The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield Part 2

While Anne Oldfield is resting from her first triumph and preparing for another, let us glance for a moment at the theatrical conditions which surround her. Curious, perplexing conditions they are, marking as they do a transition between the brilliant but generally filthy period of the Restoration--a period in which some of the worst and some of the best of plays saw the light--and the time when the punctilio and artificial decency of the age will cast over the stage the cold light of formality and restraint. The nation is but slowly recovering from the licentiousness which characterised the merry reign of Charles II., that witty, sceptical sovereign, who never believed in the honesty of man nor the virtue of frail woman. The playwrights are recovering too, yet, if anything, more tardily than the people; for when a nasty cynicism, like that pervading the old comedies, is once boldly cultivated, many a long day must elapse ere it can be replaced by a cleaner, healthier spirit.

Charles has surely had much to answer for at the bar of public opinion (a bar for which he evidently felt a profound contempt), and the evil influence which he and his Court exerted on the drama supplies one of the greatest blots on his moral 'scutcheon. Augustus William Schlegel, that foreigner who studied the literature of the English stage as few Britons have ever done, well pointed out that while the Puritans had brought Republican principles and religious zeal into public odium, this light-hearted monarch seemed expressly born to dispel all respect for the kingly dignity. "England was inundated with the foreign follies and vices in his train. The Court set the fashion of the most undisguised immorality, and this example was the more extensively contagious, as people imagined that they showed their zeal for the new order of things by an extravagant way of thinking and living.

The fanaticism of the Republicans had been accompanied with true strictness of manners, and hence nothing appeared more convenient than to obtain the character of Royalists by the extravagant inclination for all lawful and unlawful pleasures.

"The age of Louis XIV. was nowhere imitated with greater depravity.

The prevailing gallantry at the Court of France was not without reserve and tenderness of feeling; they sinned, if I may so speak, with some degree of dignity, and no man ventured to attack what was honourable, though his own actions might not exactly coincide with it.

The English played a part which was altogether unnatural to them; they gave themselves heavily up to levity; they everywhere confounded the coa.r.s.est licentiousness with free mental vivacity, and did not perceive that the sort of grace which is still compatible with depravity, disappears with the last veil which it throws off."

As Schlegel goes on to say, we can easily imagine into what direction the tastes of the English people drifted under such auspices. "They possessed no real knowledge of the fine arts, and these were merely favoured like other foreign fashions and inventions of luxury. They neither felt a true want of poetry, nor had any relish for it; they merely wished to be entertained in a brilliant and light manner. The theatre, which in its former simplicity had attracted the spectators solely by the excellence of the dramatic works and the actors, was now furnished out with all the appendages with which we are at this day familiar; but what is gained in external decoration is lost in internal worth."

In other words, the theatrical life and literature of the Restoration was morally rotten to the core. How that rottenness has been giving way, during the childhood of Nance Oldfield, to what may be styled a comparative decency, need not be described here. Suffice it to explain that such a change is taking place, and let us accordingly sing, rejoice and give thanks for small mercies. Thalia has ceased to be a wanton; she is fast becoming quite a respectable young woman, and as to Melpomene--well, that severe Muse is actually waxing religious.

Religious? Yes, verily, for will not all good Londoners read in the course of a year or two that there will be a performance of "Hamlet"

at Drury Lane "towards the defraying the charge of repairing and fitting up the chapel in Russell Court," said performance to be given "with singing by Mr. Hughes, and entertainment of dancing by Monsieur Cherier, Miss Lambro his scholar, and Mr. Evans. Boxes, 5s.; pit, 3s.; gallery, 2s.; upper gallery, 1s."

Here was an ideal union of church and stage with a vengeance, the one being served by the other, and the whole thing done to the secular accompaniment of singing and dancing. For an instant the town was scandalised, but Defoe, that perturbed spirit for whom there was no such word as rest, saw the humour of the situation.

"Hard times, gentlemen, hard times these are indeed with the Church,"

he informs the promoters of this ecclesiastical benefit, "to send her to the playhouse to gather pew-money. For shame, gentlemen! go to the Church and pay your money there, and never let the playhouse have such a claim to its establishment as to say the Church is beholden to her.... Can our Church be in danger? How is it possible? The whole nation is solicitous and at work for her safety and prosperity. The Parliament address, the Queen consults, the Ministry execute, the Armies fight, and all for the Church; but at home we have other heroes that act for the Church. Peggy Hughes sings, Monsieur Ramandon plays, Miss Santlow dances, Monsieur Cherier teaches, and all for the Church.

Here's heavenly doings! here's harmony!"

"In short," concludes the author of "Robinson Crusoe," "the observations on this most preposterous piece of Church work are so many, they cannot come into the compa.s.s of this paper; but if the money raised here be employed to re-edify this chapel, I would have it, as is very frequent, in like cases, written over the door in capital letters: 'This church was re-edified anno 1706, at the expense and by the charitable contribution of the enemies of the reformation of our morals, and to the eternal scandal and most just reproach of the Church of England and the Protestant religion. Witness our hands,

"LUCIFER, Prince of Darkness,| and | _Churchwardens_."[A]

HAMLET, Prince of Denmark, |

[Footnote A: _Review_, June 20, 1706.]

The "enemies of the reformation of our morals!" Defoe used the expression satirically, but how well it suited the minds of many pious persons, ranging all the way from bishops to humble laymen, who could see nothing in the theatre excepting the prospective flames of the infernal regions. Clergymen preached against the playhouse then, just as some of them have done since, and will continue so to do until the arrival of the Millennium. Oftentimes the criticisms of these well-meaning gentlemen had more than a grain of truth to make them half justifiable. The stage was still far from pure, in spite of the improvement which was going on steadily enough, and there is no denying the fact that several of the worst plays of the Restoration could still claim admirers. Even "Sir Courtly Nice," wherein occurs one of the most indecent pa.s.sages ever penned, and one of the most suggestive of songs, was received without a murmur. Congreve was pardoned for his breaches of decorum, and Dryden was looked upon as quite proper enough for all purposes.

The _morale_ of the players could hardly be called unimpeachable, at least in some instances, but the violations of social rules were not so open as they had been in the old days. Here and there a frail actress might depart from the stony path of virtue, or an actor give himself up to wine and the dodging of bailiffs, yet the attending scandals were not flaunted in the face of the public. In other words, there were Thespians of doubtful reputation then, just as there are now, and these black sheep helped materially to keep up against their white brethren that remarkable prejudice which has endured even unto the present decade.

As a cla.s.s, the players had no social position of any kind, although the great ones of the earth, the men of rank, never hesitated to hobn.o.b with them when, like Mrs. Gamp, they felt "so dispoged." Even in the enlightened reign of Queen Anne, there existed among many intelligent persons the vague idea that one who trod the boards was nothing more or less than a vagabond, and we are not surprised to learn, therefore, that in a royal proclamation of the period, "players and mountebanks" are mentioned in the same sentence, as though there was little difference between them.

Perhaps, the "artists" to whom the t.i.tle of vagabond might be applied with a certain degree of justice were the strolling players, who seem to have been much after the fashion of others of their ilk, before and since. Good-natured, poverty-stricken barnstormers they doubtless were, living from-hand-to-mouth, and quite willing to go through the whole gamut of tragedy, from Shakespeare to Dryden, for the sake of a good supper. Here is a graphic picture of such a band of dramatic ne'er-do-wells, drawn by d.i.c.k Steele in the forty-eighth issue of the _Spectator_:

"We have now at this place [this is a letter of an imaginary correspondent to 'Mr. Spectator'] a company of strollers, who are very far from offending in the impertinent splendor of the drama. They are so far from falling into these false gallantries, that the stage is here in his original situation of a cart. Alexander the Great was acted by a fellow in a paper cravat. The next day, the Earl of Ess.e.x seemd to have no distress but his poverty; and my Lord Foppington the same morning wanted any better means to show himself a fop than by wearing stockings of different colours.[A] In a word, though they have had a full barn for many days together, our itinerants are still so wretchedly poor, that without you can prevail to send us the furniture you forbid at the playhouse, the heroes appear only like st.u.r.dy beggars, and the heroines gypsies. We have had but one part which was performed and dressed with propriety, and that was Justice Clodpate.

This was so well done, that it offended Mr. Justice Overdo, who, in the midst of our whole audience, was (like Quixote in the puppet show) so highly provoked, that he told them, if they would move compa.s.sion, it should be in their own persons and not in the characters of distressed princes and potentates. He told them, if they were so good at finding the way to people's hearts, they should do it at the end of bridges or church porches, in their proper vocation as beggars. This, the justice says, they must expect, since they could not be contented to act heathen warriors, and such fellows as Alexander, but must presume to make a mockery of one of the Quorum."

[Footnote A: It must be remembered that theatrical costumes, as we see them to-day, did not exist. The art of dressing correctly, according to the nature of the character and the period in which the play was supposed to occur, was practically unknown. Even in after years we hear of Spranger Barry playing Oth.e.l.lo in a gold-laced scarlet suit, small c.o.c.ked hat, and knee-breeches, with silk stockings. Think of it, ye sticklers for realism! Dr. Doran narrates how Garrick dressed Hamlet in a court suit of black coat, "waistcoat and knee-breeches, short wig with queue and bag, buckles in the shoes, ruffles at the wrists, and flowing ends of an ample cravat hanging over his chest."

Barton Booth's costume for Cato was even more of an anachronism. "The Cato of Queen Anne's day wore a flowered gown and an ample wig."]

Poor strollers. There was a bit of stern philosophy in the advice of the justice, for they would probably have led a merrier and more luxurious life had they deserted the barns for the bridges and church-porches. Perhaps the same change would suit the wandering players who are to be found in these last years of the nineteenth century, travelling from one third-cla.s.s hotel to another, and wondering whether they will ever make enough money to return home and sun themselves on the New York Rialto.

Humble as they were in the time of Queen Anne, her Government saw fit to subject the strollers to what might be called police regulation, and the Master of the Revels, who was a censor of plays and a supervisor-in-general of theatrical matters, had to issue an imposing order setting forth that whereas "several Companies of Strolling Actors pretend to have Licenses from n.o.blemen,[A] and presume under that pretence to avoid the Master of the Revels, his Correcting their Plays, Drolls, Farces, and Interludes: which being against Her Majesty's Intentions and Directions to the said Master: These are to signifie That such Licenses are not of any Force or authority. There are likewise several Mountebanks Acting upon Stages, and Mountbanks on Horseback, Persons that keep Poppets, and others that make Shew of Monsters, and strange Sights of Living Creatures, who presume to Travel without the said Master of the Revels' Licence," &c. &c. The whole p.r.o.nunciamento went to show that the despised strollers were not beneath the notice of a lynx-eyed Government.

[Footnote A: A survival of the days when n.o.blemen often had their own companies of actors, and were empowered to regulate the performances of these dramatic servants.]

It is curious that the functionary to whom was a.s.signed the important critical duty of revising plays should also be obliged to concern himself with the doings of puppets and country "side shows." Yet before the law there was very little if any difference between a performance of "Hamlet" by the great Betterton, and an exhibition of the marital infelicities of Punch and Judy. Are matters so much better now that we can afford to laugh at the incongruity? Do not theatres devoted to the "legitimate" and dime museums, the homes of triple-pated men, human corkscrews and other intellectual freaks, come under the same police supervision, and rank one and all within the same cla.s.sification as "places of amus.e.m.e.nt?" Nay, to go further and fare worse, do not some of these very freaks regard themselves as fellow-workers in the dramatic vineyard made so fertile through the toil of a Booth, a Mansfield or a Terry? The writer has himself heard the manipulator of a marionette troupe (whose wife, by-the-way, posed in a curio hall as a "Babylonian Princess") speak of Sir Henry Irving as "a brother professional."

This complacent individual had his prototype during the very period which we are considering. He was an artistic gentleman named Crawley, the happy manager of a puppet show which used to bring joy into the hearts of the merry people thronging the famous Bartholomew Fair. One fine day, as the manager was standing outside of his booth, he was put into a flutter of excitement by the approach of the mighty Betterton, in company with a country friend. The actor offered several shillings for himself and rustic as they were about to enter the show, but this was too much for Crawley. He saw the chance of his life, and took advantage of it. "No, no, sir," he said to "Old Thomas," with quite the patronising air of an equal, "we never take money of one another!"

Betterton did not see the matter in the same light, and, indignantly throwing down the silver, stalked into the booth without so much as thanking the proprietor of the puppets.

What a Bedlam of a place Bartholomew must have been, with its noise, its gew-gaws, bad beer, cheap shows, and riotous visitors. Ned Ward, to whose descriptions modern readers are indebted, partly through the aid of John Ashton,[A] for many a glimpse of old-time London life, has left us a vivid picture of the fair as it appeared to him. The entrance to it, he says, was like unto a "Belfegor's concert," with its "rumbling of drums, mixed with the intolerable squalling of catcalls and penny trumpets." Nor could the sense of smell have been much better catered to than that of hearing, owing to the "singeing of pigs and burnt crackling of over-roasted pork." Once within the enclosure he saw all sorts of remarkable things, including the actors, "strutting round their balconies in their tinsey robes and golden leather buskins;" the rope-dancers, and the dirty eating-places, where "cooks stood dripping at their doors, like their roasted swine's flesh." Ward also looked on at several comedies, or "droles," being enacted in the grounds, and, after coming to the conclusion that they were like "State fireworks," and "never do anybody good but those that are concerned in the show," he repaired to a dancing booth. Here he had the privilege of watching a woman "dance with gla.s.ses full of liquor upon the backs of her hands, to which she gave variety of motions, without spilling."

[Footnote A: See Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."]

All this may have a curious interest, but it looks a trifle inconsistent, does it not, to lament the unjustness of connecting puppet entertainments and the like with the stage, and then deliberately devote s.p.a.ce to the mysteries of Bartholomew Fair? It is more to the purpose to speak of the two theatres which claimed the attention of London playgoers in the year 1703--the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Of the two, Drury Lane was the more important in an historical sense, having been the house of the famous "King's Company," as the players of Charles II. were styled, and then of the combined forces formed in 1682 by the union of this organisation and the "Duke of York's Company." This was the house into which Nance Oldfield came as a modest _debutante_. It had been built from the designs of Wren, to replace the old theatre destroyed by fire in 1672.

Cibber has sketched for us the second Drury Lane's interior, as it appeared in its original form, before the making of changes intended to enlarge the seating capacity. "It must be observed then, that the area or platform of the old stage projected about four feet forwarder (_sic_), in a semi-oval figure, parallel to the benches of the pit; and that the former lower doors of entrance for the actors were brought down between the two foremost (and then only) pilasters; in the place of which doors now the two stage boxes are fixt. That where the doors of entrance now are, there formerly stood two additional side-wings, in front to a full set of scenes, which had then almost a double effect in their loftiness and magnificence.

"By this original form, the usual station of the actors, in almost every scene, was advanc'd at least ten foot nearer to the audience than they now can be; because, not only from the stage's being shorten'd in front, but likewise from the additional interposition of those stage boxes, the actors (in respect to the spectators that fill them) are kept so much more backward from the main audience than they us'd to be. But when the actors were in possession of that forwarder s.p.a.ce to advance upon, the voice was then more in the centre of the house, so that the most distant ear had scarce the least doubt or difficulty in hearing what fell from the weakest utterance. All objects were thus drawn nearer to the sense; every painted scene was stronger; every grand scene and dance more extended; every rich or fine-coloured habit had a more lively l.u.s.tre. Nor was the minutest motion of a feature (properly changing from the pa.s.sion or humour it suited) ever lost, as they frequently must be in the obscurity of too great a distance. And how valuable an advantage the facility of hearing distinctly is to every well-acted scene, every common spectator is a judge. A voice scarce raised above the tone of a whisper, either in tenderness, resignation, innocent distress, or jealousy suppress'd, often have as much concern with the heart as the most clamorous pa.s.sions; and when on any of these occasions such affecting speeches are plainly heard, or lost, how wide is the difference from the great or little satisfaction received from them?

To all this the master of a company may say, I now receive ten pounds more than could have been taken formerly in every full house. Not unlikely. But might not his house be oftener full if the auditors were oftener pleas'd? Might not every bad house, too, by a possibility of being made every day better, add as much to one side of his account as it could take from the other."

The latter portion of Colley's remarks will be echoed by our own audiences, which are so often doomed to see the most delicate of plays acted in barns of theatres where all the sensitive effects of dialogue and action are swallowed up in the immensity of stage and auditorium.

There is nothing more dispiriting, indeed, both to performers and spectators, than the presentation of some comedy like the "School for Scandal" in a house far better suited to the picturesque demands of the "Black Crook" or the "County Circus."

The theatre in Drury Lane, as Oldfield knew it, had a not over-cheerful interior, the most noticeable features of which included the pit, provided with backless benches, and surrounded by what would now be called the Promenade. The latter, as Misson informs us,[A] was taken up for the most part by ladies of quality. In addition to these quarters and the boxes, there were two galleries reserved for the common herd, but into which, no doubt, impecunious beaux, down in the heels and at the mouth, would frequently stray.

[Footnote A: Henre Misson's "Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England."]

The performances generally began at 5 o'clock, but that there were occasional lapses into unpunctuality, may be inferred from the following advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Daily Courant_ of October 5, 1703:

"Her Majesty's Servants of the Theatre Royal being return'd from the Bath, do intend, to-morrow, being Wednesday, the sixth of this instant October to act a Comedy call'd 'Love Makes a Man, or the Fop's Fortune.'[A] With singing and dancing. And whereas the audiences have been incommoded by the Plays usually beginning too late, the Company of the said Theatre do therefore give notice that they will constantly begin at Five a Clock without fail, and continue the same Hour all the Winter."[B]

[Footnote A: One of Cibber's earlier plays.]

[Footnote B: Quoted in "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."]

To the _fin de siecle_ playgoer the idea of beginning a performance at so strange an hour seems nothing short of startling, until it be remembered that people of quality were then wont to dine between three and four o'clock of the afternoon. How they spent the earlier portion of the day is not hard to relate. The men of fashion rose tardily, feeling none the better, as a rule, for a night at club or tavern, and then lounged about as best they could, visiting, sauntering in the Mall,[A] or otherwise trying to pa.s.s the time until dinner. This solid meal over they were ready for the theatre, where they occasionally arrived in a state of unpleasant exhilaration, d.a.m.ning the play, ogling the women and making themselves as obnoxious as possible to the unfortunates who cared more for the stage than the commonplace audience.

[Footnote A: "It seem'd to me as if the World was turn'd top-side turvy; for the ladies look'd like undaunted heroes, fit for government or battle, and the gentlemen like a parcel of fawning, flattering fops, that could bear cuckoldom with patience, make a jest of an affront, and swear themselves very faithful and humble servants to the petticoat; creeping and cringing in dishonor to themselves, to what was decreed by Heaven their inferiours; as if their education had been amongst monkeys, who (as it is said) in all cases give the preeminence to their females."--"The Mall as described by Ned Ward."]

And the women: what of them? They played cards, often for highly respectable(?) stakes, or went to the theatre when there was nothing better to do, and frittered away the greater number of the twenty-four hours in a mode that the fashionable woman of 1898 would consider positively scandalous. Sometimes the dear creatures went for a stroll in the Mall, there to meet the English c.o.xcombs with French manners, or else they paid a few visits.

"Thus they take a sip of tea, then for a draught or two of scandal to digest it, next let it be ratafia, or any other favourite liquor, scandal must be the after draught to make it sit easy on their stomach, till the half hour's past, and they have disburthen'd themselves of their secrets, and take coach for some other place to collect new matter for defamation."[A]

[Footnote A: Thomas Brown.]

Drury Lane must have presented an animated but none the less disorderly scene any evening during the season when a popular play was to be given. Women in the boxes talking away for dear life, beaux walking about the house, chattering, ogling and laughing, or even sitting on the stage while the performance was in progress,[A] and the orange girls running around to sell their wares and, not infrequently, their own souls as well.

[Footnote A: Owing in great part to the efforts of Queen Anne, this wretched custom of allowing a few spectators to sit on the stage was practically abolished before the close of the reign.]

"Now turn, and see where loaden with her freight, A damsel stands, and orange-wench is hight; See! how her charge hangs dangling by the rim, See! how the b.a.l.l.s blush o'er the basket-brim; But little those she minds, the cunning belle Has other fish to fry, and other fruit to sell; See! how she whispers yonder youthful peer, See! how he smiles and lends a greedy ear.

At length 'tis done, the note o'er orange wrapt Has reach'd the box, and lays in lady's lap."