Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-13
Imagination in Rehearsal.
From the Saturday Evening Post.

FROM the saturday Evening Post.
A friend of Richard Mansfield was lately
speaking to him of the qualities that make
an actor. The list was pretty long, but
Mansfield added: "And imagination" A
few days later, at the final dress rehearsal
of Peer Gynt" in Ne York, before the
opening in Chicago, Mansfielu's own imagi-
nation was in evidence.
Things were going rather badly. Actors
who had only one entrance and two or
three lines to speak missed their prescribed
positions on the stage or failed to take
their cues. The property man did not have
necessary articles forthcoming land the
stage manager failed time and again to
produce the requisite combination of his
forces Mansfield had the entire produc-
ton on his mind. with its huge cast and
Its twelve scenes, and besides had a part
to remember which numbers thousands of
lines. Those who know him mainly by his
newspaper reputation for temper expected
momentarily a volcanic eruption. But he
was in the costume of Peer, and was
speaking Peers lines; and no minor mis-
hap could quite unseat his Imagination.
In the scene among the Norwegian noun
tains in which Peer woes he green-clad
Dovre troll maiden, she summons her 'bri-
dial steed' to take them to ,Ie grotto pal
ace of her father. the .Jovre king-nothing
less than a gigantic pig, with a halter for
bride. Mansfield and the troll maiden
were TO mount the creature and ride off
up the hillside. The business of the man
inside the pig was to run to the middle of
the stage and there stop for his fares But
he came to a standstill when he had
scarcely passed beyond the wings. The
rollicking Peer gave an extra cavort slap
ped the papier-mache side of his steed
clucked as If to a balky horse and cried
in the friendliest tones, Cit ap! You
blthering old pig. What are you stopping
in the dark for?"
In the scene in The African desert in
which Peer has become a Mohammedan
prophet, he is making prophetlike love to
the chief of his dancing girls. The stage
direction reads: Seats himself under a
tree and draws her to him." But the
property man and the stage manager were
shy one tree. Mansfield improvised his OBJ
lection. and read his lines thus:
Come. Anitra, we will rest US
underneath the palms green fan-shade,
There isn't any palms green fan shade
but never mind that, come and rest us.
I'll lie whispering, you'll lie smiling" etc.
1t was not until the shipwreck scene tat
| the actors anger broke the spell of his
| imagination. Then the stage hands who
| were to get under the green cloth and
| make the waves failed to undulate. Mans
| field came down from his piece of wreck
! age and said: ITS no use. In Norway
| and in Germany and in France they can
| play this piece, but in America we haven't
! the intelligence. Well give 1t up You
are all discharged. Telegraph to Chicago
| and say we CANT open" Then Mrs Mans
| field for the first time spoke up from her
| seat in front and said that the rehearsal
| was going beautifully, as, in fact 1t was
as far as Mansfield was concerned The
| rehearsal was finished and a week later
| Mansfield had made, perhaps, the greatest
| triumph of his triumphant career