The Forrest City times., 1894-02-02
STAGE KISSES.
They Are Sometimes of a Very Realistic
 Character.

Character.
 Love making on the stage is generally supposed by the unsophisticated public to be more or less of perfunctory business, make believe affair as dry and tasteless to the performers as the property food and drink which they affect to swallow at their banquets Romantic and sentimental people will be glad to know that the tender pas sion as represented on the boards, is not all pretense, and that occasionally. at least, Cupid gets in his work without shame or compunction right before the footlights. A case in point is said to have occurred recently in d popular comic opera troupe in which the prima donna and the baritone were the vic- tins of the sly little god. How or where the mutual attraction first began is not stated, but that it had not only begun but was well advanced was made manifest to the audience soon after the baritone joined the company. It was part of the baritone's duty to kiss the prima donna, and it was sup posed that he would do it after the or dinary stage fashion, as man eats who is not hungry or drinks who is not thirsty. But what was the surprise of the spectators and of the other lnem- bers of the company to see that he per- formed the duty as if he liked it, and he liked it very much, indeed. In fact. he kissed the prima donna with so much ardor and enthusiasm, and she ap- parently reciprocated with so much earnestness and vigor. that the labial scene soon became the most prominent in the opera. A witness in describing it said the baritone's zeal reminded him of the realistic manner in which Rignold, the English actor. discharged similar duty in Henry w." Rignold's kiss was linked sweet ness so long drawn out or drawn in that when he began the sporting gen. tleInen in the front rows of the theater would regularly time him to see if he would break his previous records. The baritone's kisses were of the same sort, and when he administ tered them in Phil adelphia he created such a sensation that the gallery howled and the or chestra chairs tainted" The manager crushed behind the scenes and asked the baritone what he meant by such performance. Instead of modifying the kiss, however, he intensified it, until the composer and the author were en- tirely forgotten in the wild. delirious expectancy with which the audience waited for that kiss" The manager in despair discharged the baritone. who said he would rather surrender his sal ary than his right to kiss the prima donna, and to kiss her conscientiously and with all the laboration that the scene demanded. The prima donna de- clared that the interests of art demand ed that she support the position taken by the baritone, and she promptly re- signed an engagement worth twenty three thousand dollars rather than not be kissed in soulful and resounding style. The manager stood firm for a few days, but without the fervent kiss | the opera lost much of its magnetic | power. and he was, it is said, forced to capitulate and summon the prima donna and the baritone back to his service. A kiss for which man is willing to fore go ambition and employment and 8 woman twenty-three thousand dol lars, during such financial crisis as the present, must be sweet indeed. Who would not be baritone or a prima donna with such delightful perquisities as this?-Baltimore Sun.