The Background
This is the sixteenth in a series of articles written for The Atlanta Journal in 1890 and 1891 by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.
Here, Goodrich plays the role of amateur dramaturg, instructing his readers on how to stage their own plays at home using furniture and found objects — cabbage, for instance.
Some of his suggestions are quite dubious, particularly regarding the construction of colored lights:
“Many colors can be obtained by a little study of chemistry”, he explains, suggesting readers use “nitrate of strontia, chlorate of potash, sulphuret of antimony, sulphur, oxymuriate of potassa, metallic arsenic and pulverized charcoal”. Try it for yourself, kids!
The article is packed with references to plays and actors that would have been familiar to 19th-century audiences, although absolutely no one knows them today. Links to further information are provided when possible.
As always, Goodrich shares his insightful and expert opinions. Among them: “Imitation negro minstrels are funny” and “A pretty girl can be made out of a young man by rouge, chalk and a blonde wig.” Ah, the good old days.
Goodrich, of course, was a born actor, fabricating much of his life story and committing fraud in multiple states under a plethora of false identities.
In 1884, the Los Angeles Herald reported that when Goodrich was taken to jail for check fraud, “he developed a new character, and put on the insane dodge, showing that he had been an inmate of an insane asylum at Danvers, Massachusetts, and threw himself down in paroxysms on the floor”.1 It doesn’t get more dramatic than that.
A small portion of the article text has been lost because of a tear in the original newspaper page. The missing portions are indicated by the [obliterated] tag.
A Home Stage.
How To Build It And What To Play On It.
Some Valuable Hints for Ambitious Amateur Actors.
The Curtain, the Footlights, the Properties and Colored Lights.
A Delightful Way to Prevent Dullness in the Home–Instructions for Youthful Disciples of Kiralfy
Written for the Journal.
Some of our opulent citizens have built private theaters in their palaces. This is taking time by the forelock and arranging for a whole family of coming histrionic geniuses. But when the whole arrangement is improved (and indeed it is greater fame to play in a barn than on the best stage) the following hints may prove serviceable.
Wherever the amateur actor elects to play, he must consider the extraneous space behind the acting arena necessary for his theatrical properties. In an ordinary house the back parlor, with two doors opening into the dining room, makes an ideal theater, for the exits can be masked and the space is especially useful. One door opening into another room is absolutely necessary, if no better arrangement can be made.
The Best Stage.
The best stage, of course, is like that of a theater, raised with all areas about it for the players to retire and issue from. However, drawing up the big sofa in front of the footlights and arranging a pair of screens and a curtain will do, if nothing else can be done.
It is hardly necessary to say that all these arrangements for a play depend on the requirements of the play and its legitimate “business,” which may demand a table, a bureau, a piano or a bed. The very funny piece “Box and Cox” needs nothing but a bed, a table and a fireplace.
And here it may be said to the youthful actor: Select your play with a view to its requiring little change of scene and not much furniture. A young actor needs space. He is embarrassed by too many chairs and tables. Then choose a play that has so much varied incident in it that it will play itself.
How to Build the Stage.
The first thing is to build the stage, which any carpenter with a few boards on joists can do for a few dollars. Sometimes ingenious boys build their own stage with a few boxes, but this is apt to be dangerous. Very few families are without an old carpet, which will serve as a stage covering, and if this is lacking, green baize is very cheap. A whole stage fitting, curtains and all, can be made of green baize. Footlights can be made of tin with bits of candle in them. A row of old bottles of equal height with candles stuck in the bottles makes a most [obliterated]
[Obliterated]
The curtain is always a trouble, especially in a parlor. A light wooden frame should be made by the carpenter, firm at the joints and as high as the room allows. Joined to the stage at the foot, this frame forms three sides of a square, and the curtain must be firmly nailed to the top piece. A stiff wire should be run along the lower edge of the curtain and a number of rings be attached to the back of it in squares, three rows of four rings each extending from top to bottom. Three cords are now fastened to the wire and, passing through the rings, are run over three pulleys on the upper piece of the frame. It is well for all young managers of “garret theaters” to get up one of these curtains, even with the help of an upholsterer, as the other draw curtain never works securely often hurts the denouement of the play. In case of the drop curtains above described, one person holds all the strings and it pulls together.
The Stage Properties.
Now for the stage properties. They are easily made. A boy who can paint a little will indicate a scene with black paint on a white ground, and tinsel paper, red flannel and old finery will supply the fancy dresses. A stage manager who is a natural born leader is indispensable.
Young men at college get up the best of all amateur plays, because they are realistic and stop at nothing to make strong outlines and deep shadows. They, too, buy many properties like wigs, dresses, and to the make-up of the character give study and observation. If they need a comic face they have an artist from the theater come and put it on with a camel’s hair pencil. An old man’s face or a brigand’s is only a bit of water color. A pretty girl can be made out of a young man by rouge, chalk and a blonde wig. For a drunkard or a villain, a few purple spots are painted on chin, cheek, forehead and nose judiciously.
The Stage Manager’s Task
The stage manager has a difficult role to play, for he may discover that his people must change parts. This always leads to a wounded self-love and the tempers get excited.
If the amateur stage ceases to amuse and the play is given up, it can be used for tableaux-vivants, which are always pretty and may be made very artistic.
The Stage Lights
Although the pure white light of the candles and kerosene or lime light is the best for such pictures, very pretty effects can be easily introduced by the use of colored lights, such as can be produced by the use of nitrate of strontia, chlorate of potash, sulphuret of antimony, sulphur, oxymuriate of potassa, metallic arsenic and pulverized charcoal. Muriate of ammonia makes a bluish green fire, and many colors can be obtained by a little study of chemistry.
To make a red fire: Five ounces of strontia, dry; and one and one half ounces finely powdered sulphur; take five drachms sulphuret of antimony; powder these separately in a mortar, then mix them on a paper, having mixed the other ingredients previously powdered; add these last and rub the whole together on paper. To use, mix a little spirits of wine with the powder and burn in a flat iron plate or pan. The effect is excellent.
Sulphate of copper, when dissolved in water, will give a beautiful blue.
Colored Lights from Cabbages.
The common red cabbage gives three colors. Slice the cabbage and pour boiling water on it. When cold add a small quantity of alum and you have purple. Potash dissolved in the water will give a brilliant green. A few drops of muriatic acid will turn the cabbage water into crimson. These put in globes with a candle behind will throw the light on the picture.
Again, if a ghostly look be required and a ghost scene be in order, mix common salt with spirits of wine in a metal cup and set it upon a wire frame over a spirit lamp. When the cup becomes heated and the spirits of wine ignites, the other lights in the room should be extinguished and that of the spirit lamp hidden from the observer. The result will become like the witches in “Macbeth“: “That look not like the inhabitants of the earth, but yet are of it.”
Some Good Amateur Plays.
To return for a moment to the first use of the stage, the play. It is a curious thing to see the plays which amateurs do well. “The Rivals“ is one of these, and so is “Everybody’s Friend.” “The Follies of a Night” plays itself, and “The Happy Pair” goes very well. “A Regular Fix,” one of Sothern‘s plays, the “Liar,” in which Lester Wallack played, and “Woodcock’s Little Game“ are all excellent.
Imitation negro minstrels are funny and apt to be better than the original. A funny man, a mimic, one who can talk in various dialects, is a precious boon to the amateur. Many of Dion Boucicault‘s Irish characters can be admirably imitated.
The Orchestra a Great Help.
But in this connection, why not call in the transcendent attraction of music? Now that we have lady orchestras, why not have them on the stage or have them play occasionally music between acts, or while the tableaux are on? It adds a great charm.
The family circle where the brothers have the learned the key bugle and cornet, trombone and violencello, and the sisters the piano and harp, is to be envied. What a blessing in the family is the man who can sing comic songs and who does not sing them too often. A small operetta is often very nicely done by amateurs.
Tableaux-Vivants.
Tableaux-vivants are a very favorite amusement. They are easily gotten up at the end of a long parlor, requiring nothing but a movable stage, raised three or four feet from the floor, with curtains of green baize for a background, and a draw-curtain to go up and down. A row of common lights is placed in front for footlights and the lights can be thrown from behind.
As to dresses it is the easiest thing possible to invent them from the cheapest cretonne or the most cottony of velvets. The household will furnish discarded curtains and old dresses which a clever girl will instantly find a use for. The getting up of the tableaux will occupy a rainy week to great advantage.
When the art of entertaining has reached its apothesis, it is certain that this influence will be found emanating from every opulent country house, and that there will be no more complaint of dullness.
W.W. Goodrich2