Private theatricals should, however, be regulated with much judgment. I see no reason to restrict too severely talent of this kind where it exists, any more than to crush a dawning taste for the other fine arts. What we have to do is to raise and direct it; never to let it occupy too much time, nor to become the business of life; never to let it infringe upon duties; never to allow it to lead us into an unreasonable, and, therefore, criminal expense. Our ancestors were content to strew their stage at the end of their halls with rushes, and to hang up the name of the scene, instead of a scene, before each act. The best preparations, which generally render private theatricals both laborious and expensive, add but little to the pleasure of the beholders, whose attention is fixed upon the actors, and who can always see far finer scenes at a minor theatre than at any private theatricals. Were we content with greater simplicity in our amusements, how much vain ostentation, heart-sickening expense, self-recrimination, and trouble, might be avoided!
As a valid objection to private theatricals, it has been urged that they are apt to encourage a taste for the green-room of the public theatre in young men and boys; in women the risk is less, for few women are ever known to go on the stage except from necessity. I own this objection to theatricals is the greatest that can be urged. It can only be answered in mitigation that, where there exists a taste of the kind, it is better that it should be indulged at home, instead of at the theatre, with the modest inmates of a well-governed house, instead of with professional actors. Like all other amusements, the abuse is probable, but the power of restraint rests within ourselves.
Under the same head as private theatricals may come dramatized charades and proverbs, so much in fashion at the present time. These last have some great advantages over the standard plays; they are better suited to a parlor; they do not provoke comparison between the young actors, and the favorite public idols; they require but little scenery and arrangement; they are short; and they do not require so many subordinate characters.
Impromptu charades and proverbs are delightful, and are the occasion for much merriment; the mistakes, the absurd contrasts between character and costume, the scenery—a deep, hanging wood, the court of Louis Quatorze or the deck of a man of war, being improvised at a moment's notice, only add to the merry enjoyment.
One rule you must observe if you join in these amusements: never to carry your gayety into romping. Merry and laughing you may be, yet never forget you are a lady. You may personate a newly-caught Irish chambermaid, use the broadest brogue, wear the commonest dress, throw yourself heartily and thoroughly into the part, losing your personal identity almost entirely, and yet you may retain that nameless charm, which will place you in the mind of each of the audience as a lady of refinement.
You must also be perfectly good-natured and self-sacrificing; ready to play the smallest parts with the same interest you would throw into the principal ones. Try to throw out all the good points in the parts taken by the other members of the company. If you play an insignificant part, play it well, with all the grace you can, make the most of it, but do not try to raise it to the first place. Yield gracefully the prominent position to those who claim it in the plot of the play, and never try by conspicuous dress or by play, to go beyond the position set down for you.
Another delightful accomplishment, and one which will aid you if you are studying drawing and painting, is that of arranging tableaux vivants.
Mrs. Severn gives the following hints upon this subject:
"Perhaps there is no intellectual amusement in fashionable life, the nature of which is so little understood, as the tableau vivant; it being generally considered as only a vehicle for display, whereas its real purpose is to arrange scientifically a combination of natural objects, so as to make a good picture according to the rules of art.
"A tableau vivant is literally what its name imports—a living picture composed of living persons; and, when skilfully arranged and seen at a proper distance, it produces all the effect of a real picture. It is said, that the first living picture was contrived by a profligate young German nobleman, who having, during the absence of his father, sold one of the celebrated pictures belonging to the old castle, which was an heir-loom, to conceal the deficiency, placed some of his companions behind the frame, so as to imitate the missing picture, and to deceive his father, who passed through the room without being conscious of his loss.