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388 A FEW WORDS ABOUT ACTEESSES.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Life Of An Actress Is To The World A...
Let us , however , to tlie plain facts of this earliest experience . In second and third-rate country theatres , where two or three pieces are
performed each night , and where night after night , with few exceptions , those pieces are changed , an enormous amount of labor is
gone through in the way of the exercise of memory alone . Even those who have been long engaged in the profession find new parts to
study constantly , for the stock of acting' dramas is perpetually increasing , while to the beginner all is new . One new character a
night would be very much under the average of what a young actress in such situations is called upon to play ; ten or a dozen during the
week is nearer the truth . These parts may vary from thirty or forty to three or four hundred lines in length , so that as mere word-learning
this is no inconsiderable task . And perhaps during a whole season she will scarcely have one clear day ' s leisure for study . Rehearsals occupy
three or four hours , extending from ten or eleven in the morning till one , two , or three o'clock , as the length of the pieces may
require ; then there are dresses to prepare , and this is no inconsiderable item of an actress ' s work ; and the evening till midnight ,
or near it , is employed in the actual performance . It is only by trenching upon the hours of sleep , or snatching desultory
opportunities during the confusion of rehearsal , that the time for study can be obtained . Then there are many discomforts to
encounter , too trivial they may seem for record , but their troublesome effects are often felt to be anything but trivial . The
accommodation in the way of dressing-rooms is frequently very deficient ( it is so even in some of the first-class theatres ) . In one
small room _& ve or six ladies will perhaps have to dress together ; a broad shelf or bench runs against the wall , and this is portioned
out into as many dressing-places as are required . A yard , or a yard and a half , may be about the width of each place , with standing
ground to the same extent before it , and this is the " tiring-room ' where some spirited " Julia" puts on her London splendour , or
some Queen her long robes and train . When quick changes have to be made from one costume to another , the value of space is
sometimes _painfully demonstrated . Then the insufficient number of people employed to do the indispensable work of the theatre
causes many straits and inconveniences . The poor man who fills the place of stage-manager , probably combines two or three other
functions with his own . He has more to direct and attend to than can be done hy him . Kehearsals become a weary and wasteful
proceeding , for he has had no time to think of anything beforehand i the actors and actresses must wait while he settles what scene the
next part of the drama shall be acted in , or writes out the bill for the following night , which the printer ' s boy has been wanting for
the last hour , or tries to arrange who is to play some part in the piece for to-night , which he had entirely overlooked . Nobody can
be found ; many of them have already got more than one part to
play ; at last , most likely , he has to take it himself . There will be
388 A Few Words About Acteesses.
388 A FEW WORDS ABOUT ACTEESSES .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1859, page 388, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021859/page/28/
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