THE CALL-BOY'S REVENGE.
Another occasion that was a source of infinite amusement to an audience that had been fully worked up to tragic interest in the play of "Hamlet," occurred at Baltimore, Maryland, a short time ago. The actor cast for King Claudius had given some offence to the call-boy—treated him badly in the presence of the company—so the boy made up his mind to have ample revenge. He got a needle, fitted a long piece of thread in it, and then placed it in the cushion chair that answered for the King's throne, in such a way that when the time arrived, by a simple jerk of the string he might move the needle skyward. He waited until Claudius was supposed to be most interested in the scene before the players, when jerk went the thread, and King Claudius, with an alacrity unbecoming royalty, bounded out of his chair as quickly as if he had suddenly sat down upon the sharp end of a lightning rod. He dropped his sceptre and shouting "Ouch!" and nursing the injured part of his anatomy, jumped and danced around as if he had just caught sight of Hamlet's father's ghost. There was an interruption to the scene that the audience filled in with boisterous laughter. After the act the King, instead of sending one of his officers or guards for the call-boy, as befitted his exalted station, went scouring around the scenery himself, muttering the wildest threats and applying names to that poor boy that he could hardly have won for himself if he lived to be a thousand years old. It is hardly necessary to say that the call-boy did not wait around until the end of that act.
Mrs. Farrel, who was an actress of ability in her time, after being hissed in the part of Zaira, the heroine of "The Mourning Bride," and particularly in the dying scene, rose from the stage, and, approaching the foot-lights, expressed her regret at not having merited the applause of the audience, and explained that she had only accepted the part to oblige a friend, and hoped she would be excused for not playing it better. After this little speech she once more assumed a recumbent position, and was covered by the attendants with a black veil.
On one occasion a danseuse was listening to the protestations of an elderly lover, who was on the point of kissing her hand, when, as he stooped down his wig caught in the spangles of her dress. At that moment she was called to the stage, and made her appearance before the audience amid general laughter and applause; for on the front of her dress was the old beau's wig or scalp, hanging like a trophy from her belt. The applause was renewed when a bald head was seen projecting from the wing in search of its artificial covering. Stories, too, are told of imprudent admirers, who, having excited the jealousy of the stage carpenter, did not take the precaution to avoid traps, and as a consequence found themselves shot up into the "flies," or hastily dropped down to the dismal depths below the stage.
THOS. W. KEENE.
It is a very common trick to let people through a trap-door. I was present several times in the theatre when victims were carried down to the black and uninviting space below the stage. At a benefit given to a popular treasurer in St. Louis, a well-known young man who was in the liquor business was prevailed upon to appear in the programme and was put down for a lecture on temperance. The house was crowded that night, and P—— H—— was there in all the glory and wealth of his wardrobe, fully prepared to entertain the audience for half an hour or so. One of the boys had had the pleasure—so he termed it—of hearing H—— read his lecture through, and he gave the others the cue for the fun. The lecturer's table was placed just at the edge of a trap, and a trick candle, one such as is used in pantomime, and that keeps on growing taller and taller as the clown in vain tries to get within reach of the flame, stood at one side of the piece of furniture. H—— went on the stage bowing his neatest and smiling his sweetest. He was, of course, received with "thunders of applause," and storms of the same kind interrupted him at frequent intervals. At last the place was reached where the fun was to commence. "Bang!" went a gun in the air, the thunder rolled, there was red fire, and the floor parted. Down went H—— slowly, and up went the candle. He was so terror-stricken that he could do nothing, and was left to grope his way through the darkness to the stairs. The language he used when he once more found himself among his friends was stronger and less elegant than were the phrases of his lecture. He appears at no more benefits.
A young society man now of Cincinnati was treated in the same way, a trap having been left open upon which he stepped in the middle of a play in which he took the leading part with a company of amateurs, when down he went, to the dismay of his friends, the delight of the young fellows who had "put up the job," and to his own horror. In Leadville, Col., a serio-comic singer who had incurred the displeasure of one of the stage hands, was retiring into the side scenes bowing gracefully and kissing her hand to the audience, when suddenly down went one of her pink-clad limbs through an open trap, and her moment of triumph was turned into one of ridicule, and in addition to her mortification the leg was broken. Such tricks are always dangerous and more frequently are followed by mourning than fun.
EMMA THURSBY.
Powell, the English actor, sought in vain one night for a "super" who was wont to dress him, but who on this occasion had undertaken to play the part of Lothario's corpse in "The Fair Penitent." Powell, who took the principal character, shouted in an angry tone for Warren, who could not help raising his head from out the coffin in which he was lying, and answering, "Here, sir." "Come, then," continued Powell, not knowing where the voice came from, "or I'll break every bone in your body!" Warren, knowing that his master was quite capable of carrying out the threat, sprang in his fright out of the coffin and ran in his winding-sheet across the stage.
LILLIAN RUSSELL.
The dying heroes and heroines of the present day wait to regain animation until the curtain has fallen, when they reappear in their own private characters at the foot-lights. A distinguished tenor, Signor Giuglini, being much applauded one night for his singing in the "Miserere" scene of "Il Trovatore," quitted the dungeons in which Manrico is supposed to be confined, came forward to the public, bowed, and then, not to cheat the executioner, went quietly back to prison again. A much more modern story of the confusion of facts with appearances is told, and with truth, of a distinguished military amateur, who had undertaken, for one occasion only, to play the part of Don Giovanni. In the scene in which the profligate hero is seized and carried down to the infernal regions, the principal character could neither persuade nor compel the demons, who were represented by private soldiers, to lay hands on one whom, whatever part he might temporarily assume, they knew well to be a colonel in the army. The demons kept at a respectful distance, and, when ordered in a loud whisper to lay hands on their dramatic victim, contented themselves with falling into an attitude of attention.
JOE JEFFERSON.
Jules Janin, in the collection of his feuilletons published under the title of "Histoire de la Littérature Dramatique," tells how in the ultra-tragic tragedy of "Tragadalbas," an actor, in the midst of a solemn tirade, let a set of false teeth fall from his mouth. This was nothing more or less than an accident which might happen to any one. Lord Brougham is said to have suffered the same misfortune while speaking in the House of Lords. But the great tragedian showed great presence of mind, and also a certain indifference to the serious nature of the work in which he was engaged, when he coolly stooped down, picked up the teeth, replaced them between his jaws, and continued his speech.
ROLAND REED.
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