The record-union., 1899-09-17

Dramatic Company, commencing Oclo-
Der 1st.
Dark changes" at the theater, says
! a New York paper, when stage ana
auditorium are suddenly wrapped in
! black darkness, while scene is
, changed-are greatly dreaded by many
women playgoers, who instantly be-
come nervous till the lights go up again.
Il never have an instant's peace, said a
/ LADY, speaking of her dread of the in
cident, It'll the light is turned on
again. Sometimes / feel that | shall
scream aloud if the darkness continues
! another second. 1 get a suffocating
feeling, and sometimes feel as though
I should faint if l didn't see light some
where. For heavens sake, who ever
introduced the idea, and why in the
world do they have those horrid, awful
terrifying dark changes?"
The dark change" is not of very re-
cent origin, and is introduced tohighten
the dramatic effect of the play-to pre-
vent the audiences attention wander
ing from the story as told in one scene
till the thread is taken up in the next.
/ What the dramatiSt and manager al
ways aims at is to gain and hold the
auditors attention, not to let it wan
der as it does during an entr' acte,
when the curtain goes down, the lights
go up and a buzz of conversation
springs up all over the house.
Try the theory on yourself. Begin to
tell q, story. Let an interruption oc-
cur and see what sort Of a hit you
make when you have to begin again
with LAS l was saying" It's apt to
be more like LAS I wasn't saying" for
you'll find that the attention of your
audience has to be gained over again,
and the restarted story does not seem
like the same thing.
The dark change" prevents this.
What a dim quiet there is in the audi
see them-riveted on the darkness into
which the stage vanished.
This is the Theatrical why" of it, but
for the benefit of nervously inclined
women who "get a smothering feeling"
when the lights go out and who repress
/ a desire to scream some words of COM
fort may be said.
| Don't get scared when with a sudden
click every one of the hundreds of elec-
/ tric lights go out. Don't imagine that
/ the man who turned them off has gone
away and can't instantly relight the
| house With the turn of a single but
/ ton he has plunged the auditorium and
stage in darkness, but with another
/ turn of the button, on which he keeps
/ his hand, he can instantly fill the thea
| ter with a blaze of light. a
! He stands in the proscenium arch,
/ just off the stage-the first eXit'-and
never leaves his post He keeps his
/ hand on the button and the attention
! of eye and ear upon the house. If you
were to utter that repressed cry or
faint in half a second the house would
/ be relighted, whether the stage were
set or not.
It's the business of 1.-The man at the
/ electric switchboard to watch the
house narrowly. You needn't be ner-
vous.
: But suppose I screamed and the but
| ton didn't work?'' Miss Nervous says.
| Don't scream. But If you did and
/ the button didn't work shrouded gas
| jets lit, are in the auditorium, and they
are ready to at once make the place
/ Highland discover you looking exceed
ingly foolish.
Don't be afraid of ''the dark change y
/ In the September Pail Mall Maga-
i zine" w E. Henley says: Shakespeare
/ in France is not Shakespeare at all; nor
+ can. Shakespeare in France be anything
! like himself until the crack of doom.
/ There is no doubt that he is a kind of
! influence in France, this William of
ours = and that apart from 1880 and
the anes d'elite the select souls-Du-
mas, let US say, and Delacroix, and
| Berlioz = who went for him then, he
has never been more in France than, as
/ I say, a kind of influence. For in France
| the great convention = the achievement
of the golden years = being disestab-
/ lished, being even dead, yet speaketh,
/ and speaketh with an authority none
| can oppose, it is the convention which
best suits the French, and. with some