DOI issue:
February 18, 1865
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16875#0079
February 18, 1865.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CH ARTY ART
71
VALENTINE’S DAY.
A Gentleman, who does not wish to give his Name, from Family
REASONS, STATES THAT JUST FOR THE FUN OF THE THING, HE LOOKED
out of his Window to see if he should have a Valentine, and
That was what met his Eye.
MR. PUNCH’S HANDY-BOOK OP THE STAGE.
CHAP. XI.—THE MANAGER WHO DOES NOT ACT.
The Manager who does not act himself, and is not blessed with an
acting wife, may be called comparatively a happy man, and the first
question such a Manager must ask himself is, what he will go in for,
or, in other words, what will pay.
To answer this question, requires a rapid review of the field of the
Dramatic Art, and an intelligent application of the conclusions resulting
from that survey to the facts of the day.
There is, first, “The Legitimate Drama”—whatever that may
mean—both tragic and comic, the claims of which are sure to be dinned
into the ears of everybody who has anything to do with management.
The people who talk most about the Legitimate Drama are generally
supposed to be those who don’t go to the theatre; or, if they go, don’t
pay for their places. The cry proceeds principally, it is often said, from
the writers of unactable plays. At all events, if it doesn’t, you may
plausibly maintain that it does, should you conclude—as I take for
granted you will—against trusting to “the Legitimate.”
But what is the Legitimate Drama? Nobody that I ever heard of
nas ever answered that question.
_ Practically, however, the name seems to include all the Stock Trage-
dies, Comedies, and Parces, which have grown threadbare with repe-
tition, and, from the change of times and manners, have lost nine-tenths
of any colour or effect they might once have had.
_ Still, something may be done even with this generally hopeless mate-
rial, and there is credit to be got by it, without sacrificing profit.
If, for instance, you have a good scene-painter, and a star who insists
on being put up in five acts, you may do something by throwing all
your strength into scenery, dresses, and decorations, for which some
eminently legitimate plays afford almost as much opportunity as a Pan-
tomime or a sensation spectacle. W. Beverley, for instance, can make
even Shakspeare go down. A rattling siege, or an effective battle, is a
pretty safe draw, though it be in a real old-fashioned tragedy. I am
not at all sure that a good adaptation of Pepper’s ghost-business to
Hamlet or Macbeth might not carry either of those plays through a
highly profitable season. Perhaps it is even safer to take a legitimate 1
play—say one of Shakspeare’s histories—as a substratum for scenery,
dresses, and decorations, than to put the same money into a melodrama
from the French, or a burlesque. People like to flatter themselves they
are doing tiie correct thing to a great author with a reputation past all
question, while they gratify their love of show and fine scenery.
As for Legitimate Comedy, there is not here the same field for
display. Except to fill up an off-night now and then—for there are
always old fogies enough to be attracted to your stalls and boxes for a
night or two by the bait of Shertdan or Goldsmith—you must be on
your guard against anything which requires so much art in your actors
and so much cultivated appreciation in your public.
Remember everybody has eyes, but those with brains are a small
minority.
You may, however, sometimes “cannon” with good effect, from
the “ Legitimate,” by putting up a heavy play—whether tragic or
comic it matters little—when you have a good Pantomime or Builesque
at the back of it.
The former will give your theatre a tone, and enable you to assume
the airs of a guide of the public taste, while the attraction of the latter
bears you harmless.
A foreign star may sometimes justify you in resorting to the
“Legitimate,” almost as much as a great scene-painter. Shakspeare’s
lines come with such a novel effect from alien lips, that the public
forgets to be bored by them, and if once the foreigner can be made the
fashion, there is hardly anything you may not venture. Who are the
attractive Juliets and Hamlets of the day ? You do not require to be
told how much of their success is due to their broken English, and
foreign chique. The Managers are only beginning to open their eyes to
this source of profit. Next to a real foreigner, a native who can ape a
foreign accent is a good card.
I assume that if you go in for the Legitimate, either heavy or light,
you will confine yourself to old plays which cost nothing.
To play pieces of this class, by living Authors, is out of the question.
They would cost far too much money. How can you be expected to
afford the extravagant price nowadays set on “ literature,” and at the
same time to meet the demauds of your actors, your scene-painter,
mechanist and carpenter, and, above all, your printer and advertising
agents ? Let literary people go for payment to the publishers. Managers
have other uses for their money. And besides requiring expensive
authors, the Legitimate business, in any case, requires good actors.
Their demands are sure to be far too exorbitant to leave you what
you require for the inevitable claims on your purse of your scenic and
advertising departments.
You will, therefore, if you are determined to encourage contemporary
Dramatists, and to paint contemporary manners, eschew the Legiti-
mate, and choose between the Sensational, or Spectacular, and the
Burlesque.
The great advantage of the former is, that it requires the gymnastic
element in its Actors, much more than the intellectual. Muscles are,
as a rule, cheaper than brains.
I except the case of a man who makes one leg or arm go farther than
his rival’s two. He is worth any money.
So is a woman who has the courage to lay aside all the attributes
of her sex with her sex’s garments, and in defiance of narrow preju-
dices, strips, rides, fights, dances, and goes in for slang or spicy singing,
like a man.
But these are jewels which you cannot expect to light upon every
day, and it is unsafe to lay out your programme with a view to them.
A wide range of Sensational successes is quite open to you, with
Actors possessing the normal allowance of limbs, and women who
recognise the restraints of sex.
You have only to insist on the proper spicing of every dish you serve
up to your audience with the appetising condiments of crime, horror,
and break-neck situation. That these may the more harrow up your
public, they must be introduced into a setting as exactly copied as pos-
sible from the most familiar scenery and localities. The more impro-
bable they are in themselves, the more they require a setting of unmis-
takeable outward fact to make your public realise them. A murder
that would be tame if thrown back to the days of good Queen Bess
and the streets of mediaeval London, becomes a genuine sensation if
introduced in the reign of Victoria, and transacted before a well-painted
picture of the Charing Cross or Radcliffe Highway of 1861.
The reports of the police and assize-courts ought t.o supply your
Author with subjects in abundance. If they have not the art to use
these, they may find plenty of suggestion in the penny romances, or the
repertoire of the boulevard theatres.
You will find it more profitable to work the latter source, on the
principle of the intelligent householder who always went for his brooms
to the man who stole them ready-made.
A good scene-painter and mechanist, working in collaboration with an
author who understands the sensation-business, and is not above
writing up to an effect—whether of the pound-brush or the winch, sioat
and counter-weight—ought to make you well nigh independent of the
caprice, insolence, and costliness of actors.
In this class of pieces they are reduced to their proper insignificance
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CH ARTY ART
71
VALENTINE’S DAY.
A Gentleman, who does not wish to give his Name, from Family
REASONS, STATES THAT JUST FOR THE FUN OF THE THING, HE LOOKED
out of his Window to see if he should have a Valentine, and
That was what met his Eye.
MR. PUNCH’S HANDY-BOOK OP THE STAGE.
CHAP. XI.—THE MANAGER WHO DOES NOT ACT.
The Manager who does not act himself, and is not blessed with an
acting wife, may be called comparatively a happy man, and the first
question such a Manager must ask himself is, what he will go in for,
or, in other words, what will pay.
To answer this question, requires a rapid review of the field of the
Dramatic Art, and an intelligent application of the conclusions resulting
from that survey to the facts of the day.
There is, first, “The Legitimate Drama”—whatever that may
mean—both tragic and comic, the claims of which are sure to be dinned
into the ears of everybody who has anything to do with management.
The people who talk most about the Legitimate Drama are generally
supposed to be those who don’t go to the theatre; or, if they go, don’t
pay for their places. The cry proceeds principally, it is often said, from
the writers of unactable plays. At all events, if it doesn’t, you may
plausibly maintain that it does, should you conclude—as I take for
granted you will—against trusting to “the Legitimate.”
But what is the Legitimate Drama? Nobody that I ever heard of
nas ever answered that question.
_ Practically, however, the name seems to include all the Stock Trage-
dies, Comedies, and Parces, which have grown threadbare with repe-
tition, and, from the change of times and manners, have lost nine-tenths
of any colour or effect they might once have had.
_ Still, something may be done even with this generally hopeless mate-
rial, and there is credit to be got by it, without sacrificing profit.
If, for instance, you have a good scene-painter, and a star who insists
on being put up in five acts, you may do something by throwing all
your strength into scenery, dresses, and decorations, for which some
eminently legitimate plays afford almost as much opportunity as a Pan-
tomime or a sensation spectacle. W. Beverley, for instance, can make
even Shakspeare go down. A rattling siege, or an effective battle, is a
pretty safe draw, though it be in a real old-fashioned tragedy. I am
not at all sure that a good adaptation of Pepper’s ghost-business to
Hamlet or Macbeth might not carry either of those plays through a
highly profitable season. Perhaps it is even safer to take a legitimate 1
play—say one of Shakspeare’s histories—as a substratum for scenery,
dresses, and decorations, than to put the same money into a melodrama
from the French, or a burlesque. People like to flatter themselves they
are doing tiie correct thing to a great author with a reputation past all
question, while they gratify their love of show and fine scenery.
As for Legitimate Comedy, there is not here the same field for
display. Except to fill up an off-night now and then—for there are
always old fogies enough to be attracted to your stalls and boxes for a
night or two by the bait of Shertdan or Goldsmith—you must be on
your guard against anything which requires so much art in your actors
and so much cultivated appreciation in your public.
Remember everybody has eyes, but those with brains are a small
minority.
You may, however, sometimes “cannon” with good effect, from
the “ Legitimate,” by putting up a heavy play—whether tragic or
comic it matters little—when you have a good Pantomime or Builesque
at the back of it.
The former will give your theatre a tone, and enable you to assume
the airs of a guide of the public taste, while the attraction of the latter
bears you harmless.
A foreign star may sometimes justify you in resorting to the
“Legitimate,” almost as much as a great scene-painter. Shakspeare’s
lines come with such a novel effect from alien lips, that the public
forgets to be bored by them, and if once the foreigner can be made the
fashion, there is hardly anything you may not venture. Who are the
attractive Juliets and Hamlets of the day ? You do not require to be
told how much of their success is due to their broken English, and
foreign chique. The Managers are only beginning to open their eyes to
this source of profit. Next to a real foreigner, a native who can ape a
foreign accent is a good card.
I assume that if you go in for the Legitimate, either heavy or light,
you will confine yourself to old plays which cost nothing.
To play pieces of this class, by living Authors, is out of the question.
They would cost far too much money. How can you be expected to
afford the extravagant price nowadays set on “ literature,” and at the
same time to meet the demauds of your actors, your scene-painter,
mechanist and carpenter, and, above all, your printer and advertising
agents ? Let literary people go for payment to the publishers. Managers
have other uses for their money. And besides requiring expensive
authors, the Legitimate business, in any case, requires good actors.
Their demands are sure to be far too exorbitant to leave you what
you require for the inevitable claims on your purse of your scenic and
advertising departments.
You will, therefore, if you are determined to encourage contemporary
Dramatists, and to paint contemporary manners, eschew the Legiti-
mate, and choose between the Sensational, or Spectacular, and the
Burlesque.
The great advantage of the former is, that it requires the gymnastic
element in its Actors, much more than the intellectual. Muscles are,
as a rule, cheaper than brains.
I except the case of a man who makes one leg or arm go farther than
his rival’s two. He is worth any money.
So is a woman who has the courage to lay aside all the attributes
of her sex with her sex’s garments, and in defiance of narrow preju-
dices, strips, rides, fights, dances, and goes in for slang or spicy singing,
like a man.
But these are jewels which you cannot expect to light upon every
day, and it is unsafe to lay out your programme with a view to them.
A wide range of Sensational successes is quite open to you, with
Actors possessing the normal allowance of limbs, and women who
recognise the restraints of sex.
You have only to insist on the proper spicing of every dish you serve
up to your audience with the appetising condiments of crime, horror,
and break-neck situation. That these may the more harrow up your
public, they must be introduced into a setting as exactly copied as pos-
sible from the most familiar scenery and localities. The more impro-
bable they are in themselves, the more they require a setting of unmis-
takeable outward fact to make your public realise them. A murder
that would be tame if thrown back to the days of good Queen Bess
and the streets of mediaeval London, becomes a genuine sensation if
introduced in the reign of Victoria, and transacted before a well-painted
picture of the Charing Cross or Radcliffe Highway of 1861.
The reports of the police and assize-courts ought t.o supply your
Author with subjects in abundance. If they have not the art to use
these, they may find plenty of suggestion in the penny romances, or the
repertoire of the boulevard theatres.
You will find it more profitable to work the latter source, on the
principle of the intelligent householder who always went for his brooms
to the man who stole them ready-made.
A good scene-painter and mechanist, working in collaboration with an
author who understands the sensation-business, and is not above
writing up to an effect—whether of the pound-brush or the winch, sioat
and counter-weight—ought to make you well nigh independent of the
caprice, insolence, and costliness of actors.
In this class of pieces they are reduced to their proper insignificance