GENERAL UTILITY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1896, 22 March 1880, Page 3

GENERAL UTILITY.

[“Era.”] Often when sitting at the play we have noticed some depressed, dispirited being, standing in a corner of the stage ready to be scowled at by the principal tragedian, howled at by the stage-manager, or smiled at by the audience ; and when our sympathetic glance has fallen upon this forlorn specimen of stage humanity we have said to ourselves, “ Sad is the lot of the man or woman who never rises higher than general utility. Sufferance is the badge of all their tribe. They have long dismissed all idea of shining as stars. They bear the burden of life meekly, and are generally good, honest, simple-minded creatures, frequently not wanting in cultivation and educated ideas, and if they could have represented on the stage what they feel they would have made respectable performers. But it constantly happens that some little defect of speech, some eccentricity of manner, some peculiarity of figure, hinders their efforts, and do what they may they never hit the mark. Possibly, when they first adopt the stage as a profession they think it possible that one day or other there will be a chance for them in some important legitimate part, and with patience and courage they study hard. It may be they find an opening at last, and, full of hope, the first appearance of Mr So and So, as Hamlet or Macbeth, is announced in big capitals. How often the question of that ambitious aspirant’s future career is settled in a single night; aye, in a single hour, and from that day until he makes his final exit from the stage of life he sinks down into the ranks of “ general utility.” Mr Nelson Lee, in the current number of “ London Society,” gives an amusing sketch of the experience of a “general utility,” who says, “ I’ve played in a piece for more than two hundred nights ; I had to go on when it was nearly over and take a letter which caused a good deal of excitement to the leading man ; and, when he asked me if ‘ the Lady Leonora had intrusted it to my my care?’ I had to reply, ‘She did, my lord.’ ‘There’s for thy pains,’he said, and giving me the usual coin waved me off. There, that was my part for two hundred and odd nights, and it almost knocked me over ; but what annoyed me still more was that, after the run of this successful piece, the governor puts up “ Pizarro” and “ Bob Boy,” all the utility Darts of which I knew backwards. If you’ll Delieve me, in that year I hadn’t the chance of studying half a dozen parts. My wife was on the stage before we were married ; but now, what with the children and looking to my collars and lace ruffles for ‘ballroom scenes’ and ‘ evening parties,’ she’d hardly have the time to study, even if asked, for the double engagement.” Persons ignorant of stage business often express wonder that so few rise from the lower ranks. They would hardly be surprised if they knew the drudgery that falls to the lot of poor general utility. He may have but few lines to study, frequently none at all, yet he must spend many dreary hours upon the stage to learn his “ business” whatever it may be, The raw recruit has less drilling to undergo before he appears before his commanding officer on parade than the unfortunate general utility has to rehearse before the stage manager is satisfied. He has as much tramping about as a rural postman, and nobody takes half as much interest in him. The bearer of the letter may have some important news to bring, but the bearer of the intelligence that the Lady Isabel is ready to receive the wicked baton cannot possibly so impress the audience by that simple communication as to secure the honour of a call before the footlights. And yet he must be an actor after a fashion, and it not unfrequently happens that general utility will represent a comic yokel or a flunkey in such a manner as would put most amateurs to the blush, and yet get little credit for his labours. Then in dressing and making up he sometimes displays not a little artistic skill. The chief advantage gained is not that he is put prominently forward but he at least keeps an engagement, and becomes known as a safe man. It constantly happens that, from the families of such men, really good actors and actresses are trained. They have the advantage which the amateur has not, of becoming used to stage business at an early age. From the same sketch we have referred to we quote the experience of a general utility : —“ I never shall forget how pleased my eldest daughter was when I came heme one day from rehearsal and told her that old Burton, our Stage-Manager, was in a fix for a girl to play in “ Belphegor,” and I said that I had come to take her to the Theatre. She put on her bonnet, and I think she wanted a ’bus to the stage door. At rehearsal she read the part beautifully, and at night I stood as near the wing as a ‘ general utility’ man is allowed, and I heard the governor say to the stage manager, ‘ I say, Burton, that girl’s playing that part remarkably well,’ and so she did, for the woman at the pit told me the next night that she made the people cry in the second act, and when I went home and told Nelly that she laughed and drew herself up. ‘ Ah,’ said she, ‘ we must have bills out next week, with our name in larger type, and we must speak about raise of salary,’ She has got on wonderfully since then. Lord bless you, ‘she’s in America now ‘ starring,’ and writes home about dollars. Well, she’s a good girl, though. I say it, and industrious, for she’s studied her profession and kept to it, from nigh the bottom of the ladder.”