SORROWS OF THE STAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2928, 27 April 1910, Page 80

SORROWS OF THE STAGE.

A GLOOM/ PICTURE. A sordid and gloomy picture of the dramatic profession was (says the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Telegraph on March 2) painted by the speakers at a parliament of actresses which filled the large Philharmonic Hall here from halfpast 11 last night till 3 o'clock this morning. It was a great surprise for the members of the general public who flocked to the meeting. They found that the greenroom has passions as violent and tragedies as grim as any that are enacted before tbr footlights. The gathering was merely a phase of a widespread movement which has for its object the improvement of the social and material standing of the profession, and was intended to ventilate the special grievances of its female members. That these are many and deep was soon evident. In the main they are, of course, directed against the managers. Frauleir Hubner, of the New Theatre, opened the indictment by declaring it to be a sad but undeniable fact that ideas of the stage and the immorality of actresses and courtesans were closely associated with one another in the people's minds. One of the chief reasons for this was that the expenses of actresses were out of all proportion to their emoluments. In the second and third-class theatres—and these are the vast majority—the salaries paid during six or -even months of the season worked out at from £2l a year for subordinate performers to £IOO for leading players. Out of these sums the actress had to pay agency fees, travelling and other expenses, and to provide all her dresses. It sometimes happened that in the course of a single month, during which flier earnings were from £3 10s to £l2 10s, she had to furnish as many as 10 separate costumes. The consequence was that some fell into debt and others succumbed to temptation, while those who would stoop to neither of these expedients sat all day long at the sewing machine, putting together the dresses they were to wear in the evening. The speaker complained bitterly of "the competition of those ladies to whom the theatre was merely an advertisement for their shame and a place for the exhibition of their charms." The vigorous applause with which her words were received showed that she was expressing the general sentiment. Frau Rosa Bertens, another well-known figure on the Berlin boards, complained that the profession was overrun by women who had met with misfortune or ill-luck in other walks of life. Formerly, she said, when a girl had an unhappy love affair she retired- into a convent. Now she went on to the stage. The teacher left her class and the student her books to try her fortune as an actress. Something must be done to stop this. Fraulein Qalle, a young actress, next narrated the difficulties the novice had to contend with. Success, she said, always went to the candidates, with the smartest frocks. If an actress had no pretty dresses she was kept back, while if she had them people inauired who her protector might be If she married she w»as dismissed at once. Herr Reckelt, the most active officer of the Stage Association, had even graver charges to bring against the managers. He out to the meeting the question, "Is it true that many managers persecute actresses with their attentions, and in a way comoel them to accede to their desires?" With immediate unison and heartfelt emphasis the answer "Yes" was flung back to him from a large number of the ladies present. He mentioned a manager who called. an actress to his office, and, falling at he., feet, "swore by his wife and children that he had never loved a woman as he loved her." The lady, however, was unresponsive. a,nd a few days later she received her dismissal. Herr Emmanuel Reicher, one of the ablest actors, in Berlin, annealed to his colleagues to unite to shield the female members of their profession from the dangers that encompassed t.hem. This excursion into the realm of the ideal was followed no b">' Herr Wauer. who propounded the view that the "life ot the artist is necessarilv a martyrdom." "If," he added, "you eliminate privatio: from the conditions of the actor's life, you will undermine his art, for it is onlv through afflioation tha"o one can mature to a great artist." This Spartan sentiment did not awake a very cordial echo in the assembly. By 3 o'clock in the morning: all those present were too much exhausted either to talk or to listen, and the proceedings were brought to n. close h-y a resolution calling: upon the Federal Council and the Reichstag, which was represented bv a number of deputies from different parties, to remedy the srrievances of the dramatic profession by legislative action.