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PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON

Designed to provide in a series
of volumes, each complete in itself,
the cream of our national humour,
contributed by the masters of
comic draughtsmanship and the
leading wits of the age to "Punch,"
from its beginning in 1841 to the
present day.

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MR. PUNCH AT THE PLAY

[Illustration]

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[Illustration: _Actor (on the stage)._ "Me mind is made up!"

_Voice from the Gallery._ "What abeaout yer fice?"]

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MR. PUNCH AT THE PLAY

HUMOURS OF MUSIC AND THE DRAMA

_WITH 140 ILLUSTRATIONS_

[Illustration]

BY CHARLES KEENE, PHIL MAY, GEORGE DU MAURIER, BERNARD PARTRIDGE, L.
RAVEN-HILL, E. T. REED, F. H. TOWNSEND, C. E. BROCK, A. S. BOYD, TOM
BROWNE, EVERARD HOPKINS AND OTHERS

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF "PUNCH"

       *       *       *       *       *

THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.

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THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

_Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated_

  LIFE IN LONDON
  COUNTRY LIFE
  IN THE HIGHLANDS
  SCOTTISH HUMOUR
  IRISH HUMOUR
  COCKNEY HUMOUR
  IN SOCIETY
  AFTER DINNER STORIES
  IN BOHEMIA
  AT THE PLAY
  MR. PUNCH AT HOME
  ON THE CONTINONG
  RAILWAY BOOK
  AT THE SEASIDE
  MR. PUNCH AFLOAT
  IN THE HUNTING FIELD
  MR. PUNCH ON TOUR
  WITH ROD AND GUN
  MR. PUNCH AWHEEL
  BOOK OF SPORTS
  GOLF STORIES
  IN WIG AND GOWN
  ON THE WARPATH
  BOOK OF LOVE
  WITH THE CHILDREN

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

BEFORE THE CURTAIN

Most of the PUNCH artists of note have used their pencils on the
theatre; with theatricals public and private none has done more than Du
Maurier. All have made merry over the extravagances of melodrama and
"problem" plays; the vanity and the mistakes of actors, actresses and
dramatists; and the blunderings of the average playgoer.

MR. PUNCH genially satirises the aristocratic amateurs who, some few
years ago, made frantic rushes into the profession, and for a while
enjoyed more kudos as actors than they had obtained as titled members
of the upper circle, and the exaggerated social status that for the time
accrued to the professional actor as a consequence of this invasion.

The things he has written about the stage, quite apart from all
reviewing of plays, would more than fill a book of itself; and he has
slyly and laughingly satirised players, playwrights and public with an
equal impartiality.

He has got a deal of fun out of the French dramas and the affected
pleasure taken in them by audiences that did not understand the
language. He has got even more fun out of the dramatists whose "original
plays" were largely translated from the French, and to whom Paris was,
and to some extent is still, literally and figuratively "a playground."

[Illustration]

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MR. PUNCH AT THE PLAY

SOMETHING FOR THE MONEY

(_From the Playgoers' Conversation Book. Coming Edition._)

[Illustration]

I have only paid three guineas and a half for this stall, but it is
certainly stuffed with the very best hair.

The people in the ten-and-sixpenny gallery seem fairly pleased with
their dado.

I did not know the call-boy was at Eton.

The expenses of this house must be enormous, if they always play _Box
and Cox_ with a rasher of real Canadian bacon.

How nice to know that the musicians, though out of sight under the
stage, are in evening dress on velvet cushions!

Whoever is the author of this comedy, he has not written up with spirit
to that delightful Louis the Fifteenth linen cupboard.

I cannot catch a word "Macbeth" is saying, but I can see at a glance
that his kilt would be extremely cheap at seventy pounds.

I am not surprised to hear that the "Tartar's lips" for the cauldron
alone add nightly something like fifty-five-and-sixpence to the
expenses.

Do not bother me about the situation when I am looking at the quality of
the velvet pile.

Since the introduction of the _live_ hedgehog into domestic drama
obliged the management to raise the second-tier private boxes to forty
guineas, the Duchess has gone into the slips with an order.

They had, perhaps, better take away the champagne-bottle and the
diamond-studded whistle from the prompter.

Ha! here comes the chorus of villagers, provided with real silk
pocket-handkerchiefs.

It is all this sort of thing that elevates the drama, and makes me so
contented to part with a ten-pound note for an evening's amusement.

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[Illustration: _Pantomime Child (to admiring friend)._ "Yus, and there's
another hadvantage in bein' a hactress. You get yer fortygraphs took for
noffink!"]

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THE HEIGHT OF LITERARY NECESSITY.--"Spouting" Shakspeare.

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WHEN are parsons bound in honour not to abuse theatres?

When they take orders.

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WHAT VOTE THE MANAGER OF A THEATRE ALWAYS HAS.--The "casting" vote.

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"STAND NOT ON THE ORDER OF YOUR GOING."--An amiable manager says the
orders which he issues for the pit and gallery are what in his opinion
constitute "the lower orders."

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GREAT THEATRICAL EFFECT.--During a performance of _Macbeth_ at the
Haymarket, the thunder was so natural that it turned sour a pint of beer
in the prompter's-box.

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[Illustration: THE DRAMA.--"'Ere, I say, 'Liza, we've seen this 'ere
play before!" "No, we ain't." [_Wordy argument follows._] "Why, don't
you remember, same time as Bill took us to the 'Pig an' Whistle,' an' we
'ad stewed eels for supper?" "Oh lor! Yes, that takes me back to it!"]

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[Illustration: TRUE APPRECIATION

(_Overheard at the Theatre_)

_Mrs. Parvenu._ "I don't know that I'm exackly _gone_ on Shakspeare
Plays."

    [_Mr. P. agrees._

]

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[Illustration: _Conversationalist._ "Do you play ping-pong?"

_Actor._ "No. I play _Hamlet_!"]

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TO ACTORS WHO ARE NOT WORTH A THOUGHT.--We notice that there is a book
called "Acting and Thinking." This is to distinguish it, we imagine,
from the generality of acting, in which there is mostly no thinking?

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A CRUSHER.--_Country Manager (to Mr. Agrippa Snap, the great London
critic, who has come down to see the production of a piece on trial)._
And what do you think, sir, of our theatre and our players?

_Agrippa Snap (loftily)._ Well, frankly, Mr. Flatson, your green-room's
better than your company.

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[Illustration: The higher walk of the drama]

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[Illustration: "Auntie, can _you_ do that?"]

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Theatrical managers are so often accused of being unable to break with
tradition, that it seems only fair to point out that several of them
have recently produced plays, in which the character of "Hamlet" does
not appear at all.

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ON A DRAMATIC AUTHOR

  "Yes, he's a plagiarist," from Tom this fell,
    "As to his social faults, sir, one excuses 'em;
  'Cos he's good natured, takes a joke so well."
    "True," cries an author, "he takes mine and uses 'em."

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THE MANAGER'S COMPLAINT

  She danced among the unfinished ways
    That merge into the Strand,
  A maid whom none could fail to praise,
    And very few withstand.

  A sylph, accepted for the run,
    Not at a weekly wage;
  Fair as a star when only one
    Is shining on the stage.

  She met a lord, and all men know
    How soon she'd done with me;
  Now she is in _Debrett_, oh, and,
    That's where they all would be!

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[Illustration: A FIRST NIGHT.--_Indignant Playwright (to leading actor,
behind the scenes)._ "Confound it, man, you've absolutely murdered the
piece!" _Leading Actor._ "Pardon me, but I think the foul play is
yours!"]

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_Smart._ How do, Smooth? (_to theatrical manager, who frowns upon him_).
What's the matter, eh?

_Smooth._ Matter? Hang it, Smart, you wrote me down in "The Stinger."

_Smart (repressing something Shakspearian about "writing down" which
occurs to him, continues pleasantly)._ Wrote you down? No, I said the
piece was a bad one, because I thought it was; a very bad one.

_Smooth._ Bad! (_Sarcastically._) You were the only man who said so.

_Smart (very pleasantly)._ My dear fellow, _I was the only man who saw
it._ Good-bye.

    [_Exeunt severally._

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MOTTO FOR A BOX-OFFICE KEEPER.--"So much for booking 'em."

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"A considerable demonstration of approval greeted the fall of the
curtain." How are we to take