St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-04-21
.0LD-TlME ACTORS.
An Amusing Retrospective
Glance at the Local Am
ateur Stage.
some WONDERFUL EFFORTS
OF Twenty-Five Years Ago
Made by Men Now Gray
Haired.
FIRST DRAMATIC ESSAYS
Occurred in the Old Athene-
um--Capt. 0'Connor as
"rhe O'Neill.'
FIRST DRAMATIC ESSAYS

wonder if we are attaining that
dizzy eminence which Judge Kelley,
of Faribault, calls, with elegant elo-
quenee, the high beatitudes of
the Excelsior" 1 had a seat at 'Es-
meralda" the other evening, and the
almost faultless character of the
presentation sent me home ponder
ing over that question, and weigh
ing in my mind, with some doubt,
the further query, whether or not
painful perfection be beatitude
The performance was given by
amateurs, but there was little am
ateurish discoverable about it aside
recalled that it was not so with
us who occupied the amateur stage
in the earlier days of ST. Paul; yet
the fncongrufties, contretemps,
breaks and miscueS which attended
our performances had their good
points and uses, too; they made
comedy more comical, farce more
farcical; they were the grains of
salt in our tragedy, melting the
realistic horrors of a stage strewn
with dramatic dead into palpable
demonstration that it was only a
play.
Scattered through the audience
at "Esmeralda' were a number of
sedate auditors who had trod the
boards in an amateur way long
ago, when they were young and ST.
Paul was a small town, and I spec
ulated on the probability of their
making the same mental comparison
between then and now that I was
engaged in; and, if SC, what the re-
suit might be. Probably the same
with all of us; that is, an inconsist-
ent mixture of sentiment; for while
enjoying the present which we
know not how to better, we are still
regretting the past, which we would
not have back if we could, and
longing for the future, of whose pos
sibilities for good or ill we could
guess little and know nothing. Com
PARSONS are odorous," and retro
spectlon does not ask that we in
dulge in them. We can review the
old without contrasting the new,
and such is our present purpose.
Theatrical troupes were infreouent
and .spasmodic visitors to the city
OF twenty-five to thirty years ago.
and of those that did come, few
We're of a particularly high order
OF merit. 1T appeared to be the pre-
Valllng idea with the professional
arrangements of that time that tho
star" would shine the brighter for
a setting of opaque planets about
MN, SO the support" was usually
worse than mediocre and often
Wretched beyond mitigation.
These casual, Thespians were tho
sole models for our local amateurs.
to whom fell the task of supple
mentlng the scant supply of amuse-
menus. 1t is awful to contemplate
what might have been the result
or an unmodified following of these
early patterns in dramatic art. hr,t
the catastrophe was avoided. meas
uraply, II not entirely, by the INTEL
hgent coaching of certain of orr
friends, older in years and exneri-
ence, who had either lived or hean
East, and had recollections of For
rest and Macready, and had seen
booth and Beucicault and Jefferson
ana Power, and all that galaxy of
hlstrlonlc stars; their superior
knowledge was utilized to .our
marked advantage, and we were
guided through the intricacies of tho
rehearsal and the mazes of the plav
sheered off the shoals of stage pron.
ertles, tackled free of the wings and
the curtain roller, and drilled info
racing the audience" with mains
taking care.
1t might be known to the ee,a,o,
population in advance of fornoo1 80
houhcement when play was in
cuoating among US
THE STAGE-STRUT
was too palpable in our daily walk IN
escape observation. Then came nor
slstent visits of unnecessary fra
quency to the Giesen costuming es-
laoEshment on Third street, near
br1oge Square, where we canvassad
the merits Of fluffy cotton wigs and
horsehalr perukes, and fitted ON
eronzed pasteboard cuirasses and he'll
NETS, and inspected velveteen cloaks
gaudy with 7tinsel and silver braid
ana grew concerned over the dearth of
slashed sleeves, and tried on trunks
ana nose with feelings akin to
despair as We realized that they were
world too wide for shanks, not
shrunk, but undeveloped. And pend
ing the duration of this costumine