Carol Goes Backstage a/k/a Carol Goes on the Stage - the First Carol Page theater story

Having enjoyed some years performing in local community theaters, it is only natural that I would pick up series books having to do with the theater.  I can't recall exactly how I came to find out about the Carol Page theater stories, but once I learned of them, I had to track them down.  I managed to get the first three fairly easy, but it was that fourth and final book in the series that proved elusive (and the completist in me just will not start reading a series until I have all of the books first!).  I did manage to track it down at last, and so I was finally able to sit down and give the series a read.  Of course, this does not account for the fact that the series was published in England, as well as here in the States, and that the book names differed depending on where they were published - so that left me with the conundrum - do I wait until I track down all of the "alternate" titles before I start reading?  Since I'm writing this post, clearly I decided not to wait (and more on those alternate titles below...).

 

Carol Goes Backstage (a/k/a Carol Goes on the Stage) is the first book in the series, introducing readers to seventeen-year old Carol Page, a high school graduate who has gotten a small taste of the theater in her senior year and has decided that acting on the stage is a career she would like to pursue - much to her parents' chagrin!   Carol, and her best friend Julia Gregg, audition for a chance to be a part of an apprentice group "connected with the Stuyvesant Theater in New York" (p. 54), where a select group of aspiring actors had the opportunity to learn under the tutelage of Miss Phyllis Marlowe, a woman Carol calls "a swell actress" (p. 55).  Of course, they are selected, and Carol is barely able to convince her parents to allow here to attend (as her father is determined that acting schools are a waste of time, and she needs to focus on a viable career).  Thus begins the journey of Carol Page to become an actress of the Broadway stage!

 

Carol Page is not like a lot of her contemporaries in series fiction of the time, as her family is not affluent, providing her the freedom to do as she pleases; while the Page family is not poor by any means, she and Julia share a room in a "respectable girls' club" (p. 88), where the room was "sunny and comfortable, and the food, as Julia pointed out, was probably better than anything they could have turned out for themselves" (p. 89).  But that does not stop one particular apprentice - Michael Horodinsky - from viewing Carol as highfalutin and taking an instant disliking to her, which leads to considerable contention between the two throughout the entire book.  Now, having watched soap operas for many years, I've learned that when two individuals begin a relationship by warring with one another, it usually leads to not only an amicable friendship, but eventually a romance - and while there is no romance in this book at all, I have a sneaky suspicion that Carol and Mike have a budding romance somewhere in their future (we shall have to see what the next three books hold in store...).

 

The story approaches theater life in a very realistic way.  While Carol has talent, she gets in her own way sometimes by thinking she knows better than others, or in thinking that she can succeed by copying the way she has seen others perform a particular role on stage.  She is called out more than once and must learn a bit of humility along the way, which often occurs with beginning actors in the theater.  And Julia, who was the one from the very beginning with big dreams of becoming a star, finds her path to stardom changed along the way, as she (and everyone around her) discover that she is far more talented as a comedic actor than in any serious role.  The story also introduces readers to all of the backstage trials and tribulations of putting together a show for the stage - from building of sets, working of the lights, learning of lines, timing of rehearsals, and overcoming differing temperaments of the actors, directors, stage managers, and set designers.  The character of Miss Marlowe reminds me of one particular director I had the pleasure of working with on a number of plays - he was extremely strict, he was direct and to the point, and he did not tolerate those who were not serious about their performance; yet, he would always offer suggestions and encouragement, and his efforts taught all of us so much about acting.  These are the things Carol, Julia, and all of their newfound friends discover during their time at the Stuyvesant Theater.

 

The book does have a few typical series book scenarios in it.  Once incident involves Carol having to hitchhike back to the high school theater after a friend convinces her to go out to the nearby river to run lines just before the show, and then his car dies.  Carol is picked up by a dazzling woman who questions her about her upcoming performance in Miss Hipkin's Descent (not a real play); it is only later when her brother Phil takes her to New York to see a play does Carol learn the woman was an actual Broadway actress, who they have the opportunity to meet backstage and who encourages Carol to pursue a career in acting!  Another situation involves the owner of a summer theater who offers a job each year to one talented apprentice, and so Miss Marlowe's apprentices put together their own show for a chance that one of them might get selected to be that person!  The only problem is, Carol's troublesome aunt has convinced her mother than Carol should be brought home and not allowed to stay in New York.  As such, Carol must find a way to convince her mother the theater is not detrimental to her future, that Michael Horodinsky is not her boyfriend, and that she has a real chance at landing that summer job with the summer program.  Obviously, all goes well and Carol is not only allowed to stay, but she - along with Julia, Michael, and two others - are selected to join the summer stock at Mr. Richards' theater (which leads directly into the second book in this series).

 

Now, since this book does deal with the theater and Broadway, it only stands to reader the author would include real plays and actors in its pages.  Carol and her brother take in a production of Candida, which is a comedy written by George Bernard Shaw, which was performed in both London and New York in the early 1900s.  Mr. Anders, who introduces the apprentices to the Stuyvesant Theater, tells them how the theater used to be an opera house, and how famous actors sushc as Edwin Booth, Sir Henry Irving, Sarah Bernhardt, and "the great Duse" (p. 80) had all acted on that stage.  All of those are real life actors, with the great Duse referring to Eleonora Duse, an Italian actress considered one of the greatest of all time.  In addition, readers are treated to the history of "the green room" (the backstage area were acteors wait until they must go on stage), which, in the book, is said to originate from the early days in England, when the theaters had waiting rooms close to the stage, where the doors were painted green (p. 87).  While the book references those early London theaters as "the Drury Lane and Covent Garden" (p. 87), in real life, it was likely from London's Blackfriars Theatre, in which the waiting room was painted green.  It is these type of historical facts that really breathe additional life and realism into the story!

 

One final tidbit I must mention, which has no connection to theater but which I found to be amusing and quite coincidental, is found on page 59, when Carol is trying to convince her father that she wants to pursue an acting career and go to New York to be an apprentice to Miss Marlowe.  In her argument, she finally confesses to her father, "Daddy - I don't want to go to Wellesley" (p. 59).   This is so amusing because Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, one of the major driving forces behind the highly successful Nancy Drew series, was a graduate of Wellesley (Class of 1914)!  Thus, the story has an unexpected (and unintentional!) series book reference in it.

 

The series is written by Helen Dore Boylston, who also authored the Sue Barton nursing series from 1936 to 1952.  Boylston was a nurse in real life, so her writing stories about a nurse was only natural.  Five years after her first Sue Barton book was published, she began the Carol Page series of novels.  From online sources, Boylston received advice from her neighbor, Eva Le Gallienne (a Broadway actress who eventually left that career and found the Civic Repertory Theatre - on whom the character of Miss Marlowe was clearly based).  Boylston also went backstage at the Civic Repertory Theatre to gain additional research, all of which explains why the details in her first book are so spot-on with regard to theater life!  (On a side note, the Civic Repertory Theatre was once a home for French dramas and operas, leaving one to believe that the theater was the inspiration for Boylston's Stuyvesant in the book.)

 

Now, as indicated above, this book was first published in America in 1941, but later republished in 1943 in England by John Lane The Bodley Head publishers under the title Carol Goes on the Stage.  Both books kept the same headshot of Carol on their covers, and both books featured the same beautiful internal illustrations by Frederick E. Wallace.  They also both featured a brief word of thanks from the author to Jane Ayer Cobb, "with whose help, encouragement, and staying powers have been invaluable throughout the writing of this book."  Cobb was an author of short stories and children's books, and some online sources give her credit as being a "co-author" of the Carol Page series.  An article in The New York Times written after the death of Cobb indicates the Carol Page series was "originated by Mrs. Berry, but again bore only the name of Miss Boylston" (The New York Time - Jane Cobb).  How much truth there is to this statement, I cannot say.

 

What I can say, though, is that I thoroughly enjoyed the book.  The characters were engaging and realistic, the portrayal of life in the theater was entirely accurate and not overly dramatized at all,  and the story itself was perfectly paced and throughout enjoyable.  I am anxiously looking forward to reading book two!

 

RATING:  10  bunches of white peonies out of 10 for a wonderful story of theater life and the start of one young woman's journey to becoming a real actress!