From the rude and uncomfortable theatre of a century ago, with dressing-rooms under the stage, and but a single fiddle or harpsichord player for the orchestra, with poorly lighted and illy ventilated auditoriums, with meagre scenery and ragged wardrobes—from the primitive theatre of the New World has grown the magnificent, symmetrical, and elegantly appointed houses of amusement of the present day—structures beautifully and chastely ornamented in their exteriors, while their interiors have received the most delicate touches of the artist's brush and the most careful attention from the upholsterer—beautiful in color and drapery, rich in furniture, and the very perfection of architectural design. Our stages are revelations of dramatic completeness, sometimes presenting scenic pictures that challenge nature itself in their attractiveness, and at all times surrounding the actors of a play with accessories gorgeous and extensive enough to mystify as well as delight nine out of every ten patrons of the theatre. The manner in which these extraordinary and pleasing illusions are produced is one of the great secrets of the stage, and when the mechanism employed is explained the reader will be surprised to learn how simple and almost undisguised are the methods whereby the people behind the scenes work and multiply wonders.
CHAPTER IV.
AT THE STAGE-DOOR.
The patrons of the theatre must all find their way into the house through the front doors; only the privileged few are allowed access to the mysteries and wonders of the stage through the back door. Here stands a gentleman, generally of repulsive mien and unattractive manners, whose special business it is to see that nobody, not entitled to do so, penetrates the sacred precincts, and who learns at once to distinguish between the people who come prying around his bailiwick merely for curiosity, and those who are there to "mash" a susceptible ballet girl or perhaps an indiscreet member of the company. Those who are led to the stage-door by curiosity are numerous and they are all promptly repulsed; and the "mashers" who stand at the stage-door after the performance is over, must get into the good graces of the door-keeper, and retain his friendship if they desire the course of true love to run smoother than the old adage says it runs.
In the large theatres of Eastern cities the cerberus who guards the stage entrance generally has a little sentry box just inside the door, with a window cut in it, a stove placed inside in cold weather, a number of pigeon-holes for letters, and indeed all modern conveniences, as the saying goes. Here he sits and smokes, hailing everybody who passes in and saying a kind or snarling word to all who pass out. If the mail has brought a letter for any member of the company, or a "masher" has sent one of the girls a dainty little note expressive of the sentiment that is swelling in his twenty-six-inch bosom, the cerberus will have it, and will hand it out to the person for whom it is intended with an appropriate and not always complimentary remark about it. Sometimes this guardian of the theatric arcana will take advantage of his position to tyrranize over the ballet girls and other subordinates of a company, and will rule in his autocratic way to his own pecuniary and other profit. In the East he is made a kind of time-keeper, notes when the performers appear for duty and when they are absent, besides otherwise making himself serviceable to the management and careful of the interests of his house.
A story is told about one of them—I think his name was Bulkhead—who was employed at a theatre where the ballet was large, and the girls paid very liberal tribute to him. They gave him silk handkerchiefs of the prettiest and most expensive kind to wipe his fantastic mug on; they paid for innumerable hot drinks with which he rounded out the waist of his pantaloons; they dropped cigars into his always outstretched paw, and otherwise drained their own resources to make Mr. Bulkhead as happy and comfortable as possible. He, at first, took whatever was offered, but soon grew bold, and demanded fifty cents each of their little five dollars a week, every salary day. The girls made up their minds not to accede to this demand, which they deemed unjust and exorbitant; they not only positively refused to give Bulkhead any money, but would give him nothing else, not even a two-cent cigar. As a result, about one-half of the girls forfeited a portion of their salaries next pay-day. This aroused all the fury there was in the entire ballet, and when they found out, too, that Bulkhead had driven away their male admirers they were as wild as so many hyenas. It did not take long for them to hit upon a means of wreaking vengeance upon the heartless and unscrupulous door-keeper. They clubbed together what change they had and got Bulkhead boiling drunk; by the time the show was over on that (to him) memorable night he did not know which way to look for Sunday. After the final curtain had fallen and the lights were dimmed, Bulkhead sat at the door on his stool swaying like an unsteady church-steeple and snoring like an engine when its boiler is nearly empty. The girls picked him up and carried him into a remote corner of the stage, where they piled a lot of old scenery around him after tying his hands and feet securely. Then they got red and blue fire ready, almost under his cherry red and panting nose; one of the girls took her position at the thunder drum; another had hold of the rain wheel; another was at the wind machine; a fourth got a big brass horn out of the music room and a fifth got the bass drum; the remainder stood ready to lend assistance with their hands and throats. At a given signal the thunder rolled loudly, the wind whistled vigorously, the rain came down in torrents, the brass horn moaned piteously, the bass drum was beaten unmercifully, and pans of burning blue and red fire were poked through crevices in the piled-up machinery right under the drunken door-keeper's nostrils, while all the girls shouted at the tops of their voices and clapped as enthusiastically as if they were applauding a favorite. Bulkhead after opening his eyes and having his ears assailed by the din, shouted wildly for assistance and mercy and all kinds of things; but he got neither assistance nor mercy. The racket continued for nearly ten minutes when quiet and darkness were restored, and the girls quietly stole away leaving Bulkhead alone in his agony under the pile of scenery, where he was found by the stage carpenter next morning, a first-class, double-barrelled case of jim-jams. He is now in an insane asylum, and employs most of his time telling people that notwithstanding all Bob Ingersoll's buncombe and blarney there must be a hereafter, for he has himself been through the sunstroke section of it.
DECORATING A SCENE PAINTER.
The ballet girls of another theatre played an equally effective and amusing trick upon an obnoxious scene painter. The artist had been in the habit of painting posts, doorsteps, etc., in the neighborhood of the stage-door in colors that were not readily perceptible, and when the young ladies' "mashes" came around after the performance to wait for them to dress, they innocently sat down upon or leaned against the fresh paint and ruined their clothes. The scene painter and his friend were always in the neighborhood to raise a laugh when the disaster was made known, and the result was that the gay young men would come near the stage-door no more, and that the sweetly susceptible creature known as the ballet girl was obliged to go home alone, supperless. Well, one day the girls found the artist asleep against his paint-table with a half emptied pitcher of beer by his side. This was their opportunity. One of the girls who was of a decorative Oscar-Wilde-like turn of mind got a small brush while another held the colors, and in ten minutes they had that man's face painted so that he would pass for a whole stock of scenery; the tattooed Greek was a mere five-cent chromo alongside of him, and a Sioux Indian with forty pounds of war-paint on would be a ten-cent side-show beside a twelve-monster-shows-in-one-under-a-single-canvas exhibition. In this elaborate but undecorative condition the scene painter wandered off to a neighboring saloon, the wonder and merriment of all who saw him. He did not understand the cause of the general stare and unusual laugh at him, until a too sensitive friend took him to a mirror and showed him his frescoed features. Profanity and gnashing of teeth followed, and the artist was prevented from going