I think not; and that for the following reasons, as well as I can give
them:--
Actors belong to the public: their persons are not their own property.
They exhibit themselves on the stage: that is enough, without displaying
themselves in the boxes of the theatre. I conceive that an actor, on
account of the very circumstances of his profession, ought to keep
himself as much incognito as possible. He plays a number of parts
disguised, transformed into them as much as he can 'by his so potent
art,' and he should not disturb this borrowed impression by unmasking
before company more than he can help. Let him go into the pit, if he
pleases, to see--not into the first circle, to be seen. He is seen
enough without that: he is the centre of an illusion that he is bound
to support, both, as it appears to me, by a certain self-respect which
should repel idle curiosity, and by a certain deference to the public,
in whom he has inspired certain prejudices which he is covenanted not
to break. He represents the majesty of successive kings; he takes the
responsibility of heroes and lovers on himself; the mantle of genius
and nature falls on his shoulders; we 'pile millions' of associations
on him, under which he should be 'buried quick,' and not perk out an
inauspicious face upon us, with a plain-cut coat, to say, 'What fools
you all were!--I am not Hamlet the Dane!'
It is very well and in strict propriety for Mr. Mathews, in his AT HOME,
after he has been imitating his inimitable Scotchwoman, to slip out as
quick as lightning, and appear in the side-box shaking hands with our
old friend Jack Bannister. It adds to our surprise at the versatility
of his changes of place and appearance, and he had been before us in
his own person during a great part of the evening. There was no
harm done--no imaginary spell broken--no discontinuity of thought or
sentiment. Mr. Mathews is himself (without offence be it spoken) both
a cleverer and more respectable man than many of the characters he
represents. Not so when
O'er the stage the Ghost of Hamlet stalks,
Othello rages, Desdemona mourns,
And poor Monimia pours her soul in love.
A different feeling then prevails:--close, close the scene upon them,
and never break that fine phantasmagoria of the brain. Or if it must be
done at all, let us choose some other time and place for it: let no one
wantonly dash the Cirecan cup from our lips, or dissolve the spirit of
enchantment in the very palace of enchantment. Go, Mr. -----, and sit
somewhere else! What a thing it is, for instance, for any part of an
actor's dress to come off unexpectedly while he is playing! What a _cut_
it is upon himself and the audience! What an effort he has to recover
himself, and struggle through this exposure of the naked truth! It has
been considered as one of the triumphs of Garrick's tragic power, that
once, when he was playing Lear, his crown of straw came off, and nobody
laughed or took the least notice, so much had he identified himself
with the character. Was he, after this, to pay so little respect to the
feelings he had inspired, as to tear off his tattered robes, and take
the old crazed king with him to play the fool in the boxes?
No; let him pass. Vex not his parting spirit,
Nor on the rack of this rough world
Stretch him out farther!
Some lady is said to have fallen in love with Garrick from being present
when he played the part of Romeo, on which he observed, that he would
undertake to cure her of her folly if she would only come and see him in
Abel Drugger. So the modern tragedian and fine gentleman, by appearing
to advantage, and conspicuously, _in propria persona,_ may easily cure
us of our predilection for all the principal characters he shines in.
'Sir! do you think Alexander looked o' this fashion in his lifetime, or
was perfumed so? Had Julius Caesar such a nose? or wore his frill as you
do? You have slain I don't know how many heroes "with a bare bodkin,"
the gold pin in your shirt, and spoiled all the fine love speeches you
will ever make by picking your teeth with that inimitable air!'
An actor, after having performed his part well, instead of courting
farther distinction, should affect obscurity, and 'steal most
guilty-like away,' conscious of admiration that he can support nowhere
but in his proper sphere, and jealous of his own and others' good
opinion of him, in proportion as he is a darling in the public eye. He
cannot avoid attracting disproportionate attention: why should he wish
to fix it on himself in a perfectly flat and insignificant part, viz.
his own character? It was a bad custom to bring authors on the stage to
crown them. _Omne Ignotum pro magnifico est._ Even professed critics,
I think, should be shy of putting themselves forward to applaud loudly:
any one in a crowd has 'a voice potential' as the press: it is either
committing their pretensions a little indiscreetly, or confirming their
own judgment by a clapping of hands. If you only go and give the cue
lustily, the house seems in wonderful accord with your opinions. An
actor, like a king, should only appear on state occasions. He loses
popularity by too much publicity; or, according to the proverb,
_familiarity breeds contempt._ Both characters personate a certain
abstract idea, are seen in a fictitious costume, and when they have
'shuffled off this more than mortal coil,' they had better keep out
of the way--the acts and sentiments emanating from themselves will not
carry on the illusion of our prepossessions. Ordinary transactions do
not give scope to grace and dignity like romantic situations or prepared
pageants, and the _little_ is apt to prevail over the _great,_ if we
come to count the instances.
The motto of a great actor should be _aut Caesar aut nihil._ I do not
see how with his crown, or plume of feathers, he can get through
those little box-doors without stooping and squeezing his artificial
importance to tatters. The entrance of the stage is arched so high 'that
_players_ may get through, and keep their gorgeous turbans on, without
good-morrow to the gods!'
The top-tragedian of the day has too large and splendid a train
following him to have room for them in one of the dress-boxes. When he
appears there, it should be enlarged expressly for the occasion; for at
his heels march the figures, in full costume, of Cato, and Brutus, and
Cassius, and of him with the falcon eye, and Othello, and Lear, and
crook-backed Richard, and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and numbers more,
and demand entrance along with him, shadows to which he alone lends
bodily substance! 'The graves yawn and render up their dead to push us
from our stools.' There is a mighty bustle at the door, a gibbering and
squeaking in the lobbies. An actor's retinue is imperial, it presses
upon the imagination too much, and he should therefore slide unnoticed
into the pit. Authors, who are in a manner his makers and masters, sit
there contented--why should not he? 'He is used to show himself.' That,
then, is the very reason he should conceal his person at other times. A
habit of ostentation should not be reduced to a principle. If I had
seen the late Gentleman Lewis fluttering in a prominent situation in the
boxes, I should have been puzzled whether to think of him as the Copper
Captain, or as Bobadil, or Ranger, or Young Rapid, or Lord Foppington,
or fifty other whimsical characters; then I should have got Munden and
Quick and a parcel more of them in my head, till 'my brain would have
been like a smoke-jack': I should not have known what to make of it;
but if I had seen him in the pit, I should merely have eyed him with
respectful curiosity, and have told every one that that was Gentleman
Lewis. We should have concluded from the circumstance that he was a
modest, sensible man: we all knew beforehand that he could show off
whenever he pleased!
There is one class of performers that I think is quite exempt from the
foregoing reasoning, I mean _retired actors._ Come when they will and
where they will, they are welcome to their old friends. They have as
good a right to sit in the boxes as children at the holidays. But they
do not, somehow, come often. It is but a melancholy recollection with
them:--
Then sweet,
Now sad to think on!
Mrs. Garrick still goes often, and hears the applause of her husband
over again in the shouts of the pit. Had Mrs. Pritchard or Mrs. Clive
been living, I am afraid we should have seen little of them-it would
have been too _home_ a feeling with them. Mrs. Siddons seldom if ever
goes, and yet she is almost the only thing left worth seeing there. She
need not stay away on account of any theory that I can form. She is out
of the pale of all theories, and annihilates all rules. Wherever she
sits there is grace and grandeur, there is tragedy personified. Her
seat is the undivided throne of the Tragic Muse. She had no need of the
robes, the sweeping train, the ornaments of the stage; in herself she is
as great as any being she ever represented in the ripeness and plenitude
of her power! I should not, I confess, have had the same paramount
abstracted feeling at seeing John Kemble there, whom I venerate at a
distance, and should not have known whether he was playing off the great
man or the great actor:--
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
I know it may be said in answer to all this pretext of keeping the
character of the player inviolate, 'What is there more common, in fact,
than for the hero of a tragedy to speak the prologue, or than for the
heroine, who has been stabbed or poisoned, to revive, and come forward
laughing in the epilogue?' As to the epilogue, it is spoken to get rid
of the idea of the tragedy altogether, and to ward off the fury of the
pit, who may be bent on its damnation. The greatest incongruity you can
hit upon is, therefore, the most proper for this purpose. But I deny
that the hero of a tragedy, or the principal character in it, is ever
pitched upon to deliver the prologue. It is always, by prescription,
some walking shadow, some poor player, who cannot even spoil a part
of any consequence. Is there not Mr. Claremont always at hand for
this purpose, whom the late king pronounced three times to be 'a bad
actor'?(1) What is there in common between that accustomed wave of the
hand and the cocked hat under the arm, and any passion or person that
can be brought forward on the stage? It is not that we can be said to
acquire a prejudice against so harmless an actor as Mr. Claremont:
we are born with a prejudice against a speaker of prologues. It is an
innate idea: a natural instinct: there is a particular organ in the
brain provided for it. Do we not all hate a manager? It is not because
he is insolent or impertinent, or fond of making ridiculous speeches, or
a notorious puffer, or ignorant, or mean, or vain, but it is because we
see him in a coat, waistcoat, and breeches. The stage is the world of
fantasy: it is Queen Mab that has invited us to her revels there, and
all that have to do with it should wear motley!
Lastly, there are some actors by profession whose faces we like to see
in the boxes or anywhere else; but it is because they are no actors, but
rather gentlemen and scholars, and in their proper places in the boxes,
or wherever they are. Does not an actor himself, I would ask, feel
conscious and awkward in the boxes if he thinks that he is known? And
does he not sit there in spite of this uneasy feeling, and run the
gauntlet of impertinent looks and whispers, only to get a little
by-admiration, as he thinks? It is hardly to be supposed that he comes
to see the play--the show. He must have enough of plays and finery. But
he wants to see a favourite (perhaps a rival) actor in a striking part.
Then the place for him to do this is the pit. Painters, I know, always
get as close up to a picture they want to copy as they can; and I should
imagine actors would want to do the same, in order to look into the
texture and mechanism of their art. Even theatrical critics can make
nothing of a part that they see from the boxes. If you sit in the
stage-box, your attention is drawn off by the company and other
circumstances. If you get to a distance (so as to be out of the reach of
notice) you can neither hear nor see well. For myself, I would as soon
take a seat on the top of the Monument to give an account of a first
appearance, as go into the second or third tier of boxes to do it.
I went, but the other day, with a box-ticket to see Miss Fanny Brunton
come out in Juliet, and Mr. Macready make a first appearance in Romeo;
and though I was told (by a tolerable judge) that the new Juliet was
the most elegant figure on the stage, and that Mr. Macready's Romeo was
quite beautiful, I vow to God I knew nothing of it. So little could
I tell of the matter that at one time I mistook Mr. Horrebow for Mr.
Abbott. I have seen Mr. Kean play Sir Giles Overreach one night from the
front of the pit, and a few nights after from the front boxes facing the
stage. It was another thing altogether. That which had been so lately
nothing but flesh and blood, a living fibre, 'instinct with fire' and
spirit, was no better than a little fantoccini figure, darting backwards
and forwards on the stage, starting, screaming, and playing a number
of fantastic tricks before the audience. I could account, in the latter
instance, for the little approbation of the performance manifested
around me, and also for the general scepticism with respect to Mr.
Kean's acting, which has been said to prevail among those who
cannot condescend to go into the pit, and have not interest in the
orchestra--to see him act. They may, then, stay away altogether. His
face is the running comment on his acting, which reconciles the audience
to it. Without that index to his mind, you are not prepared for the
vehemence and suddenness of his gestures; his pauses are long, abrupt,
and unaccountable, if not filled up by the expression; it is in the
working of his face that you see the writhing and coiling up of the
passions before they make their serpent-spring; the lightning of his eye
precedes the hoarse burst of thunder from his voice.
One may go into the boxes, indeed, and criticise acting and actors with
Sterne's stop-watch, but not otherwise--'"And between the nominative
case and the verb (which, as your lordship knows, should agree together
in number, person, etc.) there was a full pause of a second and
two-thirds."--"But was the eye silent--did the look say nothing?" "I
looked only at the stop-watch, my lord."--"Excellent critic!"'--If any
other actor, indeed, goes to see Mr. Kean act, with a view _to avoid
imitation,_ this may be the place, or rather it is the way to run into
it, for you see only his extravagances and defects, which are the most
easily carried away. Mr. Mathews may translate him into an AT HOME even
from the _slips!_--Distinguished actors, then, ought, I conceive, to set
the example of going into the pit, were it only for their own sakes. I
remember a trifling circumstance, which I worked up at the time into
a confirmation of this theory of mine, engrafted on old prejudice and
tradition.(2) I had got into the middle of the pit, at considerable
risk of broken bones, to see Mr. Kean in one of his early parts, when I
perceived two young men seated a little behind me, with a certain space
left round them. They were dressed in the height of the fashion, in
light drab-coloured greatcoats, and with their shirt-sleeves drawn down
over their hands, at a time when this was not so common as it has since
become. I took them for younger sons of some old family at least. One of
them, that was very good-looking, I thought might be Lord Byron, and
his companion might be Mr. Hobhouse. They seemed to have wandered from
another sphere of this our planet to witness a masterly performance to
the utmost advantage. This stamped the thing. They were, undoubtedly,
young men of rank and fashion; but their taste was greater than their
regard for appearances. The pit was, after all, the true resort of
thoroughbred critics and amateurs. When there was anything worth seeing,
this was the place; and I began to feel a sort of reflected importance
in the consciousness that I also was a critic. Nobody sat near them--it
would have seemed like an intrusion. Not a syllable was uttered.--They
were two clerks in the Victualling Office!
What I would insist on, then, is this--that for Mr. Kean, or Mr. Young,
or Mr. Macready, or any of those that are 'cried out upon in the top of
the compass' to obtrude themselves voluntarily or ostentatiously
upon our notice, when they are out of character, is a solecism in
theatricals. For them to thrust themselves forward before the scenes, is
to drag us behind them against our will, than which nothing can be more
fatal to a true passion for the stage, and which is a privilege that
should be kept sacred for impertinent curiosity. Oh! while I live, let
me not be admitted (under special favour) to an actor's dressing-room.
Let me not see how Cato painted, or how Caesar combed! Let me not meet
the prompt-boys in the passage, nor see the half-lighted candles stuck
against the bare walls, nor hear the creaking of machines, or the
fiddlers laughing; nor see a Columbine practising a pirouette in sober
sadness, nor Mr. Grimaldi's face drop from mirth to sudden melancholy
as he passes the side-scene, as if a shadow crossed it, nor witness the
long-chinned generation of the pantomime sit twirling their thumbs,
nor overlook the fellow who holds the candle for the moon in the scene
between Lorenzo and Jessica! Spare me this insight into secrets I am not
bound to know. The stage is not a mistress that we are sworn to undress.
Why should we look behind the glass of fashion? Why should we prick the
bubble that reflects the world, and turn it to a little soap and water?
Trust a little to first appearances--leave something to fancy. I observe
that the great puppets of the real stage, who themselves play a grand
part, like to get into the boxes over the stage; where they see nothing
from the proper point of view, but peep and pry into what is going on
like a magpie looking into a marrow-bone. This is just like them. So
they look down upon human life, of which they are ignorant. They see the
exits and entrances of the players, something that they suspect is
meant to be kept from them (for they think they are always liable to be
imposed upon): the petty pageant of an hour ends with each scene long
before the catastrophe, and the tragedy of life is turned to farce under
their eyes. These people laugh loud at a pantomime, and are delighted
with clowns and pantaloons. They pay no attention to anything else. The
stage-boxes exist in contempt of the stage and common sense. The private
boxes, on the contrary, should be reserved as the receptacle for the
officers of state and great diplomatic characters, who wish to avoid,
rather than court popular notice!