The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-02-22
REALISM ON THE STAGE.
MANY ABSURDITIES THAT AUDI
ENCEs HAVE TO ACCEPT.
Things They Arc Asked to Imagine.
Dimness of Sight of the Actors.
Wine Cups Held Upside Down.

DlnneNS Oh SAGnN VI AhG <ACADASs
Wine Cups Held Upside Down.
From the New York Tribune.
Everybody who has read about the his
tory of the drama has had it dinned into
| him that in the days of Elizabeth the
| stage was quite bare of scenery and signs
were hung up TO tell what the place was
supposed to be. To paint a sign and ask
the audience to imagine all the rest is
| now thought to be too large a request and
scene painters and builders move heaven
and earth, almost literally to make the
audience see the place instead of having
to imagine it.
The same indulgence on the part of the
audience was asked with relation to cos
| tunes. Actors wore the dresses of their
own period for all plays, only slightly
modified, if at all. Even David Garrlck
| played Macbeth in the dress of a general
of the British army. To-day libraries and
museums are ransaked to find proper vest
ments for the people of remote periods
Yet with all that has been done, and ap-
parently with all that ever can be done,
| The audience is still asked to imagine a
| good deal and there are accepted conven-
| lions on the stage which viii continue TO
| be conventions and viii have to continue
For instance, an ordinary room, in an
| ordinary house, has four sides. on the
! stage an ordinary room has only three
! sides The fourth Is removed, so that
he audience can see in and, so ancient
! is tie custom, nobody misses 1t. More
! over, if IL is a good play, everybody is
! giad that it is not there. Up to within
comparatively few years most rooms on
/ the stage had only one side, two of the
others being represented by wings. These
| wing5 matched the one back wall and
| stood one behind the other to cut off he
view and the audience agreed to regard
! tltem as FORMING walls. The actors helped
| the Illusion by not walking in and out be-
tween the wings but using the doors at
| the back and the extreme front entrances
| at the sides, the proscenium entrances, or
row and then certain selected places be-
tween the wings which the actors and the
audience tacitly agreed to regard doors.
! After awhile somebody invented the box
! scene and one convention was gradually
! done away with. Still, the ceiling of a
| room was formed, just like the sky of
! flies, strips of painted cloth hanging down
| TO the tops of the flats or side and back
! scenes. Ihis method is still used to some
! extent, even in the best theaters, but the
! better one Is to use a ceiling piece, a fiat
! piece of canvas, stretched on a frame and
! laid across the top of the flats. Still every
| audience Is ready, at any time that il is
| asked TO regard four strips of cloth hang
ing down from above as the ceiling of
| palace.
If the missing fourth wall of the room
| were supplied it would occupy about the
| position that the curtain does when it is
| down. Here another licensed convention
| atty of the stage is to be observed in the
fondness of the actors for directing all
their action and speech. far as posi-
Bile, at this wall. Whenever they can they
| stand and sit and speak with their faces
| toward this wall and close against 1t. In
| real life people, for the most part, face
| the middle of the room, and they seldom
stand close to a wall and facing it unless
| they are looking at pictures. On the stage
two lovers alone in a room, bring their
chairs close together, right in the middle
of a dead wall and up against it. and there
SIT and spoon. In the same way when
the hero and the william hurl defiance at
each other, unless they happen to do 1t
in the open country, they get their faces
right up TO wall and let their epithets
rebound from it. And the audience likes
to have them do it that way.
Inc subject of the sky being formed of
strips of painted CLOTH sometimes even
hanging down among the trees, has al
ready been alluded to and it is too painful
to discuss here. Everybody who goes to the
theater knows all about it, but the au-
dience has to accept it as a convention.
But before the subject of getting on and
off the stage is left behind. it may be we'll
to say word about how people on the
stage get on and off ships. As a general
thing, actors and stage managers think
that they are licensed to use the proscen-
ium entrances, no matter what the scene
may be. So when it represents a ship,
the width of the stage being the width of
the ship and the space at the sides pre-
sumahy water and air, they come on and
off at the proscenium entrances, just S
usual Thus they Guido St. Peter, for this
nothing more or less than walking on board
the ship out Of the air at level with the
deck and walking off the ship back into
the air again. And the audience stands
il.
Then there is the matter of lights. The
lamps that stage people use in their hous-
es are of a power that would bring fortune
to any one who could make them for use
OFF the stage. Let room In a poor home
| occupied by an honest mechanic be thirty
feet wide, tifteer feet deep and twenty feet
high. (This in itself is little convention
| which there is not space TO discuss fur
Their here.) one little lamp with red shade
will light that room as If IL were noon
day You can't tell that it is the lamp that
| a 4 haa hpn 10 iG m on
or carried out the room becomes dark and
when the lamp is lighted or brought back
the room is bright again. 1t is not always
bright again instantly. The light-bearing
ether in the room seems to require time TO
find out that the lamp is back, but the
| effect comes soon enough to leave no doubt
| that 1T is the lamp that has produced 1t.
This discrepancy of time between the light
! ing or the eNtinguishing of the lamp and
the coming of light or darkness is another
/, | of the little errors of the stage which the
| audience doesn't mind
1t is not, perhaps, revealing any great
| secret to say that the footlights and the
border lights are turned off and on, as
nearly as possible at the time when some
| thing happens to the lamps, but that 1t
is next TO impossible TO be sure of getting
| the two things together. A few seasons
ago pretty little play was given. The
| happened TO be at a benefit at another
theater. The stage manager was not only
unaccustomed to the play itself but he
| was in strange house. The scene rep
| resented a landscape and the interior of
| one room OF a mouse, at one size OF tAe
| stage the side of the next room next TO
the audience being left Off according TO
stage custom, so that the audience could
see into it. The scene was almost as
dark as a scene ever Is on the stage, when
suddenly a little lamp was brought into
the room. and Immediately not only the
| room hut the dooryard, the road and the
landscape mile off were brilliantly
| lighted
When darkness comes q Is not absolute
| darkness. That is another thing. No alb
sonce of licht on the stage ever leaves
absolute darkness, unless the scene Is to
be changed and then IL does not always.
| The audience can still see a good deal
though il is clear that the actors cannot
/ see at all. Another difference OF visual
power between the actors and the audi
| ence Is akin 10 this If an actor staTT1s
out Of sight of the audience, say behind
a screen, the other actors cannot see MIN,
| no matter what their own positions may
be. Il the screen Is in front OF the
one who Is hiding the others may pass
close 90 bis side up and down the stage
with nothing at all between them. but
they cannot see him. On the contrary
an actor may be hidden from the other
| actors and still be visible to the audience