Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1891 — MONKEY ACTORS [ARTICLE]

MONKEY ACTORS

A. Man Must Become a Monkey t» Teach a Monkey. The training of monkeys for stage performances demands peculiar talents and a curious psychological ability on the part of the instructor. Brockmann, probably, the most successful monkey trainer that the world has seen, once described thus the necessary method of approaching a monkey pupil: “To the monkey man is a strange and incomprehensible being. I therefore must adopt as far as possible the monkey’s way of rcgtt ding persons and things. Tho monkey must find in me ohe of his own kind—a monkey like himself.only a much stronger monkey,whom ho must obey. When he has something which he can understand, he accustoms himself to it, and he voluntarily takes more pains to comprehend me than ho would take to comprehend a being who made on him about the same impression that a monster from another world would make on Us. I adapt, therefore, all to his mode of life, when he disobeys and rebols against me I do not strike, because he does not strike, but I bite because ha bites.

The behavior of a troupe of monkoys trained by Brockmann would undoubtedly strengthen the convictions of the Russian Duroff, who gave up teaching in a high school to instruct pigs and geeso, and who holds that, of all pupils, human pupils aro the loss docile. A man once behind tho scenes of Brockman’s monkey theatre wrote a few weeks ago: “I have always regretted that Brockmann did not give his performances on a perfectly open stage, so that the audience could sec the waiting performers. The oonduct of the quadruped actors while awaitiDg their parts was much more fascinating than their best acting before the audience. Like a company of gnomes or Liliuutians the little performers sit there dressed and mhdo up, perfectly woll behaved, each in the proper human attitude on his tiny chair, each following with undivided attention and eager anxiety the progress of the play so as to be ready at the exact moment for his appearance. No person is near them, no servant or attendant to distract them, and no prompter to whisper at the proper time: “ ‘Fraulein Lehman, look out ! You come on immediatelyor ‘Herr Schulze 1 Where is Herr Schulze? Quick 1 Quick I You must go on.’ “Every one knows his part perfectly. Every one is acquainted with the progress of the plot aud with tho stage of the development at which he is expectod to appear. Without a catch word or motion ho hurries down from his tiny chair and out on the stage, plays his little part, and, without a bow for the approval of tho audience, turns back to his Elaco, not to leave it before duty calls im again before tho footlights. Here all alone and unwatched these little fellows never forget their roles so far as to settle down on all fours, cower in monkey fashion, or indulge in the pranks of their mercurial natures.”—-[New York Bun.