THE "BEHIND THE SCENES" MYTH

Exploding the Most Deep-Rooted of All Metropolitan Delusions

JAMES L. FORD

I WELL remember when, as a small boy in boarding school, I heard a big boy named "Vally" Blacque declare that he had actually been behind the scenes at the "Black Crook" and conversed with some of the houris whose scant attire was the sensation of the day, I found it difficult to believe him. That any boy, even the tallest and most sophisticated in the school—Blacqlie was one of the few of us who had been abroad— should have entered that gas-lit realm of tinsel and painted canvas, and lived to tell the tale, seemed to me incredible. My fancy, exuberant as it was in those days—the very late sixties—almost failed me when I tried to picture him talking to the beautiful Stalacta; playing hide and seek with the gnomes, and mingling with the bevy of beauties whose opulent charms of face and figure gave iniquitous zest to the transformation scenes. I wondered if the future, into which I used to peer more frequently and with keener delight and a brighter vision than I do now, held any such gorgeous possibility for me.

The "Black Crook," with its golden glamor, has long since disappeared from the metropolitan stage, although a ghost, bearing its name and arrayed in cotton tights and tattered textile fabrics, still roams through the remote one-night stands, and shares with the Rentz-Santley company the suffrages of the tired business villagers. The few statuesque beauties of the first presentation who still survive have discarded their silken tights for the dreary wrapper that is the badge of all the tribe of retired "professionals," and the last time I heard of the queen of the old-time revel she was the janitress of a small apartment house in the Bronx.

BUT the illusion of the stage did not perish with the "Black Crook," for it is founded on the great solid rock of human credulity, in comparison with which that of Gibraltar is but a shifting quicksand. And this illusion is responsible for that favorite among all the myths of metropolitan life— "Behind the Scenes." Free theater tickets' have been refused (on rare occasions) according to accounts substantiated by reliable eye-witnesses, but, excepting only those engaged in the business of theatricals, for whom the stage and its people have but scant charm, no man, no matter how old or infirm or how blameless in private life and reputation, has ever been known to decline an invitation to go behind the scenes of a theater and be introduced to the actresses.

Various influences, including the press agents and writers of imaginative works of fiction, have combined to keep this illusion fresh and green in the hearts and minds of the unsophisticated, to whom the region behind the scenes is a paradise from which they are shut out forever by that angel of the flaming sword, the foot-lights. The picture which their fancy conjures up is one of splendid revelry, brightened by wholehearted amiability and joy. The leading actor is in love with the leading actress—else how could he woo her night after night with such thrilling fervor and with such a noble tremolo in the throaty voice that breathes deathless affection and adoration? The comic man must be amazingly funny in real life, for an enlightened press never wearies of describing the merry pranks that he plays on his fellow actors or the telegrams exchanged between him and the rival comedian, whom he detests from the bottom of his heart. As for the ingenue, she is surely a dream of feminine fascination and an incarnation of all the sweet domestic virtues. Has not the press agent portrayed, more than once, the charm of her home life, the rare books on her shelves, the choice etchings on her walls, the group of famous writers, artists, musicians and other celebrities who lend the matchless luster of their presence to her Sunday evening receptions? How enviable the lot of those leading capitalists who know her "off the stage" and who at this very moment perhaps, are seated in her dressing-room drinking champagne from her satin slipper.

AND then the "private lives" of those who people the mimic scene. How do these players differ from the common folk who must be at their dreary desks at nine in the morning? Modern fiction, in which life behind the scenes is penned by the dull hand of ignorance, is quick to supply the answer. The terribly exhausting "work" to which these delicate, gently-nurtured young women must submit, during nearly three hours out of the twenty-four, the "temptations" that assail them on every hand, the sinister wooing of the illiterate manager who. can convert a student show-girl into an emotional star by a single turn of the wrist, the mad offer of the infatuated stock broker of "everything that money can buy"—all these and other footlight fancies flash through the brain of the susceptible play-goer.

BUT there is a bright side to the picture impressed on his brain by the last novel of stage life that fell into his hands. In this he sees the enthusiasm with which the leading lady, temporarily incapacitated, embraces and weeps over the under-study who has found her opportunity and who, she declares to the manager,should be kept permanently in the part.

To dispel these illusions is like a murder of the innocents—the innocents of the imagination—and this is not the moment for the commission of the crime. So, after the leading man and the star have taken their call together, and the latter has come forth again, and, clinging timorously to the curtain, has thanked the auditors for their plaudits, and then, in response to still further noise, has dragged into view the reluctant manager; and the electrician —as usual on a first night—working behind the footlights in amazing harmony with the ushers in front, has pumped out of the audience the curtain calls whose number will be duly chronicled in the papers the next morning—then, while the orchesfra is "playing the people out" with a song in which the management has an interest—let us bid them all farewell.