The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-18
FROM BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

Play writing affects various play
wrights differently. When the great
Honore de Balzac wrote he ROBBED him
self in a monks robe with a cowl, and,
attended by countless cups of coffee,
he shaved at his desk all through the
night. When Charles Dickens es-
sayed the drama as a vehicle of his
genius he did as he did when he wrote
nOvels-he worked at desk the pen
points upon which were arranged SYM
metrically- He could not work except
upon a desk upon which all was neat
ness and order. Dion Boucicault wrote
as David Belasco writes today, upon
the backs of envelopes, playbflls, any
surface that came to hand. Belasco,
says the Des Moines News, makes
notes upon his cuffs and his shirt
fronts, and once when he sent shirt
to the laundry without looking at the
inscriptions upon the cuffs and the
bosom, two acts had been lost in the
laundry.
Bronson Towards writing is done in
an orderly fashion. This also is the
case with Henry Arthur Jones, whose
mind, while it retains some Of the cler-
zeal leanings il secured in his youth,
has room also for an excessive sense of
neatness totally unlike that of the old
churchman, Dean Swift.
Plays have been written under few
circumstances as queer as those which
in South Africa surrounded the writ
ing of the plays of Charles E. Werner.
This writer, actor and soldier Of for
tune, wrote some Of his plays while
camping on the veldt in South Africa.
Although De Musset, author of great
French prose, once had so little money
that he was Obliged for his supper to
write a song for Is francs, out of which
the publisher afterward realized 10000
francs, the rewards of dramatic au-
thorship are not all small.
Florence Smythe, formerly of The
County Chairman company, and now
with the Belasco Theatre company, is
addicted to the writing habit, even the
verse habit" writes the Matinee Girl
in the Mirror.
AT the Blackwood club she recited
these stanzas. inspired by her study of
She gave them the title, Twenty
Years After
Perhaps when I'm a man and have made
q great big pile,
An have quit a-sellin' papers and live in
first class style,
1 won't want to be an actor, but it seems
to me right now
That they're about the SWEETEST sort of
get-a-bOuts, and how
They travel round in Pullman cars with
every place to see!
They may get tired now and then, butt
looks pretty good to me.
I meet 'em walking on the street, dressed
up to beat the band.
And then l watch EN- play at night, you
bet they get a hand
When they make some pretty speeches
and the people yell and shout
As the hero saves the heroine and knocks
the villain out.
And he comes before the curtain and joI-
lies you and me.
He may even then be acting, but il looks
pretty good to me.
They go about to suppers and they cut an
awful dash.
And society receives 'em-them what has
the cash
They live on lights and pretty words, and
everybody cheers;
Can make a whole crowd bust their sides
or break 'em up in tears.
And they're written up in papers and
talked about, oh geei"
Preachers say "Aiu't nothing in it,"-but
it looks mighty good to me.
TWENTY YEARS AF~TERwARD
oh, let me steal away from this life of
hollow praise;
From the lonely room at night and the
empty cherries days;
From the glare Of lights that hurt and the
sound OF peoples call
To laugh for them-dance for them-for-
got when the curtain falls
To our own dear. quiet hearthstones, Just
we two. you and me-
It M seem strange 10 outside folks, but
1t looks pretty good to me.
x
Dustin Farnum having finished a
tour of 10000 miles playing THE Vir-
ginian," has just got back to New
York. For four years and a half he
has been playing in the dramatization
Of Owen WiSter's novel Now that his
contract is ended and his role in 1.-THE
Virginian" handed over to another ac-
tor. one of the first things Mr. Far
mum did was to listen to Augustus
Thomas. at the Lambs club, New York,
read the new play for Farnum called
The Ranger
With apparent unconsciousness Mr..
Farnum uses in everyday life the
speech of the COW puncher he has act
ed so long
when I gave up The YirRinian, -
he said slowly 'T felt mighty blue 1t
was most as bad as losing a kid. I hope
YOU all viii like the new play, and then
1 will have a chance TO stay to home
for while.
'''The Ranger is in four acts. Gus
Thomas read three of them and out
want to say much about it, but I feel
mighty enthusiastic about the whole
thing II all happens down on the Rio
Grande, with an American who gets
into trouble. but Uncle Sam straightens
him out all right. I'm going down into
that country for two weeks No, not for
local color. I've got all of that from
Thomas. He made the whole thing vi
tai and visible to me. But I want to
nose around a bit, since my enthusiasm
has been walked UP. Guess I'm safe
enough going down there now. You see
I'm on the water wagon"
X X X
Thousands Of actors and actresses
during the summer, trudge Broadway
from office to office seeking engage
ment that shall assure them employ
ment for the coming winter months
says a writer in the Broadway Maya
zine ThB agents room is crowded to
suffocati0n. There is no alternative
but to stand, and stand for an hour