_You are hereby warned that your act must be free from all
vulgarity and suggestiveness in words, action, and costume,
while playing in any of Mr. ——'s houses, and all vulgar,
double-meaning and profane words and songs must be cut out of
your act before the first performance. If you are in doubt as
to what is right or wrong, submit it to the resident manager
at rehearsal._
_Such words as Liar, Slob, Son-of-a-Gun, Devil, Sucker,
Damn, and all other words unfit for the ears of ladies and
children, also any reference to questionable streets, resorts,
localities, and bar-rooms, are prohibited under fine of
instant discharge._
—— ——,
_General Manager._
And this is not merely a literary effort on the part of the management;
it is obligatory and final. When we have about accepted as conclusive
the time-honored theory that "You must give the public what it
wants," and that it _wants_ bilge-water in champagne glasses, we are
confronted with the vaudeville theatre, no longer an experiment, but a
comprehensive fact.
The funniest farce ever written could not be done at these houses
if it had any of the ear-marks of the thing in vogue at many of our
first-class theatres. Said a lady to me: "They (the vaudeville theatres)
are the only theatres in New York where I should feel absolutely safe
in taking a young girl without making preliminary inquiries. Though
they may offend the taste, they never offend one's sense of decency."
The vaudeville theatres may be said to have established the commercial
value of decency. This is their corner-stone. They were conceived with
the object of catering to ladies and children, and, strange to say, a
large, if not the larger, part of their audiences is always men.
[Illustration]
What I have said does not describe all theatres which may have
"fashionable vaudeville" over their doors. Godliness has proved so
profitable that there be here, as elsewhere, wolves masquerading in
woollens, but the houses I have described are well known. Nor have the
stringent regulations of these theatres exiled the "song-and-dance man,"
who was wont to rely on risqué songs and suggestive jokes—they have
only forced him to happier and saner efforts, and the result is not
Calvinistic; on the contrary, nowhere are audiences jollier, quicker,
and more intelligent, and the world of fashion even is not absent from
these theatres primarily designed for the wholesome middle classes.
[Illustration: She ruled, she reigned, she triumphed.—Page 492.]
I never for a moment suspected that these admirable regulations could
be meant for me, or that indeed I was in need of rules and regulations,
but my self-righteousness, as was meet, met with discipline. I had a
line in my little farce to this effect: "I'll have the devil's own time
explaining," etc. I had become so familiar with the devil that I was
not even aware of his presence, but the management unmasked me and I
received a polite request (which was a command) to cast out the devil. I
finally got used to substituting the word "dickens." Later on, the local
manager, a big, handsome man, faultlessly attired, in person begged me
"to soften the asperities." Need I add that this occurred in Boston?
When I travel again I shall leave my asperities at home.
A friend of mine was leaving a spacious vaudeville theatre, along with
the audience, and was passing through the beautiful corridor, when one
of the multitude of uniformed attachés handed him this printed notice:
_Gentlemen will kindly avoid carrying cigars or cigarettes in
their mouths while in the building, and greatly oblige_
_The Management._
My friend was guilty of carrying in his hand an unlighted cigar.
How careful of the conduct of their patrons the management is may be
seen from the following printed _requests_ with which the employees are
armed:
_Gentlemen will kindly avoid the stamping of feet and pounding
of canes on the floor, and greatly oblige the Management. All
applause is best shown by clapping of hands._
_Please don't talk during acts, as it annoys those about you,
and prevents a perfect hearing of the entertainment._
_The Management._
When we were playing in Philadelphia a young woman was singing with what
is known as the "song-sheet," at the same theatre with us. Her costume
consisted of silk stockings, knee-breeches, and a velvet coat—the
regulation page's dress, decorous enough to the unsanctified eye; but
one day the proprietor himself happened in unexpectedly (as is his wont)
and the order quick and stern went forth that the young woman was not
to appear again except in skirts—her street-clothes, if she had nothing
else, and street-clothes it came about.
These are the chronicles of what is known among the vaudeville
fraternity as "The Sunday-school Circuit," and the proprietor of "The
Sunday-school Circuit" is the inventor of vaudeville as we know it. This
which makes for righteousness, as is usual, makes also for great and
abiding cleanliness—physical as well as moral. I almost lost things in
my Philadelphia dressing-room—it was cleaned so constantly. Paternal,
austere perhaps, but clean, gloriously clean!
* * * * *
The character of the entertainment is always the same. There is a
sameness even about its infinite variety. No act or "turn" consumes much
over thirty minutes. Everyone's taste is consulted, and if one objects
to the perilous feats of the acrobats or jugglers he can read his
programme or shut his eyes for a few moments and he will be compensated
by some sweet bell-ringing or a sentimental or comic song, graceful
or grotesque dancing, a one-act farce, trained animals, legerdemain,
impersonations, clay modelling, the biograph pictures, or the stories
of the comic monologuist. The most serious thing about the programme
is that seriousness is barred, with some melancholy results. From
the artist who balances a set of parlor furniture on his nose to the
academic baboon, there is one concentrated, strenuous struggle for a
laugh. No artist can afford to do without it. It hangs like a solemn
and awful obligation over everything. Once in a while an artist who
juggles tubs on his feet is a comedian, but not always. It would seem
as if a serious person would be a relief now and then. But so far the
effort to introduce a serious note, even by dramatic artists, has been
discouraged. I suspect the serious sketches have not been of superlative
merit. Though this premium is put upon a laugh, everyone is aware of
the difference between the man who rings a bell at forty paces with a
rifle, and the man who smashes it with a club, and the loudest laugh is
sometimes yoked with a timid salary. The man who said: "Let me get out
of here or I'll lose my self-respect—I actually laughed," goes to the
vaudeville theatres, too, and must be reckoned with.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: The orchestra's place is filled by pianists.—Page 493.]
So far as the character of the entertainment goes, vaudeville has the
"open door." Whatever or whoever can interest an audience for thirty
minutes or less, and has passed quarantine, is welcome. The conditions
in the regular theatres are not encouraging to progress. To produce a
play or launch a star requires capital of from $10,000 upward. There is
no welcome and no encouragement. The door is shut and locked. And even
with capital, the conditions are all unfavorable to proof. But if you
can sing or dance or amuse people in any way; if you think you can write
a one-act play, the vaudeville theatre will give you a chance to prove
it. One day of every week is devoted to these trials. If at this trial
you interest a man who is looking for good material, he will put you
in the bill for one performance, and give you a chance at an audience,
which is much better. The result of this open-door attitude is a very
interesting innovation in vaudeville which is more or less recent,
but seems destined to last—the incursion of the dramatic artist into
vaudeville.
[Illustration: Singing Soubrettes.]
The managers of the vaudeville theatres are not emotional persons, and
there were some strictly business reasons back of the actor's entrance
into vaudeville. We do not live by bread alone, but by the saving
graces of the art of advertising. It was quite impossible to accentuate
sixteen or eighteen features of a bill. Some one name was needed to
give it character and meaning at a glance. A name that had already
become familiar was preferred. The actor's name served to head the bill
and expand the type and catch the eye, and hence arose the vaudeville
term—"HEAD-LINER."
This word is not used in contracts, but it is established and
understood, and carries with it well-recognized rights and privileges,
such as being featured in the advertisements, use of the star
dressing-room, and the favorite place on the bill; for it is not
conducive to one's happiness or success to appear during the hours
favored by the public for coming in or going out. The manager was not
the loser, for many people who had never been inside a vaudeville
theatre were attracted thither by the name of some well-known and
favorite actor, and became permanent patrons of these houses.
At first the actor, who is sentimental rather than practical, was
inclined to the belief that it was beneath his dignity to appear on the
stage with "a lot of freaks," but he was tempted by salaries no one else
could afford to pay (sometimes as high as $500 to $1,000 per week) and
by the amount of attention afforded to the innovation by the newspapers.
He was told that if he stepped from the sacred precincts of art, the
door of the temple would be forever barred against him. The dignity of
an artist is a serious thing, but the dignity of the dollar is also a
serious thing. None of the dire suppositions happened. The door of the
temple proved to be a swinging door, opening easily both ways, and the
actor goes back and forth as there is demand for him and as the dollar
dictates. Indeed, the advertising secured by association with "a lot of
freaks" oiled the door for the actor's return to the legitimate drama
at an _increased salary_.
Manifestly, it has been a boon to the "legitimate" artist. To the
actor who has starred; who has had the care of a large company, with
its certain expenses and its uncertain receipts; who has, in addition,
responsibility for his own performance and for the work of the
individual members of his company and for the work of the company as a
whole, vaudeville offers inducements not altogether measured in dollars
and cents. He is rid not only of financial obligation, but of a thousand
cares and details that twist and strain a nervous temperament. He hands
over to the amiable manager the death of the widely mourned Mr. Smith,
and prevalent social functions, Lent and the circus, private and public
calamities, floods and railroad accidents, the blizzard of winter and
the heat of summer, desolating drought and murderous rains, the crops,
strikes and panics, wars and pestilences and opera. It is quite a bunch
of thorns that he hands over!
Time and terms are usually arranged by agents, who get five per cent.
of the actor's salary for their services. Time and terms arranged, the
rest is easy. The actor provides himself and assistants and his play or
vehicle. His income and outcome are fixed, and he knows at the start
whether he is to be a capitalist at the end of the year; for he runs
almost no risk of not getting his salary in the well-known circuits.
[Illustration: The Monologuist.]
It is then incumbent on him to forward property and scene-plots,
photographs and cast to the theatre two weeks before he opens, and on
arrival, he plays twenty or thirty minutes in the afternoon and the
same at night. There his responsibility ends. It involves the trifling
annoyance of dressing and making up twice a day. In and about New York
the actor pays the railroad fares of himself and company, but when he
goes West or South, the railroad fares (not including sleepers) are
provided by the management.
[Illustration: A couple of stage hands ran in and shut you out
with two flats upon which were painted in huge letters
"N. G."—Page 494.]
The great circuit which covers the territory west of Chicago keeps an
agent in New York and one in Chicago to facilitate the handling of their
big interests. These gentlemen purchase tickets, arrange for sleepers,
take care of baggage, and lubricate the wheels of progress from New York
to San Francisco and back again. The actor's only duty is to live up to
the schedule made and provided.
[Illustration: The Human Lizard and the Human Frog.—Page 494.]
The main disadvantage of the Western trip is the loss of a week going
and one coming, as there is no vaudeville theatre between Omaha and San
Francisco. To avoid the loss of a week on my return I contracted for
two nights at the Salt Lake Theatre. My company consisted of four people
all told, and my ammunition, suited to that calibre, was three one-act
plays. To give the entire evening's entertainment at a first-class
theatre, at the usual prices, with four people was a novel undertaking.
I finally determined to add to my mammoth aggregation a distinctly
vaudeville feature, and while in San Francisco I engaged a young woman
who was to fill in the intermissions with her song-and-dance specialty.
Scorning painful effort to escape the conventional, I billed her as
"The Queen of Vaudeville," whatever that may mean. We were caught in a
tunnel fire at Summit and delayed thirty-six hours. I threatened the
railroad officials with various and awful consequences, but the best
I could do was to get them to drag my theatre-trunks around the tunnel
by hand over a mile and a half of mountain trail, newly made, and get
me into Salt Lake just in time to miss my opening night, with a big
advance sale and the heart-rendings incident to money refunded. We were
in time to play the second night, but my Queen, starting from 'Frisco on
a later train, had shown no signs of appearing when the curtain rose.
I made the usual apologies. The evening's entertainment was half over
when a carriage came tearing up to the theatre and my Queen burst into
the theatre without music, trunks, costumes, make-up, supper.
She borrowed a gown from my ingenue, which was much too small for her; a
pair of slippers from my wife, which were much too big for her; make-up
from both ladies, and went on. She leaned over, whispered the key to the
leader of the orchestra and began to sing. The orchestra evolved a chord
now and then, jiggled and wiggled, stalled, flew the track, crawled
apologetically back, did its amiable best individually, but its amiable
worst collectively. No mere man could have lived through it. But the
young woman justified my billing. She ruled, she reigned, she triumphed.
Pluck and good humor always win, and so did the Queen of Vaudeville.
[Illustration]
When high-class musical artists and dramatic sketches were first
introduced into vaudeville, I understand policemen had to be stationed
in the galleries to compel respectful attention, but now these acts
are the principal features of every bill, and if they have real merit
the gallery-gods are the first to appreciate it. So it would seem that
vaudeville has torpedoed the ancient superstition that the manager
is always forced to give the public just what it wants. At first his
efforts were not taken seriously either by the actor himself or the
public, and many well-known artists failed to "make good," as the
expression is, largely because they used "canned" or embalmed plays;
that is, hastily and crudely condensed versions of well-known plays; but
many succeeded, and the result has been a large increase in the number
of good one-act farces and comedies, and a distinct elevation in the
performance and the patronage of the vaudeville theatres. This has been
a gain to everybody concerned.
* * * * *
It cannot be denied that the vaudeville "turn" is an experience for the
actor. The intense activity everywhere, orderly and systematic though
it is, is confusing. The proximity to the "educated donkey," and some
not so educated; the variegated and motley samples of all strange things
in man and beast; the fact that the curtain never falls, and the huge
machine never stops to take breath until 10.30 at night; the being
associated after the style of criminals with a number, having your name
or number shot into a slot in the proscenium arch to introduce you to
your audience; the shortness of your reign, and the consequent necessity
of capturing your audience on sight—all this, and some other things,
make the first plunge unique in the actor's experience.
[Illustration: Irish Comedians.]
One comedian walks on and says, "Hello, audience!" and no further
introduction is needed; for the audience is trained to the quick and
sharp exigencies of the occasion, and neither slumbers nor sleeps.
One of the first things to surprise the actor in the "continuous"
house is the absence of an orchestra. The orchestra's place is filled
by pianists who labor industriously five hours a day each. As they
practically live at the piano, their knowledge of current music and
their adaptability and skill are often surprising, but they are the
most universally abused men I ever met. Everyone who comes off the
stage Monday afternoon says of the pianist that he ruins their songs;
he spoils their acts; he has sinister designs on their popularity, and
he wishes to wreck their future. The pianist, on the other hand, says
he doesn't mind his work—the five thumping, tyrannous hours—it is the
excruciating agony of being compelled to sit through the efforts of the
imbecile beings on the stage. It is the point of view!
The Monday-afternoon bill is a tentative one, but thereafter one's
position on the bill and the time of one's performance are fixed and
mathematical for the remainder of the week. The principal artists appear
only twice a day, once in the afternoon and once in the evening, but
there is an undivided middle, composed of artists not so independent
as some others, which "does three turns" a day (more on holidays), and
forms what is picturesquely known as the "supper bill." The "supper
bill" explains itself. It lasts from five o'clock, say, till eight or
eight-thirty. Who the singular people are who do not eat, or who would
rather see the undivided middle than eat, will always be a mystery to
me. But if they were not _in esse_, and in the audience, the management
would certainly never retain the "supper bill."
The man who arranges the programme has to have some of the qualities
of a general. To fix eighteen or nineteen different acts into the
exact time allotted, and so to arrange them that the performance shall
never lapse or flag; to see that the "turns" which require only a front
scene can be utilized to set the stage for the "turns" which require
a full stage, requires judgment and training; but there is very little
confusion even at the first performance, and none thereafter.
Many of our best comedians, men and women, have come from the variety
stage, and it is rather remarkable that some of our best actors have of
late turned their attention to it. This interchange of courtesies has
brought out some amusing contrasts. A clever comedian of a comic-opera
organization was explaining to me his early experience in the "old
days," when he was a song-and-dance man. "The tough manager," he said,
"used to stand in the wings with a whistle, and if he didn't like your
act he blew it and a couple of stage hands ran in and shut you out from
your audience with two flats upon which were painted in huge letters
'N. G.,' and that was the end of your engagement." Then he proceeded
to tell with honest pride of his struggles, and his rise in the world
of art. "And now," said he to me, "I can say '_cawn't_' as well as you
can."
[Illustration: German Dialect Comedians.]
Our first day in vaudeville was rich in experience for us, and
particularly for one of the members of my little company. He was already
busy at the dressing-table making up, when the two other occupants of
his room entered—middle-aged, bald-headed, bandy-legged little men,
who quickly divested themselves of their street-clothes, and then
mysteriously disappeared from sight. Suddenly a deep-drawn sigh welled
up from the floor, and turning to see what had become of his companions,
the actor saw a good-humored face peering up out of a green-striped
bundle of assorted legs and arms. He was face to face with the Human
Lizard, and his partner in the Batrachian business, the Human Frog.
[Illustration]
"Good Lord! what are you doing?" exclaimed Mr. Roberts.
"Loosenin' up!"—laconically.
"But do you always do that?"
"Yes. _Now!_"
"Why _now_?"
"Well, I'm a little older than I was when I began this business, and yer
legs git stiff, ye know. I remember when I could tie a knot in either
leg without cracking a joint, but now I am four-flushing until I can
get enough to retire."
"Four-flushing?"
"Yes, doin' my turn one card shy. You understand."
And the striped bundle folded in and out on itself and tied itself in
bows, ascots, and four-in-hands until every joint in the actor's body
was cracking in sympathy.
Meanwhile his partner was standing apart with one foot touching the low
ceiling, and his hands clutching two of the clothes-hooks, striving for
the fifth card to redeem _his_ four-flush.
"Number fourteen!" shouts the call-boy through the door.
"That's us!"
And the four-flushers unwound and, gathering their heads and tails under
their arms, glided away for the stage.
Presently they were back panting and perspiring, with the information
that there was a man in one of the boxes who never turned his head
to look at their act; that there was a pretty girl in another box
fascinated by it; that the audience had relatives in the ice business
and were incapable of a proper appreciation of the double split and the
great brother double tie and slide—whatever that may be; and the two
athletes passed the alcohol bottle, and slipped gracefully back into
their clothes and private life.
[Illustration: Rag-time Dance.]
This unique and original world has its conventions, too, quite as hard
and fast as elsewhere. The vaudeville dude always bears an enormous cane
with a spike in the end of it even though the style in canes may be a
bamboo switch. The comedian will black his face, though he never makes
the lightest pretence to negro characterization, under the delusion that
the black face and kinky hair and short trousers are necessary badges of
the funny man. The vaudeville "artist" and his partner will "slang" each
other and indulge in brutal personalities under the theory that they are
guilty of repartee; and with a few brilliant exceptions, they all steal
from each other jokes and gags and songs and "business," absolutely
without conscience. So that if a comedian has originated a funny story
that makes a hit in New York, by the time he reaches Philadelphia he
finds that another comedian has filched it and told it in Philadelphia,
and the originator finds himself a dealer in second-hand goods.
It is manifest, I think, that vaudeville is very American. It touches
us and our lives at many places. It appeals to the business man, tired
and worn, who drops in for half an hour on his way home; to the person
who has an hour or two before a train goes, or before a business
appointment; to the woman who is wearied of shopping; to the children
who love animals and acrobats; to the man with his sweetheart or sister;
to the individual who wants to be diverted but doesn't want to think or
feel; to the American of all grades and kinds who wants a great deal for
his money. The vaudeville theatre belongs to the era of the department
store and the short story. It may be a kind of lunch-counter art, but
then art is so vague and lunch is so real.
And I think I may add that if anyone has anything exceptional in the
way of art, the vaudeville door is not shut to that.