Girlish Dreams of Success—Golden Glitter—Overcrowding—Few successful—Weedon Grossmith—Beerbohm Tree—How Mrs. Tree made Thousands for the War Fund—The Stage Door reached—Glamour fades—The Divorce Court and the Theatre—Childish Enthusiasm—Old Scotch Body’s Horror—Love Letters—Temptations—Emotions—How Women began to Act under Charles I.—Influence of the Theatre for Good or Ill.
“I WANT to go on the stage,” declared a girl as she sat one day opposite her father, a London physician, in his consulting-room.
The doctor looked up, amazed, deliberately put down his pen, cast a scrutinising glance at his daughter, then said tentatively:
“Want to go on the stage, eh?”
“Yes, I wish to be an actress. I have had an offer—oh, such a delightful offer—to play a girl’s part in the forthcoming production at one of our best theatres.”
Her father made no comment, only looked again steadily at the girl in order to satisfy himself that she was speaking seriously. Then he took the letter she held out, read it most carefully, folded it up—in what the would-be actress thought an exasperatingly slow fashion—and after a pause observed:
“So this is the result of allowing you to play in private theatricals. What folly!”
The girl started up—fire flashed from her eyes, and her lips trembled as she retorted passionately:
“I don’t see any folly, I only see a great career opening before me. I want to go on the stage and make a name.”
The doctor looked more grave than ever, but replied calmly:
“You are very young—you have only just been to your first ball; you know nothing whatever about the world or work.”
“But I can learn, and intend to do so.”
“Ah yes, that is all very well; but what you really see at this moment is only the prospect of so many guineas a week, of applause and admiration, of notices in the papers, when at one jump you expect to gain the position already attained by some great actress. What you do not see, however, is the hard work, the dreary months, nay years, of waiting, the many disappointments that precede success—you do not realise the struggle of it all, or the many, many failures.”
She looked amazed. What possible struggle could there be on the stage? she wondered.
“Is this to be the end of my having worked for you,” he asked pathetically, “planned for you, given you the best education I could, done everything possible to make your surroundings happy, that at the moment when I hoped you were going to prove a companion and a comfort, you announce the fact that you wish to choose a career for yourself, to throw off the ties—I will not call them the pleasures—of home, and seek work which it is not necessary for you to undertake?”
“Yes,” murmured the girl, by this time almost sobbing, for the glamour seemed to be rolling away like mist before her eyes, while glorious visions of tragedy queens and comic soubrettes faded into space.
“I will not forbid you,” he went on sadly but firmly—“I will not forbid you, after you are twenty-one, for then you can do as you like; but nearly four years stretch between now and then, and during those four years I shall withhold my sanction.”
Tears welled up into her eyes. Moments come in the lives of all of us when our nearest and dearest appear to understand us least. Even in our youth we experience unreasoning sadness.
“I do not wish,” he continued, rising and patting her kindly on the back, “to see my daughter worn to a skeleton, working when she should be enjoying herself, taking upon her shoulders cares and worries which I have striven for years to avert—therefore I must save you from yourself. During the next four years I will try to show you what going on the stage really means, and the labour it entails.”
She did not answer, exultation had given place to indignation, indignation to emotion, and the aspirant to histrionic fame felt sick at heart.
That girl was the present writer—her father the late Dr. George Harley, F.R.S., of Harley Street.
During those four years he showed me the work and anxiety connection with the stage involves, and as it was not necessary for me to earn my living at that time, I waited his pleasure, and, finally, of my own free will abandoned the girlish determination of becoming an actress. Wild dreams of glory and success eventually gave place to more rational ideas. The glamour of the footlights ceased to shine so alluringly—as I realised that the actor’s art, like the musician’s, is ephemeral, while the work and anxiety are great in both.
The restlessness of youth was upon me when I mooted the project, and an injudicious word then would have sent me forth at a tangent, probably to fail as many another has done before and since.
There may still be a few youthful people in the world who believe the streets of London are paved with gold—and there are certainly numbers of boys and girls who think the stage is strewn with pearls and diamonds. All the traditions of the theatre are founded in mystery and exaggeration; perhaps it is as well, for too much realism destroys illusion.
Boys and girls dream great dreams—they fancy themselves leading actors and actresses, in imagination they dine off gold, wear jewels, laces, and furs, hear the applause of the multitude—and are happy. But all this, as said, is in their dreams, and dreams only last for seconds, while life lasts for years.
One in perhaps a thousand aspirants ever climbs to the top of the dramatic ladder, dozens remain struggling on the lower rung, while hundreds fall out weary and heart-sore before passing even the first step. Never has the theatrical profession been more overcrowded than at the present moment.
Many people with a wild desire to act prove failures on the stage, their inclinations are greater than their powers. Rarely is it the other way; nevertheless Fanny Kemble, in spite of her talent, hated the idea of going on the stage. At that time acting was considered barely respectable for a woman (1829). She was related to Sarah Siddons and John Kemble, a daughter of Charles and Fanny Kemble, and yet no dramatic fire burned in her veins. She was short and plain, with large feet and hands, her only charm her vivacity and expression. Ruin was imminent in the family when the girl was prevailed upon after much persuasion to play Juliet. Three weeks later she electrified London. Neither time nor success altered her repugnance for the stage, however. When dressed as Juliet her white satin train lying over the chair, she recalled the scene in the following words:
“There I sat, ready for execution, with the palms of my hands pressed convulsively together, and the tears I in vain endeavoured to repress welling up into my eyes, brimming slowly over, down my rouged cheeks.”
There is a well-known actor upon the stage to-day who feels much as Fanny Kemble did.
“I hate it all,” he once said to me. “Would to Heaven I had another profession at my back. But I never really completed any studies in my youth, and in these days of keen competition I dare not leave an income on the stage for an uncertainty elsewhere.”
To some people the stage is an alluring goal, religion is a recreation, while to others money is a worship. The Church and the Stage cast their fascinating meshes around most folk some time during the course of their existences. It is scarcely strange that such should be the case, for both hold their mystery, both have their excitements, and man delights to rush into what he does not understand—this has been the case at all times and in all countries, and, like love and war, seems likely to continue to the end of time.
We all know the stage as seen from before the footlights—we have all sat breathless, waiting for the curtain to rise, and there are some who have longed for the “back cloth” to be lifted also, that they might peep behind. In these pages all hindrances shall be drawn away, and the theatre and its workings revealed from behind the footlights.
As every theatre has its own individuality, so every face has its own expression, therefore one can only generalise, for it is impossible to treat each theatrical house and its customs separately.
The strong personal interest I have always felt for the stage probably originated in the fact that from childhood I had heard stories of James Sheridan Knowles writing some of his plays, notably The Hunchback, at my grandfather’s house, Seaforth Hall, in Lancashire. Charles Dickens often stayed there when acting for some charity in Liverpool. Samuel Lover was a constant visitor at the house, as also the great American tragedian, Charlotte Cushman. Her beautiful sister Susan (the Juliet of her Romeo) married my uncle, Sheridan Muspratt, author of the Dictionary of Chemistry. From all of which it will be seen that theatrical stories were constantly retailed at home; therefore when I was about to “come out,” and my father asked if I would like a ball, I replied:
“No, I should prefer private theatricals.”
This was a surprise to the London physician; but there being no particular sin in private theatricals, consent was given, “provided,” as he said, “you paint the scenery, make your own dresses, generally run the show, and do the thing properly.”
A wise proviso, and one faithfully complied with. It gave an enormous amount of work but brought me a vast amount of pleasure.
Mr. L. F. Austin, a clever contributor to the Illustrated London News, wrote a most amusing account of those theatricals—in which he, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree assisted—in his little volume At Random. Sir William Magnay, then a well-known amateur, and now a novelist, was one of our tiny company. Sweethearts, Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s delightful little comedy, was chosen for the performance, but at the last moment the girl who should have played the maid was taken ill. Off to Queen’s College, where I was then a pupil, I rushed, dragged Maud Holt—who became Mrs Tree a few weeks later—back with me, and that same night she made her first appearance on any stage. Very shortly afterwards Mrs. Beerbohm Tree adopted acting as a profession, and appeared first at the Court Theatre. Subsequently, when her husband became a manager, she joined his company for many years.
We all adored her at College: she was tall and graceful, with a beautiful figure: she sang charmingly, and read voraciously. In those days she was a great disciple of Browning, and so was Mr. Tree; in fact, the poet was the leading-string to love and matrimony.
Mrs. Beerbohm Tree considers that almost the happiest moments of her life were spent in reciting The Absent-minded Beggar for the War Fund. It came about in this wise. She had arranged to give a recitation at St. James’s Hall on one particular Wednesday. On the Friday before that day she saw announced in the Daily Mail that a new poem by Rudyard Kipling on the Transvaal war theme would appear in the Tuesday issue. This she thought would be a splendid opportunity to declaim a topical song at the concert, so she wrote personally to the editor of the paper, and asked him if he could possibly let her have an advance copy of the poem, so that she might learn and recite it on Wednesday, as the Tuesday issue would be too late for her purpose.
Through the courtesy of Mr. Harmsworth she received the proof of The Absent-minded Beggar on Friday evening, and sitting in her dining-room in Sloane Street with her elbows on the table she read and re-read it several times. This, she thought, might bring grist to the war mill. Into a hansom she jumped, and off to the Palace Theatre she drove, boldly asking for the manager. Her name was sufficient, and she was ushered into the august presence.
“This is a remarkable poem,” she said, “by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, so remarkable that I think if recited in your Hall nightly it would bring some money to the fund, and if you will give me ￡100 a week——”
Up went the manager’s hand in horror.
“One hundred pounds a week, Mrs. Tree?”
“Yes, ￡100 a week, I will come and recite it every evening, and hand over the cheque intact to the War Fund.”
It was a large sum, and the gentleman could not see his way to accepting the offer on his own responsibility, but said he would sound his directors in the morning.
Before lunch-time next day Mrs. Tree received a note requesting her to recite the poem nightly as suggested, and promising her ￡100 a week for herself or the fund in return. For ten weeks she stood alone every evening on that vast stage, and for ten minutes she recited “Pay, pay, pay.” There never have been such record houses at the Palace either before or since, and at the end of ten weeks she handed over a cheque for ￡1,000 to the fund. Nor was this all, large sums were paid into the collecting boxes in the Palace Theatre. In addition Mrs. Tree made ￡1,700 at concerts, and ￡700 on one night at a Club. More than that, endless people followed her example, and the War Fund became some ￡20,000 richer for her inspiration in that dining-room in Sloane Street.
This was one of the plums of the theatrical cake; but how different is the performance and the gold and glitter as seen from the front of the curtain, to the real thing behind. How little the audience entering wide halls, proceeding up pile carpeted stairs, sweeping past stately palms, or pushing aside heavy plush curtains, realise the entrance to the playhouse on the other side of the footlights.
At the back of the theatre is the stage door. Generally up an alley, it is mean in appearance, more like an entrance to some cheap lodging-house than to fairyland. Rough men lounge about outside, those scene-shifters, carpenters, and that odd list of humanity who jostle each other “behind the scenes,” work among “flies,” and adjust “wings” in no ornithological sense, but merely as the side-pieces of the stage-setting.
Just inside this door is a little box-like office; nothing grand about it, oh dear no, whitewash is more often found there than mahogany, and stone stairs than Turkey carpets. Inside this little bureau sits that severe guardian of order, the stage door keeper. He is a Pope and a Czar in one. He is always busy, refuses to listen to explanations; even a card is not sent in unless that important gentleman feels assured its owner means business.
At that door, which is dark and dreary, the glamour of the stage begins to wane. It is no portal to a palace. The folk hanging about are not arrayed in velvets and satins; quite the contrary; torn cashmeres and shiny coats are more en évidence.
Strange people are to be found both behind and upon the stage, as in every other walk through life; but there are plenty of good men and women in the profession, men and women whose friendship it is an honour to possess. Men and women whose kindness of heart is unbounded, and whose intellectual attainments soar far above the average.
Every girl who goes upon the stage need not enjoy the privilege of marrying titled imbecility, nor obtain the notoriety of the Divorce Court, neither being creditable nor essential to her calling, although both are chronicled with unfailing regularity by the press.
The Divorce Court is a sad theatre where terrible tragedies of human misery are acted out to the bitter end. Between seven and eight hundred cases are tried in England every year—not many, perhaps, when compared with the population of the country, which is over forty millions. But then of course the Divorce Court is only the foam; the surging billows of discontent and unhappiness lie beneath, and about six thousand judicial separations, all spelling human tragedy, are granted yearly by magistrates, the greater number of such cases being undefended. They record the same sad story of disappointed, aching hearts year in year out.
Divorces are not more common amongst theatrical folk than any other class, so, whatever may be said for or against the morality of the stage, the Divorce Court does not prove theatrical life to be less virtuous than any other.
The fascination of the stage entraps all ages—all classes. Even children sometimes wax warm over theatrical folk. Once I chanced to be talking to a little girl concerning theatres.
“Do you know Mr. A. B. C.?” she asked excitedly, when the conversation turned on actors.
“Yes, he is a great friend of mine.”
“Oh, do tell me all about him,” she exclaimed, seizing my arm.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I adore him, and all the girls at school adore him, he is like a real prince; we save up our pocket-money to buy his photographs, and May Smith has actually got his autograph!”
“But tell me why you all adore him?” I asked.
“Because he is so lovely, so tall and handsome, has such a melodious voice, and oh! doesn’t he look too beautiful in his velvet suit as——? He is young and handsome, isn’t he? Oh, do say he is young and handsome,” implored the enthusiastic child.
“I am afraid I cannot, for it would not be true; Mr. A. B. C. is not tall—in fact, he is quite short.” She looked crestfallen. “He has a sallow complexion.”
“Sallow! Oh, not really sallow! but he is handsome and young, isn’t he?”
“I should think he is about fifty-two.”
“Fifty-two!” she almost shrieked. “My A. B. C. fifty-two. Oh no. You are chaffing me; he must be young and beautiful.”
“And his hair is grey,” I cruelly added.
“Grey?”—she sobbed. “Not grey? Oh, you hurt me.”
“You asked questions and I have answered them truthfully,” I replied. She stood silent for a moment, then in rather a subdued tone murmured:
“He is not married, is he?”
“Oh yes, he has been married for five-and-twenty years.”
The child looked so crestfallen I felt I had been unkind.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” she almost sobbed, “won’t the girls at school be surprised! Are you quite, quite sure he is not young and beautiful? he looks so lovely on the stage.”
“Quite, quite sure. You have only seen him from before the footlights. He is a good fellow, clever and charming, and he works hard, but he is no lover in velvet and jerkin, no hero of romance, and the less you worry your foolish little head about him the better, my dear.”
How many men and women believe like this child that there are only princes and princesses on the stage.
There was an old Scotch body—an educated, puritanical person—who once informed me, “The the-a-ter is very bad, very wicked, ma’am.”
“Why?” I asked, amazed yet interested.
“It’s full of fire and lights like Hell. They just discuss emotions there, ma’am, and it’s morbid to discuss emotions and just silly conceit to think about them. I like deeds, and not talk—I do!”
“You seem to think the theatre a hotbed of iniquity?”
“Aye, indeed I do, ma’am. They even make thunder. Fancy daring to make thunder for amusement as the good God does to show His wrath—thunder with a machine—it’s just dreadful, it is.”
The grosser the exaggeration the more readily it provokes conversation. I was dying to argue, but fearing to hurt her feelings, I merely smiled, wondering what the old lady would say if she knew even prayers were made by a machine in countries where the prayer-wheel is used.
“Have you ever been to a theatre?” I ventured to ask, not wishing to disturb the good dame’s peace of mind.
“The Lord forbid!”
That settled the matter; but I subsequently found that the old body went to bazaars, and did not mind a little flutter over raffles, and on one occasion had even been to hear the inimitable George Grossmith in Inverness, when——
“He was not dressed-up-like, so it wasn’t a regular the-a-ter, and he was just alone, ma’am, wi’ a piano, so there was no harm in that,” added the virtuous dame, complacently folding her hands across her portly form.
Wishing to change the subject, I asked her how her potatoes were doing.
“Bad, bad,” she replied, “they’re awfu’ bad, the Lord’s agin us the year; but we must jist make the best of it, ma’am.”
She was a thoroughly good woman, and this was her philosophy. She would make the best of the lack of potatoes, as that was a punishment from above; but she could not sanction play-acting any more than riding a bicycle on the Sabbath.
Her horror of the wickedness of the stage was as amusing as the absurd adoration of the enthusiastic child.
Every good-looking man or woman who “play acts” is the recipient of foolish love-letters. Pretty girls receive them from sentimental youth or sensual old age, and handsome men are pestered with them from old maids, or unhappily married women. Some curious epistles are sent across the footlights, even the most self-respecting woman cannot escape their advent, although she can, and, does, ignore them.
Here is a sample of one:
“For five nights I have been to the theatre to see you play in——. I was so struck by your performance last week that I have been back every night since. Vainly I hoped you would notice me, for I always occupy the same seat, and last night I really thought you did smile at me” (she had done nothing of the kind, and had never even seen the man), “so I went home happy—oh so happy. I have sent you some roses the last two nights, and felt sorry you did not wear them. Is there any flower you like better? I hardly dare presume to ask you for a meeting, but if you only knew how much I admire you, perhaps you would grant me this great favour and make me the happiest man on earth. I cannot sleep for thinking of you. You are to me the embodiment of every womanly grace, and if you would take supper with me one night after the performance you would indeed confer a boon on a lonely man.”
No answer does not mean the end of the matter. Some men—and, alas! some women—write again and again, send flowers and presents, and literally pester the object of their so-called adoration.
For weeks and weeks a man sent a girl violets; one night a diamond ring was tied up in the bunch—those glittering stones began her ruin—she wrote to acknowledge them, a correspondence ensued.
That man proved her curse. She, the once beautiful and virtuous girl, who was earning a good income before she met her evil genius, died lately in poverty and obscurity. The world had scoffed at her and turned aside, while it still smiled upon the man, although he was the villain; but can he get away from his own conscience?
Every vice carries with it a sting, every virtue a balm.
There are many perils on the stage, to which of course only the weak succumb; but the temptations are necessarily greater than in other professions. Its very publicity spells mischief. There is the horrid man in all audiences who tries to make love and ogle pretty women across the footlights, the class of creature who totally forgets that the best crown a man or woman can wear is a good reputation.
Temptations lie open on all sides for the actor and actress, and those who pass through the ordeal safely are doubly to be congratulated, for the man who meets temptation and holds aloof is surely a finer character than he who is merely “good” because he has never had a chance of being anything else.
Journalism, domestic service, and the stage probably require less knowledge and training for a beginning than any other occupations.
It costs money and time to learn to be a dressmaker, a doctor, an architect, even a shorthand writer; but given a certain amount of cleverness, experience is not necessary to do “scissor-and-paste” work in journalism, rough housework, or to “walk on” on the stage; but oh! what an amount of work and experience is necessary to ensure a satisfactory ending, more particularly upon the boards, where all is not gold that glitters. At best the crown is only brass, the shining silver merely tin, and in nine theatres out of every ten the regal ermine but a paltry rabbit-skin.
Glitter dazzles the eye. Nevertheless behind it beat good hearts and true; while hard work, patient endurance, and courage mark the path of the successful player.
Work does not degrade a man; but a man often degrades his work.
If, as the old body said, it be morbid to discuss emotions, and egotistical to feel them, it is still the actor’s art, and that is probably why he is such a sensitive creature, why he is generally in the highest spirits or deepest depths of woe, why he is full of moods and as varying as a weathercock. Still he is charming, and so is his companion in stageland—the actress. Both entertain us, and amusement is absolutely essential to a healthy existence.
When one considers the wonderful success of women upon the stage to-day, and their splendid position socially, it seems almost impossible to believe that they never acted in England until the reign of Charles I., when a French Company which numbered women among its players crossed the Channel, and craved a hearing from Queen Henrietta Maria. One critic of the time called them “unwomanish and graceless”; another said, “Glad am I they were hissed and hooted”; but still they had come to stay, and slowly, very slowly, women were allowed to take part in theatrical performances. We all know the high position they hold to-day.
In 1660 there were only two theatres in London, the King’s and the Duke of York’s, the dearest seats were the boxes at four shillings, the cheapest the gallery at one shilling. Ladies wore masks at the play, probably because of the coarse nature of the performances, which gradually improved with the advent of actresses.
In days gone by the playhouse was not the orderly place it is nowadays, and the unfortunate “mummers” had to put up with every kind of nuisance until Colley Cibber protested, and Queen Anne issued a Proclamation (1704) against disturbances. In those days folk arrived in sedan chairs, and their noisy footmen were allowed free admission to the upper gallery to wait for their lords and ladies, added to which the orange girls called their wares and did a brisk trade in carrying love-missives from one part of the house to the other. Before the players could be heard they had to fight their way on to the boards, where gilded youth lolled in the wings and even crossed the stage during the rendering of a scene.
It was about this time that Queen Anne made a stand against the shocking immorality of the stage, and ordered the Master of the Revels (much the same post as the Lord Chamberlain now holds) to correct these abuses. All actors, mountebanks, etc., had to submit their plays or entertainments to the Master of the Revels in Somerset House from that day, and nothing could be performed without his permission.
The stage has a curious effect on people. Many a person has gone to see a play, and some line has altered the whole course of his life. Some idea has been put forth, some tender note played upon which has opened his eyes to his own selfishness, his own greed of wealth, his harshness to a child, or indifference to a wife. There is no doubt about it, the stage is a great power, and that is why it is so important the influence should be used for good, and that illicit love and demoralising thoughts should be kept out of the theatre with its mixed audiences and susceptible youth. According to a recent report:
“The Berne authorities, holding that the theatre is a powerful instrument for the education of the masses, have decided that on two days of the week the seats in the theatre, without exception, shall be sold at a uniform price of fivepence. ‘Under the direction of the manager,’ writes a correspondent, ‘the tickets are enclosed in envelopes, and in this form are sold to the public. The scheme has proved a great success, especially among the working classes, whom it was meant to benefit. To prevent ticket speculators making a “corner,” the principle of one ticket for one person has been adopted, and the playgoer only knows the location of his seat after he enters the theatre. No intoxicants are sold and no passes are given. The expenses exceed the receipts, but a reserve fund and voluntary contributions are more than sufficient to meet the deficit.’”
Constantly seeing vice portrayed tends to make one cease to think it horrible. Love of gain should not induce a manager to put on a piece that is public poison. Some queer plays teach splendid moral lessons—well and good; but some strange dramas drag their audience through mire for no wise end whatever. The manager who puts such upon his stage is a destroyer of public morality.
Photo by Window & Grove, Baker Street, W.
MRS. KENDAL AS MISTRESS FORD IN “MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.”
Three Great Aristocracies—Born on the Stage—Inherited Talent—Interview with Mrs. Kendal—Her Opinions and Warning to Youthful Aspirants—Usual Salary—Starving in the Attempt to Live—No Dress Rehearsal—Overdressing—A Peep at Harley Street—Voice and Expression—American Friends—Mrs. Kendal’s Marriage—Forbes Robertson’s Romance—Why he deserted Art for the Stage—Fine Elocutionist—Bad Enunciation and Noisy Music—Ellen Terry—Gillette—Expressionless Faces—Long Runs—Charles Warner—Abuse of Success.
LONDON is a great world: it contains three aristocracies:
The aristocracy of blood, which is limited;
The aristocracy of brain, which is scattered;
And the aristocracy of wealth, which threatens to flood the other two.
The most powerful book in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century is the cheque-book. Foreigners are adored, vulgarity is sanctioned; indeed, all are welcomed so long as gold hangs round their skirts and diamonds and pearls adorn their bodies. Wealth, wealth, wealth, that is the modern cry, and there seems nothing it cannot buy, even a transient position upon the stage.
Many of our well-known actors and actresses have, however, been “born on the stage”—that is to say, they were the children of theatrical folk, and have themselves taken part in the drama almost from babyhood.
The most successful members of the profession are those possessed of inherited talent, or that have gone on the stage from necessity rather than choice, men and women who since early life have had to fight for themselves and overcome difficulties. It is pleasant to give a prominent example of the triumph which may result from the blending of both influences in the person of one of our greatest actresses, Mrs. Kendal, who has led a marvellously interesting life.
She was born early in the fifties, and her grandfather, father, uncles, and brother (T. W. Robertson) were all intimately connected with the stage as actors and playwrights. When quite a child she began her theatrical career, and made her London début in 1865, when she appeared as Ophelia under her maiden name of Madge Robertson, Walter Montgomery playing the part of Hamlet. Little Madge was only three years old when she first trod the boards, whereon she was to portray a blind child, but when she espied her nurse in the distance, she rushed to the wings, exclaiming, “Oh, Nannie, look at my beautiful new shoes!”
Her bringing up was strict; she had no playfellows and never went to school, a governess and her father were her teachers. Every morning that father took her for a walk, explaining all sorts of things as they went along, or teaching her baby lips to repeat Shelley’s “Ode to a Foxglove.” On their return home, he would read Shakespeare with her, so that the works of the bard were known to her almost before she learnt nursery rhymes.
“I was grown up at ten,” exclaimed Mrs. Kendal, “and first began to grow young at forty.”
When about fourteen, she was living with her parents in South Crescent, off Tottenham Court Road. One Sunday—a dreary heavy, dull, rainy London day—her father and mother had been talking together for hours, and she wearily went to the window to look out, the mere fact of watching a passer-by seeming at the moment to afford relaxation. Tears rolled down the girl’s cheeks—she was longing for companions of her own age, she was leaving the dolls of childhood behind and learning to be a woman. Her father noticed that she was crying, and exclaimed in surprise, “Why, Daisy, what’s the matter?”
“I feel dull,” she said.
“Dull, dear?—dull, with your mother and me?”
A pathetic little story, truly: the parents were so wrapped up in themselves, they never realised that sometimes the rising generation might feel lonely.
“My father and mother were then old,” said Mrs. Kendal, “I was their youngest child. All the others were out in the world, trying to find a place.”
Early struggles, hopes and fears, poverty and luxury, followed in quick succession in this remarkable woman’s life, but any one who knows her must realise it was her indomitable will and pluck, coupled, of course, with good health and exceptional talent, which brought her the high position she holds to-day.
If Mrs. Kendal makes up her mind to do a thing, by hook or by crook that object is accomplished. She has great powers of organisation, and a capacity for choosing the right people to help her. “Never say die” is apparently her watchword.
She, like Miss Geneviève Ward, was originally intended for a singer, and songs were introduced into her parts in such plays as The Palace of Truth. Unfortunately she contracted diphtheria, which in those days was not controlled and arrested by antitoxin as it is now, and an operation had to be performed. All this tended to weaken her voice, which gradually left her. Consequently she gave up singing, or rather, singing gave her up, and she became a “play-actress.” She so thoroughly realises the disappointments and struggles of her profession that one of Mrs. Kendal’s pet hobbies is to try and counteract the evil arising from the wish of inexperienced girls to “go upon the stage.”
“If only the stage-struck young woman could realise all that an actress’ life means!” she said to me on one occasion. “To begin with, she is lucky if she gets a chance of ‘walking on’ at a pound a week. She has to attend rehearsals as numerous and as lengthy as the leading lady, who may be drawing ￡40 or ￡50 for the same period; though, mark you, there are very few leading ladies, while there are thousands and thousands of walkers-on who will never be anything else. This ill-paid girl has not the interest of a big part, which stimulates the ‘star’ to work; she has only the dreariness of it all. Unless she be in a ballet, chorus, or pantomime, the girl has to find herself in shoes, stockings, and petticoats for the stage—no light matter to accomplish out of twenty shillings a week. Of course, in a character-part the entire costume is found, but in an ordinary case the girl has to board, lodge, dress herself, pay for her washing, and get backwards and forwards to the theatre in all weathers and at all hours on one pound a week, besides supplying those stage necessaries. Thousands of women are starving in the attempt.
“A girl has to dress at the theatre in the same room with others, she is thrown intimately amongst all sorts of women, and the result is not always desirable. For instance, some years ago, a girl was playing with us, and, mentioning another member of the company, she remarked, ‘She has real lace on her under-linen.’
“I said nothing, but sent for that lace-bedecked personage and had a little private talk with her, telling her that things must be different or she must go. I tried to show her the advantages of the straight path, but she preferred the other, and has since been lost in the sea of ultimate despair.”
So spoke Mrs. Kendal, the famous actress, in 1903, standing at the top of her profession; later we will see what a girl struggling at the bottom has to say on the same subject.
“Remember,” continued Mrs. Kendal, “patience, courage, and talent may bring one to the winning-post, but few ever reach that line; by far the greater number fall out soon after the start—they find the pay inadequate, the hours too long; the back of a stage proves to be no enchanted land, only a dark, dreary, dusty, bustling place; and, disheartened, they wisely turn aside. Many of them drift aimlessly into stupid marriages for bread and butter’s sake, where discontent turns the bread sour and the butter rancid.
“The theatrical profession is not to blame—it is this terrible overcrowding. There are numbers of excellent men and women upon the stage who know that there is nothing so gross but what a good man or woman can elevate, nothing so lofty that vice cannot cause to totter.
“I entirely disapprove of a dress rehearsal,” continued Mrs. Kendal. “It exhausts the actors and takes off the excitement and bloom. One must have one’s real public, and play for them and to them, and not to empty benches. We rehearse in sections. Every one in turn in our company acts in costume, so that we know each individual get-up and make-up is right; but we never dress all the characters of the play at the same time until the night of production.”
Mrs. Kendal is very severe on the subject of overdressing a part.
“Feathers and diamonds,” she said “are not worn upon the river. Why, then, smother a woman with them when she is playing a boating scene? The dress should be entirely subservient to the character. If one is supposed to be old and dowdy, one should look old and dowdy. I believe in clothing the character in character, and not striving after effect. Overdressing is as bad as over-elaboration of stage-setting: it dwarfs the acting and handicaps the performers.”
Mrs. Kendal is an abused, adored, and wonderful woman. Like all busy people, she finds time for everything, and has everything in its place. Her house is neatness exemplified, her table well arranged, the dishes dainty, and the attendance of spruce parlourmaids equally good. She believes in women and their work and employs them whenever possible.
There is an old-fashioned idea that women who earn their living are untidy in their dress and slovenly in their household arrangements, to say nothing of being unhappy in their home life. Those of us who know women workers can refute the charge: the busier they are, the more method they bring to bear; the more highly educated they are, the more capable in the management of their affairs. Mrs. Kendal is no exception to this rule, and in spite of her many labours, she lately encroached upon her time by undertaking another self-imposed task, namely, some charity work, which entailed endless correspondence, to say nothing of keeping books, and lists, and sorting cheques; but she managed all most successfully, and kept what she did out of the papers.
“Dissuade every one you know,” Mrs. Kendal entreated me one day, “from going on the stage. There are so few successes and so many failures! So many lives are shattered and hearts broken by that everlasting waiting for an opportunity which only comes to a few. In no profession is harder work necessary, the pay in the early stages more insignificant or less secure. To be a good actress it is essential to have many qualifications: first of all, health and herculean strength; the sweetest temper and most patient temperament, although my remark once made about having ‘the skin of a rhinoceros’ was delivered in pure sarcasm, which, however, was unfortunately taken seriously.
“I really feel very strongly about this rush to go on the stage. In the disorganisation of this democratic period we have all struggled to ascend one step, and many of us have tumbled down several in the attempt. Domestic servants all want to be shop-girls, and shop-girls want to be actresses—stars, mind you! Everything is upside-down, for are not the aristocracy themselves selling wine, coals, tea-cakes, and millinery?”
“Why have you succeeded?” I asked.
“Because I was born to it, cradled in the profession, my family have been upon the stage for some hundred years. To make a first-class actress, talent, luck, temperament, and opportunity must combine; but, mark you, the position of the stage does not depend upon her. It is those on the second and third rungs of the ladder who do the hardest of the work, and most firmly uphold the dignity of the stage, just as it is the middle classes which rivet and hold together this vast Empire.”
Although married to an actor-manager, Mrs. Kendal has nothing whatever to do with the arrangements of the theatre. She does not interfere with anything.
“I never signed an agreement in all my life, either for myself or for anyone else. I never engage or dismiss a soul. Once everything is signed, sealed, and delivered, and all is ready, then, but not till then, my work begins, and I become stage-manager. On the stage I supervise everything, and attend to all the smallest details myself. To be stage-manager is not an enviable position, for one is held responsible for every fault.”
The Kendals lived for years in Harley Street, which is chiefly noted for its length, and being the home of doctors. Their house was at the end farthest from Cavendish Square, at the top on the left. I know the street well, for I was born in the house where Baroness Burdett-Coutts spent her girlhood, and have described in my father’s memoirs how, when he settled in Harley Street in 1860 as a young man, there was scarcely a doctor’s plate in that thoroughfare, or, indeed, in the whole neighbourhood. Sir William Jenner, Sir John Williams, Sir Alfred Garrod, Sir Richard Quain, and Sir Andrew Clark became his neighbours; and later Sir Francis Jeune, Lord Russell of Killowen, the present Speaker of the House of Commons (Mr. Gully), Sir William McCormac, Sir William Church, and Mr. Gladstone settled quite near. Mr. Sothern (the original impersonator of Lord Dundreary and David Garrick) lived for some time in the street; but, so far as I know, he and the Kendals were the only representatives of the stage. A few years ago, not being able to add to the house they then occupied as they wished, the Kendals migrated to Portland Place, which is now their London residence, while Filey claims them for sea air and rest.
The Kendals spent five years in the United States. It was during those long and tedious journeys in Pullman-cars that Mrs. Kendal organised her “Unselfish Club.” It was an excellent idea for keeping every one in a good temper. At one end of the car the women used to meet to mend, make, and darn every afternoon, while one male member of the company was admitted to read aloud, each taking this duty in turn. Many pleasant and useful hours were spent in speeding over the dreary prairie in this manner. Only those who have traversed thousands of miles of desert can have any idea of the weariness of those days passed on the cars. The railway system is excellent, everything possible is done for one’s comfort, but the monotony is appalling.
Two things are particularly interesting about this great actress—her keen sense of humour and her love of soap. She is always merry and cheerful, has endless jokes to tell, has a quick appreciation of the ridiculous, and can be just as amusing off the stage as on it.
Her love of soap-and-water is apparent in all her surroundings; she is always most carefully groomed; there is nothing whatever artificial about her—anything of that sort which is necessary upon the boards is left behind at the theatre. That is one of her greatest charms. She uses no “make-up,” and, consequently, she looks much younger off the stage than she does upon it.
Her expressions and her voice are probably Mrs. Kendal’s greatest attractions. Speaking of the first, she laughingly remarked, “My face was made that way, I suppose; and as for my acting voice, I have taken a little trouble to train it. We all start in a high key, but as we get older our voices often grow two or three notes lower, and generally more melodious, so that, while we have to keep them down in our youth, we must learn to get them up in our old age, for the head voice of comedy becomes a throat voice if not properly produced, and tends to grow hard and rasping.”
We had been discussing plays, good, bad, and indifferent.
“I have the greatest objection to the illicit love of the modern drama,” she remarked. “It is quite unnecessary. Every family has its tragedy, and many of these tragedies are far more thrilling, far more heart-breaking, than the unfortunate love-scenes put upon the stage.”
The charming impersonator of the “Elder Miss Blossom,” one of the most delightful touches of comedy-acting on record, almost invariably dresses in black. A strong, healthy-looking woman, untouched by art, and gently dealt with by years, Mrs. Kendal wears her glorious auburn hair neatly parted in front and braided at the back. Fashion in this line does not disturb her; she has always worn it in the same way, and even upon the stage has rarely donned a wig. She tells a funny little story of how a dear friend teased and almost bullied her to be more fashionable about her head. Every one was wearing fringes at the time, and the lady begged her not to be so “odd,” but to adopt the new and becoming mode. Just to try the effect, Mrs. Kendal went off to a grand shop, told the man to dress her hair in the very latest style, paid a guinea for the performance, and went home. Her family and servants were amazed; but when she arrived at her friend’s house that evening her hostess failed to recognise her. So the fashionable hairdressing was never repeated.
“I worked the hardest,” said Mrs. Kendal, in reply to a question, “in America. For months we gave nine performances a week. The booking was so heavy in the different towns, and our time so limited, that we actually had to put in a third matinée, and as occasionally rehearsals were necessary, and long railway journeys always essential, it was really great labour.
Photo by Alfred Ellis, Upper Baker Street, W.
MR. W. H. KENDAL.
“As a rule I was dressed by ten, and managed to get in an hour’s walk before the matinée. Back to the hotel after the performance for a six o’clock meal, generally composed of a cutlet and coffee, quickly followed by a return to the theatre and another performance. To change one’s dress fourteen times a day, as I did when playing The Ironmaster, becomes a little wearisome when it continues for months.”
“Did you not find that people in America were extraordinarily hospitable?” I inquired, remembering the great kindness I received in Canada and the States.
“Undoubtedly; but we had little time for anything of that sort, which has always been a great regret to me. It is hard lines to be in a place one wants to see, among people one wants to know, and never to have time for play, only everlasting work. We did make many friends on Sundays, however, and I have the happiest recollections of America.”
Pictures are a favourite hobby of the Kendals, and they have many beautiful canvases in their London home. Every corner is filled by something in the way of a picture, every one of which they love for itself, and for the memories of the way they came by it, more often than not as the result of some successful “run.” They have built their home about them bit by bit. Hard work and good management have slowly and gradually attained their ends, and they laugh over the savings necessary to buy such and such a treasure, and love it all the more for the little sacrifices made for its attainment. How much more we all appreciate some end or some thing we have had difficulty in acquiring. That which falls at our feet seems of little value compared with those objects and aims secured by self-denial.
“There is no doubt about it,” Mrs Kendal finished by saying, “theatrical life is hard; hard in the beginning, and hard in the end.”
Such words from a woman in Mrs. Kendal’s position are of vast import. She knows what she is talking about; she realises the work, the drudgery, the small pay, and weary hours, and when she says, “Dissuade girls from rushing upon the stage,” those would-be aspirants for dramatic fame should listen to the advice of so experienced an actress and capable woman.
As said at the beginning of this chapter, Mrs. Kendal was cradled in the theatre: she was also married on the stage.
Madge Robertson and William Kendal Grimston were playing in Manchester when one fine day they were married by special licence. A friend of Mr. Kendal’s had the Town Hall bells rung in honour of the event, and the young couple were ready to start off for their honeymoon, when Henry Compton, the great actor, who was “billed” for the following nights, was telegraphed for to his brother’s deathbed.
At once the arrangements had to be altered. As You Like It was ordered, and Mr. and Mrs. Kendal were caught just as they were leaving the town, and bidden to play Orlando and Rosalind to the Touchstone of Buckstone. The honeymoon had to be postponed.
The young couple found the house unusually full on their wedding night, although they believed no one knew of their marriage until they came to the words, “Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?” when the burst of applause and prolonged cheering assured them of the good wishes of their public friends.
Another little romance of the stage happened to the Forbes Robertsons. Just before I sailed for Canada, in August, 1900, Mr. Johnston Forbes Robertson came to dinner. He had been away in Italy for some months recruiting after a severe illness, and was just starting forth on an autumn tour of his own.
“Have you a good leading lady?” I inquired.
“I think so,” he replied. “I met her for the first time this morning, and had never seen her before.”
“How indiscreet,” I exclaimed. “How do you know she can act?”
“While I was abroad I wrote to two separate friends in whose judgment I have much confidence, asking them to recommend me a leading lady. Both replied suggesting Miss Gertrude Elliott as suitable in every way. Their opinions being identical, and so strongly expressed, I considered she must be the lady for me, and telegraphed, offering her an engagement accordingly. She accepted by wire, and at our first rehearsal this morning promised very well.”
I left England almost immediately afterwards, and eight or ten weeks later, while in Chicago, saw a big newspaper headline announcing the engagement of a pretty American actress to a well-known English actor. Naturally I bought the paper at once to see who the actor might be, and lo! it was Mr. Forbes Robertson. It seemed almost impossible: but impossible things have a curious knack of being true, and the signed photograph I had with me of Forbes Robertson, among those of other distinguished English friends, proved useful to the American press, who were glad of a copy for immediate reproduction. Almost as quickly as this handsome couple were engaged, they were married. Was not that a romance?
Mr. Forbes Robertson originally intended to be an artist, and his going on the stage came about by chance. He was a student at the Royal Academy, when his friend the late W. G. Wills was in need of an actor to play the part of Chastelard in his Mary Stuart, then being given at the Princess’s Theatre. It was difficult to procure exactly the type of face he wanted, for well-chiselled features are not so common as one might suppose. Young Forbes Robertson possessed those features, his clear-cut profile being exactly suitable for Chastelard. Consequently, after much talk with the would-be artist, who was loth to give up his cherished profession, W. G. Wills introduced his friend to the beautiful Mrs. Rousby, with the result that young Forbes Robertson undertook the part at four days’ notice.
Thus it was his face that decided his fate. From that moment the stage had been his profession and art his hobby; but a newer craze is rapidly driving paints and brushes out of the field, for, like many another, the actor has fallen a victim to golf.
There is no finer elocutionist on the stage than Forbes Robertson, and therefore it is interesting to know that he expresses it as his opinion that:
“Elocution can be taught.”
From a painting by Hugh de T. Glazebrook.
MR. J. FORBES-ROBERTSON.
Phelps was his master, and he attributes much of his success to that master’s careful training. What a pity Phelps cannot live among us again, to teach some of the younger generation to speak more clearly than they do.
Bad enunciation and noisy music often combine to make the words from the stage inaudible to the audience. Why an old farmer should arrive down a country lane to a blare of trumpets is unintelligible: why a man should plot murder to a valse, or a woman die to slow music, is a conundrum, but such is the fashion on the stage. One sometimes sits through a performance without hearing any of what ought to be the most thrilling lines.
Johnston Forbes Robertson has lived from the age of twenty-one in Bloomsbury. His father was a well-known art critic until blindness overtook him, and then the responsibility of the home fell on the eldest son’s shoulders. His father was born and bred in Aberdeen, and came as a young man to London, where he soon got work as a journalist, and wrote much on art for the Sunday Times, the Art Journal, etc. His most important work was The Great Painters of Christendom.
The West Central district of London, with its splendid houses, its Adams ceilings and overmantels, went quite out of fashion for more than a quarter of a century. With the dawn, however, of 1900, people began to realise that South Kensington stood on clay, was low and damp, and consequently they gradually migrated back to the Regent’s Park and those fine old squares in Bloomsbury. One after another the houses were taken, and among Mr. Forbes Robertson’s neighbours are George Grossmith and his brother Weedon, Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Hicks, Lady Monckton, “Anthony Hope,” and many well-known judges, aldermen, solicitors, and architects.
In the old home in Bloomsbury the artistic family of Forbes Robertson was reared. Johnston, as we know, suddenly neglected his easel for the stage; his sister Frances took up literature as a profession; and his brothers, known as Ian Robertson and Norman Forbes, both adopted the theatrical profession. So the Robertsons may be classed among the theatrical families.
Who in the latter end of the nineteenth century did not weep with Miss Terry?—who did not laugh with her well-nigh to tears? A great personality, a wondrous charm of voice and manner, a magnetic influence on all her surroundings—all these are possessed by Ellen Terry.
In the days of their youth Mrs. Kendal and Miss Ellen Terry played together, but many years elapsed between then and the Coronation year of Edward VII., when they met again behind the footlights, in a remarkable performance which shall be duly chronicled in these pages.
Like Mrs. Kendal, Miss Ellen Terry began her theatrical life as a child. She was born in Coventry in 1848—not far from Shakespeare’s home, which later in life became such an attractive spot for her. Her parents had theatrical engagements at Coventry at the time of her birth, so that verily she was cradled on the stage. She was one of four remarkable sisters, Kate, Ellen, Marion, and Florence, all clever actresses and sisters of Fred Terry; while another brother, although not himself an actor, was connected with the stage, Miss Minnie Terry being his daughter. Altogether ten or twelve members of the Terry family have been in the profession.
Ellen Terry, like Irving, Wyndham, Hare, Mrs. Kendal, and Lady Bancroft, learnt her art in stock companies.
Miss Ellen Terry has always had the greatest difficulty in learning her parts, and as years have gone on, even in remembering her lines in oft-acted plays; but every one knows how apt she is to be forgetful, and prompt her over her difficulties. Irving, on the other hand, is letter-perfect at the first rehearsal, and rarely wants help of any kind.
Ellen Terry is so clever that even when she has forgotten her words she knows how to “cover” herself by walking about the stage or some other pretty by-play until a friend comes to her aid. Theatrical people are extremely good to one another on these occasions. Somebody is always ready to come to the rescue. After the first week everything goes smoothly as a rule, until the strain of a long run begins to tell, and they all in turn forget their words, much to the discomfiture of the prompter.
Forgetting the words is a common thing during a long run. I remember Miss Geneviève Ward telling me that after playing Forget-Me-Not some five hundred times she became perfectly dazed, and that Jefferson had experienced the same with Rip van Winkle, which he has to continually re-study. Miss Gertrude Elliott suffered considerably in the same way during the long run of Mice and Men.
Much has been said for and against a long run; but surely the “against” ought to have it. No one can be fresh and natural in a part played night after night—played until the words become hazy, and that dreadful condition “forgetting the lines” arrives.
At a charming luncheon given by Mr. Pinero for the American Gillette, when the latter was creating such a furore in England with Sherlock Holmes, I ventured to ask that actor how long he had played the part of the famous detective.
“For three years,” he replied.
“Then I wonder you are not insane.”
“So do I, ma’am, I often wonder myself, for the strain is terrible, and sometimes I feel as if I could never walk on to the stage at all; but when the theatre is full, go I must, and go I do; though I literally shun the name of Sherlock Holmes.”
We quickly turned to other subjects, and discussed the charm of American women, a theme on which it is easy for an English woman to wax eloquent.
If a man like Gillette, with all his success, all his monetary gain, and no anxiety—for he did not finance his own theatres—could feel like that about a long run, what horrors it must present to others less happily situated.
Long runs, which are now so much desired by managers in England and America, are unknown on the Continent. In other countries, where theatres are more or less under State control, they never occur. Of course the “long run” is the outcome of the vast sums expended on the production. Managers cannot recoup themselves for the outlay unless the play draws for a considerable while. But is this the real end and aim of acting? Does it give opportunity for any individual actor to excel?
But to return to Ellen Terry. She has played many parts and won the love of a large public by her wonderful personality, for there is something in her that charms. She is not really beautiful, yet she can look lovely. She has not a strong voice, yet she can sway audiences at will to laughter or tears. She has not a fine figure, yet she can look a royal queen or simple maiden. Once asked whether she preferred comedy or tragedy, she replied:
“I prefer comedy, but I should be very sorry if there were no sad plays. I think the feminine predilection for a really good cry is one that should not be discouraged, inasmuch as there are few things that yield us a truer or a deeper pleasure; but I like comedy as the foundation, coping-stone, and pillar of a theatre. Not comedies for the mere verbal display of wit, but comedies of humour with both music and dancing.”
Miss Ellen Terry has a cheery disposition, invariably looks on the bright side of things, and not only knows how to work, but has actually done so almost continuously from the age of eight.
One of Miss Terry’s greatest charms is her mastery over expression. It is really strange how little facial and physical expression are understood in England. We are the most undemonstrative people. It is much easier for a Frenchman to act than for an Englishman; the former is always acting; the little shrug of the shoulders, the movement of the hand and the head, or a wink of the eye, accompany every sentence that falls from his lips. He is full of movement, he speaks as much with his body as with his mouth, and therefore it is far less difficult for him to give expression to his thoughts upon the stage than it is for the stolid Britisher, whose public school training has taught him to avoid showing feeling, and squeezed him into the same mould of unemotional conventionality as all his other hundreds of schoolfellows. There is no doubt about it that everything on the stage must be exaggerated to be effective. It is a world of unreality, and the more pronounced the facial and physical expression brought to bear, the more effective the representation of the character.
To realise the truth of these remarks, one should visit a small theatre in France, a theatre in some little provincial town, where a quite unimportant company is playing. They all seem to act, to be thoroughly enamoured of their parts, and to play them with their whole heart and soul. It is quite wonderful, indeed, to see the extraordinary capacity of the average French actor and actress for expressing emotion upon the stage. Of course it is their characteristic; but on the other hand, the German nation is quite as stolid as our own, and yet the stage is held by them in high esteem, and the amount of drilling gone through is so wonderful that one is struck by the perfect playing of an ordinary provincial German. At home these Teutonic folk are hard and unemotional, but on the boards they expand. One has only to look at the German company that comes over to London every year to understand this remark. They play in a foreign tongue, the dresses are ordinary, one might say poor, the scenery is meagre, there is nothing, in fact, to help the acting in any way; and yet no one who goes to see one of their performances can fail to be impressed by the wonderful thoroughness and the general playing-in-unison of the entire company. Of course they do not aim so high as the Meiningen troupe, for they were a State company and the personal hobby of the Duke whose name they bore. We have no such band of players in England, although F. R. Benson has done much without State aid to accomplish the same result, and in many cases has succeeded admirably.
We have heard a great deal lately about the prospect of a State-Aided Theatre and Opera in London; and there is much to be said for and against the scheme. Municipal administration is often extravagant and not unknown to jobbery, neither of which would be advisable; but the present system leads to actor-managers and powerful syndicates, which likewise have their drawbacks. There is undoubtedly much to be said both for and against each system, and the British public has to decide. Meantime we learn that the six Imperial theatres in Russia (three in St. Petersburg and three in Moscow), with their schools attached, cost the Emperor some ￡400,000 a year. “It is possible to visit the opera for 5d., to see Russian pieces for 3d., French and German for 9d.” These cheap seats are supposed to be a source of education to the populace, but there are expensive ones as well.
Some Englishmen understand the art of facial expression. A little piece was played for a short time by Mr. Charles Warner, under the management of Mrs. Beerbohm Tree. The chief scene took place in front of a telephone, through which instrument the actor heard his wife and child being murdered many miles away in the country, he being in Paris. It was a ghastly idea, but Charles Warner’s face was a study from the first moment to the last. He grew positively pale, he had very little to say, and yet he carried off an entire scene of unspeakable horror merely by his facial and physical expression.
Some of our actors are amusingly fond of posing off the stage as well as on. One well-known man was met by a friend who went forward to shake his hand.
“Ah, how do you do?” gushed the Thespian, striking an attitude, “how do you do, old chap? Delighted to see you,” then assuming a dramatic air, “but who the —— are you?”
And this was his usual form of greeting after an effusive handshake.
In a busy life it is of course impossible to remember every face, and the nonentities should surely forgive the celebrities, for it is so easy to recognise a well-known person owing to the constant recurrence of his name or portrait in the press, and so easy to forget a nonentity whom nothing recalls, and whose face resembles dozens more of the same type.
One often hears actors and actresses abused—that is the penalty of success. Mediocrity is left alone, but, once successful, out come the knives to flay the genius to pieces; in fact, the more abused a man is, the more sure he may feel of his achievements. Abuse follows success in proportion to merit, just as foolish hopes make the disappointments of life.
Miss Winifred Emery—Amusing Criticism—An Actress’s Home Life—Cyril Maude’s first Theatrical Venture—First Performance—A Luncheon Party—A Bride as Leading Lady—No Games, no Holidays—A Party at the Haymarket—Miss Ellaline Terriss and her First Appearance—Seymour Hicks—Ben Webster and Montagu Williams—The Sothern Family—Edward Sothern as a Fisherman—A Terrible Moment—Almost a Panic—Asleep as Dundreary—Frohman at Daly’s Theatre—English and American Alliance—Mummers.
ANOTHER striking instance of hereditary theatrical talent is Miss Winifred Emery, than whom there is no more popular actress in London. This pretty, agreeable little lady—who, like Mrs. Kendal and Miss Terry, may be said to have been born in the theatre—is the only daughter of Samuel Sanderson Emery, a well-known actor, and grand-daughter of John Emery, who was well known upon the stage. Her first appearance was at Liverpool, at the advanced age of eight.
The oldest theatrical names upon the stage to-day are William Farren and Winifred Emery. Miss Emery’s great-grandfather was also an actor, so she is really the fourth generation to adopt that profession, but her grandmother and herself are the only two women of the name of Emery who have appeared on playbills.
As is well known, Miss Emery is the wife of Mr. Cyril Maude, lessee with Mr. Frederick Harrison—not the world-renowned Positivist writer—of the Haymarket Theatre.
Although Mrs. Maude finds her profession engrossing, she calls it a very hard one, and the necessity of being always up to the mark at a certain hour every day is, she owns, a great strain even when she is well, and quite impossible when she is ill.
Some years ago, when she was even younger than she is now, and not overburdened with this world’s gold, she was acting at the Vaudeville. It was her custom to go home every evening in an omnibus. One particularly cold night she jumped into the two-horse vehicle and huddled herself up in the farthest corner, thinking it would be warmer there than nearer the door in such bitter weather. She pulled her fur about her neck, and sat motionless and quiet. Presently two women at the other end arrested her attention; one was nudging the other, and saying:
“It is ’er, I tell yer; I know it’s ’er.”
“Nonsense, it ain’t ’er at all; she couldn’t have got out of the theayter so quick.”
“It is ’er, I tell yer; just look at ’er again.”
The other looked.
“No it ain’t; she was all laughing and fun, and that ’ere one looks quite sulky.”
The “sulky one,” though thoroughly tired and weary, smiled to herself.
I asked Miss Emery one day if she had ever been placed in any awkward predicament on the stage.
“I always remember one occasion,” she replied, “tragedy at the time, but a comedy now, perhaps. I was acting with Henry Irving in the States when I was about eighteen or nineteen, and felt very proud of the honour. We reached Chicago. Louis XI. was the play. In one act—I think it was the second—I went on as usual and did my part. Having finished, as I thought, I went to my room and began to wash my hands. It was a cold night, and my lovely white hands robbed of their paint were blue. The mixture was well off when the call boy shouted my name. Thinking he was having a joke I said:
“‘All right, I’m here.’
“‘But Mr. Irving is waiting for you.’
“‘Waiting for me? Why, the act isn’t half over.’
“‘Come, Miss Emery, come quick,’ gasped the boy, pushing open the door. ‘Mr. Irving’s on the stage and waiting for you.’
“Horrors! In a flash I remembered I had two small scenes as Marie in that act, and usually waited in the wing. Had I, could I have forgotten the second one?
Photo by Window & Grove, Baker Street, W.
MISS WINIFRED EMERY AND MR. CYRIL MAUDE IN “THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL.”
“With wet red hands, dry white arms, my dress not properly fastened at the back, towel in hand, along the passage I flew. On the stage was poor Mr. Irving walking about, talking—I know not what. On I rushed, said my lines, gave him my lobster-coloured wet hand to kiss—a pretty contrast to my ashen cheeks, and when the curtain fell, I dissolved in tears.
“Mr. Irving sent for me to his room. In fear and trembling I went.
“‘This was terrible,’ he said. ‘How did it happen?’
“‘I forgot, I forgot, why I know not, but I forgot,’ I said, and my tears flowed again. He patted me on the back.
“‘Never mind,’ he said kindly, ‘but please don’t let it occur again.’”
Once when I was talking to this clever little lady the conversation turned on games.
“Games!” she exclaimed. “I know nothing of them: as a child I never had time to play, and when I was sixteen years old I had to keep myself and my family. Of late years I have been far too busy even to take up golf.”
Mrs. Maude has two charming daughters, quaint, old-fashioned little creatures, and some years their junior is a small brother.
The two girls were once invited to a fancy dress ball in Harley Street: it happened to be a Saturday, and therefore matinée day. Their mother arranged their dresses. The elder was to wear the costume of Lady Teazle, an exact replica of the one reproduced in this volume, and which Mrs. Maude wore when playing that part, while the younger was to be dressed as a Dutch bride, also a copy of one of Miss Emery’s dresses in the Black Tulip. They all lunched together, and as the mother was going off to the theatre, she told the nurse to see that the children were dressed properly, and take them to the house at a certain hour.
“Oh, but, mummy, we can’t go unless you dress us,” exclaimed the elder child; “we should never be right.” And therefore it was settled that the two little people should be arrayed with the exception of the final touches, and then driven round by way of the Haymarket Theatre, so that their mother might attend to their wigs, earrings, hat or cap, as the case might be.
What a pretty idea. The mother, who was attracting rounds of applause from a crowded house every time she went on the stage, running back to her dressing-room between the scenes, to drop down on her knees and attend to her little girls, so that they should be all right for their party.
Admiring the costume of the younger one, I said:
“Why, you have got on your mother’s dress.”
“No, it’s not mother’s,” she replied. “It’s my dress, and my shoes, and my stockings—all my very own; but it’s mother’s gold cap, and mother’s earrings, and mother’s necklace, and mother’s apron—with a tuck in,” and she nodded her wise little head.
This was a simple child, not like the small American girl whose mother was relating wonderful stories of her precocity to an admiring friend, when a shrill voice from the corner called out:
“But you haven’t told the last clever thing I said, mamma,” evidently wishing none of her brilliant wit to be lost.
They looked sweet, those two children of Mrs. Maude’s, and the way the elder one attended upon her smaller sister was pretty to see.
In a charming little house near the Brompton Oratory Mrs. Maude lived for years, surrounded by her family, perfectly content in their society. She is in every sense a thoroughly domesticated woman, and warmly declares she “loves housekeeping.”
One cannot imagine a happier home than the Maudes’, and no more charming gentleman walks upon the stage than this well-known descendant of many distinguished army men. Mr. Maude was at Charterhouse, one of our best public schools, and is a most enthusiastic old Carthusian. So is General Baden-Powell, whose interest in the old place went so far as to make him spend his last night in England among his old schoolfellows at the City Charterhouse when he returned invalided on short leave from the Transvaal. The gallant soldier gave an excellent speech, referring to Founders’ Day, which they were then commemorating, and delighted his boy hearers and “Ancient Brethren” equally.
On Charterhouse anniversaries Mr. Maude drops his jester’s cap and solemnly, long stick in hand, takes part in the ceremony at the old Carthusian Church made popular by Thackeray’s Newcomes.
Cyril Maude was originally intended for another profession, but, in spite of family opposition, elected to go upon the stage, and as his parents did not approve of such a proceeding, he commenced his theatrical career in America, where he went through many vicissitudes. He began in a Shakespearian rèpertoire company, playing through the Western mining towns of the States, where he had to rough it considerably.
“I even slept on a bit of carpet on a bar-room floor one night,” he said; “but our beautiful company burst up in ’Frisco, and I had to come home emigrant fashion, nine days and nine nights in the train, with a little straw mattress for my bed, and a small tin can to hold my food. They were somewhat trying experiences, yet most interesting, and gave great opportunities for studying mankind. I have played in every conceivable sort of play, and once ‘walked on’ for months made up as Gladstone in a burlesque, to a mighty dreary comic song.”
So Mr. Maude, like the rest who have climbed to the top, began at the bottom of the ladder, and has worked his way industriously up to his present position, which he has held at the Haymarket since 1896, and where—he laughingly says—he hopes to die in harness.
Cyril Maude gives rather an amusing description of his first theatrical performance. When he was a boy of eighteen his family took a house at Dieppe for six months, and he was sent every day to study French with Monsieur le Pasteur.
“One day, when I had been working with him for three or four weeks, he asked me what I was going to make my profession.
“‘Comédien,’ I replied.
“‘Comment? Comédien? Etes-vous fou?’ he exclaimed, horrified and astounded at such a suggestion, and added more gravely, ‘I am quite sure you have not the slightest idea how to act; so, my boy, you had better put such a ridiculous idea out of your head and stick to your books. Besides, you must choose a profession fit for a gentleman.’
“Of course I felt piqued, and as I walked home that evening I just wondered if there were not some way by which I could show the old man that I could act if I chose.
“The Pasteur had a resident pupil of the name of Bishop, a nice young fellow, and to him I related my indignation.
“‘Of course you can act,’ he said; so between us we concocted the brilliant idea that I should dress up as Bishop’s aunt and go and call upon the Pasteur, with the ostensible view of sending another nephew to his excellent establishment. Overjoyed at the scheme I ransacked my mother’s wardrobe, and finally dressed myself up to resemble a somewhat lean, cadaverous English old maid.
“I walked down the street to the house, and to my joy the servant did not recognise me. The old man received me with great cordiality and politeness. I told him in very bad French, with a pronounced Cockney accent, that I was thinking of sending another of my nephews to him if he had room. At this suggestion the Pasteur was delighted, took me upstairs, showed me all the rooms, and made quite a fuss over me. Then he called ‘my nephew,’ who nearly gave the show away by choking with laughter when I affectionately greeted him with a chaste salute. This was the only part of the business I did not really enjoy! As we were coming downstairs, the Pasteur well in front, I smiled—perhaps I winked—at Bishop, anyhow I slipped, whereupon the polite old gentleman turned round, was most désolé at the accident, gave me his arm, and assisted me most tenderly all the rest of the way to the dining-room, his wife following and murmuring:—
“‘Prenez garde, madame, prenez garde.’
“Having arrived at the salle-à-manger the dear old Pasteur said he would leave me for a moment with his wife, in case there was anything I might like to discuss with her, and to my horror I was left closeted with madame, nervously fearing she might touch on subjects fit only for ladies’ ears, but not for the tender years of my manly youth. Needless to say I escaped from her clutches as quickly as possible.
“For two days I kept up the joke. Then it became too much for me, and as we were busily working at French verbs, in the curé’s study, I changed my voice and returned to the old lady’s Cockney French intonations, which was not in the least difficult, as my own French was none of the brightest. The Pasteur turned round, looked hard at me for a moment, and then went back to the verbs. I awaited another opportunity, and began again. This time he almost glared at me, and then, clapping his hands to his head and bursting into laughter, he exclaimed:
“‘Mais c’était vous, c’était vous la tante de Bishop?’
“It turned out he had written that morning to Bishop’s real aunt, accepting her second nephew as a pupil, and arranging all the details of his arrival. How surprised the good lady must have been.”
June 3rd, 1899, was the eleventh anniversary of Cyril Maude and Winifred Emery’s wedding day, and they gave a delightful little luncheon party at their pretty house in Egerton Crescent, where they then lived. The host certainly looked ridiculously young to have been married eleven years, or to be the father of the big girl of nine and the smaller one of six who came down to dessert.
Their home was a very cosy one—not big or grand in those days, but thoroughly carried out on a small scale, with trees in the gardens in front, trees in the back-yard behind, and the aspect was refreshing on that frightfully hot Oaks day.
Winifred Emery had a new toy—a tiny little dog, so small that it could curl itself up quite happily in the bottom of a man’s top hat, but yet wicked enough to do a vast amount of damage, for it had that morning pulled a blouse by the sleeves from the bed to the floor, and had calmly dissevered the lace from the cambric.
The Maudes are a most unconventional theatrical pair. They love their home and their children, and seem to wish to get rid of every remembrance of the theatre once they pass their own front door. And yet it is impossible to get rid of the theatre in the summer, for besides having eight performances a week of The Man?uvres of Jane at that time—which was doing even better business at the end of nine months than it was at the beginning—those unfortunate people were giving charity performances every week for seven consecutive weeks, which of course necessitated rehearsals apart from the performances themselves. Really the charity distributed by the theatrical world is enormous.
We had a delightful luncheon: much of my time was spent gazing at Miss Ellaline Terriss, who is even prettier off the stage than she is on.
When Mrs. Maude said she had been married for eleven years, with the proudest air in the world Mrs. Hicks remarked:
“And we have been married nearly six.”
But certainly to look at Ellaline Terriss and Seymour Hicks made it seem impossible to believe that such could be the case. Hard work seems to agree with some people, and the incessant labour of the stage had left no trace on these young couples.
After luncheon the Maudes’ eldest little girl recited a French poem she had learnt at school, and it was quite ridiculous to see the small child already showing inherited talent. She was calm and collected, and when she had done and I congratulated her, she said in the simplest way in the world:
“I am going to be an actress when I am grown up, and so is Baby,” nodding her head at the other small thing of six, for the boy had not then arrived to usurp “Baby’s” place.
“Oh yes, so am I,” said little six-year-old. But when I asked her to recite something, she said:
“I haven’t learnt yet, but I shall soon.”
The Maudes were then eagerly looking forward to some weeks’ holiday which they always enjoy every autumn.
“I like a place where I need not wear gloves, and a hat is not a necessity,” she said. “I have so much dressing-up in my life that it is a holiday to be without it.”
Somehow the conversation turned on a wedding to which they had just been, and Winifred Emery exclaimed:
“I love going to weddings, but I always regret I am not the bride.”
“Come, come,” said her husband, “that would be worse than the Mormons. However many husbands would you have?”
“Oh, I always want to keep my own old husband, but I want to be the bride.” At which he laughed immoderately, and said:
“I declare, Winifred, you are never happy unless you are playing the leading lady.”
“Of course not,” she retorted; “women always appreciate appreciation.”
They were much amused when I told them the story of my small boy, who, aged about seven, was to go to a wedding as a page in gorgeous white satin with lace ruffles and old paste buttons.
“I don’t want to go,” he remarked; “I hate weddings”—for he had officiated twice before. Something he said leading me to suppose he was a little shy, I soothingly answered:
“Oh, well, every one will be so busy looking at the bride that they will never look at you.”
To which the small gentleman indignantly replied:
“If they aren’t even going to look at me, then I don’t see why I need go at all!”
So after all there is a certain amount of vanity even in a small boy of seven.
“I cannot bear a new play,” Mrs. Maude once said. “I am nervous, worried, and anxious at rehearsal, and it is not until I have got on my stage clothes that it ceases to be a trouble to me. Not till I have played it for weeks that I feel thoroughly at home in a new part.
“It is positively the first real holiday I have ever had in my life,” she exclaimed to me at the time of her illness; “for although we always take six weeks’ rest in the summer, plays have to be studied and work is looming ahead, whereas now I have six months of complete idleness in front of me. It is splendid to have time to tidy my drawers in peace, ransack my bookshelves, see to a hundred and one household duties without any hurry, have plenty of time to spend with the children, and actually to see something of my friends, whom it is impossible to meet often in my usually busy life.”
So spoke Miss Winifred Emery, and a year later Mrs. Kendal wrote, “I’ve had ten days’ holiday this year, and am now rehearsing literally day and night.”
After that who can say the life of the successful actress is not a grind? A maidservant or shopgirl expects her fortnight’s holiday in a twelvemonth, while one of the most successful actresses of modern times has to be content with ten days during the same period. Yet Mrs. Kendal is not a girl or a beginner, she is in full power and at the top of her profession.
All theatrical life is not a grind, however, and it has its brighter moments. For instance, one beautiful warm sunny afternoon, the anniversary of their own wedding day—the Cyril Maudes gave an “At Home” at the Haymarket. Guests arrived by the stage door at the back of the famous theatre, and to their surprise found themselves at once upon the stage, for the back scene and Suffolk Street are almost identical. Mrs. Maude, with a dear little girl on either side, received her friends, and an interesting group of friends they were. Every one who was any one seemed to have been bidden thither. The stage was, of course, not large enough for this goodly throng, so a great staircase had been built down from the footlights to where the stalls usually stand. The stalls, however, had gone—disappeared as though they had never existed—and where the back row generally cover the floor a sumptuous buffet was erected. It was verily a fairy scene, for the dress-circle (which at the Haymarket is low down) was a sort of winter garden of palms and flowers behind which the band was ensconced.
What would the players of old, Charles Mathews, Colley Cibber, Edmund Kean, Liston, and Colman, have said to such a sight? What would old Mr. Emery have thought could he have known that one day his grand-daughter would reign as a very queen on the scene of his former triumphs? What would he have said had he known that periwigs and old stage coaches would have disappeared in favour of closely-cut heads, electric broughams, shilling hansoms with C springs and rubber tyres, or motor cars? What would he have thought of the electric light in place of candle dips and smelling lamps? How surprised he would have been to find neatly coated men showing the audience to their seats at a performance, instead of fat rowdy women, to see the orange girls and their baskets superseded by dainty trays of tea and ices, and above all to note the decorous behaviour of a modern audience in contrast to the noisy days when Grandpapa Emery trod the Haymarket boards.
Almost the most youthful person present, if one dare judge by appearances, was the actor-manager, Cyril Maude. There is something particularly charming about Mr. Maude—there is a merry twinkle in his eyes, with a sound of tears in his voice, and it is this combination, doubtless, which charms his audience. He is a low comedian, a character-actor, and yet he can play on the emotional chord when necessity arises. He and his co-partner, Mr. Harrison, are warm friends—a delightful situation for people so closely allied in business.
Immediately off the stage is the green-room, now almost unused. Formerly the old green-room on the other side of the stage was a fashionable resort, and the green-rooms at the Haymarket and Drury Lane were crowded nightly at the beginning of the last century with all the fashionable men of the day. Kings went there to be amused, plays began at any time, the waits between the acts were of any length, and general disorder reigned in the candle and oil-lighted theatres—a disorder to which a few visitors did not materially add. All is changed nowadays. The play begins to the minute, and ends with equal regularity. Actors do not fail to appear without due notice, so that the under-study has time to get ready, and order reigns both before and behind the footlights. Therefore at the Haymarket no one is admitted to the green-room, in fact, no one is allowed in the theatre “behind the scenes” at all, except to the dressing-room of the particular star who has invited him thither.
Mrs. Maude made a charming hostess at that party.
I think the hour at which we were told on the cards “to leave” was 6.0, or it may have been 6.30; at any rate, we all streamed out reluctantly at the appointed time, and the stage carpenters streamed in. Away went the palms, off came the bunting, down came the staircase, and an hour later the evening audience were pouring in to the theatre, little knowing what high revelry had so lately ended.
Some people seem to be born old, others live long and die young; judging by their extraordinary juvenility, Mr. Seymour Hicks and his charming wife, née Ellaline Terriss, belong to the latter category. They are a boyish man and a girlish woman, in the best sense of lighthearted youthfulness, yet they have a record of successes behind them, of which many well advanced in years might be proud. No daintier, prettier, more piquante little lady trips upon our stage than Ellaline Terriss. She is the personification of everything mignonne, and whether dressed in rags as Bluebell in Fairyland, or as a smart lady in a modern play, she is delightful.
It is a curious thing that so many of our prominent actors and actresses have inherited their histrionic talents from their parents and even grandparents, and Mrs. Hicks is no exception, for she is the daughter of the late well-known actor, William Terriss. She was not originally intended for the stage, and her adoption of it as a profession was almost by chance. A letter of her own describes how this came about.
“I was barely sixteen when Mr. Calmour, who wrote The Amber Heart and named the heroine after me, suggested we should surprise my father one day by playing Cupid’s Messenger in our drawing-room, and that I should take the leading part. We had a brass rod fixed up across the room, and thus made a stage, and on the preceding night informed a few friends of the morrow’s performance. The news greatly astonished my father, who laughed. I daresay he was secretly pleased, though he pretended not to be. A couple of months passed, and I heard that Miss Freke was engaged at the Haymarket to play the part I had sustained. Oh, how I wished it was I! Little did I think my wish was so near fulfilment. I was sitting alone over the fire one day when a telegram was handed to me, which ran:
“‘Haymarket Theatre. Come up at once. Play Cupid’s Messenger, to-night.’
“I rushed to catch a train, and found myself at the stage door of the theatre at 7.15 p.m. All was hurry and excitement. I did not know how to make-up. I did not know with whom I was going to appear, and Miss Freke’s dress was too large for me. The whole affair seemed like a dream. However, I am happy to say Mr. Tree stood by and saw me act, and I secured the honour of a ‘call.’ I played for a week, when Mr. Tree gave me a five-pound note, and a sweet letter of thanks. My father then said that if it would add to my happiness I might go on the stage, and he would get me an engagement.”
How proud the girl must have been of that five-pound note, for any person who has ever earned even a smaller sum knows how much sweeter money seems when acquired by one’s own exertions. Five-pound notes have come thick and fast since then, but I doubt if any gave the actress so much pleasure as Mr. Beerbohm Tree’s first recognition of her talent.
Thus it really was quite by accident Miss Terriss entered on a theatrical career. Her father, knowing the hard work and many disappointments attendant on stage life, had not wished his daughter to follow his own calling. But talent will out. It waits its opportunity, and then, like love, asserts itself. The opportunity came in a kindly way; the talent was there, and Miss Terriss was clever and keen enough to take her chance when it came and make the most of it. From that moment she has never been idle, even her holidays have been few and far between.
Every one in London must have seen Bluebell in Fairyland, which ran nearly a year. Indeed, at one time it was being played ten times a week. Think of it. Ten times a week. To go through the same lines, the same songs, the same dances, to look as if one were enjoying oneself, to enter into the spirit and fun of the representation, was indeed a herculean task, and one which the Vaudeville company successfully carried through. But poor Mrs. Hicks broke down towards the close, and was several times out of the bill.
Photo by London Stereoscopic Co., Ltd., Cheapside, E.C.
MR. AND MRS. SEYMOUR HICKS.
It is doubtful whether Seymour Hicks will be better known as an actor or an author in the future, for he has worked hard at both professions successfully. He was born at St. Heliers, Jersey, in 1871, and is the eldest son of Major Hicks, of the 42nd Highlanders. His father intended him for the army, but his own taste did not lie in that direction, and when only sixteen and a half he elected to go upon the stage, and five years later was playing a principal light comedy part at the Gaiety Theatre. Like his wife, he has been several times in America, where both have met with success, and when not acting, at which he is almost constantly employed, this energetic man occupies his time by writing plays, of a light and musical nature, which are usually successful. One of the Best, Under the Clock, The Runaway Girl, Bluebell in Fairyland, and The Cherry Girl have all had long runs.
When the Hicks find time for a holiday their idea of happiness is an out-of-door existence, with rod or gun for companions. Most of our actors and actresses, whose lives are necessarily so public, love the quiet of the country coupled with plenty of exercise when able to take a change. The theatre is barely closed before they rush off to moor or fen, to yacht or golf—to anything, in fact, that carries them completely away from the glare of the footlights.
Another instance of theatrical heredity is Ben Webster, whose talent for acting doubtless comes from his grandfather. Originally young Ben read for the Bar with that eminent and amusing man, Mr. Montagu Williams. It was just at that time that poor Montagu Williams’s throat began to trouble him: later on, when no longer able to plead in court, he was given an appointment as magistrate. I only remember meeting him once—it was at Ramsgate. When walking along the Esplanade one day—I think about the year 1890—I found my father talking to a neat, dapper little gentleman in a fur coat, thickly muffled about the throat. He introduced his friend as Montagu Williams, a name very well known at that time. Alas! the eminent lawyer was hardly able to speak—disease had assailed his throat well-nigh to death, and the last time I saw that wonderful painter and charming man Sir John Everett Millais, at a private view at the Royal Academy, he was almost as speechless, poor soul.
Well, Montagu Williams was made a magistrate, and young Ben Webster, realising his patron’s influence was to a certain extent gone, and his own chances at the Bar consequently diminished, gladly accepted an offer of Messrs. Hare and Kendal to play a companion part to his sister in the Scrap of Paper, then on tour. He had often acted as an amateur; and earned some little success during his few weeks’ professional engagement, so that when he returned to town and found Montagu Williams removed from active practice at the Bar, he went at once to Mr. Hare and asked for the part of Woodstock in Clancarty. Thus he launched himself upon the stage, although his grandfather had been dead for three years, and so had not directly had anything to do with his getting there.
Old Grandfather Ben seems to have been a very irascible old gentleman, and a decidedly obstinate one. On one occasion his obstinacy saved his life, however, so his medical man stoutly declared.
The doctor had given Ben Webster up: he was dying. Chatterton and Churchill were outside the room where he lay, and the medico when leaving told them “old Ben couldn’t last an hour.”
“Ah, dear, dear!” said Chatterton; “poor old Ben going at last,” and he sadly nodded his head as he entered the room.
“Blast ye! I’m not dead yet,” roared a voice from the bed, where old Ben was sitting bolt upright. “I’m not going to die to please any of you.”
He fell back gasping; but from that moment he began to get better.
Another eminent theatrical family, the Sotherns, were born on the stage, so to speak, and took to the profession as naturally as ducks to water, while their contemporaries the Irvings and Boucicaults have done likewise.
It must have been towards the end of the seventies that my parents took a house one autumn in Scarborough. We had been to Buxton for my father’s health, and after a driving tour through Derbyshire, finally arrived at our destination. To my joy, Mr. Sothern and his daughter, who was then my schoolfellow in London, soon appeared upon the scene. He had come in consequence of an engagement to play at the Scarborough Theatre in Dundreary and Garrick, and had secured a house near us. Naturally I spent much of my time with my girl friend, and we used often to accompany her father in a boat when he went on his dearly-loved fishing expeditions. Never was there a merrier, more good-natured, pleasanter gentleman than this actor. He was always making fun which we children enjoyed immensely. Practical jokes to him seemed the essence of life, and I vaguely remember incidents which, though amusing to him, rather perturbed my juvenile mind. At the time I had been very little to theatres, but as he had a box reserved every night, I was allowed now and then to go and gaze in wild admiration at Garrick and Dundreary.
One afternoon I went to the Sotherns for a meat tea before proceeding to the theatre, but the great comedian was not there. “Pops,” for so he was called by his family, had gone out at four o’clock that morning with a fisherman, and still remained absent. The weather had turned rough, and considerable anxiety was felt as to what could have become of him. His eldest son, Lytton, since dead, appeared especially distressed. He had been down to the shore to inquire of the boatmen, but nothing could be heard of his father. We finished our meal—Mr. Sothern’s having been sent down to be kept warm—and although he had not appeared, it was time to go to the theatre. Much perturbed in his mind, Lytton escorted his sister and myself thither, and leaving us in the box, went off once more to inquire if his father had arrived at the stage door; again without success.
This seemed alarming; the wind was still boisterous and the stage manager in a fright because he knew the only attraction to his audience was the appearance of Edward Sothern as Lord Dundreary. It was the height of the season, and the house was packed. Lytton started off again to the beach, this time in a cab; the stage manager popped his head into our box to inquire if the missing hero had by chance arrived, the orchestra struck up, but still no Mr. Sothern. It was a curious experience. The “gods” became uneasy, the pit began to stamp, the orchestra played louder, and at last, dreading a sudden tumult, the stage manager stepped forward and began to explain that “Mr. Sothern, a devoted fisherman, had gone out at four o’clock that morning; but had failed to return. As they knew, the weather was somewhat wild, therefore, they could only suppose he had been detained by the storm——”
At this juncture an unexpected and dishevelled figure appeared on the scene. The usually spick-and-span, carefully groomed Mr. Sothern, with his white locks dripping wet and hanging like those of a terrier dog over his eyes, hurried up, exclaiming:
“I am here, I am here. Will be ready in a minute,” and the weird apparition disappeared through the opposite wing. Immense relief and some amusement kept the audience in good humour, while with almost lightning rapidity the actor changed and the play began.
In one of the scenes the hero goes to bed and draws the curtain to hide him from the audience. Mr. Sothern went to bed as usual, but when remarks should have been heard proceeding from behind the curtain, no sound was forthcoming. The other player went on with his part; still silence from the bed. The stage manager became alarmed, knowing that Sothern was terribly fatigued and had eaten but little food, he tore a small hole in the canvas which composed the wall of the room, and, peeping through, saw to his horror that the actor was fast asleep. This was an awkward situation. He called him—no response. The poor man on the stage still gagged on gazing anxiously behind him for a response, till at last, getting desperate, the stage manager seized a broom and succeeded in poking Sothern’s ribs with the handle. The actor awoke with a huge yawn, quite surprised to find himself in bed wearing Dundreary whiskers, which proved a sharp reminder he ought to have been performing antics on the stage.
Actor and fisherman had experienced a terrible time in their boat. The current was so strong that when they turned to come back they were borne along the coast, and as hour after hour passed poor Sothern realised that not only might he not be able to keep his appointment at the theatre, but was in peril of ever getting back any more. He made all sorts of mental vows never to go out fishing again when he was due to play at night; never to risk being placed in such an awkward predicament, never to do many things; but in spite of this experience, when once safe on land, his ardour was not damped, for he was off fishing again the very next day.
When I went to America in 1900 Mrs. Kendal kindly gave me some introductions, and one among others to Mr. Frohman. His is a name to conjure with in theatrical circles on that side of the Atlantic, and is becoming so on this side, for he controls a vast theatrical trust which either makes or mars stage careers.
I called one morning by appointment at Daly’s Theatre, and as there happened to be no rehearsal in progress all was still except at the box office. I gave my card, and was immediately asked to “step along to Mr. Frohman’s room.”
Up dark stairs and along dimly lighted passages I followed my conductor, till he flung open the door of a beautiful room, where at a large writing-table sat Mr. Frohman. He rose and received me most kindly, and was full of questions concerning the Kendals and other mutual friends, when suddenly, to my surprise, I saw a large photograph hanging on the wall, of a Hamlet whose face I seemed to know.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“Mr. Edward Sothern, the greatest Hamlet in America, the son of the famous Dundreary.”
“I had the pleasure of playing with that Hamlet many times when I was a little girl,” I remarked; “for although ‘Eddy’ was somewhat older, he used often to come to the nursery in Harley Street to have games with us children when his mother lived a few doors from the house in which I was born.”
Mr. Frohman was interested, and so was I, to hear of the great success of young Edward Sothern, for of course Sam Sothern is well known on the English stage.
The sumptuous office of Mr. Frohman is at the back of Daly’s Theatre. It is a difficult matter to gain admittance to that sacred chamber, but preliminaries having been arranged, the attendant who conducts one thither rings a bell to inform the great man that his visitor is about to enter. Mr. Frohman was interesting and affable. He evidently possesses a fine taste, for pieces of ancient armour, old brocade, and the general air of a bric-à-brac shop pervaded his sitting-room.
“English actors are as successful over here,” he said, “as Americans are in London, and the same may be said of plays, the novelty, I suppose, in each case.”
The close alliance between England and America is becoming more emphasised every day. Why, in the matter of acting alone we give them our best and they send us their best in return. So much is this the case that most of the people mentioned in these pages are as well known in New York as in London; for instance, Sir Henry Irving, Miss Ellen Terry, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, Mr. E. S. Willard, Miss Fay Davis, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, Miss Winifred Emery, Mr. Cyril Maude, Miss Ellaline Terriss, Mr. Seymour Hicks, Mr. and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree, Mr. W. S. Gilbert, Mr. Anthony Hope, Mr. A. W. Pinero, and a host of others. Sir Henry Irving has gone to America, for the eighth time during the last twenty years, with his entire company. That company for the production of Dante consists of eighty-two persons, and no fewer than six hundred and seventy-three packages, comprising scenery, dresses, and properties.
“No author should ever try to dramatise his own books: he nearly always fails,” Mr. Frohman added later during our pleasant little chat, after which he took me round his theatre, probably the most celebrated in the United States, for it was built by the famous Daly, and still maintains its position at the head of affairs. On the whole, American theatres are smaller than our own, the entire floor is composed of stalls which only cost 8s. 4d. each, and there is no pit. In the green-room, halls, and passages Mr. Frohman pointed out with evident delight various pictures of Booth as Hamlet, since whose time no one had been so successful till Edward Sothern junior took up that r?le in 1900. There was also a large portrait of Charlotte Cushman, and several pictures of Irving, Ellen Terry, Jefferson, and others, as well as some photographs of my old friend Mr. Sothern.
I have quoted the Terrys, Kendals, Ellaline Terriss, Ben Webster, Winifred Emery, and the Sotherns as products of the stage, but there are many more, including Dion and Nina Boucicault, whose parents were a well-known theatrical couple, George and Weedon Grossmith, the sons of an entertainer, and George’s son is also on the stage. Both the Irvings are sons of Sir Henry of that ilk, and so on ad infinitum.
From the above list it will be seen that most of our successful actors and actresses were cradled in the profession. They were “mummers” in the blood, if one may be forgiven the use of such a quaint old word to represent the modern exponents of the drama.
Interview with Ibsen—His Appearance—His Home—Plays Without Plots—His Writing-table—His Fetiches—Old at Seventy—A Real Tragedy and Comedy—Ibsen’s First Book—Winter in Norway—An Epilogue—Arthur Wing Pinero—Educated for the Law—As Caricaturist—An Entertaining Luncheon—How Pinero writes his Plays—A Hard Worker—First Night of Letty.
PROBABLY the man who has had the most far-reaching influence on modern drama is Henrik Ibsen. Half the dramatic world of Europe admire his work as warmly as the other half deplore it.
Ibsen has a strange personality. The Norwegian is not tall, on the contrary, rather short and thick-set—one might almost say stout—in build, broad-shouldered, and with a stooping gait. His head is splendid, the long white hair is a glistening mass of tangled locks. He has an unusually high forehead, and in true Norse fashion wears his plentiful hair brushed straight back, so that, being long, it forms a complete frame for the face. He has whiskers, which, meeting in the middle, beneath his chin, leave the chin and mouth bare. Under the upper lip one sees by the indentation the decision of the mouth, and the determination of those thin lips, which through age are slightly drawn to one side. He has a pleasant smile when talking; but in repose the mouth is so firmly set that the upper lip almost disappears.
The great dramatist has lived for many years in Christiania, and it was in that town, on a cold snowy morning in 1895 I first met him. The streets were completely buried in snow; even the tram-lines, despite all the care bestowed upon them, were embedded six or seven inches below the surface of the frozen mass. It can be very cold during winter in Christiania, and frost-bite is not unknown, for the thermometer runs down many degrees below zero. That is the time to see Norway. Then everything is at its best. The sky clear, the sun shining—all Nature bright, crisp, and beautiful. Icicles many feet long hung like a sparkling fringe in the sunlight as I walked—or rather stumbled—over the snow to the Victorian Terrasse to see the celebrated man. Tall posts leaning from the street gutters to the houses reminded pedestrians that deep snow from the roofs might fall upon them.
The name of Dr. Henrik Ibsen was written in golden letters at the entrance to the house, with the further information that he lived on the first floor. There was nothing grand about his home, just an ordinary Norwegian flat, containing eight or ten good rooms; and yet Ibsen is a rich man. His books have been translated into every tongue, his plays performed on every stage. His work has undoubtedly revolutionised the drama. He started the idea of a play without plot, a character-sketch in fact, a psychological study, and introduced the “no-ending” system. Much he left to the imagination, and the imagination of various nationalities has run in such dissimilar lines that he himself became surprised at the thoughts he was supposed to have suggested.
Brilliant as much of his work undoubtedly is, there is quite as much which is repellent and certainly has not added to the betterment of mankind. His characters are seldom happy, for they too often strive after the impossible.
The hall of his home looked bare, the maid was capless and apronless, according to Norwegian fashion, while rows of goloshes stood upon the floor. The girl ushered me along a passage, at the end of which was the great man’s study. He rose, warmly shook me by the hand, and finding I spoke German, at once became affable and communicative. He is of Teutonic descent, and in many ways has inherited German characteristics. When he left Norway in 1864—when, in fact, Norway ceased to be a happy home for him—he wandered to Berlin, Dresden, Paris, and Rome, remaining many years in the Fatherland.
“The happiest summer I ever spent in my life was at Berchtesgaden in 1880,” he exclaimed. “But to me Norway is the most lovely country in the world.”
DR. HENRIK IBSEN.
Ibsen’s writing-table, which is placed in the window so that the dramatist may look out upon the street, was strewn with letters, all the envelopes of which had been neatly cut, for he is faddy and tidy almost to the point of old-maidism. He has no secretary, it worries him to dictate, and consequently all communications requiring answers have to be written by the Doctor himself. His calligraphy is the neatest, smallest, roundest imaginable. It is representative of the man. The signature is almost like a schoolboy’s—or rather, like what a schoolboy’s is supposed to be—it is so carefully lettered; the modern schoolboy’s writing is, alas! ruined by copying “lines” for punishment, time which could be more profitably employed learning thought-inspiring verses.
On the table beside the inkstand was a small tray. Its contents were extraordinary—some little wooden carved Swiss bears, a diminutive black devil, small cats, dogs, and rabbits made of copper, one of which was playing a violin.
“What are those funny little things?” I ventured to ask.
“I never write a single line of any of my dramas unless that tray and its occupants are before me on the table. I could not write without them. It may seem strange—perhaps it is—but I cannot write without them,” he repeated. “Why I use them is my own secret.” And he laughed quietly.
Are these little toys, these fetishes, and their strange fascination, the origin of those much-discussed dolls in The Master Builder? Who can tell? They are Ibsen’s secret.
In manner Henrik Ibsen is quiet and reserved; he speaks slowly and deliberately, so slowly as to remind one of the late Mr. Bayard, the former American Minister to the Court of St. James, when he was making a speech. Mr. Bayard appeared to pause between each word, and yet the report in the papers the following day read admirably. This slowness may with Ibsen be owing to age, for he was born in 1828 (although in manner and gait he appears at least ten years older), or it may be from shyness, for he is certainly shy. How men vary. Ibsen at seventy seemed an old man; General Diaz, the famous President of Mexico, young at the same age. The one drags his feet and totters along; the other walks briskly with head erect. Ibsen was never a society man in any sense of the word, a mug of beer and a paper at the club being his idea of amusement. Indeed, in Christiania, until 1902, he could be seen any afternoon at the chief hotel employed in this way, for after his dinner at two o’clock he strolled down town past the University to spend a few hours in the fashion which pleased him.
Norwegian life is much more simple than ours. The inhabitants dine early and have supper about eight o’clock. Entertainments are hospitable and friendly, but not as a rule costly, and although Ibsen is a rich man, the only hobby on which he appears to have spent much money is pictures. He loves them, and wherever he has wandered his little gallery has always gone with him.
Ibsen began to earn his own living at the age of sixteen, and for five or six years worked in an apothecary’s shop, amusing himself during the time by reading curious books and writing weird verses. Only twenty-three copies of his first book were sold, the rest were disposed of as waste paper to buy him food. Those long years of struggle doubtless embittered his life, but relief came when he was made manager of the Bergen Theatre with a salary of ￡67 a year. For seven years he kept the post, and learnt the stage craft which he later utilised in his dramas.
A strange comedy and tragedy was woven into the lives of Ibsen and Bj?rnson. As young men they were great friends; then politics drove them apart; they quarrelled, and never met for years and years. Strange fate brought the children of these two great writers together, and Bj?rnson’s daughter married Ibsen’s only child. The fathers met after years of separation at the wedding of their children.
Verily a real comedy and tragedy, woven into the lives of Scandinavia’s two foremost writers of tragedy and comedy.
I spent part of two winters in Norway, wandering about on snow-shoes (ski) or in sledges, and during various visits to Christiania tried hard to see some plays by Ibsen or Bj?rnson acted; but, strange as it may seem, plays by a certain Mr. Shakespeare were generally in the bill, or else amusing doggerel such as The Private Secretary.
At last, however, there came a day when Peer Gynt was put on the stage. This play has never been produced in England, and yet it is one of Ibsen’s best, at all events one of his most poetic. The hero is supposed to represent the Norwegian character, vacillating, amusing, weak, bound by superstition, and lacking worldly balance. The author told me he himself thought it was his best work, though The Master Builder gave him individually most satisfaction.
In 1898 Ibsen declared, “My life seems to me to have slipped by like one long, long, quiet week”; adding that “all who claimed him as a teacher had been wrong—all he had done or tried to do was faithfully, closely, objectively to paint human nature as he saw it, leaving deductions and dogmatism to others.” He declared he had never posed as a reformer or as a philosopher; all he had attempted was to try and work out that vein of poetry which had been born in him. “Poetry has served me as a bath, from which I have emerged cleaner, healthier, freer.” Thus spoke of himself the man who practically revolutionised modern drama.
In the early days of the twentieth century Ibsen finished his life’s work—he relinquished penmanship. The celebrity he had attained failed to interest him, just as attack and criticism had failed to arouse him in earlier years. His social and symbolical dramas done, his work in dramatic reform ended, he folded his hands to await the epilogue of life. It is a pathetic picture. He who had done so much, aroused such enthusiasm and hatred, himself played out—he whose works had been read in every Quarter of the globe, living in quiet obscurity, waiting for that end which comes to all.
It is a proud position to stand at the head of English dramatists; a position many critics allot to Arthur Wing Pinero. The Continent has also paid him the compliment of echoing that verdict by translating and producing many of his plays: and if in spite of translation they survive the ordeal of different interpretations and strange surroundings, may it not be taken as proof that they soar above the ordinary drama?
About the year 1882 Mr. Pinero relinquished acting as a profession—like Ibsen, it was in the theatre he learnt his stage craft—and devoted himself to writing plays instead. Since that period he has steadily and surely climbed the rungs of that fickle ladder “Public Opinion” and planted his banner on the top.
Look at him. See the strength of the man’s mind in his face. Those great shaggy eyebrows and deep-set, dark, penetrating eyes, that round bald head, within which the brain is apparently too busy to allow anything outside to grow. Though still young he is bald, so bald that his head looks as if it had been shaven for the priesthood. The long thin lips and firm mouth denote strength of purpose, which, coupled with genius make the man. Under that assumed air of self-possession there is a merry mind. His feelings are well under control—part of the actor’s art—but he is human to the core. Pinero is no ordinary person, his face with its somewhat heavy jaw is full of thought and strength. He has a vast fund of imagination, is a keen student of human nature, and above all possesses the infinite capacity for taking pains, no details being too small for him. He and Mr. W. S. Gilbert will, at rehearsals, go over a scene again and again. They never get angry, even under the most trying circumstances; but politely and quietly show every movement, every gesture, give every intonation of the voice, and in an amiable way suggest:
“Don’t you think that so and so might be an improvement?”
They always get what they want, and no plays were ever more successful or better staged.
Mr. Pinero believes in one-part dramas, and women evidently fascinate him. Think of Mrs. Tanqueray and Mrs. Ebbsmith, for instance, both are women’s plays; in both are his best work. He is always individual; individual in his style, and individual in the working out of his characters. During the whole of one August Mr. Pinero remained in his home near Hanover Square finishing a comedy of which he superintended rehearsals in the September following. He must be alone when he works, and apparently barred windows and doors, and a charwoman and her cat, when all London is out of town, give him inspiration.
London is particularly proud of Arthur Pinero, who was born amid her bustle in 1855. The only son of a solicitor in the City, he was originally intended for the law, but when nineteen he went upon the stage, where he remained for about seven years. One can only presume, however, that he did not like it, or he would not so quickly have turned his attention to other matters. Those who remember his stage life declare he showed great promise as a young actor. But be this as it may, it is a good thing he turned his back upon that branch of the profession and adopted the r?le of a dramatist, for therein he has excelled. Among his successful plays are The Magistrate, Dandy Dick, Sweet Lavender, The Cabinet Minister, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, Trelawny of the Wells, The Gay Lord Quex, and Iris.
Among other attributes not usually known, Mr. Pinero is an excellent draughtsman, and can make a remarkable caricature of himself in a few moments. His is a strong and striking head which lends itself to caricature, and he is one of those people who, while poking fun at others, does not mind poking fun at himself.
When asked to what he attributed his success, Mr. Pinero replied:
“Such success as I have obtained I attribute to small powers of observation and great patience and perseverance.”
His work is always up-to-date, for Mr. Pinero is modern to his finger-tips.
How delightful it is to see people who have worked together for years remaining staunch friends. One Sunday I was invited to a luncheon the Pineros gave at Claridge’s. The room was marked “Private” for the occasion, and there the hospitable couple received twenty guests, while beyond was a large dining-room, to which we afterwards adjourned. That amusing actor and charming man, John Hare, with whom Pinero has been associated for many years, was present; Miss Irene Vanbrugh, his Sophy Fullgarney in the Gay Lord Quex, and Letty, in the play of that name, that dainty and fascinating American actress, Miss Fay Davis, and Mr. Dion Boucicault. There they were, all these people who had worked so long together, and were still such good friends as to form a merry, happy little family party.
Gillette, the American hero of the hour, was also present, and charming indeed he proved to be; but he was an outsider, so to speak, for most of the party had acted in Pinero’s plays, and that was what seemed so wonderful; because just as a secretary sees the worst side of his employer’s character, the irritability, the moments of anxious thought and worry, so the actor generally finds out the angles and corners of a dramatist. Only those who live in the profession can realise what such a meeting as that party at Claridge’s really meant, what a fund of good temper it proclaimed, what strength of character it represented, what forbearance on all sides it proved.
That party was representative of friendship, which, like health, is seldom valued until lost.
Photo by Langfier, 23a, Old Bond Street, London, W.
MR. ARTHUR W. PINERO.
There are as many ways of writing a play as there are of trimming a hat. Some people, probably most people, begin at the end, that is to say, they evolve some grand climax in their minds and work backwards, or they get hold of the chief situations as a nucleus, from which they work out the whole. Some writers let the play write itself, that is to say, they start with some sort of idea which develops as they go on, but the most satisfactory mode appears to be for the writer to decide everything even to the minutest detail, and then sketch out each situation. In a word, he ought to know exactly what he means to do before putting pen to paper.
The plots of Mr. Pinero’s plays are all conceived and born in movement. He walks up and down the room. He strolls round Regent’s Park, or bicycles further afield, but the dramas are always evolved while his limbs are in action, mere exercise seeming to inspire him with ideas.
It is long before he actually settles down to write his play. He thinks and ponders, plans and arranges, makes and remakes his plots, and never puts pen to paper until he has thoroughly realised, not only his characters, but the very scenes amid which these characters are to move and have their being.
He knows every room in which they are to enact their parts, he sees in his mind’s eye every one of his personalities, he dresses them according to his own individual taste, and so careful is he of the minutest details that he draws a little plan of the stage for each act, on which he notifies the position of every chair, and with this before him he moves his characters in his mind’s eye as the scene progresses. His play is finished before it is begun, that is to say, before a line of it is really written.
His mastery of stage craft is so great that he can definitely arrange every position for the actor, every gesture, every movement, and thus is able to give those minute details of stage direction which are so well known in his printed plays.
In his early days he wrote Two Hundred a Year in an afternoon; Dandy Dick occupied him three weeks; but as time went on and he became more critical of his own work, he spent fifteen months in completing The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, nine months over The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, and six months over The Gay Lord Quex, helped in the latter drama, as he said, “by the invigorating influence of his bicycle.”
He is one of the most painstaking men alive, and over Letty he spent two years.
“I think I have done a good day’s work if I can finish a single speech right,” he remarked, and that sums up the whole situation.
Each morning he sees his secretary from eleven to twelve, dictates his letters, and arranges his business; takes a walk or a ride till luncheon, after which he enjoys a pipe and a book, and in the afternoon lies down for a couple of hours’ quiet.
When he is writing a play he never dines out, but after his afternoon rest enjoys a good tea (is it a high tea?), shuts the baize doors of that delightful study overlooking Hanover Square, and works until quite late, when he partakes of a light supper.
No one dare disturb him during those precious hours, when he smokes incessantly, walks about continually, and rarely puts a line on paper until he feels absolutely certain he has phrased that line as he wishes it to remain.
Pinero’s writing-table is as tidy as Ibsen’s; but while Ibsen’s study is small and simply furnished, Pinero’s is large, contains handsome furniture, interesting books, sumptuous éditions de luxe, charming sketches, portraits, caricatures, handsome carpets, and breathes an air of the owner’s luxurious taste.
Like his writing-table, his orthography is a model of neatness. When he has completed an act he carefully copies it himself in a handwriting worthy of any clerk, and sends it off at once to the printers. But few revisions are made in the proof, so sure is the dramatist when he has perfected his scheme.
Mr. Pinero keeps a sort of “day-book,” in which he jots down characters, speeches, and plots likely to prove of use in his work. It is much the same sort of day-book as that kept by Mr. Frankfort Moore, the novelist, who has the nucleus of a hundred novels ever in his waistcoat pocket.
Formerly men jotted down notes on their shirt-cuffs, from which the laundress learned the wicked ways of society. The figures now covering wristbands are merely the winnings or losings at Bridge.
The dramatist loves ease and luxury, and his plays represent such surroundings.
“Wealth and leisure,” he remarked, “are more productive of dramatic complications than poverty and hard work. My characters force me in spite of myself to lift them up in the world. The lower classes do not analyse or meditate, do not give utterance either to their thoughts or their emotions, and yet it is easier to get a low life part well played than one of high society.”
Mr. Pinero is a delightful companion and he has the keenest sense of humour. He tells a good story in a truly dramatic way, and his greatest characteristic is his simple modesty. He never boasts, never talks big; but is always a genial, kindly, English gentleman. He rarely enters a theatre; in fact, he could count on his fingers the times he has done so during the last twenty years. Life is his stage, men and women its characters, his surroundings the scenes. He does not wish a State theatre, and thinks Irving has done more for the stage than any man in any time. He has the greatest love for his old master, and considers Irving’s Hamlet the “most intelligent performance of the age.” He waxes warm on the subject of Irving’s “magnetic touch,” which influences all that great actor’s work. Pinero’s love for, and belief in, the powers of the stage for good or ill are deep-seated, and each year finds him more given to careful psychological study, the only drawback to which is the fear that in over-elaboration freshness somewhat vanishes. Ibsen always took two years over a play, and Pinero seems to be acquiring the same habit.
A Pinero first night is looked upon as a great theatrical event, and rightly so. It was on a wet October evening (1903) that the long-anticipated Letty saw the light.
Opposite is the programme.
Duke of York’s Theatre,
ST. MARTIN’S LANE, W.C.
Proprietors Mr. & Mrs. Frank Wyatt.
Sole Lessee and Manager CHARLES FROHMAN.
EVERY EVENING at a Quarter to Eight
CHARLES FROHMAN
Presents
A Drama, in Four Acts and an Epilogue, entitled
letty
By ARTHUR W. PINERO.
Nevill Letchmere Mr. H. B. Irving
Ivor Crosbie Mr. Ivo Dawson
Coppinger Drake Mr. Dorrington Grimston
Bernard Mandeville Mr. Fred Kerr
Richard Perry Mr. Dion Boucicault
Neale (A Commercial Traveller)Mr. Charles Troode
Ordish (Agent for an Insurance Company)Mr. Jerrold Robertshaw
Rugg (Mr. Letchmere’s Servant) Mr. Clayton Greene
Frédéric (A Ma?tre d’H?tel) M. Edouard Garceau
Waiters Mr. W. H. Haigh & Mr. Walter Hack
Mrs. Ivor Crosbie Miss Sarah Brooke
Letty Shell } Clerks at { Miss Irene Vanbrugh
Marion Allardyce Dugdale’s Miss Beatrice Forbes Robertson
Hilda Gunning { An Assistant at Madame } Miss Nancy Price
Watkins’s
A Lady’s-maid Miss May Onslow
The Scene is laid in London:—the First and Fourth Acts at Mr. Letchmere’s Flat in Grafton Street, New Bond Street; the Second at a house in Langham Street; the Third in a private room at the Café Régence; and the Epilogue at a photographer’s in Baker Street. The events of the four acts of the drama, commencing on a Saturday in June, take place within the space of a few hours. Between the Fourth Act and the Epilogue two years and six months are supposed to elapse.
THE PLAY PRODUCED UNDER THE PERSONAL DIRECTION OF THE AUTHOR.
The Scenery Painted by Mr. W. Hann.
FIRST MATINéE SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17th, at 2.
General Manager (for Charles Frohman) W. LESTOCQ.
For once the famous dramatist descended from dukes and duchesses to a typewriter girl and a Bond Street swell. For once he left those high-class folk he finds so full of interest, moods, whims, ideas, self-analysis, and the rest of it, and cajoled a lower stratum of life to his pen.
Almost the first actor to appear was H. B. Irving—what a reception he received, and, brilliant cynic-actor though he be, his nervousness overpowered him to the point of ashen paleness and unrestrained twitching of the fingers. His methods, his tact, his cynicism were wonderful, and as Nevill Letchmere his resemblance to his father was remarkable.
What strikes one most in a Pinero play is the harmony of the whole. Every character is a living being. One remembers them all. The limelight is turned on each in turn, and not as at so many theatres on the actor-manager only. The play is a complete picture—not a frame with the actor-manager as the dominant person. He is so often the only figure on the canvas, his colleagues mere side-show puppets, that it is a real joy to see a play in England where every one is given a chance. Mr. Pinero does that. He not only creates living breathing studies of humanity, but he sees that they are played in a lifelike way. What is the result? A perfect whole. A fine piece of mosaic work well fitted together. We may not altogether care for the design or the colour, but we all admire its aims, its completeness, and feel the touch of genius that permeates the whole.
No more discriminating audience than that at the first night of Letty could possibly have been brought together. Every critic of worth was there. William Archer sat in the stalls immediately behind me, W. L. Courtney and Malcolm Watson beyond, J. Knight, A. B. Walkley, and A. E. T. Watson near by. Actors and actresses, artists, writers, men and women of note in every walk of life were there, and the enthusiasm was intense. Mr. Pinero was not in the house, no call of “author” brought him before the footlights, but his handsome wife—a prey to nervousness—was hidden behind the curtains in the stage box.
Captain Robert Marshall—From the Ranks to the Stage—￡10 for a Play—How Copyright is Retained—I. Zangwill as Actor—Copyright Performance—Three First Plays (Pinero, Grundy, Sims)—Cyril Maude at the Opera—Mice and Men—Sir Francis Burnand, Punch, Sir John Tenniel, and a Cartoon—Brandon Thomas and Charley’s Aunt—How that Play was Written—The Gaekwar of Baroda—Changes in London—Frederick Fenn at Clement’s Inn—James Welch on Audiences.
ONE of our youngest dramatists, for it was only in 1897 that Captain Robert Marshall’s first important play appeared, has suddenly leapt into the front rank. His earlier days were in no way connected with the stage.
It is not often a man can earn an income in two different professions; such success is unusual. True, Earl Roberts is a soldier and a writer; Forbes Robertson, Weedon Grossmith, and Bernard Partridge are actors as well as artists; Lumsden Propert, the author of the best book on miniatures, was a doctor by profession; Edmund Gosse and Edward Clodd have other occupations besides literature. Although known as a writer, W. S. Gilbert could earn an income at the Bar or in Art; A. W. Pinero is no mean draughtsman; Miss Gertrude Kingston writes and illustrates as well as acts; and Harry Furniss has shown us he is as clever with his pen as with his brush in his Confessions of a Caricaturist. Still, it is unusual for any one to succeed in two ways.
Nevertheless Captain Robert Marshall, once in the army, is now a successful dramatist. He was born in Edinburgh in 1863, his father being a J.P. of that city. Educated at St. Andrews, the ancient town famous for learning and golf, he later migrated to Edinburgh University. While studying there his brother entered Sandhurst at the top of the list, and left in an equally exalted position. This inspired the younger brother with a desire for the army, and he enlisted in the Highland Light Infantry, then stationed in Ireland. The ranks gave him an excellent training, besides affording opportunities for studying various sides of life. Three years later he entered the Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment as an officer, receiving his Captaincy in 1895, after having filled the post of District Adjutant at Cape Town and A.D.C. to the Governor of Natal, Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson.
No one looking at Captain Marshall now would imagine that ill-health had ever afflicted him; such, however, was the case, and but for the fact that a delicate chest necessitated retiring from the army, he would probably never have become a dramatist by profession. It was about 1898 that he left the Service; but he has made good use of the time since then, for such plays as His Excellency the Governor, A Royal Family, The Noble Lord, and The Second in Command have followed in quick succession. Then came an adaptation of M.M. Scribe and Legouvé’s Bataille de Dames, which he called There’s Many a Slip, but which T. Robertson translated with immense success as The Ladies’ Battle some years before.
Mrs. Kendal, àpropos of this, writes me the following:
“My dear brother Tom had been dead for years before I ever played in The Ladies’ Battle. He translated and sold it to Lacy, an old theatrical manager and agent, for about ￡10. Mr. Kendal and Mr. Hare revived it at the Court Theatre when I was under their management.”
What would a modern dramatist say to a ￡10 note? What, indeed, would Captain Marshall say for such a small reward, instead of reaping a golden harvest as he did with his translation of the very same piece. Times have changed indeed during the last few years, for play-writing is now a most remunerative profession when it proves successful.
I remember once at a charming luncheon given by the George Alexanders at their house in Pont Street, hearing Mr. Lionel Monckton bitterly complaining of the difficulty of getting royalties for musical plays from abroad. Since then worse things have happened, and pirated copies of favourite songs have been sold by hundreds of thousands in the streets of London for which the authors, composers, and publishers have never received a cent. Mr. J. M. Barrie, who was sitting beside me, joined in, and declared, if I am not mistaken, that he had never got a penny from The Little Minister in America, or The Window in Thrums; indeed, it was not till Sentimental Tommy appeared in 1894 that he ever received anything at all from America, so The Little Minister, like Pinafore, was acted thousands of times without any royalties being paid to the respective authors by the United States.
Of course there was no copyright at all in England till 1833, and until that date a play could be produced by any one at any time without payment. The idea was preposterous, and so much abused that the Royal Assent was given in Parliament to a copyright bill proposed by the Hon. George Lamb, and carried through by Mr. Lytton Bulwer, who afterwards became famous as Lord Lytton. Still, even this, unfortunately, does not prevent piracy. Pirate thieves of other people’s brains have had a good innings lately.
The only way to safeguard against the confiscation of a play without the author receiving any dues is to give a “copyright performance.” With this end in view the well-known writer, Mr. I. Zangwill, gave an amusing representation of his play called Merry Mary Ann, founded on his novel of the same name. The performance took place at the Corn Exchange, Wallingford, and Mr. Zangwill was himself stage manager. This took place a week before it was given with such success in Chicago, and secured the English copyright to its author as well as the American.
The modus operandi under these circumstances is:
(1) To pay a two-guinea fee for a licence.
(2) To hire a hall which is licensed for stage performances.
(3) To notify the public by means of posters that the play will take place.
To make some one pay for admission. If only one person pay one guinea, that person constitutes an audience, which, if small, is at least unanimous.
Having arranged all these preliminaries the author and his friends proceed to read, or whenever possible act, the parts of the drama, and a very funny performance it sometimes is.
Mr. Zangwill’s caste was certainly amusing. Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, author of Three Men in a Boat, was particularly good; but then he is an old actor. He lives at Wallingford-on-Thames, where he represents literature and journalism, G. F. Leslie, R.A., representing art; both joined forces for one afternoon at that strange performance which was in many ways a record. Sir Conan Doyle, of Sherlock Holmes fame, was to have played; but was called away at the last moment.
Mr. Zangwill is an old hand at this sort of thing; when a copyright performance of Hall Caine’s Mahdi was given at the Haymarket Theatre he began at first by playing his allotted part; but as one performer after another threw up their r?les he was finally left to act them all. The female parts he played in his shirt-sleeves, with a high pitched voice. Mr. Clement Scott gave a long and favourable notice in the Daily Telegraph next day. Mr. Zangwill has lately taken unto himself a wife, none too soon, as he was the only member left in his Bachelor Club!
It is rather amusing to contrast the first plays of various men; for instance, Mr. Pinero, writing in the Era Annual, graphically described his beginning thus:
“First play of all: Two Hundred a Year. This was written for my old friends Mr. R. C. Carton and Miss Compton (Mrs. Carton) as a labour of love when I was an actor, and was produced at the Globe in 1877. The love, however, was and is more considerable than the composition, which did not employ me more than a single afternoon. My next venture was in the same year, and entitled Two Can Play at the Game, a farce produced at the Lyceum Theatre by Mrs. Bateman in order really to provide myself with a part. I acted in this many times in London, and afterwards under Mr. Irving, as he then was, throughout the provinces. By the way, Mrs. Bateman paid me five pounds for this piece.”
Mr. Sydney Grundy tells the following story:
“In 1872 I amused myself by writing a comedietta. I had it printed, and across the cover of one copy I scrawled in a large bold hand, “You may play this for nothing,” addressed it to J. B. Buckstone, Esq., Haymarket Theatre, London, posted it, and forgot all about it. A week afterwards I received a letter in these terms: ‘Dear Sir,—Mr. Buckstone desires me to inform you that your comedietta is in rehearsal, and will be produced at his forthcoming Benefit. Mr. and Mrs. Kendal will play the principal parts.—Yours faithfully, F. Weathersby.’ New authors were such rare phenomena in those days, that Mr. Buckstone did not know how to announce me, so adopted the weird expedient of describing me as ‘Mr. Sydney Grundy, of Manchester.’ The comedietta was a great success and received only one bad review. One critic was so tickled by the circumstance that the author lived in Manchester that he mentioned it no fewer than three times in his ‘notice.’”
G. R. Sims describes his initial attempt thus:
“My first play was produced at the Theatre Royal, 113, Adelaide Road, and was a burlesque of Leah; the parts were played by my brothers and sisters and some young friends. The price of admission to the day nursery, in which the stage was erected, was one shilling, which included tea, but visitors were requested to bring their own cake and jam. The burlesque was in four scenes. Many of the speeches were lifted bodily from the published burlesque of Henry J. Byron.
“That was my first play as an amateur. My first professional play was, One Hundred Years Old, and is now twenty-seven years old. It was produced July 10th, 1875, at a matinée at the Olympic Theatre, by Mr. E. J. Odell, and was a translation or adaptation of Le Centenaire, by D’Ennery and another. It was less successful than my amateur play. It did not bring me a shilling. The burlesque brought me two—one paid by my father and one by my mother.”
Such were the first experiences of three eminent dramatic authors.
It must be delightful when author and actor are in unison. Such a thing as a difference of opinion cannot be altogether unknown between them; but no more united little band could possibly be found than that behind the scenes at the Haymarket Theatre, where the rehearsals are conducted in the spirit of a family party. The tyrannical author and the self-assertive representatives of his creations all work in harmony.
“As one gets up in the Service,” amusingly said Captain Marshall, “one receives a higher rate of pay, and has proportionately less to do. Thus it was I found time for scribbling; it was actually while A.D.C. and living in a Government House that I wrote His Excellency the Governor. Three days after it came out I left the army.”
“Was that your first play?” I inquired.
“No. My first was a little one-act piece which Mr. Kendal accepted. It dealt with the flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie from Scotland in 1746. My first acted play appeared at the Lyceum, and was another piece in one act, called Shades of Night, which finally migrated to the Haymarket.”
It is curious how success and failure follow one on the other. No play of Captain Marshall’s excited more criticism than The Broad Road at Terry’s; but nevertheless it was a failure. It was succeeded immediately by A Royal Family at the Court, which proved popular. He has worked hard during the last few years, and deserves any meed of praise that may be given him by the public. Many men on being told to relinquish the profession they loved because of ill-health would calmly sit down and court death. Not so Robert Marshall. He at once turned his attention elsewhere, chose an occupation he could take about with him when driven by necessity to warmer climes, lived in the fresh air, did as he was medically advised, with the result that to-day he is a comparatively strong man, busy in a life that is full of interest.
As a subaltern in the army the embryo dramatist once painted the scenery for a performance of The Mikado in Bermuda, and was known to write, act, stage-manage, and paint the scenes of another play himself. Enthusiasm truly; but it was all experience, and the intimate knowledge then gained of the difficulties of stage craft have since stood him in good stead.
Captain Marshall is a broad, good-looking man, retiring by disposition, one might almost say shy—for that term applies, although he emphatically denies the charge—and certainly humble and modest as regards his own work. The author of The Second in Command is athletically inclined; he is fond of golf, fencing, and tennis—the love of the first he doubtless acquired in his childhood’s days, when old Tom Morris was so well known on the St. Andrews links.
The playwright is also devoted to music, and nothing gives him greater pleasure than to spend an evening at the Opera. One night I happened to sit in a box between him and Mr. Cyril Maude, and probably there were no more appreciative listeners in the house than these two men, both intensely interested in the representation of Tannh?user. Poor Mr. Maude having a sore throat, had been forbidden to act that evening for fear of losing the little voice which remained to him. As music is his delight, and an evening at the Opera an almost unknown pleasure, he enjoyed himself with the enthusiasm of a child, feeling he was having a “real holiday.”
Captain Marshall is so fond of music that he amuses himself constantly at his piano or pianola in his charming flat in town.
“I like the machine best,” he remarked laughingly, “because it makes no mistakes, and with a little practice can be played with almost as much feeling as a pianoforte.”
When in London Captain Marshall lives in a flat at the corner of Berkeley Square; but during the winter he migrates to the Riviera or some other sunny land. The home reflects the taste of its owner; and the dainty colouring, charming pictures, and solid furniture of the flat denote the man of artistic taste who dislikes show without substance even in furniture.
The first time I met Robert Marshall was at W. S. Gilbert’s delightful country home at Harrow Weald. The Captain has a most exalted opinion of Mr. Gilbert’s writings and witticisms. He considers him a model playwright, and certainly worships—as much as one man can worship at the shrine of another—this originator of modern comedy.
One summer, when Captain Marshall found the alluring hospitality of London incompatible with work, he took a charming house at Harrow Weald, and settled himself down to finish a play. He could not, however, stand the loneliness of a big establishment by himself—a loneliness which he does not feel in his flat. Consequently that peace and quiet which he went to the country to find, he himself disturbed by inviting friends down on all possible occasions, and being just as gay as if he had remained in town. He finished his play, however, between the departure and arrival of his various guests.
Two of the most successful plays of modern times have been written by women; the first, by Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, was founded on her own novel, Little Lord Fauntleroy, of which more anon. The second had no successful book to back it, and yet it ran over three hundred nights.
This as far as serious drama is concerned—for burlesque touched up may run to any length—is a record.
Mice and Men, by Mrs. Ryley, must have had something in it, something special, or why should a play from an almost unknown writer have taken such a hold on the London public? It was well acted, of course, for that excellent artist Forbes Robertson was in it; but other plays have been well acted and yet have failed.
Why, then, its longevity?
Its very simplicity must be the answer. It carried conviction. It was just a quaint little idyllic episode of love and romance, deftly woven together with strong human interest. It aimed at nothing great, it merely sought to entertain and amuse. Love rules the world, romance enthrals it, both were prettily depicted by a woman, and the play proved a brilliant success. To have written so little and yet made such a hit is rare.
On the other hand, one of our most successful playwrights has been very prolific in his work. Sir Francis Burnand has edited Punch for more than thirty years, and yet has produced over one hundred and twenty plays. ’Tis true one of the most successful of these was written in a night. Mr. Burnand, as he was then, went to the St. James’s Theatre one evening to see Diplomacy, and after the performance walked home. On the way the idea for a burlesque struck him, so he had something to eat, found paper and pens, and began. By breakfast-time next morning Diplomacy was completed, and a few days later all London was laughing over it. There is a record of industry and speed.
The stage, however, has not claimed so much of his attention of late years as his large family and Mr. Punch. Sir Francis is particularly neat and dapper, with a fresh complexion and grey hair. He wears a pointed white beard, but looks remarkably youthful. He is a busy man, and spends hours of each day in his well-stocked library at the Boltons (London, Eng.: as our American friends would say), or at Ramsgate, his favourite holiday resort, where riding and sea-boating afford him much amusement, and time for reflection. He is a charming dinner-table companion, always full of good humour and amusing stories.
It was when dining one night at the Burnands’ home in the Boltons that I met Sir John Tenniel after a lapse of some years, for he virtually gave up dining out early in the ’90’s in order to devote his time to his Punch cartoon. One warm day in July, 1902, however, John Tenniel was persuaded to break his rule, and proved as kind and lively as ever. Although eighty-two years of age he drew a picture for me after dinner. There are not many men of eighty-two who could do that; but then, did he not draw the Punch cartoon without intermission for fifty years?
“What am I to draw?” he asked. “I have nothing to copy and no model to help me.”
“Britannia,” I replied. “That ever-young lady is such an old friend of yours, you must know every line in her face by heart.” And he did. The dear old man’s hand was very shaky, until he got the pencil on to the paper, and then the lines themselves were perfectly clear and distinct; years of work on wood blocks had taught him precision which did not fail him even when over fourscore.
Every one loves Sir John. He never seems to have given offence with his cartoons as so many have done before and since. Cartoonists and caricaturists ply a difficult trade, for so few people like to be made fun of themselves, although they dearly love a joke at some one else’s expense.
A few doors from the Burnands’ charming house in Bolton Gardens lives the author of Charley’s Aunt.
When in the city of Mexico, one broiling hot December day in 1900, I was invited to dine and go to the theatre. I had only just arrived in that lovely capital, and was dying to see and do everything.
“Will there be any Indians amongst the audience?” I inquired.
“Si, Se?ora. The Indians and half-castes love the theatre, and always fill the cheaper places.”
This sounded delightful; a Spanish play acted in Castilian with beautiful costumes of matadors and shawled ladies—what could be better? Gladly I accepted the invitation to dine and go to the theatre afterwards, where, as subsequently proved, they have a strange arrangement by which a spectator either pays for the whole performance, or only to witness one particular act.
We arrived. The audience looked interesting: few, however, even in the best places wore dress-clothes, any more than they do in the United States. The performance began.
It did not seem very Spanish, and somehow appeared familiar. I looked at the programme. “La Tia de Carlos.”
What a sell! I had been brought to see Charley’s Aunt.
One night after my return to London I was dining with William Heinemann, the publisher, to meet the great “Jimmy” Whistler. I was telling Mr. Brandon Thomas, the author of Charley’s Aunt, this funny little experience, when he remarked:
“I can tell you another. My wife and I had been staying in the Swiss mountains, when one day we reached Zürich. ‘Let us try to get a decent dinner,’ I said, ‘for I am sick of table d’h?tes.’ Accordingly we dined on the best Zürich could produce, and then asked the waiter what play he would recommend.
“‘The theatres are closed just now,’ he replied.
“‘But surely something is open?’
“‘Ah, well, yes, there’s a sort of music hall, but the Herrschaften would not care to go there.’
“‘Why not?’ I exclaimed, longing for some diversion.
“‘Because they are only playing a very vulgar piece, it would not please the gn?dige Frau, it is a stupid English farce.’
“‘Never mind how stupid. Tell me its name.’
“‘It is called,’ replied the waiter, ‘Die Tante.’”
Poor Brandon Thomas nearly collapsed on the spot, it was his very own play. They went. Needless to say, however, the author hardly recognised his child in its new garb, although he never enjoyed an evening more thoroughly in his life.
The first draft of this well-known piece was written in three weeks, and afterwards, as the play was considerably cut in the provinces, Mr. Thomas restored the original matter and entirely re-wrote it before it was produced in London, when the author played the part of Sir Francis Chesney himself.
I have another recollection in connection with Charley’s Aunt. It must have been about 1895 that my husband and I were dining with that delightful little gentleman and great Indian Prince, the Gaekwar of Baroda, and the Maharanee (his wife), and we all went on to the theatre to see Charley’s Aunt. At that time His Highness the Gaekwar was very proud of a grand new theatre he had built in Baroda, and was busy having plays translated for production. Several Shakespearian pieces had already been done. He thought Charley’s Aunt might be suitable, but as the play proceeded, turning to me he remarked:
“This would never do, it would give my people a bad idea of English education; no, no—I cannot allow such a mistake as that.”
So good is His Highness’s own opinion of our education that his sons are at Harrow and Oxford as I write.
Charley’s Aunt has been played in every European language—verily a triumph for its author. How happy and proud a man ought to be who has brought so much enjoyment into life; and yet Brandon Thomas feels almost obliged to blush every time the title is mentioned. When Mr. Penley asked him to write a play, in spite of being in sad need of cash, he was almost in despair. His eye fell upon the photograph of an elderly relative, and showing it to Penley he asked:
“How would you like to play an old woman like that?”
“Delighted, old chap; I’ve always wanted to play a woman’s character.” And when the play was written Penley acted the part made up like the old lady in the photograph which still stands on Brandon Thomas’s mantelshelf.
London is changing terribly, although Charley’s Aunt seems as if it would go on for ever. Old London is vanishing in a most distressing manner. Within a few months Newgate has been pulled down, the Bluecoat School has disappeared, and now Clifford’s Inn has been sold for ￡100,000 and is to be demolished. Many of the sets of chambers therein contained beautiful carving, and in one of these sets dwelt Frederick Fenn, the dramatist, son of Manville Fenn, the novelist. He determined to have a bachelor party before quitting his rooms, and an interesting party it proved.
I left home shortly after nine o’clock with a friend, and when we reached Piccadilly Circus we found ourselves in the midst of the crowd waiting to watch President Loubet drive past on his way to the Gala performance at Covent Garden (July, 1903). The streets were charmingly decorated, and must have given immense satisfaction not only to the President of France but to the entire Republic he represented. From the Circus through Leicester Square the crowd was standing ten or fifteen deep on either side of the road, and we had various vicissitudes in getting to our destination at all. The police would not let us pass, and we drove round and round back streets, unable to get into either the Strand or St. Martin’s Lane. However, at last a mighty cheer told us the royal party had passed, and we were allowed to drive on our way to Clifford’s Inn. Up a dark alley beyond the Law Courts we trudged, and rang the big sonorous bell for the porter to admit us to the courtyard surrounded by chambers.
Ascending a spiral stone staircase, carpeted in red for the occasion, we passed through massive oak doors with their low doorways and entered Mr. Fenn’s rooms.
“How lovely! Surely those carvings are by the famous Gibbons?”
“They are,” he said, “or at any rate they are reputed to be, and in a fortnight will be sold by auction to the highest bidder.”
This wonderful decoration had been there for numbers of years, the over-doors, chimneypieces and window-frames were all most beautifully carved, and the whole room was panelled from floor to ceiling. The furniture was in keeping. Beautiful inlaid satinwood tables, settees covered with old-fashioned brocade, old Sheffield cake-baskets, were in harmony with the setting.
It was quite an interesting little party, and I thoroughly enjoyed my chat with James Welsh, the clever comedian, who played in the New Clown for eighteen months consecutively. Such an interesting little man, with dark round eyes and pale eyelashes, and a particularly broad crown to his head.
“I don’t mind a long run at all,” he said, “because every night there is a fresh audience. Sometimes they are so dull we cannot get hold of them at all till the second act, and sometimes it is even the end of the second act before they are roused to enthusiasm; another time they will see the fun from the first rise of the curtain. Personally I prefer the audience to be rather dull at the beginning, for I like to work them up, and to work up with them myself. The most enthusiastic audiences to my mind are to be found in Scotland—I am of course speaking of low comedy. In Ireland they may be as appreciative, but they are certainly quieter. Londoners are always difficult to rouse to any expression of enthusiasm. I suppose they see too many plays, and so become blasé.”
Sarah Bernhardt’s Dresses and Wigs—A Great Musician’s Hair—Expenses of Mounting—Percy Anderson—Ulysses—The Eternal City—A Dress Parade—Armour—Over-elaboration—An Understudy—Miss Fay Davis—A London Fog—The Difficulties of an Engagement.
MADAME SARAH BERNHARDT is an extraordinary woman. A young artist of my acquaintance did much work for her at one time. He designed dresses, and painted the Egyptian, Assyrian, and other trimmings. She was always most grateful and generous. Money seemed valueless to her; she dived her hand into a bag of gold, and holding it out bid him take what would repay him for his trouble. He was a true artist and his gifts appealed to her.
“More, more,” she often exclaimed. “You have not reimbursed yourself sufficiently—you have only taken working-pay and allowed nothing for your talent. It is the talent I wish to pay for.”
And she did.
On one occasion a gorgeous cloak he had designed for her came home; a most expensive production. She tried it on.
“Hateful, hateful!” she cried. “The bottom is too heavy, bring me the scissors,” and in a moment she had ripped off all the lower trimmings. The artist looked aghast, and while he stood—
“Black,” she went on—“it wants black”; and thereupon she pinned a great black scarf her dresser brought her over the mantle. The effect was magical. That became one of her most successful garments for many a day.
“Ah!” said the artist afterwards, “she has a great and generous heart—she adores talent, worships the artistic, and her taste is unfailing.”
Wonderful effects can be gained on the stage by the aid of the make-up box—and the wig-maker.
Madame Sarah Bernhardt declares Clarkson, of London, to be the “king of wig-makers,” and he has made every wig she has worn in her various parts for many years.
“She is a wonderful woman,” Mr. Clarkson said, “she knows exactly what she wants, and if she has not time to write and enclose a sketch—which, by the way, she does admirably—she sends a long telegram from Paris, and expects the wig to be despatched almost as quickly as if it went over by a ‘reply-paid process.’”
“But surely you get more time than that usually?”
DRAWING OF COSTUME FOR JULIET, BY PERCY ANDERSON.
“Oh yes, of course; but twice I have made wigs in a few hours. Once for Miss Ellen Terry. I think it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Bells—at any rate she was to appear in a small first piece for one night. At three o’clock that afternoon the order came. I set six people to work on six different pieces, and at seven o’clock took them down to the theatre and pinned them on Miss Terry’s head. The other wig I had to make so quickly was for Madame Eleonora Duse. She arrived in London October, 1903, and somehow the wigs went astray. She wired to Paris to inquire who made the one in La Ville Morte with which Madame Bernhardt strangled her victim. When the reply came she sent for me, and the same night Madame Duse wore the new wig in La Gioconda.”
By-the-bye, Madame Duse has a wonderful wig-box. It is a sort of miniature cupboard made of wood, from which the front lets down. Inside are six divisions. Each division contains one of those weird block-heads on which perruques stand when being redressed, and on every red head rests a wig. These are for her different parts, the blocks are screwed tight into the box, and the wigs are covered lightly with chiffon for travelling. When the side of the box falls down those six heads form a gruesome sight!
Most of the hair used in wig-making comes from abroad, principally from the mountain valleys of Switzerland, where the peasant-girls wear caps and sell their hair. A wig costs anything from ￡2 to ￡10, and it is wonderful how little the good ones weigh. They are made on the finest net, and each hair is sewn on separately.
When Clarkson was a boy of twelve and a half years old he first accompanied his father, who was a hairdresser, to the opera, and thus the small youth began his profession. He still works in the house in which he was born, so he was reared literally in the wig trade, and now employs a couple of hundred persons. What he does not know can hardly be worth knowing—and he is quite a character. Not only does he work for the stage; but detectives often employ him to paint their faces and disguise them generally, and he has even decorated a camel with whiskers and grease paint.
The most expensive wig he ever made was for Madame Sarah Bernhardt in La Samaritaine. It had to be very long, and naturally wavy hair, so that she could throw it over her face when she fell at the Saviour’s feet. In L’Aiglon Madame Bernhardt wore her own hair for a long time, and had it cut short for the purpose: but she found it so difficult to dress off the stage that she ultimately ordered a wig.
If Madame Bernhardt is particular about her wigs and her dresses she has done much to improve theatrical costumes—she has stamped them with an individuality and artistic grace.
A well-known musician travelled from a far corner in Europe to ask a wig-maker to make him a wig. He arrived one day in Wellington Street in a great state of distress and told his story. He had prided himself on his beautiful, long, wavy hair, through which he could pass his fingers in dramatic style, and which he could shake with leonine ferocity over a passage which called for such sentiments. But alas! there came a day when the hair began to come out, and the locks threatened to disappear. He travelled hundreds of miles to London to know if the wig-maker could copy the top of his head exactly before it was too late. Of course he could, and consequently those raven curls were matched, and one by one were sewn into the fine netting to form the toupet. Having got the semi-wig exactly to cover his head, the great musician sallied forth and had his head shaved. Then, with a little paste to catch it down in front and at the sides, the toupet was securely placed upon the bald cranium. For six months that man had his head shaved daily. The effect was magical. When he left off shaving a new crop of hair began to grow with lightning rapidity, and he is now the happy possessor of as beautiful a head of hair as ever.
Little by little the public has been taught to expect the reproduction of correct historical pictures upon the stage, and such being the case, artists have risen to the occasion, men who have given years of their lives to the study of apparel of particular periods.
Designing stage dress is no easy matter; long and ardent research is necessary for old costume pieces, and men who have made this their speciality read and sketch at museums, and sometimes travel to far corners of the world, to get exactly what they want. As a rule the British Museum provides reliable material for historical costume.
Think of the hundreds, aye hundreds, of costumes necessary for a heavy play at the Lyceum or His Majesty’s—think of what peasantry, soldiers, to say nothing of fairies, require, added to which four or five dresses for each of the chief performers, not only cost months of labour to design and execute, but need large sums of money to perfect. As much as ￡10,000 has often been spent in the staging of a single play.
This is no meagre sum, and should the play fail the actor-manager who has risked that large amount (or his syndicate) must bear the loss.
Some wonderful stage pictures have been produced within the last few years—and not a few of them were the work of Mr. Percy Anderson, Sir Alma-Tadema, and Mr. Percy Macquoid. It is an interesting fact that, while the designs for Ulysses cost Mr. Anderson six months’ continual labour, he managed to draw the elaborate costumes for Lewis Waller’s production of The Three Musketeers in three days, working eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, because the dresses were wanted immediately.
Percy Anderson did not start as an artist in his youth, he was not born in the profession, but as a mature man allowed his particular bent to lead him to success. He lives in a charming little house bordering on the Regent’s Park, where he works with his brush all day, and his pencil far into the night. His studio is a pretty snuggery built on at the back of the house, which is partly studio, partly room, and partly greenhouse. Here he does his work and accomplishes those delightfully sketchy portraits for which he is famous, his innumerable designs for theatrical apparel.
When I asked Mr. Anderson which costumes were most difficult to draw, he replied:
“Either those in plays of an almost prehistoric period, when the materials from which to work are extremely scanty, or those that introduce quite modern and up-to-date ceremonial.
“As an instance of the former Ulysses proved an exceedingly difficult piece for which to design the costumes, because the only authentic information obtainable was from castes and sketches of remains found during the recent excavations at Knossus, in Crete, that have since been exhibited at the Winter Exhibition at Burlington House, but which were at the time reposing in a private room at the British Museum, where I was able to make some rough sketches and notes by the courtesy of Mr. Sidney Colvin.”
“How did you manage about colour?”
“My guide as to the colours in use at that remote period of time was merely a small fragment of early Mycenean mural decoration from Knossus, in which three colours, namely, yellow, blue, and a terra-cotta-red, together with black and white, were the only tones used, and to these three primary colours I accordingly confined myself, but I made one introduction, a bright apple-green dress which served to throw the others into finer relief. From these extremely scanty materials I had to design over two hundred costumes, none of which were exactly alike.”
The brilliancy of the result all playgoers will remember. The frontispiece shows one of the designs.
As an instance of a play introducing intricate modern ceremonial for which every garment worn had some special significance, The Eternal City may be mentioned. In that Mr. Anderson had the greatest difficulty in discovering exactly what uniform or vestment would be worn by the Pope’s entourage on important private occasions, such as the scene in the Gardens of the Vatican, where His Holiness was carried in and saluted by the members of his guard before being left to receive his private audiences.
Mr. Anderson, however, received invaluable assistance in these matters from Mr. De La Roche Francis, who, besides having relatives in high official positions in Rome, had himself been attached to the Papal Court. All orders and decorations worn by the various characters in The Eternal City were modelled from the originals. Mr. Anderson usually makes a separate sketch for every costume to be worn by each character, in order to judge of the whole effect, which picture he supplements by drawings of the back and side views, reproductions of hats, head-dresses, hair, and jewellery.
This is thoroughness—but after all thoroughness is the only thing that really succeeds. From these sketches the articles are cut out and made after Mr. Anderson has passed the materials as satisfactory submitted to him. Sometimes nothing proves suitable, and then something has to be woven to meet his own particular requirements.
Mr. Anderson received orders direct from Beerbohm Tree for King John, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Herod, Ulysses, Merry Wives of Windsor, Resurrection, and The Eternal City, but in some cases the orders come from the authors. For instance, Mr. Pinero wrote asking him to design those delightful Victorian costumes for Trelawny of the Wells. Captain Basil Hood arranged with him about the dresses for Merrie England, and J. M. Barrie for those in Quality Street.
Some of the old-style dresses do not allow of much movement, and therefore it is sometimes necessary to make the garments in such a way that, while the effect remains, the actor has full play for his limbs. For instance, much adaptation of this sort was necessary for Richard II. at His Majesty’s. Mr. Anderson was about three months designing the two hundred and fifty dresses for this marvellous spectacle. He sought inspiration at the British Museum and Westminster, the Bluemantle at the Heralds’ College giving him valuable information with regard to the heraldry. All this shows the pains needed and taken to produce an accurate and harmonious stage picture.
The designer is given a free hand, he chooses his own materials to the smallest details—often a guinea a yard is paid for silks and velvets—and he superintends everything, even the grouping of the crowds, so as to give most effect to his colouring. “Dress parades,” of which there are several, are those in which all the chorus and crowds have to appear, therefore their dresses are usually made first, so as to admit of ample study of colour before the “principals” receive theirs. The onlooker hardly recognises the trouble this entails, nor how well thought out the scheme of colour must be, so that when the crowd breaks up into groups the dresses shall not clash. The artist must always work up to one broad effect in order to make a decorative scene.
It may be interesting to note that there is one particular colour—French blue—practically the shade of hyacinths, which is particularly useful for stage effect as it does not lose any of its tint by artificial light. It can only be dyed in one river at Lyons, in France, where there is some chemical in the water which exactly suits and retains the particular shade desired. We are improving in England, however, and near Haslemere wonderful fabrics and colours are now produced. There are excellent costumiers in England, some of the best, in fact, many of whom lay themselves out for work of a particular period; but all the armour is still made in France. That delightful singer and charming man, Eugene Oudin, wore a beautiful suit of chain armour as the Templar in Ivanhoe, which cost considerably over ￡100, and proved quite light and easy to wear. (During the last five years armour has become cheaper.) It was a beautiful dress, including a fine plumed helmet, and as he and my husband were the same size and build he several times lent it to him for fancy balls. It looked like the old chain armour in the Tower of London or the Castle of Madrid, and yet did not weigh as many ounces as they do pounds, so carefully had it been made to allow ease and movement to the singer.
After all, it is really a moot question whether tremendous elaboration of scenery is a benefit to dramatic production. At the present time much attention is drawn from the main interest, and instead of appreciating the acting or the play, it is the stage carpentering and gorgeous “mounting” that wins the most applause.
This is all very well to a certain extent, but it is hardly educating the public to grasp the real value of play or acting if both be swamped by scenery and silks. Lately we had an opportunity of seeing really good performances without their being enhanced by scenic effect, such as Twelfth Night, by the Elizabethan Stage Society, and Everyman. These representations were an intellectual treat, such as one seldom enjoys, and were certainly calculated to raise the standard of purely theatrical work. Strictness of detail may do much to make the tout ensemble perfect, but does not the piece lose more than it gains?
Again, the careful rehearsing which is now in fashion tends to make the performers more or less puppets in the hands of the stage manager or author, rather than real individual actors. Individuality except in “stars” is not wanted nor appreciated. Further, long runs are the ruin of actors. Instead of being kept up to the mark, alert, their brains active by constantly learning and performing new r?les, they simply become automata, and can almost go through their parts in their sleep. Surely this is not acting.
Every important r?le has an understudy. Generally some one playing a minor part in the programme is allowed the privilege of understudying a star. By this arrangement he is at the theatre every night, and if the star cannot shine, the minor individual goes on to twinkle instead, his own part being played by some lesser luminary. Many a man or woman has found an opening and ultimate success in this way, through the misfortune of another.
At some theatres the understudy is paid for performing, or is given a present of some sort in recognition of his services, while at others, even good ones, he gets nothing at all, the honour being considered sufficient reward.
No one misses a performance if he can possibly help it; there are many reasons for not doing so; and sometimes actors go through this strain when physically unfit for work, rather than be out of the bill for a single night. Theatrical folk go through many vicissitudes in their endeavour to keep faith with the public.
For instance, one terribly foggy night in 1902 during the run of Iris all London was steeped in blackness. It was truly an awful fog, just one of those we share with Chicago and Christiania. Miss Fay Davis, that winsome American actress, was playing the chief part in Pinero’s play and went down to the theatre every night from her home in Sloane Square in a brougham she always hired, with an old coachman she knew well.
She ate her dinner in despair at the fog, her mother fidgeted anxiously and wondered what was to happen, when the bell rang, long before the appointed time, and the carriage was announced.
“Oh, we’ll get there somehow, miss,” the old coachman remarked; so, well wrapped up in furs, the daring lady started for her work. They did get there after an anxious journey, assisted by policemen and torches, Miss Davis alighted, saying:
“I daresay it will be all right by eleven, but anyway you must fetch me on foot if you can’t drive.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” replied her worthy friend, and off he drove. Miss Davis went to her dressing-room, feeling a perfect heroine for venturing forth, and when she was half ready there came a knock at the door.
“No performance to-night, miss.”
“What?”
“Only half the actors have turned up, and there isn’t a single man or woman in the theatre—pit empty, gallery empty, everything empty—so they’ve decided not to play Iris to-night. No one can see across the footlights.”
It was true; so remarkable was that particular fog, several of the playhouses had to shut-up-shop for the night. How Miss Davis got home remains a mystery.
A very beautiful actress of my acquaintance rarely has an engagement. She acts well, she looks magnificent, and has played many star parts in the provinces, yet she is constantly among the unemployed. “Why,” I once asked, “do you find it so difficult to get work?”
“Because I’m three inches too tall. No man likes to be dwarfed by a woman on the stage. In a ball-room the smaller the man the taller the partner he chooses, and this sometimes applies to matrimony, but on the stage never.”
“Can you play with low heels?” she is often asked when seeking an engagement.
“Certainly,” is the reply.
“Would you mind standing beside me?”
“Delighted.”
“Too tall, I’m afraid,” says the man.
“But I can dress my hair low and wear small hats.”
“Too tall all the same, I’m afraid.”
And for this reason she loses one engagement after another. Most of the actor-managers have their own wives or recognised “leading ladies,” so that in London, openings for new stars are few and far between, and when the actress, however great her talent or her charm, makes the leading actor look small, she is waved aside and some one inferior takes her place.
On one occasion it was a woman who refused to act with my friend. She had been engaged for a big part—but when this woman—once the darling of society, and a glittering star upon the stage—saw her fellow-worker, she said:
“I can’t act with you, you would make me look insignificant; besides, you are too good-looking.”