Debut

“ Three weeks was not much time for preparation of any sort for such an experiment, but I had no more, to become acquainted with my fellow actors and actresses, not one of whom I had ever spoken with or seen—off the stage—before; to learn all the technical business, as it is called, of the stage; how to carry myself toward the audience, which was not—but was to be—before me; how to concert my movements with the movements [189] of those I was acting with, so as not to impede or intercept their efforts, while giving the greatest effect of which I was capable to my own. ”

“ Why as soon as the Curtain is drawn up you will see the Stage disposed in the Form of a Pit, and that you are to imagine the Prologue, and when they let the Curtain down, why then you must suppose it to be ended.
Smart. I wonder what the Audience will say when it is over.
Snarle. What? Why some will stare and wonder what the Actors have been about, and will still be expecting the Prologue; others will chuckle at their Disappointment, and cry—they knew how it would be; and some will judiciously observe—what better could be expected from a Prologue to be written and spoken by the Pit. ”

“ The regent produces an infinitely diverse spectacle, where stage and ground floor, actor and audience are one, and he himself is poet, director and hero of the play at the same time. How delightful when, as with the king, the directrice is at the same time the hero's lover and the heroine of the piece, when one catches a glimpse of the muse in her, it fills the poet with holy passion, and his lyre attunes to gentle heavenly melodies. ”

“ I find that my earliest recollections of the stage are also the keenest, and the acting I saw in my youth seems to have made the most lasting impression. The stage world was, of course, much more limited in its dimensions in those days, and the few representatives of genius were nearer and, perhaps in consequence, seemingly greater than in later years, when of all the ministers of delight it must be acknowledged that the actor gives most pleasure to the greatest number of people. ”

“ The rehearsal being over, Mr. K. advanced to him and said, "You wish to be an actor, eh!"—then turning to one of the actors, "Here is a person," continued he, "who desires to go upon the stage, and is content by the way of a beginning, to snuff the candles—humble enough you'll say. But he says he can sing;" then ironically to H. "Now, pray sir, do us the favour to say what song you can sing—you perceive the gentlemen of the band are in the orchestra—or perhaps you would rather accompany yourself, as you say you play the fiddle." ”

“ Exceptional instances apart, the actor who is speaking or being spoken to, or who is singing a song, should stand well to the front of the stage. Not only does this let you make the best use of your voice, but it helps you, what is more important, to rivet the attention of the audience.
6. Keep up a keen personal interest in the play. If you are in the chorus, your job is not solely to help in the singing and to show off a picturesque costume, but to assist in focussing the interest on the central incident. ”

“ But in the scale of emotion and excitement the theatre comes next to fighting, whether you be the author of the play or opera to be given for the first time before the greatest and most critical audience in the world, or the actor, or actress, or singer, who has not yet been heard or seen and of whom wonders are expected on the great night. ”

“ Well, every one has his or her own peculiar idea of study and rehearsal, but the true artist always arrives at the same result, with the aid of a clever stage manager and musical conductor. When a part is handed to me, generally six weeks before the opening night, I read it through carefully, picture myself in different positions in the several scenes, and then I separate the music from the dialogue and study the music first. ”

“ You have begun by making him an actor that he may learn to be one of the audience; you must continue your task, for from the theatre things are what they seem, from the stage they seem what they are. For the general effect we must get a distant view, for the details we must observe more closely. But how can a young man take part in the business of life? ”

“ The chances are scores to one that the person who wrote that play has been closely connected with the stage for years. Either he was an actor, a theatrical press agent, a newspaper man, a professional play-reader for some producer, or gained special knowledge of the stage through a dramatic course at college or by continual attendance at the theatre and behind the scenes. It is only by acquiring special knowledge of one of the most difficult of arts that anyone may hope to achieve success. ”

“ Whichever turn the thing takes, you can hear no more of what is passing on the stage, where actors and singers, according to ancient usage, do not suffer themselves to be interrupted by such occurrences, but declaim or warble away, ‘comme si rien n’était.’ And such things happen not once, but sometimes twenty times, in the course of a performance, and amuse many of the audience more than that does. ”

“ Telegraph me the date of your first concert and I'll be there and blister my hands with the biggest clap the old hall (wherever it is) ever heard. And, while I'm about it, just let me say that I don't know of any one who deserves success more than you. ”

“ If, as I foresee, your vocation is for the theatre, try at least to elevate the art; make a conscientious business of it, not to achieve a position, as a young girl out of a convent is married that she may be able to dance six times at a ball instead of three, but because you love it, and have a passion for those works that feed the mind and guide the heart aright. ”

“ I will conclude my letter with a few general rules for young actors.
Say nothing whatever on the stage but your part. This is a rule for rehearsals, and if it could be attended to, every rehearsal would have more than double its usual effect. People chatter from nervousness, explain or apologize for their mistakes, and waste quite three-fourths of the time in words which are not in the piece.
Speak very slowly and very clearly. All young actors speak too fast, and do not allow the audience time to digest each sentence. ”

“ In those good old days a black-shrouded mute hovered about each actor after dark, holding out a candle at the end of a long stick to illuminate his features, that the audience might see the fine play of expression. ”

“ Variety of cadence is the best rule, the greatest help to the actor and refreshment of the audience.
If, then, verse may be made natural in itself, how becomes it unnatural in a play? The stage, you say, is the representation of nature, and no man in ordinary conversation speaks in rhyme. ”

“ When any one of them produced a book or a play, the others were to write about it, talk about it, and advertise it generally, until its success was assured; and as nothing succeeds like success, a good commencement was all that was needed to insure an easy and glorious ascent. ”

“ Well may the matinée girl of to-day, or the stage-struck young person who responds to the glitter and glare, the applause and the superficial charm of the theatrical world, listen to Miss Morris's story of "Life on the Stage," and realize that laurels only crown untiring effort, success only comes after patient labor, and great emotional actresses come to their own through the white heat of sacrifice, struggle, and supreme desire. ”

“ Now, the actor on the regular stage is one kind of individual; the actor for the motion picture is quite another. The stage has a limited and well-defined category of beings and shadows, of vessels, so to speak, for the fancy of the poet in words. There is the youthful lover, the sentimental dame of uncertain years, the first hero, the first heroine, the doughty old father, the droll old lady, and so on. ”

“ And, after all, that seems to me to be the mission of the players. I am no speech-maker, my friends, I am speaking to you as the words come from my heart, and my heart is full and happy to-night. All the world, we are told, is a stage, a place where everyone must play his part. ”

“ This inclination of the audience to sing along with the actors so prevails with them that I have sometimes known the performer on the stage to do no more in a celebrated song than the clerk of a parish church, who serves only to raise the psalm, and is afterwards drowned in the music of the congregation. Every actor that comes on the stage is a beau. ”

“ They are the elements that make for its success.
II. THINKING OUT THE TWO-ACT The two-act—like all stage material in which acting plays a part—is not written; it is constructed. You may write with the greatest facility, and yet fail in writing material for the vaudeville stage. The mere wording of a two-act means little, in the final analysis. It is the action behind the words that suggests the stage effect. It is the business—combined with the acting—that causes the audience to laugh and makes the whole a success. ”

“ Another time she talked about her profession as an actress. 'Acting,' she said, 'cannot be otherwise than delightful—but it takes an actor away from himself. When one has been two or three years on the stage nothing is left but the stage and the dressing-room: the company behind the scenes and the audience in front. Nothing is real. Everything that happens is but a scene in a play. ”

“ This one exclamatory sentence had in it enough of affectionate regard to enable the minister to contain himself a little longer, under the impassioned tide which now flowed again.
"The stage? The stage as an institution?" John appeared to pause and wind himself up. "Why, listen! The stage function is a godlike function. When God created man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life he planted in man's breast also the instinct to create. That instinct is the foundation of all art. Man has always exhibited this passion to create something in his own image. ”

“ As to my Performances, the Audience are the only, proper Judges: But I may venture to affirm, That my Labour, and Application, have been greater than any other Performers on the Stage. I have not only acted in almost all the Plays, but in Farces and Musical Entertainments ”

“ I once heard from a player that when he acted a lover he always thought of one particular lady among the audience; he only played for her, and forgot all the rest of the house; and now the Polytechnic candidate was my 'she,' my only auditor, for whom alone I played. And when the performance was over, all the puppets were called before the curtain, and the Polytechnic candidate invited me into his room to take a glass of wine ”

“ Following the example of the illustrious model, whose style we consider it no humility, but rather an audacity, to imitate, we will suppose the recital to be made some time after the event has occurred, and we will imagine some veteran stage manager giving directions for, or superintending the rehearsal of, a grand dramatic representation of one of the grandest and—if we may be allowed the privilege of a literary smasher in coming a word—the dramaticest battles in English history. ”

“ As to the very first public appearance of the heroine of these pages there has been much discussion. When any one deserts an avocation to "take to the stage," as the phrase goes, a first performance is a milestone on the road of life and is never forgotten. With children who, coming from a theatrical family, are, as it were, born to the stage, it is almost a matter of indifference, and is apt to become nebulous. ”

“ Everything on the stage is done far better than in real life. This is true of introductions. There is a warmth, a soul, in the stage introduction not known in the chilly atmosphere of everyday society. Let me quote as an example of a stage introduction the formula used, in the best melodramatic art, in the kitchen-living-room (stove right centre) of the New England farm.
"Neighbour Jephson's son, this is my little gal, as good and sweet a little gal, as mindful of her old father, as you'll find in all New England. ”

“ And why need I add any remarks of delivery itself, which is to be ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, and by modulation and variation of the voice, the great power of which, alone and in itself, the comparatively trivial art of actors and the stage proves; on which though all bestow their utmost labor to form their look, voice, and gesture, who knows not how few there are, and have ever been, to whom we can attend with patience? ”

“ Here the young orator first tests his powers, and in all his future career, he will find no more critical audience than this composed of his fellow-students. Here too are nights given up to fun and jollity, to college songs and wild and reckless mirth, when there is not a serious countenance among the crowd. ”

“ It is to be called Pioneer Stunts, which means that each one of 242 you is to be responsible for a recitation, a tableau, a song, a playlet, in fact anything that is colonial or pioneer in character. Each Pioneer is to work out her own idea, and all ideas are to be kept secret until after the performance, when a vote will be taken as to the best stunt—that is, the best idea, and the stunt acted the best—and then the name of the author will be revealed. ”

“ This means gleaning many fields for materials and giving something of an artist’s labor to preparation, in which, of course, he will be limited by the time at his disposal. But according to the preparation will be the result, and to believe previous thought and study unnecessary because one has natural facility for story-telling is to be gravely mistaken. Artists of the stage discovered long ago that no matter how gifted they may be, nothing can take the place of preparation. ”