STAGE FRIGHT.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3359, 27 September 1879, Page 4

STAGE FRIGHT.

Without going back to the clays of Gafrick or MacreaSy, and a host of tragedians who always kept in bed nearly the whole of the day to calm their nerves . Before acting a new part, I can just call to mind one or two cases confined even bat to one theatre, " The Old Adelphi." On the first night of a new piece there the Eeeleys were always very ill from fright. Leigh Murray suffered as much from it aa a cockney does.in the "chops of the • channel." Celeste used to dash on, in sheer desperation from it saying to herBelf, " "Well, dey cannot keel me for it." Alfred Wigan, one of the letter-perfect actors, was a martyr to fright, so much so that he occasionally totally forgot his words; as for his accomplished wife, he was obliged to divert her attention during the day, lest the dread of a first night should overpower her, and at night she, on one occasion, had to throw herself on the ground, to subdue the beating of her Heart from fright. " Feel my band," said Charles Kean tome, when heiwas playing '• Cardinal Wolsey," for the I don't know how many hundreth time in the provinces j B trembled as if it had the ague. Mrs Stirling would never venture on the stage without a manuscript of her part in the pocket as a charm to keep the words in her head. Mr Irving's nervousness is simply indescribable ; even MrToole will not be seen by his most intimate friend on a firßfc night; while Mrs Kendal complains that her " stage-fright" increases every year, and with John Parry every one knows it amounted to a positive disease. The malady is too universal for stage managers not |to provide themselves against it in novices. The worst thing possible for any actor to do is • to try to gain courage by hanging about the wings till his "call" comes. ; " Keep in the green room, sir," says the prompter to the novice. When the " call" comes the novice is somehow hustled on thostagr, arid like a dog thrown for the first time into the water, he sometimes struggles out of his difficulty. Not always. I remember one unfortunate young gentleman who was to make his first appearance in " Richard III." as one of the small noblemen who wait on Richmond. We had a very scanty company, and our army on the occasion was represented by one unhappy super, who stood with a banner and the characteristic " super-ahivering legs." Theyounjj gentleman had but to say," Your words are fire, my lord, and warm our men," &c. He was quite perfect at rehearsal. Wight came. The scene drew, "Go on," shouted the prompter. On the young gentleman was pushed : his cue was given. All that stage-fright would -peswit him to think of, was one word in the speech. That word was —fire. He looked at the shivering standard-bearer and desperately blurted out: "If we'd njire, mj lord, we'd warm our men"