The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-01-23
STAGE STRUCK GIRLS.

It is in spirit Of purest COMMUNICATION
that write these lines-commiseration tor
both manager and players, who both began
their career with different Intentions and far
higher ambitions. Just now the burden OF
life has been made still heavier to all the en-
ployees of the Adelphi Theater by the an
nouncement to them that in the future they
will be required to dance and act on Sunday
as we'll as other nights, without extra COM
pensation. Last night the first Sunday per
torrance was given to large crowd.
If I had space, here would be fitting
place-fand no one is better able than | to
testify on this theme, for with it l have been
familiar since earliest childho ito expose
the folly of that frenzy which yearly sends
infatuated youth into the ranks Of the thea
trical profession-one of the most trying ways
of livelihood earning in the world-under the
mistaken notion that the stage is chariot in
which one may ride on easy springs over a
gravel-laid pathway ones whole life,journey
through. 1t is difficult to write on this sub
ject in such way as to avoid misconception
by bigots on either hand. While am obliged
to fight tooth and nail for the slightest con-
cesslon among religious people in regard
to the possibility of the theatrical life
being an honorable and even a Christian
one, l often have the unspeakable
annoyance Of discovering that some virtuous
and respectable actress is laboring under the
impression that because l disapprove of the
evils of the drama I have decried the whole
dramatic profession and its professionals. -
70 young people, especially to young girls
who are not on the stage, but who feel that
they are obliged to do something for liveli-
hood, l must in justice say that the stage has
better possibilities in the way of fame and
fortune than has life in the New England
mills, for instance, and other laborious and
grinding work; but if they enter it let them
do so with the full understanding that it is
quite as laborious and grinding as life in the
mills, may be quite as unproductive fnan-
cially, and is fuller of humiliations than they
ever dreamed.
l remember a girl-and many who read me
will know who l mean-who went on the
stage without ever contemplating the almost
certain contingency of being forced to "play
boy" One Of the first things required of
her was that she should don tights. She was
q girl of peculiarly modest and shrinking dis
position; troubles Of one sort and another be-
set her-sll growing out of the humiliations
of the stage AS endured by the toilers at the
foot of the ladder-and this day she treads the
wards Of lunatic asylum. One of the most
painful phases of her insanity is when she
supposes herself again before an audience and
that they are hooting and laughing.
On the stage of the Adelphi in Chicago
saw whilom beauty whose bright joyous.
ness of feature and 1.-THE limberness OF form
used to awaken praises from pen and voice
by all who saw her; now her white face is q
joyless map of weary az xiety, dull treading Of
an uninteresting beaten path. Yet she is
still young. has always been a woman of &c.
verest rectitude of character, and therefore
my bigoted religious reader may not point to
her as an example of the narrowing effect of a
guilty conscience. She was right enough to
go on the stage, since she had to choose be-
tween that and-let US say-.he life in the
mills for her daily bread.
But let the young girl who would leave q
good home, sheltering care. the love of
friends and parents, under the delasion that
the stage life is life of constant joy, go look
at this weary worker, shouting ghosty comic
songs every night in the week. including Sun
days, in return for her board and washin g,
and ask herself if she had not better search
the pages of dramatic lore for the immort al
advice, "'Tis better to endure the ills we
have than fly to others thai We know not Of "
- OiUe LOJdn.