"GOOSE."
The bird which saved the Capitol has ruined many a play. "Goose," "to
be goosed," "to get the big-bird," signifies to be hissed, says the
"Slang Dictionary." This theatrical cant term is of ancient date. In
the induction to Marston's comedy of "What You Will," 1607, it is
asked if the poet's resolve shall be "struck through with the blirt of
a goose breath?" Shakespeare makes no mention of goose in this sense,
but he refers now and then to hissing as the playgoers' method of
indicating disapproval. "Mistress Page, remember you your cue," says
Ford's wife in "The Merry Wives of Windsor." "I warrant thee," replies
Mistress Page, "if I do not act it, hiss me!" In the Roman theatres it
is well known that the spectators pronounced judgment upon the efforts
of the gladiators and combatants of the arena by silently turning
their thumbs up or down, decreeing death in the one case and life in
the other. Hissing, however, even at this time, was the usual method
of condemning the public speaker of distasteful opinions. In one of
Cicero's letters there is record of the orator Hortensius, "who
attained old age without once incurring the disgrace of being hissed."
The prologues of Ben Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher frequently
deprecate the hissing of the audience.
But theatrical censure, not content with imitating the goose,
condescended to borrow from another of the inferior animals--the cat.
Addison devoted one of his papers in "The Spectator" to a Dissertation
upon Catcalls. In order to make himself master of his subject, he
professed to have purchased one of these instruments, though not
without great difficulty, "being informed at two or three toy-shops
that the players had lately bought them all up." He found that
antiquaries were much divided in opinion as to the origin of the
catcall. A fellow of the Royal Society had concluded, from the
simplicity of its make and the uniformity of its sound, that it was
older than any of the inventions of Jubal. "He observes very well that
musical instruments took their first rise from the notes of birds and
other melodious animals, 'and what,' says he, 'was more natural than
for the first ages of mankind to imitate the voice of a cat that lived
under the same roof with them?' He added that the cat had contributed
more to harmony than any other animal; as we are not only beholden to
her for this wind instrument, but for our string music in general."
The essayist, however, is disposed to hold that the catcall is
originally a piece of English music. "Its resemblance to the voice of
some of our British songsters, as well as the use of it, which is
peculiar to our nation, confirms me in this opinion." He mentions that
the catcall has quite a contrary effect to the martial instrument then
in use; and instead of stimulating courage and heroism, sinks the
spirits, shakes the nerves, curdles the blood, and inspires despair
and consternation at a surprising rate. "The catcall has struck a damp
into generals, and frightened heroes off the stage. At the first sound
of it I have seen a crowned head tremble, and a princess fall into
fits." He concludes with mention of an ingenious artist who teaches to
play on it by book, and to express by it the whole art of dramatic
criticism. "He has his bass and his treble catcall: the former for
tragedy, the latter for comedy; only in tragi-comedies they may both
play together in concert. He has a particular squeak to denote the
violation of each of the unities, and has different sounds to show
whether he aims at the poet or the player," &c.
The conveyance of a catcall to the theatre evidences a predisposition
to uproarious censure. Hissing may be, in the nature of impromptu
criticism, suddenly provoked by something held to be offensive in the
representation; but a playgoer could scarcely have armed himself with
a catcall without a desire and an intention of performing upon his
instrument in any case. Of old, audiences would seem to have
delighted in disturbance upon very light grounds. Theatrical rioting
was of common occurrence. The rioters were in some sort a disciplined
body, and proceeded systematically. Their plan of action had been
previously agreed upon. It was a rule that the ladies should be
politely handed out of the theatre before the commencement of any
violent acts of hostility; and this disappearance of the ladies from
among the audience was always viewed by the management as rather an
alarming hint of what might be expected. Then wine was sent for into
the pit, the candles were thrown down, and the gentlemen drew their
swords. They prepared to climb over the partitions of the orchestra
and to carry the stage by assault. Now and then they made havoc of the
decorations of the house, and cut and slashed the curtains, hangings,
and scenery. At Drury Lane, in 1740, when a riot took place in
consequence of the non-appearance of Madame Chateauneuf, a favourite
French dancer, a noble marquis deliberately proposed that the theatre
should be fired, and a pile of rubbish was forthwith heaped upon the
stage in order to carry into effect this atrocious suggestion. At the
Haymarket Theatre, in 1749, the audience, enraged at the famous Bottle
Conjurer hoax, were incited by the Culloden Duke of Cumberland to pull
down the house! The royal prince stood up in his box waving his drawn
sword, which someone, however, ventured to wrest from his grasp. The
interior fittings of the theatre were completely destroyed; the
furniture and hangings being carried into the street and made a
bonfire of, the curtain surmounting the flaming heap like a gigantic
flag. A riot at the Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1721, led to George I.'s
order that in future a guard should attend the performances. This was
the origin of the custom that long prevailed of stationing sentries on
either side of the proscenium during representations at the patent
theatres. Of late years the guards have been relegated to the outside
of the buildings. On the occasion of state visits of royalty to the
theatre, however--although these are now, perhaps, to be counted among
things of the past--Beefeaters upon the stage form an impressive part
of the ceremonial.
Theatrical rioting has greatly declined in violence, as well it might,
since the O.P. saturnalia of disturbance, which lasted some sixty-six
nights at Covent Garden Theatre in 1809. Swords were no longer worn,
but the rioters made free use of their fists, called in professional
pugilists as their allies, and in addition to catcalls, armed
themselves with bells, post-horns, whistles, and watchmen's rattles.
The O.P. riots may be said to have abolished the catcall, but they
established "goose." Captures of the rioters were occasionally made by
Brandon, the courageous box-office keeper, and they were charged at
Bow Street Police Court with persistent hissing, with noisily crying
"Silence!" and with "unnatural coughing." The charges were not
proceeded with, but one of the accused, Mr. Clifford, a barrister,
brought an action against Brandon for false imprisonment. In this case
the Court of King's Bench decided that, although the audience in a
public theatre have a right to express the feelings excited at the
moment by the performance, and in this manner to applaud or hiss any
piece which is represented, or any performer; yet if a number of
persons, having come to the theatre with a predetermined purpose of
interrupting the performance, for this end make a great noise so as to
render the actors inaudible, though without offering personal violence
or doing injury to the house, they are in law guilty of a riot.
Serjeant Best, the counsel for the plaintiff, urged that, as plays and
players might be hissed, managers should be liable to their share;
they should be controlled by public opinion; Garrick and others had
yielded cheerfully to the jurisdiction of the pit without a thought of
appealing to Westminster Hall. "Bells and rattles," added the
serjeant, "may be new to the pit; but catcalls, which are equally
stunning, are as old as the English drama." Apparently, however, the
catcall, its claim to antiquity notwithstanding, was not favourably
viewed by the court. In summing up, Chief Justice Mansfield observed:
"I cannot tell on what grounds many people think they have a right, at
a theatre, to make such a prodigious noise as to prevent others
hearing what is going forward on the stage. Theatres are not absolute
necessaries of life, and any person may stay away who does not approve
of the manner in which they are managed. If the prices of admission
are unreasonable, the evil will cure itself. People will not go, and
the proprietors will be ruined, unless they lower their demand. If the
proprietors have acted contrary to the conditions of the patent, the
patent itself may be set aside by a writ of _scire facias_ in the
Court of Chancery." To the great majority of playgoers it probably
occurred that hissing was a simpler and more summary remedy of their
grievances and relief to their feelings than any the Court of Chancery
was likely to afford. In due time, however, came free trade in the
drama and the abolition of the special privileges and monopolies too
long enjoyed by the patent theatres.
After the failure of his luckless farce, "Mr. H.," Charles Lamb wrote
to Wordsworth: "A hundred hisses (hang the word! I wrote it like
_kisses_--how different!), a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand claps.
The former come more directly from the heart." The reception of the
little play had been of a disastrous kind, and Lamb, sitting in the
front row of the pit, is said to have joined in condemning his own
work, and to have hissed and hooted as loudly as any of his
neighbours. "I had many fears; the subject was not substantial enough.
John Bull must have solider fare than a letter. We are pretty stout
about it; have had plenty of condoling friends; but, after all, we had
rather it should have succeeded. You will see the prologue in most of
the morning papers. It was received with such shouts as I never
witnessed to a prologue. It was attempted to be encored.... The
quantity of friends we had in the house--my brother and I being in
public offices, &c.--was astonishing, but they yielded at last to a
few hisses." "Mr. H." could probably in no case have achieved any
great success, but it may be that its failure was precipitated by the
indiscreet cordiality of its author's "quantity of friends." They were
too eager to express approbation, and distributed their applause
injudiciously. The pace at which they started could not be sustained.
As Monsieur Auguste, the famous _chef des claqueurs_ at the Paris
Opera House, explained to Doctor Véron, the manager, "_Il ne fallait
pas trop chauffer le premier acte; qu'on devait, au contraire,
réserver son courage et ses forces pour enlever le dernier acte et le
dénoûment_." He admitted that he should not hesitate to award three
rounds of applause to a song in the last act, to which, if it had
occurred earlier in the representation, he should have given one round
only. Lamb's friends knew nothing of this sound theory of systematised
applause. They expended their ammunition at the commencement of the
struggle, and when they were, so to say, out of range. It was one of
Monsieur Auguste's principles of action that public opinion should
never be outraged or affronted; it might be led and encouraged, but
there should be no attempt to drive it. "Above all things, respect the
public," he said to his subordinates. Nothing so much stimulates the
disapprobation of the unbiassed as extravagant applause. Reaction
certainly ensues; men begin to hiss by way of self-assertion, and out
of self-respect. They resent an attempt to coerce their opinion, and
to compel a favourable verdict in spite of themselves. The attempt to
encore the prologue to "Mr. H." was most unwise. It was a strong
prologue, but the play was weak. The former might have been left to
the good sense of the general public; it was the latter that
especially demanded the watchful support of the author's friends. The
infirm need crutches, not the robust. The playbills announced, "The
new farce of 'Mr. H.,' performed for the first time last night, was
received by an overflowing audience with universal applause, and will
be repeated for the second time to-morrow." Such are playbills. "Mr.
H." never that morrow saw. "'Tis withdrawn, and there's an end of it,"
wrote Lamb to Wordsworth.
Hissing is no doubt a dreadful sound--a word of fear unpleasing to the
ear of both playwright and player. For there is no revoking, no
arguing down, no remedying a hiss; it has simply to be endured.
Playgoers have a giant's strength in this respect; but it must be said
for them, that of late years at any rate, they have rarely used it
tyrannously, like a giant. Of all the dramatists, perhaps Fielding
treated hissing with the greatest indifference. In 1743, his comedy of
"The Wedding Day" was produced. Garrick had in vain implored him to
suppress a scene which he urged would certainly endanger the success
of the piece. "If the scene is not a good one, let them find it out,"
said Fielding. As had been foreseen, an uproar ensued in the theatre.
The actor hastened to the green-room, where the author was cheering
his spirits with a bottle of champagne. Surveying Garrick's rueful
countenance, Fielding inquired: "What's the matter? Are they hissing
me now?" "Yes, the very passage I wanted you to retrench. I knew it
wouldn't do. And they've so horribly frightened me I shall not be
right again the whole night." "Oh," cried the author, "I did not give
them credit for it. So they have found it out, have they?" Upon the
failure of his farce of "Eurydice," he produced an occasional piece
entitled "Eurydice Hissed," in which Mrs. Charke, the daughter of
Colley Cibber, sustained the part of Pillage, a dramatic author.
Pillage is about to produce a new play, and one of his friends
volunteers to "clap every good thing till I bring the house down."
"That won't do," Pillage sagaciously replies; "the town of its own
accord will applaud what they like; you must stand by me when they
dislike. I don't desire any of you to clap unless when you hear a
hiss. Let that be your cue for clapping." Later in the play three
gentlemen enter, and in Shakespearean fashion discuss in blank verse
the fate of Pillage's production.
THIRD GENTLEMAN. Oh friends, all's lost! Eurydice is damned.
SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ha! damned! A few short moments past I came
From the pit door and heard a loud applause.
THIRD GENTLEMAN. 'Tis true at first the pit seemed greatly pleased,
And loud applauses through the benches rang;
But as the plot began to open more
(A shallow plot) the claps less frequent grew,
Till by degrees a gentle hiss arose;
This by a catcall from the gallery
Was quickly seconded: then followed claps;
And 'twixt long claps and hisses did succeed
A stern contention; victory being dubious.
So hangs the conscience, doubtful to determine
When honesty pleads here, and there a bribe.
* * * * *
But it was mighty pleasant to behold
When the damnation of the farce was sure,
How all those friends who had begun the claps
With greatest vigour strove who first should hiss
And show disapprobation.
Surely no dramatist ever jested more over his own discomfiture. In
publishing "Eurydice" he described it as "a farce, as it was d--d at
the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane." This was a following of Ben Jonson's
example, who, publishing his "New Inn," makes mention of it as a
comedy "never acted, but most negligently played by some of the king's
servants, and more squeamishly beheld and censured by others the
king's subjects, 1629; and now, at last, set at liberty to the
readers, his majesty's servants and subjects, to be judged of, 1631."
There is something pathetic in the way Southerne, the veteran
dramatist, in 1726, bore the condemnation of his comedy of "Money the
Mistress," at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. The audience hissed
unmercifully. Rich, the manager, asked the old man, as he stood in the
wings, "if he heard what they were doing?" "No, sir," said Southerne
calmly, "I'm very deaf." On the first representation of "She Stoops to
Conquer," a solitary hiss was heard during the fifth act at the
improbability of Mrs. Hardcastle, in her own garden, supposing herself
forty miles off on Crackskull Common. "What's that?" cried Goldsmith,
not a little alarmed at the sound. "Psha! doctor," replied Colman,
"don't be afraid of a squib when we have been sitting these two hours
on a barrel of gunpowder." Goldsmith is said never to have forgiven
Colman his ill-timed pleasantry. The hiss seems to have been really a
solitary and exceptional one. It was ascribed by one journal to
Cumberland, by another to Hugh Kelly, and by a third, in a parody on
"Ossian," to Macpherson, who was known to be hostilely inclined
towards Johnson and all his friends. The disapprobation excited by the
capital scene of the bailiffs in Goldsmith's earlier comedy, "The
Good-natured Man," had been of a more general and alarming kind,
however, and was only appeased by the omission of this portion of the
work. Goldsmith suffered exquisite distress. Before his friends, at
the club in Gerrard Street, he exerted him greatly to hide the fact of
his discomfiture; chatted gaily and noisily, and even sang his
favourite comic song with which he was wont to oblige the company only
on special occasions. But alone with Johnson he fairly broke down,
confessed the anguish of his heart, burst into tears, and swore he
would never write more. The condemnation incurred by "The Rivals," on
its first performance, led to its being withdrawn for revision and
amendment. In his preface to the published play Sheridan wrote: "I see
no reason why an author should not regard a first-night's audience as
a candid and judicious friend attending, in behalf of the public, at
his last rehearsal. If he can dispense with flattery, he is sure at
least of sincerity, and even though the annotation be rude, he may
rely upon the justness of the comment." This is calm and complacent
enough, but he proceeds with some warmth: "As for the little puny
critics who scatter their peevish strictures in private circles, and
scribble at every author who has the eminence of being unconnected
with them, as they are usually spleen-swoln from a vain idea of
increasing their consequence, there will always be found a petulance
and illiberality in their remarks, which should place them as far
beneath the notice of a gentleman, as their original dulness had sunk
them from the level of the most unsuccessful author." This reads like
a sentence from "The School for Scandal."
In truth, hissing is very hard to endure. Lamb treated the misfortune
of "Mr. H." as lightly as he could, yet it is plain he took his
failure much to heart. In his letter signed Semel-Damnatus, upon
"Hissing at the Theatres," he is alternately merry and sad over his
defeat as a dramatist. "Is it not a pity," he asks, "that the sweet
human voice which was given man to speak with, to sing with, to
whisper tones of love in, to express compliance, to convey a favour,
or to grant a suit--that voice, which in a Siddons or a Braham rouses
us, in a siren Catalani charms and captivates us--that the musical
expressive human voice should be converted into a rival of the noises
of silly geese and irrational venomous snakes? I never shall forget
the sounds on my night!" He urges that the venial mistake of the poor
author, "who thought to please in the act of filling his pockets, for
the sum of his demerits amounts to no more than that," is too severely
punished; and he adds, "the provocations to which a dramatic genius is
exposed from the public are so much the more vexatious as they are
removed from any possibility of retaliation, the hope of which
sweetens most other injuries; for the public never writes itself." He
concludes with an account, written in an Addisonian vein, of a club to
which he had the honour to belong. "There are fourteen of us, who are
all authors that have been once in our lives what is called 'damned.'
We meet on the anniversaries of our respective nights, and make
ourselves merry at the expense of the public.... To keep up the memory
of the cause in which we suffered, as the ancients sacrificed a goat,
a supposed unhealthy animal, to Æsculapius, on our feast-nights we cut
up a goose, an animal typical of the popular voice, to the deities of
Candour and Patient Hearing. A zealous member of the society once
proposed that we should revive the obsolete luxury of viper-broth;
but, the stomachs of some of the company rising at the proposition, we
lost the benefit of that highly salutary and antidotal dish."
It is to be observed that when a play is hissed there is this
consolation at the service of those concerned: they can shift the
burden of reproach. The author is at liberty to say: "It was the fault
of the actors. Read my play, you will see that it did not deserve the
cruel treatment it experienced." And the actor can assert: "I was not
to blame. I did but speak the words that were set down for me. My fate
is hard--I have to bear the burden of another's sins." And in each
case these are reasonably valid pleas. In the hour of triumph,
however, it is certain that the author is apt to be forgotten, and
that the lion's share of success is popularly awarded to the players.
For the dramatist is a vague, impalpable, invisible personage; whereas
the actor is a vital presence upon the scene; he can be beheld, noted,
and listened to; it is difficult to disconnect him from the humours he
exhibits, from the pathos he displays, from the speeches he utters.
Much may be due to his own merit; but still his debt to the dramatist
is not to be wholly ignored. The author is applauded or hissed, as the
case may be, by proxy. But altogether it is perhaps not surprising
that the proxy should oftentimes forget his real position, and
arrogate wholly to himself the applause due to his principal.
High and low, from Garrick to the "super," it is probably the actor's
doom, for more or less reasons, at some time or another, to be hissed.
He is, as Members of Parliament are fond of saying, "in the hands of
the house," and may be ill-considered by it. Anyone can hiss, and one
goose makes many. Lamb relates how he once saw Elliston, sitting in
state, in the tarnished green-room of the Olympic Theatre, while
before him was brought for judgment, on complaint of prompter, "one of
those little tawdry things that flirt at the tails of choruses--the
pertest little drab--a dirty fringe and appendage of the lamp's
smoke--who, it seems, on some disapprobation expressed by a 'highly
respectable' audience, had precipitately quitted her station on the
boards and withdrawn her small talents in disgust. 'And how dare you,'
said the manager, 'how dare you, madam, without a notice, withdraw
yourself from your theatrical duties?' 'I was hissed, sir.' 'And you
have the presumption to decide upon the taste of the town?' 'I don't
know that, sir, but I will never stand to be hissed,' was the
rejoinder of Young Confidence. Then, gathering up his features into
one significant mass of wonder, pity, and expostulatory
indignation--in a lesson never to have been lost upon a creature less
forward than she who stood before him--his words were these: 'They
have hissed ME!'"
It is understood that this argument failed in its effect, for, after
all, a hiss is not to be in such wise excused or explained away; its
application is far too direct and personal. "Ladies and gentlemen, it
was not I that shot the arrow!" said Braham to his audience, when some
bungling occurred in the course of his performance of William Tell,
and the famous apple remained uninjured upon the head of the hero's
son. If derision was moved by this bungling, still more did the
singer's address and confession excite the mirth of the spectators. To
another singer, failure, or the dread of failure, was fraught with
more tragic consequence. For some sixteen years Adolphe Nourritt had
been the chief tenor of the Paris Opera House. He had "created" the
leading characters in "Robert," "Les Huguenots," "La Juive,"
"Gustave," and "Masaniello." He resigned his position precipitately
upon the advent of Duprez. The younger singer afflicted the elder with
a kind of panic. The news that Duprez was among his audience was
sufficient to paralyse his powers, to extinguish his voice. He left
France for Italy. His success was unquestionable, but he had lost
confidence in himself; a deep dejection settled upon him, his
apprehension of failure approached delirium. At last he persuaded
himself that the applause he won from a Neapolitan audience was purely
ironical, was but scoffing ill-disguised. At five in the morning, on
the 8th of March, 1839, he flung himself from the window of an upper
floor, and was picked up in the street quite dead. Poor Nourrit! he
was a man of genius in his way; but for him there would have been no
grand duet in the fourth act of "Les Huguenots," no cavatina for
Eleazar in "La Juive;" and to his inventiveness is to be ascribed the
ballet of "La Sylphide," which Taglioni made so famous.
It is odd to hear of an actor anxious for "goose," and disappointed at
not obtaining it. Yet something like this happened once during the
O.P. riots. Making sure that there would be a disturbance in the
theatre, Mr. Murray, one of John Kemble's company, thought it needless
to commit his part to memory; he was so certain that he should not be
listened to. But the uproar suddenly ceased; there was a lull in the
storm. The actor bowed, stammered, stared, and was what is called in
the language of the theatre "dead stuck." However, his mind was soon
at ease; to do him justice the audience soon hissed him to his heart's
content, and perhaps even in excess of that measure. Subsequently he
resolved, riot or no riot, to learn something of his part.