A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
The comic lovers' mission in life is to serve as a sort of "relief" to the misery caused the audience by the other characters in the play.
~ StageLand
The comic lovers are often very young, and when people on the stage are young they _are_ young. He is supposed to be about sixteen and she is fifteen. But they both talk as if they were not more than seven.
In real life "boys" of sixteen know a thing or two, we have generally found. The average "boy" of sixteen nowadays usually smokes cavendish and does a little on the Stock Exchange or makes a book; and as for love! he has quite got over it by that age. On the stage, however, the new-born babe is not in it for innocence with the boy lover of sixteen.
So, too, with the maiden. Most girls of fifteen off the stage, so our experience goes, know as much as there is any actual necessity for them to know, Mr. Gilbert notwithstanding; but when we see a young lady of fifteen on the stage we wonder where her cradle is.
~ StageLand
To give an idea of how the comic lovers woo, we perhaps cannot do better than subjoin the following brief example:
_SCENE: Main thoroughfare in populous district of London. Time: Noon. Not a soul to be seen anywhere._
_Enter comic loveress R., walking in the middle of the road._
_Enter comic lover L., also walking in the middle of the road._
_They neither see the other until they bump against each other in the center._
HE. Why, Jane! Who'd a' thought o' meeting you here!
SHE. You evidently didn't--stoopid!
HE. Halloo! got out o' bed the wrong side again? I say, Jane, if you go on like that you'll never get a man to marry you.
SHE. So I thought when I engaged myself to you.
HE. Oh! come, Jane, don't be hard.
SHE. Well, one of us must be hard. You're soft enough.
HE. Yes, I shouldn't want to marry you if I weren't. Ha! ha! ha!
SHE. Oh, you gibbering idiot! (_Said archly._)
HE. So glad I am. We shall make a capital match (_attempts to kiss her_).
SHE (_slipping away_). Yes, and you'll find I'm a match that can strike (_fetches him a violent blow over the side if the head_).
HE (_holding his jaw--in a literal sense, we mean_). I can't help feeling smitten by her.
SHE. Yes, I'm a bit of a spanker, ain't I?
HE. Spanker. I call you a regular stunner. You've nearly made me silly.
SHE (_laughing playfully_). No, nature did that for you, Joe, long ago.
HE. Ah, well, you've made me smart enough now, you boss-eyed old cow, you!
SHE. Cow! am I? Ah, I suppose that's what makes me so fond of a calf, you German sausage on legs! You--
HE. Go along. Your mother brought you up on sour milk.
SHE. Yah! They weaned you on thistles, didn't they?
~ StageLand