BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THEATER

WHAT MAKES ACTORS TICK?

"Fascination with actors shows no sign of abating. 
The public still, it seems, longs to know as a journalist 
put it to Alec Guinness on his first visit to America, 
what makes them tick.("I wasn't aware that I was 
ticking, " Guinness replied.)"

Simon Callow, reviewing The Method, in The New York 
Review of Books (August 18, 2022)
**
NOEL COWARD TRIES TO DO A GOOD DEED
 
"...there's the story of the actress who religiously 
attended every audition for every show he (NOEL COWARD)
staged in London. Each time she sang a few songs, never 
with indication of improvement and always went away 
empty handed. After this had been going on for several 
years Coward started feeling sorry for her and determined 
that he would find something for her to do and eventually managed to come up with a part that matched her rather 
limited talents. "I'm very happy to tell you that at last
 we have something for you," he told her enthusiastically 
after walking from hi seat to the edge of the stage to 
break the good news.
    Oh, no, Mr. Coward," replied the lady, "I don't take 
parts, I just audition," and swept out of the theatre 
with magnificent dignity!"

 Richard Brier. Coward & Company (London:Robson 
Books Ltd.,1987)
**
ON  T.S., ELIOT’S IMPROBABLE TITLE FOR A PLAY

“I’m in a rush at the moment. Off to Edinburgh tomorrow, where my new play (‘The Cocktail Party’ Is the name of it, but that’s only what I call it in order to entice the public – the esoteric name is ‘Upadhamman samuppada,’ but nobody would promote a play with a name like that). Well, we’ll see.”

T.S. Eliot in a letter to Djuna Barnes (August19, 1949)




ON GOING TO SEE A BROADWAY SHOW


NYC theater-goers know,
As do the Bengal Lancers:
“You pay your money
& you take your chances.



*
SHOES ON STAGE

“Sometimes all it takes is a pair of shoes to connect 
an actor to a role. They can’t be any old shoes, of 
course. They have to fit both the feet and the 
personality.
  “When Lynn Redgrave was preparing to play a 
middle-aged department store clerk in the British 
playwright Alan Bennett’s monologue ”Miss Fozzard  
Finds Her Feet,” the footwear that helped the 60 
year old actress bring the role to life was a pair 
of slim-fitting T-straps she picked up for $20 
at a Payless Store on 57th Street in Manhattan.”

Stephen Holden in The New York Times
(April 20, 2003)

**


THE ART OF TERRIBLE ACTING
	
I wonder how many modern theater goers remember Effie 
and Addie Cherry, better known as “The Cherry Sisters”?  
The sisters, who died in the early 1940’s, set standards 
for bad performance that may never be surpassed.  They 
often had to sing and dance behind a net so that they 
would be protected from all the fruits and vegetables 
that spectators would hurl at them.  When Effie Cherry 
died in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on August 5, 1944, the 
Associate Press reported: It was at Hammerstein’s 
old Olympic Theater in New York that the sisters’ 
gypsy skit, their stock entertainment throughout 
the years related in song and gesture the fate that 
was worse than death.  It was supposed to have been 
treated to a fruit and vegetable shower by customers 
who came to see their act because it was so 
fantastically bad, although Effie always denied 
the story.

	In spite of the ludicrous nature of their 
Gypsy act, Effie and Addie Cherry managed to pull 
down as much (and sometimes more) as a thousand 
dollars a week, and that was in an age when a 
thousand dollars went a lot farther than it does now.
**

DOUBLING, TRIPLING, etc.

“William Davidbe related in his Footlight Flashes 
that during his strolling days in England when 
companies were small, he had  on the same evening 
done duty for Polonius, the Ghost, Osric, and the 
First Grave-digger; and Edwin Booth remember Thomas 
Ward dying in the sight of the audience as the player 
king, and being dragged from the mimic stage by the 
heels to enter immediately at another wing as 
Polonius with a cry of ‘Lights! Lights! Lights!’

                         Laurence Hutton 

Curiosities of the American Stage (NY: Harper 
& Brothers, 1891) 

**
NEW YORK CITY AS STREET THEATER

“On the street nobody watches, everyone performs.”
**
 “ Street theater can be achieved in a store, on a bus, 
in your own apartment. The idiom requires enough actors 
(bit players as well as principals) to complete the 
action and the rhythm of extended exchange. The city 
is rich in both. In the city things can be kept 
moving until they arrive at point. When they do, 
I come to rest.”

Vivian Gornick.  Approaching Eye Level. (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1996
**

      STAGE NEWS FROM ALL OVER

       I am cast to play a part
       In the drama of my own life,
       But why was I
       Given only a walk-on role,
       & why have there been
       No rehearsals?

        Louis Phillips