Real Dramas: Being Some Leaves from the Notebook of a Late Theatrical Agent
()
About this ebook
Read more from Fred M. White
The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries: What the Shepherd Saw, The Mystery of Room Five, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle... Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings101 Great Mystery Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Daughter Of Israel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Master Criminal Series (Illustrated Edition): The History of Felix Gryde, Notorious Master Criminal (True Crime Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe House on the River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest Murder Mysteries & Ghost Tales for Christmas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Big Book of Halloween Tales: 600 Chilling Macabre Classics, Supernatural Mysteries, Gothic Novels & Horror Thrillers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Five Knots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gentle Buccaneers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmbition's Slave Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Corner House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Corner House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Trust Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Case for the Crown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Five Knots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNetta Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Leopard’s Spots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Five Knots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mystery of the Four Fingers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings150 SF Classics: Space Adventures, Lost Worlds, Dystopian Novels & Post-Apocalyptic Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Golden Rose Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Real Dramas
Related ebooks
Real Dramas: "You see I am acquainted with real convicts" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Viscount's Unconventional Lady: A Royal Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Beautiful Miss Brooke Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Room with a View Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Killings on Jubilee Terrace: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flirting with His Forbidden Lady: A Regency Family is Reunited Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Room With a View (Diversion Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Colonial Upstart Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Acid Rain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Golden Silence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomancing the Rogue: 3 Classic Regency Romance Novellas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clicking of Cuthbert Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs. William Jones and Bill Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEverything Sucks #1, Underground Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClarence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Viscount's Bride Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFor the Defence, Dr. Thorndyke Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Convenient Felstone Marriage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dominant Strain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Marquess Next Door: A Royal Romance Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Waynflete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Viscount's Valentine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Midsummer Night's Dream: A User's Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChatterton Place: The Inheritance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsE. M. Forster – The Major Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClarence: Classic American Civil War Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIf Only etc. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTaken by the Earl (Regency Unlaced 3) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Room With a View: Classroom Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Scarlet Bat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Romance For You
It Starts with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ugly Love: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chased by Moonlight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5November 9: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Your Perfects: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swear on This Life: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Favorite Half-Night Stand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hopeless Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Something Borrowed: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confess: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Without Merit: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Not: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stone Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Perfect: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before We Were Strangers: A Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rosie Effect: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Messy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roomies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Buzz Books 2023: Spring/Summer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Maybe Now: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Erotic Fantasies Anthology Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Kingdom of Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adults Only Volume 3: Seven Erotica Shorts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Sisters: Book One Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dating You / Hating You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bossy: An Erotic Workplace Diary Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Under the Roses Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Real Dramas
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Real Dramas - Fred M. White
Fred M. White
Real Dramas
Being Some Leaves from the Notebook of a Late Theatrical Agent
Warsaw 2018
Contents
No. 1 - HIS SECOND SELF
No. 2 - AN EXTRA TURN
No. 3 - NOT IN THE BILL
No. 4 - THE PLAGIARIST
No. 5 - THE MAN IN POSSESSION
No. 6 - A PAIR OF HANDCUFFS
"No. 1 - HIS SECOND SELF
THE hard-faced man with the thin, straggling beard and shaven upper lip glanced about him with a certain sour contempt. He had no approval for this frivolity. He lived by time and rule himself–he was partially shaven because his father and grandfather had been so before him; he wore an old-fashioned pepper-and-salt suit for the same reason. So long as he could remember, he had dined every Sunday at one o’clock on cold beef and a cold suet-pudding. He had lived in the same house for sixty years with the same polished mahogany, the same hard, strong horsehair chairs, waited on practically by the same sour, hard servants. Year in and year out, he had travelled the same round to the same dingy office where he made the same money almost to a penny, keeping to the same faiths and prejudices. The dreary monotony of it had killed his wife, and with her the one touch of romance in his grey existence; it had driven his only daughter away (to his great anger and indignation), for he regarded his house off Keppel Street as the acme of luxury and refinement.
In his way, Samuel Burton was a type. It is a type happily getting rare now, but he was an individuality all the same. The man was rigidly just and fair according to his lights, cold and unfeeling and ready always to justify some hard deed with appropriate extracts from Holy Writ. That he was lonely and unhappy and miserable he did not dream. The knowledge would have astonished him. That there was a deep humanity under his hard grey exterior would have astonished him still more.
He had not gone deliberately to the charitable entertainment given by the Bloomsbury Thespian Society–he had been more or less drawn there by false pretences. By mistake he had found himself in the lesser hall instead of the greater one, and, having paid his half-crown, decided, in his characteristic way, to get the full benefit of it. A pretty girl dressed as a theatre attendant thrust a programme into his hand. He smiled sourly as he read it.
He had not been to a frivolous gathering like this for five-and-twenty years. For one brief month in the long ago he had tasted of these insidious joys. There were many reasons why he did not care to think of that period now. Had he kept clear of that, he would never have married, he would never have had a daughter to leave him in his old age. There was another side to the model, but Samuel Burton never glanced at that. To do so was to doubt his own judgment.
The first item on the programme was a three-part comedy. It was a light and amusing little piece, and it pleased the audience immensely. Burton sat it out without the moving of a muscle. It seemed odd that people should laugh at that kind of thing. It wasn’t a bit like life either. No woman would be such a fool as to cry because her young husband had pretended to forget her birthday. Everything in the little comedy depended on that. It seemed silly to Burton; it seemed absurd that a pleasant-looking girl by him should wipe her eyes as the curtain came down. Burton had no idea that he was watching a dainty little masterpiece of French comedy, written by a master of his craft, skilled in the art of blending laughter and tears. He could not recognise the human document. It was impossible for him to know that the people round him were feeling all the better for it. It was all a silly waste of time and money.
A few songs and sketches followed. Then the stage-manager came forward and made an announcement. He much regretted the impossibility of producing ‘A Novel Engagement,’ as promised by the programme. Miss Vavasour, of the Comus Theatre, who had engaged to play the leading part, was too ill to appear. She had very kindly arranged for the void to be filled by sending at her own expense Mr. Vincent Brook and Miss Elsie Montgomery (his wife) and their child, in a sketch of their own, called ‘We Two.’ The performers were new to London audiences, but they had played with considerable success in the provinces, and Miss Vavasour hoped that the audience would feel that she had done rather better for them than