l'exactitude. Les comédiens sont excellents. M. Bancroft joue dans
la pièce un rôle de grand gommeux à monocle, et rien n'égale son
élégance et sa stupidité. Madame Bancroft joue la pensionnaire gaie:
cette petite femme est un mélange d'Alphonsine et de Chaumont--gaie,
pimpante, mordante et d'une adresse! ... C'est la _great attraction_
du Théâtre de Haymarket.
"Après je reviens rapidement en cab ("hansom") à mon hôtel, et je me
demande en chemin pourquoi les cabs vont si vite? C'est tout simple;
les cabs vont très vite parce que les cochers les poussent derrière."
No less an authority than David Garrick once said to an ambitious
stage aspirant who sought his advice, that he might humbug the public
in tragedy, but warned him not to try to do so in comedy, for that
was a serious thing. This opinion was borne out by Voltaire, who, in
his anxiety not to imperil the success he had achieved in tragedy,
when he wrote his first comedy did so anonymously.
{165}
[Sidenote: Joseph Jefferson]
Having pleasant memories of two distinguished American actors--one a
comedian, the other a tragedian--I will follow the high opinion held
by the great Englishman of Thalia's children, and write first of
Joseph Jefferson, incomparably the finest actor who has come to us
from America, and who in his day made a powerful impression and won
enduring fame by his performance of _Rip Van Winkle_ and his new
rendering of Bob Acres in _The Rivals_, which he admitted was not
free from liberties with Sheridan. I can think of no actor who has
been more beloved by audiences in his native land. I must, of
course, use that expression, although his grandfather, or perhaps
great-grandfather, was British, and an actor under David Garrick. He
was, as it were, cradled on the stage.
Jefferson might also have made fame and money by his brush. His work
was worthily hung upon the walls of the Royal Academy. I cherish two
of his paintings: one, a gift to my wife in remembrance of a happy
day we all spent together on the Thames, a charming example of one of
its many backwaters near Cookham; the other--a purchase--of
Shakespeare's church at Stratford-on-Avon--both reminiscent of Corot.
The former always suggests to me the misty Hebrides and an {166}
appropriate background for the "Island that liked to be visited," in
Barrie's _Mary Rose_.
Gazing, I remember, at the old Maidenhead bridge at sunset, Jefferson
murmured: "What a lovely place is this England of yours! How I
should just like to lift it in my arms and carry it right away."
When Edwin Booth, the American tragedian, came over to play in
London, Millais gave him a dinner, and invited the leading players of
the day to make his acquaintance. He was a fine actor; especially
so, I thought, in _The Fool's Revenge_ and _Richelieu_. When he drew
the "awful circle" round the shrinking form of the young heroine and
said to the villain of the play: "Set but a foot within that holy
ground and on thy head--yea, though it wore a crown--I launch the
curse of Rome!" you felt you were in the presence of high dramatic
art. The performance at the Lyceum Theatre, in which he and Irving
alternated the parts of _Othello_ and _Iago_, created great interest.
Booth was the better Othello; Irving the more attractive and less
conventional Iago.
Booth would now and then dine with us on a Sunday evening--to help
him bear a sorrow which is, at such times, the actor's lot, and which
an extract from a letter to a close friend will best explain:
{167}
"I am tired in body and brain. The poor girl is passing away from
us. For weeks she has been failing rapidly; and the doctors tell me
that she is dying. You can imagine my condition: acting at random
every evening, and nursing a half-insane, dying wife all day, and all
night too, for that matter. I am scarce sane myself. I scribble
this in haste at two in the morning, for I know not when I will have
a chance to write sensibly again."
The room in which Edwin Booth died--which I have visited--at the
Players' Club in Grammercy Park, New York, founded by himself, and
where he had been so beloved, was left untouched after he had passed
away, and, I understand, so remains.
When I was a lad of seventeen I went for a trip to New York, and
during my stay I chanced to see Edward Askew Sothern--to give him his
full name--play his world-renowned character, _Lord Dundreary_, for
the first time in his life. Some years later, when we met upon the
stage, I gave him my copy of the original playbill, which, of course,
had great interest for him. The eccentric nobleman drew all
playgoers for years in England as well as in America. At the time I
mention I saw Sothern and Jefferson act together in a round of old
English comedies. As young men they {168} made giant successes in
individual parts--_Dundreary_ and _Rip Van Winkle_--the one a
masterpiece of caricature, the other a veritable old Dutch master.
Another of Sothern's chief parts, in those days, was _David Garrick_,
of which he was the original representative, long before the play was
taken over and prominently associated with the career of Charles
Wyndham.
Sothern was always kind to me, whether in my early days in the
provinces or afterwards in town. He was my guest at the first
dinner-party I had the courage to give. Among those who sat with him
were Dion Boucicault, W. S. Gilbert, W. R. McConnell and Tom Hood. I
was a young host, not having struck twenty-six. He was a fearless
rider and hunting man. Once, after he had met with a bad accident,
following the staghounds, I went to see him at his charming old
house, called The Cedars, in Kensington, and found his bed placed in
the middle of the room. The house, when I last saw it, had become a
home for cripples.
Sothern was the king of practical-jokers and would stop at nothing in
the way of thought, time or money, to carry out his wild projects. A
poor game at its best, I have often thought in mature age; a selfish
form of innings.
He was an intense admirer of my wife's art. {169} Only after he had
passed away did it come to my knowledge that in some stage
experiences, published in America, with the title _Birds of a
Feather_, he gave his judgment of her.
"Among the actresses I should certainly place Mrs. Bancroft and Mrs.
Kendal in the foremost rank, their specialities being high comedy.
Mrs. Bancroft I consider the best actress on the English stage; in
fact, I might say on any stage."
Sam Sothern, so long a pleasant actor on our stage, is dead, so his
father's name and fame are now successfully held by his son, Edward,
in America.
[Sidenote: Dion Boucicault]
One of the most remarkable of Victorians in stage-land was Dion
Boucicault, father of my life-long little friend, "Dot," the
accomplished husband of Irene Vanbrugh. Boucicault produced his
first comedy, _London Assurance_--a brilliant one in its day--about
the date of my birth, when he himself was not more than twenty-one.
He was a colossal worker as author, actor, and producer until 1890; a
career as distinguished as it was lengthy. His delightful Irish
plays, _The Colleen Bawn_, _Arrah-na-Pogue_ and _The Shaughraun_,
were among the joys of my youth. I first met Boucicault {170} at
Birmingham, where I was specially engaged to act his own part, the
counsel for the defence in his drama _The Trial of Effie Deans_. I
learnt much from him at the one rehearsal he travelled from London to
attend. When about half way through the trial scene he took me aside
and told me I was wrong in my treatment of the part, adding: "Let me
rehearse the rest of the scene for you, and I am sure you will grasp
my own idea of it directly." I saw at once how right he was, how
wrong I had been. The result was a considerable success for me. In
the early days of our managerial career we produced a comedy of his,
_How She Loves Him_--clever, but not one of the best. A situation at
the end of an act became very muddled, after being tried at rehearsal
in several ways. An idea struck me, which was a distinct
improvement, but I hardly dared to interfere with so great an
autocrat, kind as he had always been. At last, in despair, I
suggested to Boucicault that his original ending of the act was more
effective than that he had changed it to. He said: "What was that?"
I then boldly explained my own idea as if it were his. No doubt he
saw through the strategy, but merely said: "Perhaps you're right,"
and rewarded my shrewdness by adopting the suggestion.
{171}
When, years afterwards, I asked his consent to my making some
alterations in _London Assurance_ and combining the fourth and fifth
acts, he replied from Chicago: "Your shape of _London Assurance_ will
be, like all you have done, unexceptionable, and I wish I could be
there to taste your brew."
[Sidenote: Rest and rust]
Later on, when my wife was taking only a small part in some of our
plays, he wrote:
"MY DEAR FRIEND,--Will you feel offended with an old soldier if he
intrudes on your plan of battle by a remark?
"Why are the Bancrofts taking a back seat in their own theatre; they
efface themselves! Who made the establishment? with whom is it
wholly identified? of what materials is it built? There--it's out!
"Tell Marie, with my love, that there is nothing so destructive as
_rest_ if persisted in; you must alter the vowel--it becomes _rust_,
and eats into life. Hers is too precious to let her fool it away;
she is looking splendid, and as fresh as a pat of butter. Why don't
you get up a version of _The Country Girl_? Let her play Hoyden and
you play Lord Foppington."
Boucicault was a perfect host, a brilliant talker and sympathetic
listener. I first dined with him, when a young man, in the
delightful {172} company, I remember well, of Charles Reade, J. M.
Bellew and Edmund Yates. On the menu was printed: "The wine will be
tabled. Every man his own butler. Smiles and self-help." And there
was cognac of 1803 from the cellars of Napoleon III. I had many
years of unbroken friendship with Boucicault. His final words to me
were in a letter from America, following on an illness:
"I doubt whether I shall cross the ocean again. I am rusticating at
Washington, having recovered some strength, and am waiting to know if
my lease of life is out, or is to be renewed for another term. I
have had notice to quit, but am arguing the point ('just like you,' I
think I hear you say), and nothing yet is settled between Nature and
me."
He was a hard worker, and said his epitaph should be: "Dion
Boucicault; his first holiday."
Where shall my pen wander next?
[Sidenote: Montague and Coghlan]
I can revive memories in the old--and tell a little to the young--of
actors who became prominent as members of our companies at different
times. Let me try to do so. First, there was Harry Montague.
Without being an actor of high rank, he had a great value as a _jeune
premier_. He was what I heard an American describe as "so easy to
look at." His charm {173} of manner made him a special favourite
everywhere, and he was the original matinee idol. When in his
company he had the gift of making you believe that he had thought but
of you since your last parting, and, when he said "good-bye," that
you would remain in his memory until you met again.
He was in America, acting in _Diplomacy_, when he died suddenly; as
young in years as he always seemed in heart; for he was but midway
between thirty and forty, that age upon the border-land when one has
to own to being no more young, while resenting for a little while
that ambiguous epithet, "middle-aged."
Charles Coghlan was an actor of a higher grade; gifted, cultivated
and able: his acting as Alfred Evelyn and Charles Surface in our
elaborate revivals of _Money_ and _The School for Scandal_ was of the
highest character. It may be interesting to note that when he first
joined our company his salary was £9 a week; during his last
engagement we paid him £60, which would be doubled now. I asked him
once to accompany me on a short holiday abroad, and found him a
delightful companion. This was soon after the siege of Paris, when
many of the terrible stains left on the fair city's face were sadly
visible.
{174}
Coghlan often lived outside London, at places like Elstree and
Kingsbury, generally in picturesque old houses. My wife and I rode
out to one of them to luncheon. For a time he drove a rather
ramshackle four-in-hand, and, naturally, was in constant financial
trouble. He ended his career rather recklessly in America, at
Galveston, and his body was washed out to sea from the catacombs by a
flood. It was afterwards recovered and reburied.
The father of the happily present Dion and Donald Calthrop, a
connection of Lord Alverstone, John Clayton (Calthrop) was also a
fine actor. His performance in _All for Her_ was of a high order,
and he did some admirable work with Irving at the Lyceum. I also
recall a remarkable piece of acting on his part in a play, adapted
from the French, in which he appeared as a father whose brain was
turned by his having accidentally shot his little son. Under our
flag, he only acted in _Diplomacy_ and _Caste_. He was then growing
fat, and never knew of a strong wish I had to revive the _Merry Wives
of Windsor_, with himself as Falstaff. He was otherwise engaged,
unfortunately. This was when that brilliant actress Mrs. John Wood
was with us, to play with my wife the two Merry Wives, supported by
myself as the jealous Mr. Ford--I always found the portrayal {175} of
jealousy very amusing--and a troupe of able and suitable comedians.
Clayton gave remarkable performances in the joyous comedies by Pinero
at the Court Theatre. He died young.
[Sidenote: Arthur Cecil]
Arthur Cecil comes next to my mind: an amiable gentleman and
companion. It was I who, when he was "wobbling," as he did on every
subject, induced him to go on the professional stage. He seemed to
me to pass a large slice of his life in the effort--or want of
effort--to make up his mind on trivial things, and so wasted at least
one half of it.
At the dress rehearsal of _Diplomacy_--in which he gave a fine
performance of Baron Stein--he appeared with a totally different
make-up in each act. They were all clever and appropriate, but we,
not he, had to decide for him which was to be finally adopted. He
was very devoted to what Sir James Barrie christened "Little Mary."
On one occasion, after dining at the Garrick Club, before his
evening's work, having finished his meal with a double helping of
orange tart, he was leaving the coffee-room, when he saw a friend
seated near the door just beginning his dinner. Cecil sat down
opposite to him for a few minutes to exchange greetings; he became so
restless and agitated at the sight of a dish of stewed eels that at
last he dug {176} a fork into a mouthful, saying, "I must," and so
wound up his meal. There are several similar stories extant, equally
amazing, equally true.
[Sidenote: Henry Kemble]
Our old and staunch friend, Henry Kemble, a descendant of the
illustrious stage family whose name he bore, was for years a valued
member of our company; a capable but restricted actor, from his
peculiarity of diction. My wife christened him "The Beetle," owing
to a large brown Inverness cape he wore at night. Many are the
amusing stories told of him. He fought the income tax strenuously,
and on one occasion, being brought to bay, told the collector that he
belonged to a precarious profession, and begged that Her Majesty
might be asked not to look upon him as a source of income!
Kemble was well up in Shakespeare, and had a greater knowledge of the
Bible than any actor I have known, except one.
This reminds me of a visit paid, at his instigation, on a New Year's
Eve, in the company of his close friend, Arthur Cecil, to a midnight
service held in one of the big churches. They entered reverently,
just before the hour, and were about to kneel, when a verger touched
Kemble on the shoulder and said: "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but
this is a service being held for fallen women."
{177}
Kemble suddenly made up his mind to retire from the stage and end his
days in Jersey, not in a cloistered cathedral city, as he said would
be the case. He, unfortunately, invested his savings in an annuity,
as he only lived a few months after doing so. He came to see my
wife, to whom he was much attached, to say good-bye, and brought her
some fine Waterford glass as a farewell gift. When fatally ill, his
last words were written to her on a telegraph form: "All over, dear,
dear Lady B. Blessings on you all. Beetle." The doctor who
attended him transcribed the words, and sent my wife the
tremblingly-written farewell he had penned himself--a touching and
kind act.
Another friend and comrade of those days was the humorous Charles
Brookfield, son of Canon Brookfield, a distinguished preacher. My
wife and I gave the young undergraduate what was practically his
first engagement, and he remained a popular member of our company
during the whole of our career at the Haymarket. Several of his
performances showed marked ability, notably in Sardou's play,
_Odette_, and Pinero's comedy, _Lords and Commons_. Many amusing
stories are attributed to him. Against the accuracy of one of them I
must rebel. It ran in this way: That at a time when Charles Wyndham
was appearing {178} in his favourite part of David Garrick, for a
run, he was sitting in the club named after the great actor, just
under one of his several portraits there, when Brookfield went up to
Wyndham and said: "It really seems quite surprising, you grow more
like Garrick every day." Wyndham gave a delighted smile; when
Brookfield continued, in his peculiar cynical way: "Yes, every day,
but less like him every night." A good story; but, unfortunately,
Brookfield was never a member of the Garrick Club.
[Sidenote: Charles Brookfield]
I think it was Brookfield who, when a friend asked his advice, saying
that a member of a club they frequented having called him a "mangy
ass," whether he should appeal to the committee or consult a
solicitor, quietly told him he thought it a case for a vet to decide.
He wrote various amusing comedies, and, later on, was appointed by
the Lord Chamberlain to be joint examiner of plays.
Brookfield had his serious side, and wrote us the following letter,
affectionately signed, when we retired from management:
"The sadness I feel at the prospect of never again working under your
management is far too genuine for me to endeavour to convey it {179}
by any conventional expressions of regret. Although I have always
appreciated your unvarying goodness to me, it is only by the
depression of spirits and general apathy which I now experience, that
I recognise how much my enjoyment of my profession was affected by
the kind auspices under which I had the good fortune to practise it."
{180}
IX
THE STAGE
II
"Pity it is that the animated graces of the player can live no longer
than the instant breath and motion that presents them, or at best can
but faintly glimmer through the memory of a few surviving spectators."
[Sidenote: Henry Irving]
I will now write of the man who was for many years the chief of the
English stage, Henry Irving. He was a born leader and had the
magnetism which compels the affection of his comrades; he knew that
to be well served meant first to be well beloved. Although denied
the advantages of early education, Irving had the learning which
colleges may fail to teach; and in his later years would have graced,
in manner and in aspect, any position in life. This personal
attribute came to him gradually, when, as it were, he had recreated
himself. Truth to tell, in the early part of his career he had none
of it. In those distant days there was a strong smack of the country
actor in his appearance, and a suggestion of a {181} type
immortalised by Dickens in Mr. Lenville and Mr. Folair.
We soon became friends and remained so throughout his remarkable
career--the most remarkable in many respects that ever befell an
actor. He told me an interesting incident of his early life. He was
engaged, in the summer of 1867, to act in Paris. The enterprise
proved a failure. The little troupe of players was disbanded and
returned to London, with the exception of Irving, who, finding
himself abroad for the first time, lingered in the bright city for a
couple of months. He lived in a garret on a few francs a day, and
paid nightly visits to the cheap parts of the theatre. Although he
had no knowledge of the language, he was all the while studying the
art of acting in its different grades and kinds.
When, in later years, he entertained in his princely fashion eminent
foreign artists, in answer to compliments showered upon him in
French, he would, without the slightest affectation--a failing from
which he was free--answer simply: "I am sure all you are saying is
very kind, but I don't understand a word of it."
Soon after his success as Digby Grant in James Albery's comedy, _Two
Roses_, shortly before what proved to be the turning-point in his
career--his becoming a member of the {182} Lyceum company, then under
the Bateman management--I had occasion to see a well-known dramatic
agent, who, as I was leaving his office, said: "Oh, by the way, would
Henry Irving be of use to you next season? I have reason to believe
he would welcome such a change." The question was startling. I
replied that I should be delighted, but feared it would be difficult,
as Hare, Coghlan and myself would be in his way. How possible it is
that a different answer might have influenced future events in
theatre-land! Then came his memorable performance in _The Bells_,
which gave him fame in a single night, followed by other early
triumphs, _Charles the First_ and _Hamlet_.
I once saw Irving on horseback, cantering in the Row on a Sunday
afternoon: it was a singular experience. His companion was George
Critchett, who gave up his practice one day in the week to hunt
instead, and who was as much at home on a horse as Irving was plainly
uncomfortable.
Later on, Irving was speaking to me of the success of one of our
plays. I answered that in my belief the same could be achieved at
the Lyceum (the theatre was not yet under his own management), if
money were freely and wisely spent. But wide is the difference {183}
between spending and wasting. While the disasters which darkened his
brilliant reign were sometimes, it must be conceded, the result of
errors of judgment in the choice of plays, had he been in partnership
with a capable comrade, to whose guidance he would sometimes have
submitted, he might have realised a fortune, instead of allowing
several to pass like water through his hands. As an artistic asset,
Irving was often wasted and thrown away.
Let me turn for a moment from the stage side of this extraordinary
man.
[Sidenote: A toy theatre]
In the gloaming of a Christmas Day, full forty years ago, my wife and
I were sitting alone, when, to our amazement, Irving was announced.
It was a bolt from the blue. After a pleasant talk, we asked him who
was to have the pleasure of giving him his pudding and mince-pie. He
answered that he should be all alone in Grafton Street with his dog.
We told him that ourselves and our son George, then a small boy,
comprised our party, and begged him to join us. Irving gladly said
he would. At the time he was acting in _The Corsican Brothers_, of
which famous melodrama Master George had his own version in his
little model theatre, with an elaborate scene of the duel in the
snow, represented by masses of salt smuggled from the kitchen; and
this, {184} with managerial pride, he told Irving he would act before
him after dinner. To an audience of three the performance was
solemnly gone through, being subjected to the criticisms, seriously
pronounced and respectfully received, of the great man. I seem to
hear his voice crying out: "Light not strong enough on the prompt
side, my boy." For years a broken blade of one of the rapiers used
in the duel at the Lyceum, given to him by Irving, was among the
boy's proud possessions. I daresay he has it still. A memorable
Christmas evening!