In the big cities these aggregations of histrionic talent generally offer a fresh play every week; in some of the smaller places two are given in the course of seven days. One play a week is the usual thing, however, and the amount of labor it involves is stupendous. Not only must that one play be prepared in the time mentioned, but simultaneously the company must be thinking of and acting another play—that already being performed for the benefit of the public. Dr. Doran, in his "Annals of the Stage", speaks of the hard work accomplished by actors in the Eighteenth Century, when Thomas Betterton "created a number of parts never equaled by any subsequent actor—namely, one hundred and thirty." The good doctor, who waxes quite enthusiastic over Betterton, adds: "In some single seasons he studied and represented no less than eight original parts—an amount of labor that would shake the nerves of the stoutest among us now." Dr. Doran's esteemed friend, Master Betterton, probably would have had his own nerves a good deal shaken had he found himself in this year of our Lord 1911—say at the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia.
Victory Bateman, a charming actress whose health recently was reported to be seriously affected by the strain of the work she had done in stock companies, played twenty leading roles in five months. Of these and the number of words in each she gives the following account in a book she wrote in collaboration with Ada Patterson:
Mrs. Winthrop in "Young Mrs. Winthrop"7,000
Floradilla in "A Fool's Revenge"6,750
Louise in "The Two Orphans"7,250
Cecile in "David Laroque"6,500
Adrienne in "A Celebrated Case"7,000
Camille in "Camille"7,300
Carmen in "Carmen"7,200
Portia in "Julius Caesar"6,500
Eliza in "Uncle Tom's Cabin"7,500
Ruth in "The Wages of Sin"6,000
Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet"7,500
Dora in "Diplomacy"6,900
Portia in "The Merchant of Venice"7,600
Ophelia in "Hamlet"7,000
Mrs. Gregory Graxin in "The Tragedy"6,500
Alice in "In Spite of All"7,500
Frou-Frou in "Frou-Frou"7,000
Vera in "Moths"6,000
Roxane in "Cyrano"8,000
———-
Total140,000 words
"Master Betterton would have had his nerves a good deal shaken"
Some of the details of this statement strike me as being erroneous. I do not believe, for example, that Roxane is a longer part than Juliet. One thing I do not doubt—that the average stock leading woman learns 140,000 words in a season. And 140,000 words, we must understand, are the number contained in two fair-sized novels or "fourteen pages of a large newspaper."
The mere statement that so much matter has to be committed to memory does not give a fair idea of the amount of work that has to be accomplished by the actor or the actress—especially the actress—under these conditions. In addition to learning each role she must rehearse it. These rehearsals will occupy every morning of the six days whose afternoons and evenings are devoted to the public performance of another part. In addition, the actress must figure on giving time to dressmakers, since each character must be properly costumed; to wig makers and to allegedly unavoidable social duties. The inevitable result is a crudity and carelessness in the interpretation of plays that would not be tolerated by any theater-goers in the world except those that do tolerate it. This can be better understood when one learns that the average time spent in the preparation of a piece to run in New York is something like three weeks—three weeks in which the players have nothing else to occupy their minds.
The members of the ordinary stock company scarcely pretend to know their lines before the third repetition of the comedy or drama in hand. John Findlay, a fine old actor, used to complain to me that always he "had just begun to understand what a piece was about when they took it off and put on another." I remember an amusing incident in connection with a rendering of a certain light comedy by a stock company in Baltimore. A scene in this comedy was divided between two men, one of them seated at a desk and the other standing before that article of furniture with his hat in his hand. Both actors having forseen opportunities of concealing their manuscripts where they could see them and the audience could not, neither had learned a single word of the dialogue. The first player had his part on the desk; the second hid it in his hat. But the second man had forgotten that, at a critical moment, the office boy was supposed to take that hat. The moment arrived, the boy took the hat, and the unlucky Thespian, at his wits' end, could think of nothing better to do than read the remainder of his speeches over the shoulder of his colleague.
"The actress must figure on giving time to dressmakers"