IN THE PIT.
There is something to be written about the rise and fall of the pit:
its original humility, its possession for a while of great authority,
and its forfeiture, of late years, of power in the theatre. We all
know Shakespeare's opinion of "the groundlings," and how he held them
to be, "for the most part, capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb
shows and noise." The great dramatist's contemporaries entertained
similar views on this head. They are to be found speaking with supreme
contempt of the audience occupying the _yard_; describing them as
"fools," and "scarecrows," and "understanding, grounded men."
Our old theatres were of two classes, public and private. The
companies of the private theatres were more especially under the
protection of some royal or noble personage. The audiences they
attracted were usually of a superior class, and certain of these were
entitled to sit upon the stage during the representation. The
buildings, although of smaller dimensions than the public theatres
boasted, were arranged with more regard for the comfort of the
spectators. The boxes were enclosed and locked. There were _pits_
furnished with seats, in place of the _yards_, as they were called, of
the public theatres, in which the "groundlings" were compelled to
stand throughout the performance. And the whole house was roofed in
from the weather; whereas the public theatres were open to the sky,
excepting over the stage and boxes. Moreover, the performances at the
private theatres were presented by candle or torch light. Probably it
was held that the effects of the stage were enhanced by their being
artificially illuminated, for in these times, at both public and
private theatres, the entertainments commenced early in the afternoon,
and generally concluded before sunset, or, at any rate, before dark.
As patience and endurance are more easy to the man who sits than to
the standing spectator, it came to be understood that a livelier kind
of entertainment must be provided for the "groundlings" of the public
theatres than there was need to present to the seated pit of the
private playhouses. The "fools of the yard" were charged with
requiring "the horrid noise of target-fight," "cutler's work," and
vulgar and boisterous exhibitions generally. These early patrons of
the more practical parts of the drama are entitled to be forbearingly
judged, however. Their comfort was little studied, and it is not
surprising, under the circumstances, that they should have favoured a
brisk and vivacious class of representations. The tedious playwright
did not merely oppress their minds; he made them remember how weary
were their legs.
But it is probable that the tastes thus generated were maintained long
after the necessity for their existence had departed, and that, even
when seats were permitted them, the "groundlings" still held by their
old forms of amusement, demanding dramas of liveliness, incident, and
action, and greatly preferring spectacle to speeches. From the
philosophical point of view the pit had acquired a bad name, and
couldn't or wouldn't get quit of it. Still it is by no means clear
that the sentiments ascribed to the pit were not those of the audience
generally.
Nevertheless the pit was improving in character. Gradually it boasted
a strong critical leaven; it became the recognised resort of the more
enlightened playgoers. Dryden in his prologues and epilogues often
addresses the pit, as containing notably the judges of plays and the
more learned of the audience. "The pit," says Swift, in the
introduction to his "Tale of a Tub," "is sunk below the stage, that
whatever of weighty matter shall be delivered thence, whether it be
lead or gold, may fall plump into the jaws of certain critics, as I
think they are called, which stand ready open to devour them." "Your
bucks of the pit," says an old occasional address of later date,
ascribed to Garrick, but on insufficient evidence:
Your bucks of the pit are miracles of learning,
Who point out faults to show their own discerning;
And critic-like bestriding martyred sense,
Proclaim their genius and vast consequence.
There were now critics by profession, who duly printed and published
their criticisms. The awful Churchill's favourite seat was in the
front row of the pit, next the orchestra. "In this place he thought he
could best discern the real workings of the passions in the actors, or
what they substituted instead of them," says poor Tom Davies, whose
dread of the critic was extreme. "During the run of 'Cymbeline,'" he
wrote apologetically to Garrick, his manager, "I had the misfortune to
disconcert you in one scene, for which I did immediately beg your
pardon; and did attribute it to my accidentally seeing Mr. Churchill
in the pit; with great truth, it rendered me confused and unmindful of
my business." Garrick had himself felt oppressed by the gloomy
presence of Churchill, and learnt to read discontent in the critic's
lowering brows. "My love to Churchill," he writes to Colman; "his
being sick of Richard was perceived about the house."
That Churchill was a critic of formidable aspect, the portrait he
limned of himself in his "Independence" amply demonstrates:
Vast were his bones, his muscles twisted strong,
His face was short, but broader than 'twas long;
His features though by nature they were large,
Contentment had contrived to overcharge
And bury meaning, save that we might spy
Sense low'ring on the pent-house of his eye;
His arms were two twin oaks, his legs so stout
That they might bear a mansion-house about;
Nor were they--look but at his body there--
Designed by fate a much less weight to bear.
O'er a brown cassock which had once been black,
Which hung in tatters on his brawny back,
A sight most strange and awkward to behold,
He threw a covering of blue and gold. &c. &c.
This was not the kind of man to be contemptuously regarded or
indiscreetly attacked. Foote ventured to designate him "the clumsy
curate of Clapham," but prudently suppressed a more elaborate lampoon
he had prepared. Murphy launched an ode more vehement than decent in
its terms. Churchill good-humouredly acknowledged the justice of the
satire; he had said, perhaps, all he cared to say to the detriment of
Murphy, and was content with this proof that his shafts had reached
their mark. Murphy confirms Davies's account of Churchill's seat in
the theatre:
No more your bard shall sit
In foremost row before the astonished pit,
And grin dislike, and kiss the spike,
And twist his mouth and roll his head awry,
The arch-absurd quick glancing from his eye.
Charles Lamb was a faithful patron of the pit. In his early days there
had been such things as "pit orders." "Beshrew the uncomfortable
manager who abolished them!" he exclaims. Hazlitt greatly preferred
the pit to the boxes. Not simply because the fierceness of his
democratic sentiments induced in him a scorn of the visitors to the
boxes, as wrapped up in themselves, fortified against impressions,
weaned from all superstitious belief in dramatic illusions, taking so
little interest in all that was interesting, disinclined to discompose
their cravats or their muscles, "except when some gesticulation of Mr.
Kean, or some expression of an author two hundred years old, violated
the decorum of fashionable indifference." These were good reasons for
his objection to the boxes. But he preferred the pit, in truth,
because he could there see and hear so very much better. "We saw Mr.
Kean's Sir Giles Overreach on Friday night from the boxes," he writes
in 1816, "and are not surprised at the incredulity as to this great
actor's powers entertained by those persons who have only seen him
from that elevated sphere. We do not hesitate to say that those who
have only seen him at that distance have not seen him at all. The
expression of his face is quite lost, and only the harsh and grating
tones of his voice produce their full effect on the ear. The same
recurring sounds, by dint of repetition, fasten on the attention,
while the varieties and finer modulations are lost in their passage
over the pit. All you discover is an abstraction of his defects, both
of person, voice, and manner. He appears to be a little man in a great
passion," &c.
But the pit was not famous merely as the resort of critics. The
"groundlings" had given place to people of fashion and social
distinction. Mr. Leigh Hunt notes that the pit even of Charles II.'s
time, although now and then the scene of violent scuffles and brawls,
due in great part to the general wearing of swords, was wont to
contain as good company as the pit of the Opera House five-and-twenty
years ago. A reference to Pepys's "Diary" justifies this opinion.
"Among the rest here the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the
pit," records Pepys, "and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst,
and Sedley, and Etheridge the poet." Yet it would seem that already
the visitors to the pit had declined somewhat in quality. Pepys, like
John Gilpin's spouse, had a frugal mind, however bent on pleasure. He
relates, in 1667, with some sense of injury, how once, there being no
room in the pit, he was forced to pay four shillings and go into one
of the upper boxes, "which is the first time I ever sat in a box in my
life."
One does not now look to find members of the administration or cabinet
ministers occupying seats in the pit. Yet the "Journals of the Right
Honourable William Windham," some time Chief Secretary to the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, and afterwards Colonial Secretary, tell of his
frequent visits to the pit of Covent Garden. Nor does he "drop into"
the theatre, after dining at his club, as even a bachelor of fashion
might do without exciting surprise. Playgoing is not an idle matter to
him. And he is accompanied by ladies of distinction, his relatives and
others. "Went about half-past five to the pit," he records; "sat by
Miss Kemble, Steevens, Mrs. Burke, and Miss Palmer," the lady last
named being the niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who afterwards married
Lord Inchiquin. "Went in the evening to the pit with Mrs. Lukin" (the
wife of his half-brother). "After the play, went with Miss Kemble to
Mrs. Siddons's dressing-room: met Sheridan there, with whom I sat in
the waiting room, and who pressed me to sup at his house with Fox and
G. North." Assuredly "the play," not less than the pit, was more
highly regarded in Windham's time than nowadays.
Though apart from our present topic, it is worth noting that Windham
may claim to have anticipated Monsieur Gambetta as a statesman
voyaging in a balloon. Ballooning was a hobby of Windham's. He was a
regular attendant of ascents, and inspected curiously the early aerial
machines of Blanchard and Lunardi. Something surprised at his own
temerity, he travelled the air himself, rose in a balloon--probably
from Vauxhall--crossed the river at Tilbury, and descended in safety
after losing his hat. He regretted that the wind had not been
favourable for his crossing the Channel. "Certainly," he writes, "the
experiences I have had on this occasion will warrant a degree of
confidence more than I have ever hitherto indulged. I would not wish a
degree of confidence more than I enjoyed at every moment of the time."
To return to the pit for a concluding note or two. Audiences had come
to agree with Hazlitt, that "it was unpleasant to see a play from the
boxes," that the pit was far preferable. Gradually the managers--sound
sleepers as a rule--awakened to this view of the situation, and
proceeded accordingly. They seized upon the best seats in the pit, and
converted them into stalls, charging for admission to these a higher
price than they had ever levied in regard to the boxes. Stalls were
first introduced at the Opera House in the Haymarket in the year 1829.
Dissatisfaction was openly expressed, but although the overture was
hissed--the opera being Rossini's "La Donna del Lago"--no serious
disturbance arose. There had been a decline in the public spirit of
playgoers. The generation that delighted in the great O.P. riot had
pretty well passed away. Such another excitement was not possible;
energy and enthusiasm on such a subject seemed to have been exhausted
for ever by that supreme effort. So the audience paid the increased
price or stayed away from the theatre--for staying away from the
theatre could now be calmly viewed as a reasonable alternative. "The
play" was no more what once it had been, a sort of necessary of life.
The example of the Opera manager was presently followed by all other
theatrical establishments, and high-priced stalls became the rule
everywhere. The pit lost its old influence--was, so to say,
disfranchised. It was as one of the old Cinque Ports which the
departing sea and the ever indrifting sand have left high and dry,
unapproachable by water, a port only in name. It was divided and
conquered. The most applauded toast at the public banquet of the O.P.
rioters--"The ancient and indisputable rights of the pit"--will never
more be proposed.