FullReads

But there is a technique to be acquired in this matter as in everything else within the theatre. The great art of the stage-craftsman, as I have already shown, is to seem natural rather than to be natural. Let your actors have tea by all means, but see that it is a properly histrionic tea. This is how it should go:–

Hostess. How do you do? You’ll have some tea, won’t you? [Rings bell].

Guest. Thank you.

Enter Butler.

Hostess. Tea, please, Matthews.

Butler (impassively). Yes, m’lady. (This is all he says during the play, so he must try and get a little character into it, in order that “The Era” may remark, “Mr. Thompson was excellent as Matthews.” However, his part is not over yet, for he returns immediately, followed by three footmen–just as it happened when you last called on the Duchess–and sets out the tea.)

Hostess (holding up the property lump of sugar in the tongs). Sugar?

Guest (luckily). No, thanks.

Hostess replaces lump and inclines empty teapot over tray for a moment; then hands him a cup painted brown inside–thus deceiving the gentleman with the telescope in the upper circle.

Guest (touching his lips with the cup and then returning it to its saucer). Well, I must be going.

Re-enter Butler and three Footmen, who remove the tea-things.

Hostess (to Guest). Good-bye; so glad you could come. [Exit Guest.]

His visit has been short, but it has been very thrilling while it lasted.

Tea is the most usual meal on the stage, for the reason that it is the least expensive, the property lump of sugar being dusted and used again on the next night. For a stage dinner a certain amount of genuine sponge-cake has to be made up to look like fish, chicken or cutlet. In novels the hero has often “pushed his meals away untasted,” but no stage hero would do anything so unnatural as this. The etiquette is to have two bites before the butler and the three footmen whisk away the plate. Two bites are made, and the bread is crumbled, with an air of great eagerness; indeed, one feels that in real life the guest would clutch hold of the footman and say, “Half a mo’, old chap, I haven’t nearly finished”; but the actor is better schooled than this. Besides, the thing is coming back again as chicken directly.

But it is the cigarette which chiefly has brought the modern drama to its present state of perfection. Without the stage cigarette many an epigram would pass unnoticed, many an actor’s hands would be much more noticeable; and the man who works the fireproof safety curtain would lose even the small amount of excitement which at present attaches to his job.

Now although it is possible, in the case of a few men at the top of the profession, to leave the conduct of the cigarette entirely to the actor, you will find it much more satisfactory to insert in the stage directions the particular movements (with match and so forth) that you wish carried out. Let us assume that Lord Arthur asks Lord John what a cynic is–the question of what a cynic is having arisen quite naturally in the course of the plot. Let us assume further that you wish Lord John to reply, “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” It has been said before, but you may feel that it is quite time it was said again; besides, for all the audience knows, Lord John may simply be quoting. Now this answer, even if it comes quite fresh to the stalls, will lose much of its effect if it is said without the assistance of a cigarette. Try it for yourself.

Lord John. A cynic is a man who, etc….

Rotten. Now try again.

Lord John. A cynic is a man who, etc…. [Lights cigarette.]

No, even that is not good. Once more:—

Lord John (lighting cigarette). A cynic is a man who, etc.