AT THE HAYMARKET THEATRE
The compiler of the Bath programme was right when he spoke of Lord
Dundreary as the "Spirit of the Hour." The phenomenal success of the
late E. A. Sothern in this eccentric and most original character, at the
Haymarket Theatre, had taken all London (nay, all England) by storm. At
the time of which I am writing the name of Dundreary was upon the lips
of every one. Men cultivated Dundreary whiskers, and affected Dundreary
coats, waistcoats, and trousers; indeed, Sothern had become such a good
friend to the tailors that, if he would have accepted them, he might
have been furnished, without any mention of payment, with clothes
sufficient for a dozen lifetimes. His dressing-room at the Haymarket was
crowded with parcels sent by energetic haberdashers, who knew that if by
wearing it upon the stage he would set the fashion for a certain sort of
necktie, or a particular pattern of shirt-cuff or collar, their fortunes
would be half made; and hatters and boot-makers followed in the
haberdashers' wake. Dundreary photographs were seen everywhere.
"Dundrearyisms," as they came to be called, were the fashionable _mots_
of the day; and little books (generally very badly done) dealing with
the imaginary doings of Dundreary under every possible condition, and in
every quarter of the globe, were in their thousands sold at the street
corners. Concerning Dundreary quite three parts of England went more
than half mad, and not to know all about him and his deliciously quaint
sayings and doings was to argue yourself unknown.
The actor who not only caused but sustained all this excitement must
have achieved something far greater than the mere creation of a new type
of "stage swell." Dundreary was a study for the philosopher as well as a
laughing-stock for the idler, and he thus became popular with all
classes of the community.
But in 1863 Sothern was growing tired of _toujours_ Dundreary. He was a
restless as well as an ambitious actor, and he longed for a change. An
Englishman by birth and training, all his great successes (including
Dundreary) had been won in America, and he wished to show the Haymarket
audiences what he could do in other characters. For the time being that
fine old actor-manager, J. B. Buckstone, could not hear of his
"Lordship" being out of the bill, so Sothern had to content himself with
occasional afterpieces.
Among the characters that he fancied was that of Captain Walter
Maydenblush in that pretty little adaptation from the French, "La Joie
de la Maison," entitled "The Little Treasure." It is a very effective
light comedy part, but the mainstay of the piece is the "joy of the
house," the sweet young girl, Gertrude. When the piece was first
produced at the Haymarket this part had been played by Blanche Fane, the
idol of her day, and it had also been made familiar to playgoers by the
ever-fascinating Marie Wilton, now Lady Bancroft. Sothern knew very well
that without an attractive Gertrude his Walter Maydenblush would go for
nothing. Where was she to be found? Well, as we have seen, Ellen Terry
had played the part in Bristol. Her growing fame had reached London, and
she was engaged to re-create it at the Haymarket.
Although the piece was a subordinate one, her ordeal was formidable, for
she had to challenge comparison with her popular and gifted predecessors
in a character that required an abundance of delicacy and finesse.
Her success was instantaneous. In writing of it that outspoken critic
and encyclopædia of dramatic lore, Edward Leman Blanchard, said:--
"She is very young, but shows no trace of immaturity either in her style
or figure. Tall for her age, of prepossessing appearance, and with
expressive features full of vivacity and intelligence, she secured at
once the sympathies of her audience, and retained them by the joyous
spirit and deep feeling with which she imbued the personation. In the
girlish playfulness exhibited through the first act Miss Ellen Terry was
especially happy, and in characters illustrative of a frank and
impulsive temperament the young actress will prove a most desirable
addition to the feminine strength of the stage."
And so it was with all the leading critics, they, and delighted
audiences, telling her that in a moment her permanent popularity in
London was a thing assured.
Of course she had in due course to support Lord Dundreary in "Our
American Cousin," a play which, not very good to begin with, had, for
the sake of Sothern's superbly droll performance, been whittled down to
a mere nothing. With the exception of the characters of Asa Trenchard
(and he had been converted into an absurd caricature of an American) and
Mary Meredith, the one sympathetic woman of the piece, the other parts
were indeed thankless ones, and it seems impossible to think that Ellen
Terry, our greatest living Shakespearean actress, was once wasted on the
insipid _role_ of Georgina, the affected girl on whom Dundreary was
"spoony." Georgina was simply a foil for the ridiculous fop's
unconscious and wonderfully uttered witticisms, and she had little more
to do than to keep her countenance while the audiences roared with
laughter at Sothern's wild but always coherent absurdities of speech and
manner. Under this trying ordeal I have seen many Georginas break down
and laugh heartily with their "kind friends in front," and I have reason
to know that the mischief-loving Sothern, at the risk of missing his own
points, often tried to make them do so.
Of the sweet "Spirit of the Future," as this stage lay figure playing
with the restless "Spirit of the Hour," Clement Scott has said:--
"When Ellen Terry played Georgina she was a young girl of enchanting
loveliness. She was the ideal of every pre-Raphaelite painter, and had
hair, as De Musset says, '_comme le blé_.' I always sympathised with
Dundreary when he, within whispering distance of Ellen Terry's
harvest-coloured hair, said: 'It makes a fellow feel awkward when he's
talking to the back of a person's head.'"
In the same inexhaustible play she was called upon, a little later on,
to enact the prettily limned Mary Meredith. She says she did it
"vilely"; but neither critics nor audiences agreed with her.
Sothern, both on and off the stage, and both with men and women, was one
of the most popular beings of his day, and it is therefore all the more
surprising to hear Ellen Terry say that she could never like him. She
admired him, but she could not understand his mania for practical
joking. By some this has been thought odd, for it is known that she
herself dearly loves a joke. I think I can explain her prejudice. Having
begun one of his "sells," as he called them, Sothern did not know when
to leave off, and he never seemed to reflect that it was unkind to
practise his pleasantries on nervous young actors.
That he did not mean to be unkind, and that if he felt he had made a
mistake or had gone too far he was deeply penitent and anxious to make
any atonement in his power, I, who knew him so intimately, can
asseverate. But if he saw the chance of a "sell" he could hardly resist
temptation, and many of those associated with him on the stage, and who
did not understand his bewildering sense of humour, suffered in silence,
and were secretly tortured by his odd and incessant pranks. I have no
doubt this was poor Ellen Terry's position when she complains that he
teased her--made her forget her part, and "look like an idiot." The
following anecdote concerning the way in which he treated me (his
personal friend!) and a little company of actors and actresses, working
their hardest to gain a word of approbation from the great star of the
period, will illustrate my meaning.
In the days of many years ago he accepted a comedietta from my pen
wildly called (Sothern gave it its title) "My Wife's Father's Sister,"
and the little piece was produced at the Theatre Royal, Brighton. He was
anxious that I should be present at its first night, but I was unable to
join him until its second representation. I was to be his guest, but
when I entered his room at the Grand Hotel he seemed amazed and
discomforted to see me.
"What on earth brings _you_ here?" he exclaimed. "Why, to see you and
my piece," I replied. "Then you didn't get my telegram last night?" he
inquired. I told him that I had received no telegram and should be glad
to know its purport. "Well," he said, in a vexed tone of voice, "I wired
to beg you as a personal favour to me not to come to Brighton, but as
you _are_ here, we'll say no more about it."
Of course this did not satisfy me, and on being very hard pressed, he
reluctantly told me that my poor little play had been a dead failure,
and that he had telegraphed to me to stay away because he wanted to
spare me humiliation.
"But," I said, in an agony of disappointment, "the newspapers speak well
of it!"
"Yes," replied Sothern, "the critics here are good friends of mine, and
I persuaded them that it was a sorry task to break a butterfly on a
wheel. It was impossible for me at a moment's notice to get another
after-piece ready to put in its place, but to-night 'My Wife's Father's
Sister' will be played for the second and last time. Don't shirk seeing
it, it will be a useful, if painful, lesson to you, and at supper
to-night we'll try and find out where the fatal kink in it lies, for, as
you know, I felt certain that it was going to be a hit."
In spite of my friend's kindness, sympathy, and unbounded hospitality,
I, crushed with mortification, spent a wretched afternoon, and in the
early evening (Sothern, who was to play Dundreary, had preceded me) I
wended my sad way to the theatre. On my walk I met a mutual friend.
[Illustration: SMALLHYTHE FARM.
_Ellen Terry's country retreat at Tenterden, Kent._
[_To face page 80._
]
"Well, how did the piece go last night?" he asked. "I was sorry I
couldn't be there to see."
Miserably I told him my bitter news, and how the play had failed.
"Then I believe it was Sothern's fault," he said. "He was half mad on
practical jokes last night, and one of the actors has told me how he
declared that _you_ were in front, that you are a most exacting and
irritable author, and that you were intensely annoyed at the grossly
vulgar way in which, according to your reported views, your work was
interpreted. One by one the actors and actresses had from his lips their
dose of what they supposed, and _still_ suppose, to be _your_ harsh
criticism. 'Abominable!' 'Atrocious!' and 'Actionable' were among the
mildest expressions you were said to have used, and the poor people
became so nervous that they hardly knew what they were doing. At the end
of the performance Sothern told them collectively that you had left the
theatre 'a shattered and prematurely old man.'"
When I crept into an obscure corner of a private box that night,
expecting to witness the complete failure of a number of nerveless
artists to galvanise a dead play into life, I was very angry with
Sothern. I felt that I had been "butchered" to make a "Roman Holiday,"
and I did not like the sensation. But, to my bewilderment, the
comedietta went capitally, and applause of the right sort followed the
fall of the curtain. At supper, Sothern, with that marvellous
diamond-like sparkle in his speaking blue-grey eye which his friends so
well remember, "gave away" the greater part of the story. That delighted
and delightful familiar twinkle was sufficient to tell me the truth.
"Oh!" I cried, "you have 'sold' me! I believe the piece went as well
_last_ night as it did _to-night_!"
"Much better," he replied calmly. "I sent you no telegram, but I could
not resist the sell. Now light a cigar and be happy."
And I was happy until, in the early hours of the morning, Sothern said,
"By the way, I wonder how your supper party is getting on?"
"My supper party?" I asked. "What do you mean?"
"Oh," he replied, as he lighted another cigar, "now I think of it, I
forgot to tell you that I mentioned to the performers in 'My Wife's
Father's Sister' that you were so delighted with their marked
improvement on the second night of the production that you wished to
welcome them at a little supper you had ordered at the 'Old Ship.'"
And I heard the next day that the poor "sold" people went and waited and
came supperless away. And then I sneaked out of Brighton, leaving "My
Wife's Father's Sister" behind me.
I have never seen her since. This is only an example of Sothern's
constant and, it must be owned, often exasperating practices. It was
wonderful that some of his escapades were so easily forgiven, but those
who narrowly watched his marvellous dexterity in keeping up the
deceptions of his rapid invention, causing one practical joke to
overtake another like sea waves; those who could understand his
infectious vitality and quick sense of humour, were, even when they
chanced to be the wrathful objects of his extravagancies, lost in
admiration for his peculiar genius.
In some way his temperament must have resembled that of the great David
Garrick, whom he so often impersonated on the stage.
Of the English Roscius it has been said that he was always acting,
whether upon the stage, in his own house, in the houses of his friends,
and even in the streets.
He would suddenly stop in the middle of a public thoroughfare, and look
up at the sky as if he saw something remarkable, until a crowd gathered
about him, and then he would turn away with the wild stare of insanity.
He could not sit down to have his hair dressed without terrifying the
barber by making his face assume every shade of expression, from the
deepest tragic gloom to the vacancy of idiotcy.
His enemies ascribed these feats to a restless egotism that must always
be conspicuous, but might they not rather have arisen from the
over-exuberant animal spirits of "the cheerfulest man of his age"?
Such, in a great measure, was Sothern's nature, and it is not to be
wondered at if it sometimes jarred upon those who had to act with him,
and who were desirous to do justice to themselves. I cannot suppose that
his "My Wife's Father's Sister's" victims loved him any more than they
did the innocent writer of these lines, or than Ellen Terry seems to
have done.
Such things are to be understood, but I cannot mention Edward Askew
Sothern without recording the fact that to his intimate friends he was
ever the most consistent, affectionate, and generous of men. At the
hospitable table of Henry Irving I once met the famous American
tragedian, the late John M'Cullough. Turning to me in the course of the
evening, he said: "I am told you are a close friend of Ned Sothern's;"
and when I answered "Yes," he said, as if it were a matter of course,
"Then you love him."
And that of all men who really knew him well was true.
But if in Sothern Ellen Terry chanced to find an uncongenial
fellow-actor, in another member of the Haymarket Company she made a
friend, destined to play with her in some of her greatest subsequent
triumphs. This was that grand old actor, Henry Howe, "dear old Mr.
Howe," as she calls him, who was a staunch member of the once celebrated
band of Haymarket comedians for forty years.
Howe played the part of father to "the little treasure"; his kindly,
winsome ways at once won her sympathy, and in the now forgotten play no
scene was more successful than that in which the supposed parent and
child, moved by the pathos of each other's acting, united in genuine
tears.
Macready aptly described Charles Kemble as a first-rate actor of
second-rate parts, and the same somewhat lukewarm praise may be
attributed to Henry Howe; but he was an actor who lent distinction to
his profession, and his honoured memory should surely be kept green.
It is odd to think of an actor being a Quaker, and yet throughout his
long life Howe was a loyal member of the Society of Friends. It was the
impression made upon him, when he was a mere boy, by the soul-inspiring
acting of Edmund Kean as King Lear, that gave him a passion for the
stage. With a cousin of his own age he contrived to take stolen pleasure
in the gallery of Drury Lane Theatre, and on his way home, half-choked
with enthusiasm and emotion, he said to his comrade, "I am going to be
an actor." His family and friends did their utmost to dissuade him from
this rash step, but fate willed that it should be taken, and the
stage-struck lad became one of the most accomplished and self-respecting
of the actors of his day.
Although he never paraded it, I think he was always influenced by his
simple religious faith. I well remember how, in the kindest of ways, he
would warn the young fellows of those Sothern-Haymarket days against
keeping late (and possibly loose) hours in London after curtain-fall. I
can hear him now telling us of his long midnight walks to his beloved
country home at Isleworth (beyond Brentford!), and of his active
morning work in his garden on those days on which rehearsals did not
call him to town. "And at such times," he would say, with a
good-humoured shake of his head, "some of you are lying in bed trying to
cure carefully manufactured head-aches."
Years afterwards he became a notable member of the Lyceum Company, and
served until his death under the banner of Henry Irving. During this
period, and when with his chief and comrades he was fulfilling a
fortnight's engagement in Birmingham, my good old friend, when on a
visit to my house, made me his confidant in a little personal trouble.
It was this. During the two weeks of his stay in the city he had only
been called upon to act twice, and then only in small parts.
I naturally thought that he felt hurt at apparent neglect, and I tried
to say a few consolatory words to him. "Oh, it isn't _that_!" said the
fine old gentleman, "I've no feeling on _that_ score; but the fact is, I
am being paid a very handsome salary, and doing next to nothing for it.
As things are, I know I am not earning it. I must speak to Irving about
it, and tell him either my stipend must be reduced, or I must go."
Shortly afterwards I saw him again. His fine face was radiant with
smiles and his spirits were buoyant. He had had his interview with
Irving, and the upshot of it was that no alteration could be made in his
emolument, that he would be called upon to act whenever the repertory
contained a part that could be suitably allotted to him, and that his
"chief" would regard it as a great personal sorrow if his distinguished
name did not figure as a member of his company.
Thus did the most tactful and generous of managers make a time-honoured
servant of the public easy in his pocket, and supremely happy in the
retention of his _amour propre_.
Frequenters of the Lyceum will remember how, even in the smallest of
parts, Henry Howe was always sure of a hearty reception.
This is only one amongst a thousand of the acts of tender consideration
and unstinted liberality shown by Henry Irving towards those who have
acted for and with him.
But besides "little treasures," Georginas, and Mary Merediths, there
were other opportunities for Ellen Terry at the Haymarket. She had the
sympathy and encouragement of such sterling actors as Henry Compton and
William Farren, the Chippendales, and the always kindly and attentive
Walter Gordon, a gentleman who, on his retirement from the stage,
resumed his own name, and was well known as William Aylmer Gowing.
She played Julia in "The Rivals" to the Faulkland of Howe, the Sir
Anthony Absolute of Chippendale, the Captain Absolute of William Farren,
the Bob Acres of Buckstone, and the Mrs. Malaprop of Mrs. Chippendale.
In "Much Ado about Nothing" she appeared as Hero to the Beatrice of
Louisa Angell, and when that lady appeared as Letitia Hardy in "The
Belle's Stratagem," Ellen Terry was the Lady Touchwood. Let it not be
forgotten that her own bewitching Letitia was destined to be one of the
most attractive of her comedy impersonations at the Lyceum.
Thanks to Sothern, I was in those days quite at home at the Haymarket
Theatre, and in "Walter Gordon" I found a true friend and adviser when,
later on, I tried to write on things theatrical. He did much admirable
work with his own pen, and was full of good stories of famous actors and
actresses with whom he had played. I remember how he told me of an
ephemeral entertainment by Sterling Coyne, entitled "Buckstone at Home,"
in which Ellen Terry, being then in a frolicsome mood, made an
unexpected effect and sensation. In this wild production she had to
appear as Britannia, and she was surrounded by the Knights of the Round
Table. These stalwarts were supposed to be unable to remove a certain
"property" stone, concerning which there was much superstition to the
effect that it was so heavy that mortal could not stir it. The
situation was meant to be taken seriously, but the light-hearted
Britannia--possibly annoyed with the absurdity of the production and the
poverty of her part in it, came forward, took the mock boulder in her
hands, "played ball" with the flimsy thing, at the same time gleefully
crying out--"Why, a child could toss it!"
[Illustration: BUST OF ELLEN TERRY, BY W. BRODIE, R.S.A.
_Presented to The Shakespeare Memorial, Stratford-on-Avon, by Sir Henry
Irving._
[_To face page 88._
]
I wonder what she would have said if the recreant Sothern had thus
committed himself! But in spite of occasional fits of joyousness this
Haymarket engagement seems to have been a disappointment to her. She
regarded it as one of her "lost opportunities,"--and in later days she
would have given much to "find it again." By her own wish, however, it
came to an early end. No doubt the ordeal was a severe one. She was
exceedingly young, and she was called upon to vie with the picked
comedians of her day. She acquitted herself not only bravely but with
distinction, but no doubt her ever supersensitive nature (the inevitable
if undesirable nature of the true artist) often whispered to her that
she had blundered where she had really made a marked impression. Mrs.
Siddons was wont to say that the player's nerves must be "made of cart
ropes." Ellen Terry's highly-strung organisation seems to move on the
slenderest of silken threads, and no doubt in those early days the
strain of her public appearances were often a torment to her. In the
June of 1863 Edward Leman Blanchard records her appearance at the
Princess's Theatre, and her performance of Desdemona to the Othello of
Walter Montgomery. This was an interesting event, for it witnessed the
return of the little Mamillius and Prince Arthur of former days to the
scene of her early successes, and this in a Shakespearean part in which
she subsequently won great renown at the Lyceum.
Not long after this, and to the intense regret of those who were
carefully watching the rapid progress of her artistic career, she
temporarily left the stage. Probably she found its duties too irksome to
one of her restless, self-doubting nature. Men and women endowed with
unusual talents are generally prone to have their own way, and it is
perhaps well for the full fruition of those great gifts, that are to be
a present boon and future memory to mankind, that they should follow it.
Who would wantonly put Pegasus in the Pound?
Even in those (to her) unpromising "Georgina" days Ellen Terry had shown
real genius. Genius, as William Winter has beautifully put it, is the
petrel, and like the petrel it loves the freedom of the winds and the
waves.
Just as the petrel of the ocean appears during its flight sometimes to
touch the surface of the waves with its feet, so she had daintily
fluttered across the boards which were for a time to lose her.