Our Stage and Its Critics / By "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

by Edward Fordham Spence

DEAR SIR,—I have lately read an article by you on the subject of the matinée hat, with almost every word of which I have the honour of expressing my entire disagreement. Although your views on the topic may be absurd, they show that you have a mind capable of appreciating more than one side of a case; so I venture to write to you about the great question of the day, the proposed suppression of the deadhead. "Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend," to use the words of the bard; to think that after all our services to them, the managers, too blind to see the obvious causes of their distress, should dream of abolishing the "harmless necessary" deadhead, who often has rendered to them assistance like that of the mouse "i' the fable" to the lion.

Permit me to discuss the matter seriously. Let me begin by employing, with trifling modification, a famous phrase by one of the dramatists of the land from which most of our English drama comes: "There are deadheads and deadheads!" They may be put into two main groups—the first-night deadheads and the other-nights deadheads—and there are subdivisions. Few save those immediately concerned would mourn if the first group were abolished—you can guess that I do not belong to it. Yet I am well acquainted with the group, since a cousin of mine, long time a popular actor, has been of late a too-frequent attendant at these functions.

Of first-night deadheads there are four varieties: Friends of the management, including their brother pros.; friends of the author; friends of principal players in the cast; and the critics. It is a source of great joy to my cousin to see that on these occasion the managers know how to put the critics in their proper places, grouping them, for instance, in rows of stalls bearing the more remote letters of the alphabet, whilst between them and the footlights come the deadheads of the other varieties.

Personally, I wonder whether it is wise to put the gentry of the pen in seats from which they often hear with difficulty, and see without accuracy, in rows of seats normally belonging to the pit, and merely posing, pro hoc vice, as stalls, and situate in the headachy region underneath the dress circle.

According to my cousin, the first-night deadheads, as a body, are unpunctual and unappreciative. They chatter a good deal and seem more interested in the audience than the play, and might well be replaced by the many people who would be glad to plank down their money for a seat. Let them go; and I warrant the managers will be none the worse—I should, indeed, except the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate.

The case of myself and the deadheads of other nights is quite different. The managers will find it difficult to do without us.

We are present as much for their benefit as for our pleasure.

Constatons les faits, if I may borrow another phrase from the French. Under what circumstances are we invited? When a play is doing good business? Certainly not. It is when the company are discussing in whispers whether the notice will go up or not, that the Fiery Cross is sent round to us and we come and fill the house. Without us there would be an aching void, and the few paying people, aghast at the gloom, would spread very bad reports. Managers, like nature, abhor a vacuum. Our presence saves the situation and the face of the management. No doubt our assistance is often vain, but the cases are numerous when, thanks to us, the management has been able to tide over a bad week or two during a run.

"They also serve who only sit and watch" is our motto, taken, you will see, from a line by the "organ-mouthed voice of England." Would not Dorothy have died young but for our intervention? Would not The Lion and the Mouse have enjoyed the success it deserved if we had been called in to dress the house until the public had discovered the piece? Many are the cases where, during weeks of bad weather or sudden gloom we have rallied loyally to the theatre and kept a play going.

Do services such as this count for nothing? Is my occupation to become like that of the Moor of Venice—merely because managers are forgetful? Do we make no sacrifices when we come to their aid? What about the expense of coming to and fro? What about wear and tear of dress clothes, useless to some of us except for such purposes, and, in honesty I should add, so far as the nether portions are concerned, for attending funerals?