Dumb show

“ They have a great many clowns now, but they are all dumb, and you only get half the good you used to get out of the single clown of the old one-ring circus. Why, it’s as if the literary humorist were to lead up to a charming conceit or a subtle jest, and then put asterisks where the humor ought to come in.”
“Don’t you think you are going from bad to worse?” I asked.
My friend went on: “I’m afraid the circus is spoiled for me. It has become too much of a good thing; for it is a good thing; almost the best thing in the way of an entertainment that there is. ”

“ The whole being a fit emblem of what is going on in the other world of unclean spirits. Those forming the circle, kept going around shouting and kicking, with all the actions and paraphernalia of a clown in a pantomine, only not so dumb. ”

“ So they look down upon human life, of which they are ignorant. They see the exits and entrances of the players, something that they suspect is meant to be kept from them (for they think they are always liable to be imposed upon) : the petty pageant of an hour ends with each scene long before the catastrophe, and the tragedy of life is turned to farce under their eyes. These people laugh loud at a pantomime, and are delighted with clowns and pantaloons. They pay no attention to any thing else. The stage-boxes exist in contempt of the stage and common sense. ”

“ He laughed. “Yeh—but it just happens that I noticed there were no chevrons on Leon’s sleeve—and you’re a sergeant.” He laid his hand on my arm. “Laugh that off now!” he invited.
And I did try to laugh it off, ending with another little lie, to the effect that on the day referred to I happened to have on a new blouse which I had to take before the tailor got through with it.
“Say—do I look that dumb?” he demanded.
“No—you don’t look very dumb,” I admitted, “but you sure do talk dumb as hell.” ”

“ If any one in a play-house be so impertinent and rude as to rifle the actors of their borrowed clothes, make them lay down the character assumed, and force them to return to their naked selves, would not such a one wholly discompose and spoil the entertainment? And would he not deserve to be hissed and thrown stones at till the pragmatical fool could learn better manners? For by such a disturbance the whole scene will be altered: such as acted the men will perhaps appear to be women: he that was dressed up for a young brisk lover, will be found a rough old fellow ”

“ Oh, the dumber they come, the better I like 'em,
'Cause the dumb ones know how to make love.
The smart girl's speaking Greek and other languages too,
But the dumb girl's only language is, whose poochy-poochy is you?
Oh, the saps that I've met have won beauty prizes.
They look like angels sent from above.
You start as squeezing clever girls, you're soon on the shelf,
But when you're with dumb Doris you can just be yourself.
Oh, the dumber they come, the better I like 'em,
'Cause the dumb ones know how to make love.
Eddie Cantor
I deserve it. ”

“ Without the slightest premonitory symptoms there has been a rupture of the curtain, and the mysteries it so securely hid are most unexpectedly revealed. Seated upon wooden stools or reclining upon the rushes with which the stage is strewn, are a number of individuals composedly smoking long pipes, whom the unsophisticated might take for actors. Far from it; they are the perpetual bane of actors—wits and gallants, who delight in nothing so much as in exhibiting themselves for the public to admire, or confusing the actors by their pleasantries and disturbing the progress of the play. ”

“ And so it comes to this: immodesty is a part of the stock in trade of the play-house. There must be indecent exposure, else the foul crew that frequent the theater, and upon whose patronage it lives, will care nothing for its performances. In vain is the genius of [Pg 56] poets and authors! In vain are all the tinsel glories of the show! Even the play which is "as good as a sermon" will be a failure, and its lofty periods be declaimed to an empty house, unless modesty and honor are sacrificed to gratify the lowest passions of the most debased of human kind. ”

“ I replied; "I did not want a guide. I could have found the hut myself." [195]
"That is ungrateful," he said, in his dumb manner. "Did you not ask me?"
"If I asked you," I replied, "I did so for the sake of not passing you without a word; besides, I offered you money, and you refused it. I won't be under any obligation to you," said I. "Here, take your nuggets; I want them not," and I threw them at him. "I'll have nothing to do with one who feigns to be dumb in the daytime, and yet can talk well enough at night." ”

“ By the exhibition of folly and vice, in the persons of the actors and actresses, who are held up to ridicule and censure, a moral effect is produced on the audience, who retire from such a scene, where the absurdities of the human character have been exhibited to their view, infinitely more disgusted by them, than they ever felt when listening to the grave lecture of censure or condemnation from the pulpit. ”

“ The great populace of no society has ever found its amusement in purely intellectual suggestions. With us popular amusement is found in the circus, negro minstrels, the variety show, opera bouffe, the spectacle, and ballet, and it attaches to parody and burlesque, "knock-down business," buffoonery, and broad 573allusion. Stupidity is always funny. Everything which breaks over the social taboo is funny. ”

“ Scarcely had the rattling of the iron latch of the saddle-house apprised them of his arrival before every dumb brute—dumb, as dumb men say—experienced a cheerful change of mind, and began to pour into his ears the eager, earnest, gratifying tale of its rights and its wrongs. What honest voices as compared with the human—sometimes. ”

“ Nor was the belief in my possession of unlawful powers lessened by an incident which I will forthwith relate, although, truth to tell, I cannot explain it, nor do I think it to be any proof that there is aught amiss with me, or ever was. I believe that dumb beasts may be governed by motives of caprice, even as human beings are, and that they can take likes and dislikes and act upon them as stubbornly as their masters. ”

“ When they see it anew, how many people will be astounded at having formerly scoffed at the work and offended the master, struck dumb and secretly humiliated at having thus contributed to the writing of the hundred thousandth chapter of that endless book, the book of human stupidity. ”

“ When we speak of the stupidity and bad taste of the plays, we do not enumerate all the disadvantages of the theatre. As if every thing connected with the establishment were doomed to be of the same order, we find the players also exciting disgust in all well-regulated minds by the strange code of morality which they have been pleased to set up for themselves. ”

“ Now at the penny gaffs they go through a regular pantomime, consisting of from six to eight scenes, with jumps and all complete, as at a regular theatre; so that to do clown to one of them, you must be equal to those that come out at the regular theatres; and what’s more, you must strain every nerve; and what’s more still, you may often please at a regular theatre when you won’t go down at all at a penny gaff. The circus clown is as different from a penny-gaff clown as a coster is from a tradesman. ”

“ Do you suppose that even a villain in an amateur show would go to a ball with spiked shoes on?
Perkins (wearily) . But I still fail to see what is to spoil the rug. Does the villain set fire to the conservatory in this play, or does he assassinate the virtuous hero here and spill his gore on the floor?
Bradley. What a blood-and-thunder idea of the drama you have! Of course he doesn’t. There isn’t a death in the whole play, and it’s two hours long. One or two people in the audience may die while the play is going on, but people who haven’t strong constitutions shouldn’t attend amateur shows. ”

“ It is not, What will a theatrical audience do, when an actor is convicted in a court of justice of one of the worst of crimes that can be committed against the sanctity of domestic honour and happiness? but, What is such an audience accustomed to do, when a lewd or profane comedy—a comedy which is the abuse of the thing—a comedy which is the school of vice—is brought on the stage, and acted in their presence? ”

“ The indecency of these plays cannot be described. Men and women appeared naked on the stage. Unmentionable vices were boldly paraded. Buffoonery of the vilest description enhanced the finest strokes of burlesque sarcasm. Actors who created types which made the spirit of a nation live in effigy, condescended to tricks unworthy of a Yahoo. We have to accept the species, not as a branch of the legitimate drama, but as a carnival masquerade, in which humanity ran riot, jeering at its own indignities and foibles. ”

“ They do. And the absurd ferocity of such a demonstration will affect them more profoundly than the mangling of a whole street—or theatre—full of their own kind. To that last they can always say: ‘Oh! it’s mere class hate.’ But what is one to say to an act of destructive ferocity so absurd as to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, almost unthinkable; in fact, mad? Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it either by threats, persuasion, or bribes. Moreover, I am a civilised man. ”

“ It was, I believe, a rough and ready farce, like that preserved in Rabelais, where the Farce of the Dumb Woman is presented. The people want to laugh. What do they mostly laugh at? The discomfiture of some one in some way. Enter the Dumb Woman—she makes great business with her broom; she knocks down one man with it and hits another over the nose; both men complain and suffer pain and indignity. ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose that the matter of Comedy can ever fail. Though general characters may be exhausted, yet the prevailing follies and [Pg 26] fashions of the times, with the singularities starting up in particular ranks and orders of men, must constantly supply food for the ridicule of the stage. This is lawful game; and the pursuit of it is well worthy the encouragement of the public, so long as it is unattended with the licentiousness which disgraced the wit of the last age. Let ridicule be sacred to the interests of good sense and virtue ”

“ The spectator feels it to be fool's play, when he can distinguish the tedious common-place of each man's visage, with the perspiration and weary self-importance on it, and the very cut of his pantaloons, and the stiffness or laxity of his shirt-collar, and the dust on the back of his black coat. ”

“ Thus will the changeableness of men be demonstrated at the same time as their egoism. These puppets are monsters and these monsters puppets: my audience will not need to be told that ‘Il faut se hâter d’en rire de peur d’être obligé d’en pleurer.’”
So cruel a farce had never been seen. The public was accustomed in farces to two or three comic characters, to satire at the expense of two or three ridiculous types. Here was a caricature of all mankind. ”

“ Now we have found out where the dull, dumb deviates go. We had assumed that, as they grew up in small communities where they soon became obvious and odious, they took flight for the stage, the screen, interior decorating, exotic literature and other fields centered in the metropolitan market-places. That is not true. Only a few can and do enter the avenues where their talents make them equal, often superior. ”

“ The fool of our early plays denoted a mere idiot or natural, or else a witty hireling retained to make sport for his masters. The Clown was a character of more variety; sometimes he was a mere rustic; and, often, no more than a shrewd domestic. There are instances in which any low character in a play served to amuse with his coarse sallies, and thus became the Clown of the piece. In fact, the fool of the drama was a kind of heterogeneous being, copied in part from real life, but highly coloured in order to produce effect. ”

“ What I mean is, that the clothes inappropriate to the man make the incongruity of him and his part more apparent. Vulgarity is never so conspicuous as in fine apparel, on or off the stage, and never so self-conscious. Shall we have, then, no refined characters on the stage? Yes; but let them be taken by men and women of taste and refinement and let us have done with this masquerading in false raiment, ancient and modern, which makes nearly every stage a travesty of nature and the whole theatre a painful pretension. ”

“ Many of his adventures, indeed, are so droll that we can easily understand the great popularity they once enjoyed. But they are not merely amusing—they present a continuous satire upon contemporary society, upon a social condition in which every pretender, every reckless impostor, every private plunderer or public depredator, saw the world exposed to him in its folly and credulity as an easy prey. ”

“ They banged them hither and thither, shrieking with laughter when the inevitable destruction ensued, and making each miniature explosion an excuse for calling out the catchword of the evening—imported from a revue comedian whose methods, more or less successfully imitated by most of the young men on the stage, appeared to consist in the making of grotesque facial contortions:—“May—I—ask—you—politely—to—absquatulate?” ”

“ You may not know how to show nerve as a writer—in fact, you confess that you don't. How would you show nerve as a beggar? Would you strive to enforce your demands and degenerate into a common highwayman, or would you simply go in for big profits, and ask passers-by for ten dollars instead of ten cents?"
"He'd probably take a bag of dynamite into a millionaire's office and threaten to blow him to pieces if he didn't give him a house and lot," sneered the Bibliomaniac.
"Not at all," said the Idiot. "That's cowardice, not nerve. ”