_A Reminiscence of New York Plays and Acting Fifty Years Ago_
In an article not long since, "Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth," in "The
Nineteenth Century," after describing the bitter regretfulness to
mankind from the loss of those first-class poems, temples, pictures,
gone and vanish'd from any record of men, the writer (Fleeming Jenkin)
continues:
If this be our feeling as to the more durable works of art, what
shall we say of those triumphs which, by their very nature, la
no longer than the action which creates them--the triumphs of the
orator, the singer, or the actor? There is an anodyne in the words,
"must be so," "inevitable," and there is even some absurdity in
longing for the impossible. This anodyne and our sense of humor
temper the unhappiness we feel when, after hearing some great
performance, we leave the theatre and think, "Well, this great thing
has been, and all that is now left of it is the feeble print up
my brain, the little thrill which memory will send along my nerves,
mine and my neighbors; as we live longer the print and thrill must
be feebler, and when we pass away the impress of the great artist
will vanish from the world." The regret that a great art should in
its nature be transitory, explains the lively interest which many
feel in reading anecdotes or descriptions of a great actor.
All this is emphatically my own feeling and reminiscence about the best
dramatic and lyric artists I have seen in bygone days--for instance,
Marietta Alboni, the elder Booth, Forrest, the tenor Bettini, the
baritone Badiali, "old man Clarke"--(I could write a whole paper on the
latter's peerless rendering of the Ghost in "Hamlet" at the Park, when
I was a young fellow)--an actor named Ranger, who appear'd in America
forty years ago in _genre_ characters; Henry Placide, and many others.
But I will make a few memoranda at least of the best one I knew.
For the elderly New Yorker of to-day, perhaps, nothing were more likely
to start up memories of his early manhood than the mention of the Bowery
and the elder Booth, At the date given, the more stylish and select
theatre (prices, 50 cents pit, $1 boxes) was "The Park," a large and
well-appointed house on Park Row, opposite the present Post-office.
English opera and the old comedies were often given in capital style;
the principal foreign stars appear'd here, with Italian opera at
wide intervals. The Park held a large part in my boyhood's and young
manhood's life. Here I heard the English actor, Anderson, in "Charles
de Moor," and in the fine part of "Gisippus." Here I heard Fanny Kemble,
Charlotte Cushman, the Seguins, Daddy Rice, Hackett as Falstaff, Nimrod
Wildfire, Rip Van Winkle, and in his Yankee characters. (See pages 19,
20, "Specimen Days.") It was here (some years later than the date in the
headline) I also heard Mario many times, and at his best. In such parts
as Gennaro, in "Lucrezia Borgia," he was inimitable--the sweetest of
voices, a pure tenor, of considerable compass and respectable power. His
wife, Grisi, was with him, no longer first-class or young--a fine Norma,
though, to the last.
Perhaps my dearest amusement reminiscences are those musical ones. I
doubt if ever the senses and emotions of the future will be thrill'd as
were the auditors of a generation ago by the deep passion of Alboni's
contralto (at the Broadway Theatre, south side, near Pearl street)--or
by the trumpet notes of Badiali's baritone, or Bettini's pensive and
incomparable tenor in Fernando in "Favorita," or Marini's bass in
"Faliero," among the Havana troupe, Castle Garden.
But getting back more specifically to the date and theme I started
from--the heavy tragedy business prevail'd more decidedly at the Bowery
Theatre, where Booth and Forrest were frequently to be heard. Though
Booth _pere,_ then in his prime, ranging in age from 40 to 44 years (he
was born in 1796,) was the loyal child and continuer of the traditions
of orthodox English play-acting, he stood out "himself alone" in many
respects beyond any of his kind on record, and with effects and ways
that broke through all rules and all traditions. He has been well
describ'd as an actor "whose instant and tremendous concentration of
passion in his delineations overwhelm'd his audience, and wrought into
it such enthusiasm that it partook of the fever of inspiration surging
through his own veins." He seems to have been of beautiful private
character, very honorable, affectionate, good-natured, no arrogance,
glad to give the other actors the best chances. He knew all stage points
thoroughly, and curiously ignored the mere dignities. I once talk'd with
a man who had seen him do the Second Actor in the mock play to Charles
Kean's Hamlet in Baltimore. He was a marvellous linguist. He play'd
Shylock once in London, giving the dialogue in Hebrew, and in New
Orleans Oreste (Racine's "Andromaque") in French. One trait of his
habits, I have heard, was strict vegetarianism. He was exceptionally
kind to the brute creation. Every once in a while he would make a break
for solitude or wild freedom, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for
days. (He illustrated Plato's rule that to the forming an artist of the
very highest rank a dash of insanity or what the world calls insanity
is indispensable.) He was a small-sized man--yet sharp observers noticed
that however crowded the stage might be in certain scenes, Booth
never seem'd overtopt or hidden. He was singularly spontaneous and
fluctuating; in the same part each rendering differ'd from any and
all others. He had no stereotyped positions and made no arbitrary
requirements on his fellow-performers.
As is well known to old play-goers, Booth's most effective part was
Richard III. Either that, or lago, or Shylock, or Pescara in "The
Apostate," was sure to draw a crowded house. (Remember heavy pieces were
much more in demand those days than now.) He was also unapproachably
grand in Sir Giles Overreach, in "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," and the
principal character in "The Iron Chest."
In any portraiture of Booth, those years, the Bowery Theatre, with its
leading lights, and the lessee and manager, Thomas Hamblin, cannot be
left out. It was at the Bowery I first saw Edwin Forrest (the play was
John Howard Payne's "Brutus, or the Fall of Tarquin," and it affected
me for weeks; or rather I might say permanently filter'd into my whole
nature,) then in the zenith of his fame and ability. Sometimes (perhaps
a veteran's benefit night,) the Bowery would group together five or
six of the first-class actors of those days--Booth, Forrest, Cooper,
Hamblin, and John R. Scott, for instance. At that time and here George
Jones ("Count Joannes") was a young, handsome actor, and quite a
favorite. I remember seeing him in the title role in "Julius Caesar,"
and a capital performance it was.
To return specially to the manager. Thomas Hamblin made a first-rate
foil to Booth, and was frequently cast with him. He had a large,
shapely, imposing presence, and dark and flashing eyes. I remember well
his rendering of the main role in Maturin's "Bertram, or the Castle
of St. Aldobrand." But I thought Tom Hamblin's best acting was in the
comparatively minor part of Faulconbridge in "King John"--he himself
evidently revell'd in the part, and took away the house's applause from
young Kean (the King) and Ellen Tree (Constance,) and everybody else on
the stage--some time afterward at the Park. Some of the Bowery actresses
were remarkably good. I remember Mrs. Pritchard in "Tour de Nesle," and
Mrs. McClure in "Fatal Curiosity," and as Millwood in "George Barnwell."
(I wonder what old fellow reading these lines will recall the fine
comedietta of "The Youth That Never Saw a Woman," and the jolly acting
in it of Mrs. Herring and old Gates.)
The Bowery, now and then, was the place, too, for spectacular pieces,
such as "The Last Days of Pompeii," "The Lion-Doom'd" and the yet
undying "Mazeppa." At one time "Jonathan Bradford, or the Murder at the
Roadside Inn, "had a long and crowded run; John Sefton and his brother
William acted in it. I remember well the Frenchwoman Celeste, a splendid
pantomimist, and her emotional "Wept of the Wishton-Wish." But certainly
the main "reason for being" of the Bowery Theatre those years was to
furnish the public with Forrest's and Booth's performances--the latter
having a popularity and circles of enthusiastic admirers and critics
fully equal to the former--though people were divided as always. For
some reason or other, neither Forrest nor Booth would accept engagements
at the more fashionable theatre, the Park. And it is a curious
reminiscence, but a true one, that both these great actors and their
performances were taboo'd by "polite society" in New York and Boston
at the time--probably as being too robustuous. But no such scruples
affected the Bowery.
Recalling from that period the occasion of either Forrest or Booth,
any good night at the old Bowery, pack'd from ceiling to pit with
its audience mainly of alert, well-dress'd, full-blooded young and
middle-aged men, the best average of American-born mechanics--the
emotional nature of the whole mass arous'd by the power and magnetism
of as mighty mimes as ever trod the stage--the whole crowded auditorium,
and what seeth'd in it, and flush'd from its faces and eyes, to me
as much a part of the show as any--bursting forth in one of those
long-kept-up tempests of hand-clapping peculiar to the Bowery--no dainty
kid-glove business, but electric force and muscle from perhaps 2,000
full-sinew'd men--(the inimitable and chromatic tempest of one of those
ovations to Edwin Forrest, welcoming him back after an absence, comes up
to me this moment)--Such sounds and scenes as here resumed will surely
afford to many old New Yorkers some fruitful recollections.
I can yet remember (for I always scann'd an audience as rigidly as
a play) the faces of the leading authors, poets, editors, of those
times--Fenimore Cooper, Bryant, Paulding, Irving, Charles King, Watson
Webb, N. P. Willis, Hoffman, Halleck, Mumford, Morris, Leggett, L. G.
Clarke, R. A. Locke and others, occasionally peering from the first tier
boxes; and even the great National Eminences, Presidents Adams, Jackson,
Van Buren and Tyler, all made short visits there on their Eastern tours.
Awhile after 1840 the character of the Bowery as hitherto described
completely changed. Cheap prices and vulgar programmes came in. People
who of after years saw the pandemonium of the pit and the doings on the
boards must not gauge by them the times and characters I am describing.
Not but what there was more or less rankness in the crowd even then. For
types of sectional New York those days--the streets East of the Bowery,
that intersect Division, Grand, and up to Third avenue--types that
never found their Dickens, or Hogarth, or Balzac, and have pass'd away
unportraitured--the young ship-builders, cartmen, butchers, firemen (the
old-time "soap-lock" or exaggerated "Mose" or "Sikesey," of Chanfrau's
plays,) they, too, were always to be seen in these audiences, racy of
the East river and the Dry Dock. Slang, wit, occasional shirt sleeves,
and a picturesque freedom of looks and manners, with a rude good-nature
and restless movement, were generally noticeable. Yet there never were
audiences that paid a good actor or an interesting play the compliment
of more sustain'd attention or quicker rapport. Then at times came the
exceptionally decorous and intellectual congregations I have hinted it;
for the Bowery really furnish'd plays and players you could get nowhere
else. Notably, Booth always drew the best hearers; and to a specimen of
his acting I will now attend in some detail.
I happen'd to see what has been reckon'd by experts one of the most
marvellous pieces of histrionism ever known. It must have been about
1834 or '35. A favorite comedian and actress at the Bowery, Thomas Flynn
and his wife, were to have a joint benefit, and, securing Booth for
Richard, advertised the fact many days beforehand. The house fill'd
early from top to bottom. There was some uneasiness behind the scenes,
for the afternoon arrived, and Booth had not come from down in Maryland,
where he lived. However, a few minutes before ringing-up time he made
his appearance in lively condition.
After a one-act farce over, as contrast and prelude, the curtain rising
for the tragedy, I can, from my good seat in the pit, pretty well front,
see again Booth's quiet entrance from the side, as, with head bent, he
slowly and in silence, (amid the tempest of boisterous hand-clapping,)
walks down the stage to the footlights with that peculiar and abstracted
gesture, musingly kicking his sword, which he holds off from him by its
sash. Though fifty years have pass'd since then, I can hear the clank,
and feel the perfect following hush of perhaps three thousand people
waiting. (I never saw an actor who could make more of the said hush
or wait, and hold the audience in an indescribable, half-delicious,
half-irritating suspense.) And so throughout the entire play, all parts,
voice, atmosphere, magnetism, from
"Now is the winter of our discontent,"
to the closing death fight with Richmond, were of the finest and
grandest. The latter character was play'd by a stalwart young fellow
named Ingersoll. Indeed, all the renderings were wonderfully good.
But the great spell cast upon the mass of hearers came from Booth.
Especially was the dream scene very impressive. A shudder went through
every nervous system in the audience; it certainly did through mine.
Without question Booth was royal heir and legitimate representative of
the Garrick-Kemble-Siddons dramatic traditions; but he vitalized and
gave an unnamable _race_ to those traditions with his own electric
personal idiosyncrasy. (As in all art-utterance it was the subtle and
powerful something _special to the individual_ that really conquer'd.)
To me, too, Booth stands for much else besides theatricals. I consider
that my seeing the man those years glimps'd for me, beyond all else,
that inner spirit and form--the unquestionable charm and vivacity, but
intrinsic sophistication and artificiality--crystallizing rapidly upon
the English stage and literature at and after Shakspere's time,
and coming on accumulatively through the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries to the beginning, fifty or forty years ago, of those
disintegrating, decomposing processes now authoritatively going on. Yes;
although Booth must be class'd in that antique, almost extinct school,
inflated, stagy, rendering Shakspere (perhaps inevitably, appropriately)
from the growth of arbitrary and often cockney conventions, his genius
was to me one of the grandest revelations of my life, a lesson of
artistic expression. The words fire, energy, _abandon_, found in him
unprecedented meanings. I never heard a speaker or actor who could give
such a sting to hauteur or the taunt. I never heard from any other the
charm of unswervingly perfect vocalization without trenching at all on
mere melody, the province of music.
So much for a Thespian temple of New York fifty years since, where
"sceptred tragedy went trailing by" under the gaze of the Dry Dock
youth, and both players and auditors were of a character and like we
shall never see again. And so much for the grandest histrion of modern
times, as near as I can deliberately judge (and the phrenologists put
my "caution" at 7)--grander, I believe, than Kean in the expression of
electric passion, the prime eligibility of the tragic artist. For
though those brilliant years had many fine and even magnificent actors,
undoubtedly at Booth's death (in 1852) went the last and by far the
noblest Roman of them all.