LADIES OF THE CHORUS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 56, 13 April 1914, Page 6

LADIES OF THE CHORUS.

LEARNING THEIR WORK.

(Specially written for THE SUN.)

"Ladies," if you please we will have that movement over again—and, for the love of Leviathan, please try to imagine that you've got joints in your knees!" The stage manager at rehearsals always refers to the danseuses as ladies when he is more than usually tired and exasperated; when he is only ordinarily angry in the way of business he refers to them as '' you girls.'' It usually happens that when the manager is tired and exasperated the girls are even more tired and irritable. —I have seen more than one girl turn and burst into sobs on another girl's shoulder when the stage manager has given the curt word dismissing the drill until the morrow. It is just nerves and physical weariness. Few people realise the long drills, incessantly repeated, that the ladies of the chorus must go through before they appear, rosily rouged and gaily garbed, before the footlights. AT REHEARSAL.

You picture an empty theatre as it glooms dingily in the half-light that filters through in the day time, void and resonant, bereft of the stage glamour and the interest of crowded faces. On the dusty stage, ranged in rows against a background of torn and faded scenery, some half-hundred girls stand in their negligent every-day dress. The conductor sits at the piano in the orchestra pit, to one side of the ; stage the dancing mistress stands, the stage manager in the centre. The dancing mistress, an old young woman with'much asperity of voice and manner, walks out in front of the girls and goes through some of the steps. "That is the step," she says, "in couples—two to the left, one forward, one to the right,-then turn. And, you in the second row, try and turn a;s if you're alive. Don't wait for the front to show you the way." "COME HEBE, MISS WILKINS!"

The stage manager taps the floor with his fooi and waves to the conductor. "Now," he says. The piano chimes out thinly in the great and the half-hundred girls ■ sway forwards and backwards in unison to the time set by the piano and emphasised by the manager's- hands. "One, two, three-four, turn; one,, two, three-four, turn." The voice goes on monotonously, and the short skirts of all sorts of cuts and materials flutter out to the movement of the steps, displaying varigated legs in black and tan, silk and "mercerised." . Over and over again the movement is executed, and is followed by other movements, punctuated by roars from the manager: "Come out here, Miss Wilkins" (when the stage manager can't remember a name he invents one and applies it with an accusing finger) ;• "come out here and let me see you do that by yourself." The girl steps out; if she is. a new hand she is very pale and nervous; if she has had a few years' experience in the chorus she can afford to. be pert and defiant, usually is. But she steps out and displays her knowledge of the dance. '' Passable,'' says the manager; "now get back and keep on with it; and, for the love of Heaven, put a little ginger into it —what d 'you suppose God gave you- legs for?"' CONDUCTOR TAKES A HAND.

The stage manager, having satisfied himself that the dancing is "pass'ableV', stands back and lets the conductor have his turn; and there is more, trouble. Half the girls remember only scraps of the scores, and are singing out,of tune, or not at all —joining at remembered phrases and dropping out when the melody is beyond their memory; and all the while the conductor is shouting commands and imprecations in his heavy German accent, or bursting volubly into his native tongue when his anger rises to extraordinary heights. The girls are called out individually* and in squads to go over a song, and then sent back to the ranks to do song and movement together. The girls have probably been on their feet from nine o'clock in the morning; often enough there are many who have had no lunch, for, a few years ago, before the union demanded payment for rehearsals, money was a scarce commodity with the ladies of the chorus. HARD WORK.

At half-past five they are still a,t it, a few electric lights glimmering above them and adding to the shadowy darkness of the theatre. But there is an end to the torture- —manager and conductor are both human, and have an appetite for food. The ladies of the chorus are dismissed with a curt word and no praise; maybe they are told to come back that night, but anyway they must report themselves at the theatre at nine o'clock the following morning. Jn groups the girls troop out into Castlereagh Street, and hurry away in twos and three to buy the supper which they take to their rooms. The expenditure of sixpence needed to be judicious in the days before pay was given for rehearsals. WEEKS OF DRILLING. For a new pantomime or musical comedy the chorus will be drilled for seven or eight weeks before the show invites the attendance of the public, and even with that length of time there are many who are by 110 means part perfect, even amongst the principals, but there is always a general optimism, a feeling that "it will be all right when the rag goes up." Towards the end of rehearsals the stage manager becomes even more politely acrid, and the conductor more exacting, but the back of the task has been broken, as the girls know, and they look forward to the comparative leisure of the three months run in Sydney and Melbourne, and, after that, the tour with its long journeys and changing scenes. MARRIAGE THE AMBITION.

But if the ladies of the chorus have leisure during the long runs and on tour, they make up for it at rehearsals. They are intent on their"nvork, too, or the most of them are, and when they get hold of the score of the next production they Avill spend hours in each others' bedrooms, or at the fourth-rate piano of the fourth-rate hotel, going over the music. There are plenty of good voices, and there is plenty of talent amongst the ladies of the chorus, but they don't all become "leads." One meets many a witty and entertaining woman who can dance and sing as well as the majority of pantomime principals, but, except on rare occasions as understudy, they remain in the

Dr Gore has created an ecclesiastical sensation by his letter to the clergy denouncing disbelief in New Testament miracles.

obscurity of the chorus until they marry or drop out. It is a matter of chance or opportunity whether one shall be chosen out of so many to take a leading part. Marriage is the ambition of every girl who has been in the chorus for a few years, preferably a marriage that means a comfortable little home —of course they are not singular in that. BACK STAGE GOSSIP.

Any girl, if she knows you sufficiently well, will emphatically state her entire dissatisfaction with the stage; but it holds them, and even when they marry they are eager for all the gossip of the back-stage. They gossip freely about each other, amongst themselves, these ladies of the chorus,-but they are a close' guild and kind-hearted. A girl has to prove herself very much a "rotter" before she is denied the sympathy and financial assistance of the guild. And they are courageous girls, so used to contriving ingenious circumventions. of unkind circumstance that they make it. a rule of life to. get the utmost enjoyment of the world while they may. D.H.