I might have found it hard to explain just what I meant; but she
understood, for she gave my hand a quick, hard pressure, and a kind look
shone from her splendid eyes. Next moment she was sweeping superbly
toward her carriage, with her gentlemen in waiting struggling for the
opportunity to do her service. So here, again, was the play reflecting
real life.
But surely I have given instances enough in illustration of my original
claim that the most dramatic scenes in plays are generally the mere
reflections of happenings in real life; while the recognition of such
scenes often causes a serious interruption to the play, though goodness
knows there are plenty of interruptions from other causes.
One that comes often to my mind occurred at Daly's. He once tried to
keep the theatre open in the summer-time--that was a failure. Two or
three plays were tried, then he abandoned the scheme. But while "No
Name" was on, Mr. Parks was cast for a part he was utterly unsuited for.
He stamped and stammered out his indignation and objection, but he was
not listened to, so on he went.
During the play he was found seated at a table; and he not answering a
question put to him, his housekeeper knelt at his side, lifted his hand,
and let it fall, heavily, then in awed tones exclaimed, "He is dead!"
Now there is no use denying that, clever actor as he was, he was very,
_very_ bad in that part; and on the third night, when the housekeeper
let his hand fall and said, "He is dead!" in clear and hearty response
from the gallery came the surprising words, "Thank God!"
The laughter that followed was not only long-continued, but it broke
out again and again. As one young woman earnestly remarked next day:
"You see he so perfectly expressed all our feelings. We were all as
thankful as the man in the gallery, but we didn't like to say so."
Parks, however, was equal to the occasion. He gravely suggested that Mr.
Daly would do well to engage that chap, as he was the only person who
had made a hit in the play.
Parks was, by the way, very droll in his remarks about theatrical
matters. One day Mr. Daly concluded he would "cut" one of the acts we
were rehearsing, and it happened that Parks's part, which was already
short, suffered severely. He, of course, said nothing, but a little
later he introduced a bit of business which was very funny, but really
did not suit the scene. Mr. Daly noticed it, and promptly cut that out
too. Then was Parks wroth indeed.
After rehearsal, he and Mr. Lewis were walking silently homeward, when
they came upon an Italian street musician. The man ground at his movable
piano, the wife held the tambourine, while his leggy little daughter
danced with surprising grace on the stone walk. As she trotted about
gathering her harvest of pennies, Parks put his hand on her shoulder and
said solemnly:--
"You ought to be devilish glad you're not in Daly's company; he'd cut
that dance out if you were."
One evening in New Orleans, when we were playing "Camille," a coloured
girl, who had served me as dressing-maid, came to see me, and I gave her
a "pass," that she might see from the "front" the play she had so often
dressed me for. She went to the gallery and found herself next to a
young black man, who had brought his sweetheart to see her first play.
The girl was greatly impressed and easily moved, and at the fourth act,
when Armand hurled the money at me, striking me in the face, she turned
to her young man, saying savagely, "You, Dave, you got ter lay for dat
white man ter night, an' lick der life outen him."
Next moment I had fallen at Armand's feet. The curtain was down and the
girl was excitedly declaring, I was dead! while Dave assured her over
and over again, "No, honey, she carn't be dead yit, 'cause, don' yer
see, der's anudder act, an' she just nacherly's got ter be in it."
When, however, the last act was on, it was Dave himself who did the
business. The pathetic death scene was almost over, when applause broke
from the upper part of the house. Instantly a mighty and unmistakable
negro voice, said: "Hush--hush! She's climin' der golden stair dis time,
shure--keep still!"
My devoted "Nannine" leaned over me to hide my laughing face from the
audience, who quickly recovered from the interruption, while for once
Camille, the heart-broken, died with a laugh in her throat.
In the same city I had, one matinee, to come down three steps on to the
stage. I was quite gorgeous in one of my best gowns; for one likes to
dress for Southern girls, they are so candidly pleased with your pretty
things. My skirt caught on a nail at the very top step, so that when I
reached the stage my train was stretched out full length, and in the
effort a scene-hand made to free it, it turned over, so that the
rose-pink lining could be plainly seen, when an awed voice exclaimed,
"For de Lor's sake, dat woman's silk lin'd clear frou!" and the
performance began in a gale of laughter.
_CHAPTER VI
"ODETTE" IN THE WEST. A CHILD'S FIRST PLAY_
An odd and somewhat touching little incident occurred one evening when
we were in the far Northwest. There was a blizzard on just then, and the
cold was something terrible. I had a severe attack of throat trouble,
and my doctor had been with me most of the day. His little boy, hearing
him speak of me, was seized with a desire to go to the theatre, and
coaxed so well that his father promised to take him.
The play was "Odette." The doctor and his pretty little son sat in the
end seats of the parquet circle, close to the stage and almost facing
the whole house. The little fellow watched his first play closely. As
the comedy bit went on, he smiled up at his father, saying audibly, "I
like her--don't you, papa?"
Papa silenced him, while a few people who had overheard smiled over the
child's unconsciousness of observers. But when I had changed my dress
and crept into the darkened room in a _robe de chambre_; when the
husband had discovered my wrong-doing and was driving me out of his
house, a child's cry of protest came from the audience. At the same
moment, the husband raised his hand to strike. I repelled him with a
gesture and went staggering off the stage; while that indignant little
voice cried, "Papa! papa! can't you have that man arrested?" and the
curtain fell.
One of the actors ran to the peep-hole in the curtain, and saw the
doctor leading out the little man, who was then crying bitterly, the
audience smiling and applauding him, one might say affectionately.
A bit later the doctor came to my dressing-room to apologize and to tell
me the rest of it. When the curtain had fallen, the child had begged:
"Take me out--take me out!" and the doctor, thinking he might be ill,
rose and led him out. No sooner had they reached the door, however, than
he pulled his hand away, crying: "Quick, papa! quick! you go round the
block that way, and I'll run round this way, and we'll be sure to find
that poor lady that's out in the cold--just in her nighty!"
In vain he tried to explain, the child only grew more wildly excited;
and finally the doctor promised, if the child would come home at once,
only two blocks away, he would return and look for the lady--in the
nighty. And he had taken the little fellow home and had seen him fling
himself into his mother's arms, and with tears and sobs tell her of the
"poor lady whose husband had driven her right out into the blizzard,
don't you think, mamma, and only her nighty on; and, mamma, she hadn't
done one single bad thing--not one!"
Poor, warm-hearted, innocent little man; he was assured later on that
the lady had been found and taken to a hotel; and I hope his next play
was better suited to his tender years.
In Philadelphia we had a very ludicrous interruption during the last act
of "Man and Wife." The play was as popular as the Wilkie Collins' story
from which it had been taken, and therefore the house was crowded.
[Illustration: _Clara Morris as "Odette"_]
I was lying on the bed in the darkened room, in that profound and
swift-coming sleep known, alas! only to the stage hero or heroine. The
paper on the wall began to move noiselessly aside, and in the opening
thus disclosed at the head of the bed, lamp-illumined, appeared the
murderous faces of Delamain and Hesther Detheridge. As the latter
raised the wet, suffocating napkin that was to be placed over my face, a
short, fat man in the balcony started to his feet, and broke the creepy
silence with the shout:--
"Mein Gott in Himmel! vill dey murder her alreaty?"
Some one tried to pull him down into his seat, but he struck the hand
away, crying loudly, "Stob it! stob it, I say!" And while the people
rocked back and forth with laughter, an usher led the excited German
out, declaring all the way that "A blay vas a blay, but somedings might
be dangerous even in a blay! unt dat ting vat he saw should be stobbed
alreaty!" Meantime I had quite a little rest on my bed before quiet
could be restored and the play proceed.
I have often wondered if any audience in the world can be as quick to
see a point as is the New York audience. During my first season in this
city there was a play on at Mr. Daly's that I was not in, but I was
looking on at it.
In one scene there stood a handsome bronze bust on a tall pedestal. From
a careless glance I took it to be an Ariadne. At the changing of the
scene the pedestal received a blow that toppled it over, and the
beautiful "bronze" bust broke into a hundred pieces of white plaster.
The laughter that followed was simply caused by the discovery of a stage
trick. The next character coming upon the stage was played by Miss
Newton, in private life known as Mrs. Charles Backus, wife of the then
famous minstrel. No sooner did she appear upon the stage, not even
speaking one line, than the laugh broke forth again, swelled, and grew,
until the entire audience joined in one great roar. I expected to see
the lady embarrassed, distressed; but not she! After her first startled
glance at the house, she looked at the pedestal, and then she, too,
laughed, when the audience gave a hearty round of applause, which she
acknowledged.