Theatrical and Circus Life: or, Secrets of the Stage, Green-Room and Sawdust ArenaJennings, John J. (John Joseph)
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Theatrical and Circus Life: or, Secrets of the Stage, Green-Room and Sawdust Arena
Jennings, John J. (John Joseph)
Circus; Theater -- United States
Let him return to the theatre in the morning and view its mysteries
shorn of the dazzle and splendor that the night brings. He will be more
astonished still. The place is usually as dark as a dungeon, there
being something peculiar in the construction of theatres which makes
them bright at night and dismal during daylight. If a stray slant of
light falls anywhere upon the stage it will be rudely mocked by the
bits of burning candle by the aid of which the stage carpenter is at
work right in the very spot where, twelve hours before, Romeo and
Juliet lived and died for each other in such a lamentably pathetic way
that the audience shed tears, and only gave the lachrymal rainstorm
a rest at intervals long enough to shower the star with applause.
The stage carpenter's assistant is there too, the machinist, the
scene painters, the men who have charge of the company's baggage, the
property-man, and others. They fill the scene in a lugubrious and
wholly uninteresting way,--all are at work, and as heedless of the
attendance of strangers as the actors and stage hands of the night
before had been. The scenes have lost their color--such as are left,
and this mimic world that had its admiring and aspiring hundreds is
as bare and desert-like as a bald head after its owner has been using
hair restoratives for about six months. It has neither shape nor any
suggestion of its whilom beauty and attractiveness. The green-room may
be explored, and the dressing-rooms, but they will reveal nothing;
their former occupants are probably still abed, and unless there is
to be a rehearsal they will not be seen around again until 7 o'clock
at night. He must not be too searching in his explorations or the
attention of the attaches will be attracted, and the conversation that
will follow may not be the most pleasant in the world to him. Moving
down the stairs that lead to the space under the stage, the explorer
will find it darker and more dungeon-like still, and even if it were
light nothing could be seen but the steam boiler, for heating and power
purposes, the ventilating apparatus, the numerous trap-door openings
and the posts about them, with a few other accessories that are hardly
worth mentioning. Again he will be forced to confess that everything is
very simple, but he cannot understand any part of it, and again he goes
away with a laugh on his lips and merriment in his heart because the
people are so easily pleased, and theatrical managers find it so easy
to entertain them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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