Rehearsals for the new play began in August. The days were wilting but the theatrical world up and doing. Every available stage, hall and loft was requisitioned. Several companies shared the same stage, dividing the hours between them. Will's manager had his own theatre and the rehearsals were all-day affairs. Will studied his part at night after "the family" had retired. Sometimes I would lie awake and listen to him, talking aloud, reading a line first with one inflection and then trying another. Will's voice was one of his greatest assets.
Experience had come back to town with us. Before leaving the mountains, Will had jestingly asked her whether she would like to see Broadway. She took him at his word. We flattered ourselves she had become fond of us.
We discovered later that it was the profession, not the family, which lured her. She had found a new volume of faery lore. Will was the faery prince. Sometimes I wondered just how Experience reconciled Will's morning grumpiness with her preconceived notion of a hero. I recall how after seeing Will in a new role he had asked her how she liked him. She expressed herself as pleased with the play in general and with him in particular. But after he left the room she confided to me the following: "Ain't he the naturalest thing when he yells at that man with the powdered hair, Jackwees or somethin' like that--'Jackwees, bring me my sword!' I declare, ma'am, I jumped a foot and started for that sword! It was so natural; that's just the way he yells when I forget the morning papers."
The reliability of Experience brought me more leisure. I was free to go about without worry over the boy. I felt that intellectually I needed stimulus and I planned a winter's work. Of course everything depended upon the play "getting over," to use the vernacular. Will said he did not see how it could fail. Everyone connected with the production said the same thing. Success was in the air. Several times I had dropped in to see a rehearsal. I was interested to know the "method" of this particular manager about whom so much had been written. His productions were always effectively mounted. Magazine articles, full-page interviews had from time to time printed his recipes for evolving successful stars as well as money-making plays. One thrilling account in particular--supposedly his own words--told of the strenuous training of the tyro; how he aroused in his actors the precise degree of emotion necessary to a given scene. "I dragged her by the hair!" or "I pictured her own mother lying dead, foully murdered, before her until she cried aloud at the picture I had conjured." Again, "I tied my wrists together, I rolled about the floor, struggling to free myself; I wanted to feel just what a man would feel under similar conditions!" These and other highly coloured statements had from time to time been served up to the public. It is amazing how gullibly the public bites at the press-agent's worm. In nearly all such instances nothing could be farther from the truth. My own observation convinced me that the man's genius lay in his ability to select the right person for the right place. Having made the selection he played upon the _amour propre_ of his puppets. He led them to believe he had supreme confidence in their ability. The ruse was successful. It is the better part of human nature to want to measure up to the good opinion of others.
His methods of conducting a rehearsal were the simplest. He had infinite patience and perseverance. He left nothing to chance. A scene or an effect was repeated until the "mechanics" became automatic. His voice never rose above a conversational tone. He knew that to command others he must first be in command of himself. He left the roaring to petty understrappers with inflated ideas of their own importance. Once in a blue moon he let go. The effect was electrifying. I strongly suspected, however, that there was more or less "acting" in these outbursts. Just as his reluctant appearance before the curtain on first nights was a "carefully prepared bit of impromptu acting." The frightened expression of his face; the quick, nervous walk; the almost inaudible voice when he thanked his audience, "on behalf of the star, the author (or co-author), the musicians, the costumers, the scenic artists" and so on down the line; this with his mannerism of tugging at a picturesque forelock, this alone was worth the price of admission. First and last he was a good showman. The star who was the stepping stone to his fame and fortune was a lady with a past. She had entered the stage door through the advertising medium of the divorce court. After several unsuccessful attempts at starring she placed herself under the tuition of the manager, then allied with a school of acting. Possessed of abundant animal vitality--"magnetism," if you prefer--as well as "temperament,"
the ugly duckling developed into a star of first magnitude. When Will joined the company she was at the height of her success--a success which later dulled the finer artistic restraint and listed toward a fall. But act she could, playing upon each reed, each stop of the emotional organ, with a conviction of which few actresses are capable. In the choice of plays the genius of the man again displayed itself; the right play for the right person. Doubtless, he understood that temperament, after all, is but the flood-tide of our natural predilections.
To the layman a rehearsal is a bewildering and murky affair. Seated in the "front of the house," in the clammy shadow of shrouded seats, a student of human nature finds much to interest him. Under the light of a single "bunch" or the "blanching" irregular foots, the players look old and insignificant. The blue white light has a cruel way of exposing the lines and seams. They sit about or stand in groups, the blue-covered typewritten parts in hand awaiting the call of the first act. A youngish man, probably the assistant stage-manager, sets the stage; that is, he marks the entrances and the boundaries with plain wooden chairs and stage-braces. The homely wooden chair plays many parts; now it stands for a fire-place or a grand piano, again it may be a rocky pass beyond which are the mountains.
A fagged looking man enters the stage door with a hurried, important air. By the bundle of manuscript under his arm shall you know him. It is the stage-manager. He greets the members of the company with a curt, preoccupied air and hurries down to the prompt stand. There are consultations with the working staff and perhaps with one or two of the players. While he is thus engaged let us enquire into the personnel of the company; that tall good-looker in the well tailored gown is a newcomer to the stage. She has been given a small part--a half dozen lines at best. On twenty dollars a week she carries a maid--and a jewel case. No, she does not _have_ to work for a living; neither is she the spoilt child of a multi-millionaire. She belongs to that great class of women who have no class. Time hangs heavily on her hands. It looks better to be connected with some kind of a profession; a legitimate profession. Besides, her vanity makes her "want to do something." The stage has always appealed to her. With a little "influence" she gets a part. Salary is no object. Perhaps the management has saved five or ten dollars a week on the deal. At any rate a good-looker adds "class" to the personnel. She drives to the theatre in a taxi; sometimes she comes in a big limousine car accompanied by an elderly gentleman with watery eyes. On the opening night he will send her great boxes of American Beauty roses. After the show they will sup at Rector's, and his friends who have been in front with him will tell her how pretty she looked. Of course she will not go on the road with the company. Dear no! She will leave that to some other girl who is not so young, not so pretty, but who needs the money.
The white-haired lady with the sweet face and the stern old man who has brought her a chair are man and wife. Theirs is one of the few stage marriages which have endured. Perhaps it is the very rarity of the case which makes them so popular and well-beloved. One hears them invariably referred to as "Dear old Mr. and Mrs. So and So." One looks at them wistfully and wonders at the secret of their success....
The actor with the monocle, oddly cut clothes and the overpowering savoir-faire is an English importation. Managers assert that the average English actor plays the gentleman more effectively than his American cousin. It all depends on what kind of a gentleman the role demands.
When an Englishman is called upon to portray a gentlemanly officer of the United States Army the effect is incongruous to say the least. The American manager, vulgar and uncouth himself, is impressed by the English complacency. A bluffer, he has a sneaking respect for anyone who throws a bluff and gets away with it.
The several youngish men with a hint of effeminancy in their make-up might be called the "stationaries" or "walking gentlemen." One of this _genre_ is to be found in nearly every company. Too proud for the ribbon counter, too erratic for commercial life, he drifts into the profession because he feels the call of the artistic temperament. He plays small parts, disseminates gossip, flatters the star--or the leading lady--reads a little, sleeps much--and drinks more.
That beefy looking man is the leading heavy. Not many years since he was a leading man. Now when a leading man takes on flesh he is marked for a reduction in value. The first step down in his career is the day he begins to play heavies. To be sure, there are heavy men who never have been leading men; these, however, come under the head of character heavies. The gentlemanly heavy unfailingly aspires to heroic roles. The present incumbent of villainy had "fallen on his feet." Some seasons previously he had played an inconsequential engagement under the same management. The star took a fancy to him. Henceforth his engagements were assured--until the fancy waned. Everybody understood; they shrugged their shoulders and smiled. Nobody cared. Neither did the heavy man.
Character actors without exception are envious of the leading man. "Call that acting?" demands the man behind the make-up. "Call it acting to walk on and play yourself? Why, it's a cinch!"
"_O, is it?_" retorts the leading man. "You ought to try it. It's the most difficult thing in the world to walk on and be perfectly natural.
I'd like to see some of you fellows who hide behind your wigs and queer make-ups go on and play a straight part. Why you wouldn't know what to do with your hands!" ...
There was something plaintive about the woman who sat in the shadow of the set-pieces, piled high against the wall. The rouge on her cheeks but accentuated the lines in her face. The brassy gold on her hair showed gray against her temples. "Better days" was clearly stamped all over her. Perhaps she was thinking of those days--when _she_ was a star; when being a star meant something more than an animated clothes-horse. Her mother had been a great actress in the Booth and Barrett days. She, herself, had lisped some childish lines with them. Later, she had become a soubrette and a star in merry little plays in which she sang and danced and "emoted," all in one evening. There are no soubrettes nowadays. The term has degenerated into a slangy sobriquet. "Ingenue"
has replaced it; nothing is required of an _ingenue_ but saccharine sweetness and vacuous prettiness--and youth, youth, _youth_! O, the harvest of age! The public which she had amused for years has forgotten her. They scarcely recall her existence: not even a hand of recognition on her entrance. Occasionally a reviewer will dig her out of the dust of the past--only to speak of her as "in Memoriam." Managers, too, hesitate to engage her. There are so many has-beens and so few parts to fit them.
Besides, there are freshly spawned pupils from the divine academies to be had for the asking. Why waste money?...
A psychical ripple disturbs the ether. Necks crane toward the door. The star arrives. She comes slowly, with the air of one assured of an effective entrance. She punctuates her animated conversation with the manager with smiles and nods. That meek-looking person bringing up the rear is the author. He gropes his way through the dark passage to the front of the house and is lost in oblivion.
"First act!" calls the prompter. _"First act!_"
The play opened out of town. The working force was sent ahead with the scenery and the baggage. There was a special train for the company.
Besides the regular staff there were costumers, flash-light photographers, relatives of the players and guests of the management.
The guests included several critics from certain New York journals. One of these had an ambitious wife who was a member of the company. The other, rumour had it, was on the salary list of the management. This may or may not have been true. Subsequent effusive reviews and the manner in which these critics took up the cudgels against the enemies of the manager did not, however, indicate unbiased opinion. "Subsidized or hypnotized"--that was the question. The persuasive art of "fixing" is not confined to politics.
When the train arrived in----, there was barely time for a hasty bite before rushing off to the theatre. One felt the thrill of excitement at the very stage door. Even the back doorkeeper was infected. When Will stopped to look through the pigeon-holes for mail, the keeper of the sacred portal was exhibiting a brand new litter of kittens. "Everyone of 'em black; just like their mother. Your show'll be a big success--talk about your mascots!" Stage-folk are as superstitious as a nigger mammy.
A whole chapter might be devoted to their lore. One of the greatest hoodoos is to speak the tag of a play before the opening night. The tag of a play is the last several words immediately preceding the final fall of the curtain. When it comes to the tag, the actor to whose lot the final lines fall either stops with a gesture or perhaps he purloins Hamlet's last words--"The rest is silence."
Back on the stage there was the sound of hammers, the shouts of the stage-hands to the men in the flies, "drops" being adjusted, calls of warning to some reckless person about to come in contact with a sandbag at that moment lowered from the flies. Abrupt blasts of the orchestra reach one's ears. The music cues are being rehearsed, the director shouting against the din on the stage. On the "apron," with a bottle of milk in his hand and surrounded by a half dozen coatless and perspiring men, is the producer. A shaft of light darts from the spot-light machine in the gallery, and hovers over the stage like a searchlight at sea.
Green, yellow, red and blue slides are tried and a weird waving moving picture effect brings a shout of laughter from the privileged watchers in front. In the dressing-rooms the players are making up. The wardrobe mistress hurries from one to another, needle and thread in hand. There are impatient calls for the head costumer; "Props" taps at the doors and delivers the properties to be carried by the various actors in the play.
The actors talk across the partitions or run through lines of a "shaky"
scene. "Fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes!" warns the assistant stage manager making the rounds. Below stage, the supers or "extra people" sit about in noisy groups awaiting the call. Some of them are as "nervous as a cat," to use their own expression. These are not the rank and file of supernumeraries. The promise of a long run in New York ofttimes tempts women who have "spoken lines" to go on as extra ladies. As a sop they are given a leading part to understudy. The excitement is infectious.
With the lowering of the curtain and the first strains of the orchestra one instinctively shifts forward to the edge of one's seat.
It is either the lights or a missing prop or a hiatus between speech and action which the first acquaintance with the scenery develops or a "jumbled" ensemble or something unexpected which brings the rehearsal to an abrupt halt. The dialogue stops like a megaphone suddenly shut off.
The director hurries down the centre aisle, the prompter's head appears at the proscenium arch. "Loved I not honour more!" repeats the actor, looking expectantly off stage. "Loved I not honour more!" bellows the stage-manager, getting into the game. "That's _your_ cue, Mr. Prime Minister. Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones! Where _is_ Mr. Jones?"
"Jones! Jones!" reverberates about the stage and in the flies.
"Here I am! I hear you!" answers a muffled voice up-stage. "I can't get through. The entrance's blocked with a sacred elephant!" There is a rush of stage hands in the direction indicated. Simultaneously Mr. Jones appears L. I. E. "I'm sorry," he says, "but I couldn't butt in through the stone walls of the castle, now could I?" indicating the boxed set which formed the outer walls of the scene.
The obstruction is removed amidst a heated confab and the stage cleared for action. "Go back--go back to Miss Melon's entrance." Miss Melon enters. The scene starts flatly enough. It is difficult to pick up a scene and get back into the atmosphere at once. One must "warm up to it."
A star requires an effective entrance. The audience must be apprised of her approach. "Here she comes now!" (accompanied by a look off stage.) Or, a flunkey enters and solemnly announces, "His Highness, Prince of Ptomania, mounts the steps." These helpful hints prepare the reception which the ushers start at the psychological moment. Many persons are backward about applauding for fear of making a mistake: just follow the usher. The supporting actors understand that they are expected to "humour" the applause, either upon an entrance or for a scene. Stars, however, do not always encourage applause for their supporting actors.
Some of them go so far as to "shut it off" by flashing on house light on a curtain in which they do not figure, or dimming the foots or directing the actors to "jump in" with the next speech.
In the midst of a scene which sends little shivers up and down one's spinal column the star hesitates, stammers, repeats, then interpolates while she searches frantically among the papers on the table for the missing prop. "Where's the knife--the fatal dagger?" she demands, dropping the role as one would step out of a petticoat. The man about to be killed joins in the hunt for the deadly weapon. "I can't kill you very well without a knife, can I, Jack? Unless I stab you with a hatpin--" There is something so incongruous in the rapid contrasts that everyone, including the star herself, gives way to laughter. Meanwhile the stage-manager's yells for Props have brought that culprit from the flies where he has been touching up a damp cloud with a paint brush.
"The knife!" a chorus hurls at him.
"What knife?" he demands, continuing to mix the silver lining to the cloud.
"The dagger! I told you the last thing not to forget it!" fumes the bumptious stage-manager.
"Aw, what's the matter with you?" replies Props witheringly. Then he ambles down to the star, who by this time is lost in a little side-play with her heavy man. "Miss Blank," he begins with punctuation marks between each word, "Miss Blank, didn't you tell me to leave that knife on your dressing table so you could place it where you wanted it on the table centre?"
"I did, I did! I apologize, Johnny--I beg everybody's pardon!" She makes a contrite bow toward the front of the house. Johnny shuffles off, muttering to himself, and Madame's maid enters with the missing link.
"Let's begin at your cross," Madame says to the heavy. "Just before you say, 'Darling, my life, my love, you're mine at last!' And Jack--I hope your wooden chest protector is in place, for I'm going to strike to-night just as I am going to do to-morrow night and turn it r-r-round and r-r-round, as if I loved your blood--and Mr. Director," she glides to the foots and shades her eyes from the glare, "Herr Director, can't you play a little more _piano_ just at that point? I want my gurgle of delight to get _over_--understand?... O, Mr. Hartley, while I think of it----"
She toys with the ornaments on his dress as she speaks. "In our next scene give me a little more room; play farther down stage. It's better for our scene." Mr. Hartley smiles to himself as he disappears in the wings; he is "on-to" the little tricks of stars and leading ladies. To make a _vis-a-vis_ play the scene down stage is to rob him of any effective participation in the scene. "To hog" is the vulgar but expressive infinitive applied to this trick of the trade.
After many false starts, the end of the act is finally reached. The players are then posed in certain effective scenes from the play and the flash-light pictures are taken. Then comes a change of costume and the second act is set. During the long wait members of the company come in front to get a glimpse of the scenery or to discuss the play and the performance with their friends. I recall an instance which will exemplify the jealousy of one star for another, especially those under the same management. During the early years of Will's career he had played with a summer stock company. The leading woman of the organization was now one of the stars under Will's present management.
She had come on from her country home--(her own season had not yet opened)--and was an interested spectator of the dress rehearsal. She and Will had kept up a desultory interest during the intervening years and were on a friendly footing. "What do you think of the play?" he asked, sitting down beside her.
"It's a sensation," she predicted. "How does your part pan out?"
"O, it's a fair part. I've got a couple of big scenes, but the _heavy_ makes circles all around him. If I had read the play before I signed, I believe I should have turned it down."
"What do you care--you're the _hero_, and that is what counts with the women. It fits you like a glove; and, speaking of parts, what do you think of _that_ for a star-part? Did you ever see anything like it?
She's the whole show.... When I think of the _also-ran_ I am playing for a star part ... let me tell you--just between ourselves--that he'll have to hand me out something fatter next season or there'll be something doing in another direction. Little Abe's syndicate has been making eyes at me and--you never can tell. Glory! I never saw such an acting part in my life! Why, she isn't off the stage two minutes during the whole first act!"
It is past midnight when the curtain goes down on the second act. The lights have worked badly and for an hour the electricians have been put through the paces until the desired effect is reached. Spirits begin to flag. The Englishman's wife sets up a tea basket; friends and relatives are sent out for sandwiches and "something to wash 'em down." At this stage of the siege one becomes a mere machine. There is no attempt at acting. It is now a mechanical perfection. When the scenic effects refuse to act on cues or "anticipate" the same, or the supers jumble and everybody grows cross and "on edge," one shudders to realize that the opening night is close at hand. One hopes and prays things will not go like this to-morrow night. There is consolation in the old adage: "A poor dress rehearsal--a good first night."
We leave the theatre when the milkman is making his rounds. A day of fitful sleep with its undercurrent of tension; the opening night with nerves tuned to the highest pitch, then success or failure, who can tell? The box office is the arbiter.
The opening night is not the only strain attendant upon a new production. One is on tenter-hooks for days, perhaps weeks, to learn whether the play has "caught on" or not. Favourable, even laudatory, reviews will not drag the public into the theatre if they do not like the offering. Stars may have a certain drawing power, but "The play's the thing." No star ever yet saved a bad play from oblivion or spoiled a good play with bad acting.
I am sure that Will and the members of the company watched the "houses"
from the peep-holes in the curtain as eagerly as the star and the management kept an eye on the box-office receipts. "How was the house last night?" was the daily question I put to Will with his morning coffee. Finally we settled back with the assurance of a season's run ahead of us. I set in motion the plans I had outlined for myself. I induced Will to study languages with me for a time, but his hours were so uncertain that he finally dropped out. Music was a passion with me. I went through a whole season of the Opera treat I had promised myself for years. Will was fond of music, too, and sometimes we would go together to the Sunday night concerts at the Metropolitan. Of course there were still the dinner-parties and the supper-parties and matinees for benevolent purposes. Will seemed to have tired of the parties and spent more and more of his time at the Lambs. He never came home to supper after the theatre nowadays. I missed my little talks with him across the supper table. There was no longer any need to throw cold water in my face to keep myself fresh until his coming. Sometimes when I was wakeful I would hear him come in; it was generally daylight. Sometimes, on Sunday morning, if he found me awake he would hand me the Morning Telegram. No wonder they call it "the chorus girl's breakfast." Among other things I did not like about the Lambs was that irritating way the telephone boy had of asking "Who's calling, please." Will said they do that at all Clubs.