Anonymous

“ We leave the theatre when the milkman is making his rounds. A day of fitful sleep with its undercurrent of tension; the opening night with nerves tuned to the highest pitch, then success or failure, who can tell? The box office is the arbiter.
The opening night is not the only strain attendant upon a new production. One is on tenter-hooks for days, perhaps weeks, to learn whether the play has "caught on" or not. Favourable, even laudatory, reviews will not drag the public into the theatre if they do not like the offering. Stars may have a certain drawing power, but "The play's the thing." ”

“ Miss Burton, the lady of some importance, broke my train of thought by precipitately asking me to "come and have a cup of tea." She assured me she would not let me miss "old Tom"—calling the agent by the familiar diminutive—and that having sent for her he was bound to wait. "It makes all the difference in the world whether they send for you, or whether you go to them for an engagement," she told me, with a sententious nod of her head. She was so bright and vivacious, and so wholly un-selfconscious that, for a moment, I was drawn out of my dreamy loneliness. ”

“ The "neglected wife" has become a hoary old joke. It is worked to death. My husband is responsible for the statement that in nine cases out of ten women use this excuse to condone their own infidelity. "My husband doesn't understand me; he knows nothing but business, business, business. He doesn't realize there is another side to my nature which is utterly starved." Or, "My husband is interested elsewhere. What am I to do? For the sake of the children I don't want a divorce, and I am too proud to let him see how I feel it. I am only human." ”

“ The girl's face was peaked and old, as if the despair of life had already left its stamp. There was something infinitely tender in the way she held the boy close to her, mutely comforting his grief, her eyes meeting half defiantly the tinselled magnet of the shop-window, her lips compressed to stop their mutinous tremble. When at last I brought myself to break in upon their thoughts, they looked at me like startled fawns....
The overture was on when I rushed into the theatre that afternoon. With Leila's help I was in time for my cue. ”

“ The chances are against it—you may be lucky enough to get a joint engagement one season, but the next season you're off on the road, while she's playing in New York or in another part of the country. And what does this separation lead to in the end? You're a human being; you crave society, companionship; gradually you become weaned away and the inevitable happens. It's propinquity and home ties which make marriage a success; the life of an actor precludes domesticity. The very exigencies of his profession are not only inconsistent with, but hostile to, the institution of marriage. ”

“ I don't know of any other profession where immorality is a virtue. I suppose that's what you call a paradox. Virtue and success do not go hand in hand in this business—even our mothers recognize the truth of the statement and wink at it. Your average stage mamma values virtue in the ratio of the advancement its possession assures. Let any star or manager cast covetous eyes upon her daughter, let her but scent leading lady—or stardom—and she will not only lend herself to intrigue but encourage it. ”

“ I have the feeling that to go from one man's arms to another's is nothing short of indecency. Perhaps time will alter the perspective. But I don't know, John, I don't know! You see I want to be honest with you. I want to promise nothing about which I am not sure.... Then, there is your side of it. Can I give all a man expects from the woman he makes his wife? What have I to give? The bloom of my womanhood, the ardent passion of youth is forever gone. What is left may not satisfy you.... It is right that you should go away at once ... ”

“ When I joined the company in which I met my husband I was singled out for marked attention by the star. I believed this attention to be a kindly interest in a novice. It never occurred to me to question the intent and purpose. I was the understudy for the leading woman; the star had told me that I had exceptional talent, and with the proper direction I should develop into a splendid emotional actress. Quite often we would have private rehearsals—sometimes in the theatre, but more often in the star's apartment in the hotel. Invariably we rehearsed alone. ”

“ In the overwhelming grief which had come to me, life appeared a void; a vacuous, heavy-footed thing, with moments of suspended thought, a merciful numbness of despair, a sound, a familiar sight, a rush of memory, a freshet of tears, each overlapped the other, so fast they followed. One of the unpardonable and most resented slights to those in affliction is the even tenor with which the world wags on its way, callous and indifferent. ”

“ At such times he appeared fully to appreciate the corroding atmosphere in which he lived. He even contemplated retiring from the stage. These phases were rare, however, generally attending a disappointment in a rôle, discontent with an engagement or unfavourable criticism of his work. The mood soon passed and he appeared to be content with the ephemeral joys of the moment.
The longer I brooded over the subject the less sure I became of any good to be attained by a frank expression of my mind. ”

“ Managers are, with rare exceptions, an unimaginative lot. In no other way can one explain the deluge of plays patterned on the same type: for example, let a manager by hit or miss produce successfully a play built around the Far West, immediately there spring up a dozen of the ilk. Or, again, let a play of farcical construction score a hit; the public is immediately surfeited with a run of farces. So with the actor. Let him once become identified with heroes of romantic drama and the manager fears to entrust him with the dress-suit rôle, and vice versa. ”

“ Girls like you are drawn to the stage by its illusion and romance. With others, it's the looseness, the freedom from restraint that appeals. There never was a woman with a screw loose in her moral machinery who didn't hanker for the stage. Why? Because it's a convenient place to show goods. Every millionaire, every fur-tongued man about town looks upon the women of the stage as his legitimate prey. You've only got to mention the fact that you are, directly or indirectly, connected with the show-business, to lay yourself open to the advances of the male creature who thinks he is sporty. ”

“ Were I to eliminate all circumlocution and say: "My husband, there is something fundamentally wrong with a profession which demands a compromise with one's best instincts," or "the class of people with which you come in daily contact make for your ultimate degradation," or, again, "I do not approve of your petty deceits, the complacency with which you accept moral obliquity, the low standard which permeates our entire life," this would call for amplification, an indulgence in personalities which could result only in a greater breach between us. ”

“ And by degrees my spirit yielded to the balm of solitude. Once again life fell into a groove. I told myself I had reached a readjustment of my life. For Boy's sake, if for no other, my husband and I should go on together. The fact that I still loved my husband I placed as a parenthetic consideration, in my plans. Boy was the capstone of our married life. Having brought him into the world without the desire or power of selection on his part, obviously our first duty was to the child. ”

“ You stimulate your passions with alcohol and mistake the fumes for love! You haven't the courage to come out and be a genuine prostitute, but you ply the trade in the rôle of an adulteress. For God's sake, wake up! Look yourself in the eyes before it is too late! If you have no self-respect, no respect for your sex, try at least to respect the rights of those little souls you've brought into the world without their asking. ”

“ The Englishman's wife sets up a tea basket; friends and relatives are sent out for sandwiches and "something to wash 'em down." At this stage of the siege one becomes a mere machine. There is no attempt at acting. It is now a mechanical perfection. When the scenic effects refuse to act on cues or "anticipate" the same, or the supers jumble and everybody grows cross and "on edge," one shudders to realize that the opening night is close at hand. One hopes and prays things will not go like this to-morrow night. There is consolation in the old adage: "A poor dress rehearsal—a good first night." ”

“ As for the children, there are greater evils than divorce. The influence of a house divided against itself, the surcharged atmosphere of deceit and degrading quarrels cannot fail to impregnate a child's mind, and probably at a time when character is being formed.
It is a lucky thing for the honour of the family that the actor is not less scrupulous. "They who kiss and run away may live to kiss another day" is probably indicative of the worst of his peccadillos. He takes the goods the gods provide and credits so much popularity unto his irresistible self. ”

“ I ask myself, can a woman love more than once? Is there a love for youth, a love for maturity?... You see, I am not sure that I really love you. I am haunted with the fear that my loneliness, my wounded pride, my unsatisfied life have caused me to seek consolation. ”

“ Men and women marry for one of a half dozen reasons, most commonly because they believe they are in love. When the honeymoon wanes and you get right down to commonplace, every-day life in all its ugliness, we begin to feet that we've been buncoed. If we are truthful with ourselves we acknowledge a share of the bunco game. Way back in our subconscious mind the sensation of our courtship, the pursuit and the first mad moments of possession have stuck fast.... We fairly throb at the thought of them. We begin to hanker for a repetition of these sensuous dope-dreams.... ”

“ And what manner of men are they who do marry a girl out of the chorus? Old worn-out roués, almost senile from the debauched lives they have led. They crave something young and fresh as an elixir of life. Sometimes it's a young blood with money; a black sheep of the family who drinks and sports, and in the end there's divorce if nothing worse.... ”

“ She knows the game; she knows that a girl, no matter how pretty, how talented, cannot get on in the show-business without 'giving up.' She's got to have money or influence, or both. I don't know what there is about the stage that brings out the baser passions, but I do know that it's rotten to the core. And the worst of it is, that the good is sacrificed to the bad. ”

“ Stage-folk are as superstitious as a nigger mammy. A whole chapter might be devoted to their lore. One of the greatest hoodoos is to speak the tag of a play before the opening night. The tag of a play is the last several words immediately preceding the final fall of the curtain. When it comes to the tag, the actor to whose lot the final lines fall either stops with a gesture or perhaps he purloins Hamlet's last words—"The rest is silence." ”

“ Only don't sacrifice yourself to a prudish modesty; don't make a fetish of the past. Conserve your tender memories, if you will, but strip them of overvaluation.... You ask what have you to give.... Do you believe that because the bloom of your womanhood, your first passion and its fruition have belonged to another, that there is nothing left to give? Shall I be giving, does any man give, what he demands of a woman as the prerogative of his sex? You see, little woman, we are the victims of a false education. There is one standard for woman, a different standard for man. ”

“ You know what I mean as well as I do!—to encourage in a hundred intangible ways; to show that you are flattered by a woman's attention; to let her believe that you believe you are the only one upon whom she has bestowed her favours; to let her tell you that you are the first man for whom she has betrayed her husband, though she has been neglected and unhappy for years and years ”

“ Her mother had been a great actress in the Booth and Barrett days. She, herself, had lisped some childish lines with them. Later, she had become a soubrette and a star in merry little plays in which she sang and danced and "emoted," all in one evening. There are no soubrettes nowadays. The term has degenerated into a slangy sobriquet. "Ingénue" has replaced it; nothing is required of an ingénue but saccharine sweetness and vacuous prettiness—and youth, youth, youth! O, the harvest of age! The public which she had amused for years has forgotten her. ”

“ Our retreat was unearthed; our privacy intruded upon. At inopportune moments passers-by would appear ostensibly to inquire their way, obviously to get a glimpse of the actor "at play." It came to be an annoyance, especially after Will was caught in the act of clearing out a duck pond or helping Aaih to whitewash a chicken-house. When Will indulged in manual labour he relieved himself of all superfluous clothing. When a hero does this sort of thing on the stage he manages somehow to look pretty. ”

“ Never questioning their fitness for child-rearing, they divine no greater responsibility than providing bodily necessities and a more or less superficial education. When, at the restless age of sixteen, I announced my determination to become an actress, there was some surface opposition, but no effort was made to enquire into my fitness for the dramatic profession, or the fitness of the dramatic profession as a career for any innocent and unprotected young girl. ”

“ To the layman a rehearsal is a bewildering and murky affair. Seated in the "front of the house," in the clammy shadow of shrouded seats, a student of human nature finds much to interest him. Under the light of a single "bunch" or the "blanching" irregular foots, the players look old and insignificant. The blue white light has a cruel way of exposing the lines and seams. They sit about or stand in groups, the blue-covered typewritten parts in hand awaiting the call of the first act. A youngish man, probably the assistant stage-manager, sets the stage ”

“ The actor's life precludes domesticity and without domestic life there can be no successful marriages.
Every community has its stage-struck girls. Year after year the Academies of Divine Art turn out graduates like so many clothes-pins. Neither aspirant nor parent appears to question her fitness for the career to which she aspires. Both are ignorant of the conditions which confront the tyro or they have a wholly erroneous idea of theatrical life—ideas culled from the articles which appear from time to time in the magazines over the signature of a prominent actress. ”

“ You mean their accomplishment, their art is honoured. Each and every one of these women has been grist to the mill. Do you suppose that side of it ever reaches the public? No, and what's more, it's none of the public's business. These women are successful. The price they have paid is their own secret. Don't misunderstand me—I'm not sitting in judgment on the women of the stage, any more than I would sit in judgment on you if you went wrong. I'm telling you the conditions that exist—conditions which every woman who enters the theatrical profession has got to face sooner or later. ”