The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1922-01-26
Theater- Coughing an Art
Followed by Many of Us
With COnsummate Ability
THE sneaking theater cough. the

Bhame-faced tneater cough,
the embarrassed and embar-
RAISING, contagious, irresistible.
devastating, deplorable theater
cough, is with us in worse form
than ever, according to prominent
ushers, managers, playgoers, candy
girls, scene shifters, deadheads,
property men, actors and other per.
sons who know voiley Of theater
coughs when they hear One.
Some blame the climate, some
blame depression. some blame the
movies, some blame the war and
those who blame the women is a
New York physician. who traces the
increase in theater coughing to the
increased consumption of cigarettes
by the sex we adore.
Whatever the cause may be, there
il agreement on the fundamental
fact that the subtleties of comedy
dialogue, the breathless climaxes OF
drama, the quips of burlesque, the
lifting of operetta and the chromatic
crescendoes of highbrow music
have never before been so marred,
interrupted punctured, defaced and
bedevilled by drumfire barrages OF
theater coughs.
Leaders Fight for Place.
Sometimes one comes away from
the playhouse or concert hall with a
more distinct memory of the timbre
and tempo, balance, orchestration.
chiaroscuro, and other characters
tics Of the cough chorus than of the
performance on the stage. For
coughing has a singular power Of
distracting the attention from higher
things.
There's something diabolically hu.
man about IL that captures an un-
willing sympathy, even while II
makes you swear. Involuntary
you diagnose your neighbor's cough.
Anxiously you wish him success,
and surcease. You divine what his
coughing spell is seeking to achieve.
You feel that in his place you would
achieve il in fewer coughs. You
flatter yourself that you're a better
cougher than he is. You think that
you would cough IA little deeper or
a little higher, or with your glottis
or your epiglottis or something
screwed a little differently-andj just
as soon as you harbor that vain
thought you begin to cough your.
self, and you're tied up with the
chorus for the rest of the evening.
Almost every cough chorus has a
cough leader, whose leadership Is
tacitly acknowledged by the rest of
the chorus-and at some theatrical
performances this winter the whole
audience has been 100 per cent
cough chorus. The position Of
cough leader is a responsible one,
and II takes a really high-class
cougher to maintain IL for a whole
evening in these days OF frenzied
cough competition. A grandpa bull
frog in a frog pond has a much
easier time in maintaining his su-
premacy.
Anarchy In Cough Chorus.
An earnest cougher of either sex,
seated well up front in the orches-
ira. may be the undisputed leader of
the coughing during the first act
OF play, only to have that proud
eminence snatched from him in the
second act by some wheezy upstart
in the balcony. Sometimes two de
termined rivals will handy the cough
leadership back and forth between
them during the whole evening.
Now one will have il and anon the
other. A close contest of that kind
gives keen sporting interest to a
night at the theater, even though Il
obscures sometimes to the point of
total eclipse the interest OF the
play.
There are some audiences, on the
other hand, in which coughing hon.
ors are 80 even and cough leaders so
numerous that II Is impossible to
keep track of the contestants. PEG.
pie cough like sheep without a shep.
herd. There is no order. no rhythm,
no composition in their work. II
becomes an anarchy of coughing, a
riot, a runaway. a senseless orgy of
blasting glottises.
Such is the condition to make the
Judicious grieve. No cough chorus
can do good work without a leader.
And the best qualifications for lead.
ership are powerful pair of lungs
and a deep-seated case of chronic
bronchitis. In some cases q dry.
rasping cough, II sufficiently per.
sistent. will assert a triumphant SUI.
premacy, give the cues to the cough
claque and stimulate the most faded
coughers to renewed exertions IN
TO the fall of the curtain on the very
last act