"TOO MANY WRINKLES SPOIL THE FACE."
Now, he will enter like that, and would probably feel hurt if somebody were to cry out from the gallery that it would be as well if some actors were to let the audience see their faces for a change occasionally. The cultivation of wrinkles—on the stage, of course—is a positive art.
"Must put plenty of lines on the face," says the actor; "I'm playing an old man to-night." But there is no necessity to wrinkle the face like badly-straightened-out forked lightning; there is no need to lay down a new line on your countenance such as a debilitated luggage train would scorn. The effect, from the front, of the lines laid down about the vicinity of the eyes appears like a huge pair of goggles without the connecting link across the bridge of the nose.
"THE FUNNY COUNTRYMAN."
Then there is "the old man from the country." His wrinkles are nothing more or less than wicked. He is not content with resembling a cross between Paul Pry and a Drury Lane clown—he pitchforks the paint on, increases the size of his mouth by "bringing up" the corners to insure a perpetual smile, wears a wig which even a Joey Grimaldi would shudder at, dresses as no countryman ever dressed, and wears a huge sunflower from his back garden. Your old stage hand, when called upon to play a countryman, will tell you that there is nothing to equal a level colouring all over the face, with a little rouge on the cheeks, and the immediate neighbourhood of the eyes touched up to balance the effect. Our country friend is almost as wicked in his make-up as the individual who still pins his faith to the hare's foot—now almost obsolete—and grins at himself in the glass, and considers an admirable effect is obtained by "rouging" a somewhat prominent nasal organ.
"'COLOURING' IT."