The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-10-24
woULD-BE ACTRESSES.


she is mistaken" said a theatrical man
ager recently. II have been in til,
business ~thirty-two years now, and have
acted in the capacity ofmanager for five
stars and a great many companies. In
that time I have met scores of youno
women who were stage-struck. Eight
cen out of every twenty have turned out
to be fiat and dismal failures, but every
one of them had an excuse to offer fol
her n~on-success. AS a rule, it is the
poetic and sentimental side of an actress
life which catches young women. Then,
too, the romantic fancies which ara
so much encouraged by indiscrim-
mate novel reading, and the stor-
les of such writer's as Ouida tend
to give them a false idea OF the life
they are actually obliged to lead. They
say that a painter will sometimes lool
at the subject he is trying to put on can.
vas so long and so earnestly that the
subject itself becomes imprinted on hia
mind, and when he looks ut his painting
he does not see what is actually daubed
on the canvas, but sees the subject L.
self. That is the reason so many paint.
ers whine about the unappreciative pub.
lie and the cruelty of the critics. The
same thing is true of girls who are anx.
ious to become actresses.
"You have heard girls relate 'Curfew
Shall Not Ring Tonight Yes. Then
you will understand what / mean. You
have seen a girl rise among a party Of
friends in a back parlor, strike a dra-
matte attitude and begin a poem. As
she proceeds toward the climax you
have heard the piteous shrek and yelp,
the mounting, gulping and gasping, and
the final sigh. 1t is to you and every.
body else in the room but her a silly
bit of ranting. Do you know what it is
to the girl? To her it rs soul. You
can never convince her that she is not
giving the most stupendous elocution-
airy effect, and throwing a wealth of pa.
thos and feeling into the lines.
"The same is true of q girl after she
gets on the stage. People smoker at
the bad acting of a poor actress, and
neyer realize for q moment not only
that she is doing her best, but that it is
to her a great performance. She feels
that she Is as perfect as she can be in
the lines, and hence she does not
derstand the indifference of the audi
ence. / don't know Of q better illustra-
ton of the perseverance which a wom-
an will show in pushing herself before
the public than that of a young woman
who came on here last season from San
Francisco. She Is we'll known Out there
as a society woman, and is quite popu-
lar among the amateur actors. 1t Is
said that her people IRE well to do, and
she has certainly spent a great deal OF
money of late. She decided to become
a professional actress, and, With the
usual modesty of such aspirants, made
arrangements to begin her career ut the
top of the ladder. With all respect 10
her, and I esteem her very highly
as a lady, it must be said that she
possessed fewer advantages in q per-
sonal way for the career of IN emotional
actress than any woman | v saw. She
wa very thin and round -shouldered
and extremely awkward. Her face was
not only of a commonplace tpye, but 1t
was of such a character that it was ut
terly impossible to make il up so that
it would look attractive from the front.
When / tell you that she was also un-
able to dress becomingly, you will per-
maps suspect that she lacked some OF
The elements that go to make a success
ful and popular actress. She had a
series of costumes made for the role in
which she was to make her debut here,
Each n was more grotesque than the
last. AS / have said, she was fragile
and light. The dress-maker con-
structed a serious af costumes which
would have been too big, too gaudy and
tee heavy for q woman fifty pounds
heavier than she was. The actress
came on here, hired a theater and made
q debut, She had a good company &c
support her, and it is said that her ex
pertinent cost her family q, 1000. Sht
made an instantaneous and distinct fail
ure. She played Jalia, Pauline anc
one or two other standard romantic
characters. She proved conclusivelJ
that she couldn't act at all"
did she give up the stage and g
back to San Francisco I"
Not q bit OF il, She insisted thai
every n of her audiences for a week
in New York, that every circle in the
city, and that every candid man whose
advice she asked was leagued against
her. She stuck to the stage. She i
ut it yet. About q week ago I saw Z
dispatch in one OF the dramatic papers
which told Of the hard treatment shs
had been subjected to in one Of The
small towns in the interior Of the state
where she was travelling about with
small company OF her own. The audi
ences were sery rude. The fact is, the.
almost mobbed her. ALI this IS dis
|, ~couraging, but il will have no effect d
the young woman. She will probabl,