Theatre company

“ If, on the other hand, you are listless and stare about the theatre, it is bound to rob the whole performance of freshness and spontaneity.
7. The Gilbert and Sullivan atmosphere, as I have said several times elsewhere, is "repose." This is impossible if every member of the company—and even [131] the leading principal himself—indulges in little mannerisms liable to take the audience's eye from the central point.
8. Never forget that a company, so far from being divided into principals and chorus, is really one big family, and success depends on one and all "pulling together." ”

“ If you make a success you pocket the profits; if you fail you close your theatre abruptly, and a benefit performance is organized in your behalf. Then you begin again. I am aware that some alterations were made in your play without your sanction. I did not make them myself, as I do not understand these things. I always leave the alterations in an author's dialogue to the stage-manager and company. I certainly consider myself an object of sympathy when a piece fails. I am not of opinion that I ought to be held responsible for the character of the entertainment I provide for the audience. ”

“ It is worth knowing that The Drama League of America is publishing, with the coöperation of Doubleday, Page & Company, an attractive series of Drama League Plays, in which good drama of the day, native and foreign, is offered the public at a cost which cuts in two the previous expense. And the Drama League's selective List of essays and books about the theatre, with which is incorporated a complete list of plays printed in English, can be procured for a nominal sum and will give the seeker after light a thorough survey of what is here touched upon in but a few salient particulars. ”

“ In fact, the manager often has to undo a great deal that his agent has done in a town, and to do over again much that the avant-courier had seemingly done in a satisfactory manner. The company, too, frequently find the way not so smooth or pleasant as the agent has represented it to be: the hall or theatre in which the performance is to be given is often a dingy, dismal place that is not only without conveniences of any kind, but what is worse, may not be proof against anything like demonstrative weather; the hotel fare is bad, and the accommodations no better ”

“ But I have it in my power to make it vastly more interesting than any theatre has ever been."
"You have a play?" the manager inquired; amending this, after another glance, to "You know of a play?"
"Play? No. I'm not troubling about plays," said the caller. "Plays—what are plays? No, I'm bringing you a live idea."
"But I don't wish to make any change in the style of my performances," said the manager. "If you're thinking of a new kind of entertainment for me—super-cinema, or that 'real revue' which authors are always threatening me with—I don't want it. ”

“ Yet the capitalised conditions of theatrical enterprise, which are in vogue in London and [Pg 125] New York, seem to render long runs imperative. The system of long runs is peculiar to English-speaking countries, where alone theatrical enterprise is altogether under the sway of capital. It is specifically prohibited in the national or municipal theatre of every great foreign city, where the interests of dramatic art enjoy foremost consideration.
The artistic aspiration of the actor-manager may be set on the opposite side of the account. ”

“ The principal patrons of private theatres are dirty boys, low copying-clerks, in attorneys’ offices, capacious-headed youths from city counting-houses, Jews whose business, as lenders of fancy dresses, is a sure passport to the amateur stage, shop-boys who now and then mistake their masters’ money for their own; and a choice miscellany of idle vagabonds. The proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-scene-painter, a low coffee-house-keeper, a disappointed eighth-rate actor, a retired smuggler, or uncertificated bankrupt. ”

“ We have not in this country any such obstacle to universal success as the Theatre Francais, but Providence has given us, for wise purposes no doubt, Private Theatricals (not always so private as they should be) , which domesticate the drama, and supply the stage with some of the most beautiful and best dressed performers the world has ever seen. ”

“ When that time comes—if it does come—one of the results will undoubtedly be a more flexible theatre, the growth of repertoire companies, the expansion of the activities of popular players. In a more flexible theatre, where repertoire is a rule rather than a strange and dreaded experiment, and where actors pride themselves on versatility and the public honors them for it, the one-act play will again have its place, but not then as a curtain raiser or afterpiece, to pad out an evening or "send the suburbs home happy," but as a serious branch of dramatic art. ”

“ The Proposers will, in this case, conducting the business under the dormant Patent above mentioned, bind themselves, that no theatrical entertainments, as plays, farces, pantomimes, or English operas, shall at any time be exhibited in this Theatre but for the general advantage of the Proprietors of the two other Theatres; the Proposers reserving to themselves any profit they can make of their building, converted to purposes distinct from the business of the Theatres. ”

“ As our experimental theatres increase in number—and they are increasing—it will probably play its part, and perhaps no insignificant a part, in the development of a national drama through the development of a local drama and the cultivation of a taste for self-expression in various communities. It is only when these experimental theatres are sufficient in number, and the amateur spirit has been sufficiently aroused in various communities, that the commercial theatre of tradition will be seriously influenced. ”

“ To do this, he must study out all the "business" of the play in advance of the rehearsals, so he will be able to direct intelligently. When a "star" is rehearsing, he generally directs the rehearsal, thus relieving the stage manager of a great responsibility; but he must be around, and see what is required for the play in the way of scenery and properties and make out complete and detailed plots for scene-men and property-men, and in this particular case where the theatre furnished the actors with all wardrobes (except modern clothes) , the stage manager had also to make out a costume plot. ”

“ But when all is said and done, the success of a one-act play is judged not by its conformity to any set (p. xx) of hard and fast rules, but by its power to interest, enlighten, and hold an audience.
THEATRES OF TO-DAY
THE COMMERCIAL THEATRE AND THE REPERTORY IDEA
The term "Commercial Theatre" is rarely used without disparagement. The critic or the playwright who speaks of the Commercial Theatre usually does so either for the purpose of reflecting on the cheapness of the entertainment afforded, or in order to call attention to spectacular receipts. ”

“ When, a few years later, the organised opposition to the original theatre trust grew to such dimensions as to become in fact a second trust, it could carry on its campaign only by building a new chain of theatres to house its productions in those cities whose already existing theatres were in the hands of the original syndicate. ”

“ We were, and are, a collection of many individuals—actors, authors, artists, and art-lovers—all fired with the sincere desire to give to playgoers something they had not been able previously to find on the American stage. And our desire has been strong enough to face and fight, and to continue to face and fight, the ever-growing, ever-changing problems of finance, art, and human inter-relations, which are the inescapable factors of the theatre. ”

“ While an actor of abilities performs upon the two Stages of Drury-lane and Covent-garden under the patents of the proprietors of those Theatres (as I have before observed) , the courtesy of the world, or their own pretensions, dignifies them with the appellations of Gentlemen and even Esquires; but let the same men only step on the stage of a theatre opened without a patent or licence, and he instantly becomes a rogue and vagabond. ”

“ As nearly every manager has a literary adviser behind his back, so almost every actor-manager has a syndicate in the background. Theatrical syndicates are strange institutions. They have only come into vogue since 1880, and are taken up by commercial gentlemen as a speculation. When gambling ceases to attract on the Stock Exchange, the theatre is an exciting outlet. ”

“ As a means of supplying drama to America as a whole our commercialized professional theatre has broken down. The reasons need not concern us here. They are many, no doubt. One, of course, is the rise of the motion pictures, which are cheaper to present and to witness, 57and which enable the local theatre manager to keep his house open six or seven days in the week. ”

“ Next the art theatre must correct the evils of the commercialized theatre with its destructive practice of creating and exploiting “stars.” The real art of the theatre, he thinks, must be established thru the development of fixed local playhouses with resident companies dedicated to repertory production of the best that dramatic art has to offer.
“As a man of experience and vision, he does not fall into the error of trying to ‘uplift’ the commercial theater. It can’t be done, and he knows it.” ”

“ These two instances show that the necessity of economising the attention of an audience is just as important to the stage-manager as it is to the dramatist and the actor. In the main, it may be said that any unexpected innovation, any device of stage-management that is by its nature startling, should be avoided in the crucial situations of a play. ”

“ Here, as nowhere in England or America and only here or there in France, were theaters directed by a single mind, employing a permanent company of players, maintaining a repertory of plays, old and new, given in recurring succession night after night, theaters retaining therefore a permanent audience, dependable both in pocketbook and in taste. Supplementing these theaters were organizations of playgoers among the middle and lower classes, such as the Freie Volksbühne in Berlin, which widened the audience of subscribers to good work in the theater. ”

“ We found that even amateurs who acted for charities were forced to take one of the licensed theatres, so leaving but little profit for the charity. There were suggestions made of forming a society like the Stage Society in London, to give performances to its members only, but this would not have been a fit beginning for the National Theatre of our dreams. ”

“ Although the essays vary in quality and some companies are more extensively treated in separate studies, American Theatre Companies is the fullest single compendium of information on American theater companies. ”

“ An accepted tradition of the modern stage ordains that every revival of a Shakespearean play at a leading theatre shall base some part of its claim to public favour on its spectacular magnificence.
The dramatic interest of Shakespearean drama is, [Pg 3] in fact, deemed by the manager to be inadequate to satisfy the necessary commercial purposes of the theatre. The average purveyor of public entertainment reckons Shakespeare's plays among tasteless and colourless commodities, which only become marketable when they are reinforced by the independent arts of music and painting. ”

“ Je voudrais qu'il y eût un théâtre digne de la France, pour les célèbres poètes morts qui l'out honorée; puis un théâtre pour les auteurs vivants. Il faudrait encore un théâtre pour le grand opéra, un autre pour l'opéra-comique. Je subventionnerais magnifiquement ces quatre théâtres.
Les théâtres livrés à l'industrie personnelle sont toujours forcés à une certaine parcimonie. Une pièce coûte cent mille francs à monter: ils reculeront; vous, vous ne reculerez pas. Un grand acteur met à haut prix ses prétentions: un théâtre libre pourrait marchander et le laisser échapper ”

“ The rear [Pg 58] is brought up with a large staff of cooks, water-carriers, etc., whose duty it is to provide for the material comfort of the players in their vagrant life.
Aside from the regular theatrical companies one frequently meets with companies of amateurs who have inherited the art of giving performances on a small scale called “a little theatre.” They are young farmers who delight in the change and excitement of stage life, and who after the crops are harvested are open to engagements until the spring work begins. ”

“ The question, then, upon a full view of our situation, appears to be, whether the Proprietors of the present Theatres will contentedly wait till some other person takes advantage of the prevailing wish for a Third Theatre, or, having the remedy in their power, profit by a turn of fashion which they cannot control. ”

“ Her dramatic talent was already well known in fashionable private circles. At the conclusion of the round of readings given in New York and vicinity, she received a proposal from a theatrical manager to go upon the stage. For nine years she was a prime favorite with the American theatre-going public, and almost as popular abroad. ”

“ This theatre has taken the lead in getting up every thing novel, in either branch of the drama, and that in a style very much superior to any other establishment of the kind upon the continent. It must be evident that it is the wish, as it is 161 the interest of the manager, to conduct the trust committed to him upon the most liberal principles: that which pleases the public most, is most favourable to him. ”

“ In this country the Commercial Theatre stands for that form of big business in the theatrical world that produces dividends on the money invested comparable to those earned by the most prosperous of the large industries. ”