THE STAGE.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2641, 26 June 1877, Page 3

THE STAGE.

TiWtJ is unquestionably a good deal which is perfectly true to be urged against the condition of the stage. Its productions (says the World) are to a large extent inartistic, frivolous, immoral, and it is matter for regret that they should occupy so large a space in the thoughts of bo extensive a class as the modern patrons of the stage. The theatre is the nightly amusement of arrowing number of young men and women, who gradually come to entertain the conviction that the thrusts and parries of antithetical word-play, which amuses them, make Tip a high-class intellectual entertainment, and that a modern burlesque satisfies the essential conditions of true grace and humour. Some of the reproaches to which the burlesque stage was exposed a few years ago have already been outgrown. The ethics of theatrical life, and the moral character of the rank and file of stage heroines, are deplorably low; but the cases are less common and conspicuous than they were in which a histrionic reputation is only achieved when a feminine reputation is lost. The stars of extravaganza shine out from a social atmosphere which may not bear too minute an inspection; but the only reason of their lustre is not what ought to be veiled in obscurity, and-the opportuifcies even of the burlesque boards

are diminishing, as a field in which Phryne can win new triumphs, or Lais gratify the whimsical aspiration of her humour. The real truth is that the morality of the stage is no belter nor wor>-e than the morality of the society in the midst of which it exists. The doings of actresses are more criticised and canvassed than those of ladies who are less formally before the world; and because they indiscretions of fashionable drawing-rooms are more fortunately veiled than those of the green-rooms, which, according to Dean Close, are the haunts of unspeakable vice, they are not the less real. The great evil at the present day is that the influences of the theatre are not kept within their due limits, that the stage is not strictly localised. The spirit of burlesque and comedy has asserted itself in general society; and to be stage struck is merely to be the Victim of a fashionable epidemic. When women who have duties to discharge and a position to fill emulate the fame of fifth rate actresses by profession, a serious mischief is done, and inconvenient results are sure to follow. It is not so much to what is done on the stage proper itself that/we should look, if we wish to see the evils of the stage illustrated, as to the insane enthusiasm with which amateurs, aping the occupations and the manners of actors and actresses,promote the frivolities of a pastime to the business of a life.