On The Stage-And Off

CHAPTER XV. Revenge

MORE extracts:

“… I’m afraid I shall have to trouble you to get me another wig. I thought my own hair would do for modern juvenile parts, but it isn’t considered light enough. ‘Be virtuous and you will have hair the color of tow,’ seems to be the basis of the whole theatrical religion. I wish I could be as economical in wigs as our First Old Man is. He makes one do for everything. He wears it the right way when he is a serious old man, and hind part foremost when he wants to be funny.

“Talking of wigs puts me in mind of an accident our manager had the other night. He is over fifty, but he fancies he is a sort of Charles Mathews, and will play young parts. So on Saturday evening he came on as the lover in an old English comedy, wearing one of those big three-cornered hats. ‘Who is that handsome young man with the fair hair?’ says the heroine to her confidante. ‘Oh, that, why that is Sir Harry Monfort, the gallant young gentleman who saved the Prince’s life. He is the youngest officer in the camp, but already the most famous.’ ‘Brave boy.’ murmurs the heroine; ‘I would speak a word with him. Call him hither, Lenora.’ So Lenora called him thither, and up he skipped. When the heroine spoke to him, he was quite overcome with boyish bashfulness. ‘Ah, madam,’ sighed he, taking off his hat and making a sweeping bow – ‘What the devil’s the matter? What are they laughing at? Oh my – ’

“He had taken his wig off with his hat, and there was the ‘brave boy’s’ poor old bald head exposed to the jeers of a ribald house.

“I’d half a mind to rush up to town last week. I was out of the bill for three nights running. But the mere railway fare would have cost me nearly half a week’s salary, so I contented myself with a trip over to R – and a look in at the show there. I met W – . He’s married little Polly – , who was walking lady at – . She is up at Aberdeen now, and he hasn’t seen her for over three months. Rather rough on a young couple who haven’t been married a year. The old ones bear up against this sort of thing very well indeed, but poor W – is quite upset about it.

“They kept together as long as they could, but business got so bad that they had to separate, and each take the first thing that offered.

“You remember my telling you how our prompter got me fined for not attending a rehearsal some time ago. I said I would serve him out, and so I have. Or rather we have – I and one of the others who had a score against him – for he’s a bumptious, interfering sort of fellow, and makes himself disagreeable to everybody. He is awful spoons on a Miss Pinkeen, whose father keeps an ironmonger’s shop next door to the theater. The old man knows nothing about it, and they are up to all kinds of dodges to get a word with each other. Now, one of our dressing-room windows is exactly opposite their staircase window, and he and the girl often talk across; and, once or twice, he has placed a plank between the two windows, and crawled along it into the house when her father has been away. Well, we got hold of a bit of this girl’s writing the other day, and forged a letter to him, saying that her father had gone out, and that she wanted to see him very particularly, and that he was to come over through the window and wait on the landing till she came upstairs. Then, just before rehearsal, we went out and gave a stray boy twopence to take it in to him.

“Of course no sooner did we see that he was fairly inside the house, and out of sight, than we pulled the board in and shut our window. It got quite exciting on the stage as time went by. ‘Where’s – ?’ fumed the stage manager. ‘Where the devil’s – ? It’s too bad of him to keep us all waiting like this.’ And then the call-boy was sent round to four public houses, and then to his lodgings; for he had got the book in his pocket, and we couldn’t begin without him. ‘Oh, it’s too bad of him to go away and stop like this,’ cried the stage manager again at the end of half an hour. I’ll fine him five shillings for this. I won’t be played the fool with.’ In about an hour, he came in looking thunder and lightning. He wouldn’t give any explanation. All we could get out of him was, that if he could find out who’d done it, he’d jolly well wring his neck.

“From what the ironmonger’s boy told our call-boy, it seems that he waited about three-quarters of an hour on the stairs, not daring to move, and that then the old man came up and wanted to know what he was doing there. There was a regular scene in the house, and the girl has sworn that she’ll never speak to him again for getting her into a row, and about four of her biggest male relatives have each expressed a firm determination to break every bone in his body; and the boy adds, that from his knowledge of them they are to be relied upon. We have thought it our duty to let him know these things.”

I find nothing further of any theatrical interest, until I come to the following, written about four months after the date of my entering the company:

“I was far too busy to write last week. It’s been something awful. We’ve got – * down here for a fortnight. His list consists of eighteen pieces – eight ‘legitimate,’ five dramas, four comedies, and a farce; and we only had a week in which to prepare. There have been rehearsals at ten, and rehearsal at three, and rehearsals at eleven, after the performance was over. First I took all the parts given me, and studied them straight off one after the other. Then I found I’d got them all jumbled up together in my head, and the more I tried to remember what belonged to which, the more I forgot which belonged to what. At rehearsal I talked Shakespeare in the farce, and put most of the farce and a selection from all the five dramas into one of the comedies. And then the stage manager went to put me right, and then he got mixed up, and wanted to know if anybody could oblige him by informing him what really was being rehearsed; and the Leading Lady and the First Low Comedy said it was one of the dramas, but the Second Low Comedy, the Soubrette, and the Leader of the Orchestra would have it was a comedy, while the rest of us were too bewildered to be capable of forming any opinion on any subject.

*A “Star” from London,

“The strain has so upset me, that I don’t even now know whether I’m standing on my head or my heels; and, our First Old Man – but I’ll come to him later on. My work has been particularly heavy, for, in consequence of a serious accident that has happened to our Walking Gentleman, I’ve had to take his place. He was playing a part in which somebody – the Heavy Man – tries to stab him while he’s asleep. But just when the would-be murderer has finished soliloquizing, and the blow is about to fall, he starts up, and a grand struggle ensues. I think the other fellow must have been drunk on the last occasion..Anyhow, the business was most clumsily managed, and R – , our Walking Gent, got his eye cut out, and is disfigured for life. It is quite impossible for him now to play his old line, and he has to do heavies or low comedy, or anything where appearance is of no importance. The poor fellow is terribly cut up – don’t think I’m trying to make a ghastly joke – and he seems to be especially bitter against me for having slipped into his shoes. I’m sure he need not be; whatever good his ill wind has blown me has brought with it more work than it’s worth; and I think, on the whole, taking this star business into consideration, I would rather have stopped where I was. I knew a good many of the parts I should have had to play, but as it is, everything has been fresh study.

“Well, I was going to tell you about our old man. He had always boasted that he hadn’t studied for the last ten years. I don’t know what particular merit there was in this, that he should have so prided himself upon it, but that he considered it as highly clever on his part there could not be the slightest doubt; and he had even got to quite despise any one who did study. You can imagine his feelings, therefore, when sixteen long parts, eleven at least of which he had never seen before, were placed in his hand, with a request that he would be letter ‘perfect in all by the following Thursday. It was observed that he didn’t say much at the time. He was a garrulous old gentleman as a rule, but, after once glancing over the bundle, he grew thoughtful and abstracted and did not join in the chorus of curses loud and deep which was being sung with great vigor by the rest of the company. The only person to whom he made any remark was myself, who happened to be standing by the stage-door when he was going out. He took the bundle of parts out of his pocket, and showed them to me. ‘Nice little lot, that – ain’t it?’ he said. ‘I’ll just go home and study them all up – that’s what I’ll do.’ Then he smiled – a sad, wan smile – and went slowly out.

“That was on Saturday evening, and on Monday morning we met at ten for rehearsal. We went on without the old man until eleven; and then, as he hadn’t turned up, and was much wanted, the boy was despatched to his lodgings to see if he was there. We waited patiently for another quarter of an hour, and then the boy returned.

“The old man had not been seen since Sunday.

“His landlady had left him in the morning, looking over the ‘parts,’ and when she returned in the evening, he was gone. A letter, addressed to her, had been found in his room, and this she had given the boy to take back with him.

“The stage manager took it and hurriedly opened it. At the first glance, he started and uttered an exclamation of horror; and when he had finished it, it dropped from his hand, and he sank down in the nearest chair, dazed and bewildered, like a man who has heard, but cannot yet grasp, some terrible news.

“A cold, sickly feeling came over me. The strange, far-away look, and the quiet, sad smile that I had last seen on the old man’s face came back to me with startling vividness, and with a new and awful meaning. He was old and enfeebled. He had not the elastic vigor of youth that can bear up under worry and work. His mind, to all seeming, had never at any time been very powerful. Had the sudden and heavy call upon his energies actually unhinged it? and had the poor old fellow in some mad moment taken up arms against his sea of troubles, and by opposing ended them? Was he now lying in some shady copse, with a gaping wound from ear to ear, or sleeping his last sleep with the deep waters for a coverlet? Was what lay before me a message from the grave? These thoughts flashed like lightning through my brain as I darted forward and picked the letter up. It ran as follows:

“Dear Mrs. Hopsam, – I’m off to London by the 3.30, and shan’t come back. I’ll write and let you know where to send my things. I left a pair of boots at Jupp’s to have the toe-caps sewn – please get ‘em; and there was a night-shirt short last week – it’s got a D on it. If they send from the theater, tell them to go to the devil; and if they want sixteen parts studied in a week, they’d better get a cast-iron actor. Yours truly, D – .

“This was a great relief to me, but it didn’t seem to have soothed the stage manager much. When he recovered from his amazement, he said what he thought of the old man, which I will not repeat. There was a deuce of a row, I can tell you. Our Leading Man, who had consoled himself for being temporarily ousted from his proper position by the thought of having nothing to do all the time, and being able to go in front each night and sneer at the ‘star,’ had to take the First Old Man’s place, and a pretty temper he’s in about it. It’s as much as one’s life’s worth now, even, to sneak a bit of his color. Another old man joins us after next week, but of course that is just too late for the hard work. – will be gone then…”

CHAPTER XVI. Views on Acting

I QUOTE from two more letters, and then I have done with this stock company. The first was written just after our star had set – or rather gone to the next town – the second about a fortnight later:

“… – left on Saturday. We had crowded houses all the time he was with us, and I’m not surprised. It must have been a treat to these benighted provincials to see real acting. No wonder country people don’t care much for theaters, seeing the wretched horse-play presented to them under the name of acting. It does exasperate me to hear people talking all that thundering nonsense about the provinces being such a splendid school for young actors. Why, a couple of months of it is enough to kill any idea of acting a man may have started with. Even if you had time to think of anything but how to gabble through your lines, it would be of no use. You would never be allowed to carry out any ideas of your own. If you attempted to think, you would be requested to look out for, another shop at once. The slightest naturalness or originality would be put down to ignorance. You must walk through each part by the beaten track of rule and tradition – and such rule and tradition! The rule of Richardson’s Show, the tradition of some ranting inn-yard hack. To reach the standard of dramatic art in the provinces, you have to climb down, not up. Comedy consists in having a red nose, and tumbling about the stage; being pathetic makes you hoarse for an hour after; and as for tragedy! no one dare attempt that who hasn’t the lungs of a politician.

“But – changed all that for us. He infused a new spirit into everybody, and, when he, was on the stage, the others acted better than I should ever have thought they could have done. It is the first time I have played with any one who can properly be called an actor, and it was quite a new sensation. I could myself tell that I was acting very differently to the way in which I usually act. I seemed to catch his energy and earnestness; the scene grew almost real, and I began to feel my part. And that is the most any one can do on the stage. As to ‘being the character you are representing,’ that is absurd. I can hardly believe in any sane person seriously putting forward such a suggestion. It is too ridiculous to argue against. Picture to yourself a whole company forgetting they were merely acting, and all fancying themselves the people they were impersonating. Words and business would of course be out of the question. They would all say and do just what came natural to them, and just when it came natural; so that sometimes everybody would be talking at once, and at other times there would be nobody doing anything. Such enthusiasm as theirs would never bow to the pitiful requirements of stage illusion. They would walk over the footlights on to the heads of the orchestra, and they would lean up against the mountains in the background. It would be a grand performance, but it wouldn’t last long. The police would have to be called in before the first act was over. If they were not, the Leading Man would slaughter half the other members of the company; the Juvenile Lead would run off with the Walking Lady and the property jewels; and the First Old Man would die of a broken heart. What the manager would do on the second night I don’t know. If he opened at all, I suppose he would go in front and explain matters by saying:

“‘Ladies and Gentlemen, – I must apologize for the incompleteness with which the play will be presented to you this evening. The truth is, the performance last night was so realistic all round, that there is only the Low Comedy and a General Utility left. But we’ve a good many corpses about the theater, and with these, and the assistance of the two gentlemen mentioned, we will do what we can.’

“Even when studying in one’s own room, one cannot for a moment lose sight of one’s identity. A great actor, creating a character, doesn’t forget he’s himself, and think he’s somebody else. It’s only lunatics who have those fancies. But he is a man of such vast sympathy that he can understand and enter into all human thoughts and feelings; and, having pictured to himself the character of the man he wishes to represent, he can follow the workings of that supposed man’s mind under all possible circumstances.

“But even this sympathy must be left outside the theater doors. Once inside, the mind must be kept clear of all distracting thought. What is gone through on the stage is merely an exact repetition of what is conceived in the study, and a cool head and a good memory are the only reliable servants when once the curtain is up. Of course a man should feel what he is acting. Feeling is the breath of acting. It is to the actor what Aphrodite’s gift was to Pygmalion – it gives life to his statue. But this feeling is as much a matter of memory as the rest. The actual stage is too artificial for emotion to come to one naturally while there. Each passion is assumed and dropped by force of will, together with the words and action which accompany it.

“…I made a sensation here last Tuesday. I was playing the very part in which our Walking Gentleman met with his accident, and he was playing the villain, who tries to stab me while I am asleep. (The Heavy Man has left. He went soon after he had done the mischief.) Well, everything had gone very smoothly so far, and I was lying there on the couch at the back of the darkened stage, and he was leaning over me with the knife in his hand. I was quite still, waiting for my cue to awake, and wondering if I could manage to start up quickly, when I raised my eyes and caught sight of R – ‘s face. I may have done him an injustice. His expression may have been mere acting. The whole idea was, perhaps, due to nothing but my own imagination. I have thought this since. At the time it flashed across me: ‘He means to revenge himself on me for having taken his place. He is going to disfigure me just as he was disfigured.’ In an instant I sprung up and wrested the knife from his hand.

“We stood there looking at one another, and neither of us moved or spoke; he, livid underneath his color, and trembling from head to foot. How long we kept in that position I do not know, for the thud of the curtain upon the stage was the first thing that recalled me to myself. Up to when I had snatched the knife from him, all had been in exact accordance with the book. After that, I should have held him down by the throat, and made a speech of about eight lines. I think our impromptu tableau was more effective.

“There was immense applause, and everybody congratulated me on my success. ‘I suppose you know you cut out the end,’ said the manager; ‘but never mind that. I daresay you were a little nervous, and you acted splendidly, my boy.’”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t acting, and neither did R – …”

I left here to join a small touring company as Juvenile Lead. I looked upon the offer as a grand opportunity at the time, and following Horace’s * advice, grasped it by the forelock. I therefore, one Sunday morning packed my basket, went round the town and shook hands with everybody – not without a pang of regret, for there are few human beings we can be with for any length of time and not be sorry to say good-by to – and then, as the bright summer’s sun was setting and the church bells beginning to peal, I steamed away, or rather the engine did, and the city and its people faded out of my sight and out of my life.

* Not quite sure whose advice this is. Have put it down to Horace to avoid contradiction.

Sunday is the great traveling day for actors. It loses them no time. A company can finish at one town on the Saturday night, and wake up on Monday morning in the next, ready to get everything ship-shape for the evening. Or an actor can leave one show and join another at the other end of the kingdom without missing a single performance. I have known a man play in Cornwall on the Saturday, and at Inverness on the following Monday. But convenient though it is in this respect, in every other, Sunday traveling is most unpleasant, and, for their gratification, I can assure strict Sabbatarians that it brings with it its own punishment.

Especially to a man with a conscience – an article which, in those early days, I was unfortunate enough to possess. A conscience is a disagreeable sort of thing to have with one at any time. It has a nasty disposition – a cantankerous, fault-finding, interfering disposition. There is nothing sociable about it. It seems to take a pleasure in making itself objectionable, and in rendering its owner as uncomfortable as possible. During these Sunday journeys, it used to vex me by every means in its power. If any mild old gentleman, sitting opposite me in the carriage, raised his eyes and looked at me, I immediately fancied he was silently reproaching me, and I felt ashamed and miserable. It never occurred to me at the time that he was every bit as bad as I was, and that I had as much right to be shocked at him as he to be horrified at me. Then I used to ask myself what my poor aunt would say if she could see me. Not that it was of the slightest consequence what the old lady would have said, but the question was just one of those petty annoyances in which a mean-spirited conscience delights. I was firmly convinced that everybody was pointing the finger of scorn at me. I don’t know which particular finger is the finger of scorn: whichever it is, that, I felt, was the one that was pointed at me. At every station, my exasperating inward monitor would whisper to me: “But for such abandoned wretches as you, all those porters and guards would be sleeping peacefully in the village church.” When the whistle sounded, my tormentor would add; “But for you and other such despicable scoundrels, that grimy, toil-stained engine-driver would be dressed in his best clothes, lounging up against a post at his own street corner.” Such thoughts maddened me.

My fellow-passengers generally let on that they were going to see sick relatives, and I would have done the same if it hadn’t been for that awful basket of mine. But the inventive faculty of a newspaper reporter couldn’t have explained away a basket the size of an average chest of drawers. I might have said that it contained a few delicacies for the invalid, but nobody would have believed me, and there would have been a good lie wasted.

But it is not only to people with consciences that Sunday traveling presents vexations. Even you, my dear reader, would find it unpleasant. There is a subdued going-to-a-funeral air about the whole proceeding, which makes you melancholy in spite of yourself. You miss the usual bustling attributes of railway traveling. No crowded platforms! no piles of luggage! no newspaper boys! The refreshment rooms don’t seem the same places at all, and the damsels there are haughtier then ever. When you arrive at your destination, you seem to have come to a city of the dead. You pass through deserted streets to your hotel. Nobody is about. You go into the coffee-room and sit down there by yourself. After a while the boots looks in. You yearn toward him as toward a fellow-creature. You would fall upon his neck, and tell him all your troubles. You try to engage him in conversation, so as to detain him in the room, for you dread to be left alone again. But he doesn’t enter into your feelings: he answers all questions by monosyllables, and gets away as quickly as possible. You go out for a walk. The streets are dark and silent, and you come back more miserable than you started. You order supper, but have no appetite, and cannot eat it when it comes. You retire to your room early, but cannot go to sleep. You lie there and wonder what the bill will come to, and, while thinking of this, you are softly borne away into the land of dreams, and fancy that the proprietor has asked you for a hundred and eighty-seven pounds nine and fourpence ha’penny, and that you have killed him on the spot, and left the house in your nightshirt without paying.

THE show which I now graced with my presence was a “fit-up.” I didn’t know this beforehand, or I should never have engaged myself. A “fit-up” is only one grade higher than a booth, which latter branch of the profession, by the way, I have always regretted never having explored. I missed the most picturesque and romantic portion of the theatrical world by not penetrating into that time-forsaken corner. Booth life is a Bohemia within a Bohemia. So far as social and artistic position is concerned, it is at the bottom of the dramatic ladder; but for interest and adventure, it stands at the very top.

However, I never did join a booth, so there is an end of the matter. The nearest I approached to anything of the kind was this fit-up, and that I didn’t like at all. We kept to the very small towns, where there was no theater, and fitted up an apology for a stage in any hall or room we could hire for the purpose. The town-hall was what we generally tried for, but we were not too particular; any large room did, and we would even put up with a conveniently situated barn. We carried our own props, scenery, and proscenium, and trusted for the wood work to some local carpenter. A row of candles did duty for footlights, and a piano, hired in the town, represented the orchestra. We couldn’t get a piano on one occasion, so the proprietor of the hall lent us his harmonium.

I will not linger over my experience with this company; they were not pleasant ones. Short extracts from two letters, one written just after joining, and the other sent off just before I left, will be sufficient:

“Dear Jim: I find I’ve dropped the substance and grasped the shadow (I pride myself not so much on the originality of this remark as on its applicability). I shall leave as soon as possible, and try my luck in London. My ambition to play Juvenile Lead vanished the moment I saw the Leading Lady, who is, as usual, the manager’s wife. She is a fat greasy old woman. She has dirty hands and finger nails, and perspires freely during the course of the performance. She is about three times my size, and if the audiences to which we play have the slightest sense of humor – which, from what I have seen of them, I think extremely doubtful – our love-making must be a rare treat to them. How a London first-night gallery would enjoy it! I’m afraid, though, it’s only wasted down here. My arm, when I try to clasp her waist, reaches to about the middle of her back; and, when we embrace, the house can’t see me at all. I have to carry her half-way across the stage in one part! By Jove! I’m glad we don’t play that piece often.

“She says I shall never make a good ‘lover’ unless I throw more ardor (‘harder,’ she calls it) into my acting…”

“… Shall be with you on Monday next. Can’t stand this any longer. It’s ruining me. Seven-and-six was all I could get last week, and eleven shillings the week before. We are not doing bad business by any means. Indeed, we have very good houses. The old man has got the knack of making out good gag bills, and that pulls ‘em in for the two or three nights we stay at each place. You know what I mean by a ‘gag’ bill: ‘The Ruined Mill by Dead Man’s Pool. Grace Mervin thinks to meet a friend, but finds a foe. Harry Baddun recalls old days.

“Why do you not love me?”

“Because you are a bad man.”

“Then die!” The struggle on the brink!! “Help!!” “There is none to help you here.”

“You lie, Harry Baddun; I am here.” A hand from the grave!! Harry Baddun meets his doom!!!

“That’s what I mean by a gag bill.

“Whatever money is made, however, he takes care to keep for himself. He can always put up at the best hotel in the place, while we have to pawn our things to pay for the meanest of lodgings.

“It isn’t only actors who get robbed by these managers: authors also suffer pretty considerably. We have two copyright pieces in our list, both of which draw very well, but not a penny is paid for performing them. To avoid any chance of unpleasantness, the titles of the pieces and the names of the chief characters are altered. So that even if the author or his friends (supposing it possible for any author to have any friends) were on the lookout, they would never know anything about it. And, if they did, it would be of no use. It would be throwing good money after bad to attempt to enforce payment from the men who do this sort of thing, – and I hear that it is done all over the provinces, – they have no money and none can be got out of them. Your penniless man can comfortably defy half the laws in the statute book.

“What a nuisance firearms are on the stage! I thought I was blinded the other night, and my eyes are painful even now. The fellow should have fired up in the air. It is the only safe rule on a small stage, though it does look highly ridiculous to see a man drop down dead because another man fires a pistol at the moon. But there is always some mishap with them. They either don’t go off at all, or else they go off in the wrong place, and, when they do go off, there is generally an accident. They can never be depended upon. You rush on to the stage, present a pistol at somebody’s head, and say, ‘Die!’ but the pistol only goes click, and the man doesn’t know whether to die or not. He waits while you have another try at him, and the thing clicks again; and then you find out that the property man hasn’t put a cap on it, and you turn round to get one. But the other man, thinking it is all over, makes up his mind to die at once from nothing else but fright, and, when you come back to kill him for the last time, you find he’s already dead.

“We have recourse to some rum makeshifts here, to eke out our wardrobes. My old frock coat, with a little cloth cape which one of the girls has cutout for me pinned on underneath the collar, and with a bit of lace round the cuffs, does for the gallant of half the old comedies; and, when I pin the front corners back and cover them with red calico, I’m a French soldier. A pair of white thingumies does admirably for buckskin riding breeches, and for the part of a Spanish conspirator, I generally borrow my landlady’s tablecloth…”

It was about the end of October when I found myself once more in London. The first thing I then did was to go to my old shop on the Surrey-side. Another company and another manager were there, but the latter knew me, and, as I owned a dress suit, engaged me at a salary of twelve shillings weekly to play the part of a swell. When I had been there just one week, he closed. Whether it was paying me that twelve shillings that broke him, I cannot say; but on Monday morning some men came and cut the gas off, and then he said he shouldn’t go on any longer, and that we must all do the best we could for ourselves.