There is no person in the world who is easier to overlook the
inconsistencies that show themselves on the stage at theatres than we are,
but once in a while there is something so glaring that it pains us. We
have seen actors fight a duel in a piece of woods far away from any town,
on the stage, and when one of them fell, pierced to the heart with a
sword, we have noticed that he fell on a Brussels carpet. That is all
wrong, but we have stood it manfully.
[Illustration: BEHIND THE SCENES.]
We have seen a woman on the stage who was so beautiful that we could be
easily mashed if we had any heart left to spare. Her eyes were of that
heavenly color that has been written about heretofore, and her smile as
sweet as ever was seen, but behind the scenes, through the wings,
we have seen her trying to dig the cork out of a beer bottle with a pair
of shears, and ask a supe, in harsh tones, where the cork-screw was, while
she spread mustard on a piece of cheese, and finally drank the beer from
the bottle, and spit the pieces of cork out on the floor, sitting astride
of a stage chair, and her boot heels up on the top round, her trail rolled
up into a ball, wrong side out, showing dirt from forty different stage
floors.
These things hurt. But the worst thing that has ever occurred to knock the
romance out of us, was to see a girl in the second act, after "twelve
years is supposed to elapse," with the same pair of red stockings on that
she wore in the first act, twelve years before. Now, what kind of a way is
that? It does not stand to reason that a girl would wear the same pair of
stockings twelve years. Even if she had them washed once in six months,
they would be worn out. People notice these things.
What the actresses of this country need is to change their stockings. To
wear them twelve years even in their minds, shows an inattention to the
details and probabilities, of a play, that must do the actresses an
injury, if not give them corns. Let theatre-goers insist that the
stockings be changed oftener, in these plays that sometimes cover half a
century, and the stockings will not become moth-eaten. Girls, look to the
little details. Look to the stockings, as your audiences do, and you will
see how it is yourselves.