Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 232, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1911 — PRANKS ON THE STAGE [ARTICLE]

PRANKS ON THE STAGE

MANY ACTORS HAVE VIOLATED RULE AGAINST “GUYING." How Edwin Booth Decorated the Face of a Dying Desdemona—Louis James Was an Inveterate Fun Maker. While “guying" and playing pranks on the stage which are liable to upset one’s fellow actors and cause them to deliver their lines while in a condition of almost helpless hysteria are strictly forbidden by theatrical managers, the practice has always been a favorite one more or less with some of the world's brainiest and, so tar-as appearances go, stern and serious stage celebrities. Take Edwin Booth, for instance. He often yielded to the temptation to play the comedian, even the buffoon, to his company while the audience saw only the tragedian. A writer in the Bookman tells how Booth once enlivened the last act of Othello. While smothering Desdemona he managed to get some of the brown paint from his own makeup onto the tips of his fingers. .liJ Then while delivering the lines of the scene with his usual Impassioned fervor. and apparently ■ stifling Desdemona with pillows, he painted a mustache and goatee on the helpless lady’s countenance. The audience of course knew nothing of it But when Gratlano and the other actors came on and one by one went to the bed to gaze at the features of the murdered bride the sight of a bewhiskemsd lady almost threw them into convulsions.

Each in turn approached the body with loud lamentations and each suddenly turned away shaken with convulsive laughter which the audience fortunately mistook for manifestations of grief. Another of Booth’s tricks was to mb his face against Katharine’s when he was playing Petruchlo, In “The Taming of the Shrew,” smearing her face with the paint from his makeup mustache. But this was at the end of the play as the curtain was descending. Louis James was an Inveterate fun maker on the stage. As Vlrglnlus he would rouse the audience to enthusiasm and then strike terror to the hearts of the timid In the mad scene of the last act But while going through this role without skip or break the chanc.es were that poor Applus Claudius, who lay dead on i the floor, was praying for the curtain to come down so that he might laugh outright instead of choking to death trying to smother the mirth provoked while kneeling over him.