HOW MUSICAL COMEDY THRIVES

BY A MAN IN THE BACK ROW

T one of the performances of "Cyrano de Bergerac

A1 given by Madame Bernhardt and M. Coquelin in New

York I sat next an Englishman, one of your typical globe-trotting Britons who spend a little time in "dear old London" and most of the year traveling. This gentleman was on his way West somewhere and had stopped over in New York for a few days just to take in the sights. Falling into conversation with him, I spoke casually of Anglo-American amity and particularly of the mutual interchange of theatrical attractions, incidentally suggesting that the common language made this so easy. (The Bernhardt-Coquelin play was given in the original French.) My British neighbor spoke enthusiastically of American plays and players in London and commented on the crowds they drew, especially one, "The Belle of New York,' I believe you call it," he said. That the English mind should have been taken up with such a giddy thing as an imported American musical comedy impressed me at first as being rather odd. Yet this fascination for the light drama, in a catchy musical setting, has been very widespread. It is, to use a baseball term, having its "innings."

Musical comedy both in England and America seems now to stand and to have stood for some time past in the first rank of successes scored in the realm of things theatrical. At the present time its popularity is beyond question. Billboards are covered with its bizarre and striking poster displays, publications devoted to the interests of "the profession" give to the stars of musical comedy fame a monopoly of their picture space, newspapers print criticisms and press notices galore of

this particular form of attraction on "the boards," and the amusement-loving public reimburses the manager for all this outlay by spending its money freely at his box-office and then enthusiastically applauding the result of his efforts to furnish light entertainment for those who enjoy that kind. That is where the beer-thirsty man differs from the man who is theatrically thirsty. The former "blows in " his money for beer and then "blows off" the froth in order to get at the genuine liquor beneath; the latter spends his money and his time in drinking in the froth and leaves the heavier yet often really more refreshing liquor of the legitimate drama to be appreciated by others if they will.

It is an old saying that all kinds of people go to make up a world, and it might be said with equal truth that all kinds of people go to make up the audience at a house where musical comedy is presented. Those who enjoy this species of dramatic entertainment are by no means limited to the lightminded. The man of business cares endeavors in the evening to leave behind his many worries and the burdens of the day when after office hours he can take a little relaxation. He goes from one extreme to the other; from the intense, nervous strain of concentrated energy in business to the easiest sort of relaxation in pleasure. For an hour or two he hopes to forget his troubles, and wishes for some sort of recreation requiring neither exertion nor thought. Hence musical comedy suits him to a T; it is something to be enjoyed without the exercise of too much action and without the wearing away of any brain tissue. There is just an excuse for a plot, and he couldn't give that excuse if asked about it the next day. He carries away with him generally only a vague recollection of pretty women in pretty costumes, funny comedians in grotesque makeups, a joke or two, and a catchy air, perhaps, that has found lodgment by a process of repetition through the combined agency of chorus, orchestra, and, it may be, soloist. He feels rested, however, and that is principally why he went.

Except at matinees more men than women are to be found in a musical comedy audience. Perhaps this is because men

as a rule enjoy humor better than women. The latter have their sympathies more often aroused by tragedy, the former by comedy.

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you," is a saying that has foundation in fact, and with the average musical comedy "It is to laugh." Accompanying the comedy element, too, is another, even more powerful in its attractiveness, the musical features. "The man that hath no music in his soul," at least some sort of an appreciation of its influence, is indeed rare, and it may be a woman who does not take delight in music is even more rare. To one who has been technically educated and who may have a keenly discriminative sense of the technique in music, the classic and the grand opera have charms beside which, of course, the music of the musical comedy cannot stand for a moment. But there are thousands of men and women who have little appreciation of really highclass music, and these will not, and could not if they would, criticise too closely an air that is catchy and light and which happens to tickle their fancy, even though that fancy be but a passing one.

Musical comedy stands somewhere between comic opera on the one hand and burlesque on the other—that is, true burlesque, not the kind called burlesque, but which in reality is only a cheap sort of burlesque of burlesque. For instance, in New York, a burlesque on the 'Bowery will bear about the relation to a Weber and Fields burlesque that table d'hôte claret at five cents a bottle does to champagne; the humor of the Bowery is too often a vapid rehash of witticisms originating on Broadway. But, after all, human nature is not very different, whether it be on the East Side or the West Side. A Miner's Bowery audience expresses by applause its appreciation of fun as often as a Weber and Fields audience does.

From true burlesque, though, to musical comedy is but a step, and not a long one, either. Stars of one firmament glide into the atmosphere of the other with apparently no change whatever in the brightness of their twinkle. And the dividing line between musical comedy and light or comic

opera is equally vague. Francis Wilson in "The Little Corporal," and the same comedian in "The Rounders "-there is as much fun in one as in the other; Lulu Glaser in "Erminie" and Lulu Glaser in "The Prima Donna "-it is the some vivacious young lady in both. And who will say that Edna Wallace Hopper, for example, is not every bit as dainty in "Florodora " as she was when in the more elaborate "El Capitan "? Mention of "El Capitan" recalls to mind, too, the bulky form of De Wolf Hopper, now one of the leading men at Weber and Fields'. From comic opera to burlesque is not a great jump nowadays. If you wish for further proof, consider one of the Lilies-Miss Russell.

Yet, strange to say, as similar as musical comedy is to comic opera, the former seems to be growing in popular favor while of the latter there is a growing popular abandonment. No wonder players in comic opera make their exit from it when the crowd fails longer to be attracted by its at-one-time allurements. If there is any one who must keep with "the crowd" to get along, it is the actor. The old legitimate drama and melodrama have given place to plays of a different order, and managers as well as actors have learned that the whims of the public must be catered to. Shakespeare, if he were with us to-day, would be writing plays of the Pinero and Fitch kind-only, perhaps, better. If he were of a musical turn, his genius might find expression under, or over, the name of Harry B. Smith.

A writer in a recent number of the National Review divides the players of England roughly into two classes: one in which the Bohemian temperament is uppermost, the other dominated by strict business principles. The average American player has a happy blending of both these qualities. He, or she, is seldom free from Bohemianism in some phase (the press agent sees to it that the public does not escape knowing this attractive fact), but a little laxness in some directions does not mean laxness in salary stipulations when it comes to signing the contract. Not a bit. Ask Mr. Frohman or Mr. Lederer. The English writer thinks the average middle-class player in Eng

land hardly makes £180 or £200 a year. That certainly looks small compared with the large weekly stipends we hear about being paid to some musical-comedy player folk. Perhaps, however, we must consider the latter as above middle-class-a few, though, it would strain our consciences a little to give them a higher place. Even the New York chorus girl-and she, of course, theoretically, is a long way from the top of "the profession "-generally draws her $15 a week or more, sometimes, but rarely, as high as $25.

When one counts up the number of these girls and the men of the chorus, the cost of costumes, scenery and other stage properties, rent, royalties, orchestra, the managerial staff, advertising, and several other expenses of large size, when to these are added the anything but small salaries of the stars, the fact becomes plain that there is an enormous outlay attached to the putting on of a musical comedy, much of it before a dollar has been taken in at the box-office. When all this expense is taken into account, it is remarkable that so many musical comedies succeed as do rather than that some fail. A New York publication a short time ago enumerated twentysix failures of the season, and it is to be noted that, despite the fact of so many musical comedies being presented, of these twenty-six failures only three were, strictly speaking, musical comedies. Since then, however, two more of the latter have failed to come up to their managers' expectations.

It is by no means fair, though, to charge musical-comedy theatrical managers' occasional bankruptcies altogether to the failure of musical comedy to attract public favor. It is possible for a play to succeed fairly well and yet permit its sponsor to go into bankruptcy. Other business troubles of the same manager, extravagance in other directions, improvidence,―many things may combine to force insolvency that shouldn't in all fairness be laid solely at the door of musical comedy because it comes to pass. Statistics show what a considerable percentage of those who have taken advantage of the national bankruptcy law, since it has been in effect, has been of theatrical people. Yet being adjudged a bankrupt does not always indicate what