Jane Wheatley Celebrated Her Recovery from First Attack of Stage Fever
By Falling Victim to a Second.
Although stock company work, with two performances a day and a weekly
change of bill, is an awful grind, it is also about the only way
nowadays in which the young player can obtain the necessary experience
to give him or her that versatility which broadens ability.
Take, for instance, the six weeks last spring when Jane Wheatley filled
an engagement in Providence as leading woman of the Albee stock company,
at Keith’s. During that period she was _Muriel_ in “The Second in
Command,” an English comedy; _Lucy_ in “The Dictator,” an American
farce; _Katherine_ in “If I Were King,” a romantic drama; _Phyllis_ in
the Goodwin-Elliott play, “When We Were Twenty-One”; _Marcelle_ in “The
Gay Parisians,” a lively farce from the French; and _Mary of Magdala_ in
the Scriptural play, “The Holy City.”
Of her work in the last-named part, a local critic wrote: “She carried
the rôle through from the moment of awakening from the scarlet bondage
with a spirit of reverence that was much more than mere acting, and had
applause been permitted she would have carried off all honors.”
Spent Allowance for Theater Tickets.
Miss Wheatley is a young woman who went on the stage from pure love of
it, starting In 1898 with a very lowly part In “The Christian.” She was
with Viola Allen for three seasons, and subsequently she played
prominent parts with Sadie Martinot. She followed Grace Filkins as _Lady
Airish_, in the support of Alice Fischer, in “The School for Husbands.”
The account she has furnished THE SCRAP BOOK of her start in the
profession is so very entertainingly written that I am giving it
herewith in her own words:
“While studying in Boston some years ago, every penny of my allowance
went for theater tickets, and the Hollis Street Theater was my favorite
haunt. My chum was an enthusiast on the subject, if ever there was one,
and I made a very good second. We had our respective favorites, and mine
was Miss Viola Allen. I always had hoped to meet her, and even thought
she might advise me or help me to a position on the stage. But how to
arrange a meeting?
“My chum (Kate) and I talked it over, and finally decided upon a plan of
action.
“Kate had gone to a boarding-school, somewhere in Canada, and had heard
much from the teachers about Miss Allen, who had been a former student
there. One of the teachers even suggested giving Kate a letter to Miss
Allen. These facts were all we had to introduce us, but I remember that
I was the timid one and Kate the fearless.
“After the matinée one day we summoned up courage and went to the stage
entrance, sent in our cards, and, with beating hearts, waited. Miss
Allen was then leading woman with the Empire stock company.
“In a few minutes a maid came out to us, and with cold politeness
inquired what we wanted.
Aid from Viola Allen.
“‘We wished to see Miss Allen,’ was our answer.
“I know now what a piece of effrontery it was on our part, for when an
actress has played a long part, and has only a short time before she has
to play it again, she is ready for only one thing, and that is rest.
However, Miss Allen was then, just as she always has been, kind, and
invited us to come another day—which we did; and this time we were
successful, for she saw us, and I remember how happy it made me.
“I remember the conversation, too; for she spoke of what was uppermost
in our minds—our ambitions. So encouraging was the interview with this
dear lady that when I finished my studies in Boston I wrote to her,
saying that I meant to start my professional career in the autumn, and
‘would she help me?’
“She did. In reply to my letter, she said there were no parts in her
play, ‘The Christian,’ except those requiring experience, but that some
characters would speak in chorus, and I would be welcome to such a part.
“I remember an illustration made frequently by Dr. Emerson at the
Emerson College. He pointed out to us that on the stage we were like
parts of a mosaic—alone we were nothing, but as a part of the whole,
each one in his place very necessary to the whole. I did not then
realize how very small was to be my part of the mosaic—its proportions
were exaggerated in my mind, and I had visions of myself in a dainty or
artistic costume, entering with two or three other young ladles, and
speaking in chorus, something as do the four daughters in ‘The Gay
Parisians.’
“I also remember Miss Allen’s apologetic remark about the salary. ‘The
money is nothing,’ she said.
“As for that part of it—money—it had never entered my mind. The
happiness of having the opportunity was enough; and to think of being
paid, actually paid, for simply doing what I loved to do! It was all
very beautiful.
Appalled by Reality.
“To skip rehearsals, which, needless to say, were a source of great
enjoyment, as it was all so new to me, the opening night in Albany came,
and there my troubles began.
“The ‘characters speaking in chorus’ formed a mob, and extra
supernumeraries were engaged for the night in Albany. It was a wild
enough mob; my pride suffered, and my toes, too, for both were trodden
upon. The damp cellar dressing-room with its many occupants, and the
harsh, severe directions of the stage manager—it was all so different
from what I had expected.
“In the course of the evening I found a lonely corner in the despised
cellar and wept long and bitterly. Was this the way to Fame? Could I
bridge these humiliations and discomforts? The goal seemed very far off,
and I remember repeating to myself:
“‘I’m cured! I’m cured!’
“However, I went on to Washington with the company. There I tried
another day of it, but conditions grew worse instead of better. During
the afternoon of the second day in Washington I packed my bag, walked to
the station, bought a ticket for New York, said nothing to any one of my
resolution, but wired my father to meet me, and got on the train, bound
for home.
Moth Again Seeks Flame.
“And oh, how glad I was to see my father, and he to see me! And how glad
he was that I was ‘cured’ of my desire to be an actress!
“Well, to make a long story short, I remained ‘cured’ only a short
time—two weeks, I think it was.
“A nice letter from Miss Allen, saying that she would keep my understudy
for me, enticed me to return when the company played in New York. I
refused to give up again, although those first tears were not the only
ones I had cause to shed during that long season.
“My reward came, however, for before the close of the theater year the
girl whose rôle I understudied left the cast, and they gave me her part
for the rest of the season. Miss Allen helped me herself to do justice
to it—even to rehearsing me after matinée, when she must have been very
tired.
“And it was in my beloved Boston, where I had first met her, that I
played my first part, and in her company, only the theater was the old
Boston Museum, not the Hollis Street.”