The expenses of this house must be enormous, if they always play _Box
and Cox_ with a rasher of real Canadian bacon.
How nice to know that the musicians, though out of sight under the
stage, are in evening dress on velvet cushions!
Whoever is the author of this comedy, he has not written up with spirit
to that delightful Louis the Fifteenth linen cupboard.
I cannot catch a word "Macbeth" is saying, but I can see at a glance
that his kilt would be extremely cheap at seventy pounds.
I am not surprised to hear that the "Tartar's lips" for the cauldron
alone add nightly something like fifty-five-and-sixpence to the
expenses.
Do not bother me about the situation when I am looking at the quality of
the velvet pile.
Since the introduction of the _live_ hedgehog into domestic drama
obliged the management to raise the second-tier private boxes to forty
guineas, the Duchess has gone into the slips with an order.
They had, perhaps, better take away the champagne-bottle and the
diamond-studded whistle from the prompter.
Ha! here comes the chorus of villagers, provided with real silk
pocket-handkerchiefs.
It is all this sort of thing that elevates the drama, and makes me so
contented to part with a ten-pound note for an evening's amusement.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Pantomime Child (to admiring friend)._ "Yus, and there's
another hadvantage in bein' a hactress. You get yer fortygraphs took for
noffink!"]
* * * * *
THE HEIGHT OF LITERARY NECESSITY.--"Spouting" Shakspeare.
* * * * *
WHEN are parsons bound in honour not to abuse theatres?
When they take orders.
* * * * *
WHAT VOTE THE MANAGER OF A THEATRE ALWAYS HAS.--The "casting" vote.
* * * * *
"STAND NOT ON THE ORDER OF YOUR GOING."--An amiable manager says the
orders which he issues for the pit and gallery are what in his opinion
constitute "the lower orders."
* * * * *
GREAT THEATRICAL EFFECT.--During a performance of _Macbeth_ at the
Haymarket, the thunder was so natural that it turned sour a pint of beer
in the prompter's-box.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE DRAMA.--"'Ere, I say, 'Liza, we've seen this 'ere
play before!" "No, we ain't." [_Wordy argument follows._] "Why, don't
you remember, same time as Bill took us to the 'Pig an' Whistle,' an' we
'ad stewed eels for supper?" "Oh lor! Yes, that takes me back to it!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: TRUE APPRECIATION
(_Overheard at the Theatre_)
_Mrs. Parvenu._ "I don't know that I'm exackly _gone_ on Shakspeare
Plays."
[_Mr. P. agrees._
]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Conversationalist._ "Do you play ping-pong?"
_Actor._ "No. I play _Hamlet_!"]
* * * * *
TO ACTORS WHO ARE NOT WORTH A THOUGHT.--We notice that there is a book
called "Acting and Thinking." This is to distinguish it, we imagine,
from the generality of acting, in which there is mostly no thinking?
* * * * *
A CRUSHER.--_Country Manager (to Mr. Agrippa Snap, the great London
critic, who has come down to see the production of a piece on trial)._
And what do you think, sir, of our theatre and our players?
_Agrippa Snap (loftily)._ Well, frankly, Mr. Flatson, your green-room's
better than your company.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The higher walk of the drama]
* * * * *
[Illustration: "Auntie, can _you_ do that?"]
* * * * *
Theatrical managers are so often accused of being unable to break with
tradition, that it seems only fair to point out that several of them
have recently produced plays, in which the character of "Hamlet" does
not appear at all.
* * * * *