Goethe, in “Wilhelm Meister,” struck the key-note of the universal underlying dramatic instinct. The boy begins to play the drama of life with his puppets, and afterward exploits the wild dreams of youth in the company of the strolling players. We are, indeed, all actors. We all know how early the strutting soldier-instinct crops out, and how soon the little girl assumes the cares of the amateur nursery.
We begin early to play at living, until Life becomes too strong for us, and, seizing us in merciless and severe grip, returns our condescension by making of us the puppets with which the passing tragedy or comedy is presented. With this idea in mind we have begun our little book with the play in the garret—the humblest attempt at histrionics—and so going on, still endeavoring to help those more ambitious artists who, in remote and secluded spots, may essay to amuse themselves and others by attempting the rôle of a Cushman, a Wallack, a Sothern, a Booth, or a Gilbert.
Our subsequent task has been a more difficult one. To tell people how to give all sorts of entertainments—in fact, to tell our intelligent people how to do anything—is nearly as foolish a practice as to carry coals to Newcastle, and implies that sort of conceit which Thackeray so wittily suggests when, in his “Rebecca and Rowena,” he presents the picture of a little imp painting the lily. It is hard to know where to draw the line. It would be delightful to amuse—to help along with the great business of making home happy—to tell a mother what to do with her active young brood, and yet to avoid that dreadful bore of mentioning to her something which she already knows a great deal better than we do.
The Scylla of barrenness and the Charybdis of garrulity are before any author who tries to speak upon a familiar theme. Let us hope that, through the kindness of our readers, we may not have wrecked our little bark on either.
Happy the children who have inherited a garret! We mean the good old country garret, wherein have been stowed away the accumulations of many generations of careful housewives. The more worthless these accumulations, the better for the children. An old aunt who saved all the old bonnets, an old uncle who had a wardrobe of cast-off garments to which he had appended the legend,
“Too poor to wear, too good to give away—”
these are the purveyors to the histrionic talents of nations yet unborn. Old garrets are really the factories of History, Poetry, and the Drama.
Into such a garret crept the lame little Walter Scott, and what did he not bring out of it! Talk of the lumber of a garret and the accumulations of a house, and you mention to the thoughtful the gold and diamond mines of a future literature. A bright boy or girl will unearth many a pearl of price from those old trunks, those dilapidated bureau-drawers, those piles of old love-letters, those garments of the past, that broken-down guitar, that stringless violin, that too-reedy flute. The taste for old furniture has rather emptied the garret of its time-honored chairs and old clocks, but there is still in its ghost-haunted corners quite enough goblin tapestry for the fancy of the growing child.
A country home is, of course, the most precious possession a child can have—a country home in which his ancestors have lived for years, and which has a large garret, a capacious cellar, and several barns. One might wish that every child might be born in Salem or Plymouth, or near one of those old settlements. But as that would be quite impossible, considering the acres which we are compelled to cover as a nation, we may as well see what can be done, in the way of Home Amusements, with the garret as well as the parlor. The garret, in both town and country, has been the earliest home of the legitimate drama since the first youthful aspirant for histrionic honors strapped on the sock and buskin. A good country barn has also been sometimes the scene not only of the strolling but of the resident player.
Wherever the amateur actor pitches his tent or erects his stage, he must consider wisely the extraneous space behind the acting arena necessary for his exits and entrances, and his theatrical properties. In an ordinary house the back parlor, with two doors opening into the dining-room, makes an ideal theatre; for the exits can be masked, and the space is specially useful. One door opening into a large hall is absolutely necessary, if no better arrangement can be made. The best stage is, of course, like that of a theatre, with areas all around and behind it, so that the actors have a space to retire into. This is difficult in a parlor, unless it be a very large one. The difficulty, however, has been and will be solved by the ingenious. Drawing up the big sofa in front of the footlights, and arranging a pair of screens and a curtain, has often served well for a parlor play.
It is hardly necessary to say that all these arrangements for a play depend, in the first place, on the requirements of the play itself and its legitimate business, which may demand a table, a bureau, a piano, a fireplace, etc. And here we would say to the youthful actor, Select your play at first with a view to its requiring little change of scene, and not much furniture. A young actor needs space; he is embarrassed by too many chairs and tables. Then, again, choose a play which has so much varied incident in it that it will, as it is said, “play itself.” Of this branch of our subject we will treat later.
The first thing to be built is the stage. Any carpenter will lay a few stout boards on end-pieces, which are simply squared joists, and for very little money will take away the boards and joists afterward; or a permanent stage can be built for a few dollars. Sometimes ingenious boys build their own stage with old boxes; but this is apt to be dangerous. Very few families are without an old carpet, which will serve for a stage-covering; and, if this is lacking, green baize is very cheap. A whole stage-fitting—curtains and all—can be made of green cambric; but it is better to have all the stuffs of woolen, for the danger from fire is otherwise great. Footlights may be made of tin, with pieces of candle put in; or a row of old bottles of equal height, with candles stuck in the mouth, make a most admirable and very cheap set of footlights. The mother, an elder brother, or some one with judgment, should see to all these things, or the play may be spoiled by an accident.
The curtain is always a trouble. A light wooden frame should be made by the carpenter; firm at the joints, and as high as the stage, to the front part of which it should be attached. This frame forms three sides of a square, and the curtain must be firmly nailed to the top-piece. A stiff wire should be run along the lower edge of the curtain, and a number of rings be attached to the back of it in squares—three rows of four rings each, extending from top to bottom. Three cords are now fastened to the wire, and, passing through the rings, are run over three pulleys on the upper piece of the frame. It is well for all young managers of garret theatres to get up one of these curtains, even if they have to hire an upholsterer to help them. The draw-curtain never works surely, and often hurts the dénoûment of the play. In the case of the drop-curtain which we have described, one person holds all the ends of the cords, tied together; and, on pulling this, the curtain goes up and down as if by magic, and rarely gets out of order, which is a great gain.
Now as for stage properties. Almost any household, or any self-respecting garret, will hold enough of “things.” If it does not, let the young actors exercise their ingenuity in making up, with tinsel-paper and other cheap material, all that they will want. Turnips, properly treated with a jackknife, have heretofore served for Yorick’s skull in the great play of “Hamlet.” A boy who knows how to paint can, on a white cotton background, with a pot of common black paint, indicate a scene. If he be so fortunate as to know a kindly theatrical manager who will let him for once go behind the scenes, he will find that the most splendid effects are gained by a very small outlay.
As for the theatrical wardrobe, that is a very easy matter, if the children have an indulgent and tasteful mother, who will help a little and lend her old finery.
A brigand’s costume (and brigands are very convenient theatrical friends) is easily arranged. Procure a black felt hat, fastened up with a shoe-buckle; a bow and a long feather; a jacket, on which Fanny will sew some brass buttons; one of mamma’s or sister’s gay scarfs, tied round the waist several times; an old pair of pantaloons, cut off at the knee, and long stockings, tied up with scarlet ribbons; a pair of pumps, with another pair of buckles, and any old pair of pistols, dirks, or even carving-knives, stuck in the belt, and you have, at very small expense, a fierce brigand of the Abruzzi.
Girls’ dresses are still easier of attainment. But the great trouble in the dressing of girls for their characters is the frequent inattention to the time and style of the character. A young lady who plays the part of Marie Antoinette must remember the enormous hoops which were a part of the costume of the unlucky queen. She must not be content to merely powder her hair. She must remember time, place, circumstance, and dress herself accurately, if she wishes to produce a proper dress. A lady once wore in the part of Helen of Troy, for private theatricals in New York, a pair of high-heeled French slippers, with the classic peplum. A gentleman of archæological tastes declared that he could not stay in a house where such crimes were committed against historical accuracy! She should have worn the classic sandal, of course—not modern black slippers.
The “make-up” of a character requires study and observation. In the painting and shading of faces, adaptation of wigs, application of mustaches and whiskers, there is much to be done. A box of water-colors, a little chalk, camel’s-hair pencils, a saucer of rouge, a burnt cork, and some India ink, all are useful. If these can not be got, one burnt cork, aided by a little flour, will do it all. Mustaches can be made by borrowing mamma’s old discarded artificial curls, cutting them off to a proper length, and gumming them on the upper lip. The hair of a good old Newfoundland dog has served this purpose. A very pretty little mustache can be painted with India ink. However, if near a barber or a hair-dresser—or, still better, a costumer—it is well to get ready-made mustaches, which come of all colors, already gummed. If the make-up of an old man is required, study a picture of an old face, and trace on your own face with a camel’s-hair pencil and India ink the wrinkles, the lines of an aged countenance. Make a wig of white cotton if you can not hire one of gray hair.
If a comic face is needed, stand before a glass and grin, watch the lines which the grin leaves, and trace them up with a reddish-brown water-color. Put on rouge particularly about the nose and eyes. A frown, a smile, a sneer, a simper, or a sad expression, can always be painted by this process. The gayest face can be made sad by dropping a line or two from the corners of the mouth and of the eyes.
For a ferocious brigand, cork the eyebrows heavily, and bring them together over the eyes. If you wish to produce emaciation or leanness, cork under the eyes, and in the hollow of the cheek (or make a hollow), and under the lower lip. To make up a pretty girl, even out of a young man’s face, requires only some rouge and chalk and a blonde wig. There should be also a powdering about the eyebrows, ears, and roots of the hair. There should be a heavy coat of powder on the nose, and after the rouge is put on, a shower of powder over that. All will wash off without hurting the complexion. For a drunkard or a villain, purple spots are painted on chin, cheek, forehead, and nose.
The theatrical wardrobe, to be complete, should have several different wigs, and as these can not be made well except by an artist in hair, we recommend the actors to lay out all their spare cash on these adjuncts. Having dressed for the part, the acting comes much more easily. No one knows the effect of dress better than the real actor, who calls it “the skin of the part.”
The lines to be spoken should be committed most thoroughly to memory. Without this no play can be a success. Each performer should write out his own part, with the “cues,” or the words which come directly before his own speeches, and commit the whole to memory. When the performer hears the words of the cue, the words of his own part come to his lips immediately.
The exits and entrances, and what is known as “stage business,” are always difficult to beginners. The necessity of closets, etc., in a small stage, places to retire to, and the like, can be managed, however, by screens, and these are so useful in all private theatricals that one should be made, six feet high by three feet wide, hinged, and covered with wall-paper, before any plays are attempted.
We are describing the very cheapest and most unsophisticated private theatricals—such as those which school-boys and girls could get up in the country, or in a city basement or garret, with very little money or help from their parents. And these are the ones which give the most pleasure. Expensive and adroitly-conducted theatricals, in a city where experts can be hired to do these things, have no lasting charm. It is, as in all other things, the amount of ourselves which we put into anything which makes us enjoy private theatricals. And in a city, grown people have the privilege of the best theatricals, beside which all amateur efforts are lamentably tame. But a party of fresh young people, full of the ichor of youth, can with the slightest help produce the most delightful effects with very simple means.
Young girls are too apt, in playing private theatricals, to sacrifice character to prettiness. Now this is a fatal mistake. To dress a part with finikin fineness, which is to be a representation of quite different sorts of qualities, is poor art. Let them rather imitate Miss Cushman’s rags in Meg Merrilies, or Bastian Le Page’s homely peasant simplicity in Joan of Arc. Remember, the drama is the mirror of nature, and should produce its strong outlines and its deep shadows. It is in this realism that men surpass women. The college theatricals, in which all parts are played by men, are by far the best.
In selecting a play, amateurs should try and find one, as we have said, which “plays itself.” They should not attempt those delicate and very difficult plays which only great artists can make amusing. They should select the play which is full of action and situation, like “The Follies of a Night,” or “Everybody’s Friend.” The most commonplace actors fail to spoil such plays as these; and there are for younger performers hundreds of good plays, farces, and musical burlesques to be found at every book-store. “Naval Engagements,” “A Cure for the Fidgets,” “The Two Buzzards,” “Betsey Baker,” “Box and Cox,” “A Regular Fix,” “Incompatibility of Temper,” “Ici l’on parle Français,” “To oblige Benson,” are among the many which really help the amateur, instead of crushing him.
But no one who is not a first-rate actor should attempt “Two can play at that Game,” “A Morning Call,” “A Happy Pair,” or any of those beautiful French trifles which look so easy, and in the hands of good actors are so charming, for they depend upon the most delicate shades of acting to make them even passable.
For those players of a larger growth, who attempt the very interesting business of amateur theatricals on a more ambitious plane, we can illustrate our meaning as to plays which “play themselves” by two instances:
“Ici l’on parle Français” gives the two amusing situations of a man who is trying to speak French with the aid of a phrase-book, and the counterpoise of a Frenchman who is trying to speak English in the same fragmentary manner. Their mutual mistakes keep the house in a roar; and almost any clever pair of young men can assume these two characters to great advantage. They each have an eccentric character mapped out for them, and very little shading is necessary.
Again, for a very much more poetical and entirely different range of part, but yet one which “plays itself,” we would suggest “Pygmalion and Galatea,” Gilbert’s beautiful and poetical play. Here we have the great novelty of a young lady disguised as a marble statue. She can be “made up” with white powder and white merino drapery to look very like a marble statue, and a powerful white lime-light should be thrown on her from above. There is a tableau within a play to begin with, and something novel and interesting. The marble statue, however, at the very start becomes endowed with life, steps down from her pedestal, walks forward to the footlights, talks, and receives the homage of a lover. Now, almost any pretty and intelligent maiden can make this part very interesting. She needs nothing but grace and a good memory to do this Galatea well. The part plays itself.
The same young actress could not do Lady Teazle—that delightful and intricate bit of acting, so dependent upon stage tradition and stage training that old theatre-goers say that in fifty years only five actresses have done it well. Still less could she approach the heroine in the “Morning Call” or the young wife in “Caste.” These parts demand the long, severe stage training of an accomplished artist. The Galatea is assisted by the novelty of the position, by the fact that every young maid is a marble statue, in one sense, until Love makes her a woman, so that each person may give a strikingly individual portrait; and, above all, it is a play which is a new creation, and therefore capable of a new interpretation.
We do not advise amateurs to undertake Shakespeare, unless it be “Katherine and Petruchio,” which is so gay and scolding that it almost plays itself.
The very beautiful comedies of Robertson seem very easy when one sees Mr. Wallack’s company play them; but they are very difficult for amateurs. They depend upon the most delicate shading, the highest art, and the neatest finish.
The sterling old comedies—all excepting “The Rivals”—are almost impossible, even those which are full of incident and full of costume. Their quick movement seems to evade the player; and what is so terrible to the listener as to endure even a second’s suspension in the “give and take” of a comedy? “The Rivals,” strange to say, is a very good play for amateurs.
Boucicault’s farces and society plays run very well on the amateur stage. Lady Gay Spanker is not a difficult part. Bulwer’s “Lady of Lyons” should never be attempted by amateurs. It becomes mawkishly sentimental in their hands. But Charles Reade’s “Still Waters run Deep” is excellent for amateurs; and “Money” runs off rather more easily than one would suppose.
Amateurs are very fond of “A Wonderful Woman,” but we can not see much in it. “The Wonder” is very picturesque. It is one of the plays which plays itself; and the Spanish costumes are beautiful. The famous comedies, “My Awful Dad,” “Woodcock’s Little Game,” and “The Liar,” should be studied very thoroughly by observation and by book before being attempted by amateurs. The “Little Game” has two very hard parts to fill, Mrs. Colonel Carver and Woodcock; still it has been done moderately well. For a parlor comedy, “The Happy Pair” is a great favorite; and “Box and Cox” can be done by anybody, and is always funny. Music helps along wonderfully, as witness the immortal “Pinafore,” which has been played by amateurs to admiration for hundreds of admiring audiences.
A stage manager is indispensable. In getting up ambitious plays in a city, which the courageous amateur sometimes attempts, an actor from the theatre is generally hired to “coach” the neophytes. In the country, some intelligent friend should do this, and he can properly be arbitrary. It is a case for an absolute monarchy. The stage manager must hear his company read the play over first, and tell John faithfully if he is better fitted for the part of the lackey rather than that of the lover. He must disabuse Seraphina of the belief that she either looks or can play the ingenu, and relegate her to the part of the housekeeper. We all have our natural and acquired capabilities for various parts, and can do no other.
Then, after reading the part, comes the rehearsal; and this is the crucial test. The players must study, rehearse, rehearse, study, and not be discouraged if they grow worse rather than better. There is always a part lagging, and the dress rehearsal is invariably a discouraging thing. But that is a most excellent and advantageous discouragement if it inspire the actors to new efforts. Nothing can spoil a private theatrical attempt like conceit and self-satisfaction. The art is as difficult a one as playing on the violin; and, although an amateur may learn to play pretty well, the distance between him and a professional is as great as that between an amateur violinist and Vieuxtemps. The amateur must remember this fact.
“Acting proverbs” is an ingenious way of suggesting an idea by its component parts rather than stating it outright. The parts are not written, but merely talked over, and are often done by clever young people on the spur of the moment. It is well, however, to consult beforehand as to the argument of the play. The books are full of little plays written upon such proverbs as “All is not Gold that Glitters,” “Honor among Thieves,” “All is Fair in Love and War,” etc. But we advise young people to take up less well-known proverbs, and to write their own plays. They might learn one or two as a sort of exercise, but the fresh outcrop of their own originality will be much better. The same may be said with the acting of charades.
A dramatic charade is a very ingenious thing, and a very neat little play in four acts can be made from the word Ab-di-cate. A B, of course, presents a school scene. And at a watering place, if some witty man or woman will represent the schoolmaster or schoolmistress, all the pupils can be the grown men and women who are well known. The entrance of a fashionable mamma, her instantaneous effect on the severity of the teacher, the taking off the fool’s-cap from the head of Master Tommy, who has been in disgrace—all will cause laughter and an opportunity for local jokes. This is Act I. Di can be represented by the dyeing process of a barber who has to please many customers; or “The die is cast”; or an apposite allusion to Walter Scott’s “Die Vernon”; or some comico-tragico scene of “I can but die.” This is Act II. Cate, to “cater,” “Kate”—for bad spelling is permitted—all these are in order. This is Act III. The last act can be the splendid pageant of a Turkish Abdication, in which a sultan abdicates in favor of his son. All the camel’s-hair shawls, brilliant turbans, and jewelry of the house and neighborhood can here be introduced with effect.
Charades in which negroes, Irish or German people, or anybody with a dialect, enter in and form a part, are very amusing if the boys of the family have a genius for mimicry. Amateur minstrels are very funny. The getting up of a party of white men as black men is, however, attended with expense. The gift of singing a comic song is highly appreciated in the family circle of amateur dramatists, and a little piece with songs is very sure to be acceptable.