THEATRICAL ANECDOTES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3057, 13 April 1881, Page 3

THEATRICAL ANECDOTES.

BY EDWARD COMPTON,

"THE PLAY'S THE THING."

The ignorance frequently displayed by some of the minor provincial audiences is proverbial. I recollect when I -was fulfilling an engagement at G- , in the autumn of 1876, that my landlady (I suppose with an order) went to see the play. The night's programme consisted of tho comedy of All that Glitters is Not Gold, and the old nautical drama The Anchor of Hope, in which pieces I appeared as Stephen Plum and Tom Topreef respectively. The house was not exactly crowded, so I was able to distinguish my good landlady sitting rigidly attentive during the performance, and occasionally, as I fondly imagined, pointing out special points in my acting to her somewhat imbecile-loolring friend. Bub I was wrong. On arriving homo, I had occasion to pass the kitchen door, when the following specimen of wilful stupidity forced itself on my ear—" Don't you see, my dear, that there young man, that Sugar Plum, ho married Martha; then he leaves to go and bo a bailor, comes 'ome and marries another wife, and in consequence of such wicked goings-on, we had all that clashing of swords and firm' of pistols, which was brought about by that old man with the pole (Abraham Moses, the Jew, in The Anchor efllope), who was the father of the first wife, come to revenge her !" I retired sadly to my own apartment: the dear old soul, in spite of her programme, had ingeniously ■woven the modern comedy and the ancient drama into one piece ! OVERDOING THE UNDERSTANDING. Tho general jmblic seldom realise tbe terrible amount of work that devolves upon a country actor (especially a beginner) when he is called upon to support a star with an extensive repertoire, and many are the blunders that spring from a confusion of parts on the brain. One actor-, indeed, when playing two characters a night during a week's visit of the late Charles Mathews, became so hopelessly " at sea" on the Saturday that, in the second piece, after vainly trying to pull through with tho assistance of the prompter and tho star, he finally succumbed with the following " few words to tho audience," delivered in bewildered bursts :—" Ladies and gentlemen, this is the twelfth part I've had to study and play this week. I'm ' completely 'mixed,' I don't know what I'm about,

what the piece is about, or what business of the piece I ought to be about, and I think about the best thing I can do is to go in peace — about my business \" which he did, leaving Mr Mathews master of that situation, but losing, I fear, his own. Another actor, I recollect, made a ludicrous blunder in Macduff's great scene in the fourth act of Macbeth. He was enacting Itosse on the night in question, and one of his many parts for that week had been Horatio, which he had struggled with, the night before. Students of Shakespeare will remember that the following dialogue occurs in Hamlet when that young gontlemen is questioning Horatio and " the rivals of his watch" as to the appearance of the Ghost: — Hamlet.—" Stayed it long ?" Horatio. —"While one, with moderate haste, might tell a hundred." I Marcellus and Bernardo.—" Longer! Longer!" Horatio.—" Not when Isaiv it\" With these remarks fresh on his mind he entered as Bosse, to mo as Macduff, and _ to my utter consternation, instead of replying to my anxious inquiry as to where Scotland stood at that moment, with the # beautiful speech commencing, " Alas, poor country, scarce able to know itself," &c, lie completely staggered me by answering in a dazed state, but quite seriously, thus :— Macduff. —"Stands Scotland where it did ?" Eosse. —" Not.when 1 saio it !" The finish of the scene did not, on this occasion, produce its usual tearful accompaniment.