“IT is almost like getting home again,” said Irving, “to find one’s
self in New York once more. The first place one stops at in a new
country always impresses the imagination and lives in the memory. I
should say that is so with pioneers; and more particularly when your
first resting-place has been pleasant. Let us get Monday night well
over, and we may look for something like a little leisure during our
closing month in New York. We shall produce “Much Ado” as completely
as it is possible for us to do it, outside of our own theatre. If no
hitch occurs I think we will run it for two, Palser even proposes
three, weeks. If we have been complimented upon our scenic and
stage-managerial work on the other pieces, what may we expect for
‘Much Ado’? Lent is severely kept in New York, I am told; Holy Week
being among the churches, if not a fast in regard to food, a fast from
amusements. We must therefore be content, I suppose, to let ‘Much Ado’
grow, in time for the restoration of social pleasures at Easter.”[62]
On Monday, at a quarter to eleven, Irving was at his post, on the stage
of the Star Theatre, for a complete rehearsal. Scenery, properties,
lighting, grouping of supernumeraries, the entire business of the
piece, was gone through. Not a detail was overlooked, not a set but was
viewed as completely from the stalls as from the stage.
“Pardon me,” says Irving to Claudio; “if you get your hand above your
head in that position, you will never get it down again. Suppose you
adopt this idea, eh? What do you think?”
“Certainly, it is better,” says Claudio.
Irving, as he speaks, illustrates his own view of the scene.
“Then we will try it again.”
The scene is repeated.
“Yes, very good, that will do.”
The rehearsal goes on.
“No, no,” says Irving, “there must be no wait; the second procession
must come on promptly at the cue. Try it again. And hold your halberd
like this, my boy; not as if you were afraid of it. There, that’s it.”
The supernumerary accepts his lesson; the music cue is repeated; the
halberdiers file in; the military strains cease, the organ peals out,
the wedding procession comes on.
“Bow, bow,—don’t nod,” says Irving, stepping forward to instruct a
subordinate in the scene; “that’s better—go on.”
The solemn voice of Mead opens the scene, and as it proceeds, Irving
calls Loveday aside.
“Too much light at the back there, eh?”
“Do you think so?” says Loveday. “Lower the light there,—the blue
medium.”
Steps have been placed as a way from the stage to the stalls. Irving
(“Charlie” following at his heels) goes into the third row, Loveday
watching and waiting.
“Yes, that will do,” says Irving, at the same time turning to me
to remark, “do you see what a difference that makes? You have
no difficulty now in imagining the distance the subdued light
suggests,—chapels, vestries, dim cathedral vistas. Do you notice what
a last touch of reality to the scene the hurried entrance of the pages
give?—they break up the measured solemnity of the processions with a
different step, a lighter manner, the carelessness of youth; they have
no censers to carry, no ecclesiastical robes to wear.”
As he is speaking he strides up the steps and upon the stage once more.
“Mr. Ball! Call Mr. Ball, please.”
The musical director appears.
“The basses are too loud; they spoil the closing movement, which is too
quick altogether. Come into the stalls and hear it.”
“Howson!” says Ball, “please give them the time.”
Ball goes into the stalls. The movement is repeated and repeated again,
the last time entirely to Irving’s satisfaction.
In these passing notes I merely desire to give the reader a hint
at the kind of work which was done at rehearsal on the Monday of
the production of “Much Ado.” It lasted until a quarter-past five.
Irving was there until the end. Out of sight of the audience he had
done enough work to entitle him to a night’s rest; but, so far as
the critics and the public were concerned, his labors were only just
beginning. Shortly after seven he was on the stage again, and when the
play began he was never more heartily engaged in his rôle as actor.
“Yes, I am rather tired,” he said, in his quiet way, when I spoke to
him at the wing; “feel inclined to sit down,—hard work, standing about
all day,—but this is the reward.”
He pointed to the setting of the garden scene, which was progressing
quite smoothly.
“If we pull through with the cathedral set all right, one will not mind
being a little tired.”
I waited to see the work done, and, though I am familiar with the
business behind the scenes, I was glad to escape from the “rush and
tumble” of it on this occasion. At the Lyceum every man knows the
piece, or flat, for the position of which he is responsible. He goes
about his work silently, and in list slippers; he fetches and carries
without hurry; nothing seems more simple; you see the scene grow into
completeness, silently but surely. At the Star, on this first night,
it was, to all appearance, chaos. Wings were slid about; curtains
unrolled; tapestries hauled up by unseen strings; great pillars were
pushed here and there; images of saints were launched into space from
the flies, to be checked by ropes, just as you might think they were
coming to grief; a massive altar-piece was being railed in, while a
painted canopy was hoisted over it; a company of musicians were led
out of the way of falling scenes to join a chorus party of ladies and
gentlemen, who were gradually losing themselves among a picturesque
crowd of halberdiers. Everybody seemed to be in everybody’s way; it
looked like a general scramble. Irving, with “Less noise, my boys—less
noise!” continually on his lips, moved about among the throng; and
as Ball, who had made a third and last effort to find a prominent
position from which to conduct his band, stepped upon a bench, which
was instantly drawn from under him by the stage hands who had it in
charge, I went to the front of the house. Ball’s musicians struck up
their impressive strains of the “Gloria,” and the curtain slowly rose
upon the cathedral at Messina, as if it had been there all the time,
only waiting the prompter’s signal. Pandemonium behind the curtain had
given place to Paradise in front. It was a triumph of willing hands
under intelligent and earnest direction.