Theatrical and Circus Life or, Secrets of the Stage, Green-Room and Sawdust Arena. John J. Jennings

cents up to $1.50, and the sawdust precincts of the circus may be penetrated for the modest sum of fifty cents; but behind the curtain of the theatre and beyond the screened door through which circus attractions enter the exhibition arena, are sacred places, with secrets that are so valuable to their owners that they dare not for less than a small fortune allow the public to view or even to understand them. A general knowledge of the simplicity of theatrical and circus tricks—of the delusions that make up the stock in trade of showmen generally—would destroy their value as salable articles, and make everybody a little Barnum or Jack Haverly of his own, with ability to furnish himself with amusement at home, while the former mastodonic managers could only look on and weep at the educational facilities with which the country was overrun, and mourn the Shakespearian days when people were easily pleased with the poverty-ridden stage and bare representations that were offered them. But there is no fear that the public will ever be instructed up to such a high degree in regard to the inside workings of the theatre and circus, that there will not at all times be plenty of patrons for both these excellent forms of entertainment. The managers take good care to keep their secrets to themselves, as those who go prying around the shrines in which the theatric arcana are held, very soon find out. At the back door of every theatre—the entrance to the stage—is a cerberus of the most pronounced kind, who would sooner bite his own grandfather's ear off than allow anybody not entitled to the privilege, to pass him; while at the door of the circus dressing-room and all around it are faithful sentinels who will listen to no password, and through whose ranks it is as impossible to break as it is for the fat boy in the side show to throw a double somersault over seventeen horses, with an elephant as big as Jumbo at the far end of the line. It will, however, be the proud privilege of the readers of this book to get as close to the secrets of the stage and sawdust arena as one can well do without knowing absolutely all about them, and by the time the last page is read and the volume is ready to be closed, I think the readers will be both delighted and astonished with the revelations that have been made.

      Turn the average man loose on the stage of a theatre at night, while a play is going on, and it is a Russian kobol against a whole San Juan mining district that he will not know whether he has struck the seventh circle of heaven or is in a lunatic asylum. He will meet some very queer creatures in the scenes; he will see many strange things; the brilliant lights around him, the patches of color flashing into his eyes, the sea of faces and the tangle of millinery in the auditorium, will mystify him; the startling streaks of black upon the faces of the men and women who jostle him as he closely hugs the wings, their red noses and blooming cheeks, the general tomato-can aspect of their faces, the shaggy wigs and straggling beards that look as if they had been torn off the back of a goat only ten minutes before; the dismal, commonplace clothes that shine so radiantly when seen from a chair in the parquette or dress circle—all these things will set his poor brain in a whirl; and while he is looking on awe-stricken, the scene shifters will come rushing down upon him with a new delusion, trampling on his toes in a manner that suggests in a most potential way his superfluity in that particular place, and pushing him aside without the merest apology, and perhaps with no other remark than a fragment of fervent profanity, as if he were a wretched street Arab in that mimic world in which the scene shifter and the captain of the "supers" play such very important parts. People come out of every imaginable place all around him. There seem to be doors everywhere—in the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and even in space; and as the "vasty deep" and the rest of the surroundings give up their dwellers, the intruder receives fresh jolts and thrusts, and possibly additional donations of profanity. This, of course, applies only to the male apparitions that overwhelm the strange visitor to the new world behind the scenes. The female portion of that illusory sphere have nothing to say to him except with their eyes, which very forcibly inquire the meaning of his presence there.

      LOTTA.

      If a person would like to understand how awfully strange and lonely it will be for the last individual left alive upon earth, he need only pay a first visit to the stage of a theatre where he is not acquainted with any of the actors or actresses, and has not even the pleasure of knowing one of the minor attaches. Any attempt to form an acquaintance is promptly and unmistakably repelled, and all the poor unfortunate has to do is to move up where he is out of everybody's way, and he can look on and wonder to his heart's content. As he inspects his surroundings and has his attention called to the actions of the people whose business it is to place the stage in shape for an act or scene of a play, he will readily comprehend the meaning of forming a world out of chaos. If they are getting ready the balcony scene for "Romeo and Juliet," wing pieces are pushed out to represent trees and the side of the house of the Capulets—and what a house it usually is, too, for such elegant people! The front of the house is rapidly placed in position between two wings, the balcony is quickly nailed on, and with the aid of a rude scaffolding behind the scene and a ladder, the fair Juliet mounts, and, feeling her way carefully, at last steps out upon the frail structure to tell the sweet moon her love for Romeo. The whole thing looks ridiculous. Even the stately daughter of the Capulets has not beauty or skill enough to remove the absurdity from the scene which has the appearance of being, and is in reality nothing else than wood and canvas freely splashed with paint of the proper colors. A painted box represents a stone; a green carpet passes for grass; the beautiful bric-a-brac that opens the eyes of the æsthetic people in the audience is only brown paper hurriedly daubed by the scene painter's apprentice; the wall of the Capulets' garden is a very frail canvas concern, and the floral attributes are frauds of the deepest dye from the scenic artist's long table of colors. The whole picture is simple, but unintelligible to the looker-on for the first time, and as he vanishes through the door he laughs heartily at the very thin disguise tragedy and comedy are required to put on to delude and please the public.

      Let him return to the theatre in the morning and view its mysteries shorn of the dazzle and splendor that the night brings. He will be more astonished still. The place is usually as dark as a dungeon, there being something peculiar in the construction of theatres which makes them bright at night and dismal during daylight. If a stray slant of light falls anywhere upon the stage it will be rudely mocked by the bits of burning candle by the aid of which the stage carpenter is at work right in the very spot where, twelve hours before, Romeo and Juliet lived and died for each other in such a lamentably pathetic way that the audience shed tears, and only gave the lachrymal rainstorm a rest at intervals long enough to shower the star with applause. The stage carpenter's assistant is there too, the machinist, the scene painters, the men who have charge of the company's baggage, the property-man, and others. They fill the scene in a lugubrious and wholly uninteresting way—all are at work, and as heedless of the attendance of strangers as the actors and stage hands of the night before had been. The scenes have lost their color—such as are left, and this mimic world that had its admiring and aspiring hundreds is as bare and desert-like as a bald head after its owner has been using hair restoratives for about six months. It has neither shape nor any suggestion of its whilom beauty and attractiveness. The green-room may be explored, and the dressing-rooms, but they will reveal nothing; their former occupants are probably still abed, and unless there is to be a rehearsal they will not be seen around again until 7 o'clock at night. He must not be too searching in his explorations or the attention of the attaches will be attracted, and the conversation that will follow may not be the most pleasant in the world to him. Moving down the stairs that lead to the space under the stage, the explorer will find it darker and more dungeon-like still, and even if it were light nothing could be seen but the steam boiler, for heating and power purposes, the ventilating apparatus, the numerous trap-door openings and the posts about them, with a few other accessories that are hardly worth mentioning. Again he will be forced to confess that everything is very simple, but he cannot understand any part of it, and again he goes away with a laugh on his lips and merriment in his heart because the people are so easily pleased, and theatrical managers find it so easy to entertain them.

      A visit to the dressing-tent of the circus will be equally barren of appreciable results. He can see the dazzling costumes, the shapely limbs of the females, the gaily-caparisoned steeds, the red gold-laced coats of the supers, and a chaotic heaping up of a number of indescribable articles, but behind the canvas screen that divides the tent lie secrets that he must not attempt to penetrate, for there are the lives, the lies and the fascinations