Various Stage, Study and Studio

The Fun Library
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-3-7364-1646-8
Verlag: anboco
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 198 Seiten

The life of what still passes in London for 'Bohemia'-in and about the theatres, the studios and the literary clubs-figures conspicuously in the pictorial humour of our time. It is but natural that the artist in search of inspiration should occasionally turn his attention to his own immediate surroundings, and find subjects for his art in the comic representation of his fellows of the brush and pencil, his friends the authors and the actors, and not infrequently, himself! Some of the most pointed jokes of Keene, Du Maurier and Phil May introduced 'the artist,' and in the case of the last mentioned he usually depicted his own form and features, as Cruikshank was fond of doing more than half a century before him. This tradition has been well maintained among the artists of a later day. We shall find that a very considerable proportion of the humorous art of the moment concerns itself with the sayings and doings of our Bohemians-a term, by the way, that indicates a very mild and inoffensive variety of an almost extinct type of character. The Bohemian of the twentieth century is a much more wholesome person than his prototype of the middle of the nineteenth. He may be still as irresponsible, as unconventional in his manners, but he is at least clean and less apt to degenerate into the 'sponger.' He of the older generation provided picturesque material for the humorist of[ii] the pencil; but the stage, the study, and the studio still furnish much matter for mirth, as the admirable work of Mr. W. K. Haselden, Mr. Bert Thomas, Mr. H. M. Bateman, Mr. J. L. C. Booth, Mr. Charles Pears, and other living artists of note, represented in the present collection, bear ample witness. It is obvious from the Index that this volume contains a most representative survey of its subject, and is probably second-to-none in The Fun Library for the high spirits and good humour which it reflects.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Various

Leseproben

ON THE STAGE AND OFF

ON THE STAGE AND OFF

PROMPT BUT NOT PREPARED.

[The call-boy has just called that distinguished amateur Muddle, who is
doing Iago for the first time.]

Muddle. Very odd! Knew every word of it this morning, too, but I’ll be hanged if I can remember how it begins!

A WORDLESS STORY.

EMMA AND ULPHO
A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS
WRITTEN FOR EASTER, SANCTIONED BY THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN,
BUT REJECTED BY ALL THE THEATRES.

ACT I.

(A dark night. The curtain rises, and discovers nobody on the stage.)

(Ulpho speaks.) How dark it is.

(He is answered by a hollow voice which is inaudible.)

Ulpho. I do not feel comfortable, nor as I once did. (Sighs.)

(The stage gradually fills till Ulpho is forced forward to the footlights, which go out. The crowd parts asunder suddenly, and a figure comes slowly forward.)

Figure. (Says nothing.)

Ulpho. I feel chilly.

(Figure smiles contemptuously and puts his hands in his breeches’ pockets. He then addresses Ulpho silently, and, after hesitating more than once, breaks down at last altogether.)

ACT II.

(Still darker night. Graves spring their rattles and watchmen open. Fate is seen sitting in the background in the shape of a policeman. A glow-worm roars, and the side-scenes shake perceptibly. The moon, which has been slowly rising, falls suddenly down.)

Ulpho. Unfortunate moon!

Emma. Will you never cease to despond?

Ulpho. Nothing on earth shall ever induce me.

(He takes his cap from his head, and hangs it carefully on a hat-stand. In a fit of desperation he begins to tear his hair from his head. Emma sinks into a swoon, and leaving Ulpho in the centre of the stage, she goes off at both wings.)

ACT III.

(The morning breaks, and is already in many pieces. The first rays of the sun are reflected in several hundred dewdrops which are rocking themselves in the gently waving brush-wood. Two masks drop from the trees and rush on each other’s swords.)

1st Mask. Are you dead?

2nd Mask. Only parts of me.

Enter Emma.

1st Mask. Lady, may I ask if you have any present intention of giving up the ghost, if so, perhaps I could——?

Emma. I am much obliged to you, but I have already made my own arrangements——

(A pair of jack-boots are carried across the stage.)

Emma. Are those, perhaps, the mortal remains of my Ulpho?

(Ulpho enters in carpet slippers.)

Ulpho. I am still alive, but I wear boots no more.

(The river rises, and a Dragoon Regiment, which has been stationed on the opposite bank, are carried away, one by one, by the flood. Ulpho fetches an umbrella from the side scenes.)

Emma. Would we could share it together!

(Ulpho is about to give it to her, when a thunderbolt descends, and the umbrella falls between them.)

Ulpho. Fate has decided otherwise.

(They embrace, and the curtain falls in an agitated manner.)

ACT IV.

(Enter an old man with a very broad-brimmed hat.)

Old Man. Woe! Woe!

Ulpho. What brought you here?

Old Man (wildly). Can I never preserve my incognito?

[He stabs himself.

Emma (regarding the body).

A fate like his I must admire;

How pleasant must it be to die?

Not otherwise would I expire,

And you, my Ulpho, standing by.

[She stabs herself.

Ulpho. Ah! now I feel lighter, better.

[He starves himself to death.

ACT V.

Enter the Duke: A lay figure is also brought on to the stage.

Lay Figure. Behold the victims of thy revenge.

[Grand scena—Furies enter and tear the Duke slowly to pieces. The end of the drama now approaches rapidly, and whilst everything is trembling in every direction, the Prompter rushes on to the small piece of stage still remaining, and stabs himself with a pair of snuffers, and

THE CURTAIN AND THE THEATRE FALL TOGETHER.

Punch, 1844.

HUMOURS OF THE PLAYHOUSE

The function of the stage is a much discussed question. We shall assume that it is first and foremost a place of entertainment. Many are the comedies, from Shakespeare’s to Shaw’s, that have tickled the ribs of the “groundlings,” but there is also about stage performances a frequent element of diversion supplied by effects entirely unrehearsed. In most cases these “unrehearsed effects” assume the form of amusing blunders, in others they may be witty impromptus on the part of an actor or an auditor, “gags,” “wheezes,” what not! A laughable mistake has often afforded relief to a dull play; while, on the other hand, it may have been the means of spoiling an otherwise effective scene.

A curious thing about stage blunders is that, when one of the characters makes a mistake it is almost a certainty that some other member or members of the cast will follow suit. It is related of Charles Matthews, the famous comedian, that if he made one mistake in the course of a performance he was sure to commit several blunders before the conclusion of the play; this, no doubt, arising from over-anxiety to guard against slips. On one occasion he informed an astonished audience that he saw “a candle going along a gallery with a man in its hand,” and later in the play he stated that he had “locked the key and put the door in his pocket.”

John Kemble, according to an anecdote told of him in Tom Moore’s Diary, once made a very ludicrous mistake. He was performing one of his most famous parts at some country theatre, and, as is common in some provincial temples of the Drama, a child had been making its presence very pronounced by emitting the shrill noises peculiar to the average infant. At last Kemble could bear the infantine interruptions no longer, and advancing to the front of the stage he assumed his most tragic air and said—“Ladies and gentlemen, unless the play is stopped, the child cannot possibly go on.” Kemble’s audience on that occasion was not like the one in San Francisco in its early days. An opera company was performing in the rowdy city of the “Pacific Slope,” when a child in the auditorium created a great disturbance. The burly gold-seekers, who mainly composed the audience, ordered the players to stop till the child was finished with its entertainment, as an infant’s voice was such a rarity in the Wild West at that time that it awakened pleasant memories of the old home and tugged at the heart-strings of the rough-and-ready miners. This is a genuine instance of the play being stopped and “the child going on.”

ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE.

Touchstone (to Stage Manager). ’Ow do you expect me to speak my lines correct with all that ’owling and ’ooting and ’issing going on in front?

CASSIUS.

ACTING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

The public insist on seeing their stage favourites, even when they are not quite fit. A well-known actress sang “Carmen” from a bath-chair recently. What next?

A very amusing mistake is laid to the credit of Quin. On one occasion, while he was acting “Judge Balance” in The Recruiting Officer, he addressed Mrs....