Jane came home from the theatre last night overflowing with an
indignation that even the beauty of a ride on the top of a bus in the
air of these divine summer nights had not cooled. It was not
dissatisfaction with the play or the performance that made her boil
with volcanic wrath. It was the vanity of the insufferable
actor-manager, who would insist on "taking the call" all the time and
every time. There were some quite nice people in the play, it seemed,
but the more the audience called for them the more the preposterous
"old-clo'" man of the stage came smirking before the curtain, rubbing
his fat hands and creasing his fat cheeks. "It was disgusting," said
Jane. "The creature had been gibbering in the lime-light all night,
and the audience were trying to level things up a bit by giving the
interesting people a show, and this greedy cormorant snatched every
crumb for himself. I hate him. He is a Hun."
The outburst reminded me of a story I once heard about another
actor-manager. At the end of the play he went on the stage and found
his company bending down in a circle and gazing intently at something
on the floor. "What are you looking at?" he asked. "Oh," they chanted
in chorus, "we're looking at a spot we've never seen before. It's the
centre of the stage."
There are, of course, people who carry the centre of the stage with
them. It does not matter where they go or what they play: they
dominate the scene. "Where O'Flaherty sits is the head of the table,"
and where Coquelin stood was the centre of the stage. He needed no
placard to remind you that he was someone in particular. You would no
more have thought of turning the limelight on to him than you would
have thought of turning it on to the moon at midnight or the sun at
midday. He just appeared and everyone else became accessory to that
commanding presence: he spoke and all other voices seemed like the
chirping of sparrows.
And so in other spheres. Take the case of Mr. Asquith, for example, in
relation to the House of Commons. It does not matter where he sits.
He may go to the darkest corner under the gallery, but the centre of
the stage will go with him. When he had sat down after delivering his
first speech in opposition, one of the ablest observers in Parliament
turned to me and said: "The Prime Minister has crossed the floor of the
House." And that exactly expressed the feeling created by that
authoritative manner, that masculine voice, that air of high detachment
from the mere squalor and tricks of the Parliamentary game. He never
seemed greater to the House than in the moment when he had
fallen--never more its intellectual master, its most authentic voice,
its wisest and most disinterested counsellor.
It is not these men, the Coquelins and the Asquiths, who come sprinting
before the curtain after drenching themselves in the limelight on the
stage. They hate the limelight and they are indifferent to the
applause. The gentry who cultivate the art of "taking the call" are
quite another breed. You know the type, both on the stage and off.
Take that eminent actor, Bluffington Phelps. He shambles about the
stage, his words gurgle in his throat, his eyes roll like a bull's
under torture; if he is not throwing agonised glances at the man with
the limelight he is straining to catch the voice of the prompter at the
flies. But when it comes to "taking the call" there is not his
superior on the stage. He monopolises the applause as he monopolises
the limelight; and by these artifices he has persuaded the public that
he is an actor. It is a glorious joke--
Hood an ass in reverend purple,
So that you hide his too ambitious ears,
And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor.
It is true, as Lincoln said, that you can fool some of the people all
the time. Mr. Bluffington Phelps knows that it is true. He knows that
there is a large part of the public, possibly the majority of the
public, which is born to be fooled, which will believe anything because
it hasn't the faculty of judging anything but the size of the crowd and
which will always follow the ass with the longest ears and the loudest
bray.
It is the same off the stage. The art of politics is the art of
"taking the call." Harley knew the trick perfectly. Where anything
was to be got, it was said of him, he always knew how to wriggle
himself in; when any misfortune threatened he knew how to wriggle
himself out. He took the cheers and passed the kicks on to his
colleagues. His chivalrous spirit is not dead. It is familiar in
every country, but most of all in democratic countries. We all know
the type of politician who has the true genius for the limelight. If
the newspapers forget him for five minutes he is miserable. "What has
happened to the publicity department? Has the fellow in charge of the
limelight gone to sleep? Wake him up. Don't let the public forget me.
If there's nothing else to tell 'em, tell 'em that my hat is two sizes
larger than it was a year ago. Tell 'em about my famous smile. Tell
'em about my dear old grandmother to whom I owe my inimitable piety.
Tell 'em I'm at my desk at seven o'clock every morning and never leave
it until half-past seven the next morning. Tell 'em anything you
like--only tell 'em."
If things go right, and there is applause in the house, he skips in
front of the curtain to take the call. "Thank you, gentlemen--and
ladies. Thank you. Yes, alone I did it. Nobody else in the company
had a hand in it--nor a finger. No, not a finger." If anything goes
wrong and the audience hiss, does he shirk the ordeal? Not at all. He
comes before the curtain with indignant sorrow. "Yes, ladies and
gentlemen, I agree with you. Most scandalous failure. It was all
Jones's doing, and Smith's, and Robinson's. I went down on my bended
knees to them, but they wouldn't listen to me--wouldn't listen. And
now you see what's happened. Hear the anguish in my voice. Look at
the tears in my broken-hearted eyes. Oh, the pity of it, ladies and
gentlemen--the pity of it. And I tried so hard--I really did. But
they wouldn't listen--they wouldn't l-l-listen." (Breaks down in sobs.)
I recall a legend that seems apposite. A certain politician of
antiquity--let us all call him Eurysthenes--hit on a happy idea for
making himself famous. He bought a lot of parrots and taught them to
shriek "Great is Eurysthenes!" Then he turned them all out into the
woods, and there they sat and squawked "Great is Eurysthenes!" And the
Athenians, astonished at such unanimity, took up the refrain and cried,
"Great is Eurysthenes." And Eurysthenes, who was waiting in the flies,
so to speak, took the call and was famous ever after.