Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, November, 1880

by Various

But, supposing that the author is patient and lets the matter take its necessarily tedious course, and that finally the manager accepts the play and signs a contract for its production, it may still be months or years before an opening can be found for it. At some time or other a date is fixed for it, however; it is underlined in the bills and mentioned to the critics, and the practical work of building up the acting drama from the manuscript is now begun. One of the staff revises the stage-directions and marks the exits and entrances of the characters, having a diagram of the stage with its various doors before him; and when he is finished all the "business," on the technical completeness of which the author, especially if he is callow, has probably flattered himself, is cut out. The phrases which are prolix or redundant are dropped, and a character may be swept out of existence by the stroke of a pencil or a new one added, a comedy-scene written in to relieve the gloom of some serious business, or an element of pathos introduced where the shadows are not deep enough. It is a fearful ordeal for the author, but the prospect of having the curtain lifted upon his work buoys him through it, and he discreetly keeps his temper, though unconvinced that all the changes are for the better. We are speaking of a tyro. When the playwright is a veteran his stage-directions are likely to be valuable, though few plays reach the public unaltered; and in some instances the suggestions of an inexperienced man are serviceable.

The revised manuscript is then given to the copyist, a subordinate actor usually, who replicates it, and alternates each page of writing with a blank leaf, for a purpose to be explained anon. The cast is meanwhile exercising the brains of the manager. Which member of his company will best suit this part? and which that? As in the choice of a piece, the soundness of his judgment is put to a severe test, and that verisimilitude and identity between the actor and his impersonation wherein art has its fulfilment are only attained by a critical perspicuity which places him on a much higher plane than the mere commercial purveyor of amusements. His opinion of the most effective distribution of parts will probably not be shared by the actors themselves if each member of the company has not a great opportunity allotted to him; which of course is impossible. The vanity of human nature is inordinately developed in the bosom of the player, who loves to linger on the stage and to be central and preponderant. A popular leading-man is not easily replaced, and when he feels that he is more or less indispensable he is apt to be as arrogant as he is vain, and begrudge his associates the attention or applause of the audience for a moment. Even the withdrawal of a minor person is felt in a company whose members have been drilled together for some months and whose abilities are harmoniously balanced. But the manager is firm and at the same time conciliatory: he is like a patient father with wayward children, whom he controls by mild arts when despotic commands would be ignored or combated.

The cast being decided upon, two more gentlemen are introduced into the managerial council: one is the scene-painter and the other the "property-man." "I want for the first act," says the manager to the painter, "a scene in the diamond-fields of South Africa; for the second, the exterior of an Elizabethan house; for the third, a handsome library; and for the fourth, a conservatory. The diamond-fields must be shown as at evening, the house and the library must be characteristic of the home of an old and prosperous family, and the conservatory must be as fine a 'set' as you can paint." After listening to these instructions the painter submits a number of plates from which he thinks he may gather a definite idea of the exact requirements of the play: a picture from the Illustrated London News or the Graphic may give a suggestion of what is wanted for the scene at the diamond-fields; the illustrations of a work on the baronial homes of England may include such a library and exterior as would suit; and perhaps for the conservatory he submits a hasty water-color drawing of his own or a design from some book on architecture. "That's the thing," says the manager, pointing to selections from these, and he picks out the plates which fit his idea of what the scenes should be; and the artist gives him an estimate of the cost of production, specifying the quantities of lumber, canvas and paint that will be required to build up a diamond-gully, the Elizabethan mansion and the conservatory. Perhaps the estimate is too large, and is reduced, but the management is apt to be over-generous rather than stinting, and more probably the artist is instructed to prepare his models with few limitations as to cost.

Now the property-man is consulted. The rocks that will lie about the stage in the diamond-field scene, the cataract in the background, the implements of the miners, the tents and the wagons, the furniture in the library scene and all the appurtenances of the conservatory, are to be made or procured by him and disposed of on the stage before the performance begins. The rocks are to be of papier-mâché, and the cataract is to be simulated by a revolving drum of tinsel or glass beads with a strong light upon it. It is his business to construct them and the artist's to paint them. Every article used on the stage is in the property-man's charge. The crowns of kings, the cross of Richelieu, the whip of Tony Lumpkin, the bleached forehead of Yorick, the bell which the victorious hero strikes before having the discomfited villain shown to the door, and the fat purse with its crackling bank-notes and jingling coin which the honest but virtuous clerk refuses in the face of temptation,—all belong to the property-man's department. The demands on his ingenuity and research take him into every kind of shop in every quarter of the city. He has dealings with ironmongers, milliners, upholsterers and merchants of curios. The magnificent and costly suite of carved oak in the library—scene, which is not veneer but substantial furniture, and the most trivial objects—a handbag or a hat-rack, perhaps a baby for some "side-splitting" farce, whatever the play calls for—he must secure and put, night after night, in the exact place which the stage-directions have prescribed. Each new play requires, of course, some new articles, and the accumulated stock is uniquely various from which the accoutrements of princes and potentates, beggars and nobles, soldiers and lackeys, priests and highwaymen, the riotously anachronistic material of a fancy-dress ball, may be gathered.

The scene-painter is provided at the preliminary consultation with a "scene-plot," wherein the exits and entrances, the doors, windows and other openings necessary in the action of the play, are specified: at the same time a "property-plot" is handed to the property-man, enumerating the articles involved in the action; and we cannot better illustrate the diversified character which the latter sometimes have than by quoting from the plot of French Flats, which was produced in New York last season. In the first act the property-man is required to provide a double step-ladder, a long low trunk, a lady's hatbox with a hat in it, a cane and an umbrella, a very large basket filled with china and crockery, a Saratoga trunk, a bundle of clothes tied up in a sheet, upholsterers' tools, a roll of carpet and "the portrait of a female with a hole through the eye." For the same act he also has to provide "a crash of wood and a noise outside," a very large bouquet for Mariette, two vials for Vallay, a law-book for Bonnay, a comb and curling-iron for Martin, a switch of hair and a box of pills. Among the properties required in the second act are two pianos, objects of virtù, a broom for the Baroness, tongs and a tray for Vallay, a photo album, two small combs for Riffardini the tenor, a feather-duster, French bank-notes and two Catalan knives for the Marquis. The third act requires large blue spectacles for Pluchard, a paper cap for the painter, paint-brushes and paint-can, a newspaper for Billardo, "crockery to break," plenty of writing-materials and money for Billardo; while the fourth act, the scene of which is the parlor of the tenor, requires bric-à-brac, a hand-glass on the table, musical parts, newspapers, a tuning-fork, a wig and beard, a whip for the Marquis, and several wreaths of laurel. As we have said, each article has an appointed place in which it must be put by the property-man, and we all know the embarrassing consequences of any negligence of his, as when the leading actor sits at a table to sign away his birthright and can find neither the pen nor the ink which the property-plot calls for.

One other person has to be considered in mounting the play, and that is the machinist, who builds up the framework of the scene and constructs the mechanical appurtenances, such as the flight of steps down the rocks in the diamond-gully, the galleries in the library, the balustrade in the conservatory, and all the doors and windows. The artist, the property-man, and the machinist are together the architects of the drama, and when they have been fully instructed—when the artist has his plot, the property-man his, and the machinist his, which is the same as that of the painter, and when the painter's models have been approved by the manager—the actors are called to hear the play read. A word in parenthesis is necessary here as to what the scene-painter's models are, for the term is misleading. He has a small stage, upon which he paints and sets each scene exactly as it is to appear on the larger one, except that it is on the reduced scale of half an inch or less to the foot of actual space; and the miniature, which is called a model, serves to guide him in his work and to give the manager a preliminary glimpse of what the finished scene will be.

Somewhere against the wall in that mysterious precinct which in other days attracted the wits and gallants of the hour, who met and exchanged familiarities with the players that were not always sweet, and which in this better epoch is reserved for the use of the persons for whom it is intended,—somewhere in the "green-room," where the actors gossip, or put the finishing touch to the rouge and pencillings on their faces, or adjust their costumes, or rehearse their parts while waiting to be summoned before the audience, there hangs a board or a glass case in which the official notices of the management are exhibited; and one day a written slip is pinned or pasted in it which contains these words: "Company called for A Lame Excuse at 10 A.M. Monday," A Lame Excuse being the supposititious name of the new play. There have been rumors of "something underlined" among the actors already, and when the call is made the nature of the work, who of the company will be required in it, what parts there are, and the probabilities of success, are discussed with much volubility. Should the author be a beginner whose connections with the stage have hitherto been impersonal, and who yet has had that desire to affiliate with its practitioners which belongs to adolescence and inexperience, he now has an opportunity to acquaint himself with as many as he will care about knowing. One introduction puts him on affable terms with a crowd of "professionals" connected and unconnected with the theatre at which his play is to be produced, and before long he is en camarade with various little cliques that gather around the small tables of bier-saloons, cafés and club-houses after theatre hours. Between the first call and the reading particularly he is sought and questioned as to the characteristics of his play. The leading lady, who is pretty and cultivated, sends him an invitation to call upon her, and receives him with flattering attentions when he appears. The leading man invites him to a nice little dinner. He has cocktails with the low comedian, lunch with the "eccentric comedy lead" and oysters (late at night perhaps) with the soubrette. His unprofessional acquaintances should also be mentioned, for they take many pains to be remembered. Young Potter, who is athirst for notoriety, and who, with maledictions in his contemptible little heart and fulsome compliments at his tongue's end, will cringe before any man who happens to have the public by the ear, trusts that our author is not offended by anything he has written in the obscure little paper with which he is connected. Bludgeon, who is such a hypocrite that his unusually large nose is like a partition-wall between the smiles that he shows and the scowls that he conceals, slaps the author on the back and with effusive goodwill congratulates him, and declares that nobody could be worthier of success, though in reality Bludgeon detests him, believes the management is going to the dogs, and is already endeavoring to invent biting phrases for his criticism. The potentialities of the new playwright bring him innumerable offers of services and pledges of cordiality. If he is not wise the promise of success will intoxicate him by its fumes before the cup that contains the fruition reaches his lips, and it may be well for him if he is not over-confident, for the draught may prove bitter enough.

On the morning appointed the company assemble in the green-room, sauntering in with unbusiness-like irregularity and addressing one another with that familiarity of which we have before spoken. There is a good deal of banter and some scolding. The author grasps each member of the company by the hand as they enter: he is pleading and ingratiating in his manner, and after some delay he sits at a small table and begins to read his manuscript, or if he is too nervous the manager or the assistant manager reads it, and he scans the faces of the actors with a touching desire to find some responsive thrill as his best points are reached and passed. A faint smile of the low comedian as a grotesque line is read, a murmur of the leading lady at some climacteric phrase of the heroine's, or an ejaculated measure of applause from the leading man over some strong emotion in the principal part, yields gladness to him—he foresees how much stronger they will be spoken in character with dramatic enunciation—and as the lines which he has thought effective fall unnoticed a gloomy apprehension possesses him. At the end of the reading there is an interchange of civilities, a private chat between the manager and the author, and the little green-room, which has the mildewed appearance of a lodging-house parlor from which the sun is shut out like a conspirator, is left to the ghosts that float in the empty spaces of a theatre during the daytime.

Soon afterward the cast is announced, and then the unreasonable desire to be central and preponderant, to fill the play with himself, that affects the best of actors as well as the poorest, leads to a turmoil which is only quieted by the diplomacy which is indispensable in holding together the jealous elements of a stock company, wherein pre-eminence in individual branches must be subordinate to the maintenance of a general excellence. At the same time that the cast is announced each actor is provided with his part and the cues which precede each of his speeches, copied from the manuscript. The first rehearsal is "with parts"—that is to say, the company are allowed to read the lines from the copies given to them—and while this is in progress the manager has the complete play with the alternate blank pages before him, upon which he writes whatever alterations seem desirable; and already, though none of the accessories are used, the preliminary exercise, so to speak, shows that some speeches which have seemed striking in the reading do not "go" well when spoken by the actor. This rehearsal "with parts" is amusingly incongruous to the spectator. The leading actor reads in an ordinary conversational tone, "My heart is filled with a hatred which checks my utterance, and though you see me now penniless, trodden upon and in these rags, Fate may have in store for me that which will make you humble before me;" while, instead of being at all impoverished or threadbare the leading actor is dressed in a fashionable walking-suit and has every appearance of prosperity. Again, the leading lady sits with complete indifference in a chair and swings her parasol and chats with her neighbor while one of the gentlemen opposite to her reads a declaration of love in a sing-song voice from a roll of paper in his hand. Another member of the company has the lines, "Here for centuries the Mordaunts have lived the simple and honorable lives of English country gentlemen; here they have been born; here they have died; and among them all not one of them has ever done aught mean or base. Here, in this grand old hall, a reputation has been built which the proudest of nobles might envy;" and should the spectator, following the wave of the actor's hand, look for the hall to which the speech refers, he would only discover the stage before him, with no scene set upon it, with the wings and the "flats" stacked up at the rear, the company gathered in the centre, and a few gas-jets paled by the rays of daylight issuing from a yellowish window. The heroine at another point, wandering, as the lines suppose, about the ample gardens of the Elizabethan house at twilight, bids her lover come and hear the soft echoes of the cuckoo, but it is only the knocking of the machinist's hammer and the voices of the property-man and the scene-painter, who are working in the "flies" high above the proscenium, that are audible, and not the whistle of a bird. The incongruity which amuses the stranger to the theatrical arcana is unnoticed by the actors, whose profession is made up of anomalies.

When a play has been actually rehearsed and all the arrangements have been made for painting the scenery and procuring the properties for it, the manager is not likely to abandon it: his self-interest commits him to it, and the author may usually feel assured that at last his work will be seen by the public. But so difficult is it to judge from the reading of the manuscript what the effect will be when the lines are distributed and spoken by many different voices that more than once an experienced manager has found to his cost, at a second or third rehearsal, that some play which has gone thus far in preparation will not do. The author is very much to be pitied in such a case: the disappointment is not an ordinary one. The first rehearsal of A Lame Excuse confirms the manager's favorable opinion of it, however, and a few days later another is called "without parts;" that is, the actors are expected to have learned what they have to say. The rehearsals are then continued from time to time, and at each something is added in gesture, tone or movement which strengthens the representation. The toil, perseverance and discipline which are entailed cannot be imagined by one who has not traced the progress of a new play at such a theatre as the Union Square. Whenever it seems that the most has not been made of a line or a situation it is repeated again and again. The "business" is gradually improved, and the author sees the company working with greater fluency at each of the twenty or more rehearsals which are given. Somewhere about the eighteenth rehearsal a demand is made upon the artist, and he promises to have the scenery ready in a few days.