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LEFT London exactly twelve months from the day on which I had started
to fulfill my first provincial engagement, and I did not return to
it again while I was an actor. I left it with my baggage early in the
morning by the newspaper express from Euston; I returned to it late
at night, footsore and hungry, and with no other possessions than the
clothes I stood upright in.
Of the last few months of my professional life, the following brief
extracts will speak. A slightly bitter tone runs through some of
them, but at the time they were written I was suffering great
disappointment, and everything was going wrong with me--circumstances
under which a man is perhaps apt to look upon his surroundings through
smoke-colored glasses.
Three weeks after Christmas I write:
“... good and money regular.
“Business is almost always good, though, at pantomime time: the test
will come later on, when we begin to travel. How a provincial audience
does love a pantomime! and how I do hate it! I can’t say I think very
highly of provincial audiences. They need a lot of education in art.
They roar over coarse buffoonery, and applaud noisy rant to the
echo. One might as well go to Billingsgate to study English as to the
provinces to learn acting.
“I played First Low Comedy on Saturday night at half an hour’s notice,
the real First Low Comedy being hopelessly intoxicated at the time.
It’s a pity, amidst all the talk about the elevation of the stage,
that the elevation of actors is not a less frequent occurrence. It
can hardly improve the reputation of the profession in the eyes of
the public, when they take up the _Era_ and read advertisement after
advertisement, ending with such lines as, ‘None but sober people
need apply,’ ‘Must contrive to keep sober, at all events during
the performance.’ ‘People who are constantly getting drunk need not
write.’ I’ve known some idiots actually make themselves half tipsy on
purpose before coming on the stage, evidently thinking, because they
can’t act when they’ve got all their few wits about them, that they’ll
manage better if they get rid of them altogether. There is a host
of wonderful traditions floating about the theatrical world of this,
that, and the other great actor having always played this, that, and
the other part while drunk; and so, when some wretched little actor
has to take one of these parts, he, fired by a noble determination to
follow in the footsteps of his famous predecessor, gets drunk too.
“Bad language is another thing that the profession might spare a
lot of, and still have enough remaining for all ordinary purposes. I
remember a penny each time we swore. We gave it up after two hours’
trial: none of us had any money left.”
Six weeks later:
“... Business gets worse instead of better. Our manager has behaved
very well indeed. He paid us our salaries right up to the end of last
week, though any one could see he was losing money every night; and
then on Saturday, after treasury, he called us all together, and put
the case frankly. He said he could not continue as he had been doing,
but that, if we liked, he was ready to keep on with us for a week or
two longer upon sharing terms, to see if the luck turned. We agreed
to this, and so formed ourselves into what is called a
‘commonwealth’--though common poverty would be a more correct one
night at -------- we all agreed to fine ourselves term in my opinion,
for the shares each night, after deducting expenses, have been about
eighteen-pence. The manager takes three of these shares (one for being
manager, one for acting, and the other one to make up the three), and
the rest of us have one each. I’m getting awfully hard up, though
I live for a week, now, on less than what I’ve often given for a
dinner.....”
A week later, this company broke up, and I then joined another that
was close handy at the time. It is from this latter that the following
is written:
“... I just manage to keep my head above water, and that is all. If
things get worse, I shall be done for. I’ve no money of my own left
now.
“A very sad thing happened here last week. Our leading man died
suddenly from heart disease leaving his wife and two children totally
destitute. If he had been a big London actor, for half his life in
receipt of a salary of, say, three thousand a year, the theatrical
press would have teemed with piteous appeals to the public, all
his friends would have written to the papers generously offering to
receive subscriptions on his behalf, and all the theaters would have
given performances at double prices to help pay his debts and funeral
expenses. As, however, he had never earned anything higher than
about two pounds a week, Charity could hardly be expected to interest
herself about the case; and so the wife supports herself and her
children by taking in washing. Not that I believe she would ask for
alms, even were there any chance of her getting them, for, when the
idea was only suggested to her, she quite fired up, and talked some
absurd nonsense about having too much respect for her husband’s
profession to degrade it into a mere excuse for begging....
“This company also went wrong. It was a terrible year for theaters.
Trade was bad everywhere, and “amusements” was the very first item
that people with diminishing incomes struck out of the list of their
expenditure. One by one I parted with every valuable I had about me,
and a visit to the pawnshop, just before leaving each town, became
as essential as packing. I went through the country like a distressed
ship through troubled waters, marking my track by the riches I cast
overboard to save myself. My watch I left behind me in one town, my
chain in another; a ring here, my dress suit there; a writing-case I
dropped at this place, and a pencil-case at that. And so things went
on--or, rather, off--till the beginning of May, when this letter, the
last of the series, was written:
“Dear Jim: Hurrah! I’ve struck oil at last. I think it was time I did
after what I’ve gone through. I was afraid the profession would have
to do without me, but it’s all safe now. I’m in a new company--joined
last Saturday, and we’re doing splendidly. Manager is a magnificent
fellow, and a good man of business. He understands how to make the
donkey go. He advertises and bills right and left, spares no expense,
and does the thing thoroughly well. He’s a jolly nice fellow, too, and
evidently a man of intelligence, for he appreciates me. He engaged me
without my applying to him at all, after seeing me act one night last
week, when he was getting his company together. I play First Walking
Gent, at thirty-five shillings a week. He has been a captain in the
army, and is a thorough gentlemen. He never bullies or interferes,
and everybody likes him. He is going all round the North of England,
taking all the big Lancashire and Yorkshire towns, and then going to
bring us to London for the winter. He wants me to sign an agreement
for one year certain at two pounds five. I haven’t appeared to be too
anxious. It’s always best to hang back a bit in such cases, so I told
him I would think it over; but of course I shall accept. Can’t write
any more now. I’m just off to dine with him. We stop here three weeks,
and then go to --------. Very comfortable lodgings. Yours, -------”
That was written on Tuesday. On Saturday we came to the theater at
twelve for treasury. The Captain was not there. He had gone
that morning to pay a visit to Sir somebody or other, one of the
neighboring gentry, who was a great friend of his, and he had not yet
returned. He would be back by the evening--so the courteous
acting manager assured us--and treasury would take place after the
performance.
So in the evening, when the performance was over, we all assembled on
the stage, and waited. We waited about ten minutes, and then our Heavy
Man, who had gone across the way to get a glass before they shut up,
came back with a scared face to say that he’d just seen the booking
clerk from the station, who had told him that the “Captain” had left
for London by an early train that morning. And no sooner had the Heavy
Man made this announcement, than it occurred to the call boy that he
had seen the courteous acting manager leave the theater immediately
after the play had begun, carrying a small black bag.
I went back to the dressing-room, gathered my things into a bundle,
and came down again with it. The others were standing about the stage,
talking low, with a weary, listless air. I passed through them without
a word, and reached the stage door. It was one of those doors that
shut with a spring. I pulled it open, and held it back with my foot,
while I stood there on the threshold for a moment, looking out at the
night. Then I turned my coat collar up, and stepped into the street:
the stage door closed behind me with a bang and a click, and I have
never opened another one since.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg’s On The Stage-And Off, by Jerome K. Jerome