Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-04
Comedian Crane Says They Are All
Right if Really Clever.
A NEAT TURN IN THE HENRIETTA.
Louis James the Most Brilliant Actor on the
Stage in This Line.
GUYIEG ALWAYS TO BE CONDEMNED
WRITTEN FOB THE DISPATCH. ]


present, must confess did good deal of
gagging, and am prepared to defend to a
certain extent the use of timely and effective
gags.
There is something about gag which ap-
peals directly and irresistibly to an audi
ence. Very often it is impromptu, and its
freshness and aptness is recognised with
positive delight and is followed by applause
and laughter, which the most elaborately
premeditated jokes always fail to command.
1t is like a fresh flower in bouquet OF
artificial flowers. and if it is thoroughly in
keeping and color with what has gone be-
fore and with what Immediately follows it,
do not see how its use can be very severely
condemned.
Gagging should never be confounded with
guying. hold that if gagging is done dis
creetly and in reason it may be accepted
without any hesitation by an intelligent
audience, and need not make the judicious
grieve. Guying, however. on the part of a
player is o wholly different thing. An
actor guys on the stage when he twists his
lines in such way as to give them par
ticular and personal meaning not under
stood by an audience, but intended for She
benefit and delectation either OF few
friends in the audience or of fellow players
on the stage.
DIRECT AFFRoNT TO THE AUDIENCE.
have seen well.known actor on the
stage guy to such an extent that the actors
and actresses in the same scene with him
were coDvulsed with merriment and unable
to 60 on with the lines of the play. This
constitutes direct affront to the audience,
nd he hate ls
than it is worth while to enumerate. Guy
ing, however, in the sense am using the
the word, simply means the introduction of
apt lines not set down in the manuscript by
the author, and do not see how any OBJ
lection can be made to them if they are in
the direction of the authors thought and
illustrate and enforce mis- meaning, as very
frequently they do.
Perhaps a few illustrations from expert
ence will make clear what have attem pied
here to generalize. During the whole time
that 'The Henrietta" was played in New
York and through the country only one gag,
SO lar as know, was ever introduced among
the lines of the play. This gag was sug-
gested in Chicago by Cecil Clay, whose wife
is Rosina Vokes, and it seemed too good to
be lost. spoke the line in the character of
the elder Han Alstyne. Everybody remem-
DSIs uOW Tile WluOHy dS l1TS. OphyhS, SlLS
down on the floor in the third act of ''The
Henrietta" instead of falling into Han
AlStyne's arms, as she confidently expected
to do. Thereafter Fan Alstyne does every-
thing he can in the way of explanations to
moderate the Just resentment of the dash
ing widow, with whom he is honestly in
love, and in these explanations make use of
a number of bungling excuses, particularly
in the fourth act At one place he declares
that there was SO much excitement at the
time, the market, by the way, being in a
very nervous and panicky condition, that
his attention for the moment was drawn
from Mrs. Opdyke to the ticker, and it was
for this reason that so serious an accident
had occurred.
THE BUSTLB ON THE FLOOR.
Unintentionally, OF course, he remarks
that the quotations and everything else were
falling, and that there was so much on the
floor that he did not act as coolly and sensi-
bly, as he would have done under other cir
cumstances. Everything that Hdn Alstyne
says during the course of these explanations
can be taken in a double meaning, which is
exquisitely humorous, and some of the
heartiest laughter and applause of the play
is ELECTED during this speech. Clay's sug-
gestion was that as ladies wore bustles at
that time that the speech about the excite
ment on the floor might be altered and am
pllfed so as to refer to the hustle on the floor,
which would comprehend a reference to the
furry over the falling quotations as well as
Mrs. Opdyke's unfortunate experience. 1
accepted and acted on the suggestion. The
line was received with shouts of laughter
and was kept in the play until the return of
the comedians to New York. Hearing Mr.
Howard was in the audience one or two
evenings out of respect to him I omitted the
line, aud the laugh had been in the habit
of getting was lost.
remember one time when Mr.. Robson
and myself were playing at the Boston
Theater. forget what the play was, hut
during the course of the performance a bat
found its way some how or other into the
auditorium and began circling round and
round, as bats are in the habit of doing
under similar circumstances. The perform
ance OF the little animal attracted the at
tention of everybody In the house and rather
diverted the attention from the performance
on the stage. Boston was baseball crazy at
the time, just as it is now, and I finally
took occasion to ask during the course of
the dialogue on the stage and just as the
animal swooped down to lower point in
the auditorium than he had swooped before,
whether there was anybody in the house who
had ball which would hit that bat. It
wasn't particularly brilliant remark. but
the aptness of it made up for its want of
brilliancy, and the house Immediately testi-
fed its pleasure in the usual uproarious
way.
READING ELECTION RETURNS.
On another occasion in Boston we had ar
ranged to have the election returns sent to the
theater, and Robson and myself read them
as they came in, appearing from opposite
sides of the stage between the acts. As we
were playing opposite and antagonistic
characters in the comedy, these impromptu
scenes between the acts were quite in color
with the play itself, and the audience en-
joyed the episode in very distinct and en-
phatic way. Robson, of course, read the
returns as sent from a Democratic news
paper, and read them as they came to us
from Republican newspaper. and the want
of harmony between the two sets of figures
created good deal of merriment.
1 may mention that the comedy of 'Sharps
and Flats" was the bill for the evening, and
when at the conclusion Robson made his fa-
nous entrance all battered and bruised,
with clothes torn and hair disheveled after
q pugilistic interview with the editor of q
1 declared as soon as caught
sight of him that another county had gone
Democratic. and for some minutes there
after the house resembled nothing SO much
as bedlam let loose.
Perhaps some Of the most successful gag
ging ever did was in San Francisco, when
I appeared there in BARLEY Crmpbelfs
comedy OF "Ultimo." This was an adapta-
ton from the German. Daily did differ
ent adaptation here in New York under the
title Of '"The Big Bonanza" The story OF
the play dealt largely with stock operations,
and prepared myself for some local treat