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Then generally follows a dialogue between the stage-manager and one or two of the actors, which refers to the play and its author, mentions past events and present circumstances elucidating the plot, and invariably ends by adroitly introducing one of the dramatic personages, and the real performance begins.
X., a fully illustrated description of the Mumming Play, as performed at Newbold, a village near Rugby, is given. The Play is always performed at Christmas time, consequently Father Christmas appears as stage-manager, and introduces the characters. The action consists in a general challenge issued by Saint George, and accepted by the Turkish Knight. A combat follows, in which the Turk is slain.
"You have scarcely seemed yourself lately, even at Penhouet. Now you are truly yourself, you are radiant with your seventeen years. It is a pleasure to look at you and to listen to you." When the two girls came into the hall the Director, Maurice Renaud, the Marquis Assistant, and the stage-manager, Louis de Marset, were the only others who had arrived.
The orchestra, unnerved by this unrehearsed infusion of new business, had stopped playing. Bulgarian officers and Japanese girls alike seemed unequal to the situation. They stood about, waiting for the next thing to break loose. From somewhere far away came faintly the voice of the stage-manager inventing new words, new combinations of words, and new throat noises.
There is nothing unsuitable in Lear in kingly raiment in the hovel in the storm, because such is here demanded by the exigencies of the play: but if Lear were to be first shown in such guise in such a place with no explanation given of the cause, either the character or the stage-manager would be simply taken for a madman.
The prince is inaugurated as Yuvaraj. All now go together to pay their homage to the queen, who had so generously resigned her rights in favour of Urvasi. We learn a wise sentiment from the prologue. The stage-manager, addressing the audience, says: "All that is old is not, on that account, worthy of praise, nor is a novelty, by reason of its newness, to be censured.
It is precisely what the stage-manager, if he happens to have the secret of his own art, will endeavour most persistently to suggest. He will make it his business to compete with the poet, and not, after the manner of Drury Lane, with the accidents of life and the vulgarities of nature.
As Helen received her portion Saunders said: "Here, Miss Merival, is a fat part must be yours. Jee-rusalem the golden! I'd hate to tackle that rôle." Douglass was ready to collar the ass for his impudent tone, but Helen seemed to consider it no more than the harmless howl of a chair sliding across the floor. She was inured to the old-time "assistant stage-manager."
The Boy had secured a good front place, well up towards the cave, and was feeling as anxious as a stage-manager on a first night. Could the dragon be depended upon? He might change his mind and vote the whole performance rot; or else, seeing that the affair had been so hastily planned, without even a rehearsal, he might be too nervous to show up.
The stage-manager subsequently reminded me that he had in my presence regretted that the "Road to Fortune" had done such good business, since there would probably be a reaction.
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