Comedian

“ But, tragedy apart, it may be inquired whether, in certain characters in comedy, especially those which are a little extravagant, or which involve some notion repugnant to the moral sense, it is not a proof of the highest skill in the comedian when, without absolutely appealing to an audience, he keeps up a tacit understanding with them; and makes them, unconsciously to themselves, a party in the scene. The utmost nicety is required in the mode of doing this; but we speak only of the great artists in the profession. ”

“ Indeed, I’ll play some comedies for you that will set you all a-weeping like women and children! Comedian, forsooth! You are mistaken if you think that you may insult me with impunity. My theatre is the world; the rôle that I play is the double one of master and actor; I use all of you as comedians, popes, kings, peoples, and the string by which I work you—you my puppets—is fear. You would need to be a much heavier man than you are, Signor Chiaramonti, to dare [Pg 1075] to applaud or hiss me. ”

“ Isn't that your mission, gentlemen: to give life to fantastic characters on the stage?
THE MANAGER (interpreting the rising anger of the Company) . But I would beg you to believe, my dear sir, that the profession of the comedian is a noble one. If today, as things go, the playwrights give us stupid comedies to play and puppets to represent instead of men, remember we are proud to have given life to immortal works here on these very boards! (The actors, satisfied, applaud their Manager) . ”

“ There are critics who have questioned his appeal as a comedian in the theatre, but no one brought into personal contact with him could be left in any doubt as to the swiftness and sureness of his vision in detecting and enjoying the little foibles of those around him. In any company, whatever its composition, his mind got quickly to work upon each individuality in the group ”

“ Or if a very slender pop-eyed young comedian, while wiping his brow, says, "Now could I drink hot blood and hold it not a sin," and some one else calmly answers, "You haven't got those words right, and you couldn't drink anything hot to-day without having a fit." Or if two big, stalwart men, meeting in the "entrance," fall suddenly into each other's arms, with a cry of "Camille!" "Armand!" Or if a man enters the greenroom with his hat on, and a half-dozen people call, "Do you take this for an ale-house, that you can enter with such a swagger?" and the hat comes off with a laughing apology. ”

“ There is in the stock company of this theatre, one good comedian, unequalled in America, we know, and unexcelled in any other country, we believe; one comic actress, without a superior, in the characters of the veteran dowagers, venerable and doting nurses, ancient spinsters, and old women generally; one tolerable farceur, who would be a comedian, if he would be content to be natural, and had a sufficient knowledge of the eccentricities of character to be aware that extravagance is not always their prominent trait. ”

“ I do not intend to imply that a comedian of five-feet-two with the voice of a penny whistle is thereby prevented from being as funny as I am. A great comedian may achieve his results with very few tools in his kit. Take any comedy situation to pieces to see what makes it tick, and you will discover that its mainspring lies in the art of the comedian. The comic value of the equipment is secondary, the physical equipment of the actor last. That is why the jokes that were so excruciating in the theater ”

“ The masses will laugh when the comedian on the stage hits his friend with a club; [Pg 202] that sort of fun-making satisfies adults who have children's brains and such brain-constructed people will also laugh at jokes which ride on ridicule. ”

“ That when a comedian, just before the rise of the curtain, is handed a telegram announcing the death of his mother or only child, he goes out on the stage and gives a more comic performance than ever. ”

“ For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with theatrical terms of procedure, I will state that a company was generally made up of a leading man (heroes, of course) , first old man, second old man, heavy man, first comedian, second comedian, juvenile man, walking gentleman, and utility man.
That term, "heavy man," of course had no reference to the actor's physical condition, but it generally implied a deep voice, heavy eyebrows, and a perfect willingness to stab in the back or smilingly to poison the wine of the noblest hero or the fairest heroine in the business ”

“ The fact is that except in broad farce, where the principal ingredient being humor, animal spirits and a grotesque imagination, which are of no particular age, come strongly into play, comedy appears to me decidedly a more mature and complete result of dramatic training than tragedy. The effect of the latter may, as I myself exemplified, be tolerably achieved by force of natural gifts, aided but little by study; but a fine comedian must be a fine artist ”

“ The young actress did not master intuitively the secrets of an art which cannot be taught; but the great comedian, charmed with her precocious talent, facilitated her acquirement of those elements of diction, the solfêggi of speech, so indispensable to a career on the stage. ”

“ It is well known that in certain classes of musico-dramatic pieces the so-called authors expect the leading low comedian to find his own jokes, or most of them, and certainly Mr Arthur Roberts and others have contributed a bigger share of the effective dialogue than that of the persons supposed to have written the book. ”

“ A comedian can sing and dance, or "make up" good as a Jew, a Negro, or an eccentric German, and forthwith he gets some author to write a play for him in which his "strong" points will be made to plainly appear. ”

“ The first method is usually adopted by the unpolished and unthinking actor of variety sketch training, and often, too, by the acrobatic and strictly mechanical comedian of light opera surroundings. It is comedy acting which proves vastly amusing to such as desire their theatrical entertainment as devoid as possible of any intellectual flavor, who do not care to hunt for a fine point, and who are bored by anything that suggests an intelligent appreciation of humor. ”

“ Building upon this sure foundation, a class of comedians sprang up who "worked up" the laughter by taking advantage of the human delight in expectation. For instance: A man would lean over a wall and gaze at some distant scene. He was perfectly oblivious to what was going on behind him. The comedy character strolled out on the stage with a stick in his hand. ”

“ As a rule, the gag of the present period is to be found mainly in those more frivolous and ephemeral entertainments, which are not much to be damnified by any excesses with which the comedians may be chargeable.
There is no gainsaying that in all times gag has been indulgently considered, and even encouraged by the majority of the audience. Establishing relations of a most intimate kind with his audience, the comic actor obtains from them absolute licence of speech and conduct. ”

“ What I really said was that the frame we call the stage was ‘peopled with either living actors or moving puppets,’ and I pointed out briefly, of necessity, that the personality of the actor is often a source of danger in the perfect presentation of a work of art. It may distort. It may lead astray. It may be a discord in the tone or symphony. For anybody can act. Most people in England do nothing else. To be conventional is to be a comedian. To act a particular part, however, is a very different thing, and a very difficult thing as well. ”

“ Throughout the fifth century we find political and social comedy flourishing side by side, the great mass of the comedians being equally at home in either branch of the art, while, towards the close of that century and at the beginning of the next, the boundary line between the writers of “Old” and “Middle” Comedy is notoriously a very faint one. ”

“ Now, when in a so-called Comic Opera your two principal low comedians have very little to do, say, or sing, and when that little is not of a particularly side-splitting character, and when the plot is not replete with comic situations, such a work must depend for its success on the freshness of its melodies, on the popularity of its artistes, and on the excellence of its mise-en-scène. ”

“ Every one who is familiar with the theatre must have noticed how careful all comedians are to give this pause for appreciation and laughter. Often the opportunity is crudely given, or too liberally offered ”

“ His cue is to laugh at the stage jokes of the hard-worked comedians, and to be dazzled into a semi-hypnotic state by the dancing women posturing amid marvellous effects of light and color. They are eminently entertainments to be felt and not thought about. ”

“ What are our actors compared with them? . . ." he asked encompassing with an inimical glance the company about them. "What is this band of shoemakers, tailors, paper hangers, barbers? . . . Comedians, ragamuffins, and clowns! . . . Bah! art is going to the dogs. In a few more years when we are gone, they will make of the stage a barroom, a circus, or a storage warehouse.
"Do you hear? . . . they give me half-sheet roles of old men and old nincompoops, to me! . . . do you hear? . . . to me, who for forty years have upheld the entire classical repertory to me! Oh! oh!" ”

“ I've often heard it said, a preacher
Might learn, with a comedian for a teacher. ”

“ The players {145}call such fragments of studied rhetoric generici, or commonplaces. They are vastly important to comedians who may not be specially gifted for improvisation; and everything of the sort I found in their repertory was vitiated by the turgid mannerisms of the seicento. ”

“ VII. Theater, Parade And Extravagance. The principal diversion, elegant comedy.—Parades and extravagance.
To divert oneself is to turn aside from oneself, to break loose and to forget oneself; and to forget oneself fully one must be transported into another, put himself in the place of another, take his mask and play his part. Hence the liveliest of diversions is the comedy in which one is an actor. It is that of children who, as authors, actors and audience, improvise and perform small scenes. ”

“ It is quite otherwise with Comedy, which should be mere common life, and not one jot bigger. Every character should speak upon the stage, not only what it would utter in the situation there represented, but in the same manner in which it would express it. For which reason I cannot allow rhymes in comedy, unless they were put into the mouth, and came out of the mouth of a mad poet. But it is impossible to deceive one’s self enough (nor is it the least necessary in comedy) to suppose a dull rogue of an usurer cheating, or ‘gross Jean’ blundering in the finest rhymes in the world. ”

“ The works of the real humorist always have this sacred press-mark, I think. Try Shakespeare, first of all, Cervantes, Addison, poor Dick Steele, and dear Harry Fielding, the tender and delightful Jean Paul, Sterne, and Scott,—and Love is the humorist's best characteristic and gives that charming ring to their laughter in which all the good-natured world joins in chorus. ”

“ I hate those dirty, paltry equivocations, which go by the name of puns, and pieces of wit. No, Sir, it ever was my opinion that the stage should be a place of rational entertainment; instead of which, I am very sorry to say, most people go there for their diversion: accordingly, I have formed my comedy so that it is no laughing, giggling piece of work. He must be a very light man that shall discompose his muscles from the beginning to the end. ”

“ He is a sort of half-brother of the man on the stage, for, like the actor, he must endeavor to please his entire audience. The humorous paper or book, if it is not to the reader’s taste, may be dropped in an instant, but in a crowded hall or drawing-room one must listen, unless he is deaf.
So the entertainer must be very careful in selecting his material. Hundreds of jokes that are good in themselves and decent enough to tell to one’s wife and children are called vulgar by some people who aren’t noted for refinement in other ways. ”

“ The spirit of the old romantic comedy had Comedy.long since fled; the graceful artificialities of the pastoral drama, even the light texture of the mask, ill suited the demands of an age which made no secret to itself of the grossness of its sensuality. With a few unimportant exceptions, such poetic elements as admitted of being combined with the poetic drama were absorbed by the opera and the ballet. No new species of the comic drama formed itself, though towards the close of the period may be noticed the beginnings of modern English farce. ”

“ I am in the midst of a beautiful comedy—with a sense of latent tears—and the dramatic situations work out delightfully. The rest are only actors; I am actor and spectator as well, and I delight in contriving effective exits. The world is of gold and ivory. ”

“ He was asked by this friend to describe a certain quaint and highly successful entertainer. This was the response: ‘The gentleman of whom you speak has the habit of coming before his audience as an idiot and retiring as a genius. You and I, sir, couldn’t do that; we should sustain the first character consistently throughout the entire performance.’
It was his humor to insist that all the virtues and gifts of a distinguished collector were due for their expansion and development to association with himself and the writer of these memories. ”