The English Stage Part 5

That evening of the 14th of November has been described to us by several eye-witnesses, so that we are able to realise the feelings that prevailed both on the stage and amongst the audience. The first act seemed gay and lively, with a sort of mordant raillery in it with which the audience was unfamiliar. Then came an idyll, evolving amidst the trees of a London square. What! love--youthful, tender, tremulous love--in the very heart of this city of mud, fog, and smoke! Love, so near that you might touch his wings! This was the kind of impression it evoked--an impression that pleased and moved the more, that the public, always over-curious concerning the private life of its favourites, was acquainted with the tender relations of actor and actress. It was a real "honeymoon"--the full moon which shone on this love duet from over the shrubbery of coloured canvas. The hearts of the audience went out to them, and all was well.

But no one could say what sort of reception was in store for "The Owls'

Roost." This "roost" was a picture from the life of the clubs which I have already described as the princ.i.p.al resorts of Bohemia. Now, the "Savages"--the members, that is, of the Savage Club--as well as the frequenters of the Garrick, the Fielding, and the Arundel, were all there in force. How would they take this caricature of themselves? The laughter which broke out in uninterrupted peals soon rea.s.sured the anxious ears behind the scenes.

There is a point at which one of the chief characters is at a loss for half a crown wherewith to pay for the hansom in which he is going off to a ball. Having no money in his pocket he asks a friend for the sum. "I haven't got it," the friend replies, "but I'll see if I can't get it for you." He asks a third, who makes a similar reply; and so the appeal makes the whole round of the club, until at last a half-crown is found in the depths of a pocket, and is pa.s.sed on from hand to hand, borrowed and lent a dozen times, to the man who had asked for it in the first instance. The incident was taken from actual life. Thus reproduced upon the stage, it seemed indescribably comic, and proved the turning-point in the fortune of the play--the happy crisis after which everything was greeted with applause. It was a trivial ill.u.s.tration, but it was thoroughly characteristic. It was Bohemia in a nutsh.e.l.l--to have nothing and give everything.

As the "owls" were so much diverted by the faithful portrayal of their resorts and of their customs, thus presented for the first time upon the stage, there was no reason to expect that Society would take offence over the extraordinary and incongruous proceedings at the establishment of Lord and Lady Ptarmigant. This kind of comic libel was not unknown;--Bulwer, for instance, had set himself to depict the union of the old aristocracy with the new, the nave veneration displayed by Riches for Rank, and on the other hand, the prostration of Rank before Riches. No one showed astonishment at seeing Lady Ptarmigant smilingly take the arm of old Chodd, though his language and his manners were those of a costermonger, and though his lordship's valet would probably have hesitated about letting himself be seen with him in a public-house. As for Lord Ptarmigant himself, he was just what we call a _panne_. The whole character resolved itself into a mere eccentricity, as monotonous as it was far-fetched and extravagant,--a habit of dragging about his chair with him wherever he went, and of falling asleep in it the moment he sat down, with the result that everyone who came in or went out could not fail to tumble over his stretched-out old legs. Who would have imagined that such a role as this would be one of the causes of the success of the piece, and would be the means of revealing to London an admirable actor? His name was John Hare.

He was still quite young, and he had wished for this strange role in which to make his _debut_. Profiting by the example of Garrick, Hare had realised that an actor does not make his name by giving out a witticism or telling phrase with effect, but by putting before us a live human figure, if only a silent figure, in all its eccentricity of brain. His facial expression was wonderful, and his mimicry excellent;--he had in him the genius of metamorphosis; he has it still, and gives evidence of it in a hundred different roles. By a sort of intuition not easy to explain, there was hardly a spectator who did not divine the future great actor from this one performance.

The success of _Society_--it lasted for one hundred and fifty nights--was followed almost at once by the success of _Ours_, which lasted still longer, and filled the theatrical season 1866-67. Then came _Caste_ in 1867 and 1868. _School_ in 1869 surpa.s.sed its predecessors in popularity, being played nearly four hundred times. In the intervals between these four great triumphs there were two pieces which, without achieving so long a run, still maintained in the fortunate little theatre the same joyous atmosphere of success.

When the "Prince of Wales's," however, had recourse to any other than its regular caterer, a check in its fortunes was sure to come, and there was no alternative to falling back on Robertson. And when Robertson tried his fortune elsewhere, even when supported by a popularity so well established as that of Sothern, the result was invariably but a _succes d'estime_, when not a disastrous failure. From these circ.u.mstances a certain superst.i.tion grew up. Superst.i.tions are rife in the theatrical world.

Marie Wilton, it was felt, had her lucky star, and Robertson had his, but the two had to be in conjunction for their benign influence to be exerted.

Perhaps the coincidence may be explained without having recourse to the stars. Tom Taylor, on the day after a new triumph, wrote to the young manageress: "The author and the theatre, the actors and the roles, all seem made for one another." This was quite true, and it may be added, that the public and the time were in harmony with the spirit of the pieces and the talent of the performers. Everything had come about as it should; so it was called chance!

Robertson was not much of an actor, but he was a wonderful reader. When you heard Robertson read one of his comedies, Clement Scott tells us, you understood it in all its details. Under the sway of his moving elocution the actors laughed and cried. The author knew their weaknesses and their gifts better than they themselves; he knew, therefore, how to make the most of the peculiar const.i.tution of this small company which formed a kind of family, closely united by common interests, ambitions, and affections. Until then a piece was often nothing more than a star actor planted well in the front of the stage, taking his time and prolonging his effects, and behind him a dozen or so nonent.i.ties mumbling mere odds and ends of dialogue and addressing themselves to the back of their more famous colleague. For the first time there was now at the "Prince of Wales's," an _ensemble_ moulded by a.s.siduous rehearsals and perfected by the practice of every night.

In _Ours_, John Hare, who played the role of Prince Perofsky, had only to utter a dozen sentences--hackneyed and affected compliments--yet he made out of it a really striking portrait of a Slavonic Grand Seigneur, with a smouldering pa.s.sion in his heart veiled under the most perfect manners.

Besides his impressiveness there was something enigmatic about him that set one speculating as to the part he was to play in the plot,--an enigma to which there was to be no solution.

At length, in _Caste_, Robertson gave him a real role, that of Sam Gerridge. I imagine, indeed, that author and actor contributed equally to the creation of this character. The same might be said, perhaps, of that of Captain Hawtree, created by Bancroft in the same play. Seldom, surely, has the use of this big word "created" (so often applied in the papers to the most insignificant performances) been warranted so fully as in these cases.

Before Sothern's time the man of the world used to be represented on the English stage as an absurd figure treading on tiptoe while in ladies'

society and ogling them _a bout portant_.

The type had been changed as regards costume, but not as regards language, from that of the Macaroni of 1770. The dandy of 1840 does not seem to have found his way on to the stage until 1865.

It was a complete change from this type to the character presented by Bancroft as Captain Hawtree, humorous but not ridiculous; not in the least essential to the play, yet attracting a large share of interest and sympathy. An elegantly languid air, which yet spoke of weakness neither of muscles nor of character; a blind acceptance of the social code, which was not incompatible with generous feelings and a sense of humour; a mixture of soldier-like cordiality and worldly cynicism, which amounted to an _etat d'ame_ if not to a philosophy: these were some of the features that went to make up the character.

When circ.u.mstances--quite simple and natural--lead to Hawtree's taking tea in humble East End lodgings, between a little dancing-girl and an old plumber, nearly all the fun of the scene comes from his mute expression of continual astonishment. Hawtree presents a curious combination of awkwardness and goodwill in the scene in which he brings the plates to Polly Eccles in the pantry to be washed. At bottom it is the att.i.tude of the English gentleman towards the social question,--somewhat scornful, somewhat amused, but ready to turn up his sleeves and put a shoulder to the wheel at need.

As for Marie Wilton, with what wonderful insight Robertson had made out the real genius of this little woman, whose talents were so real, if all her ambitions were not attainable! She looked back with horror at her successes at the Strand; she wanted never again to play a _gamin's_ part (as we should call it) or to appear in burlesque. Robertson wrote her a succession of _gamin's_ parts and burlesque scenes. But the _gamin_ was petticoated and the burlesque scenes set in a comedy. I am not referring to _Society_, which was not written for the "Prince of Wales's." But what is it she has to do in the three other pieces? In _School_ she climbs a wall. In _Ours_ she takes part in a game of bowls, mimics the affectations of the swells of '65, plays at being a soldier, bastes a leg of mutton from a watering pot, and as a climax makes a roley-poley pudding, adapting military implements to culinary uses for the purpose. In _Caste_ her operations are still more varied--she sings, dances, boxes people's ears, plays the piano, pretends to blow a trumpet, puts on a forage cap, and imitates a squadron of cavalry. If this is not burlesque, what is it?

Some months ago I saw her in a revival of _Money_, in which she plays the role of a woman of the world, and in one scene of which--a scene which owed much more to her than to Bulwer--she shows the steps of a dance. At this moment I seemed to see the legs of Pippo moving under the skirts of Lady Franklin,--those legs which five and thirty years before had made so lively an impression on the brain of Charles d.i.c.kens.

Whether he was conscious of it or not, Robertson made her play Pippo all her life. These fantastic roles, sketched on to the margin of domestic dramas, were to have a remarkable and twofold success; they were largely responsible for the good fortune of Robertson's comedies, and in the reading of these they const.i.tute, as it were, appetising _hors d'oeuvres_. If I say to the admirers of _Caste_ that Polly Eccles is an excrescence spoiling the artistic merit of the piece, they reply at once that, on the contrary, she is its life and soul; and from the point of view of stage effect, they are quite right.

The Bancrofts--they married shortly after the opening of the theatre--were the complements of each other. She was all fun and fancy, harum-scarum, irresponsible, indescribable. He was chiefly notable for thought, taste, careful observation, and truthful representation of real life. One of his first acts, as soon as there was some money in the exchequer of the "Prince of Wales's," was to introduce a certain amount of intelligent realism into the scenery. He felt the need of doors with locks instead of the wretched folding-sashes, which shook before the draughts from the wings. In _Caste_ he gave ceilings to the rooms. The last Act of _Ours_ takes place in Crimean barracks during the winter of 1855; every time the door was opened a gust of snow came into the room with a whirl and whistle, which produced so strong an illusion that the audience shivered.

In the gardens, real flowers were introduced, and living birds. Charles Mathews was thought very enterprising because he had ventured to have some chairs placed in a drawing-room upon the stage. Bancroft went so far as to a.s.sign a different character to different suites of furniture. Thus in a revival of the _School for Scandal_, Joseph Surface's furniture was different from that of Sir Peter Teazle; his furniture, hypocritical as himself, seemed to make a pretence of being plain and simple, lied for him and bore out his lies. As for the actresses, instead of being made guys of by the theatrical costumiers, they had real dresses made for them by real dressmakers.

Robertson approved of these innovations, but he was never more than half a realist, and this from several causes. Like all Englishmen, he delighted in the warfare of words; he shared with them all, big and little, ancient and modern, that liking for brilliancy which is perhaps evolved from the liking of savages for brilliants. Once he began concocting repartees he forgot all else and gave his pen its head. He made his characters play a game of verbal battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k. He dragged in by the nape of the neck, as it were, tirades whose proper place had been in a leading article. When he went too far, however, in these directions, he was often the first to make fun of the result. "What has that got to do with what we are talking about?" asks a character in _Ours_. "It has nothing to do with it, that's why I said it." And in the same piece another character remarks of something that has happened, "If an author put that into a play, everyone would say that it was impossible and untrue to life."

Thus it was he would forestall gaily, with a sort of impudent frankness, the objections of the critics. The public enjoys this kind of thing. What it enjoys most of all, in England at anyrate, is the _grain de folie_, the lurking, unlooked-for quaintness, which characterises some of their humorists, d.i.c.kens, for instance, and Ben Jonson. It is this quality which is responsible for their creation of strange types whose ideas and conversations are all topsy-turvy.

It was in _School_ that Robertson poured it out most plentifully. It was the most frivolous of his plays, and in this perhaps may be found the explanation of its success. The heroines are boarding-school girls; they are just at the age and in the situation in which no absurdity would seem too great or out of place. By a convention which the spectator agrees to willingly, they are girls in Act I. and women three weeks later in Act III. In these three weeks they have learned the meaning of life.

"What is love?" asks one of the youngest in the first scene. "Why, everyone knows what love is," Naomi tells her. "Well, what is it then?"

asks another, and the first speaker insists that no one seems to know.

Then comes the time for them to pa.s.s from vague theory to real experience.

It is the evening, in the orchard. There are two flirtation scenes, one following the other, full of childishness, but full of _navete_, freshness, and charm. There is question of the distance from the earth to the moon, of the play of light and shade, of a little milk-jug which it takes two to carry, of the Crimean War, and of Oth.e.l.lo. Of love there is no word, but it underlies their every feeling, hides behind every word, peeps out through every glance, mingles with the very air they breathe.

_Naomi_: ... "I like to hear you talk."

_Jack_ (_bows_): "The fibs or the truth?"

_Naomi_: "Both. Have you ever been married?"

_Jack_: "Never."

_Naomi_: "What are you?"

_Jack_: "Nothing. It's the occupation I am most fitted for."

_Naomi_: "Oh, you must be something?"

_Jack_: "No."

_Naomi_: "What were you before you were what you are now?"

_Jack_: "A little boy."...

_Naomi_: "Mr. Farintosh was saying at table that you had been in the army. Were you a horse-soldier or a foot-soldier?"

_Jack_: "A foot-soldier,--a very foot-soldier."

_Naomi_: "And that you were in the Crimea?"

_Jack_: "Ya-as, I was there."

_Naomi_: "At the battle of Inkermann?"

_Jack_: "Ya-as."

_Naomi_: "Then why didn't you mention it?"

_Jack_: "Not worth while, there were so many other fellows there."

_Naomi_: "Did you fight?"

_Jack_: "Ya-as, I fought."

_Naomi_: "Weren't you frightened?"

_Jack_: "Immensely."

_Naomi_: "Then why did you stay?"

_Jack_: "Because I hadn't the pluck to run away."