Entertainment

“ In the reflected light of the interest and enthusiasm of his audience, events took on a new glow of entertainment and adventure and success where they had seemed to be just work and risk and routine at the time. ”

“ This Entertainment pleases me so much the better, because it diverts vain and frivolous Discourse, and affords Matter of profitable Conversation: I am not of their Mind, who think no Entertainment diverting, that does not abound with foolish wanton Stories, and bawdy Songs. There is pure Joy springs from a clear and pure Conscience ”

“ Entertainment, apart from its special senses of a public performance or a social party, and predominantly even there, is used of somewhat mirthful mental delight; recreation may, and usually does, combine the mental with the physical. Amusement and pastime are nearly equivalent, the latter probably the lighter word; many slight things may be pastimes which we should hardly dignify by the name of amusements. ”

“ The loafers, the small customers, the gossipers, the lovers, the innocent fun makers, all have parts. There is a graceful plot that gathers interest as the play proceeds and culminates in a brilliant climax. Unquestionably the greatest success as a popular entertainment. ”

“ Millions upon millions of men, women and children all over the world look upon this form of entertainment as their principal recreation and, incidentally, are being unconsciously educated to understand and appreciate the higher forms of art. ”

“ To give genuine and wholesome entertainment is a very large function of the stage, and [92] without that entertainment very many lives would lose a stimulus of the highest value. If recreation of every legitimate kind is invaluable to the worker, especially so is the recreation of the drama, which brightens his faculties, enlarges his vision of the picturesque, and by taking him for a time out of this work-a-day world, braces his sensibilities for the labors of life. The art which does this may surely claim to exercise more than a fleeting influence upon the world's intelligence. ”

“ And herein the proper entertainment, which comic representation, as such, administers to the mind, consists. By turning the thought on event and action, this entertainment is proportionably lessened; that is, the end of comedy is less perfectly attained4. 38
But here, again, though action be not the main object of comedy, yet it is not to be neglected, any more than character in tragedy, but comes in as an useful accessary, or assistant to it. For the manners of men only shew themselves, or shew themselves most usually, in action. ”

“ Art is the response to the demand for entertainment, for the stimulation of our senses and imagination, and truth enters into it only as it subserves these ends. ”

“ Roughly, the entertainment may be divided into two sections, the one concerned with feats of strength, juggling, and the like, and the other with laughter-making and vocalism. As regards the first of these sections, a man who can balance a horse and trap on the end of his chin appears to give great satisfaction to an English audience. ”

“ In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up. ”

“ For the crown which at present purchases a night’s entertainment at the theatre to one member of a family—an entertainment partly childish, perhaps, and almost certain to be somewhat immoral—that whole family can be supplied for a whole month with the best literary productions of the day from a circulating library, or it can purchase a single volume, which not only gives it rational entertainment and instruction for several nights, but remains a constant and ready instrument for repeating this entertainment and instruction whenever it is required. ”

“ Books for children, if we may add our word to the annual discussion, are still superior in one way—they have to be interesting. Perhaps entertaining is the better word—for entertainment is true nourishment, and only a small mind conceives entertainment as trivial. ”

“ They will find a much more elegant entertainment than they expected. Instead of making them a bill of fare out of patchwork romances of polluting scandal, the good old gentleman who wrote the Adventures of my Life, has made it his business to treat them with a great variety of entertaining passages, which always terminate in morals that tend to the edification of all readers, of [Pg ii] whatsoever sex, age, or profession. ”

“ Nor is the character of the entertainments provided for them in the present age, of a much higher class than those of the time now under notice. Jugglers, inferior in skill, if we may judge from old drawings, to those who amused our ancestors; learned animals; rope-dancers; itinerant singers; stage-plays, in the literal sense of the word; and on the Continent, scripture pieces are yet performed, [15] as they were in this country, (though perhaps in the shape of a puppetshow,) during the last Century. ”

“ Her next solicitude was to furnish herself with a well-chosen collection of books: and this employment, which to a lover of literature, young and ardent in its pursuit, is perhaps the mind's first luxury, proved a source of entertainment so fertile and delightful that it left her nothing to wish. ”

“ Doubtless there have been many amusements invented by the benefactors of our species—society, games, music, public entertainments, books; and in a well-chosen round of these, many contrive to pass their time in a tolerable flow of satisfaction. ”

“ For centuries one of the recognized amusements of the English people was to see men hanged, and the leading features of the entertainment were modified from time to time to please a popular taste. Dr. ”

“ Whether owing to the want of legislative enactments, which might encourage literary men in writing for the theatre, or to some other cause, our dramatic entertainments are now of a character much beneath or behind the age. Our acting plays are either the old stock, displeasing us with the exhibition of obsolete vices; or modern trash, full of exaggerated character and sentiment, [Pg 215] trusting for success, perhaps, to romantic scenery and machinery ”

“ It is most perfectly typified in play and sport, but includes many other forms of human interest and activity, such, for instance, as the enjoyment of music, of the drama and of other forms of fine art, the reading of fiction, and countless other kinds of amusement and entertainment not commonly included under the terms play or sport. ”

“ In amateur theatricals!’
“I turned away. Amateur theatricals! More heart-burning and disappointment has been caused by those abominable entertainments than their misguided originators will ever realise.
“ ‘But don’t think I’m relying on that.’ The girl was speaking again, and I almost laughed. ”

“ I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. ”

“ Some play with a certain natural passion, an unstudied directness, without grace, without modulation, with no study of the masters or consciousness of the pervading spirit of the plot; others gives all their thought to their costume and think only of the audience; a few act as those who have mastered the secrets of a serious art, with deliberate subordination of themselves to the great end and motive of the play, spending themselves like good servants, indulging no wilfulness, obtruding no eccentricity, lending heart and tone and gesture to the perfect progress of the action. ”

“ Taken all in all, the sounding profession, the bustling search, and the studied concealment, make a drama, half comedy and half tragedy, the like of which this generation has not seen till now, but the like of which it and its successors may see many times, if the audience does not hiss the play, and remit the actors to the streets. ”

“ The play begins; with the deepest earnestness the audience listen, and, crowded as they are, preserve the utmost quiet. The glorious drama scene by scene unfolds itself, and passage by passage we recognise the beauties of our great poet. ”

“ To our eyes the legitimate drama of to-day is the one in which the day is reflected, both in costume and speech, and which touches the affections, the passions, the humor, of the present time. The brilliant success of the few good plays that have been written out of the rich life which we now live—the most varied, fruitful, and dramatically suggestive—ought to rid us forever of the buskin-fustian, except as a pantomimic or spectacular curiosity. ”

“ Nor may any purpose be more perfectly served than the purpose of true social recreation. Here we find those skilled in music, versed in literature, adept at conversation; we find the practical joker, the proficient at games, and last, but not least, those "born to serve" tables. This variety of genius, of wit, of skill, of willingness to serve, is laid at the altar of pleasure for the worthy purpose of making new again the weary body, the languishing spirit, the lonely heart. ”

“ We makers of plays, your grace, often have but a small part in our own contrivances. Many a time have I devised a play in the spirit of comedy, but it is ever the characters themselves who spin the plot. ”

“ Now step aside, look upon life as a disinterested spectator: many a drama will turn into a comedy. It is enough for us to stop our ears to the sound of music, in a room where dancing is going on, for the dancers at once to appear ridiculous. ”

“ He that beholds with understanding eyes can see beneath the thin veil of the commonplace, the romance, the tragedy and the broad comedy that is being played upon the world’s stage by the actors great and little who tread the boards of the Theater of the Universe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Well, go to him, and he will tell you that the way to make a play a success is to keep the playgoers interested in it from scene to scene, and the best way to do this is to tell them only a little of the story at one time. Now, sir, consider that this scene is the beginning of a comedy—maybe it will turn out a tragedy before we have done with it—but this is the first scene; keep your eyes and your ears open, and you will find it worth your while. By the Lord, there they come at last! Curse it! the girl is getting lovelier every day—every day! Such beauty is enough to make any man mad. ”

“ I like the bubbling play of wit, the chesty laughs, the resonant voices of men, when, glass in hand, they shut the grey world outside and prod their brains with the fun and folly of an accelerated pulse. ”

“ To this I reply that I had found recreation and amusement in their society for many years, that I enjoyed the opportunity of seeing my plays acted by such clever artists, and also that my temper inclines me to endure many inconveniences rather than break old habits. ”

“ His comedies offer elaborate and subtle—even tender—pictures of human character in its eternal types, lively sketches of social follies and literary extravagances, and broad appeals to the ordinary sources of vulgar merriment. Light and perspicuous in construction, he is master of the delicate play of irony, the penetrating force of wit, and the expansive gaiety of frolicsome fun. ”

“ These traps of scene, of situation, of climax, of acts and tableaux or of whatever they are, require to be set and adjusted with the utmost nicety and skill so that they will spring at the precise instant and in the precise manner to seize and hold the admiration—sympathy—interest—or whatever they may be intended to capture, of an audience. ”

“ But is pleasure all that we expect to find? What we should look for above everything in a comedy or a drama is a representation, exact as possible, of the manners and characters of the dramatis persona of the play ”

“ The sort of fiction which corresponds in literature to the circus and the variety theatre in the show-business seems essential to the spiritual health of the masses, but the most cultivated of the classes can get on, from time to time, without an artistic novel. ”

“ Then, where the play is so subtle and elaborate as to require a life's work, as in the great social function of the drama, we have people devoting their time to that form of expression, though they may seek their own recreation in other lines. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our amusements, though undertaken without judgment, and carried on without instruction, were not without their use to us. We trained our memories and persons, and acquired more dexterity in speech and gesture than is usually met with at so early an age. But, for me in particular, this time was in truth an epoch: my mind turned all its faculties exclusively to the theatre; and my highest happiness was in reading, in writing, or in acting, plays. ”

“ In comedy we have a vision of the victory of the intrinsically assured stability of the wholly personal soul-life, the laughter of which resolves everything through the medium and into the medium of such life. ”

“ If, then, acting be alike without the creating power and the enduring property, which are at once the highest faculty of art, and its most beneficial purpose, what becomes of it when ranked with efforts displaying both in the highest degree? To me it seems no art, [79] but merely a highly rational, [Pg 219] interesting, and exciting amusement; and I think men may as well, much better, perhaps, spend three hours in a theatre than in a billiard or bar-room,—and this is the extent of my approbation and admiration of my art. ”