Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And how often he has sat through the long night brooding over the corpse of this dear figment of his fancy! It has lately become customary with many actor-managers to avoid these pangs of childbirth.
"These actor-managers what?" "More or less. I must be off. Dining out." "What! Not going to wait for the end of the fourth act?" "No, I'm late as it is. Ta-ta!" The white-haired man was amused. He did not turn round, nor, if he had, would he have known the retreating gentleman for the most eminent of living playwrights; but he knew the reason for his sudden retreat.
I have never believed in their hardness, and have proved them tender and generous in the extreme. Actor-managers are very proud of their long runs nowadays, but in Shakespeare, at any rate, they do not often eclipse Charles Kean's two hundred and fifty nights of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Princess's. It was certainly a very fascinating production, and many of the effects were beautiful.
There is this of romance about lunch, that one can imagine great adventures with stockbrokers, actor-managers, publishers, and other demigods to have had their birth at the luncheon table. And not only does one inaugurate business matters at lunch, but one also renews old friendships.
Who are our leading actors and actor-managers? Scarcely any leading actor lacks one "r," as Charles Wyndham, Cyril Maude, Louis Waller, etc., etc. Those without any "r's" may console themselves with the memory of Edmund Kean, though Garrick a name almost wholly compact of "r" is the patron saint of the stage. The ladies follow the gentlemen.
Personal vanity and the pecuniary necessity of long runs are enough in themselves to account for the failure of most attempts to combine Shakespeare with show, poetry with the box-office. Or is there in our actor-managers a lack of this very sense of what is required in the proper rendering of imaginative work on the stage?
The uncharitable will say that there are not a dozen, or even two or three, worth bribing; yet, although from time to time managers, or rather actor-managers, allege that the critics have little influence, nearly all the managers, actor-managers included, occasionally admit that even if the critics cannot make plays succeed they may be able to kill some.
"At the same time I am afraid her position will be rather an awkward one. She will lose some money by the closing of the theatre, and I don't exactly see what London house is open for her just at present. These actor-managers are all so clannish, and they have their own women."
He was an eccentric, faddy, kindly, gentle creature. At the "Grill-room," actor-managers are constantly pouring out their woes. One well-known actor-manager came in full of a desperate row he had had with his leading lady because the printer in the bills of the new production had forgotten the all-important "and" before her name.
Why are so many actor-managers against the new drama? Because their hearts are quite naturally set on such insincere distortions of values as are necessary to a constant succession of "big parts" for themselves.
Word Of The Day