Part 2

Next, there is your press agent. He used to be a newspaper man, and he is worth $100 a week or not more than a dollar and a quarter. In his office is a stenographer, a mimeographing machine, and a list of six hundred daily newspapers. If he is worth $100 he knows just what each of those newspapers will print and what it will not. It is his business to cover a pound of advertising so completely with an ounce of news that the whole parcel will not be consigned to the waste-basket. Out in Milwaukee and over in Boston you have observed journalistic items like these:

Augustus Thomas is at work on a new play for Charles Frohman. The piece is to be called "The Jew," and will be produced in September.

That's the press agent!

He also designs bills, gets up circulars, sends out photographs, invents "fake stories", and takes the blame for whatever happens that shouldn't have happened. If you have several attractions you will need a press agent in New York and one with each company on the road. In the parlance of the profession, the road press agent is "the man ahead of the show," while the acting manager is "the man back with the show." The terms are self-explanatory. "The man back with the show" keeps the books, "counts up," pays salaries, "jollies" the star, and maintains communication with his principal. During the course of your connection with the theatrical business you will have dealings also with the advertising agent, who supervises the posting of bills; the transfer companies, which haul your production to and from playhouses and railway stations; and scores of other people. You must learn about them from experience.

The stage is a land of wonders the geography of which must be pretty thoroughly understood before you can receive any idea as to the working of the miracles that occur in the ten minutes the curtain is down between acts. Of course, you know that the opening through which you witness the performance of a play is called the proscenium arch. The space between the base of this arch and the footlights is known as the "apron." That region into which you have seen canvas disappear when it is hauled up from the stage is the "flies." Directly under the roof is a floor or iron grating from which are suspended the pulleys that bear the weight of this "hanging stuff," and that floor, for obvious reasons, is called the "gridiron." The little balcony fastened to the wall at one side of the stage or another is the "fly gallery." The loose ends of the ropes attached to the "hanging stuff" are fastened here, and it is from this elevation that the "stuff" aforesaid is lifted and lowered. Scenery is of two kinds--"drops" and "flats." Of the latter more anon. "Drops" are curtains of any sort on which are painted the reproductions of exteriors or interiors, and one of the ordinary size weighs about two hundred pounds. In common with everything else suspended in the "flies," these "drops" are counterweighted, so that a couple of men can move them with ease. The other things suspended may be "flies," or "borders," which are painted strips that prevent your seeing any farther up than you are expected to see; "ceiling pieces," platforms, and "border lights," which are tin tubes as long as the stage is wide, open at the bottom, and filled with incandescent globes of various colors for illuminating from above.

"Flats" are pieces of painted canvas tacked on a framework of wood. In the old days these were held in position by "grooves," or combinations of little inverted troughs that fitted over the tops of the "flats." These "grooves" were in sets four or five feet apart running along both sides of the stage, and their position gave to various parts of that platform designations that are used still in giving directions in play manuscripts. Thus, "L.2.E.," or "Left second entrance," is the space between the first and second of these sets on the left of the stage. The long "flats," slid in to join in the center and make the rear wall of a dwelling, for example, constituted "_the_ flat" and the short ones on your right or left were "wings." Then a room could be no other shape than square or oblong, and the doors and windows had to be in certain specified places, no matter where they would have been in a real house. It is laughable now to consider how this purely physical condition limited the dramatist.

At the present time the building of a house with "flats" is not unlike building one with cards. Each "flat" is placed where it is desired and held up from behind by a "brace," one end of which is screwed to the setting and the other to the floor. That particular "flat" is then lashed to its neighbors with a "tab line," much as you lace your shoes. When the walls have been constructed in this way, with doors and windows wherever they are wanted, a ceiling is lowered from the "fly gallery," and the dwelling is complete. If you are supposed to see a landscape through the window, a "drop" on which a landscape has been painted is lowered t'other side of the rear wall. An "interior backing," representing the wall of another room, usually is in the form of a large screen standing behind the door where it is needed. Corners of this kind are illuminated by "strip lights," or electric lamps placed on a strip of wood and hung in place.

Stage lighting has undergone a complete revolution in the past few years, the step from incandescent lamps to calciums meaning even more than the step from gas to electric lamps. Formerly, the illumination came from the footlights and the "borders" exclusively; the sun rose and set directly over-head in open defiance of the Copernican theory. Now the stage is full of minature trap doors, and to the metal beneath these may be attached wires that will throw light from anywhere. There is a "bridge" in the "first entrance" on the "prompt side" on which sits a man with apparatus to reproduce almost any effect known to Nature. You have seen the busy and important individual who controls "lamps" in the dress circle or the gallery, and without doubt you have observed that nowadays there is very little to keep such a stage manager as David Belasco from doing whatever he pleases with his electricity.

There are five classes of men at work on the stage, all under the direct supervision of the master carpenter. The men in these classes are known as "flymen," "grips," "clearers," "property men" and electricians. Each of these has his own labor to accomplish, and goes at it without loss of time or regard to the others. The "flymen" haul up and lower whatever hangs in the "flies." The "grips" attend to any scenery that must be set up or pulled down. The "clearers" take away the furniture and accessories that have been used, and the "property men" substitute other furniture and accessories from the "property room." The work of the electricians has been explained. In these days of elaborate calcium effects, there must be a man at each "lamp."

All these matters are attended to as though by machinery. When the curtain has fallen on the star's last bow, the stage manager cries "Strike!" This cry means labor trouble of a very different sort from that usually created by a call to strike. The stage immediately becomes a small pandemonium. The crew in the "fly gallery" works like the crew on a yard arm during a yacht race, hauling wildly at a greater number of ropes than were ever on a ship. In consequence of their energy, trees and houses soar into the air as though by magic. Samson wasn't such a giant, after all. He only pulled down a building--these fellows pull buildings _up_!

They are not mightier, however, than their colleagues, the "grips." There walks a stalwart individual carrying a folded balcony or pushing along the whole side of a church. Another permits a porch to collapse and fall into his out-stretched arms. How useful these "grips" would have been in San Francisco! Meanwhile, the "clearers" and "property men" have been mixing things up in great shape. The last act was an interior; the next is to be an exterior. Consequently, you note a fine spot of lawn growing directly under a horsehair sofa and the trunk of a huge oak reclining affectionately against a chest of drawers. Gradually, the signs of indoor life disappear, and then, suddenly, springing out of absolute chaos, you see a forest or a broad public square. The "lamps" sputter a moment and blaze up, bathing the scene in the warm red of sunset or the pale blue of moonlight. "Second act!" screams the call-boy, running from dressing room door to dressing room door. The stage manager presses a button connected with a signal light in front of the orchestra conductor, and you hear the purr of the incidental music. He presses another button once--twice. "Buzz!" hisses something in the "fly-gallery," and "buzz!" again. The curtain lifts and the play is continued. Everything has been done in perfect order. Even now the stage manager stands in the "first entrance," pencil in hand, noting the exact moment at which the act began, the minute at which each song was sung, and how many encores it received. You--my friend, the manager--will get that report to-morrow morning.

Here, omitting a dictionary of details, you have the theater at a glance. I feel tempted, like the magician after he has garbled some explanation of a difficult trick, to say: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you can go home and do it yourselves." But you can't. I couldn't. The thousands of important trifles, the thousands of quick decisions that must be made and of clever things that must be done--these are the results of genius and work and of long, long experience. Many an American who has "French at a Glance" on the tips of his fingers, so to speak, has to cackle in imitation of a hen when he wants to get a soft-boiled egg in Paris.

_SOME PEOPLE I'VE LIED ABOUT_

Being reminiscences of the author's nefarious, but more or less innocuous career as a press agent.

A press agent, as you may have gathered from the preceding article, is a person employed to obtain free newspaper advertising for any given thing, and the thing usually is a theatrical production. This advertising he is supposed to get as the Quaker was advised to get money--honestly, if possible. Since it isn't often possible, the press agent may be described in two words as a professional liar.

There is neither malice nor "muck rake" in this assertion. The press agent knows that his business is the dissemination of falsehood, and he is proud of it. Go up to any member of the craft you find on Broadway and say to him: "You are a liar!"; you will see a smile of satisfaction spread itself over his happy face, and his horny hand will grasp yours in earnest gratitude. Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray were liars, too, according to his way of thinking, and not overly ingenious or entertaining liars, at that. Their fiction was spread upon the pages of books, as his is spread upon the pages of the daily journals, and their mission, like his, was the enlivening of a terribly dull little planet. This altruistic motive really lurks behind the prevarications of the press agent with imagination. He conceives his philanthropic duty to be the making of news to fill a demand largely in excess of the supply. If the pursuit of this purpose brings him an income hovering about that of a United States Senator he cannot be blamed.

I became one of the guild of Annanias some ten or eleven years ago, coming fresh from the position of dramatic critic on _The Washington Times_, and I think I may say without undue egotism that, during the period of my membership, I lied industriously, conscientiously, and with a fair degree of success. There have been and are more able falsifiers than I, but the confessions of one man cannot in honor include the deeds of another, and so I must omit them from this chronicle. Suffice it to say that the stories of Anna Held's bathing in milk, of Mrs. Patrick Campbell having tan bark spread in the street in front of the Theater Republic to deaden the rumbling that annoyed her during performances, and a score similar in nature remain conspicuous examples of the cleverness manifested by brilliant press agents in attracting attention to the actors and actresses in whose behalf they labored.

The successful launching of a "fake"--so they are known to the profession--like these is not at all the simple matter it would appear to be. The mere conception of the story is only the beginning of the task. It is not enough to decide that such and such a thing might happen, or to swear that it has happened; it must be made to happen. Moreover, the occurrence must be so natural, and the plans leading to it so carefully laid and concealed, as to prevent suspicion and baffle investigation. Whenever it is possible, the press agent should be ostensibly unconnected with the affair, and, whenever it is not, he must hide his knowledge behind a mask of innocence in comparison with which the face of Mary's little lamb looks like a selection from the rogues' gallery.

There are other requisites to the spinning of a yarn which shall be valuable in an advertising way. In the first place, it is necessary that the story shall not injure the reputation or lower the standing of its hero or heroine, and equally desirable that it shall have no "come back" that may make enemies for the press agent. The announcement that Mrs. Patrick Campbell had won a large sum from society women at bridge whist, made during an engagement of the star in New York, was given all kinds of space in the newspapers, but it brought down upon Mrs. Campbell's devoted head such scathing denunciation from press and pulpit that she lost no time in sending out a denial. The publicity given the matrimonial enterprises of De Wolf Hopper, through no fault of his advertising staff, seriously injured that capable comedian for a time. A good "fake" is bizarre and picturesque enough to be interesting, will defy the prober after truth, hurts no one and so creates no journalistic grudges to be fought down in the future. There must be no limit to the number of times that the press agent can stir up excitement when he calls "Wolf!"

So many of the stories invented by theatrical Munchausens possess the qualification first mentioned that it is by no means unusual for the inventor to take the newspaper man into his confidence. Of course, before doing this he wants to feel sure of his newspaper and of his man. Dailies there be that prefer fact to fiction, however prosaic the former; that treat the stage in so dignified a manner that, if the Empire Theater burned to the ground, they probably would print the information under a head reading "The Drama"; that scorn the press agent and have only contempt for his handiwork. The most rabid of these, strangely enough, is the very paper that once, for its own amusement, tried a "fake" about wild animals escaping from Central Park Zoo which succeeded so well that for twenty-four hours business was practically suspended in New York. At least half the journals in town do not inquire too closely into a tale that is likely to appeal to their readers, especially if the tale in question is obviously harmless. When the publicity promoter conceals his machinations and buries clues leading to his connection with a story--"and the same with intent to deceive"--he must plot with great care, for woe betide him if the truth leaks out.

An excellent example of the kind of "fake" in accomplishing which one may rely upon the co-operation of the Fourth Estate is the incident of Margaret Mayo writing a play in twenty-four hours. Miss Mayo, who since then has written many plays, notably "Baby Mine" and "Polly of the Circus," at that time was appearing with Grace George in "Pretty Peggy" at the Herald Square Theater. The season had been dull, if profitable, and I was casting about for any item likely to get into print, when the idea of having someone go Paul Armstrong two better in rapidity of accomplishment occurred to me. Obviously, it was impossible to involve Miss George in the episode without making her appear ridiculous, and so I cast about for a likely member of her company.

Miss Mayo's name suggested itself to me because of the fact that, even then, she was at work on several plays, and I obtained her consent to my plan. Shortly afterward it was announced from the Herald Square that Miss Mayo had wagered a supper with Theodore Burt Sayre, author of numerous well known dramas, that she could begin and complete a four act comedy in the space of a single day. The test was to be made on the following Sunday at the residence of Miss Mayo, who was to have the benefit of a stenographer, and, to guard against her using an idea previously worked out, the advantage of a synopsis furnished by Mr. Sayre. This synopsis was to be delivered in a sealed envelope at six o'clock one morning and the play was to be finished at six o'clock the next. Mr. Sayre, an intimate personal friend, had been furnished with these details over the telephone, and affirmed them when called up by the reporters. Our announcement was printed by nearly every newspaper in town.

The stenographer provided Miss Mayo on that eventful morning was my own--a bright, quick-witted Irish girl, whose name, unfortunately, I have forgotten. The synopsis of the play was Miss Mayo's. She had it made from an old piece of her own, which had been freshly typed a day or two before. Saturday night, sheets from this manuscript were generously distributed about the room, the remaining sheets were hidden in a bureau drawer, the typewriter was put in position, and our scenery was ready. Business took me to Philadelphia on a late train, and the beginning of our two little comedies--that to be written and that to be acted--was entrusted to Miss Mayo.

I got back from the Quaker City shortly after noon on Sunday and went direct to the scene of action. I rang the front bell, the door opened automatically, and I climbed the stairs to the apartment. From the hall I heard a nervous voice and the click of a typewriter. Somebody admitted me and mine eyes beheld as excellent a counterfeit of fevered energy as it has ever been their luck to fall upon. Miss Mayo was pacing the floor wildly, dictating at least sixty words a minute, while the stenographer bent quiveringly over her machine. That portion of a manuscript which Arthur Wing Pinero might possibly prepare in six months lay on the table. The typist broke the charm. "Why!" she exclaimed; "it's Mr. Pollock!"

"Oh!" said Miss Mayo. "I thought you were a newspaper man. Sit down and have a biscuit."

This pretence was continued all day. When reporters came we struggled with the difficulties of rapid-fire composition; when they didn't we ate biscuits and manifolded epigrams which afterwards were sent to waiting city editors and quoted as being from the twenty-four hour play. Miss Mayo was photographed several times and we had a delicious dinner at six. Afterward, we named our product "The Mart" and separated for the night. Despite our thin histrionism, there wasn't a newspaper man among our visitors who didn't know in his secret soul that the whole thing had been cooked up for advertising purposes, yet, a newsless Sunday aiding and abetting us, we had more space the next morning than might have been devoted to the outbreak of a revolution in France.

Similarly, no intelligent person could have questioned for a moment the purpose of the matinee which De Wolf Hopper gave "for women only" soon afterward at the Casino Theater. "Happyland," the opera in which Mr. Hopper was appearing, made no especial appeal to the gentler sex, while the presenting company included so many pretty girls that a performance "for men only" would have been infinitely more reasonable. As a matter of fact, I first conceived the idea in this form, but swerved from my course upon taking into account two important considerations. The announcement of an entertainment "for men only" must have created the impression that there was something objectionable about the presentation--an impression we were extremely anxious to avoid--and it would not have given the opportunities for humorous writing which we hoped would serve as bait to the reporters. Foreseeing that upon the obviousness of these opportunities would depend the amount of attention paid to so palpable an advertising scheme, we took care to guard against a dearth of incident by providing our own happenings. Among the number of these were the entrance of a youth who had disguised himself as a girl in order to gain admittance, the appearance of a husband who insisted that his wife must not remain at a performance from which he was barred, and one or two similar episodes. We found, in the end, that these devices were superfluous. On the afternoon selected, the interior of the Casino fairly grinned with femininity, the audience looked like a Mormon mass meeting multiplied by two, and even so dignified and important a news-gathering service as the Associated Press condescended to take facetious notice of the "Women's Matinee."

If you recollect what you read in newspapers, it is not at all impossible that, even at this date, you will find something familiar about the name of Marion Alexander. You don't? Perhaps your memory can be assisted. Miss Alexander was the chorus girl supporting Lillian Russell in "Lady Teazle" who sued the late Sam S. Shubert for $10,000 because he had said she was not beautiful. The story of this slander and of the resentment it provoked went all around the world, though it is unlikely that anyone who printed it was deceived as to the genuineness of the lady's fine frenzy. The Marion Alexander tale had all the journalistic attractions of the "Women's Matinee," in that it was unique and admitted of breeziness in narration, but it had in addition an advantage that no press agent overlooks--it was susceptible to illustration. Newspapers always are eager to print pictures of pretty women. The average New York journal had rather reproduce a stunning photograph of Trixie Twinkletoes than the most dignified portrait of Ellen Terry or Ada Rehan. Miss Alexander _was_ pretty--I haven't the least doubt that she still is--and, while this story was running its course, the Shuberts paid nearly $300 for photographs used by daily papers, weekly papers, periodicals, magazines and news syndicates.

In the course of the controversy Miss Russell took occasion to side with Mr. Shubert--she didn't know she had done so until she read her paper the next morning--and ventured the opinion that no brunette could possibly be beautiful. As had been expected, this statement aroused a storm of protest. There are a million brunettes in New York, and to say that we succeeded in interesting them is putting it mildly. When "Lady Teazle" departed for the road they were still writing indignant letters to _The American and Journal_, and nearly every letter gave added prominence to Miss Russell. I wrote a few indignant letters myself and had them copied in long hand by the telephone girls and stenographers in the building. It is quite needless to say that Miss Alexander's suit never came to trial.