A WORD FOR THE CHORUS

Hawera Star, Volume L, 25 October 1930, Page 16

A WORD FOR THE CHORUS

letters lie before me. They all .arrived to-day. They are all sad, and when I have quoted extracts from them you will realise why they are all also stupid, writes Beverley Nichols in the “Daily Mail.”

“I am really desperate. In fact, I would be quite willing to go into the chorus. ’ •’ “Even the back row of the chorus would be better than tramping round from agency to agency.”

“I am really desperate. In fact, I had a chance. ’ ’

AT either the young man nor the young woman, however, would have the least eha-nee of entering the. chorus without a very strenuous training. I only know one chorus really well, and that is the chorus known as Mr Cochran’s Young Ladies, who during the rehearsals of the present IPSO (Revue filled mo at first, with delight., then astonishment, and ultimately with awe. It. may be unfair to take these young ladies as an example, because they are exceptionally brilliant, individually and collectively. But since the ambition, of every other girl in the, kingdom (if T am to judge from my daily correspondence) is to be a Cochran Young Lady, it. .would save a great deal of trouble, if the amateurs would realise that it is much easier to get into Parliament, to marry a millionaire, or to swim the Channel than to be a perfect chorus girl.

As for talking about going into “even” the chorus! If anybody says that to you, ask them the following questions, in. rapid succession:— “Can you stand on your head?

“Can you kick your .father’s top hat off his head without kicking his nose? “Can you dance on your toes?

“Can you sing in tune—not with yourself but with others?

“ Arc. you .exceptionally pretty?

Beverley Nichols in Defence

“Are your legs the sort of legs that can. be observed in all, positions, on a cold morning, by hard-bitten managers in the stalls without exciting misgivings!? “Can you check all immoderate longings for sweets, cocktails, and cigarettes?

‘‘Can you rehearse interminably, dii'ess in: a stuffy, 'crowded room, run like greased lightning on to the stage, and look as fresh as though you had just come from a bathe?

“Canl you learn principal parts, and keep your head if you suddenly have to play them, and keep your temper if you don’t?

“Can you stifle, month after month, yc,ur own longing for personal .applause, and content yourself with doing your utmost as a member of vour .team?”

“Even” the chorus! Apart from this idiotic assumption that the. chorus is, easy, there is the equally ridiculous conception that once a girl in in the chorus her personal responsibility •ceases. The actual fact, of course, is that it increases in direct ration to the number of the. chorus itself.

Wlicn you sit in, your stalls and see sixteen exquisite pairs of logs flashing n a -compleated, rhythm across a brilliantly lit stage, does it ever occur to you that if one of those sixteen' girls began to slack, or to dream, cr to tire the rhythm would lie confused or utterly lost* andv the !“number”—which is only, perhaps, a single, glittering moment in a long pageant—ruined? Evidently it does not. It scorns that, no age ever does justice, to its choruses. Since society has flooded the stage with, its recruits, we. have leapt to, the conclusion that the chorus is a .sort of charitable institution for the poorer and more Bohemian relations of the rich, demanding, no particular talents and no special training.