PROMENADES WITH PANTALOON
Broadway playwright—one who possesses the ability to compress the most interesting episodes in several characters’ lifetimes into two uninteresting hours.
The art of emotional acting, on Broadway, consists in expressing (1)doubtorpuzzlement, by scratching the head; (2)surprise, by taking a sudden step backwards; (3)grief, by turning the back to audience and bowing head; (4)determination(if standing), by thrusting handkerchief back into breast pocket, brushing hair back from fore-head with a quick sweep of hand and buttoning lower button of sack coat; (5)determination(if seated), by looking fixedly at audience for a moment and then suddenly standing up; (6)despair, by rumpling hair, sinking upon sofa, reaching over to table, pouring out stiff drink of whiskey and swallowing it at one gulp; (7)impatience, by walking quickly up stage, then down, taking cigarette from case, lighting it and throwing it immediately into grate, walking back up stage again and then down; (8)relief, by taking deep breath, exhaling quickly and mopping off face with handkerchief; and (9)fear, by having smeared face with talcum powder!
The leading elements in the Broadway humour, in the order of their popularity: (1) speculationas to how the Venus de Milo lost her arms, and (2) what she was doing with them when she lost them.
Broadway actors may in the main be divided into two groups; those who pronounce it burgular and those whom one cannot hear anyway back of the second row.
The Syllogism of the Broadway Drama
1. Someone loves someone.
2. Someone interposes.
3. Someone is outwitted, someone marries someone, and someone gets two dollars.
Such critics as contend that literature is one thing and drama another, are apparently of the notion that literature is something that consists mainly of long words and allusions to Châteaubriand, and drama something that consists mainly of monosyllables and allusions to William J. Burns.
The test supreme of all acting is the coincidental presence upon the stage of a less competent actress who is twice as good-looking.
A Thumb-nail Critique—The plays which, in the last two decades, have in the United States made the most money: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Way Down East,” “The Old Homestead,” “Ben Hur,” and “Peg o’ My Heart.” The plays which, in the last two decades, have, in the United States, made the least money: “The Thunderbolt,” “Strife,”“The Three Daughters of M. Dupont,” “The Incubus,” and “General John Regan.”
The unities of the Belasco drama: Time, place and (legal) action.
Constructive critic: One who builds up the newspaper’s theatrical advertising revenue.
The producers of our two-dollar music shows are rapidly gobbling up all the vaudeville actors. This will immeasurably help vaudeville.
The circuses will soon go into winter quarters. They cannot compete with the Drama Leagues.
The world may be divided thus: actors and dramatic critics. The only difference between them is that the former do their acting on a platform.
Shakespeare’s plays fall into two distinct groups: Those written by Shakespeare and those acted by Beerbohm Tree.
Dramatic criticism: The theory that one is more interested in the devices with which a woman makes herself beautiful—cold creams, mascaro, false hair, eyebrow pencils, lip rouge, face powder, dental floss, whale-bone, curl papers, et cetera—than in the beautiful woman herself.
Something seemingly never remembered by dramatists when writing love scenes: the more a young woman really loves a man the less talkative, the more silent, she is in his presence.... Only women over thirty are chatty before the object of their affection.
The proficient actor is one who can completely immerse his own personality in the rôle he is playing. The star actor is one who can completely immerse the rôle he is playing in his own personality.
Although it may have absolutely nothing to do with the case, I yet believe that, in a romantic stage rôle, no actress can possibly be convincing or persuasive if she is able in private life to eat tripe, chicken livers, calves’ brains or a thick steak.
Maurice Donnay, the talented gentleman of Gallic dramatic letters, observes, “The French dramatists treat of love because it is the only subject which every member of the audience understands, and a dramatist must, of course, appeal to the masses.” Which, in another way, may account for the great appeal and success in America of crook plays.
When a critic refers to a male actor’s “authority,” the betting odds are generally thirty to one that what he has done is to mistake for that quality the aforesaid actor’sembonpoint.
Mr. George P. Goodale, a good citizen and an honest taxpayer, was lately accorded a great banquet in honor of his fifty years of continuous service as dramatic critic to theDetroit Free Press. At the banquet, it was said, repeated, and emphasized that, in all his half-century as a critic of the drama, Mr. Goodale had never made a single enemy. Where, than in this banquet and its import, a smarter satire on the American notion of what constitutes dramatic criticism?
The hero of a Broadway play may not be bald. This would seem, in the Broadway drama, to be the first rule of heroism and, with heroism, of intelligence and appeal. So, Julius Caesar, Bismarck, George Washington, Napoleon and Shakespeare would be low villains.
It is a favourite challenge of the average Broadway playwright to the dramatic critic that if the latter knows so much about plays, why doesn’t he write one himself. The same question might be asked of the average Broadway playwright.
The financial success of the Broadway play is conditioned on the proportion of theatergoers who believe that singeing keeps the hair from falling out and that the American Indians were accustomed to use the word “heap” before every adjective. The last season was the most successful Broadway has known in years.
It took Molière and Sheridan, as it now takes Shaw and Bahr, years to fashion their comedies. And yet, when all is said and done, what is funnier, what provokes a louder laughter, than the mere articulation of the name Gustav?
Literature is an art wherein one observes the effects of the thematic action upon the protagonist’s mind. Drama is an art wherein one observes the effects of the thematic action upon the protagonist’s heart. Burlesque is an art wherein one observes the effects of the thematic action upon the protagonist’s trousers-seat.
“Trying it on the dog”—a phrase referring to the trying out of a play in the provinces before bringing it into the metropolis. In other words, testing the effect of the play upon an intelligent community to predetermine, by its lack of success there, its subsequent prosperity in New York.
The so-called “laughs” in an American musical show must, if they would “get over,” be devised in such a manner and constructed of such basic materials that they shall be within the scope of the intelligence of persons who can neither read nor write. This is why nine-tenths of the persons in a Broadway audience fall out of their chairs with mirth when anybody on the stage refers to whiskers as alfalfa or when a character is named the Duc de Gorgonzola.
Royalties.—The percentage of the gross receiptswhich playwrights get from producers, after lawsuits.
The critic who believes that such a thing as a repertory company is artistically possible believes that a dozen modern actors, assembled into one group, are sufficiently talented and skilled to interpret satisfactorily a dozen plays. The critic who does not believe that such a thing as a repertory company is artistically possible knows that a dozen modern actors, assembled into one group, are insufficiently talented and skilled to interpret satisfactorily even one play.
It is the custom in many New York theaters to ring a bell in the lobby so as to warn the persons congregated there that the curtain is about to go up on the next act and that it is time for them to go back into the theater. But it still remains for an enterprising impresario to make a fortune by ringing a bell in the theater so as to warn the persons congregated there that the curtain is about to go up on the next act and that it is time for them to go back into the lobby!
Farces fall into two classes: Those in which the leading male character implores “Let me explain!” and the leading female character tartly replies, “That’s the best thing you do,” and those in which the leading male character’s evening dress socks have white clocks on them.
Mr. Florenz Ziegfeld succeeds with his showsbecause he addresses his chief appeal to the eye. Mr. George M. Cohan succeeds with his because he addresses his chief appeal to the ear. The impresarios of the Fourteenth Street burlesque shows succeed with theirs because they address their chief appeal to the nose.
The one big ambition of nine out of every ten American playwrights is, in the argot of the theater, to “get over the footlights.” The one big ambition of nine out of every ten audiences is exactly the same!
Most so-called optimistic comedies are based on the theory that a cup of coffee improves in proportion to the number of lumps of sugar one puts into it.
Opening Night.—The night before the play is ready to open.
The chief dramatic situation in “The Road to Happiness” consists of a hero who, with hand on hip pocket, defies the assembled villains to advance as much as an inch at peril of their lives and who, having thus held them at bay, proceeds to pull out a handkerchief, flick his nostril and make his getaway. The chief comic situation in “Arizona,” produced many years ago, consisted of the same thing, save that a whiskey flask or plug of tobacco—I forget which—was used in place of a nose-doily. Thus, little boys and girls, has our serious drama advanced.
Derivations
First-Nighter.—FromFürst(German for “prince”) and the English wordnitre(KNO3: a chemical used in the manufacture of gunpowder); hence, a prince of gunpowder, or, in simpler terms, someone who makes a lot of noise.
Manager.—From the Anglo-Saxon word “manger,” the “a” having been deleted in order that the word might be shortened, and so used more aptly for purposes of swearing.Managerthus comes from “manger,” something which provides fodder for the jackasses in the stalls.
Practically speaking, it is reasonable to believe that the public doesn’t want gloom in the theater not because it is gloom, not because of the gloom itself, but for the very good reason that gloom isn’t generally interesting. Let a playwright make gloom as interesting as happiness and the public will want it theatrically. But the gloom of the drama is, more often than not, uninteresting gloom. In illustration: Take two street-corner orators. Suppose both are talking, one a block away from the other, on precisely the same topic. It is a gloom topic. For instance, the question of the large number of starving unemployed. One of the orators hammers away at his audience with melancholy statistics and all the other depressing elements of his subject. The other, equally serious, makes his points, not alone as does the first orator with blue figures, but with light comparisons and saucy illustrations. Which is the more interesting? Which gets the larger crowd? Which convinces? Take a second and correlated illustration.Two weekly magazines print articles on, let us say, the work of organized charity in its attempt to relieve the community’s paupers. In itself, not particularly jocose reading matter. One of the two magazines, in its treatment of the story, has its general tone exampled by some such sentence as “Last month the charity organizations of New York supplied the poor of the city with 30,000 loaves of bread.” The other magazine, expressing the same thought and facts, has its sentence phrased thus: “Last month the charity organizations of New York supplied the poor of the city with 30,000 loaves of bread, an amount almost 8,000 in excess of all the bread eaten during the same space of time by Mr. Diamond Jim Brady in the ten leading Broadway restaurants.” Which magazine has the bigger circulation?
The conventional treatment of gloomy themes in the drama is like the ancient tale of the proud old coon who, driving a snail-paced and ramshackle horse and an even more ramshackle buggy down a Southern road used largely by automobilists, suddenly perceived a small boy hitching on behind. “Hey!” exclaimed the old brunette, “Yoh look out dar! Ef yoh ain’t careful yoh’ll be sucked under!” The mechanic of the gloomy dramatic theme, like the old dinge, too often takes his theme too pompously, too seriously. And is generally himself sucked under as a result. Clyde Fitch took a so-called gloomy theme in his play “The Climbers”—the play that started bang off with a funeral—but his play is still going with the public in the stock companies because he didn’t let the gloom of his story run away with the interest. The final curtain line in “The Shadow” is: “After all, real happiness is often to be found in tears.” Tearsare often provocative of a greater so-called “up-lift” feeling than mere grins and laughter. Take a couple or more of illustrations of the most popular mob plays America has known, say, “Way Down East,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “The Old Homestead.” These, fundamentally, are what the mob calls “sad” plays. The yokelry would ever rather pay for the privilege of crying than laughing. What farce ever made as much money as “East Lynne”? The tears in “Cinderella” have made it the world’s most successful theatrical property.
The difference ’twixt tragedy and comedy is the difference of a hair’s breadth. Tragedy ends with the hero’s death. Comedy, with the hero’s getting married.
To be effective, acting must interpret not so much the playwright’s work as the audience’s silent criticism of that work.
... It is to be remarked that the New Movement in the theater, about which we hear so much, what with its scenery, lighting, stage architecture and what not, seems to concern everything but drama.
The moving pictures will never supplant the spoken drama, contend a thousand and one critics. Well, anyway, not so long as the drama is being spoken as it is to-day in the majority of our Broadway theaters.
Madame Karsavina of the Russian Ballet seeks in her chorographic pantomimes to interpret drama with the body. The Boston censors commanded that Madame Karsavina, who in her chorographic pantomimes seeks to interpret drama with the body, completely conceal her body in heavy draperies. The Boston censors may be expected next to command Mimi Aguglia, of the Sicilian Players, who seeks to interpret the body in terms of drama, to undress.
Comedy is but tragedy, cunningly disguised and popularized for the multitude.
Men go to the theater to forget; women, to remember.
Melodrama is that form of drama in which the characters are deliberately robbed of a sense of humor by the author. Problem drama, most often, that form in which the characters are deliberately robbed of a sense of humour by the audience.
How ashamed of themselves Galsworthy and Shaw, Molnar and Brieux, Hauptmann and Wedekind must feel when they read a book on dramatic technique by a member of the Drama League!
The error committed by the critic who, night after night, goes to the theater in an attitude of steadfast seriousness and in such attitude reviewswhat he beholds therein lies in his confounding of the presentation with the institution. His respectful attitude toward the presentation is, therefore, under current conditions eight times in ten a direct insult to the institution.
THE AMERICAN ADAPTATION
The Plot of the Play, in the Original:
Gaston Beaubien tires of his wife, Gabrielle, and enters into a liaison with his wife’s best friend, Lucienne.
The Plot of the Play, in the Adaptation:
Gaston Beaubien tires of his wife’s best friend, Lucienne, and enters into a liaison with his wife, Gabrielle.
Brieux—Jeanne d’Arc on a mule.
WHY DRAMATIZED NOVELS OFTEN FAIL THE HEROINE
(In the book)
“As nineteen-year-old Faith Draycourt stood there, she seemed for all the world like some breathing, living young goddess come down to earth in a chariot of cloud chiffon tinted orange-pink by the setting sun. Her slender body whispered its allure from out the thin folds of silk that, like some fugitive mist, clung about her. Her hair, a tangle of spun copper, fell upon her dimpled shoulders and tumbled off them, a stormy bronze cascade, to the ground. Her eyes, like twin melodies of Saint-Saens imbedded in Bermuda’s blue woodland pools; her voice, soft as the haunt of a distant guitar——.”
(From the newspaper critique of the play made from the book)
“The role of Faith Draycourt was ably interpreted by that accomplished and experienced actress, —— ——, who is well remembered by the older generation of theater-goers for her fine performance ofJulietin 1876 at the old Bowery Theater.”
An arm-chair beside a reading lamp is the only place for worth-while drama. If you are one of those who seriously contends that such drama should be acted in the theater, that the stage is the place for such work, that it stands a fair chance there, tell me what you think would happen to Hauptmann’s “Weavers” if, in that wonderful climax to the fifth act, the child actress playing Mielchen should accidentally drop her panties, or to “Hannele” if, at a moment of its poignant pathos, a shirt-sleeved Irish scene-shifter were plainly observable in the wings.... Think of Sudermann’s “Princess Far-Away” with a bad cold in her head and an obviously tender corn!
We hear much of the difference twixt the quality of London and New York theater audiences. It may be summed up in a single sentence. In London they do not put a chain on the dime-in-the-slot opera-glasses.
A Shaw Play.—A moving-picture consisting entirely of explanatory titles.
You say it is possible for drama to reflect life? Very well, then answer me this. In the cabled dispatches from the European fighting countries, there appeared the other day an account of the astounding spectacular heroism, in the face of a death-filled fire, of a German soldier named Ludwig Dinkelblatz. If you can reconcile yourself to the notion of a man named Ludwig Dinkelblatz as the hero of a play of whatever sort, you win.
Mr. Edward Locke, who wrote “The Bubble,” “The Revolt,” and other reasons for bad theatrical seasons, observed in a recent interview that he always writes his plays by artificial light because plays are always produced by artificial light, and that, therefore, he believed that this was the logical way to go about writing plays. Mr. Locke will agree with his critics that inasmuch as people always go to bed in the dark, it is but logical that, when the lights go out in the auditorium and one of his plays gets under way, they should go to sleep.
We hear a great deal of the American drama’s failure to hold the mirror up to nature. This is nonsense, nothing more nor less. The trouble is not with the drama, but with the mirror! The American drama tries to reflect nature in one of the little mirrors women carry in their vanity-boxes. Some day it may learn—as the French drama has learned—that when there’s any reflecting of nature to be done, you’ve got to use a pier glass. We like to believe, we Anglo-Saxons, that all dramalies in mortals’ faces, and that drama’s purpose is merely to reflect, as in a shaving mirror, men’s tears and smiles. The French, a wiser people, know that drama reposes alone in men’s bodies.