Showman

“ At first, I scarcely liked my function as showman, but, like all my other experiences in life, habit sufficed to reconcile me, and I took to the occupation as though I had been born to it If now and then some rude or vulgar traveller would ruffle my temper by some illiterate remark or stupid question, I was well repaid by intercourse with a different stamp. ”

“ In a tale dealing with this period of the dissolving view—when in changing from one slide of the lantern to the other the Master Showman has permitted us a little glimpse of hurrying, heroic figures and dazzled us with the clouds of great deeds swiftly done—the teller must adopt one of two methods. He must either generalize, or be content to spend his space on single episodes. In that period, every day was a book. Men counted as nothing experiences filled with an excitement or a pathos or a beauty intense enough to render significant the whole life of a quiet New Englander. ”

“ A certain long-winded gentleman, who had been chosen to act as showman, not being advised that the holding of a pose for more than a minute is a very difficult feat, held forth at such length that the characters wobbled. ”

“ But I shall by no means claim entire faultlessness in my history as a showman. I confess that I have not always been strong enough to rise out of the exceptional ways which characterize the art of amusing—not more, however, than any other art of trade. ”

“ It was as if he were watching a tall stranger with a wand pointing to the embarrassed phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly exposing its frailties! And yet the pitiless showman was himself too—himself as he wanted to be, cheerful, brave, resourceful, indomitable. ”

“ These are but a few of the many sides of the problem of what is called "laying out a show." A command of the art of balancing a show is a part of the genius of a great showman. It is a gift. It cannot be analyzed. A born showman lays out his bill, not by rule, but by feeling.
3. The Writer's Part in a Vaudeville Show
In preparing the raw material from which the manager makes up his show, the writer may play many parts. He may bear much of the burden of entertainment, as in a playlet, or none of the responsibility, as in the average dumb act. ”

“ One of them afterward told a policeman that they could fight any gang of showmen that ever traveled, but when a horse commenced to unload on them with a cannon, he knew it was time to quit.
XI
STORIES OF OLD-TIME SHOWS AND SHOWMEN
Nothing can afford a better idea of the variety and picturesqueness of a showman's life than the medley of odd incidents, of strange experiences and homely happenings that crowd the thought of a veteran when in a reminiscent mood. ”

“ At a high rate was to be reckoned the daily and hourly enjoyment of such interviews as the present, in which he seized upon the admiration of a passing stranger, and made him aware that a man of literary taste, and even of literary achievement, was travelling the country in a showman’s wagon. ”

“ If some ready-witted member of the party will undertake to act as showman, and exhibit the giant, holding a lively conversation with him, and calling attention to his gigantic idiosyncrasies, a great deal of fun may be produced. ”

“ It one could really be a spectator, a mere spectator, of what is passing in the world around us, without taking part in the events, or sharing in the passions and the actual performance on the stage; if we could sit ourselves down, as it were, in a private box of the world's great theatre, and quietly look on at the piece which is playing, no more moved than is absolutely implied by sympathy with our fellow-creatures, what a curious, what an amusing, what an interesting spectacle would life present! ”

“ The curtain rose again, and I approached my audience with a smile on my lips. I judged of this change in my face by those of my spectators, for they began all at once to share my good humor.
How many times since have I tried this imitative faculty on the part of the public? If you are anxious, ill-disposed, or vexed, or should your face bear the stamp of any annoying impression, your audience, straightway imitating the contraction of your features, begins to frown, grows serious, and ill-disposed to be favorable to you. ”

“ Some little Pleasure-Skiff, that doth on Thames's waters float.
The Show-man chuses well his place, 'tis Leicester's busy Square;
And he's as happy in his night, for the heavens are blue and fair;
Calm, though impatient is the Crowd; Each is ready with the fee,
And envies him that's looking—what an insight must it be!
Yet, Show-man, where can lie the cause? Shall thy Implement have
blame,
A Boaster, that when he is tried, fails, and is put to shame? 10
Or is it good as others are, and be their eyes in fault? ”

“ You are an actor. I am an actor. Come with me to a meeting at which I am to make a speech and I will show you a real-life drama truer than ever you will see or hear on the stage. The audience would kill me if they dare. ”

“ Both actors and audience, contemplated from the pit of a theatre, look better than when seen in the boxes and behind the scenes. I like to contemplate society in this way occasionally, and to dress it up by the help of fancy, to my own taste. When I get in the midst of it, it is too apt to lose its charm, and then there is the trouble and ennui of being obliged to take an active part in the farce; but to be a mere spectator is amusing. ”

“ Meanwhile, the Spectator, whom we regard as our shelter from that flood of false wit and impertinence which was breaking in upon us, is in every one's hand, and a constant topick for our morning conversation at tea-tables and coffeehouses. We had at first, indeed, no manner of notion, how a diurnal paper could be continued in the spirit and style of our present Spectators [14] ; but, to our no small surprise, we find them still rising upon us, and can only wonder from whence so prodigious a run of wit and learning can proceed ”

“ The choice of the one or of the other must be determined by the temperament of the actor, and in an equal measure by the response he receives from the temper of his audience. Speaking only for myself, I may frankly say that the greatest impressions I have received in the theatre have been made upon me by performers who never left me for a moment to imagine they were not themselves; but who, without greatly striving to realise the external attributes of the characters they were presenting, have succeeded in the power of constantly identifying themselves with the culminating passions of life. ”

“ I had felt myself an actor in a drama, and now I had very much the feeling an actor would have who answers to a cue and finds himself in mid-stage with the scenery and the rest of the cast suddenly vanished behind him. ”

“ Moreover, I cannot conceive a more accommodating audience for a conjuror’s devices, nor indeed a much more ridiculous spectacle, than a company of ladies and gentlemen, prepared for something out of the common, sitting exactly as the exhibitor himself has disposed them, credulous, if not already half-convinced, in a state of breathless expectation, squeezed together in the dark. ”

“ The audience, panting, all in a heat, gesticulates and howls. All the faces are as red as if a fire were burning within their bodies. They crowd each other, hustle each other to get out—the men without hats, the women without mantles! ”

“ The audience, which will probably largely consist of the relations of the performers, will be just as pleased whatever happens, and so will every child-lover who is looking on. So will the actors, whose enjoyment is assured if they are acting and dressing up. And the spectator who does not like seeing their enjoyment does not deserve to have any himself, so we need not take him into account. ”

“ As great a favourite as you are at present with the audience, you would be much more so were they acquainted with your private character, could they see you laying out great part of the profits which arise to you from entertaining them so well, in the support of an aged father; did they see you, who can charm them on the stage with personating the foolish and vicious characters of your sex, acting in real life the part of the best wife, the best daughter, the best sister, and the best friend. ”

“ Hence the match—the harmony—between the words and the personality—though it may exist, is apt not to be nearly so effective in the book as on the stage, and a line that misses its mark as written in the one may triumph in the other, thanks to the man who speaks it—to his skill, to his emotional power, not seldom, and especially in comedy, even to his personal appearance. In a word the independence of dialogue on the stage is qualified by its dependence on the actor. ”

“ Prior to the enactment, and for the benefit of those in the audience who might be innocent of French, a British officer gave out the motif in English.
As I sat contentedly in my place—the burden of the wearinesses of the last weeks fallen from my shoulders—it was borne in upon me that much of the success of a play is in the eager and receptive mood of the audience; also that in the naïve freshness [61] of an amateur performance is a charm which has too frequently perished in the more finished production of the professional actor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have often been greatly amused with watching the faces of an audience who were listening to a well-told story, some eagerly leaning forward, others smoking their pipes with quicker puffs, when something extraordinary was related, or when the hero of the story had got into some apparently inextricable dilemma. ”

“ Imprisoned in a flattened universe bounded by the screen of the spectacle that has enthralled him, the spectator knows no one but the fictitious speakers who subject him to a one-way monologue about their commodities and the politics of their commodities. The spectacle as a whole serves as his looking glass. ”

“ And it was peculiarly interesting to me, because the argument touched upon problems in the actor’s art that I have always thought to be profoundly significant. How far may the personality of the performer intrude itself in the presentation of the chosen character, and to what extent are assumption and disguise part of the indispensable equipment of the artist? These are questions which every generation is apt to raise in regard to its popular favourites upon the stage. ”

“ Spectator, 'I am Young, and very much inclin'd to follow the Paths of Innocence: but at the same time, as I have a plentiful Fortune, and of Quality, I am unwilling to resign the Pleasures of Distinction, some little Satisfaction in being Admired in general, and much greater in being beloved by a Gentleman, whom I design to make my Husband. ”

“ But on the other hand, the impression which this representation of character makes upon the mind, is on the whole much more profound, and the interest which the spectator takes in the circumstances in which the character is placed, is much greater when the actor is so wholly under the influence of the feelings which the situation of the part ought to excite, as never to betray any emotion which can weaken that general effect which this situation would naturally produce. ”

“ Spectator,—As you are spectator general, I apply myself to you in the following case, viz.: I do not wear a sword, but I often divert myself at the theatre, when I frequently see a set of fellows pull plain people, by way of humour and frolic, by the nose, upon frivolous or no occasion. ”

“ Until then a piece was often nothing more than a star actor planted well in the front of the stage, taking his time and prolonging his effects, and behind him a dozen or so nonentities mumbling mere odds and ends of dialogue and addressing themselves to the back of their more famous colleague. ”

“ The spectator in a theatre expects to see a character pretended, and knows that what he sees is make-believe, not real. A spectator in real life, chosen to be duped, expects no such thing, and is therefore ready to take a pretence for what it purports to be. ”

“ I have known actors so devoted to their art that they treat every incident, however trivial, as a matter of theatrical importance, and impose on every acquaintance the rôle of a spectator. They grasp your hand with that fervour which warms the heart of the gallery, and take leave of a lady with glances such as melt the stalls. ”

“ But to us the spirit’s becoming has shown itself to be the very negation of this distinction between actor and spectacle, so that in saying that the actor is his own spectator we cannot introduce, within the unity in which we had taken refuge, the dualism which is excluded from the concept of the spirit. ”

“ Sometimes, too, an actor will appear on the stage, or come amongst the audience with a message for one or a group of them, but only the few can see him, and his message is not always intelligible to them. ”

“ The orator holds his audience spell bound apparently, by his splendid eloquence; the whole audience which may consist of several thousands are moved by one great emotion. Every pulse beats as one; only one feeling pervades that vast assembly—perfect union of thought with the speaker. He is exercising a spell over the multitude powerful as that of the magician. ”

“ On the other hand, it is by no means certain that, if the choice of a stage for our performance were offered to the most contented among us, we should be satisfied to speak our parts and go through our actor's business upon the boards of this world. ”