THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE
The Optics
Thick-and-thin admirers of Duse, an actress of indisputable genius, used
to praise her because she dispensed with the "make-up" that other
players deem necessary. They saw in this a glorious fidelity to nature.
Their position became a little ridiculous when, somewhat later, the
actress--possibly in compliance with the advice of critical
worshippers--adopted the ordinary devices of the stage and pressed into
service the make-up box and even the aid of the wigmaker.
Presumably the change in policy was due to a more careful consideration
of the optics of the stage. For it may be assumed that she "made up" in
order to counteract the privative effects of the stage lights and appear
neither more nor less beautiful and expressive to the public in the
playhouse than to her friends in her drawing-room. This leads to the
important paradox that in the theatre you must be artificial if you wish
to appear natural; that on the stage, verisimilitude is greater truth
than truth itself; or, to use the popular oxymoron, you must be "falsely
true." In this respect the matter of "make-up" is only an instance of a
general law prevailing in all matters theatrical.
Let no one think less of the players on account of it, for it is this
fact that entitles the actor to speak of his art and not merely of his
craft. It is because the player must select, eliminate, exaggerate,
diminish and, in a word, modify his matter but may not be photographic,
that he is entitled to call himself an artist.
The term "photographic" used in this sense is rather unfair, for the
photographer has become an artist by recognizing the fact that he too
must select, etc. No doubt "make-up" renders other services, and belongs
to the artifices as well as the arts of the stage, since it has the
advantage in some cases of rendering the plain beautiful--to the
discomfiture of stage-door loafers, and, indeed, possesses an abominable
democratic effect. Of course, too, it has legitimate value in effecting
disguises, in changing young into old--its efforts in the contrary
direction, as a rule, are ghastly failures--and in effecting
transformations of the exterior of persons. However, "make-up," despite
its mysteries, is but a small element in "the optics of the theatre,"
which term is here used largely--and inaccurately--in relation to all
the phenomena covered by the paradox already mentioned.
The player, having counterbalanced with "make-up" the robbery effected
by the stage illumination and also by the disadvantage of distance, has
to turn himself to the adjustment of other matters. One is this--he must
recognize that his author labours under similar conditions, and should
not be "photographic."
When the dramatist in the dialogue has exaggerated the play of light and
shade, bringing, indeed, legitimately for the sake of effect to his
speeches, that energy of chiaroscuro which gives us a pleasure, somewhat
distrustful in the pictures of Joseph Wright of Derby, the player must
attune his manner in order to make it congruous with the highly
seasoned conversation so that there being no clash of methods, no
jarring will result.
Every change of convention on the part of the author demands a
corresponding change in the actor. Clearly, he must speak verse
differently from prose, though there are foes to poetry who beg him to
break up the lines and defeat the efforts of the poet; and he must adopt
a manner in a blank-verse tragedy unsuitable to a play by Mr Barrie.
Moreover, he ought to aim at seeming natural in both. Here is the rub;
he must aim at seeming, not being, natural. Obviously, one cannot
deliver blank verse naturally; such, however, is the power of
make-believe in the audience that if the dramatist and his company can
engage the sympathy of the spectators, a fairy tale in rhymed lines, a
tragedy in unrhymed verse, a melodrama with flatulent phrases, and a
comedy seeking the most exact reproduction of modern life permissible
may seem equally plausible, credible, natural.
It is to be noted, too, that the form of artificiality of truth varies
not only with the type and quality of the drama but with the nature of
the audience. Speaking of our times, one may say that a little greater
vigour of contrast is desirable in the provinces than in town, and in
the "B" towns than the "A," in the "C" than the "B," and goodness knows
what violence is not needed in the "fit-up" shows. There are reasons for
believing that our ancestors demanded a more full-blooded style of
acting than is relished by their anaemic descendants, and it is possible
that such a performance as convinced the eighteenth century of the
genius of some of its players might cause laughter nowadays, though
neither audience nor actors would deserve censure.
Within the time of even our younger critics there have been at least
two tragedians who enjoyed an immense reputation save in town, but
failed to win success in the West End of the Metropolis, though outside
they held their own against the greatest favourites; and the London
critics levelled at them the dreadful charge of "barn-storming"--a
charge which some of us no doubt would make against several of the
greatest tragedians in our proud records were they to appear to-day and
act as in their own times.
It is a feature of the actor's art that its excellence is never
absolute. An audience is entitled to say, "What care I how good he be if
he seem not good to me?" A performance that does not move the spectators
is not only a failure but to some extent a culpable failure, since the
actor's art is more utterly ephemeral than any other--possibly by aid of
gramophone, biograph, and the like some fairly effective records will be
made in the future--but, this consideration apart, he may not even take
heed for the morrow. At the moment his mission is to move the particular
collection of people before him, and though they may be culpable for not
being moved he will not be wholly blameless.
Possibly this is putting the matter a little too harshly, and the
observations should be considered as applicable only to a particular
"run" and not to an individual night. Doubtless, even thus restricted,
it suggests that the player should make a remarkable series of
modifications in his methods which are not within the practical politics
of the stage; and, indeed, these remarks are pushed purposely too far in
order to draw attention to the fact that the actors are prone to
consider their own "reading" of a part without reference to the
audience, and even, in some cases, to the author. In other words, they
are misled by the delusive term "create," so often applied to acting as
well as to millinery. The word is inappropriate to the rapidly
evanescent. "Original interpreters" is the highest phrase that can be
justified.
These observations would be incomplete without some reference to more
material aspects of the "optics." For instance, one may comment on the
fact that, regardless of seating arrangements, which in almost every
theatre cause a considerable number of people to be unable to see the
exits on one side or the other, important business is often transacted
in the wings, to the intense annoyance of would-be spectators, who are
left out in the cold, and of course imagine that what they miss is the
plum of the play; also valuable scenes are sometimes played so far back
that people in the higher parts of the house are unable to see them
properly. This sounds perilously like an invitation to players to take
the centre of the stage close to the footlights, but of course the
matter is one of degree.
Yet, at the least, it must be urged that nothing, the exact
understanding of which is necessary to the audience, should happen much
on one side or very far back; to this may be added the suggestion,
hardly novel, that the first few minutes of each act should be confined
to immaterial affairs; blame the unpunctual--even if you blame unfairly,
since, as a rule, the _entr'acte_ warning bell is inaudible in most
parts of the theatre--but do not make the guiltless suffer by presenting
important matters during the time when the stage is half hidden by the
people struggling (through a passage as a rule shamefully narrow) to get
to their seats. Sardou's precepts may be pushed too far, and we do not
need a whole first act of nothing in particular, but facts should be
recognized and simple common-sense considered. There is always some
trouble during the first few minutes of each act.
Make-up
The word "make-up" is very ugly, but seems irreplaceable, and therefore
is employed in the book called "The Art of Theatrical Make-up," by Mr
Cavendish Morton, the object of which is to tell players--amateurs as
well as professionals--how to make-up. No doubt it will render useful
service to the actor--to the actor, since nothing is said in it about
the actress and make-up in relation to her.
Thereby hangs something of importance. The actress has held her own
against the actor: even the most unkind critic of the fair sex cannot
deny that the achievements of women on the stage are as great as the
achievements of men, although they have been a shorter time at the game,
and have not had so many splendid parts written for them. Yet make-up
has been of little assistance to actresses.
Eleanora Duse at the present moment is probably accepted as the greatest
living player of the world. Of late years she has, to some extent, used
make-up, but with great moderation. One can imagine her tossing aside a
book such as Mr Morton's, and asking what on earth it has to do with the
art of acting, and I fancy that tremendously rapid speech of hers would
be used effectively if she were to read such a sentence as this: "Is not
half the battle won when one perfectly physically realizes the character
to be impersonated?" By which the author clearly means that half the
battle is won when, by the aid of nose-paste or "toupee" paste and
grease-paint, powder, crêpe hair, spirit-gum, wig and the like, one has
arrived at looking like the character.
Instead of this being half the battle, it does not amount to a tenth. Of
course something must be done to counteract the effect of the lighting
on the stage, and no one can complain if the players use the well-known
devices to heighten their charms; and wigs and false beards and
moustaches and whiskers may be serviceable at times; but to take such
matters seriously seems an egregious mistake. Indeed, when looking at
the result, one is inclined, unconsciously, to use a criticism by
employing the phrase, "What a capital make-up." Mr So-and-so enters as
Caliban, or Napoleon Bonaparte, or Charles II., or Falstaff. In a few
seconds, or it may be minutes, we can identify him without the aid of
the programme; and, of course, we say, "what a capital make-up," but the
whole thing is merely a Madame Tussaud aspect of drama.
Make-up has comparatively little to do with the capacity of an actor for
differentiating his parts. Take Mr Dennis Eadie, who has an
extraordinary gift for changing his personality. Those who have seen
this admirable actor as Henry Jackson in _The Return of the Prodigal_,
as Lord Charles Cantelupe in _Waste_, and Mr Wylder in _Strife_, must
admit that changes of voice, of gesture and manner, and general
expression of countenance are of greater value than tons of the
cleverest make-up.
The service of make-up in its higher branches is merely to render, or,
rather, seem to render, actors fit for tasks for which they are
physically unsuited. Take for instance, the nose; there is a picture of
Mr Morton with flattened nose and enlarged nostrils; he is said to
represent Othello. "The nose is first depressed by crossing it near the
tip with a silk thread, which is tied at the back of the head. A small
piece of kid is placed under the thread, thus keeping it from coming in
contact with the skin. The nostrils are built out until the nose has a
Moorish appearance."
Now, nobody thinks a whit the worse or less of Mr Forbes Robertson's
Othello because he played no tricks with his striking aquiline nose; and
the idea that he would have gained anything by flattening it with a bit
of silk thread is absurd. What he would have gained would have been a
feeling of physical inconvenience during the quiet passages, and terror
during the tremendous scenes of passion at the thought that the string
might snap.
There are photographs of other noses, built up with nose-paste or,
preferably, with "toupee" paste; one is of Falstaff, another of Shylock,
and there is also one called "the Professor." In each case the whole
nose looks wooden; it may be suggested that in an ordinary way movements
of the nose do not play much of a part in expressing emotions, yet we
have phrases about swelling nostrils and turning up one's nose that
possess some foundation in fact. Further, one can hardly render the nose
a dead thing without, to some extent, effecting the mobility of other
features. Probably the built-up nose of Coquelin as Cyrano de Bergerac
will be thrown in my face; it must, however, be remembered, that apart
from his large elastic mouth Coquelin's face was rather wooden, and he
relied for expression chiefly on voice, mouth, gesture and movement. No
doubt in this particular character there is a necessity, and, therefore,
a justification for a built-up nose; but more than one actor has failed
to fight successfully against the artificial proboscis of Cyrano.
Used as more than a counteracting or embellishing contrivance,
"make-up" is curiously ineffective. Many Napoleons have appeared on the
stage, only one of them by a writer capable of even suggesting the
distinguishing qualities of the man of genius. In most cases there have
been advance paragraphs about the pictures, miniatures, statues,
statuettes, medallions, bas-reliefs, etc., consulted by the actor, and
concerning the contrivances of the wigmaker, even the bootmaker and
tailor. What has been the outcome? Merely that for half-a-minute people
have said: "What a clever make-up," and for the rest of the time one has
been no more content to accept the player as Jupiter Scapin than if he
had washed his face, brushed his hair and acted in his dress clothes.
Does Mr Cavendish Morton think players were really worse off before the
latest refinements in make-up were invented? Some of the greatest acting
triumphs of the world were accomplished when the players dressed their
parts absurdly, trusting almost exclusively to their own powers.
One is forced to wonder to what extent covering the face with the mass
of muck hinders the actor in his work. People can be trained to endure
it, but it would be interesting to see the difference in the performance
of a given part by an actor with an elaborate make-up--false nose,
etc.--and by the same actor without. Mr Arthur Bourchier, when growing a
beard for the purpose of playing Henry VIII., stated that he would have
been embarrassed by a sham beard. Can it be that the triumph that we
sometimes see, of the actress over the actor, is partly due to the fact
that she reduces make-up to the minimum?
No one denies the necessity for make-up. When young players have to
represent old people it is their duty to take advantage of the advice of
experts such as Mr Morton, and every one may find valuable hints in his
book. The really important fact is that all should be warned against
such a proposition as lies in the hideous sentence, "Is not half the
battle won when one perfectly physically realizes the character to be
impersonated?"
Gesture
Some years ago, at one of the theatrical clubs, the existence of which
is one of the many tokens of the great interest at present taken in the
drama, Mr Alfred Robbins, a very able, highly esteemed critic, gave a
lecture upon "The Value of Ballet in Dramatic Art," which was
illustrated charmingly. For, in order to show how a story could be
interpreted without words, Miss Genée, the brilliant dancer, ably
assisted by Miss D. Craske, represented the ballet scene from _Nicholas
Nickleby_, between the infant phenomenon and the Indian.
There was no little discussion afterwards upon the question whether the
art of miming, one of the two main elements of the ballet, is or can be
serviceable to the ordinary stage. Several seemed to have the opinion
that the art of dumb show is almost useless to the player, the argument
being that, as far at least as modern comedies are concerned, so little
gesture is used on the stage that training in the mode of employing it
is superfluous. The introduction of trouser pockets was said to have
destroyed the need for gesture. In such views lie certain dangerous
fallacies.
The actor who thinks that by mode of speech and facial display, and
without carefully calculated gesture, he can carry through a part in a
modern comedy probably is misled by the thought that the English are
more sober in gesture than the Latin races: and his contempt for the
work of the mime is based on a belief that certain purely conventional
gestures, inapplicable save in wordless scenes, constitute the whole
materials of the mime's art. The mime certainly has a kind of dumb
language with a limited vocabulary, understood, unfortunately, by few
English people save those connected with the stage; part of his silent
speech has never crept into the common language; yet to sneer at it as
conventional is wrong, it is merely a case of certain conventional
gestures not having been generally adopted, and therefore remaining
unintelligible to the world.
For most of our gestures are conventional. Nearly all peoples understand
what the European means when he shakes his head and when he nods it;
nevertheless, there are races which use these movements in an exactly
opposite sense. The offer to rub noses as a sign of welcome employed by
some tribes was misunderstood by early explorers, and when, in friendly
spirit, certain tribes stroked the waistcoat of the missionary, he
guessed that they were cannibals.
Kissing (in one aspect a matter of gesture) is unused by whole nations,
and so, too, is handshaking. It has been said by a traveller that the
vulgar operation described by Barham in the line "Put his thumb unto his
nose and spread his fingers out" is a mark of courtesy and esteem in one
remote nation; nor is putting out the tongue a sign of contempt
everywhere. Certain of the gestures of ballet still strictly
conventional in England are employed outside the theatre in France.
Gesture and facial expression, except so far as mechanically due to
emotion, are entirely conventional, though some of the conventions are
so old as to have become second nature.
Most people are unaware how largely they adopt the conventions; this
unconscious adoption in the end has turned the conventional into the
natural. It is the study of this conventional-natural which enables the
mime to accomplish remarkable feats; combining it with simple
descriptive movements, and a few of the gestures still purely
conventional in England, Signor Rossi, in _A Pierrot's Life_, was able
to delight our audiences by his dumb-show narration of the complicated
tale of the two pigeons, and Signora Litini in the same piece showed
with subtlety a whole gamut of emotions. Miss Genée, at the Empire,
without uttering a sound, used to be more eloquent than many of our
players with whole lengths of dialogue. To a great extent Duse
fascinates most playgoers by her plastic art, since they do not
understand her speech.
Now, to employ to its full extent the art of the mime in conjunction
with spoken speech would be absurd. The light and shade in the speech of
the most "natural" actor--say, Mr Charles Hawtrey--is violently
exaggerated on account of the peculiar acoustics of the theatre; amongst
other things, the player has to address those far off in the galleries
as well as those close to in the stalls, and therefore his work requires
a series of compromises like that of a piano-tuner anxious to avoid
"wolves" or a politician eager to win votes. Moreover, on account of the
lack of speech the plastic art of the mime involves great exaggeration
in the conventional-natural gestures and also in the movements and
facial expression intended to represent those mechanically caused by
emotion.
It is therefore necessary for the actor to mime in a modified and
restrained fashion, abandoning, of course, all the still purely
conventional and showing much moderation in the rest. When he nicely
combines expression by the voice with expression by face, gesture and
pose the result is very valuable. Few can do this, and the failure is
nearly always in respect of gesture, which is misused or insufficiently
employed. A study of the great statues and pictures, and such works as
those of Sir Charles Bell, Lavater, Duchesne, Gratiolet and Darwin has
enabled the mime to collect a series of rules for the expression of
emotions. How rash of the player to trust entirely to his own ideas, and
not avail himself of the knowledge of others! Some may regard such
conduct as exhibiting originality: it is, however, a sad waste of time
to try to find out for oneself what others are willing and able to
teach, and there is a great risk of error.
Moreover, the mime teaches grace of movement and pose, and enables the
player to employ usefully the limbs which as a rule seem an encumbrance
to him. The poor ladies have not even trouser-pockets wherein to hide
the hands, the existence of which embarrasses them, but they can conceal
the legs, which so often are troublesome to the actor.
The restlessness of English acting--one of its worst faults--is, I
believe, due to the player feeling half-consciously that he does not
know what to do when he is not speaking. In a conversation scene, during
which two finely trained artists would not leave their seats, our
players generally appear to be having a game of musical chairs; and
actors could be named who take their "constitutionals" on the stage.
Moreover, one very rarely sees a player listening effectively, yet I
have watched an actor who, though silent during a long speech, has by
means of finely studied poses and nicely calculated gestures greatly
increased the force of the speech to which he was supposed to be
listening. No doubt all actors and actresses seek the aid of pose and
gesture and get advice from stage-managers: very often the case is one
of the blind leading the blind.
It will be objected that a study of such a system may tend to make the
player mechanical, and also to cause all the members of a company to
resemble one another too greatly: there is some truth in the objection.
Still, this is an abuse not inseparable from the use. The intelligent
mime fully recognizes the fact that the gestures proper to the members
of one class of people are not necessarily suitable to those of another,
and that there are individual differences as well. He distinguishes
between the sober, and therefore striking, gesture of the Englishman and
the unimpressive gesticulation of the meridional; between the poses of
the king and attitudes of the peasant, and so on.
The highly trained artist knows how, upon rare occasions, to produce a
great effect by conscious breach of a rule. To argue against a use from
a _needless_ abuse is not legitimate, a proposition dear to Jeremy
Bentham. There is also a grave fallacy in the idea that gesture is less
important in presenting an Englishman than a member of a gesticulative
race, for vehement gesture is impressive in direct proportion to its
rarity, and effects have been produced by the fine, slight movement of
one of our actresses at a critical moment which surpassed in force
anything possible if she had been lavish in gesture throughout. Need it
be added that the training of the body insisted upon by the mime would
cause some of our players to move more gracefully on the stage? Several
of our popular players walk as if they had hired their limbs and not
had time to become accustomed to them.
Scenery at the French Plays
One might almost say there is none. A foreign management at the New
Royalty Theatre produced a number of works mounted in a fashion that
would horrify an ordinary West End London manager, and yet the rather
daring season was really successful. So much the better. Probably if the
cost of production of each play had been ten times greater nobody's
pleasure would have been appreciably increased and the receipts would
not have advanced perceptibly. It is doubtful whether the scenery for
the baker's dozen or so of plays cost as much as is often expended by
our managers on a single work.
Is there no lesson in this? Why, if an audience can be attracted,
interested, and even delighted in the Soho house, though play and
players are not aided by the expenditure of barrelfuls of money on the
mounting, should it be deemed necessary to employ a small fortune every
time a work is presented by our native managers? As far as I can judge,
the French season, although triumphant, was not marked by the appearance
of any prodigious star with whom we were not already familiar, nor were
the new pieces of astounding quality.
The truth is that the assistance given by costly mounting is very
little. The scene which by its magnificence causes a gasp of surprise
loses all its effect after two or three minutes, and unless the play and
acting are really meritorious the audience is quite as much bored when
the mounting is splendid as when it is merely decent. Possibly it is
even more bored; unwittingly it is affected by a sense of disproportion.
We all know that jewellery does not embellish a plain woman; that, on
the contrary, after a minute or two, one ceases to gaze on the gewgaws
and then the sight of the ugly face comes as something of a shock.
Consider the jarring effect of a noble pearl necklace upon a scraggy
neck, and, changing the figure, think how disappointing is a bad dinner
served beautifully. There is a French phrase concerning a scanty meal on
a flower-decked table that seems in point: _Il m'a invité à brouter et
je l'ai envoye paître._ Sydney Smith, after a mean dinner served in a
gorgeous room, observed that he would prefer "a little less gilding and
a little more carving."
Mr H.B. Irving, in a lecture given at the Royal Institution, ascribed
the alleged pre-eminence of actors during the Garrick period to the
weakness of the current drama and the economy in stage-mounting, two
matters that forced the players to tremendous exertion in order to hold
the house, which, by the way, he believes to have been very finely
critical. An audience is more truly observant of plays and playing when
its attention is not distracted by considering the cost of the costumes,
by wondering if the marble pillars are solid, by curiosity as to how the
lighting effects are contrived, and by asking whether the play will run
long enough to earn its initial cost.
Whether the large sums of money expended produce an effect agreeable to
the trained eye is a little outside the topic. Yet it must be suggested
that such beauty as the costly stage pictures present generally belongs
to the category of the very obvious. This is not surprising; if a great
deal of money is spent in order to produce a gorgeous spectacle,
common-sense demands that the result should be to the taste of a vast
number of people, otherwise the management must lose money. It would be
idle to pretend that there are very many playgoers who possess fine
taste, consequently the money must be lavished in order to delight
people with a more or less uncultivated taste. No doubt a great deal of
money may be spent on quiet details, and sometimes is, without the
attention of the ordinary playgoer being drawn to the expenditure, but
the case is exceptional. In plain English, it very rarely happens that
the extravagant sums employed in mounting plays produce a beauty that
appeals successfully to any people save those whose ideas of the
pictorial art are bounded by the exhibitions of the Royal Academy.
Moreover, consideration is paid to the fact that there are Philistines
who will admire a thing merely because they believe it to be costly.
Certainly there is much to be said on the other side, or at least a
great deal is urged by people who believe what they say. It has been
pretended that Shakespeare would have been delighted by such productions
of his works as we have seen in modern times, and have rejoiced in the
pictures contrived by the scene-painter, costumier and others working
under the direction of the producer. To this it has been objected that,
though the pictures might have pleased him, he would have been disgusted
by the fact that a good many of his beautiful lines have to be cut
because of the length of _entr'actes_ and occasional pieces of stage
business designed in order to draw the attention of the audience to the
beauty of the scenery.
The reply is made that a large quantity of the most famous passages in
Shakespeare are descriptive of scenery, and would not have been written
but for the fact that he had no other means of conveying his ideas to
the audience. If there be any truth in this, one may be very thankful
for the fact which coerced him into his word-painting. Certainly the
world has profited by this compulsion, for millions who have never and
will never see the theatre's efforts to represent Shakespeare's pictures
have had infinite pleasure from the author's successful endeavours to
realize his ideas by the force of words.
As I have already mentioned, Mr H.B. Irving ascribes the alleged
superiority of the Garrick-period actors to their lacking the help of
the fine scenery of notable contemporary dramas. It would seem to follow
that in his opinion the alleged weakness of modern acting is due to the
fact that the players rely too much upon the plays and scenery. Upon
this aspect of the matter no opinion need be offered, but it may be said
confidently that Mr Irving's theory applies to dramatists, and that the
existing playwrights unconsciously become somewhat less self-reliant
because they have such assistance from the producers.
The art of the theatre is the art of illusion and also of compromise,
and no rule connected with the stage can be pushed quite home to its
apparent logical conclusions: therefore one must have some amount of
appropriate scenery, and costumes may not be flagrantly incongruous; but
when once these modest demands have been satisfied the audience will be
well content with mounting in which nothing more is involved if the play
be well written and acted, and agreeable in style to its taste; and we
know very well that some of the longest runs have been enjoyed by works
produced at little cost.
The New Royalty productions would not have pleased people any the more
by having money lavished upon scenery. In one or two cases, for a moment
or two some of us smiled a little unkindly at the black cloth and wings,
and yet after a minute or two we ceased to notice them, with the result
that the management has been able to save its money in the individual
works and to produce a large number of pieces in a short time. Putting
aside plays merely intended for spectacular effect, after a few hundred
pounds have been spent managers do not get the benefit to the extent of
more than a shilling in the pound or so of the really enormous sums
expended upon plays.
Stage Costumes
There is a story concerning an enthusiastic collector who devoted almost
a fortune and nearly a lifetime to decorating and furnishing his
drawing-room so that it should resemble perfectly a Louis XV. _salon_.
He invited an expert to visit it and express his opinion. The critic
came, inspected, left the room, and locked the door; then he said, "It
is perfect," and promptly threw the key into the moat. "Why did you do
that?" asked the collector. "For fear," replied the expert, "lest
anybody should spoil the effect of your _salon_ by entering it in modern
costume inharmonious with it." There is another tale about a hostess who
wept sorely because the effect of her dinner-table decoration was marred
by the appearance of a lady in a costume of pillar-box vermilion. These
stories are entirely untrue, and were invented by "G.F.S.":
nevertheless, they have a moral when applied to the stage.
Of course it is very rash for a male, unless he happens to be a man
milliner, to write about the costumes of actresses; and we leave
untouched the clothes of the actor, lest our own and their lack of style
should be put forward as a ground for disqualification. Still it is
impossible to avoid noticing the dresses of the ladies upon the stage;
it would even be bad manners not to do so, seeing how much trouble the
dear creatures take to please our eyes, for we are too gallant or vain
to believe the cynical idea that they only dress to crush one another.
After noticing them, it is amusing and amazing to read the newspaper
articles generally called "Dresses at the * * * Theatre" which appear
after a _première_. Of course exception is made of the articles written
for a paper necessarily nameless. Even with good opera-glasses one can
yet never detect a tenth of the details described in these articles, and
at times it appears that the writers suffer from colour-blindness, for
they often differ utterly as to the colours of the gowns; perhaps it is
more modern to call them "frocks."
There is, however, a simple explanation. The clothes critics have
described their subjects from an inspection at the milliner's or
modiste's or in dressing-rooms, and thus have noticed the minutiae
invisible across the footlights, and recorded colours which have changed
when viewed in another light. Moreover, they never suggest that the
dresses are ugly, or clash with one another; partly, no doubt, because
their ideal of criticism has for foundation the epitaph upon an alleged
dramatic critic to the effect that he had never caused an actor's wife
to shed a tear, and partly for the reason that they do not see the
dresses in relation to one another or from the point of view of an
audience on the other side of the orchestra. Even less charitable
explanations might be made.
The scene-painter works with a broad brush; he knows that microscopic
detail would be wasted, and worse than wasted, for it would cause a
muddy effect. Sometimes, but too rarely, he is even a believer in pure
colour. The stage _modiste_ has other theories, or perhaps none. Instead
of seeing that all demanded or permitted by the optics of the stage lies
in line and colour, she breaks up line by ridiculous ribbon, foolish
flounces and impertinent bows, and the dresses in colouring often "swear
at one another." Even the translated French phrase is not quite strong
enough to indicate the discord. Does she ever consider the costumes in
relation to the scenery? Sometimes we see frocks in tender hues against
richly toned scenes that make them appear mere shades of dirty yellows,
blues and pinks. At others a cool, tranquilly pleasing background is
degraded to mere dulness in consequence of the gaudy gowns in front of
it. Does the word _repoussoir_ mean any thing to her? Perhaps she is
unacquainted with the meaning of it although she possesses a jargon of
French as staggering as that of a menu in a British hotel.
There are other crimes. It has been said that your fashionable milliner
sometimes "tries it on the dog." It is hinted that she makes upon the
beautiful ladies of the stage experiments which she dare not risk upon
her more exalted patrons. If this be true it will explain the fact that
many an actress who is beautiful outside the theatre seems plain on the
boards because her costume does not suit her style, because her figure
is sacrificed for the sake of the frock, because dainty little features
are overwhelmed by gowns of strident colour and overshadowed by terrific
headgear. The coiffeur is often to be blamed. Questions of "make-up"
may be concerned with the case.
The question, like all questions, has another side. These remarks may be
answered with some force by saying that the illusion of the stage would
disappear if all the costumes in a play were harmonious, since no one
could pretend that all the characters are likely to have dressed
themselves in order to agree with the colouring of the scenery, or to
have chosen costumes in order to harmonize with one another.
The cynic would even hint that probably if the dear ladies thought of
the matter at all they would try to chose frocks likely to crush those
of their friends, and that no one going into society would venture to
use subtle shades or tranquil tints for fear of suffering like the
painters of delicate pictures at the hands of the waggish Hanging
Committee of the Royal Academy, which loves to put a work shrieking with
vigorous colour by the side of a placid canvas that appears insipid by
reason of the contrast. The reply to this answer is that we have hardly
reached a degree of truth to life which renders it pertinent--and
probably never will. Certainly there might be a noticeable fault if all
the dresses of ladies of different families obviously showed the design
and _facture_ of one modiste. This could easily be avoided without
prejudice to the point of harmony in colour and congruity of line.
Is it extravagant to hope that some day a dress rehearsal will be a
rehearsal of dresses at which some person of taste--everyone would
accept Mr Wilhelm--will see all the frocks actually worn by the
actresses upon the stage under the ordinary lighting conditions, against
the scenery intended to be employed and then point out what is necessary
to produce a real harmony of colour and also to take full advantage of,
and in some cases enhance, the beauty of face and form possessed by the
ladies who are to appear in the play?
One more point may be touched upon. Stage managers should pay more
attention to suitability of costume and require actresses to make
sacrifices repugnant to their natural and desirable instinct for
coquettishness. One often sees a player in a costume utterly
inconsistent with the poverty of the character misrepresented by her,
particularly if she is acting the part of a peasant or poor shopgirl and
the like, when her hair will show that it has been dressed by a coiffeur
at a cost that would be unpayable by the character. Things like this
destroy the illusion of the stage. It may be noted that in this respect
the French and German actresses behave better than ours, and accept,
doubtless with reluctance, a sacrifice of personal charm for sake of
character too rarely seen upon our stage. A last matter--why is it
supposed that almost all the characters in a play are wearing new
clothes on a first night?
Colour
Some time ago a musical comedy was produced the notices upon which were
a little amazing. Several were impolite about the book, others
unfriendly to the music; but almost all agreed that the scenery and
costumes were of remarkable beauty. Now, in the first act an excellent
opportunity for picturesque mounting had been wasted, and the setting of
the second act was deplorable. It was a great blaze of gold and yellow,
which endured for about an hour and a half, with, of course, some little
relief here and there, and it fatigued some eyes and caused some
headaches. No doubt we were in the minority.
It may be that most people are not sensitive to colour; any of our
senses may be irresponsive. A friend of mine puts a lot of cayenne
pepper and mustard and Worcester sauce on toasted cheese; obviously he
has a dull palate. There are people to whom nothing in the way of music
appeals except violent tunes. We know that colour-blindness in different
degrees is the common lot; very possibly what to the sensitive seems a
picture rich in tender colour, to the mass appears dull drab; and the
scene whose shrieking gorgeousness oppresses the eye and brain of the
artist is subtle to the Philistine--it is difficult to know. Who can
imagine a picture gallery as seen by the person who suffers even mildly
from colour-blindness? There are those who have a dull sense of smell,
and the case has happened of a girl only stopped by accident from going
to a ball decked in flowers that looked pretty and smelt abominably.
This raises rather a large question about stage-mounting; if the
majority are not sensitive, then business instinct demands that the
colour-scheme should be crude. Some time ago much admiration was
expressed in the press at the beauty of a ballet designed by Mr Wilhelm,
a real colourist, who is able not only to produce lovely delicate
effects but to present pictures of vivid gorgeous colour so strong and
subtle as to delight the artist and the Philistine. The same phrases
that had been bestowed upon the Empire ballet were lavished by the same
writers upon an entertainment at another house at which, in fact, there
was a horrible debauch of crude, yelping, clashing colours.
The matter is difficult for the managers, or at least for those of them
who have a sense of colour. In one way their position is easy enough; if
they spend a lot of money on the dress and scenery, the press, with rare
exceptions, will gush about the beauty of the setting, however vicious
it may be. The Englishman who uses violent bottled sauces to destroy the
delicate flavour of a sole or to add taste to toasted cheese rules the
roast. People often proclaim that they like "colour"--by "colour" they
mean bright, showy colours. Their taste is that of the negro; give him
plenty of gaudy red and yellow and he is happy.
In modern comedies the difficulty might be avoided, since as a rule
modern people in society do not employ violent colours, and the modern
interiors in most instances exhibit agreeably the influence of the
so-called aesthetic craze. Yet we have plenty of horrors. Ellen Terry in
her interesting biography says that she never settled on her dresses
without seeing whether they would harmonize with the scenery. This
wisdom, alas! is rarely shown, and we very often see a charming interior
ruined by gowns hostile to it in colour.
The question of form in the costumes is somewhat different; yet one
cannot pass from it without expressing regret that the stage is so
weak-minded as to permit itself to be the subject of the maddest
experiments of milliners, and to accept tamely their _rossignols_. A few
of our actresses know how to dress and to wear their gowns; nobody
except the milliners seems to look after the others, and they form the
majority. In many instances, no doubt, the ladies in the cast ought not
to be blamed: they have a very restricted choice, if any. Lately there
was a case where a handsome sum of money was put up by a syndicate for
the ladies' costumes in a play, and nine-tenths of it was appropriated
by the powerful leading lady, leaving for the others a ridiculous
amount.
It is in romantic comedy we suffer most. To begin with, one may assert
the general proposition that the sense of pictorial art on the stage is
entirely conventional and academic; of course there are exceptional
cases--rare, alas! The ideal seems to be to reach chromo-lithographic
effects and the beauties of the old-fashioned valentine; for the
suggestive, the mysterious, the imaginative little affection is shown.
The real tub has developed into the real tree with real blossoms and
real leaves wired on, not a thing regarded as a matter of form and
colour, but as a realistic imitation of a natural object. Broad effects
are frittered away by masses of irritating detail, the production of
which costs a a great deal of money.
Scenes and costumes are designed without due consideration of the fact
that they are to be before our eyes for a long time. Occasionally we are
pleased by a striking picture for five minutes, during which the play is
forgotten; then the play asserts itself and the money spent on the
mounting ceases to bear fruit, and a little later on the vivid
spectacular effect, charming for five minutes, becomes trying by reason
of its quality, and it reasserts itself aggressively, to the hurt of the
play. We have gorgeous costumes which, when first presented and grouped,
produce beautiful effects; afterwards costumes inharmonious with them
are introduced, the grouping is altered, and the colour-scheme
destroyed; then the question comes into mind, How is it that all these
characters have brand-new costumes, although the circumstances of the
drama show that most of the dresses would be torn or dirty or faded? It
may be an answer that this convention is so firmly established as not
to be absurd; but the convention is constantly violated where it would
be too blatantly ridiculous by somebody presenting himself with torn or
dirtied or faded costume. How much more beautiful as a rule the costumes
become after the play has run a while!
From the colour point of view, it was the blessing of the romantic
period that the ruck and run of people had to wear their velvets and
silks and satins till time and wear and tear had toned down and
harmonized the colours. It must be remembered, too, that in the evening
they were seen under favourable circumstances, for the lights and shades
must have been strong, although the lighting was feeble before the use
of gas was discovered and before the oil-wells were found that have made
half the population of the United States slaves to a few plutocrats.
Also, "shoddy" had not been invented, nor had coal-tar dyes been
discovered by the English and exploited by the Germans now groaning over
the wise tyranny of the provisions of the new Patent Act, to which
ignorant people have applied the offensive term "Protectionist." Shoddy
treated with aniline dyes can produce effects that overwhelm the colours
of the honest old materials which owed their hues to the efforts of the
vegetable and the insect. A modern manufacturer is proud when his
scarlet shoddy shrieks like a steam siren. Unfortunately some of the
managers seem to like the shriek.
Stage Meals
An undistinguished foreigner from France was talking the other day about
the English stage, of which apparently he had seen a good deal. After
being asked many searching questions put in the hopes of eliciting
material for "copy" it was discovered that what he most admired in our
theatre is the way in which stage meals are treated. In the first place,
he was astonished at the "exquisite distinction" displayed by the
players in eating them. The "perfect elegance" which one actress
exhibited in consuming an egg had fascinated him and he stated with
conviction that he could have spent a happy evening simply watching her
eat these ill-starred hopes of chickens. It was pointed out that the
management could hardly afford to pay her a sufficient salary for the
strain on her digestive faculties, and also that the eggs--real Boat
Race eggs, not election missiles--cost something.
He is quite an undistinguished person and utterly _bourgeois_, though he
has written some successful funny farces which as yet have not suffered
the dishonour of adaptation, and during his many visits to London has
acquired an even more perfect ignorance of the English and their ways
than if he had never paid tribute to Neptune; for he always stays at a
little French hotel where there is absolutely nothing British, not even
the meat or the matches or the washing arrangements.
Now, if there is one matter of manners in which we are better than the
people of the Continent it is in our mode of eating. How this has come
about it is difficult to say. One knows that good French families
sometimes engage English nursery governesses in order that the children
may be brought up to feed themselves daintily, and that people in good
society on the other side of the streak certainly commit acts at dinner
which are rather ugly. Goodness knows what is the reason. Possibly the
cynic would discover in our greater refinement a curious form of
snobbishness, the sort of timidity about accomplishing before other
people a natural function which in other aspects of life is certainly
carried too far by us.
We have an extraordinary amount of eating nowadays upon the stage,
managed very badly. In the old days, when people got through a banquet,
consisting chiefly of a special brand of cardboard chicken, a real
_dîner à la carte_ at the present time only used in pantomime, washed
down by copious draughts of nothing from gilded _papier-maché_ goblets
which refuse to make the chink of metal, and spent no more than five
minutes over the whole affair, it was recognized that the banquet was a
mere convention; nobody pretended to believe in any aspect of it, and
therefore no one questioned its verisimilitude.
In the twentieth century real food is consumed, the diet being chiefly
vegetarian, and damp decoctions are drunk with gusto. Occasionally, it
is said, Persian sherbet, or lemon kali, once joys of our youth, give a
theatrical fizziness to toast and water in bottles with deceitful lordly
labels. Unfortunately, except in _The Man from Blankley's_, these real
things are consumed as fast as a midday meal at an American
boarding-house, with the result that they are a mixture of realism and
convention profoundly unconvincing. Art would be better served by the
old-fashioned method, for the playgoer is more willing to concede a
whole than a half "make-belief."
One amusing result of the fact that we have so many adaptations from the
French is that not only are the names abominably mispronounced--which
can hardly be avoided--but that the efforts at representing the foreign
feeding as a rule are all wrong. Simili-champagne is consumed where no
Frenchman would dream of drinking "fizz," for across the Channel the
detestable snobbishness of the English in relation to champagne is
imitated chiefly by the modern plutocracy and by the prosperous members
of what is alleged to be the most ancient, if hardly the most
honourable, of professions. When we see a French company in a play, the
leading lady solemnly wipes the inside of her glass with her napkin,
occasionally goes a little further and breathes into it--breathes rather
dampishly. In the subsequent English version the leading actress is far
too much of a lady to do anything of the kind. The foreigners cut up
everything on their plates, clean their knives upon the bread, sometimes
before and sometimes afterwards scooping out the salt with them, and
then lay them by for the next dish. Of course the English company is not
guilty of such solecisms.
The original troupe stuffs a napkin, half-way in size between a
bath-towel and a tablecloth, inside its neck-band so as to protect its
clothes against the little _taches_ concerning which, as a rule, it is
more anxious in relation to its costume than its character--in the play;
but our better-bred players ignore this, and merely spread their
"serviettes" upon their unimperilled knees. Has anyone ever seen a
British player, even when he called himself "Ongri" or "Gontrang," wipe
his plate with a piece of bread and swallow the latter rapturously?
It may be contended that the English players are wise, perhaps without
knowing it. Unadulterated truth sometimes comes off second best in the
theatre, as is proved by the ancient story of the actor who was hissed
because instead of imitating the squeaks of a pig he pinched the tail of
a real porker in a poke; upon the stage a little truth is sometimes
dangerous, a great deal often fatal. As a last word, in these as in all
other germane matters our British productions are vastly more accurate
than those that come from the other side of the Atlantic. It may be the
fact that the good Americans, when they die, go to Paris; they do not
take the trouble to learn anything beforehand concerning the French.
This, however, is not remarkable; there are very few really French
people in Paris.