The Dresser
The dresser plays a part no less important than the artist. Upon leaving the stage the latter immediately wrenches from his person the garment in which he has just appeared. The dresser is close to the exit with costume No. 2 held out widely. The performer walks straight into the clothes, of which the clock springs are widely expanded. In a flash they close round his person. Another dresser adjusts wig, beard, &c., as he passes to his next entrance ([Fig. 4]), with the result that he appears to answer the remark made by himself in the character No. 1 without any break being perceptible to the audience. Whilst speaking the words in the rôle of No. 2, the dresser is awaiting him at the next exit with No. 3 or No. 1 clothes, (if No. 1 and 2 are having a conversation), which he has swiftly picked up from the floor when discarded.
It is obvious that in order to be of real service the dresser must be as familiar with the words of the play as the performer. It is not enough only to know the cues. He must, by his knowledge, calculate to a hairbreadth how long No. 2 takes to reply, and be prepared upon the instant of exit with the apparel of No. 1.
Fig. 4.—System of “changing” behind the scenes.
A plan of modes of entrances and exits should be arranged beforehand between actor and dresser, and never altered. Each sketch must be founded on a different plan, and in each the movements should be so carefully practiced that they become almost a habit. Any chance alteration or mistake leads to bungling and loss of time, for, if No. 1 disappears through the exit fixed upon for No. 2, naturally the dresser will not be there awaiting him, and this mischance will probably throw all the succeeding movements into confusion.
The quick-change artist is employed in a race with time, and, time being swift and fleet of foot, the human competitor cannot possibly afford to loiter or blunder.
In a play or sketch in which several characters are to be impersonated it does not make for speed to have installed as many dressers behind the scenes. One, or at the most, two reliable and experienced assistants are ample. A larger number will only hinder the artist’s and their own movements.
That there is a certain amount of nervous strain about this mode of performance cannot be denied, but, by constant practice and coolness, the artist greatly facilitates the mental effort that accompanies his portrayals.
A sketch should at most be of a half-hour’s duration. The actor needs some knowledge of acting, and must be able to change his voice to the different pitches required. It should range from the high-pitched falsetto of the aggressive female type of uncertain years to the gruff bass of the dogmatic father, while the cooing notes of the immaculate heroine should be carefully cultivated.
Fig. 5.—Showing wig, eyebrow, nose, and mustache combined.
Fig. 6.—Another example, showing bonnet, wig, nose, spectacles, and veil combined.
The artist must of necessity be clean-shaven, so that he can adapt beard, “mutton chops,” or mustache as required.
[Figs. 5] and [6] show completed examples of one-piece transformations. [Fig. 7] depicts coat and breeches combined.
Most important of all the quick-change artist must be self-reliant, self-confident, and absolute master of emotions engendered by nervousness, for these lead to loss of memory where words and modes of entrance and exit are concerned. While on the stage his mind must be concentrated on the part he is playing to the exclusion of everything else, his attention as completely focused upon the impersonation as though the other characters were being undertaken by different individuals.
For many of these practical suggestions the writer is indebted to a versatile quick-change artist, who willingly revealed some of the secrets connected with his favorite form of entertainment. He emphasized the fact that success is not achieved by means of numerous wigs and costumes—a performer may possess the most elaborate wardrobe, repertoire, and paraphernalia, and yet sadly fail to move the interest and sympathy of his spectators.
As this artist remarked, the true art lies in facial expression, gesture, attitude, and change of voice. These must be cultivated assiduously before any one-man play is produced, for it is only when the features are plastic as rubber, gesture and attitude the perfection of mimicry, the voice containing every note in the range in which language is expressed, that the steep ladder of success is scaled, and the timid novice becomes transformed into the popular resourceful artist.
Fig. 7.—Breeches and boots, showing front and back views; dotted lines indicate springs.
CHAPTER IV
CHARACTER IMPERSONATIONS
Talent v. Material Aids
A very popular means of amusing a house-party is the impersonation of various characters. It is an entertainment more suitable to the limits of a drawing-room than tableaux or amateur theatricals, which of necessity entail a certain amount of expense, scenery, lighting, and much labor and anxiety in securing and drilling an efficient cast.
Although it is doubtless true that this art needs some natural talent, skill, and mastery of detail, much can be done by practice and self-reliance.
A clever man in the street amuses a long line of patient theater-goers, his only paraphernalia being a soft, pliable disc of black felt.
The metamorphosis that article undergoes in his hands is a marvel. Dexterously he wields it—a mere twist, and it is the three-cornered biretta of a cardinal. Another, and it shades the villainous glare of a brigand, who appears quite capable of cutting the throats of his audience. A deft touch and a strut, and it tops the head of a swaggering dandy. Next it shades the solemn, ascetic features of the priest. Tipped to a different angle, and the cockney grins with happy-go-lucky impertinence. Thus it is used to represent every grade of society from the highest to the lowest of humanity.
But miraculous as that piece of felt seems, it is really the eyes and gestures of the artist plying it that lend it personality, power, and magic of transformation. In the hands of one ignorant of the tricks, it is a futile and clumsy piece of mechanism.
A man may put a tea-cosy on his head and look absurd; another does the same, and behold!—a living Napoleon stands before us. The greater the artist, the simpler the preparations used, for the skilled representative trusts to eyes, gesture, and figure rather than to the material used.
Elasticity of feature is essential. Without this it is impossible to produce a living likeness. One may possess wigs, beards, eyebrows, sham noses, and skulls of every imaginable shape and size, and yet fail through inability to assume the expression peculiar to the study undertaken.
In rehearsing impersonations a mirror is as good and true a friend as in reciting. Observe how faithfully it reflects every change in the human countenance.
Supposing the character studied to be that of King Lear. First read your Shakespeare and memorize the lines which reach the very crisis of the agony and woe of love of that unfortunate monarch, as when, turning to his ungrateful, malignant daughters, Regan and Goneril, he cries—
“I will do such things,—
What they are yet I know not,... but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep;
No, I’ll not weep:
I have full cause for weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool! I shall go mad!”
Understand the breaking, raging, heart-throbbing beneath them. Repeat them aloud before the glass, with wild, burning eyes and quivering lips, with shaking hands upthrown and tensely up-drawn figure, and by-and-by, if not at once, you will see King Lear peering at you distraught.
When you have thoroughly gripped that image you may crown it with snowy hair, pent brows, and ragged beard—but not till then.
And now, supposing, for a change—for there is nothing like variety—you undertake so utterly different a character as that of his faithful fool. Here no jingling bells and jester’s folly are needed to aid you, for these may be, and frequently are, but the danger signals to discerning eyes of incompetent treatment; you want his shrewd, loyal heart in your breast, his pulse beating in your brain, your finger-tips. His cunning grin must be a wavering crack in a wizened face as you memorize such caustic saws as—
“Thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides, and left nothing i’ the middle; here comes one o’ the parings.”
This method of memorizing and voicing some sentiment characteristic of the figure presented, is only for private use during rehearsals.
Costume performances are dumb, and, this being the case, it is easy to realize how eloquent and exact the physical contour must be for faithful similitude.
Regard the idea as an object being photographed. When you have gripped it, and, as it were, posed it before the camera of your brain, focus, produce, and develop it on your features, which may well be likened to a film.