Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/150

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN kept of their drinking and no one present to protect the interests of the house. The proprietor and his daughter are conveniently absent. The sheer impossibility of this situation will be apparent to any member of the A. E. F. or any one else with any acquaintance with French inn-keepers, but the necessities of the drama demanded that the two leading protagonists have the stage to themselves.

To-day the drama has to get along most of the time without the aid of music. In the few theaters that still maintain orchestras, the first violin will be found in the alley smoking a cigarette when the drama is thickest. He used to be at his post in the orchestra trench playing "Hearts and Flowers" for the sad passages, welcoming the hero and the heroine on their first appearances with appropriate bars, and warning of the villain's first approach with minor chords, as distant thunder presages the gathering storm. Childish, perhaps, but the suggestive power of music is tremendous. It will prepare an audience as whole pages of dialogue will not. A hurdy-gurdy offstage or a phonograph unobtrusively introduced onstage can give the emotional key to a scene instantly. The motion-picture houses appreciate the power of music,