Show World (August 1907)

The lShotu TUorjIjD THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AMUSEMENT WEEKLY Published at 8 7 South Clark Street, Chicago, by The iShohj THorld Publishing Co. Entered as Second -Class Matter WA RREN A . PA TR/Cff , GENERAL D/RECTOR, at the Post-Office at Chicago,Illinois, June «d5, lyOF under the Act of Congress of March3,1879. Volume I No. 9. CHICAGO August 24, 1907 ROSE STAHL IS NOT A CHORUS LADY Actress Tells How She Came to Enact the Role of Patricia O'Brien—There Are Lots of Chorus Ladies Who Are Funny and Pathetic and Whose Lives Are Full of Care. BY ROSE STAHL. W AS I ever a chorus lady ? Never ! And I was never in vaudeville un- ■ til “The Chorus Lady” was trans¬ ferred from a sketch in a magazine to a one act play. I took it out on the con¬ tinuous and then to London and it made such a hit that it was changed a bit, made into a four act drama and here we While it is true that I never filled the place of a chorus girl myself, aside from the fact that Patricia O'Brien is a good photograph of this particular woman of the stage, I am tremendously familiar with the chorus girl's life, from the girl who gets fifteen per and lives on it, to the Chorus queen who, apparently on the same income, rides in automobiles. HK. Lots of Patricias on Stage. There are lots of Patricias struggling, plucky, spunky, straight and good heart¬ ed. SThey are funny, but they are pa¬ thetic, too, and they have a hard life. I studied the chorus “lady” on and off the stage for years. It’s a sight for the gods! and the humorist to see her at a lunch counter on the road. She falls off the train and rushes into the station to get a sandwich and a glass of milk, or a doughnut and a piece of pie. She gives her order as King Richard might call for his horse or Cleopatra her barge, and heaven help the poor attendants if they do not fly to do her bidding. She is dis¬ dainful of her food and scathing in her comments on the service. She pays her check with the air of an injured queen and Stalks out, leaving the lunch room menials under the impression that they havejfailed to please Mme. Duse or Sarah Bernhardt. HE Sits Up at Night Sewing. Then she goes back to the train and will sit up half the night sewing frills on her costume, to make a brave show¬ ing en the opening night in the next town, and then, after a night of work, she frudges out of the station in the chilly dawn to search for a cheap lodg¬ ing. These girls have a long, idle summer to get through on their savings of the winter, and many of them, like Patricia, havefc younger sister to look after or a mother at home to help and they manage somehow to do it. And most of them rua straight and turn down the Johnnies who Shrink, like the villian in the play, that they can pay for the havoc they cause. f Where Does She Come From? Where does the chorus lady come from snd what becomes of her? Why not ask, what becomes of the pins? She comes from the country as a rule. The mirror over the washstand in her farmhouse bedroom has told her that the country is no place for her, so she packs her car¬ petbag, buys some high heels and a big hat, and comes to town to show New York what real youth and beauty are. Once in a while a girl may start out with the ambition to become a singer or an actress, hut, as a rule, the country girl seeks the chorus because it's easier to wear tights than to scrub floors, and “sweller” to dance than to stand all day behind a counter—please do not think by this that my advice is to go into the chorus rather than do these things. One in a hundred thousand becomes a star like Edna May, Edna Wallace Hopper and Lulu Glaser, the others marry—it’s the only thing for them to do if they are sensible. When I was in vaudeville I used to love to sit in the wings and make friends with the: performers. The trained birds, the performing ponies and the India rubber acrobats; but most of all the spangled "sisters” just wait'ng to do their "toin.” I think they liked me because I liked them. They were used to chesty “legits” who snubbed them and you may be sure that they had their own opinions of the chesty “legits” and it wasn’t expressed in blank verse. Is Not a “Chesty Legit.” Let it be known that Patricia O’Brien is not a "chesty legit,” but she has her ideas and inspirations, which many of the inflated celebrities are sadly in need of. She believes that there should be always a tear behind the laugh in every part. This is the reason, perhaps, that Patricia O’Brien is so much loved by her audiences. It’s all very well to make people laugh, but just laughter is empty. Unless there is some heart interest you go away and forget both play and player. Of course a great many people pay their money to laugh only, but most of them, I think— especially that part of the audience com¬ posed of my sex—enjoy a happy galaxy of laughter and tears; but the others, as I say, have their rights and I * respect their rights. However, the one thing I like best to do is to make a man cry af¬ ter I have made him laugh. I think Pa¬ tricia O’Brien does get under his vest at New York In Overrun. •When we first produced "The Chorus Lady” many people thought, owing to the title, that it was a musical comedy. Something very funny and yet rather pa¬ thetic happened at this time, or, rather, I should say just previous to the pro¬ duction of the piece. Someone in New York connected with the profession had given out a story that there was a dearth of chorus girls and unless New York had a large number of recruits from the small cities surrounding it, it would be diffi¬ cult to fill many vacancies for the chor¬ uses of the new operas then in contem¬ plation. This story got abroad and hun¬ dreds of girls who lived in the small cit¬ ies and without the true knowledge of conditions, came to New York, thinking they had only to apply in order to secure a position, when, as a matter of fact, New York was overrun with these chor- Scores of Applicants. We had scores of applicants during our rehearsals at the Savoy theater, they be¬ lieving that “The Chorus Lady” was a musical comedy and many of them told me they had come hundreds of miles with only money enough to carry them to New York and keep them until they would draw their first week’s salary. Where they went, or what they did, no one can tell. But that is one of the tragedies of life of which no one has an intimate knowledge. While as Patri¬ cia O’Brien I try to come as near to that class of chorus girl as possible arid to give the auditor a true picture of the chorus woman as she is, there is much more to Patricia O’Brien than that. I take her seriously because her life teach¬ es a great moral and teaches it without preaching it. I have played the charac¬ ter something like two thousand three hundred times and I am quite as much in love with her today as I was on my opening night of the little sketch, three years ago. ROSE STAHL. Sykes Photo. Chicago. Bounding into fame by her artistic - portrayal of a character little known to tlieater-goers, Miss Rose Stahl, now appearing as Patricia O’Brien in The Chorus Lady, at Powers theater, has become one of the foremost of American actresses. Miss Stahl is a writer of power as well as actress, as her article on the chorus girl, published herewith, amply proves.