STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS.
The night the Southern Hotel burned down in St. Louis, I was standing
at the ladies' entrance when Kate Claxton, whose presence is now always
regarded in a city as ominous of a conflagration, came down through the
fire and smoke in her night dress and was hurried across the street
and out of danger by a gentleman who lent her his overcoat while she
made her way to another hotel. There were seventeen lives lost that
terrible night, and a young and beautiful actress--Frankie McLellan--in
a frantic effort to escape the flames, jumped from a three story window
and had her face marked for life by the fall. Just as soon as people
got over the horror of the first news of the catastrophe, gossip turned
to theorizing and from that diversant stories were told concerning the
prominent people who figured in the calamity. Then it became known
that Milton Nobles had lost a brand new pair of lavender trousers, in
the pockets of which were several hundred dollars that "The Phœnix"
had brought him that same evening. Then too, the narrow escape of Rose
Osborne, of the Olympic stock company, was recited; but prominent above
all, Miss Kate Claxton's presence in the hotel was dwelt upon, and, as
she had already fairly earned the unanimous reputation that has since
followed her, her name became part of the history of the conflagration,
as it has been associated with every conflagration that occurred in
her vicinage since. She is rather ungallantly and untruly styled the
"Fire Fiend," and all sorts of predictions are made about the theatre
she plays in, the hotel she has her rooms at, and the very town and
county in which she is temporarily domiciled. But Kate Claxton, who by
the way is Mrs. Stevenson, is not the first person in her profession
to have acquired such an unenviable reputation. Thomas S. Hamblin, an
actor and manager of the early half of the present century, who came
from England in 1825 to star in "Shakespeare," was followed by fire
even more relentlessly than Miss Claxton has been. No less than four
theatres burned under his management, and it was generally said when he
undertook to open or run a place of amusement that from that moment it
was fated to the flames. Hamblin figures conspicuously in the history
of the Bowery. He died in 1854.
[Illustration: KATE CLAXTON.]
The sailor who braves the dangers of the deep is always blindly
superstitious. There is something in the vastness of the ocean, in its
misty immensity, in its magic mirage, its wonders and its terrors,
that puzzles the mind and sets fire to the imagination of poor Jack,
and even bewilders his superior officers. The artist who undertakes to
sail before the public and to amuse it for a living is quite as much
at sea as your genuine Jack Tar. He or she finds himself or herself
on a veritable ocean, beset by dangers, surrounded by unknown and
fickle conditions of atmosphere and phenomena. All the logic of the
dry land is of no avail in such a situation. The relations of cause
and effect are broken up. Magic is the only excuse for the arrival of
the unexpected. The seemingly impossible in results is always the most
possible. Once embarked in the dramatic sea, no one can tell where the
voyage may end, or what it may bring forth. A shipwreck on auriferous
rocks may prove a success.
Triumph may come from ruin; happiness from danger, and the longest
voyage and the richest freight are often given the most leaky and
shallow craft. There is no knowing which boat will float the longest on
the dramatic sea--the best equipped or the most shaky and flimsy. So it
is no wonder that actors are all superstitious. They have no compass
even to guide them when beset by the varying winds of public opinion.
The impossible is always sure to meet them; so they are always on
the lookout for magic, and depend in secret quite as much upon their
simple necromancy as upon their talent or their study. Every star
has, so to speak, a fetich that insures success, or goes through an
imaginary formula to invoke prosperity. The public is constantly under
the influence of the voudoo arts of actors, and incantations and mystic
signs rule the world of Thespis and enslave the public without its
knowledge. Some of these fancies and formulæ of intelligent actors are,
indeed, more simple and childlike than those that characterize poor
Jack of the briny deep.
Imagine, for instance, an actor like John McCullough refusing to
approach a theatre except by one route (the one he first takes, no
matter how roundabout) from night to night, for fear of breaking the
charm of success. Imagine, too, a lot of other trifling things that
beset him--signs, omens and the like. If he stumbles when he first
enters a scene it is a sign of good luck. If he receives faint applause
in the first scene he is sure to succeed, amid thunderous plaudits, in
the last; if Forrest's sword, used in the Gladiator, becomes dim by
damp air or other cause, it is a sign of lack of fervor in the audience
of the evening, while, on the contrary an extraordinary brightness of
the weapon is a sure sign of great success. If a negro should cross his
path while he is on his way to a performance, that is a never-failing
omen of a prosperous engagement, while to encounter a cross-eyed woman
(not a man, for strabismus in that sort of creature does not affect
John, probably because it is only the woman he looks at), is a sure
sign if not of failure, at least of annoyance to himself and coldness
on the part of his audience. The Macbeth music is, of course, his great
bugbear, as it is with all actors.
[Illustration: THE LATE VENIE CLANCIE.]
No success could attend any of his performances if any one were to hum
or whistle the witches' chorus in the wings or the dressing-rooms. Any
poor, inexperienced devil who might try it would find John, and, in
fact, all the company, wrestling with him, and himself lying in the
gutter at the back door before he had warbled through two bars of the
fatal music. This is, in the opinion of every actor, a sure invocation
of disaster. Under the malign influence of this melodic devilishness
either the theatre will be burned down (for, if we are to believe the
actors and stage tradition, every theatre that was ever burned in this
country was put under the spell of fire by some singer or whistler of
the witches' chorus), or salaries will not be paid, or the manager will
bring his season to an early and disastrous end. Something ill is sure
to happen if the Macbeth music is heard, and John shares that belief in
common with even the humblest Roman of them all who parades his scraggy
shanks nightly in ridiculous contrast with the heroic legs of the
tragedian.
John T. Raymond, while believing faithfully in all the regular signs
and omens of the stage, has his own special claims to "hog 'em," using
the stage vernacular. He has only one suit of clothes for _Colonel
Sellers_, and would not have any other under any circumstances. It
would change his luck from good to bad.
"Remark," he says, "there never was a success continued where a play
was entirely re-costumed. The public interest began to flag always in
some mysterious way from the time the new dresses came on. It is the
old story of old wine in new bottles. The wine will burst the bottles.
There's going to be no burst with my wine. I stick to my old clothes as
long as they will stick to me."
[Illustration: CATHERINE LEWIS.]
He has also a lucky $5 gold piece, which he always carries in his
vest pocket on the stage, whatever part he is playing, and when he is
nervous and fearful of lack of appreciation he has only to rub his
magic coin to make everything lovely. In getting out of bed he will
not slip out with the left foot first, lest he may have bad luck all
the day. His dreams decide his acceptance of a play, and when he is
puzzled between two methods of working up a "point," he is perfectly
satisfied to settle it by the toss up of a cent.
Joe Jefferson is also impressed with the magical potency of old
clothes. He has never changed his first "Rip Van Winkle" suit, but
he has been forced to have it patched and renovated. His hat, wig,
beard and "trick" rifle--the one that falls to pieces after his long
sleep--are the same that he used when he made his great success in the
part in London fifteen years ago. He mislaid this gun last season,
just before he played at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and was forced to
get another. That engagement was his first failure, and a bad one.
He has found the old rifle, and, the charm being now complete again,
he has opened the season with a very successful week in Brooklyn.
Joe would break an engagement in any theatre if a dog were to walk
across the stage at the first rehearsal. That is a sure sign of death,
loss, or fire, as every actor knows. A cat parading the coulisses or
walking with dainty tread across the scene, however (even at an evening
performance), would be hailed by him and colleagues with delight as an
unfailing sign of prosperity, health and renown.
Sothern felt that he was sure to fail with his audience if his valet,
by an accident, handed him his wig before his coat was on, while, if he
put it on his head at the last moment, and not before the voices of the
call-boy was heard summoning all on for his first scene, he had "got
'em dead to rights."
Florence, like Raymond, carries a lucky $5 gold piece, and believes the
charm of his popularity reposes in the fact that he always puts on his
costumes in a never-varying order, and never changes his old brushes
and articles of "make-up." He, too, is afraid of the necromantic powers
of the evil-omened dog, and believes in the magic spells of fairy
grimalkin. If the orchestra plays a waltz between the first and second
acts of his piece, success is more likely than ever to seal his efforts
of the evening.
Mrs. Florence, on the contrary, does not believe in old clothes, but
quite the reverse. She thinks, however, that birds (canaries, or any
other variety) are sure to bring bad luck, and will not play in the
company where there is a cross-eyed girl. The cross-eyed man doesn't
count. If the prompter should tear a page of manuscript accidentally,
or, moreover, if the page should contain the name or a speech of the
character she is acting, there is no use in hoping for a great furor
that evening, for there will be nothing but disappointments in the
making of points and contretemps in the management of the stage. If the
prompter turns out the foot-lights or a row of border-lights, swift
disaster is sure to come on the theatre. This was never known to fail
in her experience.
Booth will never go on the stage, no matter how late or hurried he may
be, without first pacing three time across the green-room, mumbling
over not the first, but the very last speech of the piece he is to play
that night. Then he walks on, sure of his triumph. If he should fail
in his formula, the audience would be cold and unappreciative. It has
been his custom to have _Desdemona's_ couch set in the second entrance
on the stage, left in the last scene of "Othello." According to the old
style, the couch should be set in the centre door, behind curtains,
exactly in front of the audience. Booth believes in signs, however,
and should he consent to have _Desdemona_ slumber in any other place
than U. E. L. he would lose his charm in the character of _Iago_.
[Illustration: CHANFRAU.]
Frank Chanfrau believes in the efficacy of old clothes. He has only one
suit in _Kit_, and his success is unvarying in that piece. He hates
dogs on the stage, believes in cats, knows birds are bad luck, is
convinced that a house decorated in a prevailing hue of decided blue
is sure of ill-fortune, and shudders at the mere mention of the Macbeth
music. He has steered clear of all these evil influences during his
stage career, and has been uniformly successful.
Oliver Doud Byron has a special claim in addition to the regular
superstitions of his class. He has a certain tattoo mark of India ink
on his right forearm. When he rolls up his sleeves for his "terrible
combat" in the last act of "Across the Continent," he must uncover that
mark without looking at it, or his fetich is not complete, and the
charm of his prosperity will be broken.
Charles Thorne believes his success lies in the fact that he always
steps on the stage in the first scene with his right foot foremost, and
keeps it in advance until he has delivered his first speech. This done,
he is safe and sure of a "walk over" before his critics. Once or twice
he has inadvertently stepped out with his left, and on these occasions
he has failed, or the piece has fallen flat. Such an accident happened
him on the first night of "Lost Children." Manager Palmer, of the
Union Square, who has also become a victim of stage superstitions, is
fearful of Thorne stepping out with his terrible left foot on a first
night, just out of retaliation for some slight or disagreement. Thorne,
possessing this magic power for good or evil, not at his fingers'
ends, but at the ends of his toes, is a terror to the establishment,
and on first nights is treated with distinguished consideration by the
entire company. No one gets in his way when he is about to make his
stage entrance on a first night, lest he may be thrown out of step and
advance with sinister effect upon the scene. Thorne's right foot once
put forward, every one breathes freer and plays with greater vim. The
critical point of every new play, therefore, lies, though the critics
may not think it, in the malign or favorable magic of Thorne's feet,
according as he puts them forward.
Adelaide Neilson was as superstitious as all actresses are. Her
evenly-balanced beauty and brains did not free her from the slavery of
omens. She carried about with her, ever since her first London success
in _Juliet_, a lucky silken rag--a dingy, straw-colored drapery--which
she insisted upon hanging over the railing of the balcony when _Juliet_
breathes her complaints to the moon. Without this, the fair Adelaide
was sure she could not succeed in the scene in any part of the world.
She brought the silken rag across the water with her again and again.
The drapery was somewhat faded and tattered from long service in the
two worlds, but she still clung fondly to it, and said it was possessed
of all its olden magic.
Lotta sleeps three hours by daylight, but if she should wake up ten
minutes before the usual time (just the time to rush to the theatre)
the fates are against her, and she will not do well that evening. If
any one whistles in a dressing-room within her hearing while she is
donning her costume, she is sure the person is "whistling away her
luck," and the house is going to be bad.
Fanny Davenport would not, for any consideration, miss rearranging
her wig before the green-room mirror just previous to going on the
stage. She has a regular, unvarying formula to go through to guarantee
success. She first presses her hands to the sides of her head to be
sure the springs are firmly fixed (although she has just had her
dresser make that sure in her dressing-room), then gives the "bang"
three smart tugs, puffs up the frizzes with a nervous twitch of her
fingers, presses the entire wig down from the top of her head, gives
her silken trail a final kick to induce it to unfold itself, and then
rushes pell mell to the stage in answer to the alarming cry of "stage
waiting." Without this formality she would not be herself the whole
evening.
[Illustration: FANNY DAVENPORT.]
Clara Morris believes in the efficacy of a small medicine vial, which
she carries (empty) through every scene, she says, through habit,
though it is fair to presume, through superstition. Without the vial
she could not get along.
Neilson also had a vial--a special one--which she insisted should only
be used for _Romeo's_ poison potion. She would handle no other, and has
been known to have the bill changed because the vial was mislaid, and
would not allow "Romeo and Juliet" to be put up for performance until
it was found.
Frank Mayo thinks his magic lies in an old fur cap and a hare's foot,
for rouging, which he had ever since he has been on the stage.
[Illustration: DION BOUCICAULT.]
Boucicault trembles and is sure of failure for any one of his pieces
which is greeted with commendation by all the actors without a
dissenting voice. If the players condemn his piece at the rehearsals,
he is sure the audience will like it. But in any event no play of his
can be a success unless he tears off the cover to the first act, and
makes away with the title page at the last rehearsal.
Maude Granger has a certain magic smelling-bottle which she puts to her
nostrils just before going on the stage.
Maggie Mitchell attributes her success in "Fanchon" to an old pair of
shoes which she wears in that piece.
Eliza Weathersby hates birds, doesn't like whistlers, and has for her
special charm an embroidered rose, which always appears on her dress or
tights, according to the style of part she may be playing.
Paola-Marie, the little Parisienne of Grau's opera bouffe, has a pet
pug dog which she always fondles at the side-scenes for luck, before
going on the stage. This, too, to the intense horror of the rest of the
company, who think dogs in theatres bad luck.
Sara Jewett imagines that she commands success and enslaves her
audiences by walking through her positions on the stage in her first
scene every night before the curtain is rung up for the play.
[Illustration: MRS. BOUCICAULT.]
The managers, too, share this weakness of their actors. None of them
would change their ticket-boxes for fear of a change of luck. When they
move they take their ticket-boxes with them. Wallack has the same boxes
that were used at the doors of his father's theatre years ago, and
Daly has those which received the pasteboards during his first season
of success. When Tony Pastor removed from the Bowery to Broadway he
took his boxes over there, and has them with him now in his tour over
the country. With all our modern innovations and realism, we have not
made any inroads on the folk-lore of the drama. The theatre is still
fairy-land, and its creatures, though not fairies themselves, commune
with them closely.
Actors like many other people have a perfect horror of the number
thirteen. The only man in the profession who openly defies the
superstition attaching to this number is John R. Rogers, the manager
of the "My Sweetheart" Company, of which Minnie Palmer and Robert E.
Graham are the star features. Rogers, it is said, not only got together
a company of thirteen people, in which the thirteen letters of Mr.
Graham's name stood out in uninviting prominence; but he began his
season on Friday, the 13th of the month, and in other ways wooed a dire
and speedy fate for himself and his people; but good luck appears to
have attended him, and he is still defiant as ever of the terror-laden
and ominous number. In contradistinction to Mr. Roger's success, the
failure of another combination may be given. Frank L. Gardner, who has
thirteen letters in his name, brought out the play "Legion of Honor,"
whose title is composed of exactly thirteen letters, and had Samuel
W. Piercy,--who died last winter in Boston, while supporting Edwin
Booth in his tour,--for leading man, and by doing so freighted down
his enterprise with another ill-starred feature, for Mr. Piercy's name
contained thirteen letters. The play failed, and the superstitious
people of the profession immediately attributed the failure to the
presence of too many baker's dozens in the organization. A certain
well-known prima donna whose engagement was to begin on the 13th of
the month went to the impresario and begged to have the date changed;
she said she knew she would have no luck if she began to sing on the
date provided for her; besides that her friends had persuaded her that
fortune would only frown upon her if she made her first appearance on
the 13th. The 12th was Friday, another day fraught with frightful evil
to the singing and acting fraternity, so rather than make an unlucky
beginning, the prima donna opened on the 11th, and sang two nights for
nothing, although two nights' warbling under her contract meant an
amount of money that would make a poor man's head swim.
The New York _Dramatic News_ in a late number contained a funny story
about Harry Courtaine and John E. Ince, both gentlemen well and
favorably known in the profession. Mr. Ince had solemnly professed
his non-belief in good or bad luck, after which he was invited by Mr.
Courtaine to walk with him. The _News_ tells the story in this happy
style: To a query as to where he was going, Mr. Courtaine replied that
he was to make an engagement for the coming season with a gentleman
now awaiting him at the Union Square Hotel, "and I want a witness," he
said, "but I wouldn't have one of those superstitious fellows with me
for all the world. They make me ashamed of myself with their besotted--"
Mr. Courtaine stopped suddenly and turned deadly pale. "Here, here!"
he cried, "cross fingers, quick!" and seizing Mr. Ince's hand, he
crossed the forefinger of his own over it while a tramp with one arm
slouched by them. "I saw him over my left shoulder, too," murmured Mr.
Courtaine. "Dear me! dear me! how exceedingly annoying!"
"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Ince, whom the performance of his
companion had thrown into a profound amazement. "Don't you feel well?
What is it?"
[Illustration: MAUD GRANGER.]
"Nothing," replied Mr. Courtaine, in some confusion. "A slight twinge
of my old gout. Those fellows on the square are enough to give a man
the colic, with their eternal talk about Jonahs, unlucky houses,
hoodoo managers and the like. I don't know anything I detest more than
superstition," said Mr. Courtaine, with indignant fervor. "I think it
is a lower and more debased vice than habitual drunkenness. If there
was a law passed to make it a capital offence, I'm d--d if I wouldn't
serve as hangman without asking a cent pay."
At this juncture an old woman, enveloped in an odorous combination of
rags and liquor, seized Mr. Courtaine by the sleeve and rolled two
eyes, which squinted across at each other almost at right-angles,
towards the sky, as she whined:--
"Please, good gentleman, a penny to buy a poor widow bread. Only a
penny, dear, handsome gentleman, and God go with you."
Mr. Courtaine dove into his pocket to respond to this artful appeal,
and as he did so, glanced at the old woman. Then he began a performance
which plunged his companion in a stupor of wonder. Crossing his
forefingers, he deliberately spat upon the pavement over them, and then
turning in a circle, repeated the expectoration at each of the four
points of the compass. This accomplished, he mopped the perspiration
from his pallid brow, and shuddered visibly. "It's Friday, too," he
muttered. "D--n it all! I might have known it."
"Known what?" asked Mr. Ince.
"Let's go down to Theiss's and get a beer," said Mr. Courtaine abruptly
and irrelevantly.
"You'd better see your man first," suggested the prudent Mr. Ince.
"Oh, no. He can wait; besides I think it's too late to catch him in
now. I'll hunt him up to-morrow. Come along."
The libation performed, Mr. Ince suggested that they should drop in
at the matinee at Pastor's. Mr. Courtaine favored a stroll. Mr. Ince
suggested that his programme would turn out the most pleasing one,
and Mr. Courtaine said: "Hold on; we can easily see;" and producing a
half-dollar he flipped it, asking, "What is it?"
"Heads," answered Mr. Ince.
"It's tail," remarked Mr. Courtaine. "So the stroll will turn out best.
Let's be moving."
They moved along, and as they passed a fruit stand Mr. Ince remarked:
"Hello! there are some strawberries."
"Ze first-a of ze season a-Signore," said the Neapolitan nobleman, who
presided over the destinies of the stand, with a bow of invitation, "ze
very first-a, only feefty cent-a ze box-a."
"By Jove!" cried Mr. Courtaine, picking out three of the finest and
leaving the box a quarter empty, "now, then, Ince, make a wish."
"What for?" demanded Mr. Ince, making a raid on the box on his own
account.
"Never mind," replied Mr. Courtaine, evasively, "only whenever you eat
new fruit or vegetables make a wish."
And he posted the strawberries into his oratorical orifice, and walked
off, leaving the fruit vender foaming at the mouth, and snarling
"_corpo di diavola!_ zese actor 'ave-a ze sheek-a of a policeman. Oh!
_Madonna mia!_ Eef zem boys 'ad not steal-a my club!"
The stroll was varied by no further incidents except that Mr. Courtaine
walked a block around to avoid passing a drunken man, and nearly lost
his life snatching a cast horseshoe up from in front of a street-car.
As they turned homeward Mr. Courtaine's eyes singled out a lady
approaching with an armful of bundles, and he commenced a species of
maniac gavotte, waving his hands at her and shouting: "Go into the
street. Hey! Hey! look out for the ladder!"
And when in spite of his adjurations, Mrs. Courtaine--for the lady was
none other--walked under a ladder leaning against the side of a rising
building. He sank upon a row of beer kegs and fastened a cumulative
grip on Mr. Ince's arm, exclaiming--"Did you witness it wasn't my
fault? I warned her in time, didn't I?"
* * * * *
"Do you remember my wife walking under a ladder yesterday?" observed
Mr. Courtaine to Mr. Ince on the morrow.
"Yes, what of it?"
"Well, when we got home we found the cat had killed the canary
bird--killed and ate it all but the tail feathers," said Mr. Courtaine
triumphantly. "Now what do you think of that? Here come around to
Theiss's or we'll have those fellows around us with their infernal
low-minded superstitions again."
[Illustration: PORTIA AND SHYLOCK.
PORTIA:--Nay, if the scale do turn
But in the estimation of a hair,
Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.
_Merchant of Venice, Act IV., Scene 1._
]