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A SHIFT OF NECESSITY.

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The practice of "winging a part" is one so common among actors as to excite no surprise whatever among those who have been bred to the stage.

This consists in going on the stage to play a part without having studied it at all. The actor carries the part in his pocket, and when he vanishes from the sight of the audience, pulls it out and falls to reading the words, standing in the "wings" to do so. When his cue is called, he pockets the part again, goes on, and speaks it as well as he is capable of doing.

Of course, under these circumstances he is not expected to speak the part correctly. It is one of the shifts of necessity which sometimes arise in theatres, and an actor gets over it as well as he can,-speaks the words as far as he remembers them, and substitutes words of his own when he don't remember,-any way to get through the part, and enable the other actors to go on properly with theirs.

An old writer, in a quaint work, now obsolete, gives some interesting particulars relating to this subject. He says: "In provincial theatres, instances of memory occur nightly that are little short of marvelous. Mr. Munroe, now of the Haymarket Theatre, has on several occasions studied twelve to fourteen lengths from rehearsal until night; and I remember his playing Colonel Hardy quite perfect, having received notice of it at four o'clock, and going to the theatre at half-past six-the part is at least five hundred lines. I have known others study a hundred lines per hour, for five or six hours in succession, but these are extraordinary instances. Most actors find that writing out a part greatly facilitates the acquisition of it. Slow writers impress the words more on their memory than rapid ones; and it is said that you study more perfectly from an ill-written copy than a good manuscript, as the pains taken to ascertain the sentences

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ACTORS' PECULIARITIES.

impress them indelibly on the memory. This is carrying matters perhaps a little too far. Cathcart (late of the Coburg,) never wrote out a part, or kept a book; once studied, he never forgets a line. Munroe never wrote out a line in his life, and will repeat parts at one reading that he has performed a dozen years before. Mr. Bartley, of Covent Garden, posesses a wonderful memory, and advocates repeating the part aloud, as the best means of study. Knight always learned the entire scene in which he was engaged, and not the words of his part alone. My readers are familiar with the story of Lyon, a country actor, learning the contents of a newspaper by heart in one night. The thing seems incredible; but it will be remembered that when this feat was performed, newspapers did not contain one-third of the matter they do at present, and their contents were not half so miscellaneous. A member of the present Covent Garden Company, while sojourning at Greenwich, a few years back, undertook to get by heart a copy of the Times newspaper; in the course of that week he had also to study seven parts for the theatre, yet he completed his task, and won his wager, delivering the whole of the journal, from the title and date to the end. This was averaged at six thousand lines; but the wonder consists more in the perplexing nature of the thing studied than the quantity."

Dr. Abercrombie mentions an instance of treacherous memory, which was communicated to him by an able and intelligent friend, who heard it from the lips of the individual to whom it relates. A distinguished theatrical performer, in consequence of the illness of another actor, had occasion to prepare himself, on very short notice, for a part which was entirely new to him, and the part was long and rather difficult. He acquired it in a very short time, and went through it with perfect accuracy, but immediately after the peformance, forgot every word of it.

LOGAN AS BLACK RALPH.

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Characters which he has acquired in a more deliberate manner he never forgets, but can perform them without a moment's preparation; but in the character now mentioned there was the further and very singular fact that, though he has repeatedly performed it since then, he has been obliged each time to prepare it anew, and has never acquired in regard to it that facility which is familiar to him in other instances. When questioned respecting the mental process which he employed the first time he performed this part, he says that he lost sight entirely of the audience, and seemed to have nothing before him but the pages of the book from which he had learned it; and that if anything had occurred to interrupt this illusion, he should have stopped instantly."

There are great numbers of interesting stories afloat concerning feats of memory of actors, in taking parts at short notice, and performing them. A year or two since, it is said, Mr. J. W. Wallack, Jr., went on at a theatre in Washington entirely perfect in the part of Brierly, in the "Ticket-of-Leave Man," having acquired the words in thirty minutes. It is related that Mr. Edwin Booth once, when a boy, got through Richard III, in the illness of his father, without having studied it.

One evening, when my father was playing in a Canadian city, several years ago, he was suddenly called upon to take the powerful part of Black Ralph. The performer who was expected to enact this part was taken ill at six o'clock in the evening, and some one must play his part, or the performance could not go on. Black Ralph is a very long tragic part, and my father was the "funny actor" of the company; yet, in spite of this fact, he agreed to take it and do his best with it.

It was six o'clock when the part was placed in his hands. At half-past-seven o'clock the curtain rang up. In this short interval my father memorized the part from

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THROWN OFF HIS GUARD.

beginning to end, besides changing his dress, and making up his laughter-provoking and genial face into the aspect of fierce and brutal villainy.

He went on the stage, and proceeded for some time with perfect ease, while a gentleman who sat in the audience followed him, word by word, by means of a printed copy of the play, which he held in his hand.

Suddenly father caught sight of this gentleman with the play-book. He stopped short, stammered, and was barely able to proceed.

As soon as he got behind the scenes, he sent word round to the gentleman in the audience, requesting him to put the book out of sight, for it so confused and annoyed him that he could not go on with his part.

The gentleman very obligingly did as he was desired, and my father played the part to the end without making a single mistake. To this the prompter testified,— he having, of course, followed the part through, word by word.

Few people realize what little things can throw an actor off his guard at times, and make him forget his part, or so stumble through it as to make it a hopeless mess. The rustling of a newspaper, the crying of a baby, the getting up and going out of a squeak-booted man,these and other such trifles have at times had the effect of disconcerting the performer completely.

A LABORIOUS CRAFT.

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CHAPTER VI.

Erroneous Ideas of the Gayety and Ease of Life Behind the Scenes.-An Actor's Daily Duties. Studying Parts, attending Rehearsals, and Performing at Night.-The Mental Labor.-The Physical Labor.The Mockery of Stage Glitter.—False Jewels and Flaring Gaslight.— How Actors Go Astray.-The Stern Rules which Govern Life Behind the Scenes.-Waiting for the Cue.-A Curious Incident in the Life of a Celebrated Actress.-Asleep on the Stage.

I have met a great many people who had a fixed idea that theatrical life was an idle life; one in which there was positively nothing to do but to carouse away the time in frivolous nonsense, in chatting and merrymaking, if not in actual debauchery!

Nothing can be farther from the truth.

Recreation is the incident in the life of an actor or an actress; work-hard work-is the rule.

"Work! an actor work?" I hear you say, as I have heard many say.

Ay, and hard work. Read what the American Cyclopedia says on this point:

"The profession of the stage is perhaps the most laborious of all crafts, requiring an almost unceasing mental and physical effort."

Both mental and physical, you observe. The lawyer works hard with his brain, so does the editor, the bankclerk, the book-keeper; but all of these are nearly free from physical labor.

On the other hand, the carpenter, the mason, the hodcarrier, earn their bread by sweating brow and fatigued limbs; but every one knows that this is the heaviest part of a mechanic's toil. There is little or no brain-work to torture him.,

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