A GAY SCIENCE
TO anyone born with a taste for the theatre, a _flair_ for the public
demand in stage entertainment, and a desire for the society of actors and
actresses, the position of dramatic critic on a London newspaper should
be one of the most coveted berths on the ship. The opportunity of
heralding a good play or of “slating” a bad one secures a true moment of
satisfaction. Moreover, the occupation, notwithstanding the late hours,
hot theatres, and liability to corporal punishment, involved, is one of
the most healthy undertakings in the gift of the Press. A continuous
pursuit of this gay science insures longevity. The dramatic critic is
the most long-lived man in the profession. Some of the dramatic critics
whom I knew in the early eighties and late seventies are still “hard at
it,” I am pleased to hear. I imagine that the dramatic critic never
dies. Like the majority of the plays upon which he passes judgment, he
is translated or adapted.
John Oxenford, of the _Times_, was the doyen of the dramatic critics of
my day. It was John’s proudest boast that he never wrote a word in the
_Thunderer_ that could do professional damage to an actor, or take the
bread out of the mouth of an actress. An amiable sentiment, truly, but
scarcely indicative of the critical attitude of a writer conscientiously
performing his duty to the public, his employers—ay, and to the stage
itself. Often after our Saturday dinner at the Junior Garrick Club, an
association which I joined some time after my regular engagement as
taster of new plays, I have heard the venerable man make this boast in a
post-prandial speech. As the great majority of his hearers were actors,
managers, and dramatic authors, the sentiment was invariably received
with abundant applause.
Oxenford suffered for years from a chronic cough, which always announced
his arrival at a theatre, and usually punctuated the performance
throughout the night. Whether it was on account of this distressing
affliction, or because he represented the leading journal, I do not know,
but a box was always put at Mr. Oxenford’s disposition on the first night
of a new play. Two determined “dead-heads” generally turned up sooner or
later in the great man’s box. These were the late Lord Alfred Paget and
John Murphy of Somerset House. The friendship between these three men,
so different in station and in intellectual capacity, was exposed in a
theatrical organ of the period, and in an article called “Dead-heads:
Cornelius Nepos O’Mulligan.” O’Mulligan was evidently intended for
Murphy. He was therein described as Oxenford’s toady, and his mission
was indicated as being that of a diplomatic mediator who would persuade
Oxenford to give a line of notice to some good-looking young woman on the
stage in whom his lordship happened to take a passing interest. It was
further suggested that Lord Alfred’s solicitude for the ambitious artist
whom he wished to befriend was not altogether personal. Lord Alfred, it
was said, was simply interesting himself in furtherance of the wishes of
a third party—a Very Great Personage. That I do not believe. But what I
do believe is that Oxenford was innocent of sinister designs on the part
of his friends, and that when a kindly word appeared in the _Times_
regarding the performance of some third-rate actress, enacting a
fourth-rate part, the record testified to the possession of a kindly
disposition and a congenital incapacity for saying “No.”
Murphy and Lord Alfred were both members of the Junior Garrick Club, and
when the article to which I have alluded came out, Murphy consulted me as
to what course he should take. Murphy had the baldest expanse of head I
have ever seen—quite a continent it was. And it was surrounded by a
fringe of red hair. He was clean-shaven, had a most bewitching squint,
and a Cork accent of peculiar enormity.
“It’s not for meself I keer,” said John to me, with tears in his voice,
“but Alfrid’s takin’ it to hear-r-r-t. He niver slep’ a wink since th’
attack on um come out. Now wh-h-at _had_ we betther do?”
“I have no doubt that you and Lord Alfred will live it down,” I told him.
“Sure it’s what I’m afther tellin’ Alfrid meself. ‘Take no notice of um
at all,’ says I. O’ny Alfrid wanted your opinion as well. He thinks
sich a lot of your common-sinse, bedad.”
“Lord Alfred doesn’t suppose, by any chance, that _I_ wrote the thing?” I
asked.
“Alfrid would as soon think of suspectin’ Jan Axenford himself,” said
Murphy. But he hesitated before he said it; his squint became more
pronounced, and there was such a general air of confusion on his beaming
and rubicund countenance that I was convinced that both the wily
conspirators had attributed the essay to me, and that John had simply
been “told off” by his noble friend to lure me into an admission.
Burlesque was still a leading card at the Gaiety, and one or two other
“burlesque houses,” as they were called, though opera-bouffe was
gradually superseding the old home-made article, with its pitiful puns
and sawdust buffooneries. And the chorus engaged for these
entertainments consisted of handsome girls possessing limbs suitable for
exhibition in pink or yellow or violet tights. Murphy and Paget were
constant visitors at these theatres. And his lordship would frequently
present to some shapely ornament of the chorus a gold bangle as a token
of his regards, and as an earnest of his desire for her success in the
profession she had adopted. Some attempt on the part of a necessitous
chorus girl to pawn one of his lordship’s bangles led to the discovery
that the ornaments were of little value. And it eventually transpired
that they had been purchased by the gross from a Jew dealer in
Houndsditch. His lordship always posed among Bohemians as a poor man,
and managers, therefore, thought it nothing that he should accept free
admission to the playhouses. There was some searching of spirit among
them when the aristocratic dead-head’s will was proved. He “cut up” for
quite a lot of money. And when he died, John Murphy soon followed—of a
broken heart, they said, and having nothing more to live for. So passed
this _par nobile fratum_!
William Holland at one time “ran” the Surrey Theatre, with pantomime in
the winter, and melodrama during the remainder of the year. I attended
the Surrey during his occupancy, to notice a new piece by poor Henry
Pettitt. Oxenford had a box as usual. And not only was his sneezing
rather more distressing than usual, but he was accompanied by a lady
whose babble was incessant. This acquaintance of the venerable critic
was a person of no very exalted rank in Society, and Holland became
anxious lest the sternutation and conversation in the box should
interfere with the comfort of those in its immediate vicinity. During
the second _entr’acte_ he thought it well to pay his court to the eminent
exponent of the higher criticism. He knocked at the door of the box, was
bidden to enter, went in, and, greeting the occupants with his
characteristic effusion, inquired:
“And what do you think of the play, Mr. Oxenford?”
“The play?” said the old gentleman. “Oh, the play is rot! . . . What do
_you_ think of it, my dear?”
“Rot?” exclaimed the lady friend thus addressed—“it’s muck!”
Only the word the fair creature employed was much coarser than “muck,”
and the anxious manager went away sorrowing. However, an excellent
notice of the melodrama subsequently appeared in the leading journal. It
may interest a new generation of those who illustrate the gay science to
learn that all the theatrical representative of the _Times_ received for
his services was one hundred pounds a year. At least, so Mr. Oxenford
himself more than once assured me.
When Mowbray Morris succeeded Oxenford as the representative of the
_Thunderer_, a very different spirit informed those columns of the
_Times_ devoted to the stage. Morris came to the task impressed with the
idea that it was the business of a critic to criticize. “Have at you!”
was evidently his motto. And he laid about him right merrily, not
particular whom he might inconvenience by his shrewd thrusts; for,
indeed, he was no respecter of persons, and was suspected of entertaining
an invincible contempt for the personnel of the British stage. When
Morris was appointed, Henry Irving was in the first flush of his triumph
as manager of the Lyceum Theatre. And the shrewd actor-manager had
inaugurated the custom of giving a reception to his friends on the first
night of a new play.
The reception was held on the stage itself after the conclusion of the
performance. Very agreeable, and even memorable, functions they were.
The stage had been quickly transformed into a palatial hall, made
comfortable by a judicious arrangement of curtains and palms, and—as at
that advanced period of the night guests were usually in need of
sustenance—tables were laid out laden with cold viands in profusion. And
there was plenty to drink. Now, the attitude of Morris towards the stage
was that of a person who did not accept the existence of the actor as a
social fact, and he resented this surely innocent effort on the part of
Irving to gratify his friends. It would all have been very well had the
new critic kept his opinions on this head to himself. Unfortunately, he
gave them to the readers of his journal. He attributed sinister motives
to the founder of the feast, and boldly averred that it was an attempt to
influence the Press with “chicken and champagne.” The phrase “chicken
and champagne” in this connection persisted for a long time—for a much
longer time than Mowbray Morris continued in his post. From the
beginning of his managerial career it had been Irving’s great aim to
consolidate friendly relations with the London and provincial newspapers.
And the fearless and unconventional satirist of “chicken and champagne”
gave the popular manager of the Lyceum furiously to think.
May I here, in justice to the present policy of the _Times_ in the
control of its dramatic columns, acknowledge the fact that the gentleman
who at present represents that journal at the theatres more nearly
approaches the ideal of what a dramatic critic ought to be than any of
the men who were my contemporaries, and that he is head and shoulders
above any of his own contemporaries? It is pleasant to be able to say
this of any department of a Press which exhibits many of the symptoms of
decadence. Mr. Walkley’s attitude regarding stage affairs is nicely
calculated. He is beautifully poised. He never condescends to a
contemptuous pose. On the other hand, he is never inclined to accept the
dramatic art too seriously. He states his opinions with playfulness and
not with brutality. He exhibits a fine spirit of detachment. He never
insults the professors of the art. On the other hand, he declines to
take those gentlemen as seriously as they take themselves. Under all
that he writes may be discovered the social philosopher. His essays are
scholarly without pedantry, lively without vulgarity, piquant without
mordacity, and they always afford the most stimulating “reading.”
My mention above of Henry Pettitt reminds me of another writer of
melodrama whom we, of the jocund years, were sometimes called upon to
review. This was Paul Merrit. Paul was an enormously fat man with the
absolutely hairless face of a boy. He had a high falsetto voice, and his
blood-and-thunder dramas were crude, lurid,
penny-plain-and-twopence-coloured productions. He had a great facility
in plots and situations, and, in respect of these gifts and graces, was
called in by Sir Augustus Harris to collaborate in one or two of the
autumn melodramas at Drury Lane. Paul was the last man in all Europe to
whom would apply the term “literary.” Yet he became a member of one or
two literary clubs. On the day on which the death of Thomas Carlyle was
announced, some of us were sitting in one of these institutions
discussing the passing of the Sage of Chelsea. To us entered Paul
Merrit. He wore the drawn and despairing expression of one who had
suffered a severe personal bereavement. He had in his hand a journal
containing a long obituary notice of Carlyle. Holding it towards us, he
said in his high falsetto, shaken by a queer tremolo of emotion:
“Well, gentlemen, _another gap in our ranks_!”
The notion was too farcical. The claim of Merrit to a fellowship with
Carlyle dispelled the cloud that the intelligence of the death of the
author of the “Sartor Resartus” had superinduced. And, to the great
surprise and disgust of poor Paul, we all burst into an incontrollable
roar of laughter. Merrit eventually abandoned writing and took to
farming. In that occupation, I understand, he discovered his _métier_.
I mentioned a little while back that the business of dramatic criticism
is conducive of longevity. When I first went professionally to the
theatre stalls in 1870, until I gave up that healthy practice in 1890, I
saw on first night after first night the same faces. They never appeared
to be ill or tired. They never sent substitutes on important _premiers_.
They never appeared to grow any older from year to year.
There was Joseph Knight, for example. He was occupying the critic’s
stall long before I ever saw the inside of a London theatre, and he
continued to occupy it—with credit to himself, and to the great
satisfaction of the performers—for years after my connection with the
Press had ceased. He was a fine, burly, broad-shouldered man. Hailed
from Yorkshire, I think, and with his bronzed face, brown beard, genial
smile, and keen eye, presented more the appearance of a retired officer
of the mercantile marine than of a haunter of the auditorium, and a man
who usually got up in the afternoon, and came home with the milk in the
morning. He had a hearty way with him, and talked in a torrent that
seemed to rush over pebbles. “Willie” Wilde used to give a wonderfully
realistic imitation of Jo Knight, which the subject overhearing in the
foyer of the Avenue Theatre one night gravely resented. But the two men
“made it up,” and Knight, indeed, became so friendly with his imitator
that on one occasion he asked him to write his weekly article in the
_Athenæum_ for him. Willie readily consented; and when the article in
due course appeared, it turned out to be a really remarkable travesty of
dear Jo’s somewhat turgid and oracular style. The essay gave great
delight to those who were in the secret. But Knight never saw the joke—I
question whether he ever saw any joke—and expressed to Wilde his
gratitude for the admirable manner in which he had filled his place.
Once and only once did I see the “Knight Owl” in a rage. Joseph was a
sort of pluralist in dramatico-critical benefices, representing at one
time three or four daily and weekly publications. This fact came to the
knowledge of the very young critic of a very young weekly paper, who
thought that he saw his way to a pungent personal paragraph. The
paragraph duly made its appearance, and Knight was severely taken to task
because he was in the habit of writing about the same performance in
several newspapers. The young critic put it at half a dozen, which was
overshooting the mark by at least two. At the very next first night of a
new play, Knight and his small accuser were in their stalls before the
rising of the curtain. Knight, perceiving his prey from afar off, made
toward him and, assuming a very threatening attitude, said:
“What you wrote about me in your infernal paper is—A LIE!”
The youthful criticaster adjusted his monocle, produced a notebook and
pencil, and, with the well-bred suavity of a man dying to oblige his
accuser, inquired, “How many of it is a—er—lie?” and prepared to take
down the correction for use in a future issue. But the torrent of
Knight’s speech tumbled unintelligible over the pebbles, and he returned
to his own stall snorting defiance.
Moy Thomas was an excellent judge of what a play ought to be, and
understood also the sort of treatment best suited to the public for whom
he wrote. For many years he wrote the dramatic notices for the _Daily
News_. In those far-off days it had a literary staff, the character of
which was not second to that of any morning journal. Thomas’s articles
were remarkable for their admirable lucidity, sound judgment, and
polished literary style. He also provided the dramatic notices for the
_Graphic_.
“Willie” Wilde, whom I have just mentioned in connection with the burly
Joseph Knight, was a determined first-nighter. He was an exceedingly
talkative man, and he talked so very well that one did not care to stop
his agreeable chatter even when it was inconveniently out of place. One
evening I happened to occupy a stall next to that of a then well-known
gentleman of the Jewish persuasion who commenced in Fleet Street as an
advertising canvasser, and subsequently blossomed into a newspaper
proprietor, although the newspaper in question was, to quote the immortal
excuse of the wet-nurse in “Mr. Midshipman Easy,” “a very little one.” I
imagine he has done well, for the last time I saw him he was lolling back
in a victoria, and driving down Portland Place with the air of a man who
owned all the houses on both sides. On the occasion to which I allude,
he had not as yet arrived at the victoria stage. Indeed, he had been
released from gaol that very morning. He had been remanded in custody on
a charge of a commercial kind; but being now out on bail, and having none
of that supersensitiveness which would characterize a Gentile similarly
situated, he celebrated his release by taking his wife to the theatre.
Wilde was sitting immediately behind the pair, and next to William
Mackay, to whom, as the play proceeded, he indulged in a series of
humorous commentaries. Our hero, being very intent on the play—an
opera-bouffe—became at last annoyed by the chatter behind him, and,
turning round to Mackay, who had not uttered a word, said in a voice
audible all over the place:
“I wish, sir, you’d make less noise.”
Mackay, conscious of innocence and deeply resentful, turned to Wilde, and
observed audibly, with a touch of malice which was seldom absent from his
impromptus:
“Do keep quiet, Willie; you are annoying the occupant of the _adjoining
cell_.”
A London edition of the _New York Herald_ was published in the Strand at
the time when this little incident happened, and next morning the critic
of that journal, under the head of “An Incident,” tacked the story on to
his dramatic notice—names and all. He added the comment: “A word in
season, how good it is!”
Wilde and his friend, who were both Irishmen, and had at various periods
written the dramatic notices for _Vanity Fair_, represented the new
school of criticism. They took neither themselves nor the dramatic art
seriously. Accepting the dictum of their fellow-countryman, Sheridan, as
to the purpose of the theatre and the limitations of dramatic art, their
articles were irreverent, audacious, a little contemptuous. _Vanity
Fair_ encouraged this attitude towards players and playhouses. And,
indeed, it was the natural and inevitable result of the seriousness with
which the critics of the period were beginning to take both themselves
and the theatre. The proprietors of the _Daily Telegraph_ were greatly
interested in theatrical affairs. Mr. Edward Lawson, now Lord Burnham,
was the son-in-law of Mr. Ben Webster, of the Adelphi Theatre; and that
paper led the way in devoting a considerable space to theatrical matters.
“Epoch-making” became quite the appropriate phrase to employ regarding
any new production which was unusually well received. Clement Scott, the
critic of the _Daily Telegraph_, was an instrument ready to the hand of
his employers. His standard of all dramatic work appeared to be the
Robertson comedies as staged by the Bancrofts—just as in later years Mr.
William Archer found nothing very good after “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.”
That forgotten comedy was Mr. Archer’s “epoch-making play.”
Both Mr. Archer and Clement Scott had served an apprenticeship on the
_London Figaro_, and surely no two members of a staff were ever before so
unequally yoked together. Scott was impulsive, always in extremes of
heat or cold, and never very particular as to the accuracy of his
phrases. Archer was a “dour body,” solid in matter, turgid and dogmatic
in manner, and as solemn in statement as a Presbyterian meenister. The
atmosphere of seriousness by which Mr. Archer has surrounded himself when
dealing with playhouses is, indeed, impenetrable, fuliginous.
Perhaps, all being said and done, the proper attitude of the man retained
for this sort of work is neither that of satirical sceptic and
scintillating detractor, nor that of fanatical worshipper and solemn
commentator. Ernest Bendall, in my time, struck, I think, the golden
mean. He was never betrayed into excessive praise or excessive censure.
He found nothing in the theatre to make such a demand on the emotions as
should call for literary heroics. Yet his judgments were sound, and they
carried weight. He was temperate in expression, had a natural facility
for hitting on the right word, and he always wrote like a gentleman.
Bendall may have had contemporaries who wrote more brilliantly, but none
who wrote with a nicer sense of his duty to the public, and with less
desire to parade his own idiosyncrasies. A more admirable selection for
the office of Censor under the Lord Chamberlain could not have been made.
Nesbit was another of the serious exponents of the art of dramatic
criticism. He followed Morris on the _Times_, but whether he was his
immediate successor, or whether some other contributor intervened, I do
not recollect. I have never kept a diary, and I have never preserved a
letter written to me. And I would embrace this opportunity of advising
any young journalist who may happen to read these recollections to make a
point of writing up his diary, and of filing letters possessing any
literary value. Had I made a practice of diarizing, my present task
would be very considerably lightened; and if I had kept my letters from
contemporaries, I should by now have had a very fine collection of
autographs upon which to draw for the entertainment of my readers.
Nesbit wrote well, but he wrote too much. The marvel to me about his
work always was, that, accomplishing so tremendous an output, he was able
to keep his supply in bulk up to his sample. But Nesbit was dull—and
that’s a fact. He and Archer approached the task of reporting a play
much in the attitude of a Judge taking his seat to try a man for murder.
But there was a third class of reviewer. He adopted neither the solemn
mood affected by Ibsenites and Irvingites, nor the detached and playful
attitude of those who perpetuated Sheridan’s sane assignment of the
position of the stage. James Davis was a fair representative of this
third class. “Jimmy” delighted in setting the mummers by the ears. He
attacked without scruple and without mercy. He had all the audacity of
the free-lance, with all the love of mischief which characterizes the
schoolboy. And yet “Jimmy” was one of the best-natured little fellows in
the world. But he revelled in what the Germans call mischief-joy. And
when you put a pen into his hand, it ran to libel as surely as the needle
turns to the pole. He owned at various times the _Cuckoo_, originally
started by Edmund Yates. He founded the _Bat_—wherein he fell foul of
the whole theatrical hierarchy—and near the end he established a weekly
organ called the _Phœnix_, which lacked somewhat of his old dash and vim.
A member of the Jewish community, he was wanting in one of the racial
characteristics. He cared nothing for money—as money. He married money,
and he made money, and all the time he was flinging money about with both
hands. It is strange to remember that, notwithstanding his early and
persistent attacks on the stage and its professors, he eventually became
a popular writer of musical comedy, and during this period he made
thousands of pounds, and was the means of giving employment to hundreds
of the performers whom he affected to hate. James was a most cheery
companion, a finished gourmet, a lavish and agreeable host, a determined
gambler, and a rattling good little chap. He went through several
fortunes, died worth nothing, and he was the best bridge-player of his
day.
The serene atmosphere in which the critic of plays dwelt was seldom
disturbed by storms. Tempest did occur, however, to the intense delight
of the newspaper-reading world, and to the great scandal of the more
serious supporters of the British drama. Thus, Henry Irving found it
advisable to take criminal proceedings against a paper for a perfectly
harmless and very humorous skit written by Mr. G. R. Sims. Never,
surely, in the history of the theatre was so much cry made over such a
contemptible quantity of wool. But we were just beginning to stand on
our dignity, you see, and the Lyceum manager stood for all that was
respectable and traditional. Never, perhaps, had the suburbs been so
moved as on that occasion. And had Mr. Sims been tried by a jury drawn
from the fastnesses of Brixton, Clapham, and the Camden Road, he would
have had but a short shrift. Happily for all concerned, the matter was
amicably settled in court. It ended like a French duel—shots were
exchanged, but nobody was hurt.
A more serious forensic encounter took place in the Court of Common
Pleas. I had not at that time commenced business on the Press as a
regular writer about plays; but I was enormously interested in all that
concerned the drama and I attended the trial concerning which I shall say
a word or two. The case was called “Fairlie _v._ Blenkinsop.” It came
on for hearing before Mr. Justice Keating in the Court of Common Pleas in
Westminster Hall. Fairlie was the lessee and manager of the St. James’s
Theatre.
Mr. Fairlie’s manager—“producer” he would be termed in these fastidious
days—was Richard Mansell. Mansell was an Irishman whose real name was
Maitland, and he had been the first to introduce opera-bouffe. with
English words, to a London audience. With very little money, but with
unbounded pluck, he took the Lyceum Theatre, and produced “Chilperic” and
“Le Petit Faust,” bringing Hervé over from Paris to conduct the
orchestra. The thing was a great success, but Dick Mansell had about as
much notion of theatrical finance as had his great London predecessor,
Dick Sheridan. The money flowed quickly into the treasury, but it flowed
out in even greater volume. The system of accounts was lax, and Mansell,
who should never have looked back after that successful venture, did
nothing _but_ look back for the rest of his life. He died a short time
since after a long and painful illness. But to the last he was the
hopeful, hearty, handsome Irishman whom I had met for the first time on
the day that the disaster at Sedan was reported in the papers.
The management opened their theatre with an opera-bouffe entitled “Vert
Vert,” translated from the French by Henry Herman, who afterwards made a
reputation for himself as the author of “The Silver King.” The attack
made on the opera by _Vanity Fair_ was fierce, scathing, unsparing. The
writer was especially nasty about the ladies of the chorus, whom he said
could neither act, sing, nor dance, but who, he supposed, were exhibited
before the public because “there are some rich young men about town, and
several old ones, who devote their time and energies to the discovery and
encouragement of dramatic talent in good-looking young women.” That was
the gravamen of the charge—that and an allusion to a dance called the
“Riperelle.” Serjeant Ballantine was for the plaintiff, and Mr. John Day
(afterwards Mr. Justice Day) was for the defendant.
The interest of the occasion centred greatly in the cross-examination of
Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles, subsequently the representative of King’s Lynn,
and the beloved “Tommy” of the House of Commons. Ballantine, of course,
could see nothing wrong in anything theatrical, and contrived by
maladroit questions to let “Tommy” get in some answers which Day dare not
have elicited in chief. In particular he made the mistake of
cross-examining him about the “Riperelle.” “It is the cancan in its
essential part,” explained Bowles. Ballantine, rushing on his fate,
pressed the witness. “Tell us,” he thundered, “in what the indecency of
the dance consists.” Stroking his blonde cavalry moustache, and smiling
pleasantly, Bowles replied, with great distinctiveness and amid a dead
silence: “The ‘Riperelle’ is an illustration by gesture of the act of —”
But the conclusion of the sentence is scarcely of a kind to be repeated
here. It won the case. The jury found for the defendant without leaving
the box. Mr. Fairlie soon after his theatrical experiences resumed his
proper name of Philips, read for the Bar, was called, and in 1890 I
happened to be with him in settling a case of newspaper libel in which he
was engaged for the plaintiff. Mr. F. C. Philips has furthermore made a
reputation for himself as a writer of excellent fiction. His “As in a
Looking-Glass” has gone through many editions, and is to this day, I
understand, “asked for” at Mudie’s.
That sort of criticism, however, is no longer in vogue, which for some
reasons, I think, is rather a pity. And one of them is that
theatre-goers have ceased to accept dramatic criticisms as being in any
way a guide to the theatre. Bad plays are so frequently treated with
respectful notices, and the public reading the criticisms have been so
frequently deceived, that this department of a newspaper’s literary
contents has become negligible. The most frank and most business-like
method would be to drop all pretence at criticism, and simply “report”
each new play. It will come to that.
A well-known barrister who wrote criticisms on plays was Sir Douglas
Straight. He had not then received the honour of knighthood. He was the
inseparable companion of Montagu Williams, represented the licensed
victuallers in the House of Commons, and wrote his dramatic criticisms in
the _Sporting Times_.
It would be impossible to give a complete list of the dramatic critics
who exercised their craft during the couple of decades that comprise my
experience of the front of the house. But as a suitable conclusion to
this chapter on a gay art I shall endeavour to call up the appearance of
the approaches and auditorium of a leading theatre on the production of
an important work. In an attempt to visualize the scene, some figures
will present themselves that, without this aid to memory, might—to my
lasting regret—be overlooked. I shall not attempt to recall any
particular play. But I shall select what I shall suppose to be a typical
first night at the Lyceum Theatre at the beginning of the eighties. One
proceeds along the Strand leisurely and in chastened mood. The tail of
the pittites is struggling out of the covered passage that leads to the
pit entrance. That passage, by the way, had been nicknamed by a witty
policeman the “Cowshed,” in honour of certain elderly ladies who used to
pervade that part of the Strand, and who were accustomed to take shelter
in this recess. Turning out of the Strand into Wellington Street, one
sees the long line of cabs and carriages discharging their occupants
between the classic pillars which stand before the Lyceum portico. There
are as yet no motors—no taxi-cabs—in this procession. Somehow those
panting vehicles would not have harmonized with the sentiments of a
Lyceum audience. We cross the threshold. On the right is the
box-office, and through the aperture you see the benign and reverend face
of Mr. Joseph Hurst, placid, gold-spectacled, serene. The vestibule is
spacious, heavily carpeted, and from it an immensely wide flight of
steps, covered in soft, thick stair-carpets, leads to the back of the
circle. On each side of this stairway stand little boys in Eton suits.
They are infant vergers in this temple of art; for Irving has
disestablished the female programme-seller—she was perhaps a too
frivolous person—and has installed these youths in clean collars and
short jackets to conduct the patrons to their seats, and to see each one
provided with a bill of the play. The lights are subdued. The arriving
visitors do not indulge in the laughter and gay, irresponsible chatter of
people entering a house of opera-bouffe. Here is more serious business,
be assured. Our voices, as we advance to the foot of the stairs, are
subdued, like the lights. The moving crowd has more the aspect of a
congregation than of a theatrical audience.
At the top of the stairs stands a tall man in a reddish beard. He is in
evening-dress, but wears no decoration of any kind. Yet he is there to
receive this distinguished throng. There is a gracious bow to each as he
passes, and to some an extended hand and a sedate greeting given in a
rich Dublin brogue. For the gentleman in the red beard is Mr Bram
Stoker, the business man, chief bottle-holder and Boswell, of the Lyceum
manager. Bram is one of your genuine hero-worshippers. He abandoned a
big berth under the Dublin Corporation to follow the fortunes of the
Chief. He makes much of his hero’s friends on the Press, and does his
best to conciliate his detractors. He manages Irving’s finances—as far
as the manager will permit their supervision. And he writes the Chief’s
after-dinner speeches and his lectures on Shakespeare and the musical
glasses. As he smiles on us now, he little foresees what the future
holds for Irving and himself. No gloomy anticipations intrude as we pass
the well-pleased priest of the vestibule. The Irving regime is for all
time, and the “wing of friendship shall never moult a feather.” Alas for
the futility of human foresight! Poor Bram has himself now gone to solve
the great mystery.
At last we have reached our stalls—you and I—and have time to look about
us. The attendant acolyte has provided us with programmes. There is a
subdued air of expectancy abroad. Conversation is carried on in decorous
accents. There is no laughter. Even the deep bass of Jo Knight is
tempered to the occasion. The orchestra files in. Mr. Hamilton Clarke
takes his place above the tuneful choir. The popular parts of the house
are crammed. The seasoned playgoers who have fought their way through
the “Cowshed” to the front row of the pit point out to each other the
eminent persons as they proceed to their stalls. They are not always
infallible in their identification—these quidnuncs of the pit. Mr. Moy
Thomas is confidently pointed out as Sir Garnet Wolseley. “Looks
diff’rent in his uniform, don’t he?” observes the lady recipient of the
information. I have heard them point out Lennox Browne as the Duke of
Argyll, Sir Francis Jeune as Lord Leighton, and Mr. Hume Williams as Mr.
Walter of Printing-House Square—a gentleman rarely seen at these
functions, and one whose name, one would imagine, would hardly be known
to the public of the pit. These illuminating asides were always
delivered with the utmost confidence. And upon one such occasion I was
overjoyed to hear myself identified and accepted as Cardinal Manning—an
ecclesiastic to whom the theatre was anathema, whose priests were
forbidden the playhouse, although, strangely enough, they were left free
to patronize the music-halls.
On these first nights at the Lyceum the occupants of the stalls and boxes
the gathering is representative of various strata of Society. High
finance and high philanthropy are there in the person of the Baroness
Burdett-Coutts, who was long and generally supposed to have financed the
Lyceum. This has now been officially contradicted by the authorized
biography. All I can say is, that the Baroness might have done worse
with her money. Sir George Lewis, eyeglass duly adjusted, stands
surveying the house and nodding to his many acquaintances. On hearing of
the death of Sir George an old friend of his spoke of him as having gone
to learn “the great Secret.” “They will find,” said a lady, “that it is
no secret from Sir George.” The higher branch of the profession is
represented by Sir Edward Clarke, always looking fierce, and always
feeling much the reverse, his short, square figure and “Dundreary”
whiskers savouring much of the “City” which he loves, and in which he
began life. Frank Lockwood, towering, genial, and majestic, does not
permit his natural humour to become abated even in this grave gathering.
Mr. Watts-Dunton, brisk and beady-eyed, busies himself with his playbill,
and makes no pretence of hearing the remarks which Mr. Percy Fitzgerald
passes on to him. Clement Scott, self-conscious and upheld by a sense of
the importance of the occasion—and of his own—divests himself of his fur
coat, and settles himself in his stall, assuming an expression of the
deepest melancholy. Edmund Yates—evidently bored by, and sceptical
concerning, the pervading air of gravity—discusses mere _World_-ly
matters with his accomplished critic, Dutton Cook. Oscar Wilde, seated
beside his pretty wife, preserves the cynical smile which characterizes
him. Joseph Hatton—one of Irving’s most devoted literary henchmen—beams,
like another Mr. Fezziwig, “one vast, substantial smile.” Knight is
accompanied by a lady of great personal attractions—of a classic beauty,
one might have said. It is the accomplished pluralist’s daughter. Frank
Marshall, of the leonine head, looks as though he were anticipating one
of the great moments of his life. And so he is. His admiration of
Irving is sincere and whole-hearted. In his view Irving can do no wrong.
Charles Dunphy, of the _Morning Post_, seated next to Howe, of the
abhorred _Morning Advertiser_, takes a mental note of the Society persons
who are present, and inquires after the health, I hope, of Howe’s father.
For Howe is the son of the veteran actor of that name, now a member of
the Irving company, and the son is present to sit in judgment of his
parent. It is—to quote a phrase of Labouchere’s, in his speech to the
jury in a famous libel case—a reversal of the old Scriptural legend:
“Instead of Abraham offering up Isaac, we are presented with the
spectacle of Isaac offering up Abraham.”
On these first nights at the Lyceum there are a great many persons
present whom one never sees on other occasions or at other theatres. If
Bram Stoker had his way, they would not be sitting here and now. Mr.
Stoker’s eye is ever on the main chance, and he resents the sort of
dead-head out of whom you cannot get even a newspaper paragraph. But
Irving has his way in all these matters, and the presence of this
unproductive contingent testifies to a trait only too rare both in men
and managers. Princely in his hospitalities, generous to a fault, Irving
was above all capable of a lasting gratitude. These dead-heads were the
recurring evidence of this sentiment. They were those who had been kind
to him in early days, those who had faith in him when, as yet, the public
had not accepted him. These he never forgot. And it is one of the
little circumstances in his career as manager which I like most to
remember. For, truth to tell, there are some of them that I would quite
willingly forget.
Byron Webber, burly and black-bearded, appears rather restive under the
restraint of the Lyceum auditorium. Tom Catling’s genial smile indicates
that no amount of exterior depression can affect a spirit tuned to gentle
enjoyment wherever two or three of his fellow-creatures are gathered
together. Among the others who are constitutionally incapable of
assuming the grave expression suitable to the occasion are Bendall the
bland; Chance Newton, the Aristarchus _cum_ Autolycus of the stalls;
Burnand, beaming beatific—of _Punch_. . . . But the orchestra has
ceased, and the curtain is going up.
One could not but admire Irving. He compelled admiration. But I never
could enroll myself among the congregation of his worshippers. He had a
magnetic and dominating personality; he was that strange portent—a
gentleman of Nature’s own making; he was princely in his dealings; he was
an accomplished stage-manager; his ideals were of the highest. But, in
my opinion, he was never a great actor. He most nearly approached
histrionic genius when cast for a part in which his outstanding
mannerisms became utilized as qualities. In parts where they could not
be made characteristic of the part, they were excrescences. Thus, I have
always held that the actor’s best parts were Digby Grand in “Two Roses,”
and Mathias in “The Bells”; and his most deplorable efforts, Othello and
Macbeth.
But whatever his shortcomings, he deserved better of his day and
generation than to have been made the subject of Mr. Brereton’s “Life.”