The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-11-20
BEHAVIOR OF AUDITORS.

Julia Arthur has asserted the rights
of dramatic artists by an act in a New
York theater that every right-minded
person should applaud. The actress
was annoyed greatly by the loud talk
ling and laughter of a theater party in
a box, in the midst of a scene upon
the stage that demanded respectful If
not impressive silence. She waited for
the theater management to stop the
annoyance 1t failed to do so. 1t was
too busy counting coin in the box Of
flee, and too cowardly to risk offending
few patrons" So Julia took mat
tiers into her own hands, stopped the
performance and had the curtain rung
down. The audience which understood
the actress applauded her to the echo
for her courage, and thus rendered a
verdict against the management.
Very many managers care too little
for art on the stage. They are fearful
of quarreling with their audiences.
They are often callous to the just COM
plants of the actor. SIS it not enough
sir, or madam, that you are paid your
salary? Go on and act, no matter what
takes place on the other side of the
footlights. What manner of difference
is it to you? Do you not get your
money!"
Generally that is the run of the man,
agerial argument. AS rule they have
|
supreme desire to make a perfect dra-
matte picture of taste in preserving the
unities, and so on. They cannot under
stand why, indeed, the actors of this
day cannot do better than those of the
times when gallants were permitted to
sit upon the edge Of the stage and trip
the player as he passed. with perfect
impunity.
OF course. there are exceptions. There
are some managers who are sensitive
to art effects, and to whatever tends
to mar them, and insist upon right be-
havior on the part of audiences But
the mass are fearful to rebuke those
whose money constitutes their food.
Witness how timorous they were about
on the question of hat wearing by wo-
men in theaters. When appealed to to
enforce decent. regard for those incom-
NODDED by the nuisance, not half
dozen in the United States dared to ex-
press an opinion upon the subject, and
only two had the courage to require
l. L n
the moral sense of the people at large
was aroused upon the subject, and
compelled respect for the rights of
those who pay their money to see and
hear at a theatrical performance, did
the managers dare to say their souls
were their own. Now they are all
haste to enforce the new order of
things.
Miss Arthur was right. Her action
was a merited rebuke to the disturbers
of the performance in the Broadway
Theater. 1t was likewise lash across
| the face Of managers who permit either
dress circle or gallery sitters to dis
turb those who come to see and hear,
or to mar the work of the artists on the
stage by unwarranted behavior. Actors
have rights that should be respected,
and chief one is to have every auditor
give respectful hearing or leave the
theater. This in no wise crosses the
right Of the auditor to make manifest
his disapprobation of an atrocious per-
Torrance and grossly crude or mar
tistic work. Mr.. Henry Miller has
quite we'll expressed himself upon the
subject when he said in defense of Miss
Arthur: So 49,
Splash with mud the picture upon
which painter is at work in his studio,
and who will not admit that his In
dignant protest would be justifiable.
| Nowadays actors are called artists. and
the product of their labor art.
AS we'll throw mud at painting as
| by boisterous conduct in the audience
destroy the effect Of the picture on the
stage. 1t is hard enough at the best
| for the actor to make that picture,
evanescent as it necessarily is, appeal
| to the public. Why should he submit
to it's wanton destruction any more
than the painter to the destruction of
| his work?
| Therefore, in such situations, 1 have
protested, confident that the audience
would uphold me; and it always has.
But such situations never should reach
the actor When there are street shows
and parades the civic authorities see
that peace is preserved. In the theater
the manager, aided if need be by the
civic authorities, should do as much
for spectators and participants there.
Father fIcKinnon in his texture at
Santa Clara College on the 18th inst.
declared that from nisJstudy ard OBJ
servation in the Philippines he found
the Tagalos to constitute the bulk and
spring of the insuyrectionary move
ment in the islands; that they are con-
fined to a very limited region IN Luzon,
some fifty or sixty miles about the
city of Manila; that they are led by
and mixed up with half-breed Chinese,