On the Stage--and Off: The Brief Career of a Would-Be Actor
A Comic Memoir of Victorian Stage Life, Touring, Ambition, and DisillusionmentBy Jerome K. Jerome
Length4h 8m
About this audiobook
In *On the Stage—and Off: The Brief Career of a Would-Be Actor*, Jerome K. Jerome transforms the precarious life of a provincial theatrical aspirant into a sharply observed comic narrative. Drawing on the conventions of Victorian theatrical memoir, apprenticeship fiction, and social satire, the book follows an inexperienced young man whose ambitions encounter the drudgery, vanity, financial uncertainty, and humiliations concealed behind the glamour of performance. Jerome's style is conversational, self-deprecating, and episodic, animated by lively dialogue and an eye for absurd detail. Beneath its farce lies a revealing account of the nineteenth-century stage as a modern workplace and a culture of unstable celebrity. The book reflects Jerome's own early struggle to establish himself in the theatre. Before achieving lasting fame as the author of *Three Men in a Boat*, he worked as an actor, stagehand, and theatrical writer, experiences that furnished both his subject matter and his characteristic sympathy for ordinary failures. His intimate knowledge of backstage labor allows him to satirize theatrical pretension without losing affection for those who pursue impossible dreams. This concise, engaging work will reward readers interested in Victorian popular culture, performance history, and the development of comic autobiography. It is especially valuable as an early expression of Jerome's humane humor: a portrait of artistic aspiration that remains amusing precisely because it recognizes disappointment as part of experience.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.8 (528)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing, StoryGraph
GenreBiography and Memoir
Length4 hrs 8 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 12, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1PREFACE.
2CHAPTER I. I Determine to Become an Actor.
3CHAPTER II. I Become an Actor.
4CHAPTER III. Through the Stage Door
5CHAPTER IV. Behind the Scenes.
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6JOE JUNKS.
7CHAPTER VI. Scenery and Supers
8CHAPTER VII. Dressing.
9CHAPTER VIII. My “First Deboo”
10CHAPTER IX. Birds of Prey.
11CHAPTER X. I Buy a Basket, and go into the Provinces.
12CHAPTER XI. First Provincial Experiences
13CHAPTER XII. “Mad Mat” Takes Advantage of an Opportunity.
14CHAPTER XIII. Lodgings and Landladies.
15CHAPTER XIV. With a Stock Company,
16CHAPTER XV. Revenge
17CHAPTER XVI. Views on Acting
18THE END.
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