Do not be ashamed of over-acting; it is better than under-acting a part. Learn your cues with your part, and insist on getting them correctly. Amateurs cannot take too much trouble.
One word as to elocution. Find out the pitch of your voice which carries best, and which is at the same time the most natural and the least exertion to you. You cannot fail then to be heard, always providing you remember not to drop your voice at the end of a sentence, and not to clip the final consonants of words.
A few practical hints, to close, as to stage and scenery. Do not attempt to put a piece with much action and several characters on to a small stage. The result is simply ridiculous. The stage must be raised, but a foot or so is enough in any ordinary-sized drawing-room. If it is too high, the players’ heads appear too near the ceiling. If possible, keep the front row of audience at least five feet from the footlights. Take care these latter are not too strong, but have plenty of lamps fixed on the back of the front wings and over the curtain inside. For this reason wings, though more trouble to set up, are preferable to a box scene. They also obviate the necessity of practicable doors, which do not shut or open properly, and never look real. It looks better to cut off the corners of the stage at the back, or, at any rate, to make the side narrow towards the back. Any trouble devoted to details of furnishing and setting the stage is well repaid by the effect; but of course the size and quantity of furniture must be ruled by the size of the stage. In an evening room scene, take care the lamps or candles are in the centre of the stage. Outdoor scenes are very difficult to manage on a temporary stage. A back painted scene is necessary, and in a room painted scenes look so coarse.
Any carpenter can run up a temporary stage in a drawing room, from a slight sketch, in a day, without doing any damage to the walls. The curtain ought to be rehearsed as much as the play, till it goes up and down or pulls aside without a hitch. (E. E. C.)
Tricks and Illusions
Tricks and Illusions.—Much amusement may be derived from the practice of conjuring tricks and illusions, and such entertainments are not without an educational value, as they excite curiosity and develop a desire in young minds to acquire knowledge, and induce an exercise of the reasoning faculties in endeavouring to learn how they are performed.
Sleight of Hand.—The following notes on sleight of hand tricks are taken from a chapter in A Curious Company, by that entertaining writer, Max Adeler.
“Before beginning to explain the modus operandi of the impromptu illusionist, let me just tabulate eight golden rules, which you must always bear in mind if you hope for anything like success.
“1. Never look at your hands, unless to attract attention to one of them.
“2. Cultivate the art of chattering freely, with as much original wit as you can invent, or plagiarise without fear of detection.