Philip Curtiss

“ In every large theatrical company there is one of these internal politicians. Sometimes it is a woman and more often than not the "heavy woman," but in any case it is one of the principals, who finds himself or herself more at home among the members of the chorus than among the other principals, who acts as a go-between for the upper and lower ranks of the company, who may, on rare occasions, be an invaluable ally to the management but, more often, is just a trouble-maker, a natural anarchist, and a general nuisance.
In the case of Charlie Barnes there were certain excuses. ”

“ That under these successes and failures must lie certain fundamental and self-renewing laws which could be applied, not necessarily with uniform success but in a way which would insure a steady advance, they disregarded as an idea unworthy of a "practical" and cynical profession, one which is founded on intellect but in which intellect is invariably singled out for amused contempt.
Charlie Barnes was the only member of the "Eleanor" cast who made any real effort to find out what might be the matter and, having found it, to preach his doctrine morning, noon, and night. ”

“ It seems never to have occurred to any of them that a public which had shown a fondness for pie would not necessarily go on eating pie indefinitely, or, better, that a simple, unexacting class of theater-goers which had been assiduously instructed in dramatic primers might not some time outgrow those very primers and begin to look around for first readers, especially when it began to dawn on them that first readers might really exist. ”

“ Adrian Bellony, the technical "hero," a tin-faced man who should have been driving a truck and would have been if nature had not endowed him with one of those metallic and piercing tenor voices which galleries are supposed to adore ”

“ They were confident, nevertheless, with that vain and singular confidence so common to men of their profession, that the "provinces" would be either acute enough or stupid enough—they themselves were not sure which they meant—to give them a success where New York had only given them a failure. ”

“ At the present moment, the longer he droned outside her dressing-room door, the more nearly was she beginning to hate him actively, not because he was worse than the rest of her associates in the "Eleanor" company but because she now saw him to be so hopelessly typical of them all.
Theatrical companies differ as widely in personnel as do ships' companies, and for no greater reason—the law of averages. In five years of stage experience, Tilly Marshall had seen many kinds. ”

“ The voice was that of Charlie Barnes, the comedian, a wizened little man almost fifty years old, a typical old-time trouper but, oddly enough, in his first season with a "Broadway company." Charlie Barnes was what in the army would be called a "barrack lawyer," and what in theatrical circles is known as a "bellyacher." The word must, unhappily, be used, for there is no other. ”

“ Too much of his life had been spent in the lower ranks of theatrical life for him to find himself much at home anywhere else, and to an old actor of his type a certain amount of grumbling and querulousness is always allowed as a perquisite. ”

“ Tommy Knight, an eager enough Irish-American boy—a beady-eyed dancer; Elsie Winner, a straw-blond theatrical type who, with Tilly Marshall shared the two equal soubrette parts; Tilly Marshall herself; and, lastly, old Celestine Trip, a comedy woman of two hundred pounds who played a dowager part, technically "opposite" Charlie Barnes. "Fifty-eight people" were advertised to travel with the "Eleanor" company, but to secure this impressive total the electrician and the stage-hands were all counted. ”