Similes of the Stage

Levin Daily Chronicle, 17 February 1917, Page 4

Similes of the Stage

■ (By Frank J, Wilstacli).

(In New York Times). The simile has been employed more extensively, both in the theatre and of the theatre, than one might imagine. Having spent twenty-odd years in collecting for my "Dictionary <®f Similes," I was not a little surprised when I had finally collated over 16,000 under-subject headings to discover that actors, audiences, playwrights, critics, plays and the playhouse itself had so widely engaged the attention of the simile makers. This does not take into account the critics themslves in writing of actors and plays. Of this by-product I recall many odd examples that came into the dragnet— some rare and some curious fish. Once, in describing a play. William .Winter wrote that it had "no more action than a stalled hearse in a snowstorm." A St. Louis critic said of a play that "it hasn't any more originality than a snake has hips," and an English critic said of a certain comedian that he was "like a squirrel in a cage, always in action."

Tlie similes of actors make up in piquancy what they may lack in number. Frank Richardson, the English novelist, - said: "Actors are like burglars ; they always change their names for business purposes. Then the vivacious Max Beerbohm, brother of Sir Herbert, wrote: "Actors are like pet birds. "When a pet 'bird dies, there may be, to those who knew him in his day of song and its ruffling plumage, some poor comfort in the sight of its stuffed body. For others there is only a sense of depression." 1 have never been able, (however,' to discover the authorship of: "An actor is like a cigar; the more you puff him

the smaller lie gets.'

"When it comes to plays there is a greater variety. William Wyclierley set forth his opinion in a couplet:— For plays, like women; by, the world are thought, When you speak kindly of 'em, very naught. George Farquhar, too, found simple prose unfit for the purpose of comparing a play to a banquet, and so wo hav© his famous lines :— Like hungry guests, a sitting audience loots: Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks. The' founder's you: the table is this place: The carvers we: the prologue is the grace. Each act a ; each scene, a differ- * ent dish, Though we're in Lent, I douibt you're still for flesh. . y Satire's the sauce, high-reasoned, sharp and rough. Kind maids and beaux, I hope you're pepperproof? Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce, the true Poets, like vintners, balderdash and 'brew, Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join, Are butcher's meat, a battle's a sirloin's Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste, ' Are water-gruel without salt or taste. It is evident that Sir Walter Scott was acquainted with the business 01 the theatre, for I found he had said: "A play, like a. bill, is of no value until it is accepted; nor indeed when it is, very often." But Henry J. Byron, the English dramatist, bad a facetious turn of mind, expressing a like truth': "A play is like a. cigar; if it is a failure, no amount of puffin® will make it draw, but if it is a success everybody wants a box." . The late Joseph Jefferson epitomized the actors' art. in a simile: "A play is like a picture; the actors are the colors and they must blend' with one another if a perfect work is to l>e produced." Of the few from anonymous writers the best are: vt A bad play is like a cabbage—all leave"; "A play is like a cigar; it requires judicious puffing"; "Most plays are like-pills; if you'swal.

low them whole they are sweet, hut if they; are chewed, like a pill, you will likfe the critic, find them bitter."

Of playwrights themselves but one simile came into the net, and this one by Astyd'amuS Junior: "A wise playwright should act like a man who gives a magnificent" feast; he should seek to delight the spectators, that each on departing may feel he has eaten and drunk just the things he would chiefly have chosen himself ; not set but one dis.h for all palates, one writing for all sorts of tastes."

But when we come to the .stage and the theatre itself, we have no dearth of picturesque material. Francis Bacon compared the stage to life: "The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man; for as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury." It was wise old Oolly Gibber who said in his "Apology" : "Theatrical Favour, like Publick Commerce, will sometimes deceive the best Judgements by an unaccountable change of its Channel; the l hest Commodities are not always known to meet "with the 'best Markets." George Farquhar, the wise and witty, proclaimed : "The Theatre is like a Turk, isk seraglio; the critics are the eunuchs." And Blazac : "A theatre, "unfortunately, is like a stage coach: empty or full, it starts at the same time."

"A newspaper, like a theatre," said William Winter, "must mainly owe its continuance in life to the fact that it pleases many persons, and" in order to please many persons it will, unconsciously perhaps, respond to their several tastes, reflect their various qualities, and reproduce their views."

It is not for me to make merry with the critics; but this is hardly necessary since writers of all ages have provided ample matetrial for my "Dictionary of Similes." Ben Jonson was a hearty and' hardy old soul, and so we find him bursting out with: "But some will say, Criticks are a kind of Tinkers, that make more faults than they mend ordinarily." It is rather curious ■•0 discover Samuel Butler, the author of "Hudibras," coming to the aid and sue cor of the critics, and in this case he twanged tlie lyre :

Critics are like a kind of flies, that breed, In wild fig trees, and when they are grown up feed Upon the raw fruit of the nobler kind, And by their nibbling in the outward rind Open the pores, and make way for the sun

To ripen it sooner than lie would have done.

But now we come to William Congreve, and find this brilliant dramatist proclaiming, in a prologue of one of liis plays addressed, of course, not to the critics who write, but ratlier to those of his time who, expressed their dislike of play or author' by ripping up the seats and dead-catting the actor:

Critics avaunt! for you are fish of pifey, And feed, like sharks, upon an infant play. Beat every monster of the deep away; Let's a fair trial have, and a clear sea!

Dean Swift had 0 whack at the "policeman of tlie drama," to use 'William Archer's phrase: "The eye of the critic is often, like a microscope, made •so very fine and nice that it discovers the atoms, grains, ,and minutest particles without ever comprehending the whole, comparing the parts, or seeing at once the harmony."-

As to similes in plays, one might as well speak of "the stars of Heaven for multitude."