The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-05-04

Npu4u nave been @ real lra&eQS that niGht-aud without any of the Shake pealian dialogue, either,
 l A noble occupation surely, and 0 strain upon the mind certainly You are always in terror of forgetting something and forgetfuness has led to many new readings of popular plays. l rccollect emitting to furnish Ham 1 let with his tablets, He diVed into his cloak for them, and they were not there. So he had to make his notes on imaginary ones, and the next day the newspapers raYed about the magnih- eence of the new reading, Yet the credit belonged to the property man, who never had any thanks for making the mans reputation. A week of the legitimate is regular load on the brain and those historical plays are enough to drive you mad, what with the banners of this army and that, and the spears and the swords, and the | rapiers and the banqueting scenes. | Did ever fit up "The Old Toll House?" You'll be asking me if I ever saw Joe Cave next. An! there's a play for you full of interest and movement and those last dying orations for Jack Bun- 1 iishSpN ao plGlJS tl Dll pl llpSlly SRh wish to clasp eyes on, None of your l drawing-room pieces for me--with their letters and lookets, and fans, and | imitation vases and fol-de-rols. Good, l honest properties are what I like something that can be seen from the front with the naked eye, and setting the audience wondering how much I they cost Jealous of real horses and cabs, and saddle-bag furniture for the l interiors? Not bit of it. Live and let live, say I. Many a property feast l put on in my time. The public ex I poets property feeds in the legitimate l Sit Macbeth down to a table and ask his guests to drink out of anything but empty goblets, or pretend to do anything in the eating department ex- cept fool about with red-cheeked ap- plies before Banquo comes in, and the public would hiss the play off the stage. I No sir; they will not stand any desc cration of Shakespeare, and pity the first Lady Macbeth who dares from the royal table to eat soup with a spoon It would never do. The playgoer does not expect real food in a Shakespearian piece. He would object to it as desc l HA ebtipii anu eb QNS ctNtdlipils iAC Nlil permit no interference with the func- tions of the property man. On the 1 other hand, provide Mrs. Puffy with anything save an honest hct steaming meat pie for The Streets of London" and the house would be wrecked.
 l Yes, it is a discriminating public that l I've worked for these three and thirty years. Old plays, property grub; new | plays, real met. There's the whole thing | in nutshell know my limits, and how far I dare go. Lord bless me, I recol- | lect a piece that was saved by pigs fry and onions. They fried 'em in a garret scene, and the gallery was so delighted | with the homeliness of it, that believe they would have called on the pork | merchant if they thought he was in the house. It touched 'em in tender part. I declare to you the soothing sniffing that went on during the scene could not have been more so if they were playing Fast Lynne"
 Christmas a busy time with me? l? We'll have been hard at it for the last two months Pantomimes are fast de- stroyers of mans natural rest, and what with everything at sizes and sev-
 
 bear with a sore head the carpenters so touchy you can't speak to 'em, and the scene painter soliloquizing all day long generally before other people the place is hardly fit for a decent man to live in. They expect me to have a hundred pairs of hands, like Brier- we'll Briar something; no, not Bob Brierly he's in "The Ticket of Leave Man. and had five years, and the masks have got to be so heavy and horrid that the last time 1 took one home it frightened our youngest nip per into fit.
 My room is more an old curiosity shop than anything else, and it's wear ing to the feelings to descend from "Adam's'' staff and the practicable deer in the Forest of Arden, and King Iear's" jewels and enblems, to come flop upon rows of grinning faces for robbers and palace guards and demon butchers Fairy queens! Hang me, if I know where they pick up those young women I would rather fit out a Scotch army with claymores, any day, than provide wand for a fairy queen. It is either too long or too short. tco | IFb heavy; whereas, well I know it, the fact is these young women don't know how to carry 'em. I haven't been Cn the boards the best part of my life without knowing what fairy queen ought to be, or what salary she draws. But the airs they give themselves is verse than the low comedian with most of the fat and half-share bene- fit in the last week of the run. Clowns No. l don't say anything against clowns. don't take to 'em, mind you, still I don't say anything against etn. Harlequins I can't abide Why have 'em, l say. Better any time put or a ariequina-Which sustained the fe- male interest-instead of fellow who has been playing sprite or doing the contortion business in the opening. Have I noticed it? Wty I was only saying as much to the missus the other night. He never is clean shaved. I am certain in my own mind there is that in the constitution of the harle- quin that you cannot shave him proper ly. He never comes on with a clean face, l think spangles must have a bad effect on the skin, and prevent the