Clipped Wings. Hughes Rupert
had of unusual purposes came when a round of uproarious applause greeted a comedian’s delivery of a bit of very cheap wit which had been left in because the author declined to waste time polishing the seat-banging part of his first act. In this country an audience that is extremely displeased does not hiss or boo; it applauds sarcastically and persistently. The poor actor who had aimed to hurry past the line found himself held up by the ironic hand-clapping. When he tried to go on, it broke out anew.
An actor cannot disclaim or apologize for the lines he has to speak, however his own prosperities are involved in them. So poor Mr. Tuell had now to stand and perspire while the line he had begged the author to delete provoked the tempest.
Whenever the fuming comedian opened his mouth to speak the applause drowned him. It soon fell into a rhythm of one-two, one-two-three, one-two, one-two-three. Tuell could only wait till the claque had grown weary of its own reproof. Then he went on to his next feeble witticism, another play upon words so childish that it brought forth cries of, “Naughty, naughty!”
The other members of the company gathered in the wings, as uncomfortable as a band of early martyrs waiting their turns to appear before the lions. To most of them this was their first encounter with a mutinous audience.
Audiences are usually a chaos of warring tastes and motives which must somehow be given focus and unity by the actors. That was the hardest part of the day’s work—to get the house together. To-night they must face a ready-made audience with a mind of its own—and that hostile.
The actors watched the famous “first old woman,” Mrs. John Vining, sail out with the bravery of a captive empress marching down a Roman street in chains. She was greeted with harsh cries of, “Grandma!” and, “Oh, boys, Granny’s came!”
Mrs. Vining smiled indulgently and went on with her lines. The applause broke out and continued while she and Mr. Tuell conducted a dumb-show. Then an abrupt silence fell just in time to emphasize the banality of her next speech.
“You ask of Claribel? Speaking of angels, here she comes now.”
At the sound of her name the actress summoned clutched the cross-piece of the flat that hid her from the audience. She longed for courage to run away. But actors do not run away, and she made ready to dance out on the stage and gush her brilliant first line: “Oh, auntie, there you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Sheila had always hated the entrance because of its bustling unimportance. It was exciting enough to-night. No sooner had Mrs. Vining announced her name than there was a salvo of joy from the mob.
“Oh, girls, here comes Claribel!”
Some one stood up and yelped, “Three hearty cheers and a tigress for Claribel.”
Sheila fell back into the wings as the clamor smote her. But she had been seen and admired. There was a hurricane of protest against her retreat:
“Come on in, Claribel; the water’s fine!” “Don’t leave the old farm, Claribel; we need you!” “Peekaboo! I see You Hiding behind the chair.”
Each of the mutineers shrieked something that he thought was funny, and laughed at it without heeding what else was shouted. The result was deafening.
Eugene Vickery’s heart was set aswing at the glimpse of Sheila Kemble. The sight of her name on the program had revived his boyhood memories of her. He rose to protest against the hazing of a young girl, especially one whose tradition was so sweet in his remembrance, but he was in the back of the house and his cry of “Shame!” was lost in the uproar, merely adding to it instead of quelling it.
Bret Winfield in a stage box had seen Sheila in the wings for some minutes before her entrance. He knew nothing of her except that her beauty pleased him thoroughly and that he was sorry to see how scared she was when she retreated.
He saw also how plucky she was, for, angered by the boorish unchivalry of the mob, she marched forth again like a young Amazon. At the full sight of her the Freshmen united in a huge noise of kisses and murmurs of, “Yum-yum!” and cries of, “Me for Claribel!” “Say, that’s some gal!” “Name and address, please!” “I saw her first!” “Second havers!” “Mamma, buy me that!” She was called a peach, a peacherino, a pippin, a tangerine, a swell skirt—anything that occurred to the uninspired.
Sheila felt as if she were struck by a billow. Her own color swept past the bounds of the stationary blushes she had painted on her cheeks. She came out again and began her line: “Oh, auntie—”
It was as if echo had gone into hysterics. Two hundred voices mocked her: “Oh, auntie!” “Oh, auntie!” “Oh, auntie!”
She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to run, she wanted to fight. She wished that the whole throng had but one ear, that she might box it.
The stage-manager was shrieking from the wings: “Go on! Don’t stop for anything!”
She continued her words with an effect of pantomime. The responses were made against a surf of noise.
Then Eric Folwell, who played the hero, came on. He was handsome, and knew it. He was a trifle over-graceful, and his evening coat fitted his perfect figure almost too perfectly. He was met with pitiless implications of effeminacy. “Oh, Clarice!” “Say, Lizzie, are you busy?” “Won’t somebody slap the brute on the wrist?” “My Gawd! ain’t he primeval?” “Oh, you cave-girl!”
As if this were not shattering enough, some of the students had provided themselves with bags of those little torpedoes that children throw on the Fourth of July. One of these exploded at Folwell’s feet. At the utterly unexpected noise he jumped, as a far braver man might have done, taken thus unawares.
This simply enraptured the young mob, and showers of torpedoes fell about the stage. It fairly snowed explosives. The gravel scattered in all directions. A pebble struck Sheila on the cheek. It smarted only a trifle, but the pain was as nothing to the sacrilege.
Somehow the play struggled on to the cue for the entrance of the heroine of the play. Miss Zelma Griffen was the leading woman. She was supposed to arrive in a taxicab, and the warning “honk” of it delighted the audience. She was followed on by a red-headed chauffeur who asked for his fare, which she borrowed from the hero, then passed to the chauffeur, who thanked her and made his exit.
Miss Griffen was a somewhat sophisticated actress with a large record in college boys. While she waited for her cue, she had cannily decided to appease the mob by adopting a tone of good-fellowship. She had also provided herself with a rosette of the college colors. She waved it at the audience and smiled.
This was a false note. It was resented as a familiarity and a presumption. This same college had rotten-egged an actor some years before for wearing a ’varsity sweater on the stage. It greeted Miss Griffen with a storm of angry protest, together with a volley of torpedoes.
Miss Griffen, completely nonplussed, gaped for her line, could not remember a word of it, then ran off the stage, leaving Sheila and Mrs. Vining and Tuell to take up the fallen torch and improvise the scene. Sheila made the effort, asked herself the questions Miss Griffen should have asked her, and answered them. It was her religion as an actress never to let the play stop.
With all her wits askew, she soon had herself snarled up in a tangle of syntax in which she floundered hopelessly. The student body railed at her:
“Oh, you grammar! ’Rah, ’rah, ’rah, night school!”
This insult was too much for the girl. She lost every trace of self-control.
All this time Bret Winfield had grown angrier and angrier. Bear-baiting was one thing; but dove-baiting was too cowardly even for mob-action, too unfair even for a night of sports, unpardonable even in Freshmen. He was thrilled with a chivalrous impulse to rush to the defense of Sheila, whose angry beauty had inflamed him further.
He stood up in the proscenium box and tried to call for fair play. He was unheard and unseen; all eyes were fastened on the stage