GOING TO THE PLAY.
THERE can be no doubt but that London is a city much given to
amusement, and I question if there can be found another city which
spends more money and with a better grace, to support music and the
drama.
It is very true that in a great degree the cheap amusement halls of
London are of the very lowest kind to be found anywhere, but then the
reader must understand that the greater number of theatre going and
music-loving people never enter these haunts, which have won so much
infamy among strangers. I refer, of course, to such places as the
Argyle, the Alhambra, Cremorne, the Casino, and other resorts of the
kind.
I think that the Londoners as compared with the Parisians, give a great
deal more money for the amusements which they attend than the Parisians
do for theirs.
Lately the French government has been compelled to build for the
delectation of the Parisians, a splendid opera house, and besides
the cost of this structure, which was two million of dollars, the
government of France pays the following annual subventions or donations
for opera alone: to the Italian Opera 120,000 francs, French Opera
900,000 francs and 250,000 francs to the Opera Comique, beside 200,000
francs annually to the Conservatoire, where music is taught.
In London, however, the support of such places is voluntary, and no
state interference is dreamed of, save that of the Lord Chamberlain
who is a sort of censor, and whose duty is chiefly to see that the
ballet-girls do not abbreviate their skirts too much.
[Illustration: "BEAUTIFUL MISS NEILSON."]
The most popular and lady-like actress in London is Miss Neilson, who
performs at the Lyceum, the Princess's and Queen's Theatres. This young
and charming actress is a favorite with all classes, owing to her
perfect skill as an artiste, and her reputation is without reproach.
She is known as "Beautiful Miss Neilson," and is of medium height,
with dark, languishing eyes, in which the fire of genius burns, with a
steady flame. Miss Kate Bateman, now Mrs. Dr. Crowe, is also a great
favorite with the Londoners, and most deservedly so, for she has not
her equal on the English stage in her distinctive line of characters.
Who that ever saw the last act of "Leah," or the "Prison Scene" in
"Mary Warner," will deny her terrible power as an actress. The English
capital is divided into two camps as to the merits of the rival
comedians--Lawrence, Toole and John Baldwin Buckstone. Alfred Wigan,
and our own "Dundreary Sothern," stand high in the ranks of their
profession, and no English comedian ever met with a more successful
triumph in his own land than that earned by John S. Clarke at the
Strand Theatre in 1869-70. French plays are very well received at the
St. James Theatre--and I had the pleasure of listening to Schneider, in
"Barbe Bleue" and "Orphee aux Enfer," who was supported by Dupuis, the
celebrated tenor. Having visited many theatres in England, I can safely
avow that I never saw an English comedy, or a play dealing with English
characters and English homes, performed in better taste, or with more
fidelity, than I have seen like plays produced at Wallack's Theatre, in
New York City.
[Sidenote: FULL DRESS REQUIRED.]
Nearly all London theatres except the Queen's, in Long Acre, are dark
and gloomy, and in the opera houses, the old style of erecting the
private boxes or loges tier over tier and then hanging them with red
velvet, gives a peculiarly heavy look to the interiors. Besides, prices
for reserved seats are awfully high, and unless a man is the possessor
of a pretty large private fortune, he cannot think of indulging in
opera at all. As a proof of this I will here subjoin the prices at
the Haymarket Opera House or "Her Majesty's," as it is called. The
performances were Italian, German, and French, Grand Opera, and ballet:
Tariff of prices for private boxes: Pit boxes, 150 guineas for
the season; grand tier, 200 guineas; one pair, 150 guineas; two
pair, 100 guineas; orchestra stalls, 25 guineas; pit tickets, 10s.
6d.; amphitheatre stalls, 5s.; gallery, 2s. 6d. Opera on Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays, and special extra nights. No extra charge
for booking places. Evening dress to boxes, stalls and pit. Gratuities
to boxkeepers optional. Doors open at eight; performance commences at
half-past eight.
These prices, it will be seen, are simply frightful. Then, unless you
go in the gallery, you must be in full dress swallowtail and white
choker, which is not relished by Americans, and particularly by those
from the back-woods, who are not very familiar with evening dress
coats. Of course the large sums are the subscriptions for a season of
perhaps thirty nights.
At the Covent Garden Opera House, the tariff of prices is as follows:
Private boxes: Second tier, 2-1/2 guineas; first tier, near the stage,
3 guineas; ditto, at the side, 4 guineas; ditto, in the centre, 5
guineas; grand tier, 6 guineas; pit tier, 5 guineas; pit stalls, 21s.;
pit, 7 s.; amphitheatre, 2s. 6d.; amphitheatre stalls, front row,
10s. 6d.; second row 7s.; all other rows, 5s. No extra charge for
booking places. Evening dress to all parts except the amphitheatre and
amphitheatre stalls. No gratuities allowed to boxkeepers. Doors open at
eight; performance commences at half-past eight.
In most of the theatres in London hideous old women or shabby looking
men attend in the lobbies, and wait upon the people who have need for
their services during the night, demanding a fee for every trifling
errand, and in a first-class place of amusement, a boxkeeper would be
insulted if offered less than a shilling for turning a key.
And then there are terrible young blackguards who insist upon the
stranger's buying oranges, walnuts or apples from them, or else he must
take their chaff as it is given.
But the biggest swindle of all is, that a man must pay two pence for
the programme of the play, or three pence or four pence, as the case
may be, and yet I have heard Englishmen tell me with audacity that they
lived in a free country.
And now before I proceed to tell anything of the London theatres, I
will give a table of the prices and the time of opening doors, with the
location of each place of amusement for the benefit of those who may
visit London:
[Sidenote: ASTLEY'S AMPHITHEATRE.]
The Adelphi, 411 Strand; admission, seven o'clock--6s., 5s., 3s., 2s.,
1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.; Astley's, Westminster Road, Lambeth; seven
o'clock--5s., 3s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.; Britannia, Hoxton Old
Town, will hold 3,400 persons; half-past six o'clock--2s., 1s., 6d.,
and 3d.; City of London, 36 Norton Folgate; seven o'clock--2s., 1s.,
and 6d.; Covent Garden, Bow street; eight o'clock--7s., 5s., 3s., 2s.
6d., 2s., and 1s. It was built in 1849, with Floral Hall adjoining.
Its size, 240 feet by 123 feet, and 100 feet high, equals that of La
Scala, the largest in Europe. Drury Lane, seven o'clock--7s., 5s., 2s.,
1s., and 6d.; Grecian, City Road, seven o'clock--1s., 6d., and 3d.;
Haymarket, seven o'clock--7s. 5s., 3s., 2s., and 1s.; Her Majesty's,
corner of Haymarket, eight o'clock--7s., 5s., 3s., 2s. 6d., 2s.,
and 1s.; Holborn, High Holborn, nearly opposite Chancery Lane, seven
o'clock--6s., 4s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.; Lyceum, Strand, seven
o'clock--6s., 5s., 3s., 2s., and 1s.; Olympic, Wych street, Drury
Lane, half-past seven o'clock--6s., 4s., 2s., 1s.; Marylebone, Portman
Market, seven o'clock--3s., 2s., 1s., and 6d.; Pavilion, Whitechapel,
half-past six o'clock--2s., 1s., and 6d.; Prince of Wales, Tottenham
Court Road, seven o'clock--6s., 3s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.; Princess's,
Oxford street, seven o'clock--6s., 5s., 4s., 2s., and 1s.; Queen's,
Long Acre, formerly St. Martin's Hall, seven o'clock--6s., 5s., 4s.,
2s. 6d., 2s., and 1s.; Royalty or Soho, Dean street, Oxford street,
half-past seven o'clock--5s., 3s., 1s., and 6d.; Royal Amphitheatre,
High Holborn, west of Red Lion street, seven o'clock--4s., 2s., 1s.
6d., and 1s.; Sadler's Wells, Clerkenwell, seven o'clock--3s., 2s.,
1s., and 6d.; Standard, Shoreditch, half-past six o'clock--3s., 1s.
6d., 1s., 6d., and 3d., burnt down in 1866, is rebuilding; St. James's,
King street, St. James's Square, half-past seven o'clock--4s., 3s.,
2s., and 6d.; Strand, Strand, seven o'clock--5s., 3s., 1s. 6d., and 6.;
Surrey, Blackfriar's Road, seven o'clock--3s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and
6d.; Victoria, New Cut, Lambeth, half-past six o'clock--1s. 6d., 1s.,
6d., and 3d.
Drury Lane, which was built in 1812, will seat 1,700 persons, and its
vestibule and saloons are as fine as any in Europe. Private boxes in
the London theatres range in price for a single seat at from one guinea
to four pounds, or from $5 to $20 a night. The Olympic seats 2,000; the
Adelphi 1,500; Astley's Circus 4,000, and the gallery of the Victoria
will seat 2,000, while the Pit of the Pavilion, a murderous hole in
Whitechapel, seats 1,500 roughs.
Astley's is a sort of Hippodrome for spectacles, and is much loved
by young London for the prancing of its horses and its grand shows.
Astley's is at Lambeth, on the Surrey side of the Thames, and is in
the heart of the democratic quarter of London. The present building
is the fourth erected upon this site. The first was one of the
nineteen theatres built by Philip Astley, and was opened in 1773,
burnt in 1794; rebuilt 1795, burnt 1803; rebuilt 1804, burnt June 8,
1841, within two hours, the house being principally constructed from
old ship-timber. It was rebuilt, and opened April 17, 1843, and has
since been enlarged. There is only one other theatre in London for
equestrianism; and the stud of trained horses numbers from fifty to
sixty.
Philip Astley, originally a cavalry soldier, commenced horsemanship in
1763, in an open field at Lambeth. He built his first theatre partly
with £60, the produce of an unowned diamond ring which he found on
Westminster Bridge. Andrew Ducrow, subsequently proprietor of the
Amphitheatre, was born at the Nag's Head, Borough, in 1793, when his
father, Peter Ducrow, a native of Bruges, was "the Flemish Hercules"
at Astley's. The fire in 1841 arose from ignited wadding, such as
caused the destruction of the old Globe Theatre in 1613, and Covent
Garden Theatre in 1808. Andrew Ducrow died January 26, 1842, of mental
derangement and paralysis, produced by the above catastrophe.
Covent Garden theatre is the second one built on its site,--it being
a strange fact that nearly all the theatres in London have been burnt
down from time to time. It was here that the "O.P.," or "Old Prices,"
riots took place in 1804, and continued for seventy-seven nights, the
management having made an attempt to raise the prices, but at last they
had to back down before the popular storm. Incledon, Charles Kemble,
Mrs. Glover, George Frederick Cooke, Miss O'Neill, Macready, Farren,
Fanny Kemble, Adelaide Kemble and Edmund Kean have strutted their brief
hours on its stage, but now the house is entirely devoted to opera.
Drury Lane Theatre, or "Old Drury," as it is sometimes known, and was
at one time called the "Wilderness" by Mrs. Siddons, is situated in
one of the lowest quarters of London, where vice, crime, poverty and
drunkenness abound, but still it is frequented by the best classes of
the play-going public. Here, one night in August, 1869, I saw "Formosa"
played to a very full house, the excitement about the Harvard and
Oxford race having culminated about this time. It was then under the
direction of Mr. Dion Boucicault, who has made and lost two or three
fortunes in the management of theatres. All the famous disciples of
the histrionic art who live in English dramatic history, have appeared
during the last two hundred years on the boards of Old Drury.
In 1799 sixteen persons were trodden to death in an alarm which took
place at the Haymarket theatre.
There is a little theatre called the Adelphi, in the Strand, near Cecil
street where I had rooms for some time, and this little dirty theatre,
which has a vestibule like the entrance to a New York lager bier
saloon, has been very much frequented by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
This royal lady has some queer tastes, and among them is a fondness for
broad farce or low comedy. She is also fond of the piano, which she
learned from a Mrs. Anderson, and sometimes when she plays she likes
to be accompanied by two or three of the most distinguished violinists
that can be procured. The Queen used to sing, and in the old days,
when the world was new to her and before she had been widowed, it was
the custom at the nice little private parties which she gave, to have
Prince Albert sing with her, while the Hon. Mrs. Grey, wife of her
Secretary (and a lady who had a good deal of work in helping to compose
the Queen's memoirs), performed on the piano.
In every place of amusement in London, be it high or low, there is
a place set apart for the Queen's family, so that should she take a
notion to visit the most out of the way place, she may be certain of
being able to secure a secluded nook or loge where she will not be
intruded upon.
[Sidenote: A GIN PUBLIC IN THE NEW CUT.]
In the vicinity of all the theatres of the lower grade in and about
London, I found nests of cheap public houses or drinking bars, and
toward nine or ten o'clock, while the performances are at the height of
dramatic agony, these resorts are crowded, with persons of both sexes,
who have slipped out of the amusement halls to get a pint of beer or
"tuppence" worth of "gin neat." Gin "neat" is gin without water or
sugar, and this drink is very popular among women of the lowest class
in London.
[Illustration: A GIN PUBLIC IN THE NEW CUT.]
In Waterloo Road, close upon the Victoria theatre, I saw one of
these "gin publics," the doors of which were choked with customers
passing in and out from the adjoining theatre. There were negroes,
Malays and Chinamen, with an overflowing majority of Cockneys, in the
"public," all of whom were busily engaged in assuaging their thirst,
or firing up their stomach furnaces. Not a little puzzled was I, to
see women with small children in their arms, drinking alongside of
sooty coal-bargemen--negroes, and young children, who had been driven
by their miserable parents to beg coppers wherewith to procure them
gin. It was a dreadful scene to witness, and the smiling fiend behind
the bar was positively fat and enjoying the haggardness in some of his
customers' faces.
[Sidenote: IN THE GALLERY OF THE "VIC."]
I had been told that there was a theatre on the Surrey side of the
river, in which, if I visited it, I might find all the unwashed
elements of the London democracy at home, and one evening I found
myself before its door, after a long journey.
This was the "Royal Victoria Theatre," New Cut, Lambeth. The Bowery, in
its palmiest and most glorious days, could not hold a candle to this
histrionic temple. Its tragedies and dramas of the highway robber and
George Barnewell apprentice school are not, perhaps, to be equaled in
any theatre in the world. The Porte St. Martin, in Paris, is a mere
training-school of horror compared with this, the most bloodthirsty of
places of amusement. There were two entrances--one for the aristocracy
of Lambeth, the other for the underfed plough-holders, or, rather,
for the Costermongers. The aristocratic entrance had a dark, dirty
box-office, illumined by a pair of gas-jets that could hardly find air
to flutter in, so strong was the stench of men and filthy materialism.
Over the door of the box-office was a sign, "Pit, 6d.; gallery, 3d.;
private stage boxes, 2s." The crowds pushed hard and fast to get an
entrance. They came in swarms of fustian and corduroys, with unkempt
hair, the bosoms of some of the costerwomen almost laid bare with
the shoving and crushing; the lads and men wearing heavy hob-nailed
shoes, such shoes as are never seen in America excepting on the feet
of emigrants, who stream through the gates of Castle Garden from the
waste of Atlantic waters--and these heavy hob-nailed shoes did wonders
in hurrying the progress of the front ranks, by repeated applications
to the calves and ankles of those who had the good or bad luck to stand
nearest the door of the theatre.
After a severe struggle, in which some greasy corduroys are ripped and
several caps lost, and a number of babies squeezed--who are in the
arms of girls hardly old enough, one would think, to be their lawful
mothers--we get clear of the mob, shouting, screaming, and whistling,
and pass up the dirty, rickety stairs to the three-penny Gallery of
the "Vic," as the theatre is called by the class who frequent it; and
now a sight presents itself to the writer such as is seldom seen, and
never in any city but London.
[Illustration: THE GALLERY OF THE "VIC."]
I lost my hat on the stairs, and in the crush I discovered it in the
hands of a mutinous boy, about a dozen steps below me, who threatened
if I did not give him a sixpence "to kick the brains hout hof hit." I
give the truly amusing boy sixpence and the hat is flung up to me much
the worse for wear, while a young girl with a dowdy bonnet and a face
swelled with gin asks me in chaff if I am fond of "periwinkles."
The gallery of the Victoria is one of the largest in the world, and
will hold, on a modest computation, 2,200 people.
[Sidenote: THE CHORUS OF "IMMENSEKOFF."]
Five minutes after I found myself in the gallery; it was crowded and
not a seat could be had, for these people gather at the theatre doors,
and fill the surrounding streets and lanes for an hour before the place
is advertised to be open.
As I have no seat and look rather out of place, several cheerful young
ladies offer to let me sit in their laps, and facetious remarks are
made on the different articles of apparel which I have on me. Being
a very warm evening, nearly all of the males, men and boys, are in
their shirt-sleeves, and it grieves one to think that many of these
shirts are sadly in need of washing, and not a few want repairing. The
boys and men are hardly seated when they fall into something like the
Old Bowery tramp--only that here they all seem to be acquainted with
the same slang song, and it is sung by them in a loud, full, and not
unmelodious chorus, with a vehemence that shakes the old timbers of the
house.
In the well-ordered pit of the Bowery theatre in other days, if I
remember right, such truly scandalous conduct would have instantly been
suppressed by the strong arm and heavy stinging cane of the brawny
fellow who stood with his back to the stage, immediately behind the
orchestra; his watchful eyes surveying every rugged face in the pit,
and ready with his powerful arm to rain blows like a storm on the
shoulders of the brawler.
I should like to see a man with a brawny arm and cane try the same
thing on the audience in the gallery of the "Vic." I am sure he
would be thrown over the rail into the lower part of the theatre,
particularly if he were to interrupt a chorus. Many of the men and
lads, who have their entire week's earnings in their pockets, are
very drunk already, though it is only half-past seven o'clock of the
Saturday night. The chorus which they are singing is that of a popular
street and music-hall song, which every one is now humming in London.
They sung it as follows:
"Ha! my dear frens, pray 'ow de doo,
Hi 'opes I sees yer well,
Peer'aps yer don't know 'oo I is;
Well, then, I'm the Heastern swell.
My chambers is in Shoreditch,
And I fancy I'm a Toff;
From top to toe I _really_ think
I looks--Immensekoff.
Immensekoff--Immensekoff,
Behold me a Shoreditch Toff--
A toff, a toff, a Shoreditch Toff,
Hand I thinks myself--Immensekoff."
"Come hup there, ye lazy fiddlers, and give us our thrip-pence worth,"
shouts an irate lad to the orchestra, who are scraping and rosining
their instruments.
"Yes, give us moosic for our money, old bald head," shouts another
young ruffian to the despised leader of the orchestra, who responds
with a wave, and then we have "God Save the Queen," done after the
style popular in the New Cut.
When this is over a red-headed fellow, with his arms bare and
perspiring like the lower animal that he is, cries out loudly, "Now
for the next varse, and give us a good chorious," and then they all
commence again:
"Vith the fair sec', bless 'em, need I say--
That hi am 'number Von;'
Hits _really_ quite a bore to me
The way the gals do run--
Not away from me--but hafter me.
Hah--you may laugh and scoff,
But I can tell yer--that the gals
Think me--Immensekoff.
Immensekoff--Immensekoff."
And so on for five mortal verses the whole mad swarm of dirty, ignorant
wretches, keeping time with hands and feet until my head ached, and
I went down the narrow stairs, while a number of polite young ladies
inquired as I passed, "if I had been sea-sick." The descent to the
lower part of the theatre was about forty-feet, down a dimly lighted
stairs, and I found myself in the family circle, as it would be called
in America, the seats being of planed planks without cushions, while
the aisles were crowded with people, as above in the three-penny
gallery.
[Sidenote: THE "TERROR OF LONDON."]
Here the admission was, I think, a shilling, and the audience was a
little more select, yet not enough to cause remark from a stranger.
The doorkeeper told me he could get me a seat in a private box on the
stage for two shillings, and I followed him through another dirty, dark
passage, my feet crushing the shells of walnuts and filberts, which
here take the place of the old time peanuts.
I was solicited to buy sandwiches of a very ancient aspect by several
men, and pigs' feet and sheep's trotters by a number of women, at a
penny and "tuppence" apiece; and a boy with a large flat basket offered
me a pint of periwinkles for "three ha'pence," "all fresh, sir;" and
finally I got into the box on the stage, which gave me a very good view
of the entire theatre and its sweltering audience. Pit, circle, and
"three-penny" gallery were packed with human heads, tier upon tier, in
a manner that seemed to defy description.
The walls were rough, and in some places but poorly papered, and in
the corners of the upper gallery, flirtation, small-talk, and chaff
went on so audibly that I could hear almost what was spoken, or rather
cried out from the gallery, although I was at the other extremity of
the building. Great anxiety was manifested to have the curtain hoisted
by the unruly audience, and not a little shouting was done to make the
fiddlers hurry up their overture.
The piece was called the "Terror of London," and it depicted the life
of an apprentice who had departed from the ways of honesty to take up
with bad companions in pot-houses, and was in four acts. The apprentice
was of course the hero of the drama, and the author of the piece
played the character of the abused apprentice. Whenever the apprentice
kicked a policeman or threw one of his pursuers down a dark trap-door,
there was great applause of his dexterity; but when the villain of the
piece, a snaky-looking wretch, unworthy to breathe the "a-i-r-r-r of
heving," slapped his hands after the commission of a fresh crime, he
was received with derisive shouts and yells, which he, however, took as
compliments to his histrionic skill.
The heroine of the piece was in love with the unfortunate and
dissipated apprentice, and did nothing but clasp her hands and tear her
hair at his "goings on." But at last she was roused to fury when the
villain of the play followed the dishonest apprentice to his mother's
grave to give him up to the police. The apprentice was discovered lying
across a painted marble tombstone, and when the police entered, led on
by the heavy villain, the heroine threw her body between him and his
enemies, and drawing her form to its full height, she declaimed thus:
"The fust m-a-n who places his polyuted touch on the form of my nobil
up-e-r-en-tis, though he were doubly armed with the king's authority,
shall find his fate on the point of this pon-yard."
After this necessary outburst several more people were killed, and the
whole concluded with the dying scene at Tyburn, the gallows, and the
culprit, the bowl of ale, and the apprentice asking his friends if they
would not prevent him from dying a disgraceful death. Here he makes an
attempt to escape, and is pistoled admirably by the villain, who is
convenient, and who is in turn pistoled by the apprentice's sweetheart,
she being also ready at the proper moment for action. Then the curtain
went down, and a stout girl, with fat legs and a green pair of tights,
danced a hornpipe, which was loudly encored, the young lady being
encouraged by such remarks as:
"Do you want some kidney pies?"
"Kick up, Miss Jenny."
"Don't mind the shoes; we pays for that."
"Tell the fiddlers to give it to yer 'otter--vy, yer not dancing at
all!"
[Sidenote: "DO YOU WANT SOME KIDNEY PIES?"]
Every one in the theatre seemed to be on speaking terms with each
and all of the performers, and, in some instances, the latter would
answer the chaff back merrily, an incessant fire of replies and
counter-replies being kept up that was amusing, if not edifying. While
the dancing was going on an old woman made her entrance into the box
where I was sitting, and asked if "I didn't want some porter or kidney
pies." At the "Vic" it is the custom to eat during the performance, and
drink porter or beer, which is brought by old women and boys between
the acts, and sold at four-pence a bottle. Then the dancing girl
retired gracefully amid great applause. She was succeeded by a comic
singer, who sang, in a green coat and kerseys, a song, the burden of
which was:
"Wait for the turn of the tide, boys,
For Rome wasn't built in a day:
Whatever through life may betide, boys,
Why, wait for the turn of the tide."
This concluded the performance, and the curtain went down, and the
lights in the dirty lamps being extinguished, the roughest audience of
the roughest play-house in London wandered right and left, up and down
the New Cut to their homes, or else they stopped to drink and drain in
the pot-houses, or choke the thoroughfare to buy in the street market,
which was now--eleven o'clock--at the height of commercial prosperity.
Eleven o'clock tolled from St. Paul's as I repassed Waterloo Bridge
back to the city, and the Thames swam and bubbled calmly against the
stone piers of the massive bridge.
[Illustration]