Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-08-10

action as not Society In Short they will not unbend.
They in the theater not much to see the play as
couple of hours until the hour for supper the dance, or
whatever engagement of social nature their cards may
call for on the particular evening
The merely fashionable audience occupies position
just below the utraashionable audience Then comes
the audience made largely of who have been
compelled to pay advanced price tor their seats
These persons unnaturally enter the theater in
hostile mood Their attitude already rritated resolves
itself into @By George this show has to be mighty
good to satisfy me!' They sit tight in their
chairs and demand not that they be given their moneys
WORTH but that they be given more than their moneys
worth They defiant, and it takes a douby hard
endeavor to win them.
Asst of the five hardest audiences is in cold theater.
- do not use the word "cold" in the sense of un-
responsive: the audience in theater that during
the winter theatrical season, IS poorly heated II the
audience feels physically chilly, it is demonstrated fact
that it will feel mentally chilly.
Some nine years ago there cheap, ten-twenty
thirty meodrama company travelling through the West
that presented the oldfasioned thriller called Siberia
You will remember that of the chief scenes was an
out-ofdoors scene which showed heroic sled pursued
through the and and held up by the villains of
the piece The story goes that directly previous to the
disclosure of this sensational scene to the audience the
management would seek ngeniousy and syly to height
the realistic effect of the the audiences mind
and it's body by opening the doors and windows for
few moments, chilling the auditorium and thus making
it feel the imitation and ice that its eyes beheld
the stage.
Whether not this story is true does not matter 1t
presents interesting experiment The fact is, how
ever, that had such trick been INDUCED in by the
sponsors of the travelling Siberia company the latter
would have deliberately alienated their audiences.
True the audiences would have been made to feel the
supposed cold the STAGE but the very fact of their
feeling it would have killed what interest they might
otherwise have felt for the dramatic proceedings An
audience must be physically (or in summer cooD,
it must be physically comfortable to be won over.
This fact has been learned by producers from long
experience. In way have always attributed
share of the final lack of of George AIDES play,
"United States Minister Belloe" to something along
this line. put the revised version of the play in
Philadelphia at that spring period when the weather
takes such tul bounds back and forth that hour it
is hot and the next hour very cold, when difficult
problem to keep the theater in comfortable tempera
ture. After brief Introductory act the and
action of the AIDE play were laid in South America in the
hottest of lands the hottest of days. Never have
seen the effect of intense heat better conveyed to
audience The seemed literally to bake the air
the stage, and the heat accentuated by cool
shadow here and there The clothes of the characters
in the piece had the necessary wed look Everybody
"drooped realistically Fans welded vigorously,
and tall iced drinks called into constant play The
atmosphere of the produced play admirable. But
the theate that part of it where the audience sat-
equally hot; at least it seemed to be to the spec
tators after the sudden change in the weather. The
heating apparatus had not yet been allowed to cool off,