The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-01-06
TROUBLES OF BEING FUNNY AND
LIVING UP TO A REPU-
TATION
BRINGING OUT "A COMEDY
Why Comediennes Are Rare-Enu-
Iish Finish in Actihs-Miss 1r-
wins Desire to he q Bit
Wicked ON the Stage.

II don't know yet what was the mat
ter with the Belle of Bridgeport Miss
May Irwin allowed an expression of
iuff1sh thought to wander over her
genial face. Then she went on: ''That
only proves that no manager can trust
his dramatic judgment Experience
doesn't count for cent when it comes
to prophecy about a play. The public
relation between the new plav and the
spasm is what decides the fate of the
play. What would hit the public one
season might not suit its taste the next.
Mood is more than an individual thing.
It's broad-spreading collective thing.
Now l believed | had a good thing in
mat play. It's music was the best I
ever had in anything and the lines seem
ed good. 1t went all right out of town
ana had no expectation of a frost; but
we got 1t. The play was fiat failure
in New York, and as 1 said before, 1
don't exactly know why; wish 1 did.
Usually one can put her finger on some
thing and say, This is what queered the
thing, but this time l felt something
was wrong, but 1 couldn't spot it. For
one thing, gave the play "a bad start.
For two or three days before the first
night here 1 was having a downright
nasty time, worry, mental distress about
things entirely outside OF my work,
and 1T used me up. [ went on that night
with my teeth set and my brain and
heart all knotted UP. l couldn't linn
Der up. couldn't be funny, though L
was determined to make things go.
saw the critics down in front and knew
what they were thinking. The boys
Went off and wrote that they had never
seen me struggling under such load.
They meant the play was load, but I
thought, IF you only knew what real
load I was carrying
.Stiu the play would have been a fall
ure, even If 1 had been at my best. I
knew that at once and din't try to fool
myself, but got another play into re-
hearsal as soon as possible. If there's
anything in the world that will take the
heart out of one more than acting in an
unsuccessful play [ don't know what it
is. The work and strain are hard enough
even when ones play is a go, but to re-
hearse a new play all day and then, dead
tired, to pull oneself together and go on
in a thing that the public doesn't want
and that one must carry through by
sheer force of personality-thats the
worst proposition [ ever want to strike
You can't imagine the blessed relief of
getting away from that struggle and
finding oneself once more in something
that goes. It's heaven.
1.-THE new play does go, but I was
frightfully nervous about it. You'd
laugh if L told you why I was especially
nervous. There's a sort of superstition
in our business about laughter during
the reading of a play. It's partly super
stition, partly tradition and 1 can't shake
off the feeling. never got over my
training with Augustin DAILY. It made
him Wild If any one laughed while a
play was being read and his readings
were simply funereal. I can remember
only one exception. That was the read
ing of "A Night Off, and for some rea-
son or other the whole crowd broke loose
that day and howled with mirth. Well
at our first rehearsal in this last play
Of mine when we reached the court room
scene, the company went all to pieces
with laughter, and 1 tell you it scared