, 1884-12-02
STAGE LIFE.
Follks Who Are Ultimately Made w
Of BitE of osAe- People.
How Actors ana Actresse. spend the
TdIc Time behind the
BeIngs rom Another
World
[chicago News Letter.l

Actors and actresses are either a bove 81
below tho ordinary world. The successful
star Is above IL; the super Is below it. They
are never sure Of their Individuality. They
grow ultimately TO be entirely made up OF
bits Of other people, and those people mainly
creatures of the brains of drama lists aud vo-
calists- Their social life Is affectation. Their
stage affectation is generally the more gen
uine life OF tho two. They live In a world OF
rouge and powder, Of wigs and costumes, and
their own compilations. their own hair, and
their everyday dress arc things they gradu.
ally grow to feel uncomfortable In.
It is a world OF hope and anticipation, and
no actor or actress ever really knows failure.
One round of applause will glorify an even
ing that will radiata through n week or a
month OF less favorable experience. The
mere attention Of an audiences will keep them
excited, even IL 1t Is an audience that would
go away IL 1t could. One part played for a
week in a season will neutralize forty weeks
OF small and unimportant business. One
grand burst of applause will live in the
memory as long as the memory lives. II q
character does not go well, the mercurial
temperament finds excuse and Justification,
and glows with tho expectation of hitting the
public In some other.
Behind the scenes at n play Is fascinating.
Around the stage, down in the dressing
rooms, in the wings, everywhere there Is a
suppressed excitement. Restless figures move
10 and fro about the entrances, and even
Where one has an act to wait, there Is a few
erish anxiety that IL a constant excitation.
conversation Is In snatches and half whispers
Everybody is interested, not only in his own
part, but he will listen over and over again
to speeches OF others on the stage, and steal
out occasionally to see how a scene Il going.
and find out how far an act has progressed.
The character is never wholly laid aside.
Mechanical bursts Of small talk only point
the engrossing subject in mind, and even
years OF experience never give to an actor or
actress the power to throw Of between exit
and entrance tho thought Of the play and the
part.
The actor stands and gazes in the glass.
He foels that he Is all right, yet he seems al
ways to find some little rearra ngement OF
his wig, some little dressing of his hair
necessary. The actress studies herself all
over. To her n pin out OF place Il annoy
nnce, a spot too much OF rouge, u trial, the
lightest article Of dress awry, an agony. 1t
is not tho vanity of a woman who is dressed
for the ballroom half so much as the anxiety
in case some flaw may be found by the Indies
in the audience and commented upon. She
knows she is not the Miss Jones Of the cast;
she is the princess Of the play. She will
t1AiJ on a. ntako u Aahs OF uAnuktICulti VI
the greatest value, partly from vanity, per-
haps. but mainly to try to be in keeping
with her character.
Both actors and actresses spend the idle
time behind the scenes in thinking over the
speeches they have just delivered, and the
speeches they have yet to deliver, and when
pieces only go for a week, there Is no night
they feel that they ave not TO look ont care
fully for some line or bit of business. In
every new town they go to different scenes
catch tho audiences. Strong scenes in New
York go fat in Chicago; points that draw
applause in Boston pass unnoticed in San
Francisco, and some bit of busines upon
which no stress has been laid may, In one
night, become a triumph OF acting.
Most actresses do not like to have their ad-
mirer behind the scenes. Tho rouge and
powder and paint are too plain and repellent
at close quarters, and yet they are all needed
before the glare of the foot lights. One can
understand how love making must become
mechanical on the stage and kisses be given
at a distance. Indeed, to go close to an actor
and actress, and see the grease. paint and
false hair, the powder that rubs off on every
thing 1t touches, the heavily darkened eye
lashea, the wig that is. always frowsy when
you come close to It, one wonders that the en-
bracing and emotion, the kissing and love-
making, can DO made to appear so real and
natural, and yet to be an effective actor or
actress one must nave the freedom that
comes from the knowledge that It is all pro
tense.
And this Is the actors life. Here, amid
imaginary trees and rocks, in canvas-walled
drawing rooms, reversible into garrets; In
imitation -conservatories and within painted
castles, he lives and breathes some other
being, aud "a different being in each nav
play. The actress goes into her dressing
room and donsth robes, real and resplendent,
Of a princess, and plays the naughty and
dignihed heroine one week, and falls the
next into rags and poverty, and suffers a
lifelong agony in three hours.
And when they seek the light of day, the
more practical mortals, for whose entertain
ment actors and actresses play, look upon
them with curious wonder as upon beings
from another world who are more or less out
OF place in tho crowd that bustles in the sun
shine. At the hotel table the guests watch
the actress as IL they were perpetuallY in ex-
pectation of her doing a great emotional
scene over her modest breakfast; and the
actors who fought a duel the night before on
the stage, seem to excite a vague dread that
they may getu in tine dining-room and shoot
one another dead The world always meets
them as actors and actresses, forever re
minds them OF 1t in social life, and It is no
great wonder that, when their own nature
has no chance to develop, they should gradu-
ally find the stage unrealism saturate them
and become second nature.