The Search for the Perfect Stage Infant
A theatrical agent’s unusual quest to recruit two non-crying, bottle-fed babies for a Seattle stage production.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
P. J. Kennedy, the advance man for Harrison and Bell's 'Little Tippett' company, is in town. He tells an interesting story about the ingenuity of Duncan Harrison. Harrison found himself in a quandary because he needed two infants under one year old for the play, and he needed them to be quiet. He instructed a New York agent to find two babies who were not addicted to the habit of bawling, as the exercise of powerful infantile lungs might prove exasperating to nervous auditors. He also requested that only bottle-raised infants be considered, as he believed they were less prone to crying than those nursed in the 'more primitive fashion.' Upon meeting thirty mothers and their offspring, Harrison performed a test: he brought in an improved bottle filled with milk. Those who took the bottle with eagerness were chosen; those who refused were turned away. The selected babes will appear on stage in Seattle next Thursday and Friday.
“He also instructed the agent to advertise for only those babies that had been bottle-raised. He knew that the bottle-fed babe was less addicted to the crying habit than the babe that had been nursed in the more primitive fashion.”
This odd anecdote from the 1892 Seattle stage scene highlights how much effort went into maintaining the 'fourth wall' before sound amplification. It is a whimsical contrast to modern theater where crying babies in the audience are often the ones driving the cast to distraction.
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