Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-02-01

(HAhlES IL lit'l l.
 $500 The piece d:t. E. 2. exactly catch on at the start. rut roornaS who had great faith in II. advl~.l H,vt in &uy it back Edouin was will:o.; ,i.ouSA ro EcI rid of 1t, but his wife would not consent, and they kept the skit which subsequently, earned a very respectable fortune for its | owners
 | Hoyt concluded to handle his own plays | after that experience, and with that end in view he associated with him Mir. Thomas, who had some tuE,ls, and the two young men grow rich tug, thCr, Thomas having l left large CStHiC wh, II he died n year or | two ago. Hu.t l. supposed to bc worth considerably moro than $500,
 X man who is the author of about dozen successes ought 10 hr pretty well qualified to tell how play should be writ ten, and as Mir HOyt's methods knock the l old conventional ideas into smithrrCCns his views on the subject of dramatic con struction must he Ui great interest to the tens of thousands of pCr>uns who secretly cherish the hoy" that some day, through the medium If ;Er stage, with the impOr- tant adjunct of al nmiahlc and pCCuniarily | responsible lnHnHS,r fame aud fortune l will he theirs This l. what Mir lloyt has to say on this important subject
 My plan f writing iS tu jvt down few notes uI. a ~uAl! sheet Of paper and then go ahead aud write compose very | rapidly IT t:.h,~ about 80 pages of man. uscript letter Ia. 1T 10 make an act When start an a,j. l seldom leave it until ] finish il BuI may write omc act in five or six hours. aHl will not tcCl like writ Ing the nvAt unl until twu months after
 ward
 I raycI! Ink, ,.-:.e A,G~..haEd ot any
 thing that ls going jn tLe play N! eXpe,
 rSa, S- fl.,r In, Iinl0
 where you least rAl>e,i them Occasional ly, whcn get hold ul an unusually good
 idea, l make A memorandum If it. l do
 not giNv attthti"n enough to dialogue,
 But haNr never mad" it a point to do as ! so. Q writers to-- arruuulnte data, scraps,
 etc. for Use in my compositions
 Il also write the play Ht first hand just
 as want # tu hv never rcvi>c CT alter
 the manuscript until como to rehearsal l New ideas Ill occur to me alter l get on
 the stage. 1 hHlt man on the stage who sits at a desk. pencil In hand direct him
 to put in this speech or cut out that rc- ; mark, as the case may be But all this is
 done at rchcarenl when l am putting the
 play upon the stage Theru arc not many
 changes In tie Texas Steer do not
 think there wcrC chanSrs to the extent of
 ten lines in the original manuscript | Probably a lundrCti lines were changed in
 A NlliEtEdtlit ' ANN IL IOu ENk llAOIC ICN
 ideas in farce comedy than you do in a
 legitimate play. where, you may say, there is IA straight starj. and you work up to n finish When first ?: oduCcd A Trip tO
 Chinatown, the third act did not suit mo.
 and threw IL ;n the fire and wrote an cn
 tirely new one We played the new act a
 week did not like that, tore it mp and
 sat down and rewroto the cid one iron,
 memory, making presume, sumo altora
 tions. I had concluded incorrectly that
 the fault was in the play rather than the
 way 1t was performed
 I never yet charged an act in "ne oi my plays but l was sorry fer II The . greatest mistake ever made was chang - ing the third at of 4 Tin Soldier The 9 original third act was great deal bettsl - than irs substitute
 i ' m Nat.e 10 coIae in a5 2 matinee e 1 a11 tc,- soILo PerfO-.3a- to put n new I:rs that !: has s@Glo2ly occurred to 2l, ' would improve the dialogue Only th!:
 morning had rehearsal. not for th' : lines, but to change business. I watchcr l. me it was rather stiff in some respects =, this morning mndI radical chang, il a the business
 |. T believe in hcing my own stage man agcr My first play-'A Bunch of Keys ' was failure until managed it myself showed the players how I thought i
 should be played l do not allow the per $ formers to introduce gags. They arc no . allowed to change a word of tho text
 Tt is not difficult la prucure competcn
 actors to play the characters in my playN though there arc very few men like Georg . Richards. who has played tho leadin n character in several of my successes. Mr
 Richards personal modcsty has really kep !. him in the background He is n youn !. man-about 9O-and. l think. within l ., or I5 years he Will hc recognized as tn = successor of Joseph Jefferson as a charaC ter actor. He Is not an aggressive actor ie but extremely artistic.
 Ut is singular that there IS always on d part In every play (cither malo or female
 that you cannot get played correctly. | 1f the Rag Baby for instance, 1t was tn ,a | small part Of Clarette. We had some goo "a actresses try that, but they couldn't seer
 to make anything of it. On the othC 'e hand We had half a dozen actresses wh
 made n great success of the part of tn i- widow in A Trip to Chinatown,
 ''Tou ask me, How far is so callc " horse play" allowable in farce comedy
 do not believe anything is good al
 which does not picture nature It may eI
 aggerate to a degree. but never to the d.
 gree of unnaturalness, When human m
 ture is portrayed or so closely characte 's, ized that you recognize the picture, tn comes home to you as true-as good ar cI and Is not horse play. It, T abhor horse play. They tell you thu 'se a man falling down pair of stairs IT horse play. But that is an incident thu IT. has often occurred. It is true to life he 1t is brought about on the stage in a na tn ural way, 1t Is not horse play.
 of II regard A Midnight Bell as my be ss, play, but it made less money than any sr, the others. It was carefully drawn pi y, ture of New England life. Everybody a y, mitted the excellence of the picture, bl ey after they had looked at it once it ceass of terost them in With A Trip