Some of our opulent citizens in the West, particularly in that wondrous city Chicago, which is nearer to Aladdin"s Lamp than anything else I have seen, have built private theatres in their palaces. This is taking time by the forelock, and arranging for a whole family of coming histrionic geniuses.
When all the arrangements for private theatricals must be improvised,--and, indeed, it is a greater achievement to play in a barn than on the best stage,--the following hints may prove serviceable.
Wherever the amateur actor elects to play, he must consider the extraneous s.p.a.ce behind the acting arena necessary for his exits and entrances, and his theatrical properties. In an ordinary house the back parlour, with two doors opening into the dining-room, makes an ideal theatre, for the exits can be masked and the s.p.a.ce is especially useful. At least one door opening into another room is absolutely necessary, if no better arrangement can be made. The best stage, of course, is like that of a theatre, raised, with s.p.a.ce at the back and sides, for the players to retire to, and issue from. But if nothing better can be managed, a pair of screens and a curtain will do.
It is hardly necessary to say that all these arrangements depend on the requirements of the play and its legitimate business, which may demand a table, a bureau, a piano, or a bed. That very funny piece "Box and c.o.x" needs nothing but a bed, a table, and a fireplace. And here we would say to the youthful actor, Select your play at first with a view to its requiring little change of scene, and not much furniture. A young actor needs s.p.a.ce. He is embarra.s.sed by too many chairs and tables. Then choose a play which has so much varied incident that it will play itself.
The first thing is to build the stage. Any carpenter will lay a few stout boards on end pieces, which are simply squared joists, and for very little money will take away the boards and joists afterwards, so that a satisfactory stage can be built for a few dollars. Sometimes, ingenious boys build their own stage with a few boxes, but this is apt to be dangerous. Very few families are without an old carpet which will serve for a stage covering; and if this is lacking, green baize is very cheap. A whole stage fitting, curtains and all, can be made of green baize.
Footlights may be made of tin, with bits of candle put in; or a row of old bottles of equal height, with candles stuck in the mouth, make a most admirable and cheap set of footlights.
The curtain is always difficult to arrange, especially in a parlour. A light wooden frame should be made by the carpenter,--firm at the joints, and as high as the room allows. Attached to the stage, at the foot, this frame forms three sides of a square. The curtain must be firmly nailed to the top piece. A stiff wire should be run along the lower edge of the curtain, and a number of rings attached to the back of it, in squares,--three rows, of four rings each, extending from top to bottom. Three cords are now fastened to the wire, and pa.s.sing through the rings are run over three pulleys on the upper piece of the frame. It is well for all young managers of garret theatres to get up one of these curtains, even with the help of an upholsterer, as the other draw-curtain never works so securely, and often hurts the _denouement_ of the play. When the drop curtain above described is used, one person holds all the strings, and it pulls together.
Now for the stage properties. They are easily made. A boy who can paint a little will indicate a scene, with black paint, on a white ground; tinsel paper, red flannel, and old finery will supply the fancy dresses.
A stage manager who is a natural born leader is indispensable. Certain ambitious amateurs performed the opera of "Patience" in New York. It would have been a failure but for the musical talent of the two who took the t.i.tle _roles_, and the diligent six weeks" training which the players received at the hand of the princ.i.p.al actor in the real operetta. This seems very dear for the whistle, when one can go and hear the real tune. It is in places where the real play cannot be heard, that amateur theatricals are of importance.
Young men at college get up the best of all amateur plays, because they are realistic, and stop at nothing to make strong outlines and deep shadows. They, too, buy many properties like wigs and dresses, and give study and observation to the make-up of the character.
If they need a comic face they have an artist from the theatre put it on with a camel"s-hair pencil. An old man"s face, or a brigand"s is only a bit of water-colour. A pretty girl can be made out of a heavy young man by rouge, chalk, and a blond wig. For a drunkard or a villain, a few purple spots are painted on chin, cheek, forehead and nose, judiciously.
Young girls are apt, in essaying private theatricals, to sacrifice too much to prettiness. This is a fatal mistake; one must even sacrifice native bloom if the part requires it, or put on rouge, if necessary.
As amus.e.m.e.nt is the object, the plays had better be comedy than tragedy; and no such delicate wordy duels as the "Sc.r.a.p of Paper,"
should be attempted, as that requires the highest skill of two great actors.
After reading the part and committing the lines to memory, young actors must submit to many and long rehearsals. After many of these and much study, they must not be discouraged if they grow worse instead of better. Perseverance conquers all things, and at last they reach the dress rehearsal. This is generally a disappointment, and time should be allowed for two dress rehearsals. It is a most excellent and advantageous discouragement, if it leads the actors to more study.
The stage manager has a difficult _role_ to play, for he may discover that his actors must change parts. This nearly always excites a wounded self-love, and ill-feeling. But each one should bear in mind that he is only a part of a perfect whole, and be willing to sacrifice himself.
If, however, plays are not successful and cease to amuse, the amateur stage can be utilized for _tableaux vivants_, which are always pretty, and may be made very artistic. The principle of a picture, the pyramidal form, should be closely observed in a tableau.
There should be a square of black tarletan or gauze nailed before the picture, between the players and the footlights. The drop curtain must be outside of this, and go up and down very carefully, at a concerted signal.
Although the pure white light of candles, or lime light, is the best for such pictures, very pretty effects can be easily made by the introduction of coloured lights, such as are produced by the use of nitrate of strontia, chlorate of potash, sulphuret of antimony, sulphur, oxymuriate of pota.s.sa, metallic a.r.s.enic, and pulverized charcoal. Muriate of ammonia makes a bluish-green fire, and many colours can be obtained by a little study of chemistry.
To make a red fire, take five ounces of nitrate of strontia dry, and one and a half ounces finely powdered sulphur; also five drachms chlorate of potash, and four drachms sulphuret of antimony. Powder the last two separately in a mortar, then mix them on paper and having mixed the other ingredients, previously powdered, add these last and rub the whole together on paper. To use, mix a little spirits of wine with the powder, and burn in a flat iron plate or pan; the effect is excellent on the picture.
Sulphate of copper when dissolved in water turns it a beautiful blue.
The common red cabbage gives three colours. Slice the cabbage and pour boiling water on it. When cold add a small quant.i.ty of alum, and you have purple. Potash dissolved in the water will give a brilliant green. A few drops of muriatic acid will turn the cabbage water into crimson. Put these various coloured waters in globes, and with candles behind them they will throw the light on the picture.
Again, if a ghastly look be required, and a ghost scene be in order, mix common salt with spirits of wine in a metal cup, and set it upon a wire frame over a spirit lamp. When the cup becomes heated, and the spirits of wine ignites, the other lights in the room should be extinguished, and that of the spirit lamp hidden from the observer. A light will be produced that will make the players seem like the witches in Macbeth, "that look not like the inhabitants of the earth, but yet are of it."
The burning of common salt produces a very weird effect; for salt has properties other than the conservative, preserving, hospitable qualities which legend and the daily needs of mankind have ascribed to it.
A very pretty effect for Christmas Eve may be made by throwing these lights on the highly decorated tree. A set of Christmas tableaux can be arranged, giving groups of the early Christians going into the Catacombs as the Pagans are going out, with a white shaft of light making a cross between them. A picture representing the Christmas of each nationality can be made, as for instance the Russian, the Norwegian, the Dane, the Swede, the German, the English of three hundred years ago. These are all possible to a family in which are artistic boys and girls.
The grotesque is lost in a tableau where there seems to be an aesthetic need of the heroic, the refined, and the historic. A double action may be represented with good effect, and here can be used the coloured lights. Angels above, for instance, can well be in another colour than sleeping children below.
To return for a moment to the first use of the stage, the play. It is a curious thing to see the plays which amateurs act well. The "Rivals"
is one of these, and so is "Everybody"s Friend." "The Follies of a Night" plays itself, and "The Happy Pair" goes very well. "A Regular Fix," one of Sothern"s plays, is exceptionally funny, as is "The Liar," in which poor Lester Wallack was so very good. "Woodc.o.c.k"s Little Game," too, is excellent.
Cheap and unsophisticated theatricals, such as schoolboys and girls can get up in the garret or the bas.e.m.e.nt, are those which give the most pleasure. But so strong is the underlying love of the drama that youth and maid will attempt the hard and sometimes discouraging work, even in cities where professional work is so very much better.
The private amateur player should study to be accurate as to costume.
Pink-satin Marie Antoinette slippers must not be worn with a Greek dress; cla.s.sic sandals are easily made.
It is an admirable practice to get up a play in French. It helps to conquer the _delicatesse_ of the language. The French _repertoire_ is very rich in easily acted plays, which any French teacher can recommend.
Imitation Negro minstrels are funny, and apt to be better than the original. A funny man, a mimic, one who can talk in various dialects, is a precious boon to an amateur company. Many of Dion Boucicault"s Irish characters can be admirably imitated.
In this connection, why not call in the transcendent attraction of music? Now that we have lady orchestras, why not have them on the stage, or let them be asked to play occasional music between the acts, or while the tableaux are on? It adds a great charm.
The family circle in which the brothers have learned the key bugle, cornet, trombone, and violoncello, and the sisters the piano and harp, and the family that can sing part songs are to be envied. What a blessing in the family is the man who can sing comic songs, and who does not sing them too often.
A small operetta is often very nicely done by amateurs. We need not refer to the lamented "Pinafore," but that sort of thing. Would that Sir Arthur would write another "Pinafore!" but, alas! there was never but one.
A private theatre is a great addition to a large country house, and it can be made cheaply and well by a modern architect. It can be used as a ballroom on off evenings, as a dining-room, or for any other gathering.
Nothing can be more improving for young people than to study a play.
Observe the expressions of the Oberammergau peasants, their intellectual and happy faces, "informed with thought," and contrast them with the faces of the German and Bavarian peasants about them.
Their old pastor, Deisenberg, by training them in poetry and declamation, by founding his well-written play on their old traditions, by giving them this highly improving recreation for their otherwise starved lives, made another set of human beings of them.
They have a motive in life besides the mere gathering in of a livelihood.
So it would be in any country neighbourhood, however rustic and remote, if some bright woman would a.s.semble the young people at her house and train them to read and recite, lifting their young souls above vulgar gossip, and helping them to understand the older dramatists, to even attempt Shakspeare. Funny plays might be thrown in to enliven the scene, but there should be a good deal of earnest work inculcated as well. Music, that most divine of all the arts, should be a.s.siduously cultivated. All the Oberammergau school-masters must be musicians, and all the peasants learn how to sing. What a good thing it would be if our district school-teachers should learn how to teach their scholars part songs.
When the art of entertaining has reached its apotheosis, we feel certain that we can have this influence emanating from every opulent country house, and that there will be no more complaint of dulness.
HUNTING AND SHOOTING.
My love shall hear the music of my hounds: Uncouple in the western valley; let them go,-- Dispatch, I say, and find the Forester.
We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain"s top.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT"S DREAM.
Fashion is at her best when she makes men and women love horses, dogs, boating, swimming, and all out-of-door games,--when she preaches physical culture. It is a good thing to see a man play lawn-tennis under a hot sun for hours; you feel that such a man could storm a battery. Nothing is more encouraging to the lover of all physical culture than the hunting, shooting, boating, and driving mania in the United States.
"Hunting" and "shooting" are sometimes used as synonymous terms in America; in England they mean quite different things. Hunting is riding to hounds without firearms, letting the dogs kill the fox; while shooting is to tramp over field, mountain, and through forest with dogs and gun, to kill deer, grouse, or partridge. The 12th of August is the momentous day, the first of the grouse shooting. Every one who can afford it, or who has a friend who can afford it, is off for the moors on the 11th, hoping to fill his bag. The 1st of September, partridge, and the 1st of October, pheasant shooting, are gala days, and the man is little thought of who cannot handle a gun.
In August inveterate fox-hunters meet at four or five o"clock in the morning for cub-hunting, which amus.e.m.e.nt is over by eleven or twelve.
As the winter comes on the real hunting begins, and lasts until late in March. In the midland counties it is the special sport. Melton, in Leicestershire, is a noted hunting rendezvous. People, many Americans among them, take boxes there for the season, with large stables, and beguile the evenings with dinners, dancing, and card-parties. It is a sort of winter watering-place without any water, where the wine flows in streams every night, and where the brandy flask is filled every morning, "in case of accidents" while out with the hounds. An enthusiast in riding can be in the saddle ten or twelve hours out of every day, except Sunday, which is a dull day at Melton.
All the houses within such a neighbourhood are successively made the rendezvous or meet of the hunt. People come from great distances and send their horses by rail; others drive or ride in, and send their valuable hunters by a groom, who walks them the whole way. The show of "pink" is generally good. "Pink" means the scarlet hunting-coat worn by the gentlemen, the whippers-in, etc. The weather fades these coats to a pale pink very much esteemed by the older men. They suggest the scars of a veteran warrior, hence the name. Some men hunt in black, but always in top boots. These boots are a cardinal point in a sportsman"s dandyism.
Once or twice during the season a hunt breakfast is given in the house where the meet takes place. This is a pretty scene. All sorts of neat broughams, dog-carts, and old family chariots bring the ladies, who wear as much scarlet as good taste will allow.