[Illustration: "_Plays are put up in packages and sold at the
delicatessen shops_"]
THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT
BY
CHANNING POLLOCK
WITH 50 FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY
WARREN ROCKWELL
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
BOSTON
Copyright 1911 by Richard G. Badger
All Rights Reserved
The articles that make up this volume originally appeared, at
various times, in Collier's Weekly, The Saturday Evening Post,
The Associated Sunday Magazines, The Smart Set, Munsey's
Magazine, Ainslee's Magazine, Smith's Magazine, and The Green
Book Album. The author desires to thank the editors of these
periodicals for permission to republish.
THE GORHAM PRESS BOSTON, U. S. A.
TO THE LADY WHO GOES TO THE THEATER WITH ME
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
_Wherein, at union rates, the author performs the common but popular
musical feat known as "blowing one's own horn"_
THE THEATER AT A GLANCE
_Being a correspondence school education in the business of the
playhouse that should enable the veriest tyro to become a Charles
Frohman or a David Belasco_
SOME PEOPLE I'VE LIED ABOUT
_Being reminiscences of the author's nefarious but more or less
innocuous career as a press agent_
THE WRITING AND READING OF PLAYS
_Being a discussion as to which pursuit is the more painful, with
various entertaining and instructive remarks as to the method of
following both_
THE PERSONALITIES OF OUR PLAYWRIGHTS
_Being an effort to outdo Ernest Thompson Seton and Charles G. D.
Roberts at their own game--which is speaking literally_
STAGE STRUCK
_Being a diagnosis of the disease, and a description of its symptoms,
which has the rare medical merit of attempting a cure at the same
time_
ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY
_Being an account of intrepid explorations in the habitat of the
creatures whose habits are set forth in the preceding chapters_
WHAT HAPPENS AT REHEARSALS
_Being something about the process by which performances are got ready
for the pleasure of the public and the profit of the ticket
speculators_
THE ART OF "GETTING IT OVER"
_Being the sort of title to suggest a treatise on suicide, whereas, in
point of fact, this chapter merely confides all that the author
doesn't know about acting_
SOMETHING ABOUT FIRST NIGHTS
_Wherein is shown that the opening of a new play is more hazardous
than the opening of a jack-pot, and that theatrical production is a
game of chance in comparison with which roulette and rouge-et-noir are
as tiddledewinks or old maid_
IN VAUDEVILLE
_Being inside information regarding a kind of entertainment at which
one requires intelligence no more than the kitchen range_
WITH THE PEOPLE IN STOCK
_Concerning Camille, ice cream, spirituality, red silk tights, Blanche
Bates, Thomas Betterton, second-hand plays, parochialism, matinee
girls, Augustin Daly, and other interesting topics_
SITTING IN JUDGMENT WITH THE GODS
_Being an old manuscript with a new preface--the former dealing with a
lost art, and the latter subtly suggesting who lost it_
THE SMART SET ON THE STAGE
_Wherein the author considers comedies of manners, and players who
succeed illy in living up to them_
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_Plays are Put up in Packages_
_First catch your play_
_If actors roamed about at will_
_A Stalwart Individual pushing a church_
_The guild of Annanias_
_Anna Held bathing in milk_
_Sometimes things really do happen to actors_
_The Theatrical Women's Parker Club_
_It is very difficult to identify a good play_
_A woman cut her play in half_
_Clyde Fitch's ability to work_
_Augustus Thomas shouts instructions_
_Eugene Walter was lodging upon a park bench_
_Margaret Mayo built a villa_
_The malignant disease_
_"You're William A. Brady, ain't you?"_
_A wrinkled old lady confided her desire_
_How sweet to meet one's own image_
_The Great White Way is a recumbent letter I_
_The actor and the rest of the world_
_Allan Dale came three nights running_
_Gets eighteen dollars_
_If actors really "felt their parts"_
_The first time the director has seen them_
_The interruption came on the spot_
_Matches that cannot be lit_
_Ensconced in a swing and two silk stockings_
_Thought seems as material a thing as a handball_
_Gillette flicked the ashes from his cigar_
_Lady Macbeth swore that he grew during the performance_
_A playwright whose stock has soared a hundred points in a single
evening_
_A Boston audience at train time_
_Trilby died in every known way_
_The author--as you imagine him, and as he is_
_Venus rose from the sea_
_Danced before a statue of Antony until it bit her_
_You need bring to a vaudeville theatre nothing but the price of
admission_
_Their agents search every capital of Europe_
_Known as a stock company_
_Master Betterton had his nerves shaken_
_The actress giving time to dress-makers_
_Evening up matters on his books_
_The great actors of an earlier time_
_A play censor with a club_
_Reputable scoundrels kill by machinery_
_Comstockians wear blinders_
_The peculiarities of royal love-making_
_The lady may have come to prepare a rarebit_
_Why women sin_
_It simply isn't done_
AN INTRODUCTION
Wherein, at union rates, the author performs the common but
popular musical feat known as "blowing one's own horn."
"Good wine", according to the poet, "needs no bush." With the same
logic, one may argue that a good book needs no introduction.... But
then--how be sure that it _is_ a good book?
Hallowed custom provides that every volume of essays--especially of
essays on the theater--shall begin with a preface in which some
celebrated critic dilates upon the cleverness of the author. However,
celebrated critics are expensive, and, moreover, no one else seems to
know as much about the cleverness of this author as does the author
himself. In consequence of which two facts, I mean to write my own
introduction.
One obstacle appears to be well-nigh insurmountable. It will be easy
to inform you as to my merits and my qualifications, but I don't
quite see how a man can speak patronizingly of himself. And, of
course, the patronizing tone is absolutely essential to an
introduction. Nobody ever wrote an introduction without it. I shall do
my best, but I hope you will be lenient with me in the event of
failure.
* * * * *
"Of the making of books there is no end."
And, even to the most enthusiastic student of the stage, it must seem
that a sufficiently large number of these books deal with the theater.
At least, they deal with the drama--which is slightly different. It is
in this difference that one finds some excuse for the appearance of
"The Footlights--Fore and Aft." Here are a collection of papers in
which the reader finds no keen analysis of plays and players; no
learned review of the past of the playhouse, no superior criticism of
its present, no hyperbolean prophecy for its future. The book, in
fact, is unique.
One might wish, indeed, that there were more substance to these
essays, which reveal the impressions of a reporter rather than the
excogitations of a thinker or a philosopher. Mr. Pollock severely lets
alone the drama of Greece and Rome. His field is the drama of
Forty-second Street and Broadway. He has rendered unto Brander
Matthews the things that are Brander Matthews', and unto William
Winter the things that are William Winter's.
"The Footlights--Fore and Aft" contains nothing that might not have
been set down by anyone with a sense of humor and the author's
opportunities of observation. It is true that, in his case, these
opportunities have been exceptional. Born in 1880, Mr. Pollock's
contact with the theater began as early as 1896, when he became
dramatic critic of the The Washington Post. Subsequently, he served in
the same capacity with various newspapers and magazines, was reporter
for a "trade journal" of "the profession", and acted, for a
considerable period, as press agent and business manager. The
practical side of play-making and play-producing he has learned in
eight years' experience as a dramatist, during which time he has
written ten dramatic pieces, among them "The Pit", "Clothes", "The
Secret Orchard", "The Little Gray Lady", "In the Bishop's Carriage",
and "Such a Little Queen."
Considering the narrow confines of the world he describes, its
comparatively small population and its rather meager language, Mr.
Pollock should not be blamed too much for a certain sameness
throughout "The Footlights--Fore and Aft." There are not more than a
dozen prominent managers and a score of well known playwrights in
America; whoever elects to write a hundred thousand words about the
theater must choose between mentioning these names repeatedly and
inventing new ones. Nor is it possible to avoid the recurrence of
explanations and instances. You will find something about stage
lighting in "The Theater at a Glance", because it belongs there, and
something more about it in "What Happens at Rehearsals", because much
that follows in this account would not be clear without it. The author
did not flatter himself that you would carry his first description
with you through a hundred pages, and, perhaps, he didn't want you to
spoil a nice book by thumbing back.
In articles written at various times for various readers, there is no
reason to suppose that he devised two phrases where one would serve or
searched for two examples where one would do the work. Undoubtedly,
many of these reiterations were weeded out in the course of
compilation, and, as undoubtedly, many of them remain. All collections
of stories by the same author--especially when they treat of one
subject--are marred by similarity. The remedy for this rests with the
reader, who is recommended to take such books in small doses--say, one
essay every night at bedtime.
Generally speaking, the matter that follows will not be found
unpalatable. At least, the author gives us no reason to suspect that
he is displeased with it or with himself. "The capital I's", as
someone has said of another series of articles, "flash past like
telegraph poles seen from a car window." Mr. Pollock scolds
considerably, too, though, for the most part, in perfect good humor.
Indeed, whatever their faults, it must be said that these essays
display some wit, and a rather delightful lightness of touch and
brightness of manner. They penetrate the recesses of the topic, giving
an agreeable impression of confidence, of familiarity, and of
authority.
Books and plays are judged by their price and pretence. With the price
of this book neither the author nor the prefacer has anything to do.
It pretends to very little, and, judged by that standard, it may be
acquitted.
CHANNING POLLOCK.
The Parsonage, Shoreham, L. I.,
August 25, 1911.
THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT
I
THE THEATER AT A GLANCE
Being a correspondence school education in the business of the
playhouse that should enable the veriest tyro to become a
Charles Frohman or a David Belasco.
A man who passed as the possessor of reasonable intelligence--he
"traveled for" a concern that manufactured canning machinery, and his
knowledge of tins was something beautiful--once said to me: "Are plays
written before they're produced?"
"No," I replied, indulging myself in a little sarcasm; "they're put up
in packages and sold at the delicatessen shops. Comedies cost twenty
cents a box and dramas from twenty-five cents to half a dollar. It
would be a great field for you, old chap, if you could induce a
fellow like Augustus Thomas to pack his plays in cans."
Even my friend the "drummer" saw through that. I'm afraid my wit lacks
subtlety. Still, two or three other people of my acquaintance would
have been a bit uncertain whether to take me seriously or not. Most
laymen, though they wouldn't believe in the package explanation,
cherish a vague idea that theatrical presentations are miracles
brought into being by the tap of the orchestra conductor's wand.
Managers are quite willing to foster this opinion, agreeing with the
late Fanny Davenport, who felt that the charm of the playhouse lay in
its mystery, and that to elucidate would result in loss of patronage.
In this verdict it is impossible for me to concur. I learn something
new about the theater every day, and the more I learn the more I love
it. You can't interest me in a thing of which I am ignorant--at least,
not unless you start to clear up my ignorance.
Henry Arthur Jones, writing about "The Renascence of the English
Drama," observes: "I wish every playgoer could know all the tricks
and illusions of the stage from beginning to end. I wish that he could
be as learned in all the devices and scenic effects of the stage as
the master carpenter.... Compare the noisy, ill-judged, misplaced
applause of provincial audiences with the eager, unerring enthusiasm
and appreciation of the audience at a professional matinee, where, so
far as the acting goes, everyone knows the precise means by which an
effect is produced, and, therefore, knows the precise reward it should
receive." That's warrant enough for me.
The theater is an extremely curious blending of art and business. Its
art is lodged back of the curtain line and its business in front of
the footlights. Between these two boundaries the manager stands when
he is directing rehearsals, and, since his work is a mixture of both
things, that four feet of cement constitutes a sort of intellectual
no-man's-land. The people of the stage and the people in "the front of
the house" have little in common, that little being chiefly a mutual
feeling of contempt for each other.
You know the recipe for cooking a rabbit--"first catch your rabbit."
The same recommendation applies in the matter of producing a play.
Good plays are the one thing in the world, except money, the demand
for which exceeds the supply. Consequently, dramatic works cost a
trifle more than "twenty cents a box." Most managers think they cost
altogether too much, but there never has been advanced a completely
satisfactory reason why an illiterate little comedian should be paid
more for appearing in a piece that makes him a success than the author
should be paid for providing a piece that all the illiterate little
comedians on earth couldn't make a success if the vehicle itself
weren't attractive.... Kyrle Bellew in "The Thief" drew $10,000 a
week; Kyrle Bellew in "The Scandal" didn't draw $4,000; that's the
answer.
If you were a manager and wanted a play by a well-known author you
would go to his agent--Elisabeth Marbury or Alice Kauser--and ask
if he had time to write it. Should his reply be in the affirmative,
you probably would pay him $250 for attaching his name to a contract
stipulating that the manuscript must be delivered on such and such a
date. Before that time, he would send you a scenario, or brief
synopsis, of his story. If you accepted that, you would give the
author another $250; if you rejected it, all would be over between
you. The acceptance of the completed "'script" would be likely to cost
you an additional $500, and the whole $1,000 would be placed to your
credit and deducted from the first royalties accruing to the
dramatist.
[Illustration: "_First catch your play_"]
Authors' royalties usually are on "a sliding scale." Such a one as we
have in mind might get 5 per cent. of the first $4,000 that came into
the box office; 7 per cent. of the next $3,000, and 10 per cent. of
all in excess of that total. Thus, the playwright's income from a
production that "did $8,000" a week would be $510. The agent would
take 10 per cent. of this sum. Some dramatists receive better terms
than these and some get worse; I have given the average. It is
possible for an author to profit by such a property as "The Lion and
the Mouse," which has been acted pretty constantly by two or more
companies, to the extent of a quarter of a million dollars.
Occasionally, a shrewd manager and an author without experience or
self-confidence make a deal by which a play is sold outright. This is
an unpleasant subject.
"How does the dramatist know the receipts of his play?" you ask. From
a copy of the statement by which the manager knows. Did you ever hear
of the operation called "counting up?" About an hour after the
performance begins, the affable young man who takes your money through
the box office window counts the tickets he has left, and subtracts
the number of each kind from that which he had originally. The result
is the number sold. That number is written on a report handed to the
manager of the company appearing in the theater by which the young man
is employed. He and the young man then count the sold tickets taken
from the boxes into which you see them slipped when you give them to
the official at the door. That result should be precisely the figure
on the report. If it is greater the young man pays for the difference;
if it is less nothing is said, since some people who bought tickets
may have remained away. The statement of what has been disposed of, at
what price, and with what total, is then signed jointly by the
representative of the house and the representative of the company.
Each keeps a copy of this statement and an additional copy is sent to
the agent of the author. The transaction seems simple, but, if you
will think the matter over, you will see that it is a nearly perfect
method of preventing dishonesty.
The contract made between manager and author ordinarily provides that
a play must be performed before a given date and so many times a year
thereafter, in default of which all rights revert to the dramatist.
One of the first requisites of a production now-a-days is scenery.
Consequently, supposing still that you are the manager, you turn over
your manuscript, act by act, to a scene painter, or to a number of
scene painters, expressing your ideas on the subject, if you have any.
The scene painter reads the play, formulates some ideas of his own,
familiarizes himself with the time and place treated, and makes a
model of each setting. The model is a miniature, usually on the scale
of an inch to a foot, and it incorporates the necessaries described by
the author with the luxuries imagined by the manager. Moreover, it is
as accurate and beautiful as skill can make it. If the producer
approves of the model a bargain is struck, a builder constructs the
frame work which is to hold the scenery, the painter covers the
canvas, and, for a while, at least, the matter of settings is off your
mind. The setting of an act may cost $500 and it may cost $5,000.
Generally, it comes to about $1,000.
In a play of modern life the actors are supposed to furnish their own
costumes. Sometimes, when the dresses are to be exceptionally
elaborate, this rule is varied. Should your property be a romantic
drama or a comic opera, however, you have a conference with a
costumer. The great producers, like the Shuberts and Klaw and
Erlanger, maintain their own establishments, but this hardly will
apply in your case. Now you will see costume plates instead of scene
models--little paintings on card-board that frequently are exhibited
in front of the theater in which the piece is running. These once
passed upon, the contract for making the clothes will be let.
Naturally, the cost is governed by the number of persons to be clad
and by the nature of their garb. The gowns worn by one woman in the
production of a Clyde Fitch society comedy came to $3,100. The
costumes for a comic opera may foot up $20,000, irrespective of
tights, stockings, slippers and gloves, which principals and chorus
girls are obliged to find.
Engaging a company is a simple matter in comparison to what it used to
be. A few years ago you would have been compelled to choose from
thousands of applicants and to make personal visits to an actors'
agency--say, Mrs. Packard's or Mrs. Fernandez'. Now metropolitan
casts are composed chiefly of well known people. You have seen these
people often, you know what they can do, you select them with an eye
to round pegs and square holes, and you write to them or their
representatives. In a week your cast is ready. Salaries range from
$400 a week, paid to a popular leading man or woman, to $20 a week,
the stipend of a player of bits. Chorus girls usually get $18, though
especially handsome "show girls" are worth as much as $60. Your star
probably insists on having from $300 to $500, and a percentage of the
profits.
A stage manager is the man who does the thinking for actors. He
directs rehearsals, devises "business" and effects, and often has a
great deal more to do with the play than the author himself. Any
author will tell you that this was true in the case of a failure; any
stage manager will tell you it was true in the case of a success. In
all seriousness, a stage manager is a mighty important individual. If
actors roamed about at will in a play, as most laymen suppose they
do, you couldn't tell a first night performance from a foot-ball game.
Every actor in a piece knows just where he must stand when a certain
line is spoken, and when, how, where and in what manner he must move
to get in position for the next line. Smooth premieres are not
accidents; they are designs. Sometimes, as in the case of David
Belasco, producers are their own stage managers. Frequently, as with
Charles Klein, authors stage their own plays. Almost always they have
something to do with it.
[Illustration: "_If actors roamed about at will you couldn't tell a
first night performance from a football game_"]
The chorus of a musical comedy or a comic opera rehearses apart from
the principals, and begins earlier. Putting on a piece like this is
more difficult than putting on a legitimate comedy or a drama, and
such a director as Julian Mitchell or R. H. Burnside may be paid
$15,000 a year. The production of a "straight play" often is piece
work, bringing about $500 for each piece. Costumes, scenery and
properties are unknown until the last rehearsal. Two chairs represent
a door or a sofa or a balcony in the minds of everyone concerned.
"What is the woman doing on the bench?" I inquired once at a stock
company rehearsal of "Mr. Barnes of New York."
"That isn't a bench," the manager replied. "That's a train of cars
just leaving the railroad station at Milan."
While these things are going on in borrowed theaters or rented halls,
two departments in your enterprise are preparing other details of the
business. First, there is your booking agent. His task, like the
matter of engaging a company, has been simplified. Formerly, he wrote
to the manager of the theater you wanted in every city you wanted to
play, and kept on writing until he had contracted for a route that
would not involve your jaunting from Philadelphia to Chicago and then
back to Baltimore on your way to St. Louis. Railway fares, even at two
cents each per mile and one baggage car with every twenty-five
tickets, eat up profits. Now-a-days your booking agent goes to the
booking agent of one of the two big syndicates, each of which
represents half of the theatres in the country, and that gentleman
arranges a route while you wait. Sometimes it may not be a route worth
waiting for, but that is determined by your importance and the
estimated drawing power of your attraction. Theaters are "played on
shares", the shares depending again upon the drawing power of your
attraction and upon the size of the city booked. In Chicago you will
get 50 per cent. of the receipts; in Newark 60 per cent; in
Springfield or New Haven 70 per cent. A New York house keeps 50 per
cent. and, unless your production seems promising, you will be obliged
to guarantee that the theater's share will not fall below a certain
figure.
Next, there is your press agent. He used to be a newspaper man, and he
is worth $100 a week or not more than a dollar and a quarter. In his
office is a stenographer, a mimeographing machine, and a list of six
hundred daily newspapers. If he is worth $100 he knows just what each
of those newspapers will print and what it will not. It is his
business to cover a pound of advertising so completely with an ounce
of news that the whole parcel will not be consigned to the
waste-basket. Out in Milwaukee and over in Boston you have observed
journalistic items like these:
Augustus Thomas is at work on a new play for Charles Frohman.
The piece is to be called "The Jew," and will be produced in
September.
That's the press agent!
He also designs bills, gets up circulars, sends out photographs,
invents "fake stories", and takes the blame for whatever happens that
shouldn't have happened. If you have several attractions you will need
a press agent in New York and one with each company on the road. In
the parlance of the profession, the road press agent is "the man ahead
of the show," while the acting manager is "the man back with the
show." The terms are self-explanatory. "The man back with the show"
keeps the books, "counts up," pays salaries, "jollies" the star, and
maintains communication with his principal. During the course of your
connection with the theatrical business you will have dealings also
with the advertising agent, who supervises the posting of bills; the
transfer companies, which haul your production to and from playhouses
and railway stations; and scores of other people. You must learn about
them from experience.
The stage is a land of wonders the geography of which must be pretty
thoroughly understood before you can receive any idea as to the
working of the miracles that occur in the ten minutes the curtain is
down between acts. Of course, you know that the opening through which
you witness the performance of a play is called the proscenium arch.
The space between the base of this arch and the footlights is known as
the "apron." That region into which you have seen canvas disappear
when it is hauled up from the stage is the "flies." Directly under
the roof is a floor or iron grating from which are suspended the
pulleys that bear the weight of this "hanging stuff," and that floor,
for obvious reasons, is called the "gridiron." The little balcony
fastened to the wall at one side of the stage or another is the "fly
gallery." The loose ends of the ropes attached to the "hanging stuff"
are fastened here, and it is from this elevation that the "stuff"
aforesaid is lifted and lowered. Scenery is of two kinds--"drops" and
"flats." Of the latter more anon. "Drops" are curtains of any sort on
which are painted the reproductions of exteriors or interiors, and one
of the ordinary size weighs about two hundred pounds. In common with
everything else suspended in the "flies," these "drops" are
counterweighted, so that a couple of men can move them with ease. The
other things suspended may be "flies," or "borders," which are painted
strips that prevent your seeing any farther up than you are expected
to see; "ceiling pieces," platforms, and "border lights," which are
tin tubes as long as the stage is wide, open at the bottom, and
filled with incandescent globes of various colors for illuminating
from above.
"Flats" are pieces of painted canvas tacked on a framework of wood. In
the old days these were held in position by "grooves," or combinations
of little inverted troughs that fitted over the tops of the "flats."
These "grooves" were in sets four or five feet apart running along
both sides of the stage, and their position gave to various parts of
that platform designations that are used still in giving directions in
play manuscripts. Thus, "L.2.E.," or "Left second entrance," is the
space between the first and second of these sets on the left of the
stage. The long "flats," slid in to join in the center and make the
rear wall of a dwelling, for example, constituted "_the_ flat" and the
short ones on your right or left were "wings." Then a room could be no
other shape than square or oblong, and the doors and windows had to be
in certain specified places, no matter where they would have been in a
real house. It is laughable now to consider how this purely physical
condition limited the dramatist.
At the present time the building of a house with "flats" is not unlike
building one with cards. Each "flat" is placed where it is desired and
held up from behind by a "brace," one end of which is screwed to the
setting and the other to the floor. That particular "flat" is then
lashed to its neighbors with a "tab line," much as you lace your
shoes. When the walls have been constructed in this way, with doors
and windows wherever they are wanted, a ceiling is lowered from the
"fly gallery," and the dwelling is complete. If you are supposed to
see a landscape through the window, a "drop" on which a landscape has
been painted is lowered t'other side of the rear wall. An "interior
backing," representing the wall of another room, usually is in the
form of a large screen standing behind the door where it is needed.
Corners of this kind are illuminated by "strip lights," or electric
lamps placed on a strip of wood and hung in place.
Stage lighting has undergone a complete revolution in the past few
years, the step from incandescent lamps to calciums meaning even more
than the step from gas to electric lamps. Formerly, the illumination
came from the footlights and the "borders" exclusively; the sun rose
and set directly over-head in open defiance of the Copernican theory.
Now the stage is full of minature trap doors, and to the metal beneath
these may be attached wires that will throw light from anywhere. There
is a "bridge" in the "first entrance" on the "prompt side" on which
sits a man with apparatus to reproduce almost any effect known to
Nature. You have seen the busy and important individual who controls
"lamps" in the dress circle or the gallery, and without doubt you have
observed that nowadays there is very little to keep such a stage
manager as David Belasco from doing whatever he pleases with his
electricity.
There are five classes of men at work on the stage, all under the
direct supervision of the master carpenter. The men in these classes
are known as "flymen," "grips," "clearers," "property men" and
electricians. Each of these has his own labor to accomplish, and goes
at it without loss of time or regard to the others. The "flymen" haul
up and lower whatever hangs in the "flies." The "grips" attend to any
scenery that must be set up or pulled down. The "clearers" take away
the furniture and accessories that have been used, and the "property
men" substitute other furniture and accessories from the "property
room." The work of the electricians has been explained. In these days
of elaborate calcium effects, there must be a man at each "lamp."
All these matters are attended to as though by machinery. When the
curtain has fallen on the star's last bow, the stage manager cries
"Strike!" This cry means labor trouble of a very different sort from
that usually created by a call to strike. The stage immediately
becomes a small pandemonium. The crew in the "fly gallery" works like
the crew on a yard arm during a yacht race, hauling wildly at a
greater number of ropes than were ever on a ship. In consequence of
their energy, trees and houses soar into the air as though by magic.
Samson wasn't such a giant, after all. He only pulled down a
building--these fellows pull buildings _up_!
They are not mightier, however, than their colleagues, the "grips."
There walks a stalwart individual carrying a folded balcony or pushing
along the whole side of a church. Another permits a porch to collapse
and fall into his out-stretched arms. How useful these "grips" would
have been in San Francisco! Meanwhile, the "clearers" and "property
men" have been mixing things up in great shape. The last act was an
interior; the next is to be an exterior. Consequently, you note a fine
spot of lawn growing directly under a horsehair sofa and the trunk of
a huge oak reclining affectionately against a chest of drawers.
Gradually, the signs of indoor life disappear, and then, suddenly,
springing out of absolute chaos, you see a forest or a broad public
square. The "lamps" sputter a moment and blaze up, bathing the scene
in the warm red of sunset or the pale blue of moonlight. "Second act!"
screams the call-boy, running from dressing room door to dressing room
door. The stage manager presses a button connected with a signal light
in front of the orchestra conductor, and you hear the purr of the
incidental music. He presses another button once--twice. "Buzz!"
hisses something in the "fly-gallery," and "buzz!" again. The curtain
lifts and the play is continued. Everything has been done in perfect
order. Even now the stage manager stands in the "first entrance,"
pencil in hand, noting the exact moment at which the act began, the
minute at which each song was sung, and how many encores it received.
You--my friend, the manager--will get that report to-morrow morning.
Here, omitting a dictionary of details, you have the theater at a
glance. I feel tempted, like the magician after he has garbled some
explanation of a difficult trick, to say: "Now, ladies and gentlemen,
you can go home and do it yourselves." But you can't. I couldn't.
The thousands of important trifles, the thousands of quick decisions
that must be made and of clever things that must be done--these are
the results of genius and work and of long, long experience. Many an
American who has "French at a Glance" on the tips of his fingers, so
to speak, has to cackle in imitation of a hen when he wants to get a
soft-boiled egg in Paris.
[Illustration: _"A stalwart individual pushing along the side of a
church_"]
_SOME PEOPLE I'VE LIED ABOUT_
Being reminiscences of the author's nefarious, but more
or less innocuous career as a press agent.
A press agent, as you may have gathered from the preceding article, is
a person employed to obtain free newspaper advertising for any given
thing, and the thing usually is a theatrical production. This
advertising he is supposed to get as the Quaker was advised to get
money--honestly, if possible. Since it isn't often possible, the press
agent may be described in two words as a professional liar.
There is neither malice nor "muck rake" in this assertion. The press
agent knows that his business is the dissemination of falsehood, and
he is proud of it. Go up to any member of the craft you find on
Broadway and say to him: "You are a liar!"; you will see a smile of
satisfaction spread itself over his happy face, and his horny hand
will grasp yours in earnest gratitude. Victor Hugo and Charles
Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray were liars, too, according to
his way of thinking, and not overly ingenious or entertaining liars,
at that. Their fiction was spread upon the pages of books, as his is
spread upon the pages of the daily journals, and their mission, like
his, was the enlivening of a terribly dull little planet. This
altruistic motive really lurks behind the prevarications of the press
agent with imagination. He conceives his philanthropic duty to be the
making of news to fill a demand largely in excess of the supply. If
the pursuit of this purpose brings him an income hovering about that
of a United States Senator he cannot be blamed.
I became one of the guild of Annanias some ten or eleven years ago,
coming fresh from the position of dramatic critic on _The Washington
Times_, and I think I may say without undue egotism that, during the
period of my membership, I lied industriously, conscientiously, and
with a fair degree of success. There have been and are more able
falsifiers than I, but the confessions of one man cannot in honor
include the deeds of another, and so I must omit them from this
chronicle. Suffice it to say that the stories of Anna Held's bathing
in milk, of Mrs. Patrick Campbell having tan bark spread in the street
in front of the Theater Republic to deaden the rumbling that annoyed
her during performances, and a score similar in nature remain
conspicuous examples of the cleverness manifested by brilliant press
agents in attracting attention to the actors and actresses in whose
behalf they labored.
The successful launching of a "fake"--so they are known to the
profession--like these is not at all the simple matter it would appear
to be. The mere conception of the story is only the beginning of the
task. It is not enough to decide that such and such a thing might
happen, or to swear that it has happened; it must be made to happen.
Moreover, the occurrence must be so natural, and the plans leading to
it so carefully laid and concealed, as to prevent suspicion and baffle
investigation. Whenever it is possible, the press agent should be
ostensibly unconnected with the affair, and, whenever it is not, he
must hide his knowledge behind a mask of innocence in comparison with
which the face of Mary's little lamb looks like a selection from the
rogues' gallery.
[Illustration: "_The guild of Annanias_"]
There are other requisites to the spinning of a yarn which shall be
valuable in an advertising way. In the first place, it is necessary
that the story shall not injure the reputation or lower the standing
of its hero or heroine, and equally desirable that it shall have no
"come back" that may make enemies for the press agent. The
announcement that Mrs. Patrick Campbell had won a large sum from
society women at bridge whist, made during an engagement of the star
in New York, was given all kinds of space in the newspapers, but it
brought down upon Mrs. Campbell's devoted head such scathing
denunciation from press and pulpit that she lost no time in sending
out a denial. The publicity given the matrimonial enterprises of De
Wolf Hopper, through no fault of his advertising staff, seriously
injured that capable comedian for a time. A good "fake" is bizarre and
picturesque enough to be interesting, will defy the prober after
truth, hurts no one and so creates no journalistic grudges to be
fought down in the future. There must be no limit to the number of
times that the press agent can stir up excitement when he calls
"Wolf!"
So many of the stories invented by theatrical Munchausens possess the
qualification first mentioned that it is by no means unusual for the
inventor to take the newspaper man into his confidence. Of course,
before doing this he wants to feel sure of his newspaper and of his
man. Dailies there be that prefer fact to fiction, however prosaic the
former; that treat the stage in so dignified a manner that, if the
Empire Theater burned to the ground, they probably would print the
information under a head reading "The Drama"; that scorn the press
agent and have only contempt for his handiwork. The most rabid of
these, strangely enough, is the very paper that once, for its own
amusement, tried a "fake" about wild animals escaping from Central
Park Zoo which succeeded so well that for twenty-four hours business
was practically suspended in New York. At least half the journals in
town do not inquire too closely into a tale that is likely to appeal
to their readers, especially if the tale in question is obviously
harmless. When the publicity promoter conceals his machinations and
buries clues leading to his connection with a story--"and the same
with intent to deceive"--he must plot with great care, for woe betide
him if the truth leaks out.
[Illustration: "_Anna Held's bathing in milk_"]
An excellent example of the kind of "fake" in accomplishing which one
may rely upon the co-operation of the Fourth Estate is the incident of
Margaret Mayo writing a play in twenty-four hours. Miss Mayo, who
since then has written many plays, notably "Baby Mine" and "Polly of
the Circus," at that time was appearing with Grace George in "Pretty
Peggy" at the Herald Square Theater. The season had been dull, if
profitable, and I was casting about for any item likely to get into
print, when the idea of having someone go Paul Armstrong two better in
rapidity of accomplishment occurred to me. Obviously, it was
impossible to involve Miss George in the episode without making her
appear ridiculous, and so I cast about for a likely member of her
company.
Miss Mayo's name suggested itself to me because of the fact that, even
then, she was at work on several plays, and I obtained her consent to
my plan. Shortly afterward it was announced from the Herald Square
that Miss Mayo had wagered a supper with Theodore Burt Sayre, author
of numerous well known dramas, that she could begin and complete a
four act comedy in the space of a single day. The test was to be made
on the following Sunday at the residence of Miss Mayo, who was to have
the benefit of a stenographer, and, to guard against her using an idea
previously worked out, the advantage of a synopsis furnished by Mr.
Sayre. This synopsis was to be delivered in a sealed envelope at six
o'clock one morning and the play was to be finished at six o'clock
the next. Mr. Sayre, an intimate personal friend, had been furnished
with these details over the telephone, and affirmed them when called
up by the reporters. Our announcement was printed by nearly every
newspaper in town.
The stenographer provided Miss Mayo on that eventful morning was my
own--a bright, quick-witted Irish girl, whose name, unfortunately, I
have forgotten. The synopsis of the play was Miss Mayo's. She had it
made from an old piece of her own, which had been freshly typed a day
or two before. Saturday night, sheets from this manuscript were
generously distributed about the room, the remaining sheets were
hidden in a bureau drawer, the typewriter was put in position, and our
scenery was ready. Business took me to Philadelphia on a late train,
and the beginning of our two little comedies--that to be written and
that to be acted--was entrusted to Miss Mayo.
I got back from the Quaker City shortly after noon on Sunday and went
direct to the scene of action. I rang the front bell, the door opened
automatically, and I climbed the stairs to the apartment. From the
hall I heard a nervous voice and the click of a typewriter. Somebody
admitted me and mine eyes beheld as excellent a counterfeit of fevered
energy as it has ever been their luck to fall upon. Miss Mayo was
pacing the floor wildly, dictating at least sixty words a minute,
while the stenographer bent quiveringly over her machine. That portion
of a manuscript which Arthur Wing Pinero might possibly prepare in six
months lay on the table. The typist broke the charm. "Why!" she
exclaimed; "it's Mr. Pollock!"
"Oh!" said Miss Mayo. "I thought you were a newspaper man. Sit down
and have a biscuit."
This pretence was continued all day. When reporters came we struggled
with the difficulties of rapid-fire composition; when they didn't we
ate biscuits and manifolded epigrams which afterwards were sent to
waiting city editors and quoted as being from the twenty-four hour
play. Miss Mayo was photographed several times and we had a delicious
dinner at six. Afterward, we named our product "The Mart" and
separated for the night. Despite our thin histrionism, there wasn't a
newspaper man among our visitors who didn't know in his secret soul
that the whole thing had been cooked up for advertising purposes, yet,
a newsless Sunday aiding and abetting us, we had more space the next
morning than might have been devoted to the outbreak of a revolution
in France.
Similarly, no intelligent person could have questioned for a moment
the purpose of the matinee which De Wolf Hopper gave "for women only"
soon afterward at the Casino Theater. "Happyland," the opera in which
Mr. Hopper was appearing, made no especial appeal to the gentler sex,
while the presenting company included so many pretty girls that a
performance "for men only" would have been infinitely more reasonable.
As a matter of fact, I first conceived the idea in this form, but
swerved from my course upon taking into account two important
considerations. The announcement of an entertainment "for men only"
must have created the impression that there was something
objectionable about the presentation--an impression we were extremely
anxious to avoid--and it would not have given the opportunities for
humorous writing which we hoped would serve as bait to the reporters.
Foreseeing that upon the obviousness of these opportunities would
depend the amount of attention paid to so palpable an advertising
scheme, we took care to guard against a dearth of incident by
providing our own happenings. Among the number of these were the
entrance of a youth who had disguised himself as a girl in order to
gain admittance, the appearance of a husband who insisted that his
wife must not remain at a performance from which he was barred, and
one or two similar episodes. We found, in the end, that these devices
were superfluous. On the afternoon selected, the interior of the
Casino fairly grinned with femininity, the audience looked like a
Mormon mass meeting multiplied by two, and even so dignified and
important a news-gathering service as the Associated Press
condescended to take facetious notice of the "Women's Matinee."
If you recollect what you read in newspapers, it is not at all
impossible that, even at this date, you will find something familiar
about the name of Marion Alexander. You don't? Perhaps your memory can
be assisted. Miss Alexander was the chorus girl supporting Lillian
Russell in "Lady Teazle" who sued the late Sam S. Shubert for $10,000
because he had said she was not beautiful. The story of this slander
and of the resentment it provoked went all around the world, though it
is unlikely that anyone who printed it was deceived as to the
genuineness of the lady's fine frenzy. The Marion Alexander tale had
all the journalistic attractions of the "Women's Matinee," in that it
was unique and admitted of breeziness in narration, but it had in
addition an advantage that no press agent overlooks--it was
susceptible to illustration. Newspapers always are eager to print
pictures of pretty women. The average New York journal had rather
reproduce a stunning photograph of Trixie Twinkletoes than the most
dignified portrait of Ellen Terry or Ada Rehan. Miss Alexander _was_
pretty--I haven't the least doubt that she still is--and, while this
story was running its course, the Shuberts paid nearly $300 for
photographs used by daily papers, weekly papers, periodicals,
magazines and news syndicates.
In the course of the controversy Miss Russell took occasion to side
with Mr. Shubert--she didn't know she had done so until she read her
paper the next morning--and ventured the opinion that no brunette
could possibly be beautiful. As had been expected, this statement
aroused a storm of protest. There are a million brunettes in New York,
and to say that we succeeded in interesting them is putting it mildly.
When "Lady Teazle" departed for the road they were still writing
indignant letters to _The American and Journal_, and nearly every
letter gave added prominence to Miss Russell. I wrote a few indignant
letters myself and had them copied in long hand by the telephone girls
and stenographers in the building. It is quite needless to say that
Miss Alexander's suit never came to trial.
Twice during my career of prevarication, managing editors became
interested in my humble efforts at the creation of news and demanded
proofs that were not easily manufactured. While "Fantana" was running
at the Lyric Theater, I discovered a chorus girl whose dog wore an
exquisite pair of diamond ear-rings. To be quite accurate, neither the
chorus girl nor the dog had thought of any such adornment when we
three became acquainted, but a ten cent pair of jewels stuck to the
animal's head with chewing gum and the popular belief that "the camera
does not lie" were expected to make the discovery seem convincing. An
iconoclast on _The World_ made it necessary for us to borrow ear rings
from Tiffany's and bore holes in the flesh of a poor little canine
that might never have known what suffering was but for the shocking
skepticism mentioned.