Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-02
COMEDY IN AMERICA.
Joe Jefferson Finds His Audiences
Are Too Willing to Laugh.
BURLESQUE GONE OUT OF STYLE.
The Stage in Need of Young, Attractive
and Talented Women.
EFFECT OF CONSTANT REPETITION
EFFECT OF CONSTANT REPETITION
WRITTEN FOR THE DrspArcH.1

comedy is very pleasant line Of busi-
ness," said Joseph Jefferson, the Nestor Of
American comedians, as he sat with me one
night last week at the Arch Street Theater,
Philadelphia, in his dressing room, while
filling an engagement at that house.
Audiences like to laugh, ne continued,
land it is usually very easy to make them
do 80. In fact, comedians greatest an
noYance is that his auditors will persist in
thinking that everything he says or does is
funny, and in laughing at it just as En-
| glish society used to laugh when the late
Sydney Smith used to ask some one 70 pass
the mustard.
''In that scene of Rip Van Winkle' in
which poor Rip, after returning from his
long sleep, reveals himself to his daughter
Meenie, which, to my thinking, is inde-
scrlbably pathetic, I have heard people
laugh as though it were the funniest thing
in the whole play. am convinced that this
| ill-timed mirth is not due to any insensibil-
ity to the pathos of the situation, but to the
fact that the people who give vent to it,
having come to see comedian, think that
his every word and action must necessarily
be funny. A comedian should always de-
rive his humor from the character he is
playing and not from himself. If his
humor is developed from himself it is
always the same; if from his characters, it
will always be in keeping with the spirit of
| each.
DICKENS WROTE FOR ALL TIME.
81 think the humor of Charles Dickens
the best and the most lasting. twill never
lose its charm. Like Shakespeare, he wrote
for all time. The ottener you read him the
funnier he seems. He grows upon you.
That last phrase, by the way, reminds me of
a capital thing heard once at dinner
party in London. 1t was during a rage for
false hair among the ladies, and one gentle
man was speaking to another of the hair of
female friend. She has the most exquis-
ite hair, but beautiful as it seems when you
first see it, it grows upon you
"'Ah,' said the other, but does it grow
upon her?'
For broadly humorous writers there is
certainly no better field than burlesque, yet
it is form of entertainment which in this
country seems entirely dead. The kind of
burlesque which mean-that which really
does burlesque some serious production-has
been dead tor a number of years, but what
old theater-goer does not remember Stuart
Robson's capital burlesque of Hamlet, or
The Wearing of the Black, and his equally
funny 'Black-Eyed Susan, or the Little Bill
That Got Taken Up?' This admirable style
of burlesque died out, however, and was sue
ceeded by meaningless extravaganzas bur-
lesquing nothing and serving merely to in
troduce pretty girls in handsome costumes
and songs and dances, together with any
nonsensical dialogue or ridiculous, grotesque
actions that might suggest themselves to the
performers. This style of burlesque was
loHi iV,f ~ II.
Thompson. It has been replaced by the
less objeetiaR9sf fe = ssgch Ard German
comic operas. The Infinitely better quality
OF their music draws q class of patrons who
found nothing to interest them in the bur-
lesque. The place of the latter is also
partly supplied by the so-called farcical
comedies now SO popular.
MARY ANDERSON AND ANNIE P1xLEY.
zone of the greatest needs of the Ameri-
can stage at the present time is young,
talented and attractive women-such women,
for example, as Mary Anderson and Annie
Pixley. I shall never forget the first time
I ever saw the former. 1t was in one of
the parlors of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. She
had just returned from the theater on cold
winter night, and as she came into the
room with her eyes sparkling and her
cheeks all aglow, her beauty greatly height
ened by white nubis thrown about her
head, I thought her the very embodiment of
womanly loveliness and purity.
"Annie Pixley first met while playing
in California. There was stock company
attached to the theater at which I
was about to commence an engage
ment in San Francisco, and was not quite
satisfied with the lady who was cast for
Gretchen iE "Trip Van Winkle." While
was anxiously wondering whom 1 could OBJ
tain to replace her, 1 CHANGED to see Miss
Pixley play part in 'The Danites'' and
was at once convinced that she possessed
great ability. At my suggestion she was
engaged to support me, and during my San
Francisco engagement she played not only
Gretchen, but also Lydia Ldngaish, in
'The Rivals" and CieeIy Homespun in
''The Heir-at-Law" surprisingly we'll, 1
advised her to visit the East, and subse-
quently meeting the late John E. McDon-
ough, who was in search of some one for the
role of Miss, recommended Miss Pixley
in the highest terms. He engaged her, and
the result was; as everybody knows, that
she became successful star.
OVER FIVE THOUSAND TIMES.
"I have often been asked wha. effect the |
constant repetition Of one part has upon an
actor. There is one curious effect that it has,
and that is, that after playing one part for a |
great length of time an actor is apt to forget |
his lines and take up wrong cues. 1 think |
one part cannot be played too often, if the
actor does not lose his interest in it. It is
just as it is with our age. 1t was in 1865 |
that first appeared as Rip Hon WinEle, |
and have played that part over 5000 |
times in the quarter Of a century that has |
passed since then. cannot claim to be the
original of the part. Ny kinsmsn, the late
Charles Burke, was the first to dramatize /
Washington Irving's famous legend. When,
at his death, the piece came into my hands,
it was readapted by Dion Boucicault and
myself The same leggings which Burke
wore when playing Rip 1 have always worn
in the part ever since 1 first presented it to
the public" FRANK FERN,