The evening times., 1899-07-29
STAGE PLACES.
The Qualities of Various Localities
Behind the FOOtlights.

(From the London Globe-)
Stage places have their wonders, no less
| than stage time, and greatly increase ones
awe of the drama For instance, there is
the magnetic place, which draws all the
| characters irresistibly to it. No mat
ter who or what they are, or how other
wise engaged, come they must to that
particular place. Sometimes ii is mans
chambers, not at all attractive in them
selves. being frowsy. and with an abomi-
! rably comic servant in evidence; yet
young women are drawn there quite alone,
married women are impelled to call, on
absurd excuses, and all sorts of masculine
noses are poked in casually. they really
don't know why. Sometimes 1t Is an ordi-
nary spot in the country, without any
natural attraction beyond cabbagy trees
and a hard rock to sit on. Yet everyone
you take any interest in is moved to come
| there. whatever their, walking powers may
be, and however much they might prefer
to be elsewhere.
Sometimes 1t is the abode Of poverty, an1
the most wealthy and highbred people
struggle for the deal chairs. 1t may be the
deck of a ship, or coal cellar, or the roof
OF house, no matter; there the company
must foregather, or die. This magnetic
theory is supported by the fact that there
is negative POLE well as a positive,
in certain stage places. 1t is astonishing
how instantaneously the hotel, railway
station, market place. village fair, or other
thronged spot becomes deserted when re-
Quired. One instance babel, the next
it is a desert. You can only account for
this by concluding that the negative pole
has been applied. which repels everybody
except one or two persons who want to
have bit of dialogue and have accordingly
insulated themselves beforehand.
There is also to be noted curious in
stance of permanent magnetism. 1t pos
sesses rocks and trees. You no sooner
see a rock on the stage than you know it
will attract some one to its shelter either
to listen to other peoples business or to
take a potshot; while as for trees, whom
do they not draw behind them. There is
no actor or actress who has arrived at
the journeyman stage of the business who
has not been drawn behind a tree hun
dreds of times.
The stage street is wonderful place,
though far from cheerful. AS playgoer
you may wander through such streets for
years and never see anyone who really
lives there. No tradesman comes to MS
door TO cape, no housemaid shakes her
duster out of the window onto your bead,
no splashing hanson, match seller,
whistling butcher boy or coster with
! decayed orchestra in his throat disturbs
! the deathlike tranquility. Ii never has
more than two inhabitants, and they-as
| Pat would say-are complete strangers
who have just dropped along.
! A dramatic character has only to walk
| down a street and he is sure to meet an
other whom he wants to meet very much;
/ and he will meet no one else. And there
is a strange influence In that street which
| impels both to be extra confidential. even
beyond ordinary stage communicativeness,
| which is saying good deal. They ex-
change secrets of the utmost price. with
out even looking round to see if anyone
! is listening, as they would have done had
they been in an underground dungeon or
the car of balloon. Nor need they. They
are really more private in the stage street
than they would be on the Jungfrau or in
the Imperial Institute. The hero and
Charles, his friend, the heiress and her
poor but honest lover, the wicked marquis
and the wronged orange girl, the Lord
Chief Justice and the briber with the bag
of gold or whoever they may be, may open
their inmost hearts in perfect security
! there. Unlike the stage street, which is
rather lugubrious, the influence of the
! stage country lane is entirely hilarious.
Whether the soil be clay or gravel, 1t ex-
udes witticisms, puns drop of the hedges,
and "chestnuts" from the trees. On come
two or three people, no matter what age
or condition, and they are at once COM
PEELED to be funny. They cannot help it,
the couple of tramps, nor the London
dude and the bucolic lass, nor John the
valet and Thomas the groom. Directly the
landscape of the country lane descends
from the skies, you may rest assured that
the comic relief is coming down the road,
and may shake reef or two out of your
waistcoat to make ready for the laughter
to flow.
Another remarkable stage place is the
elusive one the one that cannot be found.
The principal one is, of course, the hiding
place of the missing will, the compromis-
ing letter or the link in the evidence of the
murder. OF these there are every variety,
and you may build a good play on any one
of them if you only know how. What more
exciting, for example, than to locate the
missing will somewhere up the chimney
and see each character put his head up in
search, and bring it down again Hike a
Christy minstrel's; all in vain, till one
sharpened by the advent of the last act
finds it concealed inside the smoked han
which is hanging there, against which
everyone has been bobbing his head!
For the compromising letter there is an
equally fine assortment of hiding places
Perhaps the most pleasing of all is that
invented by a French dramatist. Hero
meets with accident; trepan necessary;
villain present disguised as male nurse;
part of skull removed, doctor turns aside;
| villain pops the letter into the cavity and
applies the bandages. After that, OF
course, the hero wanders the world in
search of what he has got in his head al
the time.
There is also another kind of elusive
place heard of on the stage The remorse-
full criminal says, IT will divulge all. but
with a searching look arounO not here
He makes repeated attempts to divulge. il
various places but the right place alway:
eludes him till near the end, when, o.
course, it is found after all in the oper
street Another curious stage place is the
place which is impossible to everyone
save one. There is the raging sea, with it;
boiling waves, mountains high, and creak
! ing like nature, which no one on eartf
could swim through, save one. There /!
/, the sheer precipice, which no one on earti
can climb, save one. There is the higf
tower from which no one, save one, coult
Jump without evolving mincemeat. For
tunately, there is just that one, made fo
i just that place, and he always turns up
J | Just in the nick of time, too.
There are indications that our drama II
| settling down in its old age. There Is no
| the former restlessness about it and dis
position for change Of places, which dis
e tracted its frivilous youth. High-clas
t plays are now enacted in one place, o
4 two at the most. Act l. Mrs. Jones' draw
e ing room: act Q. the same; act 3. tn