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diff --git a/40148-8.txt b/40148-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 26c9f08..0000000 --- a/40148-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6331 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Footlights Fore and Aft, by Channing Pollock - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Footlights Fore and Aft - -Author: Channing Pollock - -Illustrator: Warren Rockwell - -Release Date: July 6, 2012 [EBook #40148] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -[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 THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT *** - -***** This file should be named 40148-8.txt or 40148-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/1/4/40148/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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