Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-02-18
STAGE TRADITIONS
Continued from page f

Continued from page 4
ago the stage maid type was established, and
no one would dare change it much.
Just as old jokes 60 best in the playhouse,
so do the standard character types. For the
Countess and burglar types, as for the law
yer and Southerner, reasons will be found
to be the same as in the cited instance of the
banker type. 1t is a little lesson in outside
world traditions as it is in theatrical tradi-
tons. Let me illustrate with test. Write
the single word burglar" on piece of paper.
Apropos of nothing, suddenly hand the paper
to member of your family and ask him or
her quickly to describe to you his or her
mental picture of burglar. 1t is safe
proposition that the resulting description
will be practically the same as that of the
stage tradition (see statistical table; type No.
49,
The same thing will hold true of the three
other types; or, if it does not hold true in
all, you will at least observe that in the de-
scription there will be included some of the
salient characteristics ordered by playhouse
tradition. Thus are the stage characters
mirrored by tradition from the public's TN
changing mind.
DIGIT here is an important item that must
~ not be overlooked, or purposelymisinter
preted, by the reader who may resolve him
self into my critic. The details of tradition
may change and vary at intervals in SO far
as the characters in the play world are con-
cerned but somewhere, somehow, down at
the bottom of the characters, you will usually,
in any year, discover some of traditions
commanded attributes and qualities. In
melodrama tradition waves sterner scep-
rs To,
recent years tradition may seem to have
lost part of its grip on some of the stage char
acters; but you'll see that tradition will be
on deck again when the wheel turns round.
This year, maybe, or last year or next year,
as the case may be, may have been, or maybe
will be, the villain may be blond with
pink suit on; but as time passes this anon
a1ous evildoer will 60 to his deserved grave
and will be replaced with the whole or at
least part of the favorite and time honored
villain brand. And with the other standard
characters it is much the same.
Two years ago wrote and with my part
ner produced piece in which these standard
characters were satirized in which the vii
lain and he and heroine took the audience
into their confidence and gave their little
secrets away to the people in the orchestra
seats. And here is the curious part of it, as
the newspaper anu DOxOIIlCe IeCOIuS showed
and still will show if investigated: that, de-
spite the burlesque of the whole thing, the
audience was thoroughly interested in the
movements of their favorite old characters
lin the "plot, that isl just the same. You
see, the average audience wants the charac-
tiers; it loves them; it remembers and
never forgets them, no matter what the
playwright impels them to do, even, as was
here the case, to do something to ridicule
themselves and the traditions that have
made them.
I have since tried out the same scheme of
satirizing the theatrical traditions in another
play wrote, and, incidentally, in another
play from two other pens that my business
partner and l produced. And the audience
kept on loving the traditional standbys as
much as ever! Part of the proof of the pud-
ding is to be found, in a small way, in these
tests.
7 .ETme suggest something that concerns one
- venerable theatrical tradition other than
that relating to the characters in the play.
This is the "tradition"-if we may give it
that nane-of the o,1iverv rr1,,Sjc O1aved