BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THEATER

for APRIL JAMES & JOHN HOOPER


ON ACTING AS AN “AWFUL, AWFUL PROFESSION


“ When it’s bad, it’s awful. Eighty-five percent 
of actors in the union are out of work, ( one study 
says 90%.) There were times when I was out of work 
for six, seven months. You begin to doubt, to forget
 who you are. You can make a living as a waiter; 
you try anyway. But that’s not who you are.
  But when it works, it’s great. I don’t think I’m 
ever more alive than when I’m onstage. And that’s a 
hell of a thing to say, because I have a wonderful life, really.”

F. Murray Abraham in Time Magazine (Nov. 21/Nov. 28, 2022)

**
THE PATRON SAINT OF ACTORS

"Genesius" of Rome is a legendary Christian saint, once a comedian and actor who had performed in plays that mocked Christianity. According to legend, while performing in a play that made fun of baptism, he had an experience on stage that converted him. He proclaimed his new belief, and he steadfastly refused to renounce it, even when the emperor Diocletian 
ordered him to do so.
   "Genesius is considered the patron saint of actors,
 lawyers, barristers, clowns, comedians, converts, 
dancers, people with epilepsy, musicians, printers, stenographers, and victims of torture. His feast day 
is August 25."

WIKIPEDIA
**

TARZAN ON STAGE IN SEPTEMBER 1921

“In September , the British Tarzan stage play made 
its way to New York and the Broadhurst Theater, with
 Ronald Adair reprising his role of the Ape-Man. The 
drawbacks of staging a play on this subject ( including 
the use of real lions on stage) was reflected in American audiences’ lack of support. A September 8, 1921, New York Tribune review noted, “The role of Tarzan laid too great a responsibility upon Ronald Adair.” After two epic literary adventures  in a row, it was beginning to become obvious that the film and stage incarnations of the Ape-Man paled in comparison.”


Tarzan, Jungle King of Popular Culture
by David Lemmo | 2016.


**
PETER USTINOV, AS A SOLDIER IN WW II, ENTERS 
A LOCAL TALENT COMPETITION IN TROON, SCOTLAND  (1942)


“My chief rival was an eleven-year old lad in a kilt who sang  ‘Annie Laurie’ ingeniously and consistently flat. Here was obviously a great future talent for atonal and dodecaphonic scores. His only drawback on this occasion was that he had foolishly chose a melody that was known. I scraped home by improvising a Bach Cantata, doing all four vocal timbres, and the instruments of the orchestra as well. The first prize was ten shillings, which I accepted gracefully, using a heavy Scottish accent in case it be suspected that my talent was not local. I have always had slight feelings of remorse of having robbed the unmusical child of his ten bob, but my excuse was that, not for the first or last time in my life, I was flat broke.”

Peter Ustinov. Dear Me. (Boston: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1977

**
HOW LONG CAN A PLAY BE?

“Francisque Spicey “ says in effect, in the aforesaid 
collection of his papers, that a play cannot last longer 
than six hours because that is about the limit of time 
that any crowd may be held together. You will think less of Shaw’s’‘Back to Methuselah,’ which like the oriental plays, continue from day to day.”

Arthur Edwin Krows. Playwriting For Profit. 1928

**
Eugene O'Neil did not care if his plays ran so long
that theater-goers would miss their last trains home.
Thus, there were thousands of audience members in the
NYC area who never did find out how his plays ended.
Did the Iceman ever cometh?
           LJP

**
JOHN SIMON REVIEWING THE MUSICAL COCO &
THE THREE-LEGGED HORSE


“There is no book to speak of, and no music to sing, 
but that is par for the Broadway course these days. 
There is a lesson here for all of us: you can get 
what you want so long as you set your sights low 
enough. The question is  merely whether bagging a 
three-legged horse makes you a mighty hunter.”

John Simon. New York Magazine  (June 6, 1970)

**

MAXWELL ANDERSON AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF WOODSHEDS 

"It is a wise mortal who reconciles his ambition to his limitations. Said Thoreau ‘The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty concludes to build a woodshed.’ Maxwell Anderson is a happy and enviable exception. At the age of sixty-five he continues to gather the materials for temples and, though, he converts them into woodsheds, finally and constantly persuades himself that the woodsheds 
are edifices of unusual majesty and beauty.”

George Jean Nathan. The Theatre in the Fifties. 1953

**

THE ACTING OF MONTAGU LOVE

“Mr. Love’s idea of playing a he man was to extend his 
chest three inches and then follow it slowly across the
stage.”
                   Heywood Broun

**
ON WHAT MIGHT INFLUENCE A THEATER CRITIC

“You may enjoy a play for such varied and impermanent 
reasons. A dull farce may become iridescent if you 
have been lucky enough to have had Chateau de Pape 
with your dinner or to have persuaded the loveliest 
person in the world to overcome explicable reluctance
 about being seen with you at the theater.”

Alexander Woollcott. Enchanted Aisles. 1924

**
CURTAIN CALL

All the world's a stage,
That much is certain.
What I want to know is
Who is lowering the curtain?


Louis Phillips