In spite of all you can do in the way of avoiding soliloquies and
getting your characters on and off the stage in a dramatic manner, a
time will come when you realise sadly that your play is not a bit like
life after all. Then is the time to introduce a meal on the stage. A
stage meal is popular, because it proves to the audience that the
actors, even when called GEORGE ALEXANDER or ARTHUR BOURCHIER, are real
people just like you and me. "Look at Sir HERBERT eating," we say
excitedly to each other in the pit, having had a vague idea up till then
that an actor lived like a god on praise and grease-paint and his
photograph in the papers. "Another cup, won't you?" says Miss GLADYS
COOPER; "No, thank you," says Mr. DENNIS EADIE--dash it, it's exactly
what we do at Twickenham ourselves. And when, to clinch matters, the
dramatist makes Mr. GERALD DU MAURIER light a real cigarette in the
Third Act, then he can flatter himself that he has indeed achieved the
ambition of every stage writer, and "brought the actual scent of the hay
across the footlights."
But there is a technique to be acquired in this matter as in everything
else within the theatre. The great art of the stage-craftsman, as I have
already shown, is to seem natural rather than to be natural. Let your
actors have tea by all means, but see that it is a properly histrionic
tea. This is how it should go:--
_Hostess._ You'll have some tea, won't you? [_Rings bell._
_Guest._ Thank you.
_Enter_ Butler.
_Hostess._ Tea, please, Matthews.
_Butler_ (_impassively_). Yes, m'lady. (_This is all he says during the
play, so he must try and get a little character into it, in order that
"The Era" may remark, "Mr. Thompson was excellent as _Matthews_."
However, his part is not over yet, for he returns immediately, followed
by three footmen--just as it happened when you last called on the
Duchess--and sets out the tea._)
_Hostess (holding up the property lump of sugar in the tongs)._ Sugar?
_Guest (luckily)._ No, thanks.
_Hostess replaces lump and inclines empty teapot over tray for a moment,
then hands him a cup painted brown inside--thus deceiving the gentleman
with the telescope in the upper circle._
_Guest (touching his lips with the cup and then returning it to its
saucer)._ Well, I must be going.
_Re-enter Butler and three Footmen, who remove the tea-things._
_Hostess_ (to Guest). Good-bye; so glad you could come. [_Exit_ Guest.
His visit has been short, but it has been very thrilling while it
lasted.
Tea is the most usual meal on the stage, for the reason that it is the
least expensive, the property lump of sugar being dusted and used again
on the next night. For a stage dinner a certain amount of genuine
sponge-cake has to be made up to look like fish, chicken or cutlet. In
novels the hero has often "pushed his meals away untasted," but no stage
hero would do anything so unnatural as this. The etiquette is to have
two bites before the butler and the three footmen whisk away the plate.
The two bites are made, and the bread is crumbled, with an air of great
eagerness; indeed, one feels that in real life the guest would clutch
hold of the footman and say, "Half a mo', old chap, I haven't _nearly_
finished;" but the actor is better schooled than this. Besides, the
thing is coming back again as chicken directly.
But it is the cigarette which chiefly has brought the modern drama to
its present state of perfection. Without the stage cigarette many an
epigram would pass unnoticed, many an actor's hands would be much more
noticeable; and the man who works the fireproof safety curtain would
lose even the small amount of excitement which at present attaches to
his job.
Now although it is possible, in the case of a few men at the top of the
profession, to leave the conduct of the cigarette entirely to the actor,
you will find it much more satisfactory to insert in the stage
directions the particular movements (with match and so forth) that you
wish carried out. Let us assume that _Lord Arthur_ asks _Lord John_ what
a cynic is--the question of what a cynic is having arisen quite
naturally in the course of the plot. Let us assume further that you wish
_Lord John_ to reply, "A cynic is a man who knows the price of
everything and the value of nothing." It has been said before, but you
may feel that it is quite time it was said again; besides, for all the
audience knows, _Lord John_ may simply be quoting. Now this answer, even
if it comes quite fresh to the stalls, will lose much of its effect if
it is said without the assistance of a cigarette. Try it for yourself.
_Lord John._ A cynic is a man who, etc....
Rotten. Now try again.
_Lord John._ A cynic is a man who, etc.... (_Lights cigarette_).