The Secrets of a Savoyard Part 3

When I came round I was in the green room, and a little later, amongst those who came to see me, was Irving himself. I was deadly white, and if the truth must be told, rather ashamed. But Irving was immensely pleased. He took it as a compliment to the force of his acting. Learning that I was a young actor, he declared that my emotionalism was a good omen, and said that my sensitive and highly-strung nature would help me in my work enormously. Then he went on to give me many hints that should be valuable to every aspirant for success on the stage. One hint I have never forgotten. "See to it," he said, "that you always imagine that in the theatre you have a pal who could not afford the stalls, and who is in the back of the pit or the gallery. Let him hear every line you have to say. It will make you finish your words distinctly and correctly."

If it is true, as friends have often told me, that one of the chief merits of my work is the clearness of my elocution in all parts of the house, it is due to the advice given to me in those early days by two of the greatest figures connected with the stage, Gilbert and Irving.

Seeing that these operas are now being played by hundreds of amateur societies each year, I want to pa.s.s on to those who perform in them this golden rule: Always pitch your voice to reach the man listening from the furthest part of the building. Since Gilbert's death I have often had the feeling that someone is still intently listening to me--someone a long way away!

But now I must proceed with my story. When George Grossmith returned to the cast, I was sent out as a princ.i.p.al in one of the provincial companies, and in this work continued for years. Sometimes we played one opera only on tour--the opera most recently produced in town--and sometimes a number of them in repertory. It was towards the end of 1888 that I first played what is, I need hardly say, the favourite of all my parts, _Jack Point_, in the "Yeomen of the Guard," the opera which was Gilbert and Sullivan's immediate successor to "Ruddigore." And in connection with this part let us finally clear up a "mystery." It has been a frequent source of enquiry and even controversy in the newspapers.

When at the close of "Yeomen" _Elsie_ is wedded to _Fairfax_, does _Jack Point_ die of a broken heart, or does he merely swoon away? That question is often asked, and it is a matter on which, of course, the real pathos of the play depends. The facts are these. Gilbert had conceived and written a tragic ending, but Grossmith, who created the part, and for whom in a sense it was written, was essentially the accepted wit and laughter-maker of his day, and thus it had to be arranged that the opera should have a definitely humorous ending. He himself knew and told Gilbert that, however he finished it, the audience would laugh. The London public regarded him as, what in truth he was, a great jester. If he had tried to be serious they would have refused to take him seriously. _Whatever_ Grossmith did the audience would laugh, and the manner in which he did fall down at the end was, indeed, irresistibly funny.

So it came about that while he was playing _Jack Point_ in his way in London I was playing him in my way in the provinces. The first time I introduced my version of the part was at Bath. For some time I had considered how poignant would be the effect if the poor strolling player, robbed of the love of a lady, forsaken by his friends, should gently kiss the edge of her garment, make the sign of his blessing, and then fall over, not senseless, but--dead! I had told the stage manager about my new ending. From time to time he asked me when I was going to do it, and then when at last I did feel inspired to play this tragic denouement, what he did was to wire immediately to Mr. Carte: "Lytton impossible for _Point_. What shall I do?"

I ought to explain that any departure from tradition in the performance of these operas was strictly prohibited by the management. Thus, while I might demur to the implication that my work was impossible, the fact that he should report me to headquarters was only consistent with his duty. But the sequel was hardly what he expected. The very next day Mr.

Carte, unknown to me at the time, came down to Bath. He watched the performance and, after the show, the company were a.s.sembled on the stage in order that, in accordance with custom, he could express any criticisms or bestow his approval. What happened seemed to me to be characteristic of this great man's remarkable tact. He first told us that he had enjoyed the performance. "For rehearsals to-morrow," he went on, "I shall want Mr. So-and-so, Mr. So-and-so, Miss So-and-so, Miss So-and-so," and several others. The inference was that there were details in their work that needed correcting. Then he turned to me, shook me most warmly by the hand, and just said very cordially, "Good night, Lytton." And then he left. No "Excellent"--that might have let down the stage manager's authority--but at the same time no condemnation. It was all noncommittal, but it suggested to me, as it actually transpired was the case, that he was anything but displeased with my reading.

Gilbert and I, when we had become close friends, often had long talks about this opera, and particularly about my interpretation of the lovable Merryman. I told him what had led me to attempt this conception, and asked him whether he wished me to continue it, or whether it should be modified in any particular way. "No," was his reply; "keep on like that. It is just what I want. _Jack Point_ should die and the end of the opera should be a tragedy."

For the sake of fairness I must mention that a fortnight after I had introduced this version of the part, another popular artiste, who was out with one of the other provincial companies, played the role in just the same way. It was entirely a coincidence. Neither of us knew that the other had evolved in his mind precisely the same idea, even down to the minutest details, and still less had either of us seen the other play it.

One little detail in my make-up for this part may be worth recording.

Whenever kings or n.o.blemen in the old days were pleased with their jesters they threw them a ring. For that reason I invariably wear a ring when I appear as _Jack Point_. Simple ornament as it is, it was once owned by Edmund Kean and worn by him on the stage, and another treasured relic of the great tragedian that I possess is a snuff-box, also given to me by my old friend, Charles Brookfield.

One of the finest compliments ever paid to me as an artiste occurred at Hanley. We were playing "Yeomen." Many of our audience that night were a rough lot of fellows, some of whom even sat in their shirt sleeves, but there could be no question but that they were keenly following the play.

Everywhere we had been on that tour there had been tremendous calls after the curtain. At Hanley when the curtain fell there was--a dead silence! It was quite uncanny. What had happened? Were they so little moved by the closing scene of the piece that they were going out in indifference or in disgust? Gently we drew the edge of the curtain aside, and there, would you believe it, we saw those honest fellows silently creeping out without even a whisper. He was _dead_. _Jack Point_ was _dead_!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LATE SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.]

I changed in silence myself. The effect of the incident had been so extraordinary. And when I went down to the stage door a crowd of these rough men were waiting. Somehow they knew me for _Point_. "Here he is!"

they shouted. "Are you all right, mister, now?" Then, as I walked on, they turned to one another and I overheard one of them say: "He _wasn't_ dead, after all." As they saw the end of the opera they verily believed something had gone wrong. Such a thing in the theatre may possibly be understandable, but that the illusion should have lingered after the curtain had dropped, and even after they had left the theatre and come really to earth in the street, seemed to me extraordinary.

The "Yeomen of the Guard" was staged again the following night, but this time the audience must have been told by their pals that they had actually seen me afterwards, and that it was "only a play." _Jack_ didn't die--not really. It was only "pretended."

That Hanley audience rather overdrew the gravity of things. Some audiences, on the other hand, go to the opposite extreme and they have their biggest laugh when and where I least expect it. I remember once playing the _Pirate King_ in the "Pirates of Penzance," and as a result of a slip (a physical one) I was the sorry figure in one of those incidents which I might catalogue as "laughs I ought not to have got." I had to come in, armed to the teeth, high up on the stage. By some mischance I slipped down the rocks, and enc.u.mbered with all those knives, pistols and cutla.s.ses about me it was a pretty bad drop. The audience, of course, thought my undignified entrance a capital joke. I didn't--it hurt. But I turned the mishap to account, first picking up a dagger and putting it between my teeth, then groping round for the other weapons, and all the while cowing my pirate swashbucklers with a vicious look that suggested "Come on at your peril; I'm ready." That incident was not in the book.

Lovers of "Patience" will recall that little diversion where _Lady Jane_ picks up _Bunthorne_ in her arms and carries him off. Well, when Miss Bertha Lewis was playing with me in this scene quite recently, she did something quite unauthorised. She dropped me--it was a terrible crash--and the audience thought it a "scream." In the shelter of the wings I remonstrated with her, pointing out that this was a distinct departure from what Gilbert intended. All the sympathy I got was, "Well, I've dropped you only twice in eight years!" Scarcely an effectual embrocation for bruises!

When we were doing "Ruddigore" in Birmingham, some years ago, I broke my ankle in the dance with which the first curtain fell. Somehow I finished the performance, but when I went up to my dressing-room to change I fainted. When I came to I found that my foot had swollen enormously, that the top boot I was wearing had burst, and that they were doing their best to cut it away. The speediest medical aid to be found was that of a veterinary surgeon, and although the pain was awful it was nothing like the feeling of doom when I overheard him saying, "He may not walk again!" Luckily his fears were altogether unfounded, but although the accident has not affected my dancing, the ankle has never been quite right to this day.

Once, in the "Yeomen," I kicked one of the posts near the executioner's block. It dislocated my toe, but what a happy accident it was I did not realise until some weeks later, when we were playing "The Mikado," and when I was doing the dance in the "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring," I trod upon a tin-tack, and instinctively drew my toe away, as it were, from the pain. From the audience there came a tremendous roar of laughter. For a moment I could not understand it at all. Looking down, however, I was amazed to find that big toe upright, almost at right angles to the rest of the foot. With my fan I pressed it down--then raised it again. This provoked so much merriment among the audience that I did it a second time, and a third. All this time the theatre was convulsed. I confess that to myself it seemed jolly funny. Here, indeed, was a quaint discovery.

This "toe" business has ever since been one of _Ko-Ko's_ greatest mirth-provokers in the "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring." The explanation of its origin shows that it is not a trick mechanical toe nor, as some people suppose, that it is done with a piece of string. The fact is simply that the toe is double-jointed.

Now that I have made a brief reference to dancing, I think it may be well to correct a legend which has grown up about my age, and which usually turns up when we have been encored a first or a second time for a dance or some boisterous number, especially in "Iolanthe" or "The Mikado." "Isn't it a shame?" I know some dear kind friends say, "making him do it again. Poor old man! He's well over seventy." Others declare, "Isn't he a marvel for sixty-five?" Well, if a man is as old as he feels, then my age must still be in the thirties, and certainly there is no intention on my part of retiring just yet. But if we have to go by the calendar, and if it is necessary that there should be "no possible shadow of doubt" in the future as to my age, I had better put on record the fact that I was born in London on January 3rd, 1867. The rest, a small matter of arithmetic, may be left to you. At all events I am still some distance from the patriarchal span.

The stage is a wonderful tonic in keeping one healthy and strong. Not once, but many times, I have gone to the theatre in the evening suffering from neuralgia, but the moment my cue comes the pain has entirely disappeared. No sooner, worse luck, have I finished for the night than it has returned!

IV.

LEADERS OF THE SAVOY.

_Memories of Gilbert--His instinct for stagecraft--Stories of rehearsals--Jack Point's unanswered conundrum--The craze for the Up-to-Date--Gilbert's experiments on a miniature stage--Nanki-Poo's address--The j.a.panese colony at Knightsbridge--The geniality of Sullivan--A magician of the orchestra--The cause of an unhappy separation--Only a carpet--Impressions of D'Oyly Carte--Merited rebukes and generous praise--D'Oyly Carte and I rehea.r.s.e a love scene--A wonderful business woman--Mrs. Carte's part in the Savoy successes--Our leader to-day._

Sir William Gilbert I shall always regard as a pattern of the fine old English gentleman. Of that breed we have only too few survivors to-day.

Some who know him superficially have pictured him as a martinet, but while this may have been true of him under the stress of his theatrical work, it fails to do justice to the innate gentleness and courtesy which were his great and distinguishing qualities. Upright and honourable himself, one could never imagine that he could ever do a mean, ungenerous action to anyone, nor had any man a truer genius for friendship.

Gilbert, it is true, had sometimes a satirical tongue, but these little shafts of ridicule of his seldom left any sting. The _bons mots_ credited to him are innumerable, but while many may be authentic there are others that are legendary. He was a devoted lover of the cla.s.sics, and to this may be attributed his command of such beautiful English.

Nimble-witted as he was, he would spend days in shaping and re-shaping some witty fancy into phrases that satisfied his meticulous taste, and days and weeks would be given to polishing and re-polishing some lyrical gem. But when a new opera was due for rehearsal, the libretto was all finished and copied, and everything was in readiness.

Few men have had so rare an instinct for stagecraft. Few men could approach him in such perfect technique of the footlights. Up at Grim's d.y.k.e, his beautiful home near Harrow, he had a wonderful miniature stage at which he would work arranging just where every character should enter, where he or she should stand or move after this number and that, and when and where eventually he or she should disappear. For each character he had a coloured block, and there were similar devices, of course, for the chorus. Thus, when he came down for rehearsals, he had everything in his mind's eye already, and he insisted that every detail should be carried out just as he had planned. "Your first entrance will be here," he would say, "and your second entrance there. 'Spurn not the n.o.bly born' will be sung by _Tolloller_ just there, and while he sings it _Mountararat_ will stand there, _Phyllis_ there," and so on.

When the company had become familiar with the broader outlines of the piece, he would concentrate attention upon the effects upon the audience that could be attained only by the aid of facial expression, gesture and ensemble arrangement. Not only did he lay down his wishes, but he insisted that they must be implicitly obeyed, and a princ.i.p.al who had not reached perfection in the part he was taking would be coached again and again. I remember once that, in one of those moods of weariness and dullness that occasionally steal over one at rehearsals, I did not grasp something he had been telling me, and I was indiscreet enough to blurt out, "But I haven't done that before, Sir William." "No," was his reply, "but I have." The rebuke to my dullness went home! It was Durward Lely, I think, whom he told once to sit down "in a pensive fashion." Lely thereupon unmindfully sat down rather heavily--and disturbed an elaborate piece of scenery. "No! No!" was Gilbert's comment, "I said pensively, not ex-pensively." That quickness of wit was very typical.

George Grossmith once suggested that the introduction of certain business would make the audience laugh. Gilbert was quite unsympathetic.

"Yes!" he responded in his dryest vein, "but so they would if you sat down on a pork pie!" Grossmith it was, too, who had become so wearied practising a certain gesture that I heard him declare he "had rehea.r.s.ed this confounded business until I feel a perfect fool." "Ah! so now we can talk on equal terms" was the playwright's instant retort. And the next moment he administered another rebuke. "I beg your pardon," said the comedian, rather bored, in reference to some instructions he had not quite understood. "I accept the apology," was the reply. "Now let's get on with the rehearsal."

You will remember that in "The Yeomen" poor _Jack Point_ puts his riddle, "Why is a cook's brainpan like an overwound clock?" The Lieutenant interposes abruptly with "A truce to this fooling," and the poor Merry-man saunters off exclaiming "Just my luck: my best conundrum wasted." Like many in the audience, I have often wondered what the answer to that conundrum is, and one day I put a question about it to Gilbert. With a smile he said he couldn't tell me then, but he would leave me the answer in his will. I'm sorry to say that it was not found there--maybe because there was really no answer to the riddle, or perhaps because he had forgotten to bequeath to the world this interesting legacy.

Sir William not only studied the entrances and exits beforehand, but he came with clear-cut ideas as to the colour schemes which would produce the best effect in the scenery, laid down the methods with which the lighting was to be handled, and arranged that no heavy dresses had to be worn by those who had dances to perform. No alterations of any kind could be made without his authority, and thus it comes about that the operas as presented to-day are just as he left them, without the change of a word, and long may they so remain!

I ought, perhaps, to answer criticisms which are often laid against me when, as _Ko-Ko_ in "The Mikado," I do not follow the text by saying that _Nanki-Poo's_ address is "Knightsbridge." I admit I subst.i.tute the name of some locality more familiar to the audience before whom we are playing. Well, it is not generally known that Knightsbridge is named in the opera because, just before it was written, a small j.a.panese colony had settled in that inner suburb of London, and a very great deal of curiosity the appearance of those little people in their native costumes aroused in the Metropolis. Gilbert, therefore, in his search for "local colour" for his forthcoming opera, had not to travel to Tokio, but found it almost on his own doorstep near his home, then in South Kensington.

A j.a.panese male-dancer and a Geisha, moreover, were allowed to come from the colony to teach the company how to run or dance in tiny steps with their toes turned in, how to spread or snap their fans to indicate annoyance or delight, and how to arrange their hair and line their faces in order to introduce the Oriental touch into their "make-up." This realism was very effective, and it had a great deal to do with the instantaneous success of what is still regarded as the Gilbert and Sullivan masterpiece.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LATE MR. RICHARD D'OYLY CARTE.]

But to return to the point about Knightsbridge. When "The Mikado" was produced at the Savoy, the significance of the reference to a London audience was obvious and amusing enough, but it was a different matter when the opera was sent into the provinces. Gilbert accordingly gave instructions that the place was to be localised, and there was and always is something very diverting to, say, a Liverpool audience in the unexpected announcement that _Nanki-Poo_, the great Mikado's son, is living at "Wigan." In the case of Manchester it might be "Oldham" or in that of Birmingham "Small Heath." What I want to make clear is that, so far from any liberty being taken on my part, this little variation is fully authorised, and it is the only instance of the kind in the whole of the operas.

Sir Arthur Sullivan I knew least of the famous triumvirate at the Savoy.

I was under him, of course, at rehearsals, and we had pleasant little talks from time to time, but my relations with him were neither so frequent nor so intimate as they were with the other two partners. We had a mutual friend in Francois Cellier, about whose work as conductor I shall have more to say, and it was through him that I learned much about the fine personal and musical qualities of the composer.

Certainly Sullivan was a great man, intensely devoted to his art, and fame and fortune never spoilt a man less. A warm-hearted Irishman, he was always ready to do a good turn for anyone, and it was wonderful how the geniality of his nature was never clouded by almost life-long physical suffering. Sullivan lived and died a bachelor, and I believe there was never a more affectionate tie than that which existed between him and his mother, a very witty old lady, and one who took an exceptional pride in her son's accomplishments. Nor is it generally known that he took upon himself all the obligations for the welfare and upbringing of his dead brother's family. It was to Herbert Sullivan, his favourite nephew, that his fortune was bequeathed.

Of Sullivan the musician I cannot very well speak. I have already owned that I have little real musical knowledge. But at the same time he always seemed to me to be something of a magician. Not only could he play an instrument, but he knew exactly what any instrument could be made to do to introduce some delightful, quaint effect into the general orchestral design. "No! No!" he would say at a rehearsal to the double ba.s.s, "I don't want it like that. I want a lazy, drawn-out sound like this." And, taking the bow in his fingers, he would produce some deliciously droll effect from the strings. "Oh, no! not that way," he would say to the flutes, and a flute being handed up to him, he would show how the notes on the score were to be made lightsome and caressing.

Then it would be the turn of the violins.

At the earlier rehearsals it was often difficult for the princ.i.p.als to get the tune of their songs. The stumbling block was the trickiness of rhythm which was one of the composer's greatest gifts. Now, although I cannot read a line of music, my sense of rhythm has always been very strong, and this has helped me enormously both in my songs and my dancing. Once when Sir Arthur was rehearsing us, and we simply could not get our songs right, I asked him to "la la" the rhythm to me, and I then got the measure so well that he exclaimed "That's splendid Lytton. If you're not a musician, I wish there were others, too, who were not."

One story about Sullivan--I admit it is not a new one--well deserves telling. Standing one night at the back of the dress-circle, he commenced in a contemplative fashion to hum the melody of a song that was being rendered on the stage. "Look here," declared a sensitive old gentleman, turning round sharply to the composer, "I've paid my money to hear Sullivan's music--not yours." And whenever Sir Arthur told this story against himself he always confessed that he well deserved the rebuke.

Gilbert and Sullivan were collaborators for exactly twenty-five years.

It was in 1871 that they wrote "Thespis," a very funny little piece of its kind that was produced at the Gaiety, and it was this success that induced Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte to invite them to a.s.sociate again in the writing of a curtain-raiser destined to be known as "Trial by Jury."

From that time until 1889 they worked in double harness without a break, and it was in that latter year, after the most successful production of "The Gondoliers" that there came the unfortunate "separation." It lasted four years. When, in 1893, the two men re-united their talents, they gave us that delightfully funny play, "Utopia Limited." But with "The Grand Duke" in 1896--and the superst.i.tious will not overlook that this was the thirteenth piece they had written together--the curtain finally came down upon the partnership.

It may be expected of me that I should say something about the cause of the famous "separation." It is a matter I should prefer to ignore, partly because the consequences of it were so very unfortunate to the cause of dramatic and musical art, and partly because the reason of it was trivial to a degree. Slight "tiffs" there may have been between the two from time to time--that was inevitable under the strain of rehearsals--but these minor differences were mended within a day or a night. What caused the rift was--would you believe it?--a carpet! This Mr. Carte, who under the contract was responsible for furnishings, had bought for 140, as a means of adding to the comfort, as he believed, of the patrons of the Savoy. Seeing this item in the accounts, Mr. Gilbert objected to it as a sheer waste of money, arguing that it would not bring an extra sixpence into the exchequer. The dispute was a mere "breeze" to begin with, but Gilbert and Carte had each a will of his own, and soon the "breeze" had developed into a "gale." And that miserable carpet led at last to the break-up of the partnership.

Sullivan, whether he agreed with the purchase or not, did his best to put an end to the quarrel, but as in the end he had to adhere to one side or the other, he linked himself with Mr. Carte. This, then, was the sole cause of the breach, and by none was it more regretted than by the princ.i.p.als. Gilbert, I know, felt this severance from his old friend very acutely, though in our many talks in after years he was always inclined to be a little reticent as to this subject. Sullivan, too, though he went on composing, was not at all fortunate in his choice of lyrical writers, none of whom had the deftness and quaint turn of fancy of the playwright with whom he had worked so long and so successfully.

Before I leave Sullivan, I think students of music will be interested to hear what Cellier once told me as to the composer's methods in writing his beautiful songs. With Gilbert's words before him, he set out first to decide, not what should be the tune, but the rhythm. It was this method of finding exactly what metre best suited the sentiment of the lyric that gave his music such originality. Later, having decided what the rhythm should be, he went on to sketch out the melody, but it was seldom that he set to work on the orchestration until the rehearsals were well under way. In the meanwhile the princ.i.p.als practised their songs to an accompaniment which he vamped on the pianoforte. Sullivan, who could score very quickly, had a mind running riot with musical ideas, and he could always pick out the idea for a given number that fitted it like the proverbial glove. "I have a song to sing O!" he regarded, I have been told, as the most difficult conundrum Gilbert ever set him, and musicians tell me that, in sheer constructive ingenuity, it is one of the cleverest numbers in the "Yeomen of the Guard."