AGENTS AND AGENCIES.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 416, 29 March 1877, Page 3

AGENTS AND AGENCIES.

The theatrical action terminated a few days ago, in which it seems to have been decided that a stage manager procuring engagements for actors and actresses at the theatre where he is employed has a right to charge cominissions, brought to the notice of the public a comparatively new type that of the theatrical agent. The theatrical agent, however, is not altogether a product of the present time. Like most other types, he was known to antiquity, but seems somehow to have died out. M. Edouard Fournier, in his " Vieux Neuf; ou, Histoire Ancienne des DScourvertes et Inventions Modernes," declares that the first middleman in the arts known to French history was one Laffemas, who cultivated the mulberry tree, brought up silk worms, and established a theatrical agency. Then there was another French agent —" agent general" this one might have been called—who framed a comprehensive plan for interchanging the artistic and even the industrial products of Europe for the benefit of all concerned, and who bore the name of La Blancherie. La Blancherie's project was rendered impracticable by the outbreak and maintenance of war, almost without cessation, from 1793 to 1815. But La Blancherie's idea of starting an agency for bringing all the artists of the world into business relations with all the manngers, and s curing a handsome commission to the agent in the matter, was revived not long ago by the " Grande Agence Dramatique of Paris," which at this moment declares, through its representative and director, M. Verger, that it is ready to furnish managers with actors, actors with newspaper notices, newspapers with capital, capitalists with theatrical investments, and the public with admission to theatres on reduced terms.

The dramatic agent seems to have been introduced into England from France, together with bouquets, recalls, and the system of paid applause. In England the agent, however much his services may from time to time be valued by those who have been able to turn them to account, is not a popular character. Those who have recourse to his good ofnea, and who are quite willing on occasion to pay fof them, remember as soon as they need them no longer that the agent lives not by hia own work so much as by*theirs. He has labor, no doubt of his own to perform. But he sings not neither does he act; yet he often makes considerably more money than the great majority of actors and singers not absolutely of the the first class. An apparently competent witness giving evidence in the case of Coe v. Sothern and Clarke declared that actors of the highest class did not employ agents, but made engagements direct with managers. This may be true enough as far as England is concerned. But the greatest actors, when they undertake tours in America, will often allow agents to speculate in them ; to give them, that is to say, so much for the tour, and let them out to one manager after another in various parts of the States. Others retain, even in England, the services of mysterious personages called " agents in advance;" heralds and precursors who proclaim in the advertising sheets of provincial newspapers the approach of their principal, and make things pleasant for his arrival. " Agents in advance," however, are the salaried servants of those whose interests they look after, and are, therefore, not to be confounded with agents who live on percentage and commission.

It may be doubted whether any theatrical agent has ever attained the importance of those musical agents who enable a prima donna or a painist to make a fortune in one tour, and themselves make a fortun* out of the painist or prima donna. The prima donna's agent circulates reports on the subject of her unbounded charity, sells by auction the tickets for her first representations, has her called seventeen times before the curtain, and half smothers her in the final scene beneath an avalanch of bouquets. The pianist's agent saye nothing about his protege's moral qualities—no one cares whether a pianist is charitable or not; but he uses him as a living advertisement. The agent advertises the pianist in the regular manner, while the pianist advertises the pianos of some chosen maker by playing upon them. The piano-maker pays" the agent, the agent pays the pianist, and every one—even the public—is satisfied. The agent in connection with painting iB clearly the picture-dealer ; and the dealer in pictures is sometimes a greater man even than the agent of a prima dona. Picture -dealars have been known to have entire galleries in their possession, and thus to be in a position to open exhibitions of their own. They pique themselves on their ability to recognise rising talent; but it has not, we believe, occurred to any of them to engage an artist of promise for a term of years, as a young prima dona of promise is often engaged. The agent in literary matters doing for the author what the theatrical agent does for the actor and the musical agent for the singer would at first sight seem to be the publisher. But the publisher performs rather the functions of manager. It is he who, without any question of intermediaries enables the author to make an appearance, and presents him under befitting conditions to the public. The lecturer, who is something between the writer and the actor, has long had his agents, properly so called, even as the actor himself; and it can be seen from the advertising colums of the * Athenaeum * that there are now a certain number of literary agents who

stand between and profess willingness to bring together writers and publishers. Such an in a recent advertisement invites writers, on the one hand, to send him novels, sketches, and tales, and offers newspaper proprietors, on the other, a number of Christinas stories, which are to be sent out in proof for inspection and sold for publication "on approval." The agent probably takes a commission, or else buys in a comparatively cheap market to sell in a relatively dear one. In connection with provincial journalism the agency system has long been established. There are press agencies ! which, besides sending out by contract news of all kinds, from the price of beef at Leadenhall market to the proceedings of the Conference at Constantinople, supply leading articles on all conceivable topics to as many journals in different parts of the country as like to subscribe for them. The manufactured opinions thus furnished are forwarded not in manuscript nor in proof, J but in type, or casts taken from type. These circulated leaders, often sound j enough as regards the information they contain, are for the most part colorless. Destined for newspapers of the most varied political views, Ihey are written by men who have taught themselves to look neither to the right nor to the left, but to keep in a midwaj course, from which they cannot in fact diverge, except at the risk of offending on the one side their Liberal, on the other their Conservative customers. There are some press agencies, we believe, of an inferior kind, which combine the work of newspaper writers with that of advertising agents ; and we have heard of an agency of this description proposing to a highly respectable provincial journal to pay with leaders for the insertion of quack advertisements. A slashing article in exchange for the puff of a purgative " Pas-sez-moi la rhubarbe, je vous passerai la saignSe," as one of Moiliere's doctors might have put it.— ♦ Fall mall Budget.'