THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN.
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wonderful monologue Victor Hugo’s “ Les Miserables” would make. His terrific power in working up a situation and displaying it is as in a calcium light of intense imaginative description. The impersonator should be able to do mentally for the audience that which they otherwise would miss in the mere reading of the lines. The monologist could suggest the meaning between the lines, for there never was a genius with more inseparable, unescapable, tyrannizing consciousness of itself than Victor Hugo. The listener would feel the personality and genius of the great author.
“ Imaginary companies need no salaries.” There are no breaking of contracts, no elopements of the Soubrette, and, in bad luck, only ope has to walk home.
“ Music hath its charms,” and should go hand in hand with every dramatic entertainment, save, I could never see anything but absurdity in the orchestra playing a doleful tune when at last the “ wife ” or “ sweetheart ” is “ pushed ” to tell the story of her past, and how she “ once suffered.” The story is often drowned by the music, the audience left in a chilly condition, and with but a faint idea of how it all happened. Music at intervals, or to illustrate some poetical idea, is an acquisition, but I do not approve of the so-called “singing reading,” unless it aid the rendition of a dirge or the chanting of a prayer. The reciter invariably spoils both the accompaniment and the poem. Only once have I heard a successful serious reciter accompanied with the piano, and that was the clever monologist and reciter, Clifford Harrison, London, England. Corney Grain and George Grossmith are successful only because they make comedy a story that can be illustrated by caricature music. Themselves natural musicians, and full of the comedy element, they succeed in stories which abound in humor, introducing musical accompaniment. But to recite a poem in unison with a piano and monotony of the speaking voice is to my mind neither artistic nor entertaining.
The world is filled with genius and progressive artists. They study the wants of the public and follow not after fads. When the monologue is presented in its complete beauty, thousands of people who have not the opportunity to hear great plays will become acquainted with characters that have helped to civilize the world, and many a home will be made brighter by the glimpses into other lives, and thousands of hearts will hold dear the name of the monologist and entertainer.