[Illustration: 9144]
ORE extracts:
“... I’m afraid I shall have to trouble you to get me another wig. I
thought my own hair would do for modern juvenile parts, but it isn’t
considered light enough. ‘Be virtuous and you will have hair the color
of tow,’ seems to be the basis of the whole theatrical religion. I
wish I could be as economical in wigs as our First Old Man is. He
makes one do for everything. He wears it the right way when he is a
serious old man, and hind part foremost when he wants to be funny.
“Talking of wigs puts me in mind of an accident our manager had the
other night. He is over fifty, but he fancies he is a sort of Charles
Mathews, and will play young parts. So on Saturday evening he came
on as the lover in an old English comedy, wearing one of those big
three-cornered hats. ‘Who is that handsome young man with the fair
hair?’ says the heroine to her confidante. ‘Oh, that, why that is
Sir Harry Monfort, the gallant young gentleman who saved the Prince’s
life. He is the youngest officer in the camp, but already the most
famous.’ ‘Brave boy.’ murmurs the heroine; ‘I would speak a word with
him. Call him hither, Lenora.’ So Lenora called him thither, and up
he skipped. When the heroine spoke to him, he was quite overcome with
boyish bashfulness. ‘Ah, madam,’ sighed he, taking off his hat and
making a sweeping bow--‘What the devil’s the matter? What are they
laughing at? Oh my------’
“He had taken his wig off with his hat, and there was the ‘brave
boy’s’ poor old bald head exposed to the jeers of a ribald house.
“I’d half a mind to rush up to town last week. I was out of the bill
for three nights running. But the mere railway fare would have cost me
nearly half a week’s salary, so I contented myself with a trip over to
R-------- and a look in at the show there. I met W------. He’s married
little Polly --------, who was walking lady at------. She is up at
Aberdeen now, and he hasn’t seen her for over three months. Rather
rough on a young couple who haven’t been married a year. The old
ones bear up against this sort of thing very well indeed, but poor
W-------- is quite upset about it.
“They kept together as long as they could, but business got so bad
that they had to separate, and each take the first thing that offered.
“You remember my telling you how our prompter got me fined for not
attending a rehearsal some time ago. I said I would serve him out,
and so I have. Or rather _we_ have--I and one of the others who had a
score against him--for he’s a bumptious, interfering sort of fellow,
and makes himself disagreeable to everybody. He is awful spoons on a
Miss Pinkeen, whose father keeps an ironmonger’s shop next door to the
theater. The old man knows nothing about it, and they are up to
all kinds of dodges to get a word with each other. Now, one of our
dressing-room windows is exactly opposite their staircase window, and
he and the girl often talk across; and, once or twice, he has placed
a plank between the two windows, and crawled along it into the house
when her father has been away. Well, we got hold of a bit of this
girl’s writing the other day, and forged a letter to him, saying
that her father had gone out, and that she wanted to see him very
particularly, and that he was to come over through the window and wait
on the landing till she came upstairs. Then, just before rehearsal, we
went out and gave a stray boy twopence to take it in to him.
“Of course no sooner did we see that he was fairly inside the house,
and out of sight, than we pulled the board in and shut our window. It
got quite exciting on the stage as time went by. ‘Where’s--------?’
fumed the stage manager. ‘Where the devil’s------? It’s too bad of
him to keep us all waiting like this.’ And then the call-boy was sent
round to four public houses, and then to his lodgings; for he had got
the book in his pocket, and we couldn’t begin without him. ‘Oh, it’s
too bad of him to go away and stop like this,’ cried the stage manager
again at the end of half an hour. I’ll fine him five shillings for
this. I won’t be played the fool with.’ In about an hour, he came in
looking thunder and lightning. He wouldn’t give any explanation. All
we could get out of him was, that if he could find out who’d done it,
he’d jolly well wring his neck.
“From what the ironmonger’s boy told our call-boy, it seems that he
waited about three-quarters of an hour on the stairs, not daring to
move, and that then the old man came up and wanted to know what he was
doing there. There was a regular scene in the house, and the girl has
sworn that she’ll never speak to him again for getting her into a row,
and about four of her biggest male relatives have each expressed a
firm determination to break every bone in his body; and the boy adds,
that from his knowledge of them they are to be relied upon. We have
thought it our duty to let him know these things.”
I find nothing further of any theatrical interest, until I come to the
following, written about four months after the date of my entering the
company:
“I was far too busy to write last week. It’s been something awful.
We’ve got -------- * down here for a fortnight. His list consists of
eighteen pieces--eight ‘legitimate,’ five dramas, four comedies, and
a farce; and we only had a week in which to prepare. There have been
rehearsals at ten, and rehearsal at three, and rehearsals at eleven,
after the performance was over. First I took all the parts given me,
and studied them straight off one after the other. Then I found I’d
got them all jumbled up together in my head, and the more I tried to
remember what belonged to which, the more I forgot which belonged to
what. At rehearsal I talked Shakespeare in the farce, and put most
of the farce and a selection from all the five dramas into one of the
comedies. And then the stage manager went to put me right, and then
_he_ got mixed up, and wanted to know if anybody could oblige him by
informing him what really was being rehearsed; and the Leading Lady
and the First Low Comedy said it was one of the dramas, but the Second
Low Comedy, the Soubrette, and the Leader of the Orchestra would
have it was a comedy, while the rest of us were too bewildered to be
capable of forming any opinion on any subject.
*A “Star” from London,
“The strain has so upset me, that I don’t even now know whether I’m
standing on my head or my heels; and, our First Old Man--but I’ll
come to him later on. My work has been particularly heavy, for, in
consequence of a serious accident that has happened to our Walking
Gentleman, I’ve had to take his place. He was playing a part in which
somebody--the Heavy Man--tries to stab him while he’s asleep. But just
when the would-be murderer has finished soliloquizing, and the blow is
about to fall, he starts up, and a grand struggle ensues. I think the
other fellow must have been drunk on the last occasion..Anyhow, the
business was most clumsily managed, and R--------, our Walking
Gent, got his eye cut out, and is disfigured for life. It is quite
impossible for him now to play his old line, and he has to do heavies
or low comedy, or anything where appearance is of no importance.
The poor fellow is terribly cut up--don’t think I’m trying to make
a ghastly joke--and he seems to be especially bitter against me for
having slipped into his shoes. I’m sure he need not be; whatever good
his ill wind has blown me has brought with it more work than it’s
worth; and I think, on the whole, taking this star business into
consideration, I would rather have stopped where I was. I knew a good
many of the parts I should have had to play, but as it is, everything
has been fresh study.
“Well, I was going to tell you about our old man. He had always
boasted that he hadn’t studied for the last ten years. I don’t know
what particular merit there was in this, that he should have so prided
himself upon it, but that he considered it as highly clever on his
part there could not be the slightest doubt; and he had even got to
quite despise any one who did study. You can imagine his feelings,
therefore, when sixteen long parts, eleven at least of which he had
never seen before, were placed in his hand, with a request that he
would be letter ‘perfect in all by the following Thursday. It was
observed that he didn’t say much at the time. He was a garrulous old
gentleman as a rule, but, after once glancing over the bundle, he grew
thoughtful and abstracted and did not join in the chorus of curses
loud and deep which was being sung with great vigor by the rest of the
company. The only person to whom he made any remark was myself, who
happened to be standing by the stage-door when he was going out. He
took the bundle of parts out of his pocket, and showed them to me.
‘Nice little lot, that--ain’t it?’ he said. ‘I’ll just go home and
study them all up--that’s what I’ll do.’ Then he smiled--a sad, wan
smile--and went slowly out.
“That was on Saturday evening, and on Monday morning we met at ten for
rehearsal. We went on without the old man until eleven; and then, as
he hadn’t turned up, and was much wanted, the boy was despatched to
his lodgings to see if he was there. We waited patiently for another
quarter of an hour, and then the boy returned.
“The old man had not been seen since Sunday.
“His landlady had left him in the morning, looking over the ‘parts,’
and when she returned in the evening, he was gone. A letter, addressed
to her, had been found in his room, and this she had given the boy to
take back with him.
“The stage manager took it and hurriedly opened it. At the first
glance, he started and uttered an exclamation of horror; and when he
had finished it, it dropped from his hand, and he sank down in the
nearest chair, dazed and bewildered, like a man who has heard, but
cannot yet grasp, some terrible news.
“A cold, sickly feeling came over me. The strange, far-away look, and
the quiet, sad smile that I had last seen on the old man’s face came
back to me with startling vividness, and with a new and awful meaning.
He was old and enfeebled. He had not the elastic vigor of youth that
can bear up under worry and work. His mind, to all seeming, had never
at any time been very powerful. Had the sudden and heavy call upon his
energies actually unhinged it? and had the poor old fellow in some
mad moment taken up arms against his sea of troubles, and by opposing
ended them? Was he now lying in some shady copse, with a gaping wound
from ear to ear, or sleeping his last sleep with the deep waters for
a coverlet? Was what lay before me a message from the grave? These
thoughts flashed like lightning through my brain as I darted forward
and picked the letter up. It ran as follows:
“Dear Mrs. Hopsam,--I’m off to London by the 3.30, and shan’t come
back. I’ll write and let you know where to send my things. I left a
pair of boots at Jupp’s to have the toe-caps sewn--please get ‘em; and
there was a night-shirt short last week--it’s got a D on it. If they
send from the theater, tell them to go to the devil; and if they want
sixteen parts studied in a week, they’d better get a cast-iron actor.
Yours truly, D------.
“This was a great relief to me, but it didn’t seem to have soothed the
stage manager much. When he recovered from his amazement, he said what
he thought of the old man, which I will not repeat. There was a deuce
of a row, I can tell you. Our Leading Man, who had consoled himself
for being temporarily ousted from his proper position by the thought
of having nothing to do all the time, and being able to go in front
each night and sneer at the ‘star,’ had to take the First Old Man’s
place, and a pretty temper he’s in about it. It’s as much as one’s
life’s worth now, even, to sneak a bit of his color. Another old man
joins us after next week, but of course that is just too late for the
hard work. ------ will be gone then...”