Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1895-12-08

| either 1t was business. 1t was his
! bread and butter. There We're no far
! ing posters to deceive the public, and
! the company had to act TO succeed
| Divorces We're not certain successes,
! and prize fighters and bridge jumpers
! had not then been heard Of in connec-
/ ton with theatricals In other words,
| the stage had not vet been elevated
by these gentry to a point where act
| ing is not an essentian Of an actor.
! But 1t has come at last. We no longer
| have Booth Mccullough and Barrett,
] but we have Sullivan and COrbett and
Brodie and Spike Hennessy and Kid
! Mccoy. so who shall say that the AM
| erican stage is not taking giant strides
| into the depths Of degradation?
But l am DEPRESSING, as it is a wo-
mans privilege to 90. It may be con-
tended that the old system did not have
| the tendency TO develop stars, from the
/ fact that no one part was played suf-
| fciently long to enable the hummer
+ to get ont of it as much as would have
/ the case if it had been doing no other.
/ In measure this is true. Stars were
/ not so quickly made then, but when
| they were made they staid. Nowadays
q man is given a part in q new piece
| because it either hppens to suit him
/ particularly by accident or it was es-
/ pecially written for him. Re makes
/ hit in it. Immediately Jefferson, the
elder Sothern and all the rest Of that
puny tribe sink into insignifcance be-
side the new genius estimates OF his
/ own ability His friends tell him he IS
too good for that part. He does not
find II difficult TO convince himself that
they are right, and it is decided that
next season he shall be q star with his
/ name, which nobody outside OF hall
dozen large cities has ever heard Of in
letters four feet high at the very least.
And he does have season for starring.
I Ii varies in duration from two to ten
weeks, or, at any rate, until the angel
/ gets tired of pouring his money into a
] vacuum. Then it ends.
The short-while star has not had his
opinion of his ability altered by his
brilliant. if brief, 4-fOOt-letter expert
ence. That was not what caused the
collapse. No such case is on record.
] No, indeed Tt was either the parsi-
mony of the hacker, who earned his
| title by backing out at the precise time
| when success was exactly two towns
away. by actual calculatiOn-Of the star
or else il was due to the general
dense ignorance Of The people in gener-
| al who were too stuDid to appreciate
the new light which dazzled them with
| its brilHance The retired luminary
for a while tells the story Of how he
startled the few owns he visited to the
admiring actors out Of work and
thirsty. until eventually even they tire
of it, Then comes the period of trib-
/ ulation, the refusing Of many opportu-
mites to play excellent parts, and the
/ final acceptance of something much
worse, in sheer desperation. In one
company recently organized not many
| thousand miles from Hoboken there
were no less than four eX-stars and
/ there are three in another company OF
no extraordinary pretensions now tour
/ ing the country. All of this was posi-
| blu nder the old system, 1 know but it
was not probable. and it was also eX
| tremely infreQuent, be cause no actors
/ shortcomings as well as his strong
| points were known, and it was there
/ fore a more difficult matter to induce
| the investment Of money. His general
| excellence in many roles instead of
| his peculiar adaptability to one, was
| the test of his worthiness for stellar
| hOnors.
AS to the cause of the decadence Of
the travelling repertory company, l can
| only say that it is one Of those things
which anybody may explain to his or
/ her own satisfaction without any
means Of knowing whether or not that
particular theory is the correct one.
/ For my part. I attribute most Of II TO
/ the liberal use of scenery, which was
| of course impossible under the former
| system because Of the great number of
| nieces presented. The public, once ac-
/ customed to the elaborate mounting of
| PLAYS. is never willing to 90 back TO
| real acting. and that alone. We all
have within us the love of tinsel and
glitter. and that explains why he
| Rocky Mountain Roarer.' handsomely
/ staged. will go into town and play to
/ $500 where "The Stranger would not
/ draw $50.
Lots of good actors have graduated
/ from these little Tepertory organiza-
tiops Take the case Of our own COM
many when I YVES Jointly starring for
/ several seasons with my husband, Felix
/ d. Vincent. Among the people in our
I company at that time were Loie Fuller,
| Gus Heege. who used TO play Pygma-
/ lion very we'll: the late Mary Lynch,
| clarence Holt. Allie Valencia, VINO
married Rudolph Aronson, and many
! other rersous now priminent in the
! theatrical world whose names i 90 not
/ co,.o tn mention because of their aver
sion TO references to their humble pro
fessional beginning. This was only
/ one company. and as there were dozens
of the same sort in existence, 1t may
e9silv be seen that if the same proper
tion were maintained throughout the
little "repertoirers" have furnished
many of the strongest Of the present
day stage fav0rites.
The above is not intended as an ar
oument for a return to The system IN
y,bicb there was so much of good and
so little of bad. I realize that that IS
now impossible. 1t is only, after all q
rort of lament for the departure oil
condition which. from the actors stand
roint was very nearly ideal.
EVA VINCENT.
GAVE HIMSELF AWAY.
TO einned his brandy and soda in
.7.ieo+od corr Of WAY and gazed YEARLY