular phase of the stock system must be of inestimable value to +the theater in America. + +Then, too, it is a kind of interchangeable cause and effect that the +quality of stock performances improves with the taste of their +patrons. Of late years, fewer autographed photographs have been +distributed among audiences, and more money has been spent in the +painting of proper scenery. Manner has been less frequently required +for stage receptions, and more frequently for drawing room drama. The +combination of several organizations under one management, like that +of the Baker Chain, in Seattle, Portland and Spokane, with consequent +possibilities of reciprocal borrowing, has accomplished wonders in the +way of betterment. + +"Out West", where touring companies are rarer than this side of the +Missouri, and where metropolitan successes arrive tardily, notably +fine stock aggregations have come largely to take the place of +visiting stars. There are two excellent companies located in Los +Angeles, and I have heard that the superiority of their performances +has seriously injured the business of the "first class" theaters. John +Blackwood, at the Belasco, and Oliver Morosco, at the Burbank, make +complete productions of every piece offered, and often they are able +to give Los Angelites their first view of some much-discussed triumph +of Broadway. In such cases, it is not unusual for the play to last six +or eight weeks, and George Broadhurst's "The Dollar Mark", initially +presented at the Belasco, had a longer run there than in New York. It +will be seen at once how such public support enables a company to be +worthier of support--a kind of beneficent perpetual motion. + +While the East is not yet so far advanced, nor so nearly rid of the +stock company that has been made typical in this article, there are +fine organizations in half a dozen of our larger cities. It can be +only a matter of time before enforced haste and economy in staging +stock performances will disappear before the demands of a more and +more enlightened clientele. There will be a greater number of +rehearsals and a smaller number of matinees. The people who patronize +these presentations now will have got ahead in the world, and will be +able and willing to pay more generously for their entertainment, and +it is to be hoped that the people who turned to moving pictures from +cheap melodrama--which, in its whilom prosperity, we are to consider +in our next chapter--in due time may turn from moving pictures to +adequate representations of classic, standard and popular plays. + +All this will come in the nature of evolution. The movement will be +accelerated if Charles Frohman keeps his promise of giving us in New +York such a stock company as his brother maintained at the old Lyceum, +and which, at the same time, included Edward J. Morgan, William +Courtleigh, George C. Boniface, Mary Mannering, Elizabeth Tyree, Mrs. +Charles Walcot, Hilda Spong, Grant Stewart, Mrs. Thomas Whiffen, and +John Findlay. + + + + +_SITTING IN JUDGMENT WITH THE GODS_ + + Being an old manuscript with a new preface--the former dealing + with a lost art, and the latter subtly suggesting who lost it. + + +The article that fills the following pages was written in 1905. +Originally printed as a protest and a prophecy, it is reprinted here +as history. + +Melodrama is dead. It died of poor circulation and failure of the box +office receipts. There were no flowers, and there need be no regrets. +Neither is there reason to fear resuscitation. + +I should like to think that popular priced melodrama had been killed +by a general desire for better things. That, however, is not the case. +The death blow was struck when the inventor of moving pictures +supplied a form of entertainment that demanded even less of the +spectator than had been demanded by such classics as "Through Death +Valley" and "The Millionaire and the Policeman's Wife." The people +who patronized these plays are not now patronizing worthier plays; +they are attending performances that appeal to them wholly through the +medium of the eye. + +Of the seven theaters mentioned in this article at present three are +devoted to moving pictures, two to burlesque, one to vaudeville, and +one to drama in Yiddish. A few cheap companies are presenting +melodrama in the provinces, but not a single place of amusement +shelters it in New York. Requiescat in pace. + +"Sitting in Judgment With the Gods" is republished as a contemporary +opinion of a lost art. It was my intention to alter the wording +somewhat, substituting more recent examples for those mentioned, but I +found the result was apt to be like a history of Rome brought +"up-to-date" by introducing gattling guns at the Battle of Pharsalius. +So here is the story as it was set down in the beginning, and may you +find amusement in reading it. + +Melodrama, according to my dictionary, is "a dramatic performance, +usually tragic, in which songs are introduced." The encyclopedia adds +that the name was bestowed first upon "the opera by Rinuccini", and +that it was derived from two Greek words meaning song and drama. This +is extremely awesome and impressive, but I'm afraid I can't allow you +to accept it as applying to offerings in our popular-priced places of +amusement. Melodrama isn't a bit like that in New York. + +It was the dictionary that started me on a tour of investigation which +comprehended visits to all of the seven theaters in town that +habitually present melodrama. There are so many classes of people in +this big city, and each class has so many characteristic ways of +working and playing, that no one hundredth of the population can be +expected to know how any other one hundredth lives. The men and women +who go to see "Man and Superman" don't go to see "No Mother to Guide +Her", and I think I am quite safe in saying that most of the men and +women who witness "No Mother to Guide Her" are conspicuous by their +absence at "Man and Superman." + +Sitting in judgment with the gods leaves me in doubt as to why the +latter part of this statement should be true. The plays of the "No +Mother to Guide Her" type are so hopelessly bad, so obviously false, +so absolutely vicious, that it is hard to comprehend a mind that can +prefer them, if not to "Man and Superman", at least to such better +melodramas as "The Lion and the Mouse" or "The Squaw Man." The matter +of money is no explanation at all. Harry and Harriet might have +excellent seats in the balcony of the Lyceum or Wallack's for the +price of orchestra chairs at the American, and, if it comes to pride, +what choice is there between the gallery, politely disguised as "the +second balcony," of the Belasco, and a box at the Thalia? + +Melodrama today not only differs from the melodrama of +day-before-yesterday defined in the dictionary, but it differs too +from the melodrama of yesterday. Bartley Campbell and Dion Boucicault +have given way to Theodore Kremer and Martin Hurley, while sterling +old plays like "Siberia" and "The Octoroon" have been supplanted by +such monstrosities as "Why Girls Leave Home" and "Too Proud to Beg." +Our dramatic literature knows no finer examples of play-building than +"The Two Orphans" and "The Rommany Rye", but these pieces are popular +no longer with the people who frequent the Fourteenth Street and the +Third Avenue. Fading interest in works of that kind led to a falling +off in the patronage of "popular-priced" houses which was arrested +only by an immediate appeal to the lowest and basest passions of which +mankind is capable. It is on the power of pandering to these passions +that the present vogue of melodrama is founded. + +Emile Zola, that great photographer of souls, would have found in a +visit to one of New York's low-priced theaters unlimited scope for +analysis of character, comment on decay, and description of dirt and +squalor. The Murray Hill Theater, the Third Avenue, the Thalia, the +American and the Metropolis, five of the seven local places of +amusement given up to sensational plays, are relics of infinitely +better days. The Thalia was known formerly as the Bowery Theater, and +its stage has supported nearly all the great actors of an earlier +time. McKee Rankin, in his palmiest period, directed the fortunes of +the Third Avenue, while each of the other three houses was intended +originally for the best class of productions. The New Star, alone +among buildings of its class, has no history except that it is making +now. + +The Thalia, where I began my travels, is full of contrasts. Evidences +of departed grandeur elbow old dirt and new gaudiness. In the lobby, +with its marble floor and lofty ceiling, stand hard-faced officials in +uniforms that glitter with gold braid. Lithographic representations of +various kinds of crime and violence hang on the walls, advertising the +attraction to follow that holding the boards. The auditorium is +architecturally stately and old fashioned, bearing an outline +resemblance to the colosseum at Rome. The ground floor is a succession +of steps, on each of which is a row of seats, while three balconies of +horse-shoe shape afford opportunities to the patron whose financial +limit is ten, twenty or thirty cents. There are queer little boxes on +either side of the stage, which slopes perceptibly and has in its +middle a prompter's hood--survival of the days when parts were so +long, and so many had to be learned each week, that no actor could be +trusted out of sight of the man with the manuscript. The Thalia is a +theatrical anachronism, dilapidated, decayed and degraded. It is a +royal sepulchre containing rags and old iron, a family mansion +utilized as a boarding house, a Temple of Thespis managed by "Al" +Woods and devoted, on the night of my visit, to the representation of +a stirring comedy drama in five acts, entitled "Lured From Home." + +The audiences at the Thalia are composed principally of peddlers, +'longshoremen and girls from the sweat shops. Farther up town one +sees sailors and mechanics, with a sprinkling of families large +enough, numerically and physically, to delight Roosevelt. Everywhere +small boys abound and Jews predominate. Perched aloft in the gallery, +one picks out scores of types and observes dozens of humorous +incidents. Down town there were men who took off their coats and kept +on their hats, probably for no better reason than that they were +supposed to do neither. A fat negress sat next to a loudly dressed +shop girl, who was too absorbed to draw the color line while the +performance was in progress, but glared furiously between acts. The +contention that the Third Avenue is "a family theater" was supported +by a mother who nursed her baby whenever the curtain was down and the +lights up. Two precocious youths discussed the "form" of certain +horses that were to race next day, while their "best goils", one on +either side, alternately stared at each other and at their programs. +Reference to this bill of the play, printed by the same firm that +supplies programs for the better class of theaters, disclosed the +fact that a large part of the pamphlet was devoted to articles on +"What the Man Will Wear" and "Chafing Dish Suggestions." It seemed to +me that these indicated utter lack of a sense of humor on the part of +publisher and manager. "The Man" at the Third Avenue probably wears +whatever is cheapest, and I can't fancy the woman feeling a keen +interest in oyster pan toast or orange mousse. + +[Illustration: "_The Thalia's stage has supported nearly all the great +actors of an earlier time_"] + +Barring a little difference in millinery and a difference of opinion +as to the indispensability of neckwear, the audiences at all these +theaters are very much alike. They read pink papers assiduously before +the play begins and eat industriously throughout the intermissions. +Melodrama seems to affect the American appetite much as does an +excursion. You may have noticed that lunches appear the moment a +pleasure trip begins, and every cessation of histrionic action at a +popular-priced house is a signal for the munching of apples, candy, +pop-corn, peanuts or chewing gum. Most of the material for these +feasts is furnished by small boys who begin the evening selling "song +books" and conclude it dispensing provisions. Just as the orchestra +emerges from under the stage the merchant appears, taking his place at +the foot of an aisle and unburdening his soul of a carefully prepared +announcement. "I wish to call your attention for just about a few +minutes to the company's 'song book'", he commences. These volumes +invariably are marked down from ten to five cents, and, for good +measure, the vendor throws in an old copy of The Police Gazette. +Sweets are his stock in trade between acts, though one also has the +pleasure of hearing him announce: "Now, friends, I've a postal card +guaranteed to make you laugh without any trouble." + +Reserve is not a characteristic of these gatherings. They hiss +steamily at what they are pleased to consider evil, and applaud with +equal heartiness that which seems to them good. Especially remarkable +instances of virtue also bring out shrill whistles, verbal comment and +the stamping of feet. The management maintains in the gallery a play +censor with a club, who knocks loudly against the railing when he +feels that these evidences of approval are passing bounds. What would +not your two dollar impressario give if he could transplant this +enthusiasm to Broadway? How gladly Charles Frohman or Henry W. Savage +would trade his surfeited first night audience for one of those which +requires only an heroic speech to wear out its individual hands in +frenzied applause! + +They are a queer, child-like lot--the people who compose the clientele +of the Murray Hill and the Third Avenue. Intermissions have to be made +short for them, because they have not the patience to wait for setting +scenery, and he would be an intrepid dramatist who would put +sufficient faith in the intensity of a situation to trust to its +keeping them quiet in the dark. To an assembly at the Thalia the +turning out of the lights for the husband's confession in "The +Climbers" would have proved only an opportunity for making weird +noises without danger of being "spotted" by the "bouncer." Their +tastes are primitive and their sympathies elemental. They have no time +for fine distinctions between right and wrong; a character is good to +them or it is bad, and there's an end to the matter. Ready and waiting +with their pity, one cannot help believing that they feel only on the +surface, since they are quite able to forget the tragedy of one moment +in the comedy of the next. I have seen them sob like babies at the +death of a child in the play and break into uproarious laughter a +second later at the intrusion of the soubrette. Their prejudices are +explicable, but unexpectedly strong, favoring the unfortunate under +any circumstances and finding vent in bitter hatred of the prosperous. +They are the natural enemies of the police officer, and, by the same +token, friends to the cracksman or the convict who expresses a +particle of decency. Physical heroism is the only kind these men and +women recognize, and emphasis rather than ethics influences their +verdict on questions of virtue and vice. Apparently the element of +surprise is not a dramatic requisite with them, since every habitual +playgoer of their class must know by heart every melodramatic theme in +existence, together with its incidents and its outcome. Undivided in +their approval of the noble and their disapproval of the ignoble, one +soon learns that their ideas on the subject are theories not intended +for practice. The man who most loudly applauds defence of a woman on +the stage is not always above disciplining his wife vigorously when he +gets home. "Zash right!" I heard an inebriate call to a melodramatic +hero who had spurned the glass offered him. "Zash right! Don't you +tush it!" + +[Illustration: "_A play censor with a club_"] + +I have said that the stories and situations of melodrama must be +familiar to the folk who attend such performances, and I speak +advisedly. One melodrama is as much like another as are two circuses. +Drifting into the American one night just as the players were +indulging themselves in that walk before the curtain which is their +traditional method of acknowledging a "call", I might easily have +mistaken the principal pedestrians for the characters I had seen +fifteen minutes before at the Third Avenue. There they were without +exception--the sailor-hero, the wronged heroine in black, the +high-hatted villain, the ragged child, the short-skirted soubrette, +the police officer, the apple woman, the negro and the comic Jew. Some +of these types, notably the apple woman and the negro, are as old as +melodrama, while others are but recently borrowed from vaudeville. +Whatever their origin, they are the handy puppets of the man who +writes this kind of play; identified the moment they step on the stage +and hissed or applauded according to the conduct expected of them. + +This sameness of character is paralleled by a sameness of dialogue +that is amazing. Few melodramatic heroes do very much to justify their +popularity, but all of them have a pugilistic fondness for talking +about what they are going to do. Certain phrases favored by this class +of playwright have been used so often that the most casual +theater-goer will be able to recall them. "I can and will", "my +child", "stand back", "on his track", "do your worst", "you are no +longer a son of mine" and "if he knew all" are convenient terms for +expressing a variety of violent emotions. Most of them mean nothing +specific, and herein lies their recommendation. It is so much easier +to say "if he knew all" than to figure out precisely what part of a +purple past is of sufficient theatrical value to be dilated upon in a +speech. + +Apropos of purple pasts and of heroines in black, it is worthy of note +that propriety in the hue of one's garb is another of the inviolable +conventions in the cheap theaters. Olga Nethersole probably thought +she was doing a wonderfully original thing some years ago when she +announced that she would wear various colors to typify the +regeneration of Camille, but a chromatic index to character antedates +the English actress by many decades. To anybody acquainted with +sensational plays a white dress means innocence, a black dress +suffering and a red dress guilt just as infallibly as the cigarette +habit and a _penchant_ for sitting on the arms of chairs indicates +utter depravity in a female. If you told an Eighth Avenue +amusement-lover that good women sometimes smoke and often sit on the +arms of chairs he wouldn't believe you. + +With puppets and speeches to be had ready-made, the receipt for +writing a melodrama would not seem to be particularly complicated. The +favorite story for a piece of this sort concerns two men--one poor and +good, the other wealthy and bad--who love the same girl. For that +reason and because the hero "stands between" him and "a fortune", the +villain plans to "get him out of the way." The soubrette saves the +intended victim from death, the would-be assassin is disgraced, and +the play "ends happily." There may be a dozen variations of this +theme, such as an effort to send the hero to prison "for another's +crime", but, until managers found a gold mine in the lechery of their +low-browed patrons, it formed the central thread of four offerings out +of five. The stock plot now-a-days is the frustration of sundry +attempts to sell women to waiting despoilers; the dramatization of +what the newspapers describe, hideously enough, as "white slavery." +This is an unpleasant subject in any form, but the part it plays in +current melodrama is so gross and evil that I shall risk referring to +it again in another paragraph. + +The "fortune" that serves as bone of contention in the tale related +above never happens to be less than a million. Such trifling sums as +fifty thousand pounds or a hundred thousand dollars are given very +little consideration in melodrama. Everyone of importance lives in a +"mansion" and carries about huge rolls of greenbacks. When the villain +tries to murder the hero he resists the temptation to stab or shoot +him quickly and quietly, having found the expedient of binding him +across a railway track or throwing his insensible body on a feed belt +more conducive to a thrilling rescue. Handmade murder has no place in +melodrama; all reputable scoundrels do their killing by machinery. +The strongest situation possible in the sensational play is that in +which the comedienne flags the train or stops the belt. Next to this +"big scene" is the inevitable encounter between the villain with a +knife, the unarmed hero, and the heroine, who arrives with a revolver +at what Joseph Cawthorne calls "the zoological moment." I have seen +the superiority of the pistol over the dagger demonstrated five times +in a single melodrama, yet the villain never seems to profit by +experience. One would think he would learn to carry a "gun", just as +one would think that the hero would learn not to leave his coat where +stolen bills might be placed in the pockets, but the playwrights of +the popular-priced theaters seem to model their people on the dictum +of Oscar Wilde, who said: "There are two kinds of women--the good +women, who are stupid, and the bad women, who are dangerous." +Notwithstanding their crass improbabilities, many melodramas of the +better sort are interesting and not without occasional evidences of +clumsy originality and crude strength. I enjoyed eight or ten genuine +thrills in the course of my tour of inspection. + +[Illustration: "_All reputable scoundrels do their killing by +machinery_"] + +If I was thrilled ten times, however, I was sickened and disgusted a +thousand times at the appeal to low animalism that has become the +dominant factor in these houses. Remembering the legal obstacles put +in the path of "Mrs. Warren's Profession," I could not help wondering +whether the Comstockians wear blinders that shut from their view +everything East and West of Broadway. Even if their mental harness +includes this visage-narrowing accoutrement it is difficult to +understand why the billboards scattered about town have not indicated +to these censors the trend of the popular-priced theaters. Do not the +titles of the pieces presented indicate the truth of the situation? +What may one suppose is the character of such plays as "Her First +False Step", "Dealers in White Women", "Why Women Sin", "Queen of the +White Slaves" and "New York by Night"? + +"Dangers of Working Girls", a piece of this type which I saw at the +American, might easily be set down as one of the worst of the +"Dangers of Working Girls." The principal figure in the play was +Doctor Sakea, whose profession was Mrs. Warren's and whose assistants +were Chinamen hired to lure maidens into a place of evil resort. The +production was full of such lines as "Don't spoil her beauty; it means +money to us" and "Ah! More pretty girls for the master's cage", while +its principal situation was the auctioning of a number of half-dressed +women to the highest bidder. For this scene a crowd of bestial +degenerates attracted by the posters waited with gloating eyes and +open jaws. There was no sugar-coating over the pill--no bright +dialogue, no philosophy, no hint at a "moral lesson." It was simply a +ghastly, hideous, degrading appeal to everything that is vile and +loathsome in the under side of human nature. + +[Illustration: "_Comstockians wear blinders that shut from their view +everything East and West of Broadway_"] + +The financial success of such pieces as these seems to decide once for +all the question as to whether public taste influences the drama or +the drama public taste. With clean and clever plays a stone's throw +away, at prices by no means prohibitive, no one need attend such +performances as that I have described unless he really delights in +that form of entertainment. I have always insisted that nothing is +more immoral than bad art, and, this being true, the influence of the +popular-priced theater appears to be a very grave subject, indeed. The +people who go to such places of amusement have so little pleasure in +their lives that it would seem a pity to take away whatever they may +crave, yet it is not improbable that these very people might be +inclined toward an appreciation of better things in the playhouse. We +who object to the description of crime and violence in the daily +papers certainly may be expected to find evil in its depiction on the +stage; we who fear the discussion of delicate topics before audiences +of cultured men and women can find nothing to excuse morbid emphasis +upon distressing scenes before ignorant and impressionable boys and +girls. Whether or not they really believe that such plays reflect +life, whether or not they are directly influenced, there certainly can +be nothing beneficial to them in constant observation of coarse +humor, silly pathos, and a distorted code of conduct. I wonder if +there is any method by which these play-goers can be made to +understand that cleverness is not incompatible with entertainment nor +good drama with interest. + + + + +_THE SMART SET ON THE STAGE_ + + Wherein the author considers comedies of manners, and players + who succeed illy in living up to them. + + +"The theater has its own aristocracy", declares the author of a book +about families that, generation after generation, have given actors to +that institution in America. It is not of "its own aristocracy" that I +intend writing, but of the aristocracy it mimics. When I speak of "The +Smart Set on the Stage", the reference is to those men and women who +trail their cigarette smoke and their gowns through the modern society +play. + +There are fashions in drama, just as there are in dresses, and +managerial modistes begin to sense a return to favor of the tea cup +comedy. Fifteen years ago, during an era of romance, the tinsmith +superceded the tailor. A decade later, "guns" were more worn than +girdles, and the prevailing mode in millinery was the Mexican +sombrero, with a leather belt in place of a band. The hero of a play +was the male who could shoot straightest. Now, once again, the hero is +the gentleman who can successfully balance, at one and the same time, +a punch glass, a plate of biscuits, and the arguments for and against +running away with his friend's wife. Within the past few months we +have had such examples of their school as "Electricity", "Smith", "The +Gamblers", "Nobody's Widow", "Getting a Polish" and "We Can't Be as +Bad as All That", the last by that inveterate dramatizer of the social +whirl, Henry Arthur Jones. With Jones in his heaven, all's right with +the whirl'd! + +Nor do these six compose a complete list. Mary Garden is still +"wallowing", and surely Salome belonged to one of the best families of +the East! Lady Macbeth and her husband--not the Macbeths who make lamp +chimneys; O, dear no!--must have been in the blue book of their day. +We met some very nice people with Mary Magdalene, too, and Prince +Bellidor, in "Sister Beatrice", behaved like one of the idle rich, +but inasmuch as their conduct in society, ancient or modern, was not +the theme of the works in which they appeared I shall omit further +mention of these works. + +The rich we have always with us. That is why Thackeray is more popular +than Dickens, and that is why the smart set has been paraded +theatrically since Thespis took the first wagon show on a tour of +Greece. We are a lot of Pomonas--particularly the women among us--and +we cannot help revelling in the doings of dignitaries whose place in +life, but for fear of making this article sound railroad-y, I should +describe as an elevated station. The more humble we are the greater +the craving and the delight. Lizzie Brown, who measures ribbon behind +a counter from breakfast 'til dinner, naturally extracts infinite +pleasure from spending her evenings with only a row of footlights +between herself and wonderful beings who toil not and spin nothing but +yarns. That is almost like moving in the best circles oneself; it is +being transported to a world millions of miles from the brass tracks +in the ribbon counter. Miss Brown half believes herself a great lady +by morning, as you may judge by her manner if you go to her for a yard +of baby blue. Everyone of us has something of Lizzie Brown in his or +her make-up. The same instinct that moves us to marry our daughter to +the Prince of This or the Duke of That causes us to remember "East +Lynne" when we have forgotten "Hazel Kirke." + +Most of us outside the charmed circle have ideas of good society quite +as exaggerated as the Biblical idea of Paradise. We may not fancy that +fashionables go about with crowns of light and golden harps, but we do +insist that on the stage they behave as little as possible like +ordinary human beings. + +That is why it is so difficult to write society plays. If the +characters you create do not feel and think normally they become +puppets, and if they do you are accused at once of having failed to +suggest smartness. One night I stood in the lobby of the Criterion +Theater as the audience came out after having seen "Her Great Match." +A woman who passed me remarked: "I think it was charming, but that man +didn't make love at all like a Prince." Just what are the +peculiarities of royal love-making the lady didn't explain, and the +idiosyncracies that got the only prince I ever knew into jail had to +do, not with the _way_ he courted, but with the number of times. In +any event, it was proved afterward that my friend really was descended +from a respectable veterinary surgeon, which disqualifies me as an +authority on the subject. When I mentioned the matter to him, Mr. +Fitch observed that he had been quite chummy with a prince or two, and +that, while he never actually had seen them make love, he judged from +their consorts that their powers of amatory expression were quite +ordinary. "However", quoth Mr. Fitch, "you can't expect the public to +believe _that_." + +It used to be a pretty general impression that nobody who had more +than twenty thousand a year ever indulged in a show of emotion. I say +"nobody", although, of course, you are aware that wealthy parents in +society plays always are exceptions to the rule of good breeding. +Otherwise, imperturbability of the John Drew kind was supposed to be a +trade mark of culture blown in the bottle. Common folk might laugh or +cry under stress of circumstances, but the souls of the elect were +sheathed in ice. The approved manner of translating a crisis into the +dialogue of the drawing room was something like this: + +[Illustration: "_The peculiarities of royal love-making_"] + +_Lord Dash_: Good afternoon! Rippin' weather, isn't it? (Bus. of +stroking mustache.) I've a bit of disagreeable news for you. + +_Lady Blank_: Indeed? Will you have a cup of tea, Lord Dash? What is +it? + +_Lord Dash_: No, thank you; I never take tea. Your eldest son, havin' +been detected in an act of forgery, has just blown out his bally +brains. + +_Lady Blank_: Poor lad! He was always impulsive! I hope he isn't +seriously hurt, Lord Dash? Dead? Ah! Now you really must let me pour +you a cup of tea. + +Having to combat that sort of folly was the thing that made it hard to +write a society play. It was like dramatizing a novel and trying to +create a heroine who would agree with the ten thousand notions of her +cherished by the ten thousand readers of the book. Gradually, as the +mirror held up to nature has become more nearly true, we have grown to +understand that, in the grip of a great joy or grief, a nobleman +behaves very much like a bricklayer; sometimes a trifle better, and +sometimes, as in the case of the bazaar disaster in Paris, a good deal +worse. + +One fact not universally understood by persons who criticize the smart +set on the stage is that there are many kinds of society. The group +depicted in "Gallops" or "Lord and Lady Algy" is antipodally different +from that shown in "The Way of the World" or "His House in Order." The +self-made men of "The Pit" and "The Lion and the Mouse" are miles +removed from the aristocrats of "The Idler" or "A Royal Family." The +gambling males and cigarette-smoking females of "The Walls of Jericho" +and "The House of Mirth" have very little in common with the +conservatives of "The Hypocrites" and "The Duke of Killicrankie." All +society looks alike to the assistant dramatic editor, however, and, if +some girl delivers herself of a slang phrase, he is quick to realize +that the playwright who created her can know nothing of good form. + +The man who deals with fashionables on the stage fingers a pianoforte +with a single octave. More than half of the conditions that produce +sentiment and sensation in Harlem never get as far down town as Fifth +Avenue. That is why most drawing room dramas are worked out with the +same characters and about the same stories. Someone has said that +there do not exist more than three plots for farce; certainly, not +more than ten have been used in society plays. Of these, the favorite +is the tale of the good-for-nothing gentleman who goes away with the +wife of the studious or hard-working hero. Sometimes, he is only +_about_ to go away with this malcontent when the hero aforesaid finds +her at midnight in the "rooms" of his rival. The places in which a +woman is found at midnight are always "rooms"; never, by any chance, +chambers, or apartments, or a flat. Occasionally, the lady, or the +gentleman, or both, are quite innocent of wrong-doing. The lady may +have come to save the reputation of another lady, or to prepare a +rarebit, but when the husband has tracked her by the fan that years of +Wilde have not taught such callers to hide with them, he gets into a +towering rage and does not get out again until the end of the fourth +act. Henry Arthur Jones calls tea the prop of our drama. I disagree +with him. It is the careless lady with a _penchant_ for nocturnal +visits who makes the theater possible in England and America. You +don't believe it? Well, some of the comedies produced in New York +during one season in which this incident figured were "Popularity", +"Man and His Angel", "The Chorus Lady", "The Three of Us", "The House +of Mirth", "Daughters of Men", "The Straight Road", and +"All-of-a-Sudden Peggy." James M. Barrie satirized the situation in +"Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire", and then employed it seriously for his most +effective scene. + +[Illustration: "_The lady may have come to prepare a rarebit_"] + +Of course, one or two of the pieces in the list given do not come +strictly under the head of drawing room drama, but the fact remains +that a majority of the young women who go calling on the stroke of +twelve dive into indiscretion under Marcel waves. The coveting of his +neighbor's wife is supposed to be a specialty of the society man, and +thus it is that so many comedies of manors are founded on that theme. +The marriage of convenience is much used in plays of this type, too, +as well as the _mesalliance_ that afterward turns out well. Divorce is +coming more and more into vogue as a subject. Then there are satires +in which the follies of the smart set are held up to ridicule and +execration; comedies in which the vulgarisms of a very rich man, +usually an American and father of the heroine, are contrasted +favorably with the culture of the aristocracy of Europe; and plays in +which the wronged girl figures, wearing a wan expression and a +becoming black dress. Add to these varieties that class of composition +in which society is only the background for contests in politics, +diplomacy, business, or detective work, and we have pretty well come +to the end of our possibilities. + +Whatever else happens in the society play, there always is a dance at +which the juvenile lovers flirt, and the serious people discuss such +tragic things as ruin and sudden death, while an orchestra "off at R." +fiddles through "Love's Dream After the Ball." Next to elopements, +ruin and sudden death are the chief necessities of the society play. +Whenever a gentleman gets on the wrong side of the market, or has the +misfortune to possess a wife whose lover is the hero of the piece, +instead of the villain, he promptly kills himself. After reading a +succession of dramas like "The Climbers" and "The Moth and the Flame" +one is amazed to discover that in the United States only about one +hundreth of one per cent. of the population cashes in its checks +self-endorsed. + +If you have followed so far, patient peruser, you probably will join +me in the conclusion that the society play is nothing on earth but +melodrama in a frock coat. The effectiveness of the play depends upon +the completeness of the disguise; with the dramatic tailor rests the +question whether you sniff or sniffle. Undraped melodrama treating of +fashionable folk is the funniest entertainment in the world, excepting +"Charley's Aunt." Fine evenings, when my brain cells were closed for +repairs and I was weary of musical comedy, I used to go over to Eighth +Avenue and see "Why Women Sin" and "A Working Girl's Wrongs." I found +that our class is responsible alike for the sins and the wrongs; that +gentility is a thing to move virtuous burglars, comic green grocers +and other honest men and women to a passion of righteous indignation. +"I was ne'er so thrummed since I was gentleman", wrote Thomas Dekker +in an ancient comedy of unprintable title, and it is my opinion that +he penned the line after seeing his kind through the astigmatic +glasses of Theodore Kremer. Small wonder, indeed! On Eighth Avenue, +in the old days, everyone sufficiently prosperous to be opposed to an +income tax wore a silk hat and lived in a "mansion." Apparently +"mansions" were not places in which privacy was to be had, since the +Eighth Avenue millionaire invariably came out into the street when he +wanted to exhibit "the papers." Eighth Avenue millionaires always were +white-haired, drank cold tea and soda, plotted "dirty work", and had +closets so full of skeletons that any physician might have mistaken +them for anatomical museums. "Little children", I used to say to the +progeny of a friend of mine, "when you grow up be careful not to be an +Eighth Avenue millionaire." + +The smart set have rather a hard time of it on any stage, and, for +that matter, so does the author who dallies with the subject. If there +is one thing in which the dramatic _grand monde_ are lucky it is their +servants. Nowhere else under the blue canopy of heaven are such +perfectly trained menials as one sees through the proscenium arch. +They would make the fortune of any of those agencies misnamed +"intelligence bureaus." + +[Illustration: "_Why women sin_"] + +I already have commented on the difficulties of the man who writes +drawing room drama. I have said that, if he has a stirring story to +tell, he must disguise it. On the other hand, if it be his ambition to +compose comedies of manners, like "The Liars", he must master the very +fine art of interesting an audience for two hours without actually +doing anything; of making a vacuum shimmer. The people in such society +plays must talk like ordinary people who have been seeing society +plays. Their dialogue must be cynical and clever, and just a bit what +a witty Frenchman called "_sans chemise_." A society play excellently +exemplifies the truth of the adage: "Nothing _risque_; nothing +gained." Should the conversation be truly bright the critics may be +counted upon to observe that real people never talk that way; but it +is better to beard the critics than to bore the audience. If I may add +to a line from "Clothes": "Hell and the stage drawing room are two +places where there are no stupid people." + +It is no easy matter for the average playwright to reproduce the +atmosphere of Fifth Avenue. Many of the nabobs one glimpses in the +theatre fall about three hundred and sixty short of the "four +hundred." Every second comedy of manners we see is a comedy of very +bad manners. Men born with gold spoons in their mouths find it hard to +articulate, and few of our fashionable families produce dramatists who +"speak in a voice that fills the nation." Only the most successful of +the craft get an opportunity to study society at first hand. Perhaps +that is fortunate. "The drawback to realism", says Wilton Lackaye, "is +the fate of the realist. If he goes into the slums he becomes base; if +he goes into society he becomes soprano." The average social lion +being the sort of man one could push over, we ought to be glad of the +barrier between the pen, which only writes, and money, which talks. +Vigor and virility are more essential to good drama than absolutely +faithful atmosphere. All other things being equal, the individual who +would make the best pugilist would make the best playwright. + +A good many of our society plays are marred by _gaucheries_ of a +serious nature. Glance over your mental list of tea-cup pieces. Clyde +Fitch, who rarely offended in this respect, had one woman giving +orders to the servants of another woman in "The Truth." Jack Neville, +in the Elsie de Wolfe performance of "The Way of the World", whistled +merrily while waiting in her parlor for his hostess. True, he didn't +whistle very noisily, but that palliation only makes one think of the +retort courteous supposed to have been made by a well-bred woman after +she had complained of a gentleman who whistled in her ball room. "It +was very low", plead the gentleman. "It _was_", answered the lady; +"_very_ low." + +Cynthia, in the comedy of that name, received her husband while the +hairdresser and the manicure were employed with her. Dick Crawford, in +"Caught in the Rain", tips a servant in the home of his friend, Mr. +Mason. Everybody who visits Montgomery Brewster in the first act of +"Brewster's Millions" comments most vulgarly on that hero's newly +acquired wealth. Richard Burbank in "Clothes" mistakes Miss Sherwood's +piano for a hat rack, while that lady permits herself to be led away +from a dance without bidding farewell to her hostess. In "The House of +Mirth", a sandless-souled hero, named Lawrence Selden, literally +thrust himself past a protesting servant and into the rooms of +Augustus Trenor. The young woman impersonated by Edna May in "The +Catch of the Season" was given tiffen consisting of a hunk of bread an +inch thick and tea in a cup that bore all the ear-marks of belonging +to that family of unbreakable things that are used in the second cabin +of ocean liners. These, of course, are "trifles light as air", but +what shall be said of Charles Richman in dress clothes and light boots +in "Mrs. Dane's Defence", of Margaret Dale in decollette and walking +hat in "Delancy", and of Mrs. Fiske's laying her handkerchief on the +luncheon table in "Becky Sharp?" Above all, what shall be said of the +gentleman in "The Triangle" who stabbed his better half with a carving +knife at dinner. I may be ignorant of what I seek to teach and quite +wrong about these other _faux pas_, but _that_ certainly cannot be +condemned too forcibly. It simply isn't done! + +"Popularity", George Cohan's play that afterward became "The Man Who +Owns Broadway", was a perfect mine of ill breeding. In the first +place, the Fuller drawing room, as shown, was a flaring red, with a +piano on which the manufacturer's name was painted in letters two +inches high. During the evening there were several callers, whom the +Fullers left quite alone for a period of fifteen minutes. The butler +atoned for this rudeness by shaking hands with one of the guests, a +young gentleman unfortunately crossed in love, and expressing sympathy +for him. The young gentleman said he was much obliged. The climax of +this singular exhibition was reached when a "matinee idol", dropping +in without invitation on Papa Fuller, whom he had never met, lit a +cigar, instructed the sympathetic butler to bring him spirituous +liquor, and told his host a few things about gentlemen in general and +the host himself in particular. + +The familiarity of the butler in "Popularity" was as nothing to the +behavior of the servants in "Forty-five Minutes From Broadway", where +several menials seemed to subscribe heartily to Paul Blouet's dictum +that "America is a country in which every man is as good as his +neighbor and a damned sight better." The mother in the noisy farce of +"Julie Bonbon" who objected to having her son marry a milliner might +have improved her own manners in any millinery shop on Fifth Avenue. A +chambermaid in "Susan in Search of a Husband" introduced to each other +two guests of her hotel; Vida Phillimore in "The New York Idea" +received in her boudoir a nobleman who had been presented to her only +the day before; Mrs. O'Mara addressed her daughter and ignored the +visitor who was chatting with her in "All-of-a-Sudden Peggy." The +reception room revealed in "The Daughters of Men" looked like the +interior of a jewel box, and served as the abiding place of a +wonderful collection of amusingly stiff-backed men and women, +representing the smart set as, at that time, it was imagined by +Charles Klein. + +[Illustration: "_It simply isn't done!_"] + +Fortunately, errors of taste in staging society plays become fewer and +less conspicuous every day. They are practically obsolete now in +theaters like the Empire, the Lyceum, the Hudson, and the Belasco. +With them has gone the time in which every fashionable apartment was +furnished in exactly the same way and had doors in exactly the same +place. The producer who "dresses" a stage today buys precisely as +though he had a commission to "dress" the home of a wealthy and +intelligent client. Under these circumstances, it is particularly +fortunate that the comedy of manners and the drama of the drawing room +have come to stay. Cultured people are pleasant companions in everyday +life, and doubly pleasant when they have been idealized and +super-refined for library or theater. We may be glad of the evident +fact that plays may come and plays may go, but the society play goes +on forever. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + +Archaic and inconsistent spelling retained. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Footlights Fore and Aft, by Channing Pollock + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40148 *** |