CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PN 2266.F99 
 
 3 1924 021 932 250 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021932250 
 
The Theatre and 
 Its People. 
 
THE THEATRE 
 AND ITS PEOPLE 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANKLIN FYLES 
 
 DRAMATIC CRITIC OF THE "NEW YORK SUN " 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1900 
 
Copyright, i8gg, igoo, 
 By the Curtis Publishing Co. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 The Theatrical Millions 
 
 3 
 
 II. 
 
 What a Theatre Is . . 
 
 9 
 
 III. 
 
 The Making of Actors 
 
 23 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Young Women 
 
 35 
 
 V. 
 
 Looking for Work 
 
 47 
 
 VL 
 
 The Theatrical Man of Busi- 
 
 
 
 
 65 
 
 VII. 
 
 Wats and Means and Uncer- 
 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 VIII. 
 
 New and Old Processes . 
 
 99 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Writing of a Plat 
 
 113 
 
 X. 
 
 Author's Gains and Losses 
 
 129 
 
 XL 
 
 The Rehearsal of a Play 
 
 145 
 
 XII. 
 
 Setting Everything Ready 
 
 161 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The First Night of a Play 
 
 177 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Points in First Performances 
 
 195 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Faces of the Players 
 
 209 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Behind the Scenes 
 
 221 
 
 XVII. The Actors Among Themselves 243 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 At the Entrance Frontispiece 
 
 facing page 
 Looking from the Stage into the Larg- 
 est Theatre in America 10 
 
 A Class in Dramatic Expression 26 
 
 At a One-Night Town 30 
 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin" on Parade 58-59 
 
 Looking on the Stage from the Upper 
 Gallery in the Metropolitan Opera 
 
 House, New York 68 
 
 A Star Actress in Her Dressing-Room 84 
 
 David Belasco 116 
 
 Bronson Howard 116 
 
 Martha Morton 122 
 
 Marguerite Merington 122 
 
 Clyde Fitch 136 
 
 Augustus Thomas 136 
 
 William Gillette 148 
 
 Shifting the Scenery 164 
 
 Making a Scenic Model 164 
 
 Directing a Dress Rehearsal 164 
 
viii List of Illustrations 
 
 facing page 
 The Last Moment on the Stage Before 
 
 the Cubtain Rises 180 
 
 Called Before the Curtain 186 
 
 The Artifice of Beauty 210 
 
 Thunder-Making Devices 232 
 
 Imitating Rain 232 
 
 Making Lightning 232 
 
 How Wind is Imitated 232 
 
 Behind the Curtain 250 
 
 The Last Night of an Engagement. . . . 256 
 
The Theatrical Millions 
 
The Theatre and Its 
 People. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Theatrical Millions. 
 
 Thekb are five thousand theatres in 
 the United States if we count all kinds. 
 More than two thousand are fairly class- 
 able as legitimate, and these range from 
 the finest in a city to the poorest in a 
 village. But all are in the routes of 
 the travelling dramatic companies. Over 
 one thousand more are devoted to vaude- 
 ville. The two thousand others taper 
 off in various ways, but still they are 
 theatres. To estimate the capital in- 
 vested in all this theatrical property is 
 
4 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 difficult. Many of the theatres are por- 
 tions of buildings devoted partly to 
 other uses. But about $100,000,000 is 
 invested in the three thousand dramatic 
 houses which will be considered in this 
 book. That is an average of $33,333 
 each, which is low enough. Hundreds 
 are cheap wooden buildings, but they 
 are offset by some that have cost as 
 much as $500,000 apiece. It is equally 
 hard to compute the money paid by 
 Americans for theatrical amusement. 
 Separate audiences yield from abso- 
 lutely nothing, in extreme cases of fail- 
 ure, to as much as $20,000 at an excep- 
 tional performance of opera. A con- 
 servative calculation is that the aggre- 
 gate reaches $70,000,000 a year. Not 
 less than one and a half million persons 
 sit in these theatres each week-day night 
 in the season of at least eight months. 
 The publicity of this manufacture and 
 sale of stage amusement is not accom- 
 panied by much of specific knowledge 
 
The Theatre and Its People 5 
 
 on the subject. Dramatic art is widely 
 and thoroughly discussed, and the aver- 
 age of taste and judgment concerning 
 plays and acting is intelligent; but the 
 natural curiosity as to the methods of 
 the theatre and its people has been in- 
 cited by fancies rather than satisfied by 
 facts. Perhaps an account of the the- 
 atrical business and profession as pur- 
 sued to-day in America, written neither 
 to create nor destroy illusions, but to 
 convey the truth in a plain manner, 
 may be a gratification to its readers. 
 
What a Theatre Is 
 
II. 
 
 What a Theatee Is. 
 
 A theatee is, of course, a place in 
 which to see and hear plays. But this 
 fact was not taken into full account by 
 the earlier builder. He could not do so, 
 even though he tried. He had to rest 
 the balconies and roof on many pillars, 
 which obscured the stage to those who 
 sat behind them. The use of steel, in- 
 stead of wood and cast-iron, now re- 
 duces these supports to a few slender 
 posts set farther back. But formerly 
 the theatrical architect disregarded the 
 rules of sight and sound needlessly. 
 Since then he has become a specialist. 
 Give him a square plot of ground, so 
 that the proportions need not be restrict- 
 ed, and he will erect on it a theatre 
 
io The Theatre and Its People 
 
 from every seat in which the perform- 
 ance may be viewed fully and comfort- 
 ably. He will calculate the lines of 
 vision so nicely that the persons farthest 
 from the stage may see as well as the 
 nearest. He will obey all the known 
 laws of acoustics, too, but with less sure- 
 ness, because waves of sound are erratic 
 and echoes are whimsical. He cannot 
 guarantee that there will not be spots in 
 the auditorium from which the actors' 
 voices cannot be heard perfectly, or 
 others which those voices will reach 
 twice through reverberation. Some of 
 the handsomest theatres have these 
 serious faults of sound, despite the ut- 
 most efforts that have been put forth in 
 order to avoid or cure them. 
 
 The architect generally uses about 
 one-third of the square plot for the stage 
 and two-thirds for a wide and shallow 
 auditorium. That places the largest 
 feasible number of people close to the 
 performance. He will so arrange the 
 
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The Theatre and Its People 1 1 
 
 inclines of the floors, the height of the 
 stage, and the semicircles of seats that 
 everybody faces the actors. Nobody 
 will have to look up at them, nearly all 
 will look down on them, and few will 
 need to stretch their necks around posts. 
 These essentials are now found in most 
 of the new theatres throughout the coun- 
 try. They are easy to accomplish, un- 
 less the site is ill-shaped or the house an 
 old one reconstructed. The galleries 
 will be deep, with nearly straight fronts, 
 to seat as many as possible advanta- 
 geously. Of American houses devoted 
 regularly to dramatic performances, 
 the Boston Theatre has the greatest 
 seating capacity — three thousand one 
 hundred and seventy-two. If the build- 
 ing were modern, this number would be 
 increased by another thousand. The 
 smallest first-class theatre is the New 
 York Lyceum, which holds seven hun- 
 dred and twenty-seven in its chairs. 
 All theatres in the larger cities must 
 
12 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 now by law be fireproof in most of their 
 construction. A solid brick wall must 
 separate the stage from the auditorium, 
 except for the necessary opening, and 
 this must have a metal or asbestos cur- 
 tain ready to lower at a moment's warn- 
 ing. There must be passages or balco- 
 nies at the sides of the house large 
 enough to hold all the occupants of the 
 adjacent sections of seats. All aisles 
 must be exactly proportionate to the 
 seating capacity, and it is against the 
 law to place extra chairs in them. All 
 the lights must be shielded by glass or 
 wire globes. A prescribed number of 
 fire-extinguishers must be at hand. On 
 each stage a fireman stays during 
 every performance. Whether these 
 and other regulations are obeyed or not 
 depends upon the public officers whose 
 duty it is to enforce them. Generally 
 they are obeyed. Some of the older 
 theatres are traps of death. Most of 
 
The Theatre and Its People 13 
 
 the newer ones are models in which 
 every peril of collapse or fire has a safe- 
 guard. 
 
 Comforts formerly undreamed of in 
 theatres are now common. Finely fur- 
 nished waiting-rooms invite the women, 
 and smoking-rooms the men. Machines 
 pump in iced air in summer, and radi- 
 ate heat in winter. Ushers in uniforms 
 and maids in caps and aprons are polite 
 and attentive. Hats and wraps are 
 taken care of free of charge. Water is 
 passed to the audience between the acts. 
 The shrewd manager studies the whims 
 of the people whose money supports 
 him. Sometimes he does odd things to 
 catch their fancy. In two ISTew York 
 theatres the front dozen rows in the par- 
 quet are sofas for two persons each. 
 The idea is that as most people go to 
 the theatres in couples they will feel 
 cosey and sociable if thus paired off. 
 The modern manager has learned from 
 
14 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 the modern merchant that it is wise to 
 be polite to the people whom he sells 
 things to. 
 
 Look at the outside of a modern thea- 
 tre and you will see that often the rear 
 is much higher than the rest. This 
 taller part contains the stage. Its shape 
 is due to the fact that much of the scen- 
 ery is hoisted straight up, instead of 
 being moved aside, when the space below 
 is required for another set. The pro- 
 portions of the stage in one of the newer 
 and better of the New York theatres 
 may be taken as something like the 
 standard. The height of the opening as 
 seen by the audience is 39 feet, and the 
 width is the same. The distance from 
 the footlights to the rear wall is 58 feet, 
 there being 3 feet between the footlights 
 and the curtain. The side walls are 
 78 feet apart. The space above the 
 stage opening is 33 feet in height, the 
 distance from the top of the rigging 
 loft to the floor being 72 feet. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 15 
 
 Under the stage floor there is a space 
 16 feet in depth. This is enough room 
 for the working of the traps through 
 which actors and pieces of scenery some- 
 times appear or disappear. These open- 
 ings are used for the popping up of a 
 clown or a sprite into sudden view with 
 a spiral spring, the impressive rise 
 of a dignified apparition by means of 
 an elevator, or the prosaic entrance of 
 an ordinary individual up a stairway. 
 There may he a dozen traps and mov- 
 able sections. The extra height above 
 the visible portion of the stage makes it 
 possible to shift scenery without con- 
 fusion or difficulty. The loft, with its 
 ropes, pulleys, sparlike joists, and nar- 
 row bridges, looks like the rigging of 
 a ship. This outfit is operated, when- 
 ever a change of scene is made in sight 
 of the audience, in obedience to electric 
 signals from the man in control of the 
 performance. All save the walls of 
 rooms is ordinarily lifted into the upper 
 
1 6 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 space, which should be equal in space 
 to that part of the stage which the audi- 
 ence sees. The rest of the scenery is 
 held in place by adjustable braces and 
 clamps, instead of being fixed in the 
 old-style grooves. 
 
 The lighting of the scenes has become 
 a factor in stagecraft. It is done by gas 
 or electricity, with limelight for a valu- 
 able adjunct. A switchboard with nu- 
 merous buttons enables one man on the 
 stage to control the electric lamps in all 
 parts of the stage or auditorium. If 
 gas is used, levers give him the same 
 facility. Besides the row of lights 
 across the front of the stage, the sides 
 and top of the opening are lined with 
 them. All these are shaded from the 
 audience, but reflectors throw their 
 glare on the stage when desired, and 
 colored globes produce any hue that the 
 scene demands. Not much scenery is 
 .kept in theatres, except where resident 
 companies are employed. The equip- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 17 
 
 ment of a play for a tour usually in- 
 cludes everything that the audience sees 
 in it. 
 
 Money and ingenuity have been 
 wasted in contriving odd stages. The 
 late Charles Eechter put into a New 
 York theatre a stage that had a semi- 
 circular back and top, so that landscapes 
 and skies might be more realistic. The 
 same idea was later developed in huge 
 cycloramic pictures shown in circular 
 buildings, but it did not prove useful 
 in plays. However, it is common now 
 to mount an outdoor view on rollers like 
 a panorama, and draw it around the 
 back and sides of the stage without 
 angles. 
 
 Some years ago the late Steele 
 Mackaye ingeniously planned and con- 
 structed a two-story stage to lift and 
 lower, so that one section might be used 
 by the actors while the other was being 
 set with the next scene. He expected 
 that the intermissions between acts 
 
1 8 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 would thus be practically abolished. 
 Only a minute or two would be needed 
 to change one stage for the other. But 
 he had given no heed to the fact that 
 it takes time for the actors to change 
 their costumes. Even though the scen- 
 ery might be in place, the toilettes of 
 the actresses could not be ready so 
 quickly. The only gain was that an 
 elaborate scene could be built solidly on 
 one stage, the movable ones being con- 
 fined to the other. Mr. Mackaye, find- 
 ing that he could not obviate the delay 
 between the acts, next tried to occupy it 
 with extra entertainment. In the next 
 house built under his direction the cur- 
 tain line was ten feet back from the 
 edge of the stage. Into that space an 
 ornamental structure was let down, and 
 on it musicians played while the ensu- 
 ing scene was being prepared. This 
 exploitation of the orchestra required 
 more and better bands than are com- 
 monly employed, and the result was not 
 
The Theatre and Its People 19 
 
 thought to he worth the extra cost. But 
 the ingenuity expended in the construc- 
 tion of stages has not usually been 
 erratic or futile. It has been, in the 
 main, practical and of much value to 
 dramatic art. 
 
The Making of Actors 
 
III. 
 
 The Making of Actoes. 
 
 Wheee do the actors come from? 
 Some are of theatrical parentage. These 
 began their stage life soon after birth. 
 They may have made their dramatic 
 entrances as infants in arms. They 
 acquired familiarity with acting and 
 more or less skill as they matured. This 
 process has produced many fine artists 
 and some geniuses, and it has also de- 
 veloped more numerous representatives 
 of mediocrity. There used to be a 
 prejudice among managers against any 
 other training than that which was had 
 in the theatre. The recruit from out- 
 side the ranks had to begin with the 
 smallest parts and work along slowly 
 
24 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 and unaided. Here and there a retired 
 actor gave lessons to novices singly, but 
 schools of acting were unknown. The 
 conditions have changed within ten 
 years. The majority of the new people 
 in stageland are young men and women 
 of education and refinement. They 
 come from all kinds of families in the 
 social scale. 
 
 Two girls made their debuts as sisters 
 in a play. They had been chosen for 
 their similarity in looks and manners. 
 In reality, one was the orphan daughter 
 of a stableman, and the other the heiress 
 of a millionaire. A young actor in the 
 same company was the grandson of a 
 President of the United States, and 
 a second was a beau from a purse-proud 
 family. Both were university men. A 
 third, the son of a rural clergyman, had 
 worked as a waiter in an eating-house 
 while preparing for the dramatic pro- 
 fession. But all these five were alike 
 in being ladies or gentlemen in the best 
 
The Theatre and Its People 25 
 
 sense of the term. They had been gradu- 
 ated from a dramatic school at the same 
 time, and had obtained their first stage 
 employment together in these minor 
 parts of a play. 
 
 When once the prejudice of managers 
 against school-trained actors was re- 
 moved a change for the better began. 
 Young people of good breeding, cul- 
 tured minds, and artistic tastes have 
 since made their way into the profes- 
 sion in larger numbers. That has im- 
 proved the players' status. The schools 
 range from a single teacher's to those 
 with full staffs of professors. One may 
 buy ten dollars' worth of instruction, 
 and get it in an hour, or he may expend 
 half as many thousands in a four-years' 
 course. The schooling consists, to state 
 it broadly, of elocution and pantomime. 
 They are the important things. Acting 
 is made up of speech and motion. The 
 voice is first developed, next modulated, 
 and finally adjusted to exact expression. 
 
16 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 The vocal exercises in a dramatic school 
 consist at first of pronouncing and sing- 
 ing in concert. That is followed by 
 individual practice to cure special 
 faults. Fluent diction is at length 
 striven for. The eyes of audiences must 
 be appealed to quite as much as the ears. 
 Every motion should convey a meaning. 
 The system devised by Delsarte, a 
 French expert, is commonly used, with 
 modifications. 
 
 A class in dramatic expression is 
 sometimes a funny sight. It may con- 
 sist of a roomful of young men and 
 women striking extravagant poses in 
 unison and simultaneously making 
 strange noises. Or they may be pros- 
 trating themselves on the floor, to lie 
 there sprawling like swimmers and cry- 
 ing out like lunatics. They are prac- 
 tising a system of stage culture. A row 
 of pupils making faces, of love, hate, 
 and other intense feelings, accompanied 
 by highly emotional exclamations, is 
 
i~ 
 < 
 
The Theatre and Its People 27 
 
 probably a more singular educational 
 exhibit than can be found in any other 
 process of learning. Some teachers 
 make the pupils study and exercise 
 their faces before mirrors, alone as well 
 as in classes. Pictures of visages in all 
 manner of grimace, from pleasure to 
 anguish, are imitated in these practices 
 of expression. The classical Greek 
 masks are used as standards, but mod- 
 ern drawings are used, too, and good 
 object-lessons are commonly found in 
 the comic periodicals. 
 
 Pupils in dramatic schools are drilled 
 in calisthenics, in dancing and in fenc- 
 ing, so that they may obtain a flexible 
 command of themselves. While these 
 things are going on lectures on dramatic 
 literature are given and scenes from 
 plays are enacted. Whenever the oppor- 
 tunity offers the pupils appear in a 
 current play as characters who do not 
 have to speak. They may be the silent 
 guests in a drawing-room, the loungers 
 
28 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 in a public place, or appear in some 
 other guise to people a scene. To form 
 an excited mob is still better training, 
 because then the pupils are taught to 
 make outcries and to be very demon- 
 strative in ways that mean something. 
 But in these early public appearances 
 they are not permitted to do at all as 
 they please. Everything is minutely 
 directed by the stage manager. One 
 value in this experience is in getting 
 used to an audience, though not in ceas- 
 ing to be afraid of it. The oldest and 
 best actors will tell you that hardly any 
 one ever does that. But what is called 
 stage fright is cured partly, at least, 
 and the awkwardness of constraint is 
 eased. The pupils get no other pay for 
 this work. They are glad enough to do 
 it for practice. Managers prefer them, 
 not only on account of that, but also 
 because they look and act better than 
 the persons ordinarily hired for the 
 same duties. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 29 
 
 One of the exercises in a dramatic 
 school is to speak pieces as all of us did 
 in our school-days. But the selections 
 are not the well-remembered ones of 
 our juvenile declamation. They are 
 likelier to be passages from plays so 
 unfamiliar that the pupil cannot be 
 guided by precedent, but must form his 
 own conception of the ideas and how to 
 convey them in speech and action. The 
 tendency is toward naturalism, and 
 away from formal declamation. Ora- 
 tory, in the ordinary meaning of the 
 word, is depreciated. Fluency and 
 variety of utterance are aimed at. 
 
 An effective way to test a student's 
 pantomimic ability is to make him try to 
 show without words, entirely by silent 
 mimicry, something that he has seen in 
 the street. Some of these representations 
 are intelligible and others are devoid of 
 apparent meaning. For instance, a girl 
 enacted a mother who had lost her child. 
 The eager search, the happy discovery, 
 
30 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 the angry chastisement, and then the joy- 
 ful hug were made so clear that language 
 could not have told the story better. 
 The next girl was less successful. The 
 instructor in each case gave his judg- 
 ment of what the pantomime meant. 
 This time he said that he was uncertain, 
 but probably the person portrayed was 
 a beggar seeking alms. The almost 
 tearful actress explained that it was 
 a Salvation Army lass making an ex- 
 hortation. Still more positive was the 
 failure of a young fellow who seemed 
 to be personating a murderer. It looked 
 as though he hid warily, groped stealth- 
 ily, and at length struck down his un- 
 suspecting victim with some deadly 
 weapon, hid the body in a bag and 
 dragged it away. That was the idea 
 that the teacher got. What the pupil 
 had tried to show was a street sweeper 
 at work. 
 
 Well along in the course of instruc- 
 tion the pupils make their first appear- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 3 1 
 
 ances as semi-professional actors of 
 parts more or less important. This 
 occurs at an afternoon performance on 
 the stage of a theatre before an invited 
 audience. New short plays make up 
 the programme, as a rule, and for two 
 good reasons. If familiar pieces were 
 used, the young actors would ape the 
 old ones whom they had seen in the 
 same roles, and would (still worse) be 
 judged by comparison. Managers at- 
 tend these affairs, personally or by 
 proxy, to pick out those who show real 
 ability. Some of the single teachers 
 produce equally good results, and their 
 pupils get consideration. The schooled 
 applicant is preferred nowadays to one 
 who has had only haphazard practice 
 on the stage and knows nothing of the 
 principles of theatrical art. 
 
The Young Women 
 
IV. 
 
 The Young Women. 
 
 The making of actresses is easier 
 than the making of actors. The young 
 women are by nature more apt and 
 pliable. Their faces are more mobile, 
 their manners more graceful, their 
 habits of speech and bearing more vari- 
 able. When the round-up of talent 
 comes and the graduates are turned out 
 for professional service, there are half 
 a dozen proficient actresses to every 
 actor of equal ability. This is shown 
 at the matinee trial performances, in 
 which the female roles are generally 
 well played, while the male ones are 
 not. The superiority of the young 
 women misleads some of them to let 
 
36 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 their vaulting ambition overleap itself. 
 There was one actress, Mary Anderson, 
 who was eminent from the very outset 
 of her career. Gifted with a command- 
 ing type of personal beauty, powerful 
 voice, and the mien of a born tragedy 
 queen, she triumphed immediately over 
 the crudities of a novice. She gained 
 fame and fortune before she became, as 
 she did eventually, a great artist. 
 
 That isolated example has misled 
 many a stage-struck girl. She finds a 
 teacher to natter her vanity, deplete her 
 purse, and coach her for a public ap- 
 pearance in some famous character. 
 The cost of that single occasion, aside 
 from her own training for it, amounts 
 to $1000 if she presents a play ade- 
 quately in a first-class theatre. Not less 
 than a week's salaries must be paid to 
 her company to cover the time of re- 
 hearsing, and other things will raise the 
 expenses just so far as she submits to 
 being deluded. The upshot is usually 
 
The Theatre and Its People 37 
 
 a fiasco. But she may have been drilled 
 into a parrot-like kind of mediocrity. 
 In one instance a novice was prepared 
 by a retired actress to play a tragic role. 
 She played in the manner of the teacher 
 herself a quarter of a century ago. The 
 impression made was almost that of 
 genius. But the fair apple of praise 
 was filled with the ashes of hope. The 
 aspirant had acquired no facility save 
 in that single part. 
 
 Honest dramatic instructors advise 
 their pupils to seek success modestly 
 and slowly. The young women meet, 
 at this point, a difficulty arising from 
 their superiority of sex. If promising 
 actresses are more numerous six to one 
 than actors, the same ratio operates in 
 favor of the young men in getting work. 
 A good-looking fellow finds himself in 
 no such glutted market as discourages 
 his sister aspirant. If he is clever, he 
 will readily get an opening, even though 
 he is ugly. The masculine roles in 
 
38 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 pla}-s predominate largely. Of comely, 
 intelligent, and tolerably facile actress- 
 es, the supply is far in excess of the 
 demand. That being so, there is no 
 chance at all for those who have mis- 
 taken taste for talent, who have de- 
 luded themselves to believe that they 
 can learn to act because they wish to, 
 and for whom there can be nothing but 
 disappointment. Genius that manifests 
 itself ever so little is recognized at once. 
 Mediocrity finds scant welcome. For 
 incompetency there is no encourage- 
 ment. The best graduates of the dra- 
 matic schools pass at once into regular 
 employment. The rest seek it first by 
 direct application to managers. The 
 young woman's preference is one of the 
 several stock companies with a vogue 
 in New York and on their tours. Rarely 
 can she get into the presence of the 
 manager. She has to tell her errand to 
 some subordinate. If she shows a com- 
 bination of beauty, brains, and train- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 39 
 
 ing, she may be put on the waiting list. 
 Her name and address are taken down. 
 There is a chance that she will be sent 
 for whenever somebody like her is 
 needed for a small part. In such in- 
 stances the manager himself may listen 
 to a recitation. Eventually she may 
 make her appearance in a small role. 
 But her start is likelier to be made with 
 some minor travelling company, with 
 a hard initial experience of a tour of 
 one-night towns. 
 
 Advancement is sometimes rapid on 
 the stage, but oftener it is slow. It can 
 hardly ever be gained without earning 
 it. This was not always so. It is not 
 many years since a young woman might 
 make beauty and money serve her pur- 
 pose of stage exploitation, even though 
 her talent was scant. Managers were 
 at hand to put her forward while her 
 capital lasted, and during that time, 
 usually brief, she figured conspicuously, 
 if not illustriously. But the business 
 
40 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 methods of the theatres have heen 
 changed radically for the better. The 
 houses of the first class are no longer 
 open to vain and false pretenders. The 
 aim is to provide the best performances 
 of the various .kinds. Not all of the 
 kinds are praiseworthy, but none of 
 them is now meant to include inability. 
 Experiments are carefully calculated, 
 and those that fail are quickly aban- 
 doned. It is quite impossible, under 
 the present conditions, for an actress to 
 obtain even a transitory semblance of 
 unmerited success. Even if she de- 
 serves it, she has to earn about all she 
 gets of fame. She must learn to labor 
 and to wait. 
 
 Sometimes it is necessary to provide 
 quick substitutes for absent actors. The 
 minor members of the company are pre- 
 pared to assume more important roles 
 at brief notice. Thus the girl whom 
 you see enacting a lowly servant to a 
 lofty lady is ready to go from calico 
 
The Theatre and Its People 41 
 
 into satin in a jiffy, and lift her voice 
 from the humility of " May I ?" to the 
 insolence of " You must !" Even though 
 her heart may sicken with hope de- 
 ferred, she is benefited by " tinder- 
 studying." She has to go through a 
 course of rehearsing. While she may 
 never play the part in public with the 
 stock company, she may be assigned to 
 it when the piece is sent off on a tour 
 with other performers. The system of 
 under-study is general. Sometimes a 
 young and new actress is engaged for 
 a small part with the promise that, 
 besides the possibility of an emergency 
 call to a better one, she shall surely have 
 it if the success of the piece warrant 
 a second and cheaper company for a 
 round of the smaller cities. 
 
 The irksomeness is not less if while 
 waiting for a better part the girl has to 
 efface her youth or beauty. In private 
 life she may be a belle with every natu- 
 ral charm enhanced by fine toilettes. 
 
\i The Theatre and Its People 
 
 But before the friends who go to see her 
 on the stage she may have to wear the 
 rags of a beggar or the garish garb of 
 a parvenu. All the women in a play 
 cannot be good in looks or conduct. 
 The most gracious daughter of refine- 
 ment may have to be repellent in her 
 mimic character. 
 
 The daughter of a wealthy and mod- 
 ish family desired to become an actress. 
 She was young, beautiful, and ambi- 
 tious. She had several interviews with 
 a dramatic manager. 
 
 " You have the right personality for 
 a small part in a piece I am going to 
 bring out," he said. " It is that of a 
 lady accustomed to the most refined 
 society." 
 
 " My mother is ' at home' Thursday 
 afternoons," the girl replied. " You 
 will receive her card. Will you devote 
 an hour to observing me there ?" 
 
 The manager consented. He found 
 
The Theatre and Its People 43 
 
 that she was, as he had expected her to 
 be, a graceful, gracious belle among the 
 modish guests. He told her that if she 
 would try to preserve the same manner 
 at the reception in the play, he would 
 take the risk of engaging her. 
 
 " And now I have something to ask 
 of you," she said. " It would not be 
 hard for me, I think, to behave exactly 
 as I do here; only, would I feel the 
 same in the kind of drawing-room you 
 would place me in 1 You comprehend V 
 
 " Yes," the manager replied. " You 
 mean that you would miss the beauty 
 and luxury of this apartment. Every- 
 thing here is in taste, even to the small- 
 est touch of color and detail of arrange- 
 ment. This end of the room is just 
 what I want for the scene in the play. 
 If your mother will give me the facili- 
 ties for my artists I will reproduce it 
 faithfully. Oh, don't thank me! I'll 
 do it simply to save time and expense 
 
44 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 in designing. You shall have no excuse, 
 in case you are awkward, of not ' feel- 
 ing at home.' " 
 
 The manager kept his promise. The 
 drawing-room in the play duplicated 
 a section of the one in Fifth Avenue, 
 and was not less costly so far as it 
 went. And the girl ? Well, the open 
 end of the room was toward a pub- 
 lic audience, and that scared away 
 her fine air. She was absolutely awk- 
 ward on the first night, and it was not 
 until after a week's experience that she 
 was able to speak her dozen lines like 
 an accomplished lady, or even stand in 
 graceful postures which had been quite 
 artless in private life. 
 
Looking for Work 
 
Looking foe Woke. 
 
 Almost all the dramatic companies, 
 whether meant for location or travel, 
 are made up in New York City. The 
 work is done chiefly through agents, 
 some of whom are women. The trust- 
 worthy ones serve responsible managers 
 and capable actors. The fee for an 
 engagement is half the first week's sal- 
 ary. The employer pays nothing. The 
 agent keeps a registry of all applicants 
 who have had experience on the stage. 
 In some cases, not usually, he will put 
 amateurs on the list. Those who come 
 from good teachers get attention. As 
 a rule, however, he will not bother with 
 other than professionals of whose abili- 
 
48 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 ties he has a pretty definite knowledge. 
 Scant heed is given to applicants who 
 have not shown proficiency. Amateur 
 experience is not respected. Assertion 
 of ability avails naught. A prepossess- 
 ing appearance counts. But even those 
 who have reason to be vain in that 
 respect are likely to be told that their 
 good looks would disappear on the 
 stage. The idea that the footlights 
 always enhance beauty is a mistake. 
 The effect is quite as often the other 
 way. Natural color counts for nothing. 
 The person with a fine complexion but 
 irregular features may look ill-favored. 
 The face of an actress depends on the 
 shape of the features and their mobility. 
 It is hard for even an expert to foretell 
 how anybody will appear under such 
 conditions. Nor is beauty a paramount 
 consideration, even with actresses, al- 
 though it is a great factor. Talent is 
 the first consideration. 
 
 When a manager has settled on a new 
 
The Theatre and Its People 49 
 
 play for production he first studies the 
 characters closely and then seeks their 
 counterparts in looks, voices, and man- 
 ners. Versatility is rare, and the 
 manager is not concerned in develop- 
 ing it. He is a dealer in talent rather 
 than a cultivator of it. His ventures 
 are sufficiently uncertain without in- 
 creasing the risks needlessly. In excep- 
 tional cases he will save a salary by 
 taking an untried beginner willing to 
 work without pay. But that is regarded 
 generally as a penny wise and pound 
 foolish thing to do, and when done it is 
 apt to be due to a belief that the anxious 
 novice is really capable. In the ordi- 
 nary process the manager tells the agent 
 just what is wanted for the cast of the 
 play in hand. Together they fix upon 
 one or more suitable actors for each 
 role. The manager may submit the 
 names of those whom he has in mind. 
 The agent may recommend others. In 
 either case the agent knows pretty 
 
50 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 nearly, or will speedily find out, 
 whether the desired persons are dis- 
 engaged and the pay which they will 
 ask or accept. But the bargain has to 
 be concluded by the manager and the 
 actor, with the agent as a harmonizing 
 medium. 
 
 Managers on their tours are alert for 
 talent. All along the routes of the 
 travelling companies are boys and girls 
 who speak pieces to the delight of cod- 
 dling communities, and adult elocution- 
 ists who are encouraged by a larger 
 public. These persons are prone to 
 believe that they were born for a theat- 
 rical career. The argument against 
 these aspirants is that they have become 
 so fixed in the method of a reciter that 
 they cannot, in these times of colloquial 
 speech and easy deportment on the 
 stage, enact a character in the natural 
 manner required by advanced stage- 
 craft. That is a just and true theory, 
 but its indiscriminate application keeps 
 
The Theatre and Its People 51 
 
 a large amount of talent out of the 
 theatre. Those elocutionists who can 
 make an audience weep or laugh are 
 surely possessed of essential qualifica- 
 tions for acting. They probably have 
 good voices, trained to expressive dic- 
 tion, and they may have developed 
 facility in mimicry. In either case 
 they have the makings of a player, al- 
 ways provided that they are young 
 enough to be still ductile for further 
 development, and that some physical 
 defect does not nullify the advantage. 
 Many have risen from the platform to 
 the stage by retaining all their vocal 
 merits of fluency and flexibility, and 
 getting rid of grandiloquence and all 
 the mannerisms of oracular declama- 
 tion. Those who are mimics must learn 
 to assimilate their abilities with the 
 other requirements of a play before 
 they can become valuable on the dra- 
 matic stage. The acting forces of the 
 theatres might well be recruited more 
 
52 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 freely than they are from the young 
 elocutionists of the country — those who 
 were born with uncommonly good vocal 
 organs, and have learned how to use 
 them well enough to entertain their 
 friends and neighbors. These effective 
 speakers have made a long start toward 
 acceptable acting, and it is a mistake of 
 some managers to taboo them carelessly. 
 Many aspirants to the stage write to 
 managers for employment, telling what 
 they have done, what they believe they 
 can do, and perhaps sending printed 
 praise from the home newspapers. 
 Hardly ever do they get any encourag- 
 ing responses, and usually they receive 
 none at all. That is as well in most 
 cases. Only the possessors of excep- 
 tional qualities should be helped to go 
 on the stage. Most of those who write 
 earnestly of their determination to 
 become actors, and who dwell particu- 
 larly on their ideals and ambitions, 
 mistake the desire for the ability. It 
 
The Theatre and Its People 53 
 
 must be borne in mind that acting 
 depends less on mind than on matter — 
 that is to say, while a fine brain is 
 highly desirable in a player, it need not 
 be of unusual quality to enable him to 
 do satisfactory service. The playwright 
 and the stage manager do most of the 
 thinking for him, and few of our per- 
 formers, even those of eminence, are 
 under much of an intellectual strain. 
 
 For these reasons the managers can- 
 not assume that the stage-struck writers 
 of eloquent letters, no matter what they 
 urge in favor of employment, really 
 possess the gifts of nature to warrant 
 their efforts to get behind the footlights. 
 Those gifts are physical. The best of 
 them are comeliness and a strong voice. 
 No ugly girl should ever think of a 
 theatrical career, and the boy who is 
 not good-looking can hope for availabil- 
 ity in no other than grotesque roles. But 
 beauty alone will not serve the purpose. 
 A Venus who lisps or an Adonis who 
 
54 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 stammers are of no use in the drama. 
 Strenuous applicants with impediments 
 of speech are not uncommon, while 
 those with weak vocal cords, unshapely 
 forms, homely faces, and generally 
 graceless personalities are surprisingly 
 plenty. Any one of these things should 
 keep its owner away from the stage 
 door. But if nature has been kind to 
 any young elocutionist or amateur actor 
 in these respects, and has besides given 
 a faculty of sympathetic expression — 
 what is sometimes called temperament, 
 or magnetism — only then it may be 
 worth while to persevere. If endowed 
 with those rare merits, no young man 
 or woman need show the evidence to 
 many managers before finding a place 
 for them. They are too rare to be 
 thrown aside when found. 
 
 Salaries vary with circumstances. 
 The manager may find at $25 a week 
 a player whose moderate talent exactly 
 fits a part of considerable importance. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 55 
 
 He may have to pay $150 if the role is 
 singular and fit candidates scarce. If 
 he wants celebrity in addition to ability, 
 he may be willing to make the salary 
 $500 a week. In that case he takes into 
 account the public value of the name, 
 and makes a feature of it in his adver- 
 tisements. Not more than ten actors in 
 America, aside from the stars, receive 
 as much as $250 a week, and not more 
 than five actresses are paid this amount. 
 In fact, $150 a week is exceptional, 
 and $100 will engage an excellent hero 
 or heroine, a fine comedian, or a de- 
 lineator of eccentric character. The 
 wages run down to $75 for a soubrette, 
 ingenue, or old man, to $50 for an old 
 woman, juvenile man, or juvenile 
 woman, and so along to utility and 
 chorus men and women at $12 to $18 
 per week. Those are the wages of 
 thoroughly competent actors in com- 
 panies of good grade. The figures may 
 be lowered under other circumstances 
 
$6 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 nearly to nothing. Engagements are 
 made for the run of a play if it is a new 
 one, or for the season of thirty to forty 
 weeks if it is an old one. Written con- 
 tracts are usual, but not invariable. 
 Unless there is a proviso to the contrary, 
 either party may terminate the engage- 
 ment on two weeks' notice. Some actors, 
 however, are able to stipulate for entire 
 seasons. In such cases the managers 
 reserve the right to transfer their ser- 
 vices at pleasure. 
 
 Young actors are not averse to en- 
 acting old characters. Some of the best 
 of the aged men in the plays are hardly 
 more than youths in fact. A deceiving 
 counterfeit of extreme age is preferable 
 to genuineness. The younger actor has 
 more strength of voice and vigor of 
 action, and thus may put desirable force 
 into a semblance of decrepitude. But 
 old women are seldom personated on the 
 stage by young women. Actresses of 
 forty to fifty are abundant and cheap. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 57 
 
 The feminine voice, unlike the mascu- 
 line, is not adaptable to a simulation of 
 age. Besides those reasons, there is a 
 more potent one. Actresses remember 
 that " a woman is as old as she looks." 
 They dislike to age in the public eye 
 before their time. Managers have more 
 trouble with the matron of a play than 
 with any other personage. Sometimes 
 such a role is important, and an actress 
 in her prime is needed. But one who is 
 forty, or even more, may as yet have 
 played maidens and young wives only. 
 She will hold out to the last against 
 figuring as the parent of a strapping 
 hero. 
 
 " I will play the daughter in this 
 piece for $100 a week, but not the 
 mother for $200," was the way a well- 
 known actress put it. " I can look as 
 young as thirty, but if once I made 
 myself as old as fifty, the public would 
 never believe that I have just turned 
 forty, which is the fact." 
 
58 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 Another actress rejected the part of 
 a hero's mother, though the manager 
 assured her that she need not add to her 
 own age in appearance. " But who is 
 to play the son ?" An actor was named. 
 " Why, he is as old as I am," she cried. 
 " I might consent to be a mother to a 
 minor, but to one who may have voted 
 for half a dozen Presidents, never !" 
 
 A young married couple desired to 
 go on the stage together. They had 
 made each other's acquaintance as 
 amateur actors. Together they had 
 prepared for the dramatic profession. 
 They meant that their first theatrical 
 tour should also be their honeymoon. 
 They went to one agency after another 
 in vain. At length they applied at a 
 place where cheap companies are made 
 up. The bridegroom was brusquely 
 asked what musical instrument he 
 played. He said, in reply, that he could 
 thrum a piano a little. 
 
 " That won't do," the agent re- 
 
" uncle tom's cabin 
 
OX PARADE. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 59 
 
 marked ; " I'm hiring ' Uncle Tomers.' 
 I guess the lady could do 'Eliza' all 
 right. I was thinking of you for 
 ' George Harris,' but you'd have to 
 double brass." 
 
 The offer had to be explained to these 
 novices. The bride could have an en- 
 gagement to play " Eliza" in " Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin" at $30 a week. She 
 would have to ride a horse in the street 
 parade in each village visited. The 
 bridegroom could get $40 a week to 
 enact " George Harris" on the stage 
 and blow a brass instrument in the 
 daily procession, as well as outside the 
 theatre just before every performance. 
 That is termed " Uncle Toming." 
 There are never less than twenty com- 
 panies engaged in it. Half of these 
 perform in tents. Indeed, the " Uncle 
 Tomers" of this latter sort stand for 
 all that is left of old-time vagabond- 
 ism in stageland. They are the shadows 
 and echoes of those strolling players 
 
60 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 who long ago were classed with the 
 vagrants. Some of them travel in 
 wagons, and eat and sleep under the 
 same canvas which forms their theatre. 
 Besides the horses which draw their 
 vehicles, they are accompanied by 
 bloodhounds to chase " Eliza" in the 
 play. They pitch their tent in villages 
 too small to have a theatre. A county 
 fair affords the chance to give a side 
 show. The party is composed, often, 
 of one or two families. The members 
 may get no regular wages, and live 
 like a miniature community. This is 
 the crudest phase of dramatic employ- 
 ment, and there is not much of it. 
 
 The life of the people of the stage 
 in general is not hard, coarse, nor 
 unconventional. The evils and vicissi- 
 tudes are much exaggerated by common 
 report. The work in these days is 
 usually easy. Members of the low- 
 priced stock companies are the only 
 ones overtaxed. When a play lasts an 
 
The Theatre and Its People 61 
 
 entire season in New York, as often 
 happens, the actors have little studying 
 to do. Kehearsals are held only once 
 in a while to correct carelessness. The 
 day's labor consists of three to four 
 hours' work only, except when matinees 
 double the time. Even when on duty 
 at the theatre the real exertion in acting 
 by each individual is on the average 
 confined to about half an hour in each 
 representation of a play, taking the 
 short parts into account along with the 
 long ones. Most companies on tours 
 spend half the season in engagements 
 of whole weeks or longer in the big 
 cities. In a sense, they are homeless. 
 But they need not be without socia- 
 bility. There is congenial companion- 
 ship among themselves. The majority 
 are ladies and gentlemen in breeding 
 and conduct, and these need not asso- 
 ciate with those who are not. As the 
 status of the players has improved with 
 the dominance of education and refine- 
 
61 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 ment in the profession, courtesies from 
 the worthiest people have increased 
 very much. Prejudice against the 
 theatre is no longer indiscriminate. 
 The hardships of travel are not great 
 nowadays. Even when night-by-night 
 journeys are made by travelling com- 
 panies the distances are short and sleep- 
 ing-cars are comfortable. There is 
 leisure in the daytime to enjoy the 
 sights quite as pleasure tourists do. The 
 sun shines in stageland as much as it 
 does elsewhere, and the clouds are no 
 bigger nor blacker. 
 
The Theatrical Man of Business 
 
VI. 
 
 The Theatrical Man of Business. 
 
 The theatrical manager in former 
 times was a good deal of a humbug. He 
 posed as a patron of dramatic art. He 
 wore much velvet and fur on his coat, 
 the brim of his high hat was wide, and 
 he stood at the portal of the theatre with 
 one hand in his breast and the other 
 behind him. Those hands were usually 
 empty, and so were his pockets. He 
 paid his debts when he could and had 
 to. He felt no more bound by his 
 pompous promises to the public than he 
 did by those he made recklessly to his 
 employes. He is still to be found, but 
 he is no longer typical of the business. 
 He has been displaced by a man with 
 
66 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 the methods of a merchant, who finds 
 out what will sell, commands sufficient 
 capital to produce the salable matter, 
 and is as trustworthy and responsible 
 as the average dealer in wares. He may 
 have a pride of character which will 
 not permit him to appeal to vicious 
 tastes, and in that case he promotes 
 what is seemly in dramatic literature, 
 though taking care that it shall be at 
 the same time likely to comply with 
 a remunerative demand. He will invest 
 thousands of dollars in enterprises 
 where his predecessor would not put 
 hundreds. He is a fostering and in- 
 spiring supporter of the histrionic arts, 
 and none the less so because he is after 
 a pecuniary reward. At the other ex- 
 treme of stage diversion he may be 
 shameless as to the kind he provides, 
 notwithstanding that he is still circum- 
 spect in his money dealings. He may 
 not be averse to wallowing in the mire, 
 but with his fouled fingers he will pay 
 
The Theatre and Its People 67 
 
 the last cent he owes. It is the excep- 
 tional manager nowadays who does not 
 conduct his affairs as equitably as the 
 average that obtains in any other line 
 of purchase and sale. But his business 
 is more precarious. The risks of loss 
 are in a heavy ratio to the chances of 
 gain, even though he be shrewd, care- 
 ful, and judicious. 
 
 The theatrical manager calculates 
 all he can and guesses at the rest. 
 Hardly anything in his plans can be 
 depended on. The taste of the public is 
 variable, and it grows more and more 
 independent. Only thirty-five years 
 ago New York had a single theatre to 
 which fashionable people went habitu- 
 ally. Later there were two, then three, 
 and to-day there is not one with a blind 
 following, if we except the Metropoli- 
 tan Opera House, with its operatic 
 vogue so potent that even its top gallery 
 is occupied by stylish folk. Success or 
 failure depends on the entertainment, 
 
68 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 not the house. It used to be an exploit 
 when a lady went to a variety perform- 
 ance. What is called " continuous 
 vaudeville" has come into favor with 
 polite people, especially in the large 
 cities. It is made up of songs, dances, 
 monologues, and other specialties. But 
 they are almost altogether wholesome, 
 and to them short plays are added. 
 Legitimate actors were at first averse 
 to these theatres, hut eminent artists 
 now take such engagements readily. It 
 is not so at the music halls. There the 
 programmes contain indecorous things, 
 and the men in the audience smoke at 
 will. The distinction between the 
 "continuous" vaudeville theatre and the 
 music hall is wide. The supporters of 
 all kinds of theatres have learned to 
 discriminate. The manager who pro- 
 duces new plays studies the drifts and 
 vagaries of popularity as closely as he 
 can. 
 
 Concentration of interests among 
 
Drawn by F. C. Yohn. 
 
 LOOKING ON THE STAGE FROM 
 IN THE METROPOLITAN OPERA 
 
 THE UPPER GALLERY 
 HOUSE, NEW YORK. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 69 
 
 managers has marked the growth of the 
 theatrical business in recent years. 
 This began with combinations by which 
 the theatres in towns along one railway 
 made their bargains collectively with 
 the visiting companies, thus doing away 
 with needless dicker separately. This 
 system was soon extended to the forma- 
 tion of longer circuits, and later to those 
 which took in large sections of the 
 country. Formerly the travelling man- 
 ager had to exchange letters with each 
 resident manager, in order to arrange 
 consecutive dates for a route and agree 
 upon terms of rental, or of sharing the 
 receipts. That was a slow and bother- 
 some part of the business. Wow the 
 time of most of the theatres is placed at 
 the disposal of some one of the numer- 
 ous agencies in New York, and the 
 routes are made under a simpler and 
 safer system. The journeys are so laid 
 out as to take in the cities in close and 
 regular order, so as to waste no time 
 
70 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 or money in needless travel. This pre- 
 liminary work is done months before- 
 hand, and, although the itinerary is 
 subject to minor changes, it holds good 
 generally. 
 
 The command of ample capital has 
 led to syndicates, or trusts, in the theat- 
 rical, as in other businesses, and these 
 are assailed and defended in the same 
 way that the subject is discussed in its 
 relation to entirely commercial affairs. 
 These combinations are numerous in 
 the various fields of stage amusements, 
 but the biggest of them is one which 
 controls almost absolutely the theatres 
 of the highest grade in the larger cities 
 throughout the whole United States. 
 It is composed of six men, who, by 
 ownership, lease, or other arrangement, 
 have acquired the mastery of nearly all 
 the theatres in which the highest prices 
 of admission are charged, and in which 
 the highest grade of performances are 
 given. It is a virtual monopoly, and 
 
The Theatre and Its People 71 
 
 some outcry has been made against it, 
 but it has been beneficial to the stage 
 in various -ways. It has brought about 
 affiliations conducive to material and 
 artistic progress. Under its operations 
 contracts are enforced, larger salaries 
 are paid to actors with certainty, play- 
 wrights are encouraged and amply re- 
 munerated, and the traffic in the drama 
 has been lifted from suspicion into 
 esteem. The tastes of that portion of 
 the public which demands good art in 
 the theatre are satisfied in a larger 
 degree than formerly, and, despite the 
 application of this costlier and more 
 skilful stagecraft to some regrettable 
 plays, the standard of morality has 
 been raised along with the other ad- 
 vancement. 
 
 It is by serving the interests of the 
 star actors that the chief of the syndi- 
 cates maintains its supremacy. This 
 it does by assuring a continuous route 
 of thirty to forty weeks each season, 
 
~]i The Theatre and Its People 
 
 with the usual share of the gross re- 
 ceipts, and a relief from all the cares 
 and risks of making out an itinerary. 
 The important " stars," with only 
 few exceptions, are affiliated with this 
 syndicate, and it arranges the tours of 
 nearly every successful play suitable 
 for theatres of the first class. Minor 
 syndicates operate similarly with the 
 control of cheaper-price theatres, both 
 in dramatic and vaudeville perform- 
 ances, and by such systemization the 
 theatrical business has arrived at a com- 
 mercial respectability, which it did not 
 enjoy a quarter of a century ago. 
 
 Perhaps the reader will like to know 
 about free tickets to the theatres gener- 
 ally. They are few or many, according 
 to circumstances. Two are sent to each 
 newspaper critic whenever a new play 
 is brought out, and for Monday nights 
 anyway in theatres where the bill is 
 changed weekly. His further supply 
 depends on his rule for or against ask- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 73 
 
 ing for or using such favors. Most 
 critics, while accepting the hospitality 
 of the managers personally, will not go 
 beyond that. At least two of the New 
 York daily journals prohibit " dead- 
 heading" altogether, except by a person 
 wbo is to write about the performance. 
 Others of equal importance are less 
 sensitive or finicky. There have been 
 instances of a critic buying every seat 
 he sat in, but it was construed as antago- 
 nism to the stage, instead of dignity. 
 Tickets are used instead of cash in 
 paying for advertising space on street 
 walls and in store windows. For each 
 billboard of the ordinary size and for 
 a bill or picture in a window two tickets 
 a week are given. These are good on 
 presentation for two seats in the best 
 or poorer part of the house, according 
 to the value of the advertising space 
 secured. Sometimes mere admission to 
 the gallery suffices. In other cases pre- 
 scribed chairs in the parquet are neces- 
 
74 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 sary. The bargain is that such tickets 
 shall be used by the recipients only ; but 
 the practice is to sell them cheaply to 
 dealers, who, in turn, dispose of them at 
 cut rates, as " scalpers" do with railway 
 tickets. In the big cities, when spacious 
 displays of posters are made in places 
 where crowds will see them, tickets 
 alone will not suffice, and cash has to 
 be paid. As to the distribution of 
 tickets broadcast, or " papering the 
 house," in order to get an audience, it 
 is done if an entertainment fails and 
 few will pay to see it. In the smaller 
 cities certain officials sometimes expect 
 free entrance, and in exceptional cases 
 it is required by ordinance. It is the 
 general rule to admit actors without 
 charge if there is room for them. But 
 if a play is successful enough to draw 
 a houseful of cash people, the manager, 
 as a matter of course, cuts the free list 
 very short. He is a more independent 
 business man than he used to be. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 75 
 
 A theatrical manager, now prosper- 
 ous, was encountered as he alighted at 
 a meal station on a transcontinental 
 railway. " I take my meals in my 
 private car," he said, " and I am get- 
 ting a lot of pleasure hy the sight of 
 a place where I can eat, hut don't want 
 to, because I once wanted to, and 
 couldn't. I am making the trip now in 
 a car exclusive to myself and attend- 
 ants. I do it to gratify a whim. Six- 
 teen years ago I was out here in this 
 country with a losing company. We 
 got into a certain town just in time to 
 give an evening performance, and were 
 to resume our journey next morning. 
 The receipts were small, and I divided 
 them among the actors, so they would 
 he able to settle for lodgings and break- 
 fasts, but in buying three cigars for 
 a quarter, I discovered that it broke into 
 the only dollar left in my pocket. 
 Transportation had been paid for at the 
 start on this railroad, and I hoped to 
 
76 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 make a profit at our next night's stand, 
 but in the meanwhile where was I to 
 sleep ? I was too proud to confess my 
 impecuniosity by borrowing from any 
 of my actors. Then I bethought myself 
 of a free pass which had been given to 
 me as manager, and on which I was 
 entitled to ride to and fro at my pleas- 
 ure. It didn't include a berth in a 
 sleeper, but with it I could spend the 
 night in a car seat. 
 
 " I dozed and tried to draw consola- 
 tion from my three cigars till about 
 four o'clock in the morning. Then I 
 changed to a train going back. It 
 'stopped at this same meal station for 
 breakfast. I was ravenously hungry. 
 The breakfast smelled good and looked 
 good, but its price was seventy-five 
 cents, or exactly all I had. I dared not 
 leave myself without a cent for the 
 smallest incidentals during the day. 
 There was no lunch counter at which 
 I could buy a snack. Not even a cup of 
 
The Theatre and Its People 77 
 
 coffee was on sale separate from the 
 meal. I was ashamed to ask that an 
 exception be made in my case. So I 
 had to take my appetite hack into the 
 car, without so much as a cigar left for 
 solace, and wait till I reached the town 
 to buy a twenty-five cent breakfast at 
 a cheap restaurant. That is why I am 
 enjoying my trip over the same line in 
 a hotel car all to myself, and take joy 
 in smiling disdainfully at this particu- 
 lar meal station." 
 
Ways and Means and 
 Uncertainties. 
 
VII. 
 
 Wats and Means and Uncertainties. 
 
 The rewards of success on the stage 
 are liberal. They are won only by pro- 
 viding real entertainment of some sort. 
 The favorite actor grows slowly into 
 favor, as a rule, but there are excep- 
 tions; and a strong play with a fitting 
 role may carry him into celebrity at 
 once. Managers are ever on the alert 
 to find some one of whom a star may be 
 made. When one is chosen for that 
 purpose a contract is made with him 
 for a term of years, usually five. The 
 actor receives the salary he has been 
 accustomed to, and also a share of the 
 profits, increasing from as little as ten 
 per cent, the first year to as much as 
 fifty the last. As a rule, the manager 
 chooses the plays, forms the supporting 
 
82 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 company, and conducts the business as 
 he pleases. 
 
 If the manager is putting forward 
 a star who will appeal to the better 
 grade of audiences, his methods of ex- 
 ploitation will be dignified, yet he will 
 neglect nothing to arouse seemly inter- 
 est — that is, he will seek space in the 
 newspapers by having the actors address 
 literary bodies, discuss questions of 
 dramatic art with reporters, and do 
 other things to catch intellectual atten- 
 tion. But the end aimed at cannot be 
 gained unless the star gives the money's 
 worth of entertainment to his audi- 
 ences. A place in popularity is seldom 
 lost while its possessor remains on the 
 stage with his faculties unimpaired. If 
 he has not been brought forward by a 
 manager with whom he must share 
 profits, his income may be very large. 
 Joseph Jefferson gets never less than 
 seventy-five per cent, of the gross re- 
 ceipts, sometimes ninety, and he fre- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 83 
 
 quently rents a theatre outright. In 
 one ISTew York engagement takings were 
 $14,476 in a week, being limited to that 
 by the size of the theatre. Probably bis 
 expenses were $5000, and certainly not 
 over that sum. Mr. Jefferson and some 
 others of the prosperous stars are served 
 in their material affairs by men on 
 salaries, or who receive a small per- 
 centage of the profits, but a majority 
 are in business partnership with their 
 managers. In the recent instances of 
 two young actresses taken up for ex- 
 ploitation as stars tbe manager of each 
 assumed all the responsibilities and 
 agreed to pay the same salary which she 
 had been receiving, besides a share of 
 the profits. Good luck attended the ven- 
 tures in the forms of successful plays, 
 and each actress had an income of 
 $1000 to $1500 week after week during 
 the first season, with almost a certainty 
 of continuance, until a large fortune is 
 accumulated. But these are exceptional 
 
84 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 cases. Many a starring actor gets no 
 more income than he would in salaried 
 employment, or even less, and the ven- 
 ture may yield him nothing in either 
 money or celebrity. 
 
 ^The star actor used to travel alone 
 and perform with resident companies. 
 He sent copies of his plays ahead, 
 marked with directions to enable the 
 stage manager to assign the roles and 
 conduct the rehearsals. Sometimes he 
 was preceded by his own expert to in- 
 sure better preparation. If his reper- 
 tory were familiar, the support was 
 tolerable; in new pieces it was usually 
 grievous. This led to the organization 
 of travelling companies, and they soon 
 filled the whole field. The salary list 
 of a play foots up $2000 a week some- 
 times, but not often. It is seldom more 
 than $1500, oftener below $1000, and 
 frequently not more than $500. The 
 amount depends on the grade of the 
 theatres to be included in the itinerary. 
 
..... •■■-;-'^ 
 
 
 Drawn by Alice Barber Stephens. 
 
 A STAR ACTRESS IN HER DRESSING-ROOM. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 85 
 
 The manager invests from possibly 
 $25,000 in the first placing of the play 
 before the public to as little as $250 in 
 case he buys an outfit already long in 
 service. He pays to the author or 
 owner of the piece a royalty which may 
 amount to $1000 a week or drop as low 
 as $50. He may find one for which he 
 has to pay nothing at all. 
 
 The cost of producing a play is ex- 
 tremely variable. When an old one is 
 brought out for a single week by a resi- 
 dent company, with no new scenery nor 
 costumes, hardly any outlay is required 
 beyond the running expenses of the 
 theatre. But if it is new and prepared 
 elaborately, $25,000 may be paid out 
 before the curtain is raised for the first 
 performance. Serious dramas and 
 comic operas, with many sets of scen- 
 ery and costumes, -mean heavy outlays. 
 But the sum hardly ever exceeds $20,- 
 000, and oftener is under $12,000. Of 
 this the author has had $1000 or more 
 
86 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 in advance. As much has been paid to 
 a stage manager, who directs all the 
 preparations at a fixed price for the 
 job. Designers of costumes and scen- 
 ery and composers of incidental music 
 have received $1000 more. As much 
 as $1000 has been used up in a stock 
 of bills to be displayed in the streets 
 or in windows. The rest of the money 
 has been used up in the making of 
 dresses and scenery. The actors are 
 not paid for rehearsing. 
 
 It is the rule that the performers 
 shall provide their wigs, hosiery, and 
 shoes in all plays, and the entire cos- 
 tumes in case they are in the fashion 
 of the present time. But the manager 
 helps the actresses out when he desires 
 them to wear very fine gowns. If the 
 play has a lot of fashionable women 
 among its characters, and they are in- 
 troduced at balls or receptions, he meets 
 most of the cost of dressing them. An 
 odd dispute over an actress's gown was 
 
The Theatre and Its People 87 
 
 all but taken into court lately. At an 
 afternoon reception in a play she wore 
 an elegant gown. The manager had 
 made an allowance to her of $300 for 
 that and several other toilettes. She 
 had expended $100 of her own money 
 in addition. The question to whom 
 this wardrobe belonged was raised when 
 she put on the calling costume to go to 
 a real function. She pleaded as an 
 excuse that it was greatly admired by 
 a crowd of women in modish society, and 
 thereby brought them to the theatre to 
 see it in the play. But the manager 
 would not take that view of the matter. 
 He declared that he would, if necessary, 
 obtain an injunction restraining her 
 from wearing outside the theatre the 
 gown which he and she owned jointly. 
 The commonest division of the box- 
 office receipts between the theatre and 
 the entertainment is half and half, but 
 there are entertainments that can get 
 eighty per cent, in some theatres, and 
 
88 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 there are theatres that can get eighty 
 per cent, from some entertainments. 
 The expenses of a tour are anywhere 
 between $1000 and $4000 a week. 
 The income varies still more widely. 
 The travelling manager pays the rail- 
 way fares, but the actors have to board 
 and lodge themselves. The law now 
 forbids railway officials to discriminate 
 in favor of any persons in fixing rates, 
 and it is obeyed to the letter in New 
 England, where the full fare of two 
 cents a mile is exacted. The rule re- 
 stricting free baggage to one hundred 
 and fifty pounds for each person is 
 never suspended. A charge of twenty- 
 five cents a mile is made for the distance 
 that each extra car containing scenery 
 is hauled. In the Middle States some 
 concessions are permitted by the trans- 
 portation agents of the trunk lines. A 
 car for baggage and scenery is provided 
 free for each company of not less than 
 twenty-five persons. Excursion rates 
 
The Theatre and Its People 89 
 
 are applied whenever it can be done 
 reasonably. In the West and South the 
 manager can usually make private con- 
 tracts, under which he pays no more 
 than a cent and a half a mile for each 
 person, and nothing for a baggage car. 
 Here is a transcript from a manager's 
 book, showing every item of expense in 
 a fairly illustrative week : 
 
 Salaries, 
 
 $1,418.00 
 
 Railway fares New York to Balti- 
 
 
 more, . . . 
 
 89.25 
 
 Hauling baggage and scenery, 
 
 40.00 
 
 Printing account (posters and win- 
 
 
 dow bills), 
 
 I73-OS 
 
 Half of extra newspaper advertising, 
 
 67.65 
 
 Calcium lights and attendants, . 
 
 65.00 
 
 Express charges on printing, . 
 
 12.98 
 
 Lumber, hardware, etc., 
 
 5-35 
 
 Typewriting, .... 
 
 5-oo 
 
 Properties (small articles used in the 
 
 
 performance), .... 
 
 9-35 
 
 Telegrams and incidentals of adver- 
 
 
 tising agent, .... 
 
 7.42 
 
 Supernumeraries (two girls hired for 
 
 
 silent figures) , . . . 
 
 14.00 
 
 Circulars, cards, etc., . 
 
 4-45 
 
 Expenses in New York office, 
 
 16.00 
 
 Royalty to author, 
 
 334-44 
 
 Total week's expenses, 
 
 $2,261.94 
 
go The Theatre and Its People 
 
 It is useless to give figures relating 
 to theatrical profits. The circumstances 
 alter the cases tremendously. In the 
 instance cited the travelling manager 
 cleared $824. ISTo doubt the local 
 manager made nearly as much. Within 
 ten years in this country not less than 
 ten plays have cleared as much as 
 $100,000 apiece for their managers and 
 half as much for their authors, while 
 hundreds have been utter fiascos, and 
 thousands have ranged all the way be- 
 tween those extremes of success and 
 failure. One piece in JSTew York City 
 drew $96S on its first night and only 
 $41 three nights later, because it raised 
 expectations and disappointed them. 
 The same man's next venture crowded 
 a big theatre during four months, and 
 gave a clear profit of over $100,000 in 
 that time. In one case he had not been 
 able to fill the house by giving away 
 free tickets. In the other he refused 
 them to hundreds of applicants. Per- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 91 
 
 formances without a single paying 
 auditor have usually heen caused by 
 storms or something else outside the 
 house, but at least one took place on 
 a pleasant night in New York. Only 
 sixty-seven persons were present, and 
 not one had paid for admission. It is 
 said that the aggregate sum of money 
 received by theatrical managers is 
 equalled by that which they expend. 
 The losses balance the profits. 
 
 However, the theatrical business 
 usually puts on a bright front, no mat- 
 ter what gloom may be thus hidden. 
 The men concerned in it are generally 
 cheerful losers. The old-fashioned 
 mock-dignity has given way to urbanity 
 in the treatment of the public as a part 
 of the newer methods. This is shown 
 at the ticket window. Formerly the 
 salesman hid behind ground glass, and 
 the purchaser knew him only by his 
 voice, which was gruff, and his language, 
 which was impolite. Communication 
 
92 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 was had with him through a small 
 aperture, into which money had to he 
 thrust trustfully. The impression given 
 was that the man inside was ashamed 
 of his employment, or else a rogue, who 
 did not intend that his victim should 
 ever identify him. The method and 
 aspect of the theatrical treasurer is ad- 
 mirably reformed, except in scarce 
 cases. He sits behind a wide-open win- 
 dow, and on the counter in front of him 
 diagrams show the place of every seat 
 in the hoiise, while behind him in a rack 
 are exposed the tickets for a week ahead 
 or longer. He gives pleasant and ex- 
 plicit answers to all questions, no matter 
 how many or silly they may be, and to 
 women especially he is as urbane and 
 patient as any clerk in a store. 
 
 Women behave here just about as 
 they do when shopping. They first 
 demand to know what seats are to be 
 had in the various parts of the house 
 and the prices thereof. A selection is 
 
The Theatre and Its People 93 
 
 often a matter of the slowest imaginable 
 consideration, even though it keeps a 
 line of persons waiting. ISTor is a deci- 
 sion arrived at by means of dialogue 
 and diagram. Very often the perplexed 
 feminine mind requires to be centred 
 on the actual tickets, which she exam- 
 ines as though they were fabrics, the 
 color or size of which had something 
 to do with their value. After all this 
 examination and hesitation she goes off 
 without buying, in order to see what is 
 to be had at other theatres. It is not 
 until the point is reached of selling 
 tickets on approval, to be returned if 
 not wanted, that the traffic becomes less 
 obliging than that of the modern depart- 
 ment store, and even then the man re- 
 fuses smilingly, notwithstanding the 
 woman's manifest opinion that he is 
 a mean old thing. However, he is 
 sometimes willing that she shall try the 
 seat before buying. 
 
 " The chairs in this theatre are so 
 
94 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 narrow that they just fairly torture 
 me," said a woman who carried much 
 weight. 
 
 " Oh, you're thinking of some other 
 house," the urbane man protested. 
 " Jim, show this lady to parquet chair 
 21A. Try it for yourself, ma'am." 
 
 The woman did so, and made the 
 purchase, with the final remark to the 
 same chap whom her predecessor in line 
 had regarded as a mean old thing ! "It 
 was awfully nice of you — thank you so 
 much." 
 
 After going through the process so 
 far as deciding for herself is concerned, 
 a woman may take up the separate and 
 sometimes curiously complicated ques- 
 tion of some absent person's require- 
 ments. " My husband is coming with 
 me," she may say, " and he can't bear 
 to see me cry. There isn't anything in 
 this play to cry about — is there?" 
 
 " No," the man may assure her ; 
 " there isn't a tear in it." 
 
The Theatre and Its People 95 
 
 " My husband is rather nervous, you 
 know, and anything that shocks him 
 won't do." 
 
 " There's nothing sensational in the 
 piece, ma'am." 
 
 "He isn't at all well. Sure these 
 seats are not in a draught?" 
 
 " Here's a side door," pointing on 
 the diagram, " and sometimes it is 
 opened for ventilation. ]STow these," 
 and he indicates other seats, " are safe 
 from draught." 
 
 " But aren't they a long way from 
 the stage ? My husband is a little hard 
 of hearing." 
 
 " Then these may suit you," and he 
 again places his finger on the chart. " I 
 have two seats here, four rows from the 
 front, and no door near them." 
 
 " You don't suppose it would be too 
 warm down there," and she turns the 
 third set of tickets over to see if some 
 hidden fault may not be discovered on 
 their backs. " Are they too close to a 
 
g6 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 heat register? No? Well, I think 
 they will do." She takes out her purse, 
 extracts the price slowly, and the sale 
 seems about to be closed satisfactorily, 
 but a sudden thought comes to her. 
 " Oh, my — I forgot. My husband is 
 very tall. He won't sit with his legs 
 all cramped up. I'm afraid there's not 
 space enough between these rows of 
 seats for him. Is there ?" 
 
 The man rouses himself to a supreme 
 effort and a victorious one. Taking 
 two more tickets from the rack and 
 directing her eyes to the diagram, he 
 says : " Here's precisely what you want 
 — o\it of the draught, away from the 
 heat, and, see, just there the last 
 straight row and the first of the semi- 
 circle leave extra space between." 
 
New and Old Processes 
 
VIII. 
 
 New and Old Pbocesses. 
 
 Less than twenty years ago a set of 
 wooden doors opened the way to costly 
 realism on the American stage. Before 
 that painted cloth had flapped with the 
 entrance and exit of even millionaires 
 in mansions. These solid doors were 
 a novelty in a play at a New York 
 theatre. They were banged so proudly as 
 to distract attention from the dramatic 
 action. Shams had already begun to 
 give place to real things in the mount- 
 ing of plays, but those doors marked the 
 new era. A room with its sides and 
 ceiling complete is now a matter of 
 course. One of the old style, with no 
 actual surface save at the back, is dis- 
 dained in any theatre of the first grade. 
 
ioo The Theatre and Its People 
 
 Objects that used to be painted on the 
 walls are now hung there. The plain 
 table or a peasant's cot cannot any more 
 be made fit for my lord's palace by 
 covering it with a gaudy cloth. 
 
 Some critics say that ornamentation 
 is carried too far. When the artist 
 paints a portrait, they argue, he brings 
 out the individual and obscures the 
 surroundings. They hold that by dis- 
 regarding this rule of art the actor is 
 subordinated to the scene. That is a 
 theory. The practice of the modern 
 producer of a play is to illustrate it to 
 the utmost that his resources and his 
 faith in the venture warrant. In results 
 we in America are not behind the best 
 that is done in Europe. This is more 
 surely observable in our importations 
 of foreign plays. A reproduction here 
 of a modern piece in vogue at the 
 Comedie Frangaise may he taken as a 
 casual illustration. A great deal of 
 nonsense is believed about that foremost 
 
The Theatre and Its People 101 
 
 French state theatre. The acting is 
 always admirable there, and, although 
 some of its artificial methods would 
 not be approved by us, it is done 
 by accomplished artists. A critical 
 comparison of the two casts of the com- 
 edy in question, however, showed that 
 ours was of quite as high a grade in the 
 average of ability, and the actors were 
 so judiciously controlled that a natural- 
 ness not possible to the Comedie meth- 
 ods was attained. Our mounting of the 
 piece was superior to the other. The 
 scenery and costumes at the French 
 theatre had been unexceptionable art 
 in design and execution, but the same 
 qualities were displayed on our stage 
 with much opulence in addition. The 
 structure and painting of the rooms 
 were exactly alike, but our furniture 
 was richer, and the gowns of our 
 actresses incomparably finer, with no 
 violation of good taste. The meaning 
 of the dresses were not destroyed by the 
 
102 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 increased richness. For instance, when 
 two titled women of wealth went out 
 together on an errand of charity the 
 sincere one wore a plain though modish 
 costume, while her frivolous companion 
 was clothed as finely as though out for 
 a round of formal calls. When a social 
 adventuress prepared to make an 
 amorous impression on a hushand, she 
 arrayed herself in the most alluring 
 gown imaginable, while the staid wife 
 appeared in an equally fashionable 
 garb of circumspect simplicity. This 
 representation at one of our theatres is 
 not singled out as unusual, but because 
 the writer is able to judge of it in con- 
 nection with the original at what is 
 commonly regarded as the foremost 
 theatre in the world. That and many 
 other performances have proved that 
 America needs no subsidized stage for 
 the development of dramatic art. Such 
 an institution, directed by well-meaning 
 but inexpert men, or, still worse, by 
 
The Theatre and Its People 103 
 
 astute false pretenders, would be surely- 
 useless and probably injurious. We are 
 getting along very well under the pre- 
 vailing conditions. 
 
 But there is, in our theatrical field, 
 a return to the easier and cheaper 
 methods of " the palmy days," along 
 with a revival of the hard work then 
 required. In thirty to forty cities 
 resident stock companies exist in the 
 manner once general but afterward 
 abandoned. Their prices of admission 
 are low. They bring out an old play 
 every Monday night. They cannot take 
 the pains or the risk involved in those 
 that have never been acted, nor can they 
 get those that are still profitable for 
 tours. They pay $50 to $150 a week 
 for the use of the best plays that the 
 travelling companies have dropped. In 
 exceptional cases, where competing 
 theatres in a big city want the same 
 drama, the price goes up to $500. The 
 classical plays are free matter against 
 
104 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 unauthorized dramatizations, and so 
 are those modern pieces, from " Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin" and "East Lynne" to 
 "Cyrano de Bergerac," which the 
 authors did not protect by copyright. 
 Actors in the resident companies have 
 to rehearse mornings and perform after- 
 noons and evenings. They lack the 
 time to perfect themselves in their 
 roles. They are chosen for quick study, 
 however, and do surprisingly well. 
 Sometimes two are engaged for heroes 
 and two for heroines, each being as- 
 signed to a leading part one week and 
 a lesser one the ensuing week. By that 
 means the hardest tasks of rehearsing 
 and of acting are alternated. 
 
 The cases of one actress who became 
 insane in one of these resident com- 
 panies and another who died illustrated 
 the overwork demanded of the leaders. 
 The first had spent two years almost 
 incessantly in such employment, acting 
 each week a role new to her, and the day 
 
The Theatre and Its People 105 
 
 and night round of studying, rehearsing, 
 and performing was more than her 
 brain could stand any longer. The 
 second wore herself out physically, and, 
 with the remark, " I wish I could rest," 
 fell dead at the conclusion of a re- 
 hearsal. The reader may wonder why it 
 was that in the old days this kind of 
 hard labor was done as a matter of 
 course. The conditions were less labori- 
 ous than they are now. The resident 
 actors were then used almost altogether 
 in the support of travelling stars, whose 
 repertoires were largely familiar, and 
 so some of the plays were repeated 
 season after season. Every member of 
 a stock company was engaged for a 
 definite line of characters, and was 
 partially prepared for at least half 
 of those which he would be called on to 
 sustain. Besides that, the demands by 
 the audiences were not nearly so exact- 
 ing as they have become, even in the 
 cheaper theatres, under the culture of 
 
106 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 improved taste. The versatility which 
 imagination rather than memory 
 ascribes to the bygone player did not 
 exist to anything like the degree that we 
 are sometimes told of. The actor was 
 not required to differentiate his imper- 
 sonations sharply; nor to adhere to the 
 text precisely, save in standard pieces; 
 nor to be concisely explicit in conveying 
 the author's meaning instead of his own 
 hasty understanding of the matter. He 
 was permitted to do his work in ways 
 that were careless as contrasted with the 
 thoroughness required by the best stage- 
 craft of to-day, and which is approached 
 as nearly as possible in the present stock 
 companies. The two women, one crazed 
 and the other killed, might have borne 
 the work of leading actresses thirty 
 years ago, but they broke under the 
 effort to play a different heroine with 
 modern excellence every week. 
 
 These cut-rate stock companies have 
 developed odd phases. One of them is 
 
The Theatre and Its People 107 
 
 the imitation of stars in familiar char- 
 acters. As new plays are rarely avail- 
 able, and the supply of desirable old 
 ones is being exhausted, those that have 
 served their time for starring purposes 
 are utilized. Then the leading actor is 
 called upon to be like some stage 
 celebrity in a part already well known 
 to the audience. He does the best he 
 can, but is not often able to produce a 
 close resemblance. 
 
 There is no indication of a return to 
 the former method of travelling stars 
 supported by resident companies. But 
 not unusually a saw-mill, a threshing 
 machine, an ore-crusher, or some other 
 mechanical factor in a drama of harsh 
 excitement, makes a tour. Sometimes, 
 too, a set of scenery, more peculiar or 
 elaborate than the local manager can 
 afford to supply, and for which a make- 
 shift will not do, is provided by the 
 owners of the plays rented out for use 
 in these houses. 
 
108 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 Too much should not be expected of 
 these companies. That under disadvan- 
 tages of haste and flurry they should 
 produce results comparable with those 
 by really less capable travelling parties 
 is simply impossible. Unreasonable 
 expectations, therefore, are bound to be 
 disappointed. But to the considerate 
 observer, who knows what can be done 
 on the stage and what cannot, and who 
 has in mind no distant view of " the 
 palmy days" to be disenchanted, the 
 achievements of most of these organiza- 
 tions should be satisfactory. They vary 
 widely in merit. Some are composed 
 of the best available performers, and 
 are remuneratively supported by an in- 
 tellectual class of people, inclined to 
 economize in their amusements. ISTo 
 handsomer or more politely conducted 
 tbeatres are to be found than the better 
 ones in which resident companies play 
 at rates running no higher than fifty 
 cents for the choicest seat. In other 
 
The Theatre and Its People 109 
 
 houses the rabble is appealed to with 
 coarser plays, mingled with vaudeville 
 interludes. When works of a literary 
 quality do not also contain popular di- 
 version, or when they are artistically 
 singular, they fare badly with the multi- 
 tude. When " Cyrano de Bergerac" 
 was performed in highly intelligent 
 Boston a woman advertised to give les- 
 sons " enabling one to comprehend and 
 appreciate Rostand's tragedy." In less 
 respectful New York the urchins in the 
 gallery derided the nasally odd hero as 
 " ]STosey," and were loud in their face- 
 tious comments on the singular heroine. 
 The American sense of the ludicrous 
 is nowhere keener than in a theatre. 
 Things of serious intent that go wrong 
 may be only politely smiled at by a 
 Broadway assemblage, but they provoke 
 merciless ridicule in the Bowery. 
 " Trilby" was an example of a play 
 accepted by the one kind of audience 
 sedately and by the other hilariously. 
 
no The Theatre and Its People 
 
 When it was given by a cheap stock 
 company in a Northern city, the only 
 points that interested the first night's 
 assemblage much were the bare feet of 
 the heroine. Audible comments on 
 them incited the actress to do something 
 to divert attention to the play's theme 
 of hypnotism. So, in the second per- 
 formance she fell flat on the floor when 
 the mesmerist exerted his influence 
 upon her, instead of giving the pre- 
 scribed obedience to his will. The cur- 
 tain was lowered, and the stage man- 
 ager came out to say that the actor, 
 having unknowingly developed a hyp- 
 notic power, had thrown the actress into 
 a real trance. The house was crowded 
 by rapt people the rest of the week. 
 The woman's device may not have been 
 the best dramatic art, but it at least 
 lifted the regard for her performance 
 from her feet to her head. 
 
The Writing of a Play 
 
IX. 
 
 The Writing of a Plat. 
 
 What of the making of the material 
 sold in the theatres ? How do the 
 authors write the plays ? In almost as 
 many ways as there are dramatists. In 
 one respect, however, their methods 
 hardly ever differ. They first make an 
 outline of the plot, characters, and 
 episodes in what is called a scenario. 
 The author may have carried the scheme 
 a long time in his head, a lot of memo- 
 randa may have accumulated in his 
 desk, and separate passages may have 
 been written in full. But when he sets 
 to work in earnest he lays out a plan 
 almost precisely as an architect does 
 in building a house. Sometimes this 
 
1 14 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 includes the salient points only, and 
 sometimes it goes into minute details. 
 Anyway, it shapes and forms his entire 
 play. 
 
 By this time he has studied the possi- 
 bilities of his theme and decided what 
 his characters shall do. He has learned 
 by experience that his work is more 
 difficult than that of the novelist. He 
 must not describe things, but present 
 them. He may resort to narrative only 
 at the risk of losing the attention of an 
 audience. A play of words and not of 
 deeds is like the proverbial " garden 
 full of weeds." The personages will 
 not amount to much if they merely talk. 
 They must show their traits, motives, 
 and intentions in action. The solilo- 
 quy is, therefore, not in favor with the 
 modern playwright. These conditions 
 impose long and hard labor upon even 
 the geniuses among writers for the 
 stage. More time and thought are often 
 spent on a scenario than in writing out 
 
The Theatre and Its People 115 
 
 the play. It may be said that a drama 
 of the first class is a good year's task. 
 The playwright must keep his char- 
 acters plainly before him all the while. 
 It is essential that he shall know where 
 they are, whether active or idle. When- 
 ever they stir it should mean something. 
 An indefinite movement may spoil the 
 effect which he intends to make. The 
 audience sees quite as much as it hears. 
 One of our well-known authors sets 
 small puppets on a miniature stage and 
 moves them about. In no other way 
 can he keep the situations clearly in 
 mind while devising and developing 
 them. Another man of equal renown 
 needs no such signs or tokens. The 
 scene in every detail is vivid to him 
 without any aids. Others make notes 
 on diagrams. Still others use what- 
 ever small things happen to be at hand. 
 An old jack-knife and a pair of scis- 
 sors were the hero and heroine of a 
 certain famous drama during all the 
 
ji6 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 time that it was being written. One 
 expert in stagecraft, who happens to bo 
 also a devotee of chess, works out the 
 action on a chess-board. He fancies 
 that he is helped in that way to solve 
 the problems of his plot. He opposes 
 his forces of good and evil, plays them 
 against each other, and wins final vic- 
 tories for the right. Nonsense ? Not 
 if it facilitates his work. His fancy 
 requires incitement. 
 
 At the other extreme may be men- 
 tioned a man who never has to make so 
 much as a dot on paper to assist his 
 memory as to the action. He has his 
 troubles of another kind. He is com- 
 pelled to guard himself against con- 
 fusion and inconsistencies in the vari- 
 ous interests of the play in hand. He 
 makes diagrams of them, showing their 
 starts and stops, rises and falls, con- 
 tacts and separations. Thus he sees 
 their proportions, and builds them up 
 or pulls them down to suit their relative 
 

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The Theatre and Its People 117 
 
 importance. This diagram becomes an 
 elaborate chart as his work progresses. 
 It is clear to him, if to nobody else. 
 It guides him in keeping his principal 
 characters dominant and his minor ones 
 subordinate. By means of it he moves 
 everything toward that climax which 
 every successful drama must reach. 
 
 What the actors do besides speaking 
 the words of a play is called the " busi- 
 ness." The old-fashioned way was to 
 insert that word in the copy at points 
 where special action was reqtiired. The 
 particulars were given at the rehearsals. 
 Nowadays the author is more explicit 
 in his manuscript. He prescribes the 
 movements that each character shall 
 make. Nothing is left to chance, nor 
 to the actor's choice. When he is to sit 
 and when to stand, where he is to go 
 and how long to stay, what feeling he is 
 to show when silent, what degree of 
 emotion he is to express when speaking 
 — all these directions are set down. 
 
1 1 8 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 Some authors tell, also, how the person- 
 ages should look. A paragraph de- 
 scribes each individual much as a 
 novelist does it, though very briefly and 
 concisely. This is frequently extended 
 to the color of a woman's eyes and hair. 
 She must be tall or short, slim or stout, 
 pretty or ugly, as best serves the pur- 
 pose. In short, the writer of stage fic- 
 tion tries hard to have his characters 
 look and behave exactly as he wishes 
 them to. His design may be carried 
 out. That depends. He may be emi- 
 nent and obdurate enough to have his 
 own way. In that case his contracts 
 stipiilate that not so much as a word 
 shall be changed without his consent. 
 The manner of the acting, also, must be 
 obedient to his orders. He also may be 
 able to dictate the time when the play 
 shall be presented, and the theatre, too. 
 The selection of actors may require his 
 approval, and his authority may extend 
 to rehearsals. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 119 
 
 But, as a rule, it is not so. Some- 
 times the buyer of the manuscript is 
 free to do just as he pleases with it. He 
 has the right to adapt it to any purpose 
 and to any extent. Plays written quite 
 seriously have before now been turned 
 into hilarious farces merely by exag- 
 gerating them. The longest lived of 
 the frivolously gay spectacular pieces 
 in this country, the very name of which 
 became a trade-mark for a gaudy show, 
 was originally an ambitious composi- 
 tion in blank verse. The author and 
 his heirs are thought to have received 
 $125,000 in royalties. 
 
 Truth is often too strange for fiction. 
 Every day's newspapers tell of things 
 in real life too singular to be used in 
 other plays than heedless farces or reck- 
 less melodramas. Some authors keep 
 scrap-books, and get suggestions from 
 them. But the novice who thinks that 
 an episode is good for the stage because 
 it has really happened will go astray 
 
T20 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 nine times in ten. In some ways the 
 work of the dramatist is more difficult 
 now than formerly. Plagiarism, always 
 a crime in other departments of litera- 
 ture, used to be a matter of course in 
 the theatre. French and German plays 
 were translated into English and put 
 forth brazenly as original. Everything 
 published abroad was open to seizure. 
 After a while foreign authors kept their 
 plays in manuscript, and in that way 
 controlled the stage rights here. The 
 international copyright law, when its 
 conditions are complied with, now pre- 
 vents the thefts formerly common. If 
 the native author wishes to use this 
 material, he must pay for it. There 
 are agents who make a business of sell- 
 ing French and German plays for that 
 purpose. 
 
 The American writer, besides being 
 thrown upon his own resources, has to 
 be more careful and ingenious than his 
 predecessors. He is asked to construct 
 
The Theatre and Its People 121 
 
 his plays in such a way that each act 
 may be shewn in a single elaborate 
 scene. It is hard to suit the action to 
 that purpose and still make it reason- 
 able. If he writes for people above the 
 average in culture, his characters must 
 be impelled by natural motives to do 
 probable things. The advance in these 
 respects has been marked within the 
 last quarter of a century. Wo more 
 may a couple of comic actors be sent out 
 to kill time with an irrelevant dialogue 
 while the scenery is being changed. 
 Incongruities and inconsistencies are 
 no longer deemed immaterial. Such 
 lapses in the central personages and 
 their story must be avoided. 
 
 The American author suffers from 
 restrictions not imposed in the Old 
 World, save in England. Audiences in 
 those two great countries of the theatre, 
 Germany and France, do not insist that 
 a play shall end happily if such a con- 
 clusion is not logical. They are willing 
 
122 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 that other than sentimental themes shall 
 be illustrated on the stage. In this 
 country a love interest must be para- 
 mount, or the majority of people will 
 not be pleased; at least, the manager 
 thinks they will not, and that is quite 
 conclusive with the playwright. If he 
 does not suit his work to the market, it 
 will remain unsold. He is debarred 
 from experiments. The manager is 
 ready to import a novelty that has been 
 tested abroad, but he will not risk his 
 money in original ventures. Only a 
 few of our star actors are brave enough 
 to strike out in new directions. 
 
 Collaboration is often advantageous. 
 An author unskilled in the technique 
 of the drama, and a stage manager who 
 has no ability in composition, may to- 
 gether turn out an excellent play. In 
 that way theatrical versions of novels 
 have lately been made with much suc- 
 cess. The book is usually turned over 
 to the dramatist, and he utilizes much 
 
MARTHA MORTON. 
 
 MARGUERITE MER1NGTON. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 123 
 
 or little of it, as he deems best. Not 
 more than one novel in a thousand con- 
 tains the qualities essential to a play; 
 and this thousandth story must be told 
 on the stage in a few clear, strong 
 episodes. A book of maybe two hun- 
 dred thousand words has to be reduced 
 to thirty-five thousand. Sometimes, 
 when a play has the names of two au- 
 thors attached, it is because one wrote it 
 crudely or too lengthily and it was 
 placed in the hands of the other to be 
 torn to pieces and put together again 
 in better form. 
 
 A certain drama was so long, as it 
 came from its writer, that a perform- 
 ance would have occupied three even- 
 ings. There was plenty of wheat in the 
 chaff, however, and the manager who 
 threshed out the grain was richly re- 
 paid. Good results have been reached 
 by two authors working in unison from 
 the beginning to the end. This partner- 
 ship is usually between the originator 
 
1^4 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 of the material and the manipulator. 
 The former writes a scene and the other 
 puts it into a shape that will be effec- 
 tive. Thus working along, separately 
 and together, they build wp the play. 
 But in at least one instance the two 
 authors sat opposite each other at a 
 table day after day during most of 
 a year, and neither did alone anything 
 worth mentioning. From the first word 
 of the scenario to the last word ready to 
 be spoken by an actor they collaborated 
 in the fullest meaning of the word. The 
 piece did not have to be altered in a line 
 during rehearsals, and after seven years 
 it is still being played in America and 
 England. 
 
 The spirit of woman suffrage prevails 
 at the better class of theatres. Women's 
 votes for or against a play count for 
 more than men's. If a piece pleases 
 them it is bound to prosper. The reason 
 is that men are apt to leave the choice 
 of stage amusement to the women whom 
 
The Theatre and Its People 125 
 
 they accompany. Authors take that 
 into account when they lay out the plan 
 of a play. How will this, that, or the 
 other thing strike an intelligent, sympa- 
 thetic, womanly woman ? One author 
 of many pieces does not trust himself 
 to answer those questions. He refers 
 them to an unbiased jury for decision. 
 He excludes actresses and others imbued 
 with theatric feeling, and reads the 
 scenes to half a dozen women and girls 
 who fairly represent the likes and dis- 
 likes of their sex. If these critics agree 
 upon a verdict, he never for a moment 
 thinks of appealing from it. 
 
Author's Gains and Losses 
 
X. 
 
 Authoe's Gains and Losses. 
 
 Edwin Foeeest was praised for lib- 
 erality when he offered $1000 for the 
 best American tragedy. " Metamora," 
 which won the prize, was one of three 
 hundred and seventy-nine submitted. 
 Eminent literary men were among the 
 competitors. ISTo actor in our time 
 would think of obtaining a good play 
 on such terms, and no dramatist of 
 proved skill would respond. As to the 
 work of novices, it is offered profusely 
 anyway. A recognized master of stage- 
 craft does not, as a rule, complete a play 
 without a contract. He first sketches 
 out his scheme, briefly but clearly, and 
 submits it to some manager to whose 
 
130 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 purpose he deems it best suited. If this 
 man likes the subject and the principal 
 characters, he feels that the expert 
 writer will probably develop their value. 
 So he is ready to buy an option on it. 
 
 The ordinary prepayments on a play 
 by an author of standing are $500 upon 
 the delivery of a scenario and $500 
 more upon the completion of the play. 
 If the finished wor.k does not realize 
 expectations, or if the manager for any 
 other reason does not desire to put it on 
 the stage, the money paid is forfeited 
 after a certain lapse of time, and the 
 ownership reverts to the author. But 
 if the manager decides to produce the 
 piece, the author receives a percentage 
 of the gross receipts, payable weekly, 
 after the amount previously advanced 
 has been deducted. This royalty is 
 hardly ever less than five per cent. 
 Ordinarily it increases with the amount 
 of money taken in. 
 
 Perhaps as good terms as any Ameri- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 131 
 
 can playwright has obtained are five 
 per cent, of each week's gross receipts 
 up to $3000, ten per cent, of the next 
 $2000, fifteen per cent, of the next 
 $2000, twenty per cent, of the next 
 $2000, and twenty-five per cent, of all 
 over $9000. It is only with a rare suc- 
 cess that the income reaches the highest 
 figure given. More than one native 
 drama has earned $100,000 for its 
 author or authors. Perhaps a dozen 
 have yielded $50,000 each, three times 
 as many $25,000, and a goodly number 
 $10,000. 
 
 Dramas that have won success abroad 
 are eagerly sought after by American 
 managers and star actors. A cash-down 
 payment of $25,000 has been made in 
 several instances. Stars draw audiences 
 by themselves, to a certain extent, and 
 so with them the royalty seldom rises 
 above ten per cent., and never exceeds 
 fifteen per cent. Sometimes a fixed 
 sum is paid for each performance. 
 
132 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 This may be as little as $5 or as much 
 as $50. 
 
 Although the humorous American 
 author may be as odd as he pleases, the 
 serious one is cramped by the condi- 
 tions. He must strive to please, first, 
 the timorous manager ; and, second, the 
 whimsical public. It will not do to 
 consider only the tastes of the few; he 
 must satisfy the many. Some of the 
 plays highly recommended by the pro- 
 fessional critics fail to become popular. 
 Some that offend them are triumphant 
 with the multitude. The greatest suc- 
 cesses, as measured in money, are won 
 with homely dramas, honest in senti- 
 ment, though perhaps trite; true in 
 characterization, though with possibly 
 rough types, and clean, though maybe 
 coarse. A play which appeals to all 
 grades of intelligence, and gives pleas- 
 ure to all sorts of people alike, is a for- 
 tune to its owner. 
 
 When the royalty paid to the play- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 133 
 
 wright is a percentage of the gross 
 receipts, each week's sum is figured out 
 after Saturday night's performance. 
 A check for the amount is mailed to 
 him, with a detailed statement of the 
 money taken in. These voiickers are 
 signed by the treasurer of the theatre, 
 or those of perhaps six theatres if the 
 play is on a tour of the smaller places. 
 The number and prices of tickets sold 
 for each portion of the house are given. 
 The figures in these weekly exhibits 
 are cirriously irregular. If the enter- 
 tainment is giving satisfaction, the 
 audiences should increase steadily from 
 Monday night until either Friday or 
 Saturday. In the Northern States 
 Saturday night is fashionable as well as 
 popular, and in the South, Friday night 
 is favored in that way. There is no 
 reason save custom for the difference. 
 Outside things are always happening 
 to vary the normal run of receipts. A 
 storm will keep people away. So will 
 
134 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 a big social affair or a political meeting. 
 A Sunday-school excursion or a baseball 
 game may leave a village opera-house 
 nearly empty at a matinee. A fire early 
 in the evening may have the same effect. 
 The facts are noted on the statement 
 sent to the author. One from a Rocky 
 Mountain town showed $13 taken in, 
 and bore the explanation : " Donation 
 party and dog fight." They were sepa- 
 rate affairs presumably, and they drew 
 away two classes of supporters of the 
 drama. 
 
 There is always in America a keen 
 relish for novelty in all grades of plays, 
 from the smoothest comedy to the 
 roughest farce, and from a tragedy in 
 blank verse to a melodrama in mock 
 heroics. The standard works are put 
 aside in favor of new things. The 
 genius of Shakespeare is respected as 
 muck as ever, but it cannot compete 
 with the modern proficiency which pro- 
 vides things new and strange. Besides 
 
The Theatre and Its People 135 
 
 trying to satisfy the demands of audi- 
 ences, the playwright sometimes has to 
 make a character fit a star. The most 
 popular of the actors are rarely versa- 
 tile. Here again we have proof of 
 women's superiority to men in that re- 
 spect. Women stars adapt themselves 
 to roles. Men stars usually require that 
 roles shall be adapted to them. The 
 writer must bear in mind their indi- 
 vidual traits and manners. He must 
 not go beyond the limit of their abilities. 
 Therefore, the made-to-order play may 
 have to be taken in at one point and let 
 out at another to make it a good fit. 
 
 It is but recently that the American 
 playwright has been defended against 
 those who would steal his property. 
 The laws which forbade the use of his 
 plays without authority were almost 
 null and void. Every successful play 
 was performed by companies in remote 
 parts of the country, in open defiance, 
 or under a false title. Efforts to stop 
 
136 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 this -were vain. But the copyright law 
 was amended three years ago. To enact 
 wilfully a copyrighted play without the 
 owner's consent is now a crime punish- 
 able by imprisonment. This statute 
 applies to amateur actors as well as 
 professionals. Everybody concerned is 
 a culprit. That the object is a charity 
 is no defence. The only exception is 
 when no admission fee is charged. This 
 new law does not cover the thousand 
 and one old pieces still available to 
 amateurs. But it protects the more 
 recent ones, foreign or native, that have 
 complied with the copyright regulations. 
 The playwright of recognized skill 
 may protect himself against doing any 
 unpaid work, but some of his pieces are 
 bound to fail, partly, if not utterly, and 
 in those cases he receives for his long, 
 hard job only the $1000 or so of pre- 
 payment. Tor the bulk of the plays 
 written there is no reward in either 
 fame or fortune. The number of au- 
 
AUGUSTUS THOMAS. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 137 
 
 thors who try their hand at stage litera- 
 ture is very large. Novelists, expert in 
 creating plots and personages for books, 
 and journalists, clever in analytical and 
 descriptive composition, are dazzled by 
 the prizes in the theatrical lottery. 
 Most of them draw blanks. They are 
 prone to complain that their manu- 
 scripts are not read considerately by tbe 
 managers. They say tbat the prejudice 
 against native work is too great for 
 merit to overcome. They even assert 
 that there is no use at all in submitting 
 a play except under circumstances in- 
 suring a careful perusal. Truth and 
 error are mixed in those charges. One 
 of our foremost managers has employed 
 a reader during the last ten years. In 
 all that time he has not received through 
 that medium a single play which he 
 thought worth acceptance. He has seen 
 his way clear to use only those obtained 
 by him personally from experienced 
 dramatists. Plays clever in story, die- 
 
138 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 tion, or some other literary quality are 
 plentiful, but those with actable merits 
 are scarce. jSTo doubt a work of genius, 
 or at least of popular value, is some- 
 times overlooked or not understood by 
 the reader for a theatre. But managers 
 are too eager for good material to dis- 
 regard anything proffered by any one 
 known to be a writer by profession, even 
 though the hope of finding " pay ore" 
 in the enormous output is faint. 
 
 After the play is written, and a man- 
 ager has decided to produce it, the 
 author has something to say about the 
 selection of actors for its performance 
 — by right or courtesy, as the case may 
 be. He desires that every part shall be 
 interpreted for all it is worth, and 
 more if possible. He .knows that, be- 
 yond the immediate effect of good act- 
 ing, the first portrayal of a character 
 fixes it for life. ISTo matter how long 
 it may exist on the stage, or how bad 
 an actor may after a while be put into 
 
The Theatre and Its People 139 
 
 it, the manner of the first performance 
 will not be lost. The imitation may 
 become poorer and poorer, but it will 
 remain an imitation to the end. One 
 question that arises in forming a com- 
 pany is the value of favorites. An actor 
 whom an audience knows beforehand 
 gets qxiicker attention, but is it not bet- 
 ter if he is a total stranger, provided 
 he has the right ability? Then he is 
 regarded solely as a personage of the 
 play, and is not the illusion greater? 
 Some authors think so. " But that's 
 nonsense," replies the manager ; " you 
 might as well tell me that there's no 
 value in a star's reputation." One is 
 thinking of art, the other of business, 
 and usually it is the other who decides. 
 Practically the time and place of 
 giving the first performance rest with 
 the manager also, though within certain 
 limits they may be set by the contract. 
 " An adequate representation in a first- 
 class theatre on or before January 1" is 
 
140 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 less definite than it seems. For exam- 
 ple, a " first-class" theatre means one 
 in which the top prices of admission 
 are charged. Then, too, the phrase, " an 
 adequate representation," is elastic. It 
 may be construed by the author as 
 demanding the best costumes, scenery, 
 and acting that money and skill can 
 procure. But the manager may give 
 no more than a tolerably good produc- 
 tion and still be within the letter of the 
 agreement, though disregarding its 
 spirit. Again, much depends on the 
 standing of the theatre in which the 
 play is brought out. In New York City 
 certain stages are identified with cer- 
 tain kinds of pieces. A serious drama 
 would be ineffectual where farces had 
 ruled for a long time. As to time, the 
 best is between the first of October and 
 the last of March. Yet between those 
 dates are the worst two weeks in the 
 season for theatrical business — the week 
 before Christmas and Holy Week. But 
 
The Theatre and Its People 141 
 
 these are points beyond the author's 
 say-so. His manuscript has been com- 
 pleted. His work has been hard. That 
 which remains to do may be still harder. 
 His play is now ready for rehearsal. 
 
The Rehearsal of a Play 
 
XL 
 
 The Reheaksal of a Play. 
 
 Few who see a new play well per- 
 formed have any idea of the careful 
 preparation given it. The hardest work 
 done by actors is at rehearsals. These 
 last about four weeks for a piece that 
 is to be finely brought out. The first 
 thing done is to call the company to- 
 gether to hear the piece read. The 
 actors may have known little about it 
 except the portions contained in their 
 separate roles. By courtesy the author 
 is asked to be the reader, but he usually 
 declines in favor of the stage director. 
 This meeting is held in any handy 
 room, in a theatre or elsewhere. The 
 director makes use of his best elocution, 
 
146 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 so that the actors may catch the spirit 
 and full meaning of the scenes as they 
 sit before him like any other audience. 
 Each pays especial heed to the passages 
 in which he is to figure. He is anxious 
 about the relations which he is to bear 
 to the others, and he may also be jealous 
 about his comparative importance. The 
 reading includes all the directions as 
 well as the dialogue, and occupies about 
 two hours, or the same time that a per- 
 formance of the same play will take, 
 aside from the intermissions between 
 acts. 
 
 After the reading is over each actor 
 receives a typewritten copy of his part. 
 The whole play is not given to him. 
 Then the director announces the time 
 and place of the first rehearsal, which 
 is usually held the next morning on 
 a stage. But in the autumn, when nu- 
 merous companies are being drilled in 
 New York, small halls have to be used 
 instead. The players come in every-day 
 
The Theatre and Its People 147 
 
 street attire, and if the place is none 
 too well warmed, they .keep their over- 
 coats, wraps, and hats on. If it is in 
 a theatre, the stage is nearly bare of 
 scenery, and is dimly lighted by a bad 
 blend of bunched gas-jets and obscure 
 windows. If it is in a hall, the light is 
 better, but the barrenness is worse. The 
 stage is represented by a chalk-lined 
 space on the floor. The things that will 
 by and by give illusion and glamour 
 are not so much as suggested. The 
 reality of a first rehearsal is in the 
 widest kind of contrast with the per- 
 formance which it is intended to lead to. 
 
 The entirely utilitarian aspect of 
 rehearsing is not made less by the fact 
 that the actors receive no pay for it. 
 If they are not at the same time getting 
 salaries for acting in a current piece, 
 they are without income during the 
 practice on the new one. This is an 
 invariable custom. 
 
 On the first morning the opening act 
 
148 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 only is taken up. The players have not 
 yet been required to memorize their 
 parts. They are to learn the action first. 
 They go through with the positions and 
 movements as written- down by the 
 author and explained by the director. 
 Doors and windows are indicated by 
 chairs. Balconies, stairways, fences, 
 gates, sloping banks, winding paths, 
 floral bowers — all are located by make- 
 shifts. The aim is to familiarize the 
 actors at the outset with the arrange- 
 ment of the scene as it is to be. At the 
 same time their movements with refer- 
 ence to one another are learned slowly 
 and carefully. While they are doing 
 this they read the words without much 
 attempt at expression. On the same 
 afternoon the second act may be gone 
 through with. At the end of the day's 
 work, which does not in the early stages 
 include the evening, the director says: 
 " Ten o'clock to-morrow morning— first 
 act rough perfect without parts." He 
 
WILLIAM GILLETTE. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 149 
 
 means that the actors are expected to 
 learn their parts in that portion of the 
 play so as to recite them without refer- 
 ring to the copy. The next rehearsal 
 hegins with their attempt to do this. 
 Some are ahle to, while others fail and 
 have to keep their manuscript in hand. 
 On the third day they will be repri- 
 manded if still unprepared with the 
 first act. All may then be told to study 
 the second act for the ensuing day, 
 when the third act may be taken up. 
 
 Thus the actors are made to work 
 their way along through the play. By 
 the end of a week they have learned 
 both the language and action more or 
 less completely. They are much like 
 pupils in a school. Some are quick and 
 assiduous. Others are slow and inatten- 
 tive. Some do their very best and some 
 do not. The brainy actor who is care- 
 less may be harder to get along with 
 than the dullard who takes pains. While 
 a liberal education is very helpful, first- 
 
150 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 rate work is done without it by persons 
 born with a gift for acting. These are 
 comic actors, as a rule, in whom nicety 
 is less essential than mirth. Still, a 
 certain player of dignified old gentle- 
 men knows no grammar by precept or 
 practice. His ever-correct language on 
 the stage comes of word-by-word ad- 
 herence to the text. He is even right 
 in the use of his pronouns. It is not 
 always easy to keep the cultured actor 
 from saying " me" when he should 
 say " I." 
 
 Each part in a play is copied out for 
 the actor assigned to it. In addition to 
 the language to be spoken by him it con- 
 tains the cues — that is to say, every 
 separate speech, long or short, is pre- 
 ceded by several concluding words from 
 the next prior speech of some other 
 person. That gives him the cue to 
 begin. He must memorize these scraps 
 of sentences quite as thoroughly as the 
 matter that he is to utter, in order that 
 
The Theatre and Its People 151 
 
 his responses shall he ready. He must 
 he particular ahout the ends of his own 
 speeches, too, because they are in turn 
 the cues for his companions. Lapses 
 at these points cause confusion. 
 
 The rehearsals have not gone far 
 before the director gives notice that all 
 must be " letter perfect." What he 
 means is that now the actors must recite 
 their entire parts correctly in every 
 word. Some are able to do that without 
 difficulty. Others are surprisingly slow 
 even when they try hard. As the mat- 
 ter is brohen up in dialogue, in which 
 questions and answers are reminders 
 of each other, the study is not often one 
 that would be thought hard by a bright 
 schoolboy. Still, there are actors other- 
 wise clever who bother the director by 
 mumbling and jumbling long after 
 others are letter perfect. If reproof 
 and prompting do not mend the fault, 
 " rehearsal for lines" is called. Then 
 the company sits before the director in 
 
152 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 a semicircle and recites the entire play 
 without action. The smallest deviation 
 from the text is corrected. 
 
 Before the second week is over the 
 players have learned to say and do 
 everything that has been set down for 
 them by the author. Here and there 
 an actor is fully prepared at this junc- 
 ture to play his part in public. But it 
 is not so with the majority. The women 
 are more advanced than the men, as a 
 rule, partly from having applied them- 
 selves more faithfully and partly from 
 the sex's natural aptness. The director 
 now devotes all his efforts to bringing 
 forward the laggards, teaching the in- 
 expert and perfecting the proficient. 
 It must not be inferred that talent is 
 repressed at rehearsals. It is merely 
 guided. Strong individuality is not 
 objected to if only it is adaptable. The 
 keynote in modern acting is naturalness. 
 Human beings in plays are now re- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 153 
 
 quired to speak as human beings do in 
 real life under like circumstances. 
 
 The hardest work of the director 
 remains to he done. It is that of mak- 
 ing the actors carry out the author's 
 intention fully. They cannot be left 
 to themselves. Each would play his 
 part with small regard for the general 
 effect. Some of them have creative 
 ability, and the director is glad to hear 
 what they have to say, because their 
 suggestions are often valuable. Many 
 a role that was small as written has 
 become big when acted. But the major- 
 ity of tbe actors are mere puppets in the 
 hands of the man who conducts the re- 
 hearsals. His word is their law. He 
 tells them how their parts shall be 
 played. This extends to the pronuncia- 
 tion of the smallest word and the mak- 
 ing of the faintest gesture. Nothing 
 whatever is left unfixed before the 
 public performance. 
 
154 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 It is only by a method of positive 
 control that the whole purpose of a 
 play can be carried out. It would be 
 defeated if the actors were at all free to 
 do as they thought fit. Some are trac- 
 table. Some are wilful. All must obey 
 or quit. So the stage director is an 
 autocrat, and he may be a tyrant. He 
 is a master of stagecraft, and he may be 
 a dramatic scholar. Above all else, he 
 needs the theatric instinct. When he 
 sees or hears a thing he should know 
 intuitively, as well as by rule and prece- 
 dent, whether it will convey its meaning 
 to an audience. He may be a gentleman 
 or a boor. In most cases he is a gentle- 
 man. He deals with men and women 
 of culture, in the main; and, though 
 firm, he is polite and good-tempered. 
 It is the duty of the director to preserve 
 the proper balance of all the play's 
 various interests. He may blurt out his 
 orders and reproofs without caring if 
 they wound any one's feelings, or he 
 
The Theatre and Its People 155 
 
 may call individuals aside for private 
 correction. But in any case he enforces 
 his views and commands ohedience. 
 The reason that outsiders are hut rarely 
 admitted to rehearsals is therefore ob- 
 vious. 
 
 Rehearsals are funny in some ways. 
 The dead-in-earnest director himself is 
 comic at times. That is so when he 
 shows an actress how to speak and 
 behave in a sentimental scene. A hulk 
 of a man posing as a gentle maiden and 
 breathing vows of constancy to her lover 
 is a ridiculous sight. But his illustra- 
 tion is clear enough. He might not be 
 able to play even a minor male role 
 cleverly, ' but he has to have the .knack 
 of teaching others. He has a school- 
 master's troubles, too. One of them is 
 to keep the actors quiet when they are 
 not in the scene. They are prone to 
 chatter in groups. Points of difficulty 
 arise constantly for the director to 
 settle. They usually come from the 
 
156 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 actors' common desire to be made the 
 most of. 
 
 The two who impersonate the lovers 
 in the play are especially given to dis- 
 agreement. Each is afraid of being put 
 back or aside in favor of the other. The 
 centre- of the stage is the place of van- 
 tage in their minds, and they do like 
 to hold it. In passing each other, which 
 shall do so on the side toward the audi- 
 ence ? When one must turn away from 
 the people, which shall thus hide the 
 face ? Each is in dread lest the other 
 gain an advantage in one way or an- 
 other. When such a thing cannot be 
 helped, owing to the author's directions, 
 they do not hesitate to ask that changes 
 be made. The comedians are all this 
 time striving for chances for their fun, 
 and would obtrude it into the serious 
 scenes too much if they could. 
 
 The utmost pains are taken with 
 scenes in which two persons have any- 
 thing to do with each other. If they 
 
The Theatre and Its People 157 
 
 shake hands, it must be done at just the 
 right instant and with no uncertainty. 
 A blow is practised till it looks just 
 right, and is never afterward struck 
 differently. Embraces and kisses are 
 rehearsed with the extremest care. 
 They must have an impulsive manner. 
 They must look sufficiently fervid. It 
 is a curious sight — that of two players 
 who are to express the ardent love 
 which Shakespeare has written for his 
 " Romeo and Juliet," but who at re- 
 hearsal, in modern clothes and no acces- 
 sories of glamour, practise a kiss as 
 mechanically and unfeelingly as though 
 it were — as it is then- — utterly devoid 
 of sentiment. There must be no hesita- 
 tion nor clumsiness. Romeo is not 
 permitted to decide whether to throw 
 both arms around his sweetheart or only 
 one, or which. ]STor may Juliet be shy 
 or forward, yielding or resisting, as she 
 chooses. The director will place their 
 arms for them if they do not themselves 
 
158 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 make a picturesque exhibit of tender- 
 ness. 
 
 And the kiss ? Shall it be delivered 
 by the wooer on the lips of the won, 
 or on brow, or cheek ? That question 
 is considered and settled. Are kisses 
 on the stage genuine ? Well, not at 
 rehearsals, except, maybe, once or twice, 
 in order to show the effect fully. An 
 actress would resent a real kiss at a 
 rehearsal except when necessary. For 
 the satisfaction of natural curiosity on 
 that point it may be told right here that 
 most of the kisses in the public perform- 
 ances of plays are actual kisses. 
 
Setting Everything Ready 
 
XII. 
 
 Setting Everything Ready. 
 
 Meanwhile the scenery is under 
 way. Children's eyes would sparkle at 
 the models the artist makes. He follows 
 the author's written directions. He 
 begins with water-color sketches. When 
 actual places are to be shown, he goes 
 to them with a camera or buys photo- 
 graphs already made. Illustrated books 
 are looked up and famous pictures are 
 copied for historical dramas. After he 
 has obtained the things to guide him 
 he makes each set of scenery in minia- 
 ture. The result looks like one of the 
 toy stages sold in the stores. The size 
 varies between two and four feet wide, 
 
\6i The Theatre and Its People 
 
 with proportionate height and depth, 
 according as the details are few or 
 many. Every object is put in, just as 
 it is to be in the enlarged room — street, 
 forest, landscape, or whatever else. The 
 artist draws and colors on cardboard. 
 The different sections are then cut out 
 and fastened on the little stage. 
 
 When this has been done the scene is 
 lighted up as though it were in use at 
 a theatre. Thus the effects may be 
 judged exactly. The author and the 
 manager criticise it. The view from 
 the front is not the only consideration. 
 There must be the right places for the 
 players to come and go, and spaces for 
 their prescribed action. Change upon 
 change may be necessary before the 
 model is satisfactory. When once it is 
 accepted the artist is not bound to make 
 any further alteration. He conducts 
 his business independently, taking sepa- 
 rate jobs, and renting quarters in some 
 one of the ISTew York theatres having 
 
The Theatre and Its People 163 
 
 room to spare. Usually he is a special- 
 ist. His forte may be rooms, or exterior 
 architecture, or landscapes. The scen- 
 ery of one play may he provided by 
 several different men chosen for their 
 respective abilities. Each makes a 
 contract for his portion of the work. 
 The prices have a wide range, from as 
 little as $100 for a very plain apart- 
 ment to as much as $1000 for an elabo- 
 rate setting. The sum depends more 
 on quality than quantity. The man 
 who is a real artist, creative and in- 
 genious, gets the highest pay. The one 
 who is hardly more than a mechanic, 
 unable to idealize or originate, gets the 
 lowest. 
 
 The same young eyes that sparkled at 
 sight of the pretty model might fill with 
 tears to see it torn to bits. It next goes 
 to the stage carpenter, who takes it 
 apart piece by piece. He is to build the 
 necessary framework for the scenery; 
 also the stairways, platforms, bridges, 
 
164 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 and so on. The model has been made 
 to a reduced scale, like an architect's 
 plans for a house, say an inch to a foot, 
 and the carpenter follows it exactly. 
 His original skill is applied to devices 
 for packing the outfit snugly in a rail- 
 way car for travel. He puts in joints 
 and hinges, so that what cannot be 
 rolled may be separated and folded. He 
 saves space by making some portions 
 reversible, in order that either side may 
 be turned to the front. If the play is 
 to have changes of scenery in sight of 
 the audience, or such episodes as a fire, 
 explosion, shipwreck, or other disaster 
 by land or sea, the mechanical construc- 
 tion has to be ingenious. A really 
 clever stage carpenter's wages rise to 
 $50 a week regularly, or else he makes 
 more by taking jobs at lump sums. 
 
 The model and all the things that 
 have been built from it are next taken 
 in hand by the painters. They occupy 
 a room big enough to hang the cloths 
 

 f 
 
 
 
 <e* 
 
 SHIFTING THE SCENER1 i MAKING A S( IMi MODI I. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 165 
 
 for the largest scenes. The rear wall of 
 a stage and a gallery or bridge, running 
 across high up, are used in most cases. 
 The scenic artist does not do more than 
 half of the painting. Less expert yet 
 proficient employes leave only the diffi- 
 cult parts to be done by him. They 
 adhere to the shapes, colors, and dimen- 
 sions that have been fixed in the model. 
 Parts that cannot be enlarged by means 
 of frames and canvas, such as small 
 rocks, trunks of trees, and broken walls, 
 are shaped in papier-mache by an expert 
 known as the property man. He needs 
 to be considerable of an artist, too. All 
 sorts of things come within his line, 
 from the broken gun-carriage in a battle- 
 field to the imitation of marble statuary 
 in a studio. He makes the animals 
 which are operated by enclosed men in 
 comic operas, and the monsters that 
 swallow folks in the pantomimes. He 
 provides all the small objects used in 
 a play that are not purchasable ready 
 
1 66 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 made. The furniture, draperies, and 
 adornments of a scene are bought at the 
 stores, or made to order if they are to 
 be unique. Very rarely are they shams 
 or makeshifts in these days of stage 
 realism. They are usually just exactly 
 what they purport to be. 
 
 The gowns for the actresses are being 
 made while the other preparations for 
 the new play are going on. There are 
 costumers whose whole business is with 
 the theatres. But of late the managers 
 have taken to the big department stores 
 instead, especially when modern fash- 
 ionable styles are wanted. The actress 
 is permitted to indulge her own taste, 
 but not too much. She must obey the 
 same man who controls her so absolutely 
 at the rehearsals. It is for him to say 
 what colors she shall wear. Otherwise 
 she might choose those that would kill 
 the effect of other dresses in the same 
 scenes, or be themselves spoiled by the 
 hues of walls and hangings. Samples 
 
The Theatre and Its People 167 
 
 of the fabrics are examined under the 
 lights that will be thrown on the gar- 
 ments when worn. The colors being 
 settled, the actress is privileged to go 
 to any dressmaker she likes and pay as 
 much as she pleases out of her own 
 pocket in addition to the amount al- 
 lowed by the manager. Thus some of 
 the gowns seen at receptions and balls 
 on the stage are from the same estab- 
 lishments that make similar finery for 
 the wealthiest women in modish society. 
 Indeed, the actresses are apt to keep 
 a little in advance of the prevailing 
 modes. In a measure they set the fash- 
 ions. The dressmakers help them to do 
 so in the hope that orders for duplicates 
 may come in. If the play is away back 
 in time and away off in place, so that 
 the costumes are not to be in our 
 own styles, they are first drawn in 
 water-colors. Two or three different 
 pictures are made for each. Several 
 women are among the artists who get 
 
1 68 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 from $100 to $500 for one of these jobs. 
 Historical truth is demanded, but when 
 faithful copies would be ugly the liberty 
 of making them sightlier is taken. The 
 hooped skirts of our women in 1861, 
 for instance, are merely suggested in 
 most of the war dramas. In the various 
 kinds of plays in which the costumes 
 are wholly fanciful the designer has 
 ample scope for originality. A set of 
 drawings for a recent comic opera num- 
 bered two hundred and sixty-seven, 
 from which the needed seventy-four 
 were selected. 
 
 It is not alone the finery of dress that 
 calls for care. Old clothes are harder 
 to get. Tattered gowns can hardly 
 be made to order. To merely tear 
 brand-new ones will not do. They must 
 be made to look as though worn out. 
 Rubbing and staining usually produce 
 the right effect. The men get over this 
 difficulty in a way that the women will 
 not usually resort to. The actor as- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 169 
 
 signed to the role of a tramp does not 
 hesitate to buy a real tramp's suit. 
 Washing and fumigation will make it 
 safe to wear. If then it looks too clean, 
 he stains and smudges it. But the 
 actress, with the sensitiveness of her sex, 
 will not often put on rags like that. She 
 is prone to be fastidious, too, in using 
 costumes that have been worn by other 
 actresses. 
 
 The mimic soldiers that you see in 
 dramas of our Civil War, whether 
 Union or Confederate, sometimes wear 
 uniforms that have seen service on 
 battle-fields. Oftener they are from 
 supplies that were sold cheap to dealers 
 after peace came. Of these dealers, 
 managers buy guns, blankets, swords, 
 etc. Tbe theatrical costumers also keep 
 soiled costumes of various ages and 
 countries on hand. They are the re- 
 mains of former stage productions. An 
 actor in quest of seedy clothes of any 
 
170 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 period or country can secure exactly 
 what he needs of a dealer in costumes. 
 
 Wigs have to be worn by many stage 
 characters. If a blonde or a brunette 
 has to turn herself into the other, she 
 may do it by dyeing or bleaching. That 
 is better than putting false hair on, and 
 is frequently done if the play is ex- 
 pected to last long. Under those cir- 
 cumstances, an actor may let his locks 
 grow long or cut them short. He may 
 avoid the use of a false beard by raising 
 one. But some pieces call for the pow- 
 dered wigs of a bygone fashion. Eccen- 
 tric characters commonly compel the 
 actor to cover his own hair. Wigs are 
 so important on the stage that the maker 
 is a specialist. He will adapt them to 
 any need, but he will charge accord- 
 ingly; $5 may buy a ready-made wig 
 from his stock, though $15 is the aver- 
 age. But he gets from $25 to $100 for 
 an original piece of his best work. 
 
 If the earlier rehearsals have not 
 
The Theatre and Its People 171 
 
 been held on the stage of a theatre, the 
 director gets the use of one as soon as 
 possible. Until then the actors do not 
 feel at home in the play. ISTor can the 
 director form a clear judgment of their 
 work before he sees it from an audi- 
 ence's point of view. Before this he 
 has been right among them, explaining, 
 illustrating, literally taking hold of 
 them. !N"ow he goes off the stage and 
 observes critically all the things that he 
 has made them do. Especially he 
 studies the living pictures which follow 
 one another in the action. He finds it 
 necessary to make many changes. The 
 movement at certain points is slow, 
 awkward, or irrelevant. The climaxes 
 at the ends of the acts require rearrange- 
 ment, possibly involving a considerable 
 amount of work. About this time the 
 scenery is set up and the furniture put 
 in place and all makeshifts are dis- 
 carded. Now the actors feel their en- 
 vironment. 
 
172 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 A rehearsal " with props" is next in 
 order. All the movable objects, from 
 my lady's bodkin to my lord's sword, 
 are called properties. Ease must be 
 acquired in handling them. If the play 
 demands singing by a chorus, or danc- 
 ing by a ballet corps, that feature has 
 been prepared separately, and is now 
 introduced in its proper place. If it is 
 a " legitimate" drama, without songs, 
 dances, or other interpolated diversion, 
 it still may call for music incidental to 
 its absorbing scenes to make them more 
 impressive. This has to be practised 
 carefully. The orchestra leader starts 
 it at a cue spoken by one of the charac- 
 ters, and stops it at another, the catch- 
 words being written in his score of the 
 music. The " effects off," which include 
 all the various noises which the author 
 has described as being heard from out- 
 side, are timed by cues in the same 
 exact manner. So is the management 
 
The Theatre and Its People 173 
 
 of the lights. Much depends on these 
 aids. Rehearsals have to be held to 
 perfect the incidental music, the outside 
 effects, and the shifts of light and dark- 
 ness. ISTow the actors speak the lines 
 with a care only for the cues. 
 
 The final rehearsal of the new play 
 is called a " dress" rehearsal. It is just 
 like an open performance, except that 
 there is no audience other than a few 
 persons directly interested in the ven- 
 ture. Everything is done on the stage, 
 or should be, precisely as though it were 
 in public. The scenery is set and 
 lighted. The players enact their parts 
 in every particular. For the first time 
 they appear in the guises or disguises 
 that have been decided on. The lan- 
 guage and the action have become 
 familiar, but this is the first that they 
 see of one another in the characters 
 fully assumed. The manager, author, 
 and director criticise the performance, 
 
174 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 make further changes, perhaps, and 
 hope that it will please the first audi- 
 ence. 
 
 If the dress rehearsal has developed 
 no unforeseen faults requiring altera- 
 tion, the actors are not called together 
 again until an hour before the time for 
 the first performance to begin. It is 
 better to give them an interval of rest, 
 though it is often impossible to do so, 
 and it sometimes happens that they 
 rehearse arduously right up to the 
 moment for putting on their costumes. 
 But the players should have twenty-four 
 hours in which to settle their nerves, 
 pull themselves together, and approach 
 the first night of the new play in their 
 best possible condition of mind and 
 body. 
 
The First Night of a Play 
 
XIII. 
 
 The First Night of a Play. 
 
 It is not the practice to give the first 
 performance of a new play in a great 
 city. No matter how carefully it has 
 been written and rehearsed the result 
 cannot be foreseen with certainty. So 
 it may be in some village theatre within 
 easy distance from ISTew York that the 
 author sees the first trial of his piece. 
 He may not enjoy it, but it is necessary 
 that he be there to find out what altera- 
 tions are needed. He has miscalculated 
 in some respects, if not in many. This 
 knowledge he does not gain from the 
 performance itself, because he has 
 learned that at rehearsals, but he does 
 
178 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 not know beforehand what the impres- 
 sion on an audience will be. He stays 
 with the company a week, or maybe a 
 month, improving his work. Some 
 points which he depended on have 
 proved worthless, and those he cuts out. 
 Others which he did not think much of 
 have shown value, and those he sharp- 
 ens. Sometimes an entire scene or act 
 has to be rewritten because it does not, 
 when acted, convey the intended mean- 
 ing or else is not interesting. Some- 
 times, alas ! the whole play fails hope- 
 lessly, and that is the last of it. But if 
 it is made to succeed with these early 
 audiences, it is taken to some metropolis 
 to undergo the more severe ordeal of 
 a first night there. 
 
 If the play has aroused much atten- 
 tion, or is to be acted by a resident 
 company of vogue in [New'York City, 
 the demand for seats for the first night 
 far exceeds the supply. Only the tick- 
 ets sent in couples to the newspaper 
 
The Theatre and Its People 179 
 
 critics are free. The rest might have 
 been sold several times over. There are 
 about a hundred New Yorkers who keep 
 their orders on file for seats at all the 
 original productions at the leading 
 Broadway theatres. They are as faith- 
 ful in their attendance as the profes- 
 sional critics. Twice as many more 
 habitual " first-nighters" purchase their 
 seats early. This large contingent is 
 sometimes divided between two open- 
 ings of equal interest, though usually it 
 is gathered together. But if not much 
 is expected of the new play, or it is to 
 be given in an unfashionable house, the 
 manager may have to distribute many 
 tickets gratis. In either case the first 
 New York audience is dreaded. It is 
 cynical and hard to satisfy. But it is 
 also very responsive with tears, laugh- 
 ter, and applause whenever the play 
 moves it positively. Even though its 
 verdict is not final, and may be reversed 
 either one way or the other by later 
 
180 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 assemblages, it is too important to be 
 awaited with a placid mind by anybody 
 concerned in the venture. 
 
 About half the seats on the lower 
 floor of the theatre are occupied by the 
 selfsame persons time after time. The 
 owner of the theatre reserves a box, the 
 manager another, a third is assigned 
 to the author, and these are likely to 
 hold family parties. Representatives 
 of fashion, wealth, and brains are 
 mingled. Men important in the busi- 
 ness of amusements are present to see 
 what the new play amounts to. Actors 
 are not numerous, even few of those at 
 leisure being present, unless free tickets 
 have been distributed. They are not 
 regarded as a desirable factor on these 
 occasions. Their applause is so mani- 
 festly insincere and their comments so 
 caustic that they are commonly shut 
 out, unless they buy their admission 
 like other people. The newspaper 
 critics are a familiar contingent. Many 
 
f- 
 
 H 
 
 
The Theatre and Its People 181 
 
 weekly and monthly periodicals also 
 send their writers. The journalists 
 present number about fifty. 
 
 The aspect of a first-night assemblage 
 is distinctly modish. A majority of the 
 men wear the conventional evening 
 dress, though the clawhammer coat may 
 be displaced by the Tuxedo. The women 
 do not put on sleeveless low corsages, 
 as at the opera, but they do wear such 
 gowns as are seen at afternoon recep- 
 tions or the less formal night functions. 
 These toilettes are more or less showy, 
 according to individual taste. Hats and 
 bonnets are absent. Sightly coiffures 
 take the place of millinery. In Paris 
 there is an organized " claque" under 
 instructions when and what to applaud 
 or laugh at. ~No such thing is practised 
 here. Nevertheless, some of the ap- 
 plause by zealous friends of the author, 
 manager, or actors is none the less dis- 
 honest. The ushers are sometimes told 
 to join in. Hand-clapping, therefore, 
 
1 82 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 does not necessarily mean admiration. 
 Laughter is generally sincere, but not 
 always. It has been known to be started 
 and sustained by expert mimics of 
 merriment. 
 
 The most anxious observers of the 
 audience are the author and the man- 
 ager. They watch and listen with hope 
 and fear for indications of success or 
 failure, but they usually keep out of 
 sight, on the stage or behind the drape- 
 ries of a box, and from these hiding- 
 places they peep out at the audience and 
 listen intently. Most of them are 
 averse to showing themselves even when 
 called out by an enthusiastic assem- 
 blage. The shrewdest of them are 
 aware that they will be awkward in 
 comparison with the actors, and that 
 they will not figure to advantage as 
 speechmakers. 
 
 There are authors who make willing 
 exhibits of themselves on these occa- 
 sions, however, and others who cannot 
 
The Theatre and Its People 183 
 
 be induced to go near the theatre at all. 
 But the manager has a steady head on 
 his shoulders, and he wants to find out 
 right away whether or not he has a valu- 
 able piece of property in the new play. 
 
 " That is going all right," a manager 
 whispered to an author while a first per- 
 formance was in progress last winter. 
 It was in a scene which they had re- 
 garded as a risky experiment. 
 
 " But hear them cough," the author 
 replied. Here and there a person was 
 hacking, and the man was frightened 
 by that sign of inattention. 
 
 " That doesn't mean anything." 
 
 "Oh, yes, it does!" 
 
 " Don't be a fool !" the manager ex- 
 claimed, at the same time laying his 
 hand encouragingly on the other's arm ; 
 " the grip is epidemic." 
 
 So, that usual sign of inattention may 
 fail when the weather is bad for colds. 
 But the manager can be misled by zeal- 
 ous friends to conclude that the play 
 
184 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 will be prosperous, or by the apathy of 
 cynical persons that it will not. Tech- 
 nical and artistic merits are liked very 
 much by first-night experts, but are not 
 cared for so much by people who go 
 later. The latter are stirred deeply by 
 things which have not affected the 
 former in the least. 
 
 Between the acts the habitual attend- 
 ants discuss the play as far as it has 
 progressed. Many are expert judges. 
 Others think they are. Both express 
 themselves freely. They chatter in 
 their seats or form voluble groups in 
 the lobbies. Here and there one looks 
 preternaturally wise, but says nothing. 
 The majority rules for the time being, 
 and the impression that has already 
 been made on them is the prevailing 
 one when all return to their seats to see 
 the curtain rise again. The professional 
 critics have formed opinions, too, but 
 have expressed them charily. They 
 have chatted about the play between 
 
The Theatre and Its People 185 
 
 the acts, but their verdict is a sealed one 
 until published next day. Then it is 
 found to be more or less of a disagree- 
 ment. 
 
 Most of the serious plays nowadays 
 are written in four acts, and the face- 
 tious pieces in three. The next to the 
 final act is all-important. If that act 
 is strongly successful, weakness in what 
 has gone before or in what will come 
 afterward may not cause a failure. At 
 this juncture the opinion of the audi- 
 ence is given expression by applause, 
 violent and prolonged, or feeble and 
 brief, as the case may be. If a triumph 
 has been won, the curtain is raised as 
 many times as the audience demands it. 
 The closing tableau is shown again, 
 once or twice, sometimes with varia- 
 tions to form fresh pictures. After that 
 the entire company is disclosed in a 
 row, the principals in the centre ; or else 
 the actors pass in front of the lowered 
 curtain. If there are more calls, the 
 
1 86 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 leading members go out without the 
 others. 
 
 If there is a star, he or she now re- 
 sponds alone and is compelled to make 
 a speech. The stage director decides 
 who shall accept these compliments. 
 Many are the jealous grievances that 
 arise over questions of precedence. The 
 author may be called for, also, but it is 
 the actor who is thought of at the mo- 
 ment. The playwright is usually out 
 of sight and out of mind. One of the 
 first-night usages, that of passing flow- 
 ers to the actresses, became an abuse, 
 and is now abolished in the best- 
 managed theatres. Floral pieces in 
 unique designs got to be so big and 
 numerous, and such an ado was made 
 over them, that they were at length made 
 fun of. These tributes were mostly from 
 friends, but it came to be believed that 
 the recipients paid for them. The gen- 
 eral rule now is that flowers may be sent 
 to the stage door privately or displayed 
 
Drawn bj Lucius H 
 
 :alled before 
 
THE CURTAIN. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 187 
 
 in the public entrance, but not passed 
 over the footlights. 
 
 Most of the men who write reviews 
 of plays and acting are able and honest. 
 Time was when favorable articles in 
 certain journals were purchasable, but 
 there is no such scandal now. This, 
 that, or the other critic may have his 
 whims and caprices, his likes and dis- 
 likes, and these feelings break out in 
 his writings. But the average of judi- 
 cial fairness is high. The writers are 
 adequately paid by their employers, and 
 as a rule they are left untrammelled in 
 their honest judgments. Their work is 
 done under hard conditions, and trained 
 men only can do it with facility. The 
 performance is never over before eleven 
 o'clock; usually it lasts half an hour 
 longer, and not infrequently drags 
 along until twelve. As the " copy" 
 must be in the office, three or four miles 
 away, not later than one o'clock, there 
 is a necessity for quick thought and 
 
1 88 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 composition. Taking these difficulties 
 into consideration, the quality of the 
 reviews piiblished next morning is sur- 
 prisingly good. A second set of critics 
 are those of the weekly and monthly 
 periodicals. These are relieved of the 
 stress of hurry, and some of them turn 
 out admirable criticisms, while others, 
 straining for singularity, are more read- 
 able than just. 
 
 The critics are influential with the 
 public, but their judgment is not con- 
 clusive. If they were to combine to 
 make a poor play succeed, or a good 
 play fail, they could not do it. The 
 most they could do would be to send 
 people to the theatre or keep them away 
 during the first week or so. After that 
 the play would depend on itself. As 
 a fact, any concert of action by the 
 critics is unknown. It is not their cus- 
 tom to exchange views at the theatre. 
 Their published opinions are in sub- 
 stantial unison when the play is of a 
 
The Theatre and Its People 189 
 
 positive kind, but differ radically when 
 it is of uncertain merit. They are 
 farther apart in their estimates of 
 the actor than of the playwright. They 
 have their individualities, from the one 
 too kindly to ever condemn without 
 qualification, to the one too cross to ever 
 praise without reserve. But, on the 
 whole, their work builds up the best in 
 the theatres and breaks down the worst. 
 Those of the critics who are to write 
 for the next morning's journals quit the 
 theatre hastily as soon as the play is 
 over. Sometimes they have to leave 
 without seeing the last act. Even those 
 connected with evening papers pen their 
 articles before going to bed, as the 
 " copy" will be required early the next 
 forenoon. Only the attaches of the 
 weekly and monthly periodicals have 
 leisure for lounging after the perform- 
 ance. It is the impression that the 
 journalists congregate with the actors 
 at that time. It is not so. Nor do they 
 
190 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 get together a great deal at any time. 
 Every critic has cherished friends on 
 the stage, and more numerous casual 
 acquaintances. But the critics keep 
 apart generally from those whom it is 
 their duty to write about. This does 
 not arise from an assumption of supe- 
 riority on the one hand or antipathy on 
 the other. Perhaps it is not very brave 
 in the journalist to avoid socially those 
 whom he may be called on to condemn 
 professionally. Some carry this so far 
 that in many years of service they have 
 never sat at the same table with an actor 
 or manager, save at semi-public ban- 
 quets. Others are free in their inter- 
 course with people of the stage, and 
 their geniality does not render them any 
 the less impartial in their reviews. 
 
 The eagerness with which authors, 
 managers, and actors read the criticisms 
 the next day is natural enough. They 
 may feel that they know more about 
 what they have done than the writer 
 
The Theatre and Its People 191 
 
 does, but his judgment is made .known to 
 thousands on thousands of people. The 
 critics receive many letters of thanks, 
 complaint, and explanation. But most 
 of the persons, pleased or displeased, 
 do not free their minds in that way. 
 That there is an actor on earth who does 
 not peruse the articles concerning him 
 is past belief, and only here and there 
 one makes any such pretence. An esti- 
 mable and conspicuous actress said pub- 
 licly that she never, never looked at 
 anything printed about herself. Pri- 
 vately, on that very same day she wrote 
 to a journalist to protest against some- 
 thing he had published. 
 
 However, the attitude of the major- 
 ity is dignified in this matter. A 
 minority send mutual friends to ask for 
 kindness, employ so-called " press 
 agents," and do not flinch at notoriety 
 if they cannot have fame. The excuse 
 put forward for such conduct is that 
 publicity is the actor's breath of life. 
 
192 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 Dion Boucicault once wrote to a critic: 
 " Praise me if you can, but abuse me 
 rather than let me alone." He once 
 owned up to the authorship of a pub- 
 lished letter violently assailing one of 
 his own dramas. His aim was to stir 
 up an interest. An eminent English 
 actor and manager made a speech at a 
 London dinner deploring the prying 
 curiosity of newspaper reporters. The 
 same mail containing his remarks 
 brought letters from his own secretary 
 to New York journals giving particu- 
 lars of his personal doings. 
 
Points in First Performances 
 
XIV. 
 
 Points in Fiest Peefobmances. 
 
 The best intentions of the author of 
 a play may go astray in the first per- 
 formance. The actors, unwittingly or 
 wilfully, may disobey what the director 
 has tried hardest to enforce at the re- 
 hearsals. The principal in a scene sets 
 the pace for all concerned in it. The 
 inclination generally is to speak too 
 slowly. The idea is that " points" are 
 made more strongly if dwelt on. But 
 if one drags in that way the rest are apt 
 to do the same. If the first voice is 
 pitched too low or too loud, the others 
 take a wrong key from it. The actor 
 
196 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 who thus offends may be " hogging the 
 scene," as they say. He may change 
 his attitudes and movements from what 
 have been fixed upon, and so gain in 
 conspicuousness. The hero may be un- 
 gallant enough to turn his own face 
 toward the audience, and the heroine's 
 away, even while declaring his unselfish 
 love. He may contrive to trick the 
 villain of the play out of his proper 
 share in a dialogue at the very time that 
 the mimic scoundrel is supposed to be 
 the successful schemer. In the main, 
 all the disobedience to previous instruc- 
 tion is a result of nervousness. As to 
 the correct pitch of the voice, it is easy 
 if the actor is accustomed to speaking 
 in that particular theatre. But if he 
 has been travelling the varying spaces 
 and acoustic qualities bother him. It is 
 usual to station a man at the rear of the 
 gallery to report if the voices are too 
 loud or too low. 
 , One lesson learned by the actor in 
 
The Theatre and Its People 197 
 
 the first public performance is when to 
 wait for laughter or applause. His 
 expectations do not accord with what 
 really happens. A fiery speech may not 
 rouse the audience after all. A remark 
 meant to be comic may be regarded as 
 merely foolisb. In each case he pauses 
 for the interrupting noise, and there is 
 silence instead. But some things not 
 counted on for much prove to be worth 
 a great deal. Then, instead of waiting 
 for the applause or laughter to cease, 
 as he will in the future, he goes right 
 along with the next sentence, and either 
 does not make it heard or stops short 
 and repeats it. The behavior of audi- 
 ences, however, is not always the same. 
 Lines and situations will vary in effect 
 from night to night in the same theatre, 
 though given in precisely the same man- 
 ner. Different cities have different 
 theatrical tastes, aside from any ques- 
 tion of relative culture. A play may be 
 performed quietly in one place and 
 
198 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 require a louder and harsher delivery 
 in the next. 
 
 The nervous tension among those 
 engaged in the first performance of a 
 new play is very great. The effect of it 
 varies. What is called " stage-fright," 
 a paralyzing terror of the audience, is 
 prone to attack its victims on these 
 occasions. It is not alone the novice 
 who suffers from this ailment. Old 
 stagers have it acutely, and sometimes 
 unexpectedly. So great a genius as 
 Edwin Booth said that he was never 
 safe from a recurrence of "stage-fright" 
 in roles which he had played hundreds 
 of times. As a rule, however, and al- 
 most always when the play has been 
 prepared in the manner described in 
 previous articles of this series, no finer 
 representation is given than the first. 
 
 Do you wonder, when at the theatre, 
 how much of the audience the actor can 
 see ? If the stage scene is dark, and the 
 rest of the house less so, the people are 
 
The Theatre and Its People 199 
 
 visible to him. But most of the time 
 he is in a glare, from which he can dis- 
 cern little that is outside the row of 
 footlights. It is like looking from 
 bright sunlight into an unillumined 
 cavern. But he can hear all the noises 
 that come from the gloom, and the faint- 
 est of them has a meaning to which he 
 is keenly alert. The rustling of gar- 
 ments, the opening of fans, the shuffling 
 of feet, the murmur of whispering, are 
 signs that close attention is not being 
 given. Silence is what he likes most 
 of all, unless the scene is meant to 
 be laughable. The noisiest of ap- 
 plause is not such proof of absorbing 
 interest as unbroken silence affords. 
 He is glad to be greeted upon his en- 
 trance. If he is a stranger, and there 
 is at once a rattling of playbills to find 
 his name, he is pleased that the people 
 want to know who he is. A spontaneous 
 burst of applause at a point of climax 
 is grateful to his ears. But no tribute 
 
200 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 that an actor receives is really higher 
 than that which a rapt listener gives. 
 His dread of ridicule is acute. None 
 so well as he knows how short is the step 
 from the sublime to the ridiculous. 
 While keeping one ear wide open to 
 polite sounds from the parquet he cocks 
 the other at the gallery, whence ironical 
 laughter may come at any moment. 
 
 There is one authenticated instance 
 of a stage character being turned from 
 earnestness into fun by the behavior of 
 its first audience. It was done on the 
 spur of the moment by an actress who 
 had the role of an Egyptian princess. 
 It was intended that she should be 
 seriously and sentimentally impressive, 
 while the star of the company could be 
 contrastingly comical as the lover. But 
 the audience would not have it so. ISTor 
 was it anything in the woman's appear- 
 ance, for she was beautiful; nor in her 
 acting, for it was clever, that made the 
 people laugh. It came of a miscalcula- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 201 
 
 tion by the author. The quick-witted 
 actress, seeing that she could not control 
 the audience, resolved to humor it. By 
 an exaggeration of speech and manner 
 she turned the part into burlesque, and 
 it was acted in that way as long as the 
 piece was played. Her conduct was 
 insubordinate, of course, but she was 
 not fined for it. 
 
 Some actors are disheartened by an 
 audience's apathy or dislike. Others 
 are incited to greater effort. Still 
 others are noted for being bad " first- 
 nighters" under any circumstances. 
 They are dreaded by the other members 
 of the company. Literal adherence to 
 the language, as written and rehearsed, 
 is impossible to these delinquents. They 
 are often the best of artists, however, 
 and so their lapses, incidental to a first 
 performance, are condoned, though de- 
 plored. If the failure of memory cause 
 the omission of cues, the next speakers 
 are confused, and the audience knows 
 
ao2 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 that something has gone wrong. But 
 if the cues are spoken correctly and the 
 language is altered and jumbled only 
 in other portions, the author is 
 anguished, because his meanings are 
 left out and he alone will be blamed for 
 the bad diction. Comedians in bur- 
 lesques are charily permitted to put in 
 impromptu jests. 
 
 But such " gagging" is forbidden, as 
 a rule, under penalty of fines. It is 
 prohibited absolutely in legitimate 
 plays. If an actor get to varying the 
 text or acquiring bad pronunciations, 
 he is admonished by the stage manager. 
 If he does not reform, a call is posted 
 for a rehearsal on his account. Some- 
 times a whole company that has become 
 lax is put through a " rehearsal for 
 lines." In short, the prevalent idea 
 that actors do about as they please in 
 a performance, using their own judg- 
 ment and changing words or action to 
 suit their fancy, is, indeed, erroneous. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 203 
 
 For an actor who cannot help his 
 first-night faults and does not repeat 
 them later there is pity instead of cen- 
 sure. The prompter is alert to help 
 him out of his difficulties. The other 
 players are quick to hridge over his 
 lapses. Only the expert in the audience 
 sees that they are having trouble with 
 him. Some actors are ready and apt to 
 aid him. In a tragedy a general should 
 have given to his queen an impetuous 
 account of a battle which he had won. 
 But he stood wordless, silent, stuck fast ; 
 " Tou have come to tell me," she said, 
 and then went on with the narrative 
 which he should have spoken. Accidents 
 will happen on the best-regulated first 
 nights. There is a tradition of a play 
 which had its third act blunderingly 
 performed before the second, and it is 
 further said that the same order was 
 retained ever after, as it was an im- 
 provement. It is a fact that in the 
 original representation of a comedy in 
 
204 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 Washington a false cue sent the chief 
 actor on the stage at a wrong point. The 
 result was that what should have been 
 the last half of an act became the first. 
 The stage manager let it go on, but by 
 a bit of clever transposition saved the 
 climax from being reached before its 
 time. There was a loss of coherence, 
 but the audience did not know there 
 was a mishap. 
 
 A rehearsal is always called for the 
 next morning after the public represen- 
 tation. The practical value or worth- 
 lessness of all that has been done is at 
 least indicated by the test with an audi- 
 ence. An immediate attempt is made 
 to rectify errors. The entire play is not 
 gone over, but only the portions requir- 
 ing practice or alteration. Changes in 
 dialogue or pantomime have to be re- 
 repeated over and over, with all the care 
 of the prior drilling, because they un- 
 settle things. The meaning of certain 
 scenes did not reach across the foot- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 205 
 
 lights. They must have more emphasis. 
 Others had a stronger effect than was 
 desirable. They must be moderated. 
 Still others were misunderstood. They 
 must be cleared up in some way. There 
 was laughter at a sober episode. The 
 reason must be found and removed. 
 There was no laughter at something 
 meant to be comic. The fun must be 
 forced. An actor failed to do what had 
 been expected of him. He is taken to 
 task mercilessly. If the play was a suc- 
 cess, these after-rehearsals are easy. If 
 it failed, they are hard. 
 
 It is now for the manager to decide 
 whether to keep on with the play or 
 drop it. The behavior of the first audi- 
 dence does not settle the question, as it 
 does not prove that the more general 
 public will be affected in the same way. 
 The opinions of the critics are not con- 
 clusive, as they relate to the purely 
 artistic side, rather than the popularity, 
 of the entertainment. The manager 
 
206 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 weighs both carefully, but is not guided 
 altogether by them. He may recall, for 
 instance, that some of the most long- 
 lived of the rural dramas have been 
 rejected absolutely by a blase assem- 
 blage on the first night in New York, 
 and were rated by some of the news- 
 papers as poor literature. But it has 
 prospered immensely. The manager is 
 influenced most of all by the cash re- 
 ceipts. But whether the verdict be 
 subsequently sustained or reversed, the 
 opening night is over with. 
 
The Faces of the Players 
 
XV. 
 
 The Faces of the Playees. 
 
 The disguises put on by actors are 
 sometimes very ingenious. Men who 
 play eccentric parts must have skill of 
 their own as caricaturists or else learn 
 from some artist how to produce the 
 requisite visage. The disguises do not 
 stop with wigs and beards. An hour of 
 careful work may be required to trans- 
 form a pale, intellectual, amiable coun- 
 tenance to the red, brutish, and forbid- 
 ding one of a bandit. The most usual 
 change required is from a young man 
 to an old man. Then the flesh tint 
 is seldom ruddy, and in the case of 
 extreme age it is white, tempered 
 
no The Theatre and Its People 
 
 slightly with blue or gray. This is 
 applied over the entire face. The 
 cheeks are touched with blue, and to 
 the cheek-bones no color is applied. 
 Wrinkles are usually made with the tint 
 known as ox-blood, though sometimes 
 blue or black is used. Bluish gray 
 under the eyes adds years. Wrinkles 
 are made on the brow after the actor 
 has frowned, so that he may see where 
 in his case they would naturally come. 
 They are made about the mouth in the 
 same way. The lines at the sides of the 
 lower part of the nose are emphasised 
 with bluish gray. The hands are made 
 pale and crossed with wrinkles. 
 
 Beards are of two kinds : those the 
 actor makes himself and those that come 
 from the wigmaker. With the latter 
 the actor has only to decide what he 
 wants and give the order. If he under- 
 takes the job himself, he buys crimped 
 hair in the color he desires. That part 
 of the face over which the beard is to 
 
The Theatre and Its People i\ i 
 
 grow is smeared with adhesive wax, into 
 which the hair is stuck, and afterward 
 trimmed into the right shape. When 
 the beard is supposed to grow very 
 lightly over the upper cheeks and gradu- 
 ally thicken down to the chin the wig- 
 maker's device of sewing the hair into 
 a net will not answer. The actor must 
 make such a beard on the spot. The 
 upper part of it, where the hair is thin, 
 is painted on with strokes of dark pink. 
 Crimped hair and wax make mustaches 
 and eyebrows as well as beards. 
 
 A common guide for the actor in 
 making his face look as the assumed 
 character requires it to, and especially 
 to keep it so in the nightly repetitions, 
 is to put up a picture of it beside the 
 mirror in his dressing-room. This thing 
 to work from may be a photograph of 
 a real individual ; or, in case the role is 
 biographical, a printed likeness of a 
 historic personage. Again, it may be 
 an original study in colors for the pur- 
 
ai2 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 pose. One actor had three such views 
 made by a noted portrait painter, to 
 show the full-face, a profile, and three- 
 quarter visage desired. 
 
 Many actors devise ways to hide de- 
 fects in their faces. One who played 
 in tragedy had a turned-up nose, which 
 unsuited him for his work, and he never 
 appeared without a wax one. False 
 noses are made of a kind of putty, light 
 gray in color, and differing from other 
 putty in being more adhesive. The 
 actor fits this substance over his own 
 nose, shapes it into the desired form, 
 and colors it just as he would if the 
 organ were natural. If the nose is to 
 be of abnormal size, as in caricatures 
 for farces and extravaganzas, wax is 
 too heavy and is used only on the out- 
 side and at the edges of a pasteboard 
 form. Oftener than audiences are 
 aware of a versatile actor plays several 
 minor roles in the same piece. He has 
 to disguise his appearance as well as his 
 
The Theatre and Its People 213 
 
 voice and manner for each character. 
 That makes hard work for him to do 
 on his face. 
 
 Actors often have to make other than 
 facial changes in their appearance. 
 Pads of cotton or hair turn a lean figure 
 into a fat one, but more comfortable 
 falsity is constructed in wirework, or of 
 inflated rubber shapes. Legs are in- 
 creased in plumpness or improved in 
 symmetry by means of skilfully thick- 
 ened drawers, usually modelled by an 
 expert theatrical hosier. 
 
 It is a mistaken idea that actresses 
 are as a general rule handsomer on the 
 stage than off. The reverse is as likely 
 to be true. Nevertheless, all theatrical 
 faces have to be painted. It may be 
 assumed safely that none of the com- 
 plexion is genuine. An exceptionally 
 clear and pink skin may require no 
 falsity, and a dark one may chance to 
 suit the character to be assumed, but 
 these exceptions to the rule are rare. 
 
214 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 The glare of artificial light would make 
 most faces ghastly white or unpleas- 
 antly sallow if bright hues were not laid 
 on. The art of coloring a pretty visage 
 just enough and not overdoing it is one 
 which all actresses should learn. Many 
 do not, and so we see beauty disfigured 
 instead of enhanced. Others are very 
 expert. There are two distinct proc- 
 esses. One makes use of colored pow- 
 ders applied dry, and the other mixes 
 the same powders with grease, making 
 a substance called grease paint. It 
 comes in sticks, varying in size from a 
 stick of shaving soap to a lead-pencil. 
 It adheres like paint until washed off 
 with vaseline or alcohol. The colors 
 range in the flesh hues from the palest 
 pink of a baby's face to the copper 
 brown of an American Indian. Between 
 these two every tint can be found. 
 
 The actress first covers her face with 
 cold cream and rubs it into the pores, 
 in order that none of the paint may get 
 
The Theatre and Its People 215 
 
 into them and injure her own complex- 
 ion. Next she takes a stick of grease 
 paint of the flesh color which she has 
 selected and dabs it on in four or five 
 places. From these spots she rubs the 
 stuff over the face until it presents an 
 evenly colored skin. It is with the reds, 
 blues, and black pencils that attempts to 
 vary the features are made. The second 
 step is usually to apply the red. If she 
 is a brunette with dark hair and eyes, 
 the tint is likely to be carmine. If she 
 is a blonde, it will have more of a brick- 
 dust hue. The stick is applied to the 
 cheeks about the top of the cheek-bone. 
 There the color is deepest. Then with 
 the fingers it is spread over the first 
 layer of grease paint. It is made lighter 
 and lighter down to the jaws. Under 
 each eye a blue line an eighth of an inch 
 wide is drawn with a dark stick of the 
 grease paint. This throws the eyes into 
 relief. In the glare of the footlights 
 they are dulled and lustreless. The 
 
216 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 eyelashes are emphasized hy blackening 
 them with paint soft enough to adhere. 
 If the eyebrows are not strongly marked, 
 it is customary to darken them also. 
 Close to the corners of the eyes small 
 drops of bright red give an appearance 
 of freshness and health. The ears are 
 brushed with a hare's foot filled with 
 dark flesh-colored powder. Sometimes 
 bright red is used. The lips are red- 
 dened, more or less, with a carmine 
 pigment. 
 
 A majority of the younger women of 
 the stage use dry powders instead of 
 grease paints. In this process the face 
 is first rubbed all over with vaseline to 
 protect the skin from injury. The 
 powders are in various colors, corre- 
 sponding to those of the paints. They 
 are applied with a puff and blended 
 with a hare's foot. The effect obtained 
 is so similar to the one above described 
 that to audiences there is no discernible 
 difference. But the actress with grease 
 
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 S2> 
 
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 • 
 
The Theatre and Its People 217 
 
 on her face will say that the colors are 
 deeper and more mellow than can he 
 produced with powder. It is certain 
 that an appearance of youthfulness can 
 he ohtained by it, and age concealed. 
 There are face washes made in many 
 tints of flesh color, exaggerated and 
 deepened to suit the purposes of the 
 theatre, and some actresses use them 
 instead of either paint or powder. The 
 preparation of a woman to look her 
 best on the stage is little more than the 
 heightening of color. The hands are 
 merely whitened, as a rule, though the 
 tips of the fingers are sometimes red- 
 dened a little. The arms and neck, if 
 exposed by evening gowns, are tinted 
 with powders, washes, and even with 
 grease paints. 
 
 If an actress' features are irregular, 
 she has to treat them specifically. If 
 her nose is a pug or a turn-up, she 
 draws a white line down its centre to 
 the very tip end. On each side of this 
 
2i 8 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 line she lays on a light, bluish-gray tint. 
 The effect of that is to lengthen the nose 
 when the full face is seen. Of course, 
 the illusion is lost when the profile is 
 presented. If the cheeks are too plump, 
 the lower halves of them are darkened. 
 An imitation of youthfulness is helped 
 by making the color very light just 
 below the eyes. If the cheek-hones are 
 high and the cheeks hollow below them, 
 the former are whitened and the latter 
 reddened. When an actress is called 
 upon to " make up for a character 
 part," which means preparing herself 
 to represent an old or eccentric woman, 
 her methods are much the same that 
 men use under the same circumstances. 
 Few young women on the stage like to 
 look old. It is the struggle of every 
 stage manager to make them conceal 
 their youth even when the characters 
 require it. They are apt to lose years 
 as soon as his vigilance is relaxed. 
 
Behind the Scenes 
 
XVI. 
 
 Behind the Scenes. 
 
 It is easy to go behind the scenes of 
 a theatre if you have any real business 
 there. But it is hard to make a social 
 call on a friend, and the merely curious 
 stranger cannot get in at all. The 
 doorkeeper of the stage is not less ob- 
 durate than the one at the public en- 
 trance of the house. He has no option 
 to let other than employes pass him, 
 and the most he can do for you is to 
 deliver your card or verbal message to 
 the stage manager, without whose per- 
 mission no outsider may enter. This 
 rule of exclusion is enforced in every 
 
222 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 well-conducted theatre. It is a measure 
 of both propriety and utility. Careless 
 visitors might be indecorous, and they 
 surely would be bothersome. So every 
 applicant is referred to the stage man- 
 ager, even if he comes by appointment 
 with a leading actor. 
 
 The man at the door is a scowler and 
 growler. He is as likely as not full of 
 geniality, but he keeps it from showing 
 itseli in his face while on duty. He 
 seems to be afraid that a smile with a 
 "No" would make it a "Yes." He 
 does not relax his severity of counte- 
 nance even to the actresses as they 
 arrive. If they bring along other 
 companions than the privileged chape- 
 rone or maid-servant, the question 
 of admission has to be settled as in the 
 case of a stranger. The actresses come 
 in street cars or carriages, in fine clothes 
 or plain, according to taste and means. 
 The actors present the same variety of 
 appearance, from foppishness to shabbi- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 223 
 
 ness. All examine the " call case" as 
 they go in. That is a board in which 
 notices of rehearsals and other things 
 are posted. They also ask for their 
 mail. Letters are delivered to them by 
 the doorkeeper unless there is reason to 
 think that they contain bad news. Tele- 
 grams are usually withheld for the same 
 reason until the performance is over. 
 This is done to guard against such a 
 shock of ill tidings as might render the 
 recipient unable to act. The players go 
 at once to their dressing-rooms and pre- 
 pare for the work of the evening. 
 
 The stage manager is expected to 
 arrive at the theatre an hour before the 
 time for the performance to begin. His 
 first duty is to learn from the door- 
 keeper whether any member of the com- 
 pany has sent word of illness. Absen- 
 tees are expected to let him know early 
 in the day, but some one may have been 
 disabled late, and in that case he ar- 
 ranges quickly for the necessary shift 
 
224 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 of roles. The system of under-study, as 
 described in a previous chapter, may 
 provide an easy way out of the diffi- 
 culty. Possibly the substitute is in the 
 house, or will be soon; but sometimes 
 there is a skurry to fetch this person, 
 or, in an extreme case, for some one to 
 read a part from the manuscript. 
 
 All the actors should be in their 
 dressing-rooms half an hour before the 
 rise of the curtain. The call-boy raps 
 at the doors and cries : " Half hour !" 
 He gets a response in every case or 
 reports his failure to do so. After the 
 lapse of a quarter of an hour he makes 
 another round with calls of " Fifteen 
 minutes !" That is a precaution against 
 tardiness in getting ready. A third 
 time, when the orchestra is ready to 
 begin its music, five minutes before the 
 play should start, the lad's voice is heard 
 again at the doorways with " Over- 
 ture !" If there is a laggard, he tells 
 the manager of it. The overture is 
 
The Theatre and Its People 225 
 
 never permitted to begin until every- 
 body who is to appear in the first scene 
 is ready to do so, and the manager waits 
 until sure of that before giving the 
 signal to the leader of the musicians. 
 In doing this he commonly uses a speak- 
 ing-tube which connects the prompter's 
 desk and the leader's stand. When the 
 overture is near its end he goes to the 
 centre of the stage and says, " Clear !" 
 Thereupon everybody except the actors 
 who are to be disclosed to the audience 
 retires behind the scenes. Those who 
 are left in sight take their proper posi- 
 tions. At the last note of the music, or 
 at a given point if it is to last longer, 
 the stage manager orders the curtain 
 up. Formerly he struck a bell twice. 
 The newer fashion is to do it noiselessly. 
 He touches an electric button, a red 
 lamp above the stage gleams, and the 
 men up there raise the curtain. 
 
 The prompter is a man whose duty 
 it is to follow the words of the play in 
 
226 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 his book as they are spoken, and he 
 quick to give them, in an undertone, to 
 any actor whose memory fails. He has 
 a desk at the front right corner of the 
 stage, just out of the audience's range 
 of vision. It is from there that the 
 lights are controlled and the electric 
 signals sent the operatives aloft. In 
 practice he is here, there, and every- 
 where, book in hand, and at the same 
 time seeing that others do their duties. 
 The stage manager may act a part in 
 the play, and in that case the work of 
 these two men is mixed up. So, for the 
 purposes of this paragraph, the one of 
 them who literally keeps things going 
 will be called the foreman of the job. 
 
 This foreman of the work is held to 
 account if the scene has not been set 
 properly, with every piece of furniture 
 or other object in its right place. If 
 the incidental music is played behind 
 the scenes, he starts and stops it at the 
 right instants. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 227 
 
 He is responsible for all the other 
 noises made off the scene and all the 
 changes of lights. If horses are to be 
 introduced, he makes sure that they are 
 mounted or harnessed in readiness. If 
 the stage is small, that may be done in 
 an alleyway outside and a signal given 
 to the leader when to enter. If a meal 
 is to be eaten, the cold tea or ginger ale 
 which represent still or sparkling wines, 
 and the slices of bread or cake that pur- 
 port to be meats, must be prepared. But 
 of late realism has invaded this feature 
 of plays. Coffee smoking as it is poured 
 and roast turkeys steaming on their 
 platters must be done to a turn as 
 though for a repast in real life. The 
 preparation of these things devolves on 
 the property man, but the " foreman" 
 has to keep a sharp eye on them, too. 
 Little of the food in stage meals is 
 eaten. It is not easy to talk with a full 
 mouth. In several of the recent rural 
 plays, however, stress is laid on the 
 
228 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 voracity of some of the characters at 
 tabic. One has a Thanksgiving dinner, 
 another a Christmas feast, and another 
 a donation party. The test has often 
 been made whether a man can eat a 
 quail every day for a month. It is said 
 that no one has ever been able to do it. 
 Actors have had a similar difficulty with 
 turkey in the New England pieces. Too 
 much of a good thing brought satiety. 
 For that reason the voracious eater in 
 one such scene had to be changed several 
 times in a season. 
 
 Fun-loving students in a college town 
 or some local military company may 
 have been engaged to appear in certain 
 dramas, and they require especially 
 close control. Soldiers of the United 
 States Army are hired for such pur- 
 poses, when available, and they are 
 more amenable to discipline. If a few 
 of them need to represent many, they 
 are marched repeatedly past the point 
 of view, and beards are sometimes 
 
The Theatre and Its People 229 
 
 clapped hastily on several to make a 
 change for the reappearances. The 
 " captain of the supers/' who has imme- 
 diate charge of those things, usually 
 requires higher supervision. It will be 
 seen that the stage manager, the 
 prompter, or the two combined in one 
 man, is quite as active while the curtain 
 is up as any of the visible performers. 
 About a minute and a half before the 
 'end of the act he signals to a stage hand 
 in charge of the curtain to be ready to 
 lower it. 
 
 While the audience at a theatre is 
 lazily, perhaps impatiently, killing time 
 between the acts, hard and fast work is 
 being done behind the lowered curtain. 
 The interval is shortened as much as 
 possible, and the prompter makes a 
 record of it every night. If there is 
 undue slowness, the manager has some- 
 thing positive to say about it. The 
 instant that all the encores have been 
 responded to the actors skurry to their 
 
230 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 dressing-rooms to prepare for the next 
 act. " Strike !'' says the stage manager. 
 Hen numbering from six to a dozen, or 
 more if the scenery is heavy and elabo- 
 rate, remove that which has just been 
 used and put another set into place. 
 They wear cloth slippers, so that their 
 footsteps may not be heard by the audi- 
 ence. They do not talk, save in under- 
 tones. They are rapid and systematic. 
 Every separate piece of the scene is" 
 marked to show where it belongs. 
 Practice has made the handlers famil- 
 iar, and there is no confusion. Walls 
 or trees are slid into place and fastened 
 with adjustable braces, roofs and skies 
 are lowered from above, and if there is 
 a landscape at the rear, it is let down. 
 Then the furniture, fences, and what 
 not are located by marks on the floor. 
 
 An ordinary shift of scenery can be 
 made in about seven minutes. An 
 intricate one, in spite of the utmost 
 celerity and the assignment of each man 
 
The Theatre and Its People 23 1 
 
 to do certain things only, may require 
 a quarter of an hour. A plain, square 
 room, or an outdoor view in which 
 everything is painted on flat canvas, can 
 be set in five minutes. But with them 
 there is no hurry, as an intermission 
 longer than that is usually required by 
 the actors for changing their costumes. 
 Some of the scenery that is fine art in 
 drawing and coloring consists almost 
 altogether of canvas, which can be let 
 down into place quickly. But American 
 managers like substantial reality. If 
 a tree is to be climbed, a wall vaulted, 
 a stairway mounted, or a post leaned 
 against, those things are now usually 
 solid. Their use consumes time in the 
 handling. Everybody not engaged in 
 the work is excluded from the stage 
 while the scenes are being changed. 
 The call-boy makes a round just before 
 all is ready. This time he cries, " Sec- 
 ond act I" 
 
 Some of the best impressions are 
 
232 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 made upon an audience by things heard 
 and not seen, but they would not have 
 such an effect if their methods were 
 exposed to view. The comic man in 
 a farce stumbles out of the room with 
 an armful of crockery, and crash after 
 crash follows. The laughter is not 
 caused so much by seeing his exit as by 
 imagining his fall downstairs, with the 
 broken dishes flying in all directions. 
 There would be hardly a snicker if he 
 could be seen standing quietly aside, 
 while the noise of his imaginary mishap 
 is made by dropping a basket of old 
 crockery on the floor as many times as 
 it is desirable to prolong the supposed 
 accident. When in a melodrama a storm 
 rages outside the house, with dashes of 
 rain and flashes of lightning shown at 
 the window, with the sound of a high 
 wind sweeping by, and with thunder 
 reverberating in the distance, a scene 
 of tremendous tempest is conjured up. 
 It would not do to set the walls aside 
 
THUNDER-MAKING DEVICES. 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 4 ! 
 
 <: 
 
 i 
 
 IMITATING RAIN'. 
 
 MAKING LIGHTNING. 
 
 HOW WIND IS IMITATED. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 233 
 
 and let the people see how those sights 
 and sounds are made. The noise of 
 wind and rain come from a cylinder of 
 silk which, when turned with a crank, 
 draws the cloth rapidly over the wooden 
 flanges. The imitation is perfect. 
 
 It is often essential that the arrival 
 of personages in a play in carriages or 
 on horseback shall be heard before they 
 are seen. The rumbling of wheels, from 
 the light ones of a phaeton to the heavy 
 ones of a cannon, is imitated with a 
 small vehicle which looks like a railway 
 freight car in miniature and is run 
 along a wooden track. This car is left 
 empty or laden with weights to suit the 
 immediate purpose. Just the requisite 
 noise is sometimes produced by using 
 oblong wheels or cutting sections out 
 of those that are round. The clatter of 
 horses' hoofs is simulated by a man 
 striking with wood or metal hand-pieces 
 on a hard or soft surface. Single shots 
 by gun or pistol are not counterfeit. 
 
234 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 But for volleys of musketry or heavy 
 cannonading the smoke of gunpowder 
 proved objectionable, as it obscured the 
 scene and choked the audience. The 
 invention of smokeless powder was 
 therefore a good thing for mimic as well 
 as actual battles. But in plays where 
 loudness is not desired a blow on a bass 
 drum represents the discharge of a can- 
 non, and rapid strokes with rattans on 
 a dried calfskin, a volley of rifles. 
 
 The working of these devices is ordi- 
 narily left to the stage hands, but it 
 sometimes happens that the actors will 
 themselves perform this duty if it is 
 connected with their own roles, in order 
 to guard against blunders. For the 
 same reason they are willing to make 
 the murmurs and cries outside in case 
 the invisibility of the mob throughout 
 the play does not require accessory 
 performers. These voices off the scene 
 have to be regulated to a nicety. If 
 they are supposed to come from a dis- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 235 
 
 tance, the shouters or singers are placed 
 in a room with the door left open. 
 
 The lighting of a stage is of prime 
 importance. It is an art in itself. 
 Electricity has generally taken the place 
 of gas for that purpose. A complete 
 modern outfit includes three rows of 
 footlights across the front, shaded from 
 the audience. Reflectors throw the 
 illumination on the scenes strongly 
 when desired. One row is in colorless 
 bulbs, one is in red and one in blue. 
 They are used separately or in combina- 
 tion. Over the stage are three to five 
 adjustable rows of border lamps, ar- 
 ranged to be raised or lowered to fit the 
 scenery, but always screened from the 
 front. Just behind the side edges of 
 the stage opening are other lines of 
 them. The entire number reaches three 
 hundred in a well-appointed house. All 
 are connected by wires with a keyboard 
 at the prompter's desk. A bunch light 
 is a cluster of seven to thirty electric 
 
1^6 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 bulbs on a standard with a polished re- 
 flector behind them, like the beacon of 
 a locomotive, and a holder for sheets 
 of colored gelatine in front. These 
 bunch lights are set wherever needed. 
 If a still stronger glare is to be thrown, 
 a calcium light, consisting of a piece of 
 calcium burning in combined jets of 
 hydrogen and oxygen, is used. Two 
 gas cylinders and a man to operate 
 them render this apparatus expensive. 
 Nearly as good results can be obtained 
 from an electric arc light placed in a 
 box open at the front and mounted on 
 a tripod. 
 
 In the practical working of all the 
 lights the original designs of the scenic 
 artist are adhered to more or less faith- 
 fully. The effect of moonlight is gained 
 with either no gelatine shade or with 
 light blue. Various kinds of sunlight 
 require yellow or amber mediums. 
 Firelight calls for red. In the case of 
 a conflagration the red glows are in- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 237 
 
 creased by throwing the lights on clouds 
 of steam emitted from pipes. There 
 may be flashes of the same kind of red 
 fire that the boys set off on Fourth of 
 July nights. Actual flames are blown 
 from a torch with a hand-bellows, but 
 for safety's sake they are used as little 
 as possible. At the other extreme of 
 illumination in a play are scenes so 
 dark that the figures moving in them 
 are barely discernible. 
 
 Stage lightning used to be produced 
 by burning magnesium, just as the 
 amateur photographers do in making 
 flashlight pictures. A simpler and bet- 
 ter way, in theatres with an electric 
 outfit, is to touch an ordinary file at the 
 end of one wire to a bit of carbon at the 
 end of another wire. The carbon burns 
 brightly during the contact, which may 
 be a mere touch or prolonged with the 
 requisite irregularity by rubbing the 
 ignited substance along the rough steel. 
 The appearance of falling rain is caused 
 
238 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 by suspending many fine, polished 
 wires and vibrating them in a strong 
 light thrown from behind. That is an 
 excellent illusion for a moment, but 
 betrays itself if continued too long. 
 Snow is bits of paper shaken down 
 gently from above. The time-honored 
 thunder-maker is a big sheet of thin 
 iron suspended by a cord shaken hard 
 or gently, long or briefly, according to 
 the requirements of the particular storm 
 in progress. A newer and better thun- 
 der machine is a long, narrow trough 
 with a heavy cannon ball rolling in it. 
 Wooden cleats impede the ball along 
 the way, and it may be rolled very fast 
 for a loud peal or slowly for a long 
 rumble. This trough is placed as high 
 as possible over the stage, and some- 
 times it extends over the auditorium. 
 The imitation surpasses the real thing 
 if a story told by stage managers is true. 
 At a rehearsal of the storm scene in 
 Shakespeare's " Coriolanus" the trage- 
 
The Theatre and Its People 239 
 
 dian, Edwin Forrest, was asked : " How 
 was that peal of thunder ?" 
 
 " Not a bit like the real thing," he 
 replied testily ; " you must t!o better 
 than that." 
 
 " Oh, we can," said the manager. 
 " But there happens to be a thunder- 
 storm outside, and that clap was the 
 real thing." 
 
The Actors Among Themselves 
 
XVII. 
 
 The Actohs Among Themselves. 
 
 The theatrical green room of history 
 and tradition for the common use of 
 the players is becoming a thing of the 
 past. It is provided in few theatres of 
 modern build. But if that gathering 
 place is lacking, there is a compensation 
 in the dressing-rooms. These are still 
 miserable little coops in the poorer 
 theatres throughout the country. The 
 worst of them are damp, down cellar, 
 or inconvenient; away upstairs, devoid 
 of comforts, and scant in necessaries. 
 But a great change for'the better has 
 been wrought in the best of the new 
 houses. The quarters in them may be 
 small and none too easily accessible, 
 
244 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 but they are cleanly kept, adequately 
 furnished, and sometimes the luxuries 
 include bathrooms. All gaslights are 
 enclosed in wire as a safeguard against 
 fire — that greatest of theatrical terrors. 
 A good-sized mirror and a dressing-table 
 are the other invariable objects. The 
 men's rooms and the women's are 
 usually at opposite sides of the stage. 
 If the theatre is being occupied by one 
 company for a long engagement, the 
 rooms are furnished and decorated by 
 the occupants as they please. Homelike 
 and often luxurious boudoirs are thus 
 made by the women, and sometimes 
 quite modish " bachelor apartments" 
 by the men. Trunks are displaced by 
 wardrobes, pictures are on the walls, 
 and the whole aspect of things is ex- 
 tremely unlike the wayside booths of 
 strolling players in olden times. 
 
 There is much barrenness still in the 
 theatres visited by the travelling com- 
 panies, though there has been a general 
 
The Theatre and Its People 245 
 
 improvement of the rooms, and many 
 actresses carry along a few decorative 
 little things to relieve their homesickness. 
 If there is a star in the company, he or 
 she has the largest room. If there is 
 none on the stage level, one is sometimes 
 made of canvas. If there is no star, the 
 leading actress has the first choice and 
 the leading actor the second. If it 
 happens that two members of the com- 
 pany are of the same professional grade, 
 the question of rooms becomes trouble- 
 some, and the stage manager has to 
 settle it as best he may. A common way 
 out of that dilemma is to construct in 
 a corner of the stage a temporary room 
 of canvas. Such a place may, by its 
 handiness, be more desirable than the 
 best of those that are upstairs or down 
 cellar. He assigns the others about as 
 he pleases, and frequently has to put 
 two or three in one room, or a score if 
 the play employs a large number of 
 minor people. 
 
246 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 Between the acts most of the actors 
 are busy in their dressing-rooms. The 
 costumes may have to be changed, and 
 years added to the face and the hair 
 of a man. Valets are frequently em- 
 ployed to keep a man's wardrobe in 
 order, get out the right garments at the 
 right time, and help in putting them on 
 and taking them off. Stars nearly al- 
 ways indulge themselves in these servi- 
 tors, who are sometimes utilized as 
 silent figures in the play, or even speak- 
 ers of a few lines. The same economical 
 method is also applied to maids for the 
 actresses, who may have to make hasty 
 changes of costume — to finish in ten 
 minutes a toilette which would occupy 
 a fashionable belle in private life an 
 hour. The nimble assistant works while 
 her mistress does too. Thus, four deft 
 hands are moving at once, and without 
 interfering with one another, owing to 
 calm method in what sometimes looks 
 like a mad rush. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 247 
 
 The maid lias laid out the gown that 
 is to be put on, with all its accessories. 
 The dresses are made with a view to 
 celerity. Hardly anything is left to be 
 fastened on. Knots of ribbon, draped 
 sashes, pieces of jewelry, even corsage 
 bouquets, are attached beforehand, in 
 case there is not a minute to spare. A 
 very modish and complete evening gown 
 with everything belonging to it may be 
 a single construction. The maid in- 
 spects it carefully to see that it is in 
 complete good order, and deposits it on 
 a chair. Close by she places the shoes, 
 stockings, and whatever of millinery is 
 to be worn. When the actress comes in 
 she is deftly relieved of the gown which 
 the audience has last seen her in. Next 
 she sits before her mirror, and, if there 
 is need of great haste, makes whatever 
 rearrangement of hair or headdress is 
 necessary while the maid takes off the 
 shoes and stockings. Under the latter 
 are different ones already on. By the 
 
248 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 time that the second pair of shoes are 
 buttoned the coiffure is readjusted. 
 Then the actress stands up, and the new 
 dress is adjusted in a jiffy. If the 
 change has had to be made while an act 
 is in progress, it may have occupied no 
 more than five or six minutes. But that 
 is exceptional. If done between acts, 
 with ten minutes allowed to it, the job 
 has no appearance of furious speed, so 
 thoroughly is it prearranged. 
 
 If an actress is ou a tour, and her role 
 necessitates many or delicate costumes, 
 the care of them is a difficult task. 
 Theatrical trunks full of drawers or a 
 complexity of other compartments are 
 in the market. But they are not gener- 
 ally favored. Each gown is laid in a 
 big enough tray to hold it without 
 squeezing, and is tied in place with 
 tapes to keep it from rumpling. A 
 compartment is provided for every hat, 
 and these are made of the right sizes 
 and shapes. An actress is permitted to 
 
The Theatre and Its People 249 
 
 have as many trunks as her stage ward- 
 robe will fill, and one other for private 
 use. That she keeps at her hotel. If 
 she wants more than one for the latter 
 purpose, she must herself pay for the 
 extra transportation, unless she is of 
 sufficient consequence to get a special 
 concession in her contract. It is only 
 the more prosperous who can afford to 
 employ a maid for her exclusive service. 
 The others help themselves or one an- 
 other, or club together to bear the ex- 
 penses of a dresser. Sometimes the 
 manager pays the wages. Those points 
 are settled according to circumstances. 
 If the play has a large number of minor 
 actresses, such as a chorus in a comic 
 opera, or a ballet in a burlesque, their 
 costumes are provided by the manager 
 and taken care of by a wardrobe mis- 
 tress. She packs and unpacks them, 
 sees to it that they are kept in good con- 
 dition, refits them to new members of 
 the company, and is held to a strict 
 
250 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 account of them. She directs the don- 
 ning and doffing of them, and in some 
 cases is a very busy and even exacting 
 boss. 
 
 Much of the time while a play is in 
 progress some of the performers are 
 just out of sight behind the scenes, 
 listening alertly for their entrance cues. 
 Their behavior is of all sorts. Some 
 are as calm as though about to saw wood 
 or knead dough, while others are con- 
 trastingly nervous, and these may be 
 seen pacing to and fro, mumbling the 
 words they are about to speak, and key- 
 ing themselves up to the right pitch of 
 assumed emotion. That is called 
 " pumping up emotion." Two dead 
 and gone tragedians used to illustrate 
 this point. John McCullough had to 
 rouse himself. In " The Gladiator" his 
 turbulent appearance in the arena was 
 always preceded by a minute or two of 
 almost as vigorous action behind the 
 scene. Edwin Booth required no such 
 
BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 
 
The Theatre and Its People 251 
 
 excitement. Even in the wife-murder- 
 ing episode of " Othello" his jealous 
 frenzy gave no sign until he was before 
 the audience. The conduct of stars in 
 intercourse with their companies is 
 diverse, too. Some are distant, haughty, 
 and keep aloof. Others are companion- 
 able. iSTo actor of any grade is oblivious 
 of the audience. If he professes an in- 
 difference, it is a false pretence. How 
 many, many years has Joseph Jefferson 
 played in " Eip Van Winkle" ? Yet he 
 will tell you that if the people are not 
 silently intent in pathetic moments, or 
 do not laugh as much as usual at the 
 comic points, he is genuinely alarmed 
 at once. He feels that the fault is his 
 own and seeks to remedy it. There is 
 a peephole at the prompter's side of the 
 stage, and sometimes one at the oppo- 
 site side also, through which the audi- 
 ence may be watched by any one anxious 
 as to its character or behavior. 
 
 In the idle spells of a play the actors 
 
252. The Theatre and Its People 
 
 chat in their rooms, read books, maga- 
 zines, and newspapers, play games of 
 cards, do needlework if they are women, 
 and perhaps indulge in forbidden 
 smokes behind a locked door if they are 
 men. To some of them acting is an 
 utterly unemotional task. Others feel 
 all that they express. There seems to 
 be no choice between these different 
 artists as to the merits of their work 
 and no settled rule as to those things. 
 It is no doubt true, however, that women 
 are likelier than men to act with genu- 
 ine emotion. 
 
 It is in the contracts between man- 
 agers and actors that the latter may be 
 punished by fine or dismissal for break- 
 ing the rules of the theatre or company. 
 The stage manager is usually empow- 
 ered to impose fines at his discretion. 
 In ordinary practice they are exacted 
 from players who are behind time in 
 getting to rehearsals or performances, 
 for varying the words or action of his 
 
The Theatre and Its People 253 
 
 part from what has been settled upon 
 at rehearsal, for noisiness behind the 
 scenes, and for any conduct unbecoming 
 in a lady or gentleman. The amount 
 of the fine ranges between $1 and $5, 
 and the amo\mt is taken from the 
 offender's wages at the end of the week, 
 to be retained by the manager. 
 
 However, few fines are really col- 
 lected. Expostulation seldom fails, and 
 when it does discharge follows. Such 
 is the custom with two of the famous 
 stock companies. On the other hand, 
 the third company of equal celebrity, 
 now disbanded, was always governed 
 imperiously. The rules were numerous, 
 and every infraction meant a penalty. 
 The players could not make complaint 
 to the manager personally. They had 
 to write to him, and if he wished to 
 discuss the matter, he appointed an 
 interview in his private office. Among 
 the forbidden acts punishable by fines 
 running as high as a week's salary or 
 
254 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 by dismissal were absence from the city 
 without permission, even when not en- 
 gaged in the current play; doing any- 
 thing toward the publication of facts 
 about what is being done in the theatre 
 or is to be done ; surreptitiously copying 
 any part of a play; gossiping disagree- 
 ably about members of the company or 
 the manager; making fun of another 
 performer while on the stage; address- 
 ing the audience unless directed to do 
 so; and by any misconduct causing 
 injury to the reputation of himself, 
 herself, the manager, or any member 
 of the company. Most of the stage 
 rules of the other leading managers 
 merely call for good behavior personally 
 while in the theatre and strict attention 
 to duties professionally. 
 
 Social relations behind the scenes are 
 as various as anywhere else. Love and 
 hatred, harmony and jealousy, amiabil- 
 ity and disagreeableness — all the char- 
 acteristics of life elsewhere exist just 
 
The Theatre and Its People 255 
 
 the same in stageland. It is a fact, 
 however, that an atmosphere of pre- 
 tence extends from the mimic scenes to 
 the spaces behind them — that is to say, 
 the actor is inclined to seem more 
 polite than he feels. It is so among 
 other people, true enough; hut the 
 amenities of intercourse among the 
 players overlay a vast deal of profes- 
 sional animosity. Thus the ardent 
 sweethearts of fiction may be uncon- 
 genial in fact, the fond mother may 
 secretly despise her son, and the dutiful 
 daughter may not be on speaking terms 
 with her father. But have there not 
 been dissensions in the sweetest-toned 
 church choirs ? It may be said that 
 theatrical companies get along together 
 as well as classes in colleges or sets of 
 clerks in stores. 
 
 Some managers still hold to the idea 
 that husbands and wives are less desir- 
 able than bachelors and maidens in the 
 roles of lovers. That is a reason why 
 
256 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 marriages in stageland are sometimes 
 kept a secret from the public, and why 
 many actresses do not wed at all. The 
 old idea that wives and husbands should 
 not be sweethearts in plays is held by 
 some wedded couples, who, therefore, 
 play in separate companies. But ex- 
 perience has proven that it is, after all, 
 a mistake to believe that the effect of 
 mimic courtship is lost when the audi- 
 ence knows that the lovers are in reality 
 husband and wife. The fact is perti- 
 nent, as bearing on this question, that 
 leading actors extremely popular in 
 !New York as exponents of love, those 
 noted as matinee idols of the girls, are 
 husbands, and that some of the most 
 adored actresses are equally well known 
 to be wives. 
 
 After tbe fall of the curtain at the 
 end of the play the performers like to 
 get out of their paint and costumes and 
 into every-day guise as soon as possible. 
 Under ordinary circumstances, they 
 
The Theatre and Its People 257 
 
 quit the theatre within fifteen min- 
 utes, but sometimes they are delayed. 
 If they are engaged in a new play, and 
 the manager wishes to get up some pic- 
 tures for advertising purposes, they 
 may have to remain to pose before a 
 camera. For separate portraits they 
 may go to the photographer's gallery in 
 the daytime. But groups in scenes are 
 taken by flashlight on the stage. The 
 photographs may afterward be dupli- 
 cated and displayed in frames or multi- 
 plied by lithography for street posters. 
 With the travelling companies there 
 is some commotion on the opening night 
 in each city, and much more on the 
 closing night. In the former case the 
 assignment of dressing-rooms, the un- 
 packing of wardrobes, and the adjust- 
 ment of scenery on the stage cause fric- 
 tion before the performance begins. In 
 the latter case the excitement follows the 
 final presentation of the play. Trunks 
 and boxes are filled with costumes and 
 
258 The Theatre and Its People 
 
 properties, scenery is taken apart and 
 folded, and all the material has to be 
 put on wagons and taken to a railway- 
 station. The quantity varies, of course. 
 One truck-load of trunks and boxes 
 and one of scenery suffice for nine com- 
 panies out of ten. These can be packed 
 in a single baggage car, but a heavily 
 outfitted melodrama or a spectacular 
 piece is pretty sure to fill two or three 
 cars. In case a number of plays are 
 taken along, a special train of fifty-foot 
 cars, instead of the ordinary forty- 
 footers, has to be used. But that is a 
 rare occurrence. So is a special passen- 
 ger train for the actors, except when no 
 regular one will answer the purpose 
 of reaching the next city in time. 
 Often the start has to be made right 
 after a performance. The company 
 is adjured not to miss the train. A list 
 of half a dozen hotels and boarding- 
 houses in the next city on the route, 
 with their prices, is bulletined. The 
 
The Theatre and Its People 259 
 
 actors have to pay their own board, and 
 it is their privilege to choose between 
 extravagance and thrift. Some can 
 afford to live in the best hotels. Others 
 must take up with the cheapest board- 
 ing-houses. 
 
 But this book has already told all 
 that the writer knows about the pros- 
 perities and privations, the successes 
 and failures, the joys and sorrows of 
 " The Theatre and Its People." 
 
 THE END.