Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-29
EUSIC AND THE DRAMA.
THE sUPEREuMERARIEs WHO HAVE
NO IDENTITY.
FORESTS Real Fight and Miss Cushman's
Dismay-The Debut OF Victoria
Vokes-General Notes.

Forests Real Fight and Miss Cushman'l
Dismay-The Debut OF Victoria
vokes-General Notes.
| Why should not the serfs of the stage
have their George Kennan to champion
their cause asks writer in the Chicago
Tribune. Whoever gives them thought
1.-THE men and women who are stnck here
and there in the background to fill in the
scene like the daubs of paint an artist
uses to suggest shadowy figures? Talk OF
an actor merging his identity in charac-
ter; he has his real name and his assumed
one on the programme. The super has no
identity at all. He is a cipher with the
circle rubbed out.
He receives no recognition from the au-
dience. If he is made conspicuous for a
moment the gallery boy scornfully abridges
the already abridged name of his humble
calling and yells ''Super' at him. That is
all. The real actors and actresses regard
him as piece of vivified furniture. The
tragedian, if he be heavy one, will oc-
| casionally honor him at rehearsal by Wig
orously swearing at him.
And the super bears it all patiently
silently. He is of a forgiving, kindly nat
ure. When Barrett or Booth drops off
into the unknown, the super sighs: "Ah,
another of us gone! What is the stage
coming to?'
Gases have been known where a super
rose from the ranks and even reached dis
tinction, but they are few. Joseph Wheel
ock is case in point. On the other
hand, there have been ambitious supers
who tried to rise and failed. An English
member of the tribe was given single
line to speak, and his soul hungered for
applause. He had to say: "My Lord, the
carriage waits"
Night after night he said it, but the
| audience remained cold. At last he con.
ceived a supplementary line which he
| thought would stir the British breast.
"My Lord" he said one night, "the car
riage waits, and" advancing to the foot
lights and addressing the gallery, 81 wish
to say here that the villain who would lay
his hand on a woman, except by way Of
klnuneSS, Is unworthy Tic ndLue VI d DTlt-
on and manw
The long delayed applause came that
speech brought it.
Though it is seldom that the super as
serts himself individually, he has done so
collectively now and then, according to
theatrical annals. Slight. Fightl in
earnest w cried Forrest once at rehearsal
in Albany to half a dozen supers, who
seemed to be timid about touching him.
(The play required that they should try
to kill him.
"Do you want bully fght%" asked the
super Captain.
"That's it; pitch in"
The night came and in the scene of the
attack the supers did "pitch in." But the
|. six of them were no match for the burly
and now thoroughly aroused tragedian.
The spectators beheld a scene that was
! the hight of realism. Four supers fell
over one another as they were knocked be-
hind the scenes; one receiving a blow
! that sent him spinning into the orchestra,
and the last climbed into the flies yelling
"Firep
Charlotte Cushman had good self-con-
troll on the stage; but she lost it once
when playing in one of the Southern
States. She was enacting a Roman
mother who was torn away from her
children by the tyrant's minions and borne
| to execution. The stage manager was to
provide two children. When the great
scene came Miss Cushman advanced to-
ward them, but recoiled in amazement to
find they were picaninnies. The stage
manager thought they would do as we'll as
white youngsters. The spectators were
either SO accustomed to picaninnies, or SO
unaccustomed to the offspring of Roman
mothers that they saw nothing unusual in
the group, and the actress, recovering her
compoSure, went on.
The First Murderer in macbeth" is not
super; but the actor who once played the
part with Macready should have been one
At rehearsal he was SO stupid that
Macready had nail driven into the floor
to show him where to stand. That night
he entered at his cue and stood anxiously
scanning the boards.
"What are you doing" whispered Mac
ready.
Looking for that blanked nall p was
the loud and disgusted reply; and it
brought down the house.
Supers on the French stage have been
known frequently to protest against appear
ing as 1.-The enemy" in patriotic plays.
They think it degrades them.
In melodrama called "The Battle of
Waterloo" which was once produced in
London, an English regiment was repre-
sented as retreating before a French one.
The house would not stand this, and the
taunts so affected the retreating supers that
they turned on the supposed French and
threw them into the pit.
Every one knows how dull an affair is
the Bosworth fight in Richard ILL., but
on one occasion in London it was lively
enough 1t seems that super had been
hurt in the mimic fight the night before,
and the stage manager had given him a
! half sovereign as a balm. He told his fell
lows of his luck, and the next presentation
of the fight was massacre. What were
broken heads to them when the salve took
the form of half sovereigns?
Speaking of half sovereigns, the pay of
a super in Chicago is twenty-five cents a
night. The super captain, who takes the
| trouble of drilling. deducts one nights pay
| from the amount coming to each man.
These sums of twenty-five cents are per-
quisites, for he has stipend from the the
ater.
Some of these captains are accomplished
| boodlers. Hereis one of the tricks of the
trade. When super has worked four or
| FIVE nights the captain discharges him on
some pretext or other and takes new
| man. But the captain hands in his bill
for the usual quota and pockets what is
due the discharged man.
Then, again, there are always young
men who wish to get near to their foot
light idols. and they pay the super captain
| for the chance to ego on" This is great
practice with the Harvard boys in Boston.
Old Jim Taylor has beeen super captain
| for thirty years at the Boston Theater.
His tips from the boys have provided
him with handsome competence in his
old age.
In New York nowadays there are regu-
lar agencies for supplying the theaters
with trained supernumeraries of all kinds.
There are 400 men and 500 women regis
tered as professional supers. The thing is
not yet so Systematically managed in Chi
cago, although there are agents who make
the supplying of supers part of their bus
l ,nass Pnt ha St1par cantaip of Zach tho.