About the most laughable thing around a theatre is the “supes.”
However funny a play may be, the actions of the supes are funnier
than the comedians. Men may act as supes for twenty years, and they
can never come on the stage without appearing awkward and falling all
over themselves. The actors tell them where to stand, and they get
into another place. They act as if they expected to be stabbed and
they cannot appear natural to save them. Take a far western scene,
where they want a lot of miners in a bar-room to take a drink. One
would think fellows who are in bar-rooms a dozen times a day would
know how to act, but they don’t. They all go up to the bar in a crowd,
and fall around, and then take tin cups of alleged whiskey and stare
at vacancy until told to sit down, and then they all try to sit down
on the same chair. When they are wanted for a scene in the Roman
forum, they get on the red night-gowns and walk around toeing in, and
walking knock-kneed, making the sickest lot of Roman citizens that
ever robbed a hen roost. It is a singular coincidence that a supe
always has a black patch on the seat of a pair of gray pants. Where
in the world they all get gray pants, and why they don’t have gray
patches on them, is more than anybody can find out. Let a couple of
supes come on the stage to remove a table, and they will have those
patches dead sure, and they will arrange to stand with the patches
to the audience. They probably reason that their faces are liable
to betray emotion, or that they may blush, but that the patches
can maintain a stern and dignified demeanor under the most trying
circumstances of guying and cat-calls on the part of the gallery
boys. Female supes are even worse than men in stubbing their toes on
the carpet, or backing against the wings. They are hired to come on
to fill up a scene at half a dollar a night, and they usually wear
octagon shaped tights, with more bran than legs, and it is painful to
see them stand around. But they get confidence in themselves quicker
than men, and they want to star after appearing one or two times. The
supe business has lots of fun in it.