Theatre after his accession, His Majesty paid the first visit of any
British Sovereign to a music-hall, the occasion coincided with the run
there of an operetta of my own, called the "Knights of the Road." It was
a Dick Turpin story, for which I had written the lyrics, and the music
had been provided by my good friend Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Principal
of the Royal Academy of Music. I conceived the idea that pieces of this
kind, based on English stories and typically English alike in sentiment
and musical setting, might be made an attractive feature on the
music-halls, and in point of fact, all that was wrong with the
experiment was that it was a little too early. To-day, when the
better-class music-halls have attained a remarkable standard of taste,
they would be just the thing. Nevertheless, my "Knights of the Road" had
a successful career, and it served to give Walter Hyde, now one of our
leading operatic tenors, one of his first chances to sing in the
Metropolis.
I wrote about eight of these pieces altogether. The libretto and the
scores are still in existence, and for better or for worse, they may be
produced even yet. One of them is written round the well-known picture,
"The Duel in the Snow." This depicts a beautiful woman rushing between
the two swords in a duel, and my object was to fill in the dramatic
significance of the picture, representing how it came about that the men
were fighting in those wintry surroundings for the hand of the lady.
"For one night only" I appeared with the Follies. I was at the Palace in
"My Cosy Corner," and Pellissier asked me to come on, garbed as the
poet, in their burlesque on Shakespeare. Leaning from my pedestal, I had
to reproach them for daring to take such liberties, and we finished up
with a boxing match. Our jokes on that occasion were mainly
extemporised. Nobody in the audience knew that I was acting deputy, but
those in the wings had heard that a conspiracy of some kind was afoot,
and they entered heartily into the spirit of the burlesque.
It is far easier, I think, to improvise on the stage than it is away
from the footlights, and I well remember my dilemma when I was once
invited to an "at home." It was a children's party, and my hostess had
told the youngsters that they were going to see _Ko-Ko_, the "funny man"
in "The Mikado." No doubt if I had come in my Oriental costume it would
have been less difficult to act up to the part, but it was quite another
thing to arrive in an immaculate frock-coat and silk hat, to be escorted
at once into the circle of children, and invited then and there to act
the clown in the circus with "jibe and joke and quip and crank." For
some moments I stood almost tongue-tied. Luckily, as it happened, my
hostess handed me a cup of tea, and in my nervousness I dropped it. The
children giggled hugely. With that trivial incident the ice was broken.
Enjoyable as it is to meet so many people in the social sphere, our good
friends who see us from the auditorium, and then shower their
invitations upon us, are at times a little embarrassing. Kind as they
undoubtedly are--and we do appreciate the hospitality so readily
offered to us wherever we go--they are perhaps forgetful that every week
we have to get through seven or eight hard performances. With rehearsals
taken into account, we have not over-much leisure for social enjoyment,
and certainly no great reserves of energy. A Scotch lady was once most
pressing that I should attend a dance she was arranging. Now, much as I
love dancing on the stage, I have never had any taste at all for the
conventional ball-room dancing, and really how could one have after
doing, say, the courtly gavotte in "The Gondoliers?" "I never dance," I
told my Scottish friend, "unless I'm paid for it." Evidently she mistook
my meaning, for with her invitation to her dance she enclosed me--a
cheque for L5. I returned it with my compliments.
From time to time on these social occasions we are prevailed upon to
give one or two of our songs from the operas. Songs from the Gilbert and
Sullivan operas, nevertheless, seldom sound well away from the stage and
their familiar surroundings, and long ago most amateur vocalists dropped
them from their repertory. I, personally, have found that the most
suitable of my numbers for private circles are the _Lord Chancellor's_
"Dream Song"--it is so dramatic that it goes quite well as an
unaccompanied recitation--and _King Gama's_ "I can't tell why." Here I
must note a remarkable fact. When I am on the stage, I know not only my
own lines, but the lines of everyone else, but away from the stage and
the atmosphere of the play my otherwise excellent memory is not always
so amenable to discipline. Indeed, I can recall an occasion when, at a
garden party, I was asked to sing "Tit Willow." I cheerfully undertook
to do so, but half-way through I stumbled, and try as I would even with
the promptings of obliging friends, I could get no further than the
middle of the second verse. And yet on the stage I have sung "Tit
Willow" without a fault many thousands of times.
I think I was only once in any danger of forgetting my lines on the
stage. It happened in "The Mikado." Behind the scenes, unknown to me,
_Pooh Bah_ had fainted, and one of his entrances had to be made by _Pish
Tush_. Well, I was on as _Ko-Ko_ at the time, and the sound of an
unexpected voice was so strange, so bewildering, that for a moment it
seemed to me that my reason had gone! "Get off! It's _Pooh Bah_" I
whispered, excitedly. _Pish Tush_ managed to give me a hint that
something had happened, and we continued our comedy scene, though in my
frame of mind this might easily have come to grief!
Speaking of memory, I am reminded that my first recollection in life was
that of listening, as a very small child, to a lad playing a quaint
little tune on a banjo. I never heard that tune again, but it has ever
since remained in my mind, and only a few years ago I was talking about
it to a man who had spent nearly all his life in Australia. When we were
children we were neighbours in the same village. "Yes," said my
long-lost friend, "I was the lad who played that tune on the banjo, and
you were lying in a cot in the garden!" Between that incident and our
mutual recollection of it nearly fifty eventful years for both of us had
passed.
Before I close this chapter of random reminiscences I feel I must pay my
tribute to the best, the oldest and the truest of all my friends--my
helpmate in life, "Louie Henri." As Albert Chevalier would put it,
"We've been together now for (almost) forty years, and it don't seem a
day too much." Louie Henri, as I have already told, secured me my first
engagement, and from that time to this she has been the intimate sharer
in whatever troubles and successes have fallen to me in what is now a
long and eventful career. Optimistic as I may be in temperament, there
were times when her encouragement meant a great deal, and to my wife I
pay this brief tribute (as brief it is bound to be). Our family has
consisted of three sons and two daughters. Our two elder sons served
during the war in the Royal Air Force, and one of them was lost whilst
flying in a night-bombing raid in France. I well remember the time when
my boy was first reported missing. With that anxious sorrow weighing on
my mind, it was no small trial to keep alive the semblance, at least, of
comedy.
Oh, a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,
If you listen to popular rumour.
_Jack Point's_ song appealed to me with peculiar poignancy during that
time of heavy anxiety. But to return to my wife.
Louie Henri, as the older generation well remembers, is able to count
herself amongst the distinguished Savoyards. Before she retired she had
probably played a greater number of parts--soprano, contralto, and
soubrette--than any other lady connected with the company. I am sure it
will be of interest if I enumerate here the roles she has played:--
"Trial by Jury" _Plaintiff._
"The Sorcerer" _Constance_; _Mrs. Partlet_.
"H.M.S. Pinafore" _Josephine_; _Hebe_.
"The Pirates of Penzance" _Edith._
"Patience" _Lady Angela._
"Iolanthe" _Iolanthe._
"Princess Ida" _Melissa._
"The Mikado" _Pitti Sing._
"Ruddigore" _Mad Margaret._
"The Yeoman of the Guard" _Phoebe._
"The Gondoliers" _Tessa._
"Utopia, Ltd" _Nelraya._
"The Grand Duke" _Julia._
Mrs. Lytton, apart from her success as an actress, has always been an
accomplished musician, and in that respect I owe much to her for the way
in which, during the preparation of my new roles, she has helped me, "a
lame, unmusical dog, over the stile." Our pianoforte at home is the one
on which Sir Arthur Sullivan first played over his music for "The
Mikado." It is a handsome satinwood grand, designed for Mr. D'Oyly Carte
by the late Sir Alma Tadema, R.A., and this most interesting and
valuable souvenir was presented to me by Mrs. D'Oyly Carte.
VII.
FRIENDS ON AND OFF THE STAGE.
Lessons to the Prince on the Bagpipes--A Charming and Lovable
Personality--Queen Alexandra's Compliment--An Afternoon with
Fisher--Stories of the Great Seaman--George Edwardes and His
Genius for Stagecraft--His Successes on the Turf--"Honest Frank"
Cellier--A Model Conductor--Traditions of the Savoy--Rutland
Barrington--An Admiral in Disguise--Fred Billington--A Strange
Premonition--Our War-Time Experiences--Caught in the Toils of
the Dublin Rebellion.
It was my great privilege and pleasure, when we were at Oxford on one
occasion, to be introduced to the Prince of Wales, who was then in
residence at Magdalen. Nothing impressed me more than his sunny nature
and the wonderful knack he had of putting everybody at their ease
immediately. Since then it has been just those qualities which have made
him so immensely popular in his tours of the Empire.
Our first meeting was in His Royal Highness's own rooms, where he was
accompanied by his tutor, Mr. H. P. Hansell. I remember that as I was
speaking to him the members of a college team were brought in to be
presented. "Ah!" exclaimed the Prince, "that's the best of being a
celebrity, Lytton. I could not draw a muster like this." It was just a
little pleasantry, this suggestion that it was myself who was the
attraction, but it was an example of his happy knack of putting
everybody at their ease immediately. I recall, too, that the Prince at
that time was learning the chanter, with which one proceeds to the full
glory of playing the bagpipes. Greatly to his surprise, I took the
chanter and proceeded to give him a lesson, to which he listened most
attentively, and then played a skirl, with which he was delighted. It so
happens that, although I am no musician, I do know how to handle the
bagpipes, and once a group of Scottish yokels who were listening to me
stood open-mouthed with astonishment that such skill should be possessed
by a trousered Englishman. This was when I visited my old colleague
Durward Lely's place in the Highlands. The Scotties were enjoying a
homely dance in a barn, and as the piper had been hard at it and seemed
tired, I volunteered to act as his deputy. I don't want to be boastful,
but my performance was regarded as a _tour de force_, at least for a
Saxon.
The Prince came to the theatre frequently during our stay, and one night
he came round to our dressing-room, where once more one fell
irresistibly under the spell of his lovable and attractive personality.
He invariably addressed me as "Ko-Ko." The Prince told me then, as he
had done on other occasions, how really delightful he thought the operas
were, and he said he looked forward to seeing them again and again. Then
he asked to be introduced to a member who, in more than one sense, is
one of the stalwarts of the choristers, Joe Ruff. Seeing that Joe had
been with us so many years, I thought this special "recognition" was
particularly happy, and it was a very great pleasure to me to be allowed
to introduce my colleague to the Heir-Apparent.
From time to time, both during my connection with D'Oyly Carte and when
temporarily away from the company, I have played before Royalty.
Especially do I recall a night when Queen Alexandra occupied a box at
the Savoy. It was in the "Yeoman of the Guard" revivals and my role was
_Shadbolt_. Her Majesty was kind enough to send Sir Arthur Sullivan to
my dressing-room to compliment me on the clearness of my enunciation,
and I need hardly say how gratifying such praise was to me.
Seldom was "H.M.S. Pinafore" staged during the 1920 season without Lord
Fisher coming to chuckle over Gilbert's clever satire on the "ruler of
the Queen's Navee." He revelled in that opera. It was not only, I think,
that it smacked of the sea, but he loved the gibes at the politicians
and the hearty loyalty of the honest salt who, "in spite of all
temptation," firmly resolves to "remain an Englishman." It was after he
had seen me several times as _Sir Joseph Porter_ that he invited me to
bring a few of my colleagues and spend an afternoon with him at his home
in London. I reproduce his very typical letter on another page. My
recollections of that afternoon are very delightful. Lord Fisher was a
wonderful veteran, and it was difficult afterwards to realise that a
fortnight later he was stricken down with his last illness, to which he
succumbed in the following July.
I remember that we did not have to do much of the talking. Lord Fisher
walked up and down, up and down the room as if it were the quarter-deck,
and he was telling us all the while such capital stories that we forgot
that we, too, were still standing up! Of his yarns there were two that
were very typical of the man and his ways.
[Illustration: A LETTER FROM THE LATE LORD FISHER.]
"One day," he began, "I was walking through Trafalgar Square, and as I
always do, I looked up at the statue of the greatest man that ever
lived. Then a woman who was munching a bun came along. 'Here, master,'
she said, 'who's 'e?' 'That's Lord Nelson,' I answered. 'Is it?' she
returned, 'and who's 'e?' Fancy! Never heard of Nelson! Such ignorance!
'Well,' I said, 'if it had not been for him, that bun would have cost
you, not a halfpenny, but fourpence. Good day!' And I walked on. I
suppose she thought she had been talking to a lunatic."
Then Lord Fisher spoke of the exertion needed in our dances on the
stage. "Energy! Energy! That's what we want," he declared. "Why, I was
fed by my mother until I was quite a big baby. I refused to be weaned--I
was so determined even in those days! You must have good natural food
when you are born. It means everything. It gives you stamina--it makes a
man of you."
From that interview I brought away a signed portrait of the great
seaman. "I'm an ugly blighter, aren't I?" he reflected, sadly, as he
handed it to me, "but I'm good." Candour would have compelled one to
admit that he was anything but strikingly handsome, but in that small,
intensely sallow face there was, after all, something that was
extraordinarily kindly and strong. In that sense his face was the
faithful mirror of his character.
"Jackie Fisher's" candour reminds me of a frank admission made to me by
a statesman who still wields a leading influence in present-day
politics. I think I had better not mention his name, although he is
numbered amongst my friends, and he has often been exceedingly kind in
his appreciation of my work on the stage. He told me he once met a lady
whom he had not seen for several years, and having cordially greeted
her, he said, "I'm so delighted to see you, Sybil." That he should have
remembered her, and still more, that he should have remembered her first
name, pleased the lady immensely. She said she was charmed that he had
not forgotten her name. "Oh," responded the statesman, with the best of
intentions, "I've a remarkable memory for trifles." The next moment he
realised he had committed an awful _faux pas_. What was more, he saw
that he, though a politician, could not explain it away.
Not many people remember now that Mr. George Edwardes, who created the
vogue for musical comedies as we now know them, and who made a fortune
out of his connection with the Gaiety and Daly's, was in his early days
Mr. D'Oyly Carte's manager at the Savoy. When he became a producer his
flair for stage effect amounted to genius. He could decide in a moment
to make the most revolutionary changes in a production. For instance, I
have heard him give orders that the first act should be made the second
one and the second the first, because he saw that it would better work
up the interest in the play. He would transpose a certain scene from
here to there because he knew instinctively that there was its proper
place. "I don't like that man singing that song," he said once, just
before a new comedy was due to have its first performance, and when even
the dress rehearsals were almost complete, "We'll give it to a lady."
"But," it was objected, "it's a man's song--a military song." "Never
mind," he answered in that familiar drawling voice of his, "we'll dress
her in a red coat, and we'll bring the chorus on as soldiers too." And
his judgment was absolutely right. That girl's soldier song was the
great hit of the piece.
George Edwardes was a generous, kindly-natured man, accessible to
everybody, and a splendid companion. Keenly interested as he was in his
theatrical ventures, he never made these his sole and only
pre-occupation. Upon the Turf, as every sportsman knows, he was a
shining light, and many horses from his stables won the biggest prizes
of their year. He often invited me to join him at the races, and never
failed to tell me the winners--"well, hardly ever." One day he gave me
three running. Just then I was arranging to play under his management
for a term of three years, and he said those three winners proved that
we could make money together both on and off the stage, and that we must
sign up the contract, which we did the next day.
One of my closest friends was Francois Cellier, of whom it would be
literally true to say that he devoted his life, his talents and all his
enthusiasm to the operas at the Savoy. For thirty-five years he served
them as conductor, to the exclusion of all the fame he might have won in
a wider field, for he was a musician of surpassing accomplishments. He
was the younger brother of Alfred Cellier, who was the composer, amongst
other delightful comedies, of "Dorothy." Both men were Bohemians, and
both of them might have been the architects of their own fortunes if
they had put only their own goal in front of them, and pursued it
steadily.
Francois Cellier--Honest Frank they called him, and the name suited him
well--was a prince of good fellows and a most charming and helpful
companion. I can never tell the debt I owe to him for all the advice he
gave to me regarding our performances. He knew Gilbert's and Sullivan's
ideas to the minutest detail, and, with all his love of the operas, he
wanted those ideas carried through exactly on the stage. Even with the
audiences he had a magnetic personality. Unlike most conductors, who
feel they must allow just as many encores as the audience demands, he
could indicate by some strange method to those behind him that an encore
would be unreasonable or inconsiderate, and immediately the applause
would subside and the play would proceed.
Cellier had his heart and soul in every performance, and what that means
is known only to those who work on the stage, and who do sometimes
become dull and listless because of their very familiarity with the
parts they are playing or because the audience cannot easily be aroused
to "concert pitch." What brightness they may give to their acting is of
a superficial and mechanical kind that can give them no pleasure. It is
at just such times as these that a real conductor is worth his weight in
gold. Notwithstanding that he may have seen the piece hundreds of
times--and might with reason be more bored than the principals
themselves--he comes to each new performance with an enthusiasm which
shakes the company out of themselves and makes everything go with a
will.
Some conductors I have known have shown so little interest in their work
that they did not even attempt to conceal their boredom. This is very
unfair to the players. Can anyone expect there to be any spirit in the
singing of a chorus when the conductor is just listlessly waving his
baton, or when he shows such little respect for the artistes that,
during their dialogues, he either yawns sleepily or leans over for a
chat with the strings? Cellier was never guilty of that discourtesy.
From the time he picked up his baton for the first bar of the overture
the "play was the thing." During a chorus you would see him alert and
awake and stirring on the company to give their best, and during your
own solos or dialogues you would see him listening intently so that,
like a friendly critic, he could afterwards praise you for what you had
done well or give you hints where there was cause for improvement. It is
a great thing to the artistes to see a genial face at the conductor's
desk, and the operas go with a great spirit and nerve whenever the
conductor, seconded by the orchestra, is doing everything to help us
along. Our company's record has been a very fortunate one in this
respect.
Everybody who plays in Gilbert and Sullivan makes it a point of honour
to do his or her best to preserve what we call the traditions of the
Savoy. If I were asked to name the secret of the charm of these operas,
I should have to answer that there was not one secret, but many, but
that one of the chief is their sense of "repose." Gilbert, like the
master playwright he was, would never have two situations running
together. If, that is to say, the leading character was going to offer
his hand to the heroine, the whole company must look on eagerly and
expectantly. It would never do for them to be indifferent and
uninterested. Still less would it do for subsidiary characters to do
something that might attract the audience's eye to them in some other
part of the stage. Everything must be focussed on the central incident,
and to this end every member of the company must think first and all the
time of the play, and not indulge in those hateful individual touches of
"pantomime."
What I mean is best seen in what happens quite frequently in ordinary
plays. Nearly every minor actor and actress seems to take, or is allowed
to take, licence to put in a little bit of "business" on his or her own
account, and so draw kudos to himself or herself by being supposed to be
"funny." It is really only "supposed." Generally it is not funny at all,
and it mars the effect of the play by making the entire atmosphere
restless and perplexed. Eyes are strained here, there and everywhere,
and the poor audience in trying to catch this, that and the other point,
is probably missing what is the chief point of the play. Well, if
refinement is not the keynote of a production, this may possibly not
matter so much, but it is certainly foreign to the tranquil atmosphere
of Gilbert and Sullivan.
No one, I think, could have done more by his example on the stage to
encourage refinement in these operas than my good friend, Rutland
Barrington. During his playing career--now at an end, unhappily--he was
an artiste to his finger tips. He had also a great asset in his fine
presence and personality. Our friendship has been of the closest, and I
call to mind an incident when we were at Portsmouth and when there was
something important occurring at the Royal Dockyard. "We can't get in
without a pass," I said to him, but he only smiled and said that, at all
events, we could try. "Watch me," he commanded. Straightening himself
up, he walked to the gates as if in the manner born, took the salute
from the sentries, and entered the yard. It looked ridiculously easy. So
I decided to follow suit. The sentries would not let me through. "Can't
come in without a pass," I was told, and let me through they would not
on any account, however much I tried to "flatter, cajole and persuade."
Barrington always did have "a way with him." I imagine the sentries were
impressed by his bearing, or it may be that they had mistaken him for
his brother, Admiral Fleet.
This naval reference serves to recall a most interesting story bearing
on the subject of "make-up." Now, "make-up" has always been a
fascinating study to me, and many kind friends tell me that I have a
special gift for it, instancing how completely I transform my appearance
for parts so different, for example, as the hunchback _King Gama_ and
the martial old _General Stanley_. Certainly I do spend more time than
most actors do over the arts and deceptions of the dressing-room. For
_King Gama_ the make-up of the face alone takes an hour, apart from all
the physical deformities that have to be contrived when playing this
ugly, ungainly character in "Princess Ida." But all this by the way.
What I was going to write about was an incident when a worried young
naval lieutenant came to see me at the close of our show at the Savoy.
He was at the romantic age then, a trifle oblivious to the passing of
time when there was a charming lady at his side, and at the theatre he
overlooked that by a certain hour he should have been back at the Naval
College at Greenwich. Lieutenant X came round to see me in a terrible
state. What was he to do? If he went back, he told me, he would be
stopped at the gates by the sentries and he would have to give
explanations, of which none he could think of would be adequate. If, on
the other hand, he did not return there would be a court-martial, and he
would be dismissed from the Service. Before him, whichever way he
turned, was the blank ruin of his career and he disgraced in the eyes of
his family. Well I don't know which of us actually suggested it, but it
occurred to us that if only he could be disguised as an Admiral, he
might easily get into the college! An Admiral had to keep no strict
hours when absent from duty, and if only he could look and act the part,
the sentries would let him pass and ask no awkward questions. So in a
very few minutes I was busy treating him with all the arts of "make-up."
Certainly the addition of a pointed beard made a most effective
disguise, and it answered splendidly, for at Greenwich he marched boldly
through the gates to the dutiful salutes of the sentries. The situation
was saved. For my own part I felt that I had done something to save a
career, and as it happens, the romantic young friend of those days is
now a real Admiral, and a very well-known and popular one, in his
Majesty's Navy.
Numerous are the stories told about my friend and colleague for so many
years--Fred Billington. In temperament and character we were entirely
opposites, but there was scarcely one disagreement throughout our long
companionship, during which we played together almost continuously. He
was a Yorkshireman, and before he joined the company, with which he
remained for thirty-seven years, he was in the office of the Water Board
at Huddersfield. The whole of his stage career was spent with these
operas.
It was not everybody who understood Billington. Sometimes he could be
uncommonly moody and gruff, and if he did not feel in the mood to talk,
he would make it clear that he wanted no introductions to one's own
acquaintances. But under the rugged surface he was a fine-hearted
fellow, who lived life heartily and lived it well, and nothing pleased
him better, apart from a game of golf, than to sit and gossip with those
whose society he liked.
One day he invited three of us to a round of golf, and it being a cold
morning, he told us that he was ordering "a good beef-steak and kidney
pudding." Well, when we had finished the game and returned to the
club-house, in came that steaming pudding. Billington looked at it long
and earnestly. "It won't do for four," he reflected. Then a pause. "It
would make a poor meal for three. There's scarcely enough for two. I'll
tell you what. I'll have it--and you three can have chops." And that is
just what we did.
Billington had a gift of robust eloquence, and unless one was accustomed
to it, the freedom with which it flowed from his tongue was most
embarrassing. He was playing a clergyman one day at golf. The cleric,
whenever he made a bad shot, invariably relieved his feelings by
exclaiming, "Oh, Pickles! Pickles!" Language of this kind in
Billington's ears was exceedingly trying, and as if determined to give
the parson a lesson, he came out with a string of oaths of the richest
and most vivid description. "Thank you very much, Mr. Billington," said
the clergyman, smilingly, "thank you very much!" Evidently those were
the sort of words which, but for respect for his cloth, he wanted to
say!
One day he went out for a match with a bishop. The club officials,
knowing how exuberant his language could be, were on tenter-hooks of
anxiety all the time they were out, and on their return the secretary
hastened to take the episcopal visitor apart. "Mr. Billington, the
actor, you know, my lord," he explained. "I hope his language didn't
shock you." "Oh, no!" responded the bishop, diplomatically, "he did once
call on the Almighty, but otherwise his language was beyond reproach."
Dear old Billington! Earlier in life he had been with the company on a
South African tour, and the wide spaces, the ample life and the
boundless opportunities of that vast country appealed to him
irresistibly. South Africa had a "call" for him, and he had ambitions,
when the time came for him to retire, to settle there. That ambition was
never realised. Only the night before he died, while we were in our
dressing-room, he surprised me with the question, "How would you like to
die, Harry?"
From a man so little inclined to brood on the morbid the question was
strange. I told him I didn't know. I had never, I told him, thought it
out, and didn't intend to, either.
"But if you had to die," he insisted, "how would you prefer to go?"
"Oh! I don't know," I retorted. "Anyhow, we're not going to die just
yet."
"Well," was his answer, "if I had my way, it would be a good dinner, a
bottle of wine, a good cigar, a good joke, and--pop-off!"
It must have been a premonition. The very next day, while still
apparently in perfect health, he left Cambridge to keep a luncheon
engagement with Mr. Rupert D'Oyly Carte at the Great Eastern Hotel,
London. The intention was that he should be back for the night
performance. With the lunch they had a bottle of wine, and afterwards,
over cigars, they talked with many a hearty joke in between. Then he
went out into the foyer--and collapsed. It was at least good to think
that the passing of my dear old friend was free from pain or suffering.
Fred Billington's end must have been hastened by a sequence of events
during the war. Strangely enough, when we were at Sheffield, the town
was visited by a Zeppelin raid, and there was another raid when we were
at Hull, a third when we were at Kennington, and a fourth when we were
at Wimbledon. Billington's nerves, naturally enough, were very upset.
Wherever we went the Zepps seemed to be after us. "Do you know, Harry,"
he said, at last, "I believe that bally Kaiser has got our tour." What
he meant, of course, was that our list of bookings had got into the
hands of the All-Highest, and that he thought, apparently, that if he
could wipe out the Gilbert and Sullivan operas he would be able to break
the spirit of England. Looked at in that way, the attention paid to us,
whether intentional or not, was certainly flattering.
Worse than those raids, however, was the Dublin rebellion, into which we
ran at Easter 1916. We should have opened there on the Bank Holiday. In
point of fact we did not play one single night. Fred and I were at the
Gresham Hotel. The very first day we were not allowed out at all, for we
were in the very centre of hostilities, and no one could go into the
street except at his peril. Chafing under the restraint, I did at last
attempt to venture out, though feeling that there were too many bullets
about for things to be healthy. Opposite the Gresham, at the door of the
Irish Club, I saw the well-known figure of the Dublin Coroner, Mr.
Friery. I rushed across to him, and it was because I spoke to him, I
believe, that I was ever able to get back alive. Mr. Friery, with his
top hat and frock-coat, was an easily distinguished citizen, and neither
the military nor the rebels would have been likely to fire at him
deliberately. "You ought never to have come across," he told me, and as
it happened, the very same thought had occurred to me.
Conditions in the hotel itself were the reverse of pleasant, what with
the noise of the firing outside and bullets shooting through our own
windows, though these were shuttered and protected as far as possible.
Our food stocks commenced to run low--by the end of the week's siege we
had only biscuits and ham--and the strain on the larder was added to by
the arrival of scores of visitors who had been turned out of the
Metropole Hotel. They had been told to take their valuables with them,
and it was remarkable how, in the fright of such an emergency, men would
grasp the first thing that came into their hands and leave their real
treasures behind. One man rushed over clutching two dirty collars, while
another had a bath-towel which he had picked up, it seemed, instead of a
dressing-gown. English jockeys who were there for the race week hurried
over holding a saddle case.
Our anxieties were increased in the meanwhile by the systematic
operations of the military around Eden Quay. One by one the houses were
being demolished by shellfire, and in one of the threatened houses, as
we knew, were many of the ladies of the company. To get to them was
impossible. Luckily for them a sergeant on signalling duty heard their
cries, and at once rushed to their help. "Who are you?" he shouted.
"What are you doing here?" "We're the D'Oyly Carte," they answered. The
D'Oyly Carte name worked like magic. Signalling to the gunners to cease
fire, the sergeant hurried them out and through the streets, where
sniping was going on at every corner, and took them to a police-station
for safety.
All the other members of the company had more or less miraculous
escapes. Leicester Tunks, Frederick Hobbs, Leo Sheffield, and several
others lost all their luggage, but fortunately none sustained any more
serious mishap. From the good people of Dublin we received every
possible kindness, but as you will imagine, we were thankful when we
heard that there were berths on a boat to take us back to Holyhead.
I have not, of course, told all my experiences of that awful week,
though in memory these still linger vividly. But one of the things I
remember best of all was a quaint remark of Billington's. Outside there
was still the noise of the fighting, and most persistent of all was the
crack! crack! crack! of a sniper somewhere near our own building. "Oh!
Harry," said poor Fred, in utter weariness, "I do wish that bally
wood-pecker would chuck it!"
VIII.
HOBBIES OF A SAVOYARD.
_Luckless ventures in Theatrical Management--Farces that
failed--New outlets for Enthusiasm--Baldness in the poultry
run--Captain Corcoran and the crooks--Floricultural
topsy-turvydom--The flowers that did not bloom in the
Spring--Recreations that remain--Prize Costumes at fancy-dress
balls--The big-game shot and the tiger._
Like "Mr. Punch" in another connection, I have a sound piece of advice
for those who may ever think of embarking on theatrical management.
"Don't!" I say this after bitter experience. It was not only that my
gallanty show as a boy ended disastrously. This, of course, was itself a
bad omen, and it ought to have taught me that public taste is fickle and
that the gamble of theatrical management is surrounded by all kinds of
perils. A West-end audience may be just as capricious and as hard to
please as my audience of village lads in the garden.
My first real venture, a London one, was at the Criterion Theatre, which
with a few others I took on lease from Sir Charles Wyndham, in order to
produce "The Wild Rabbit." It was by Mr. George Arliss, who has since
given up writing plays in order to act them, and he is now a "star" in
America. It was one of those rollicking farces which, one would have
thought, would have filled the house every night. I was playing
elsewhere at the time, but we got together a really excellent company,
amongst whom were the Broughs. But fate was against us from the very
beginning. The production coincided with a heat wave, which is bound to
be disastrous to all but the best of shows, and one of the facetious
complaints of the newspaper critics was that they had to come to the
theatre when the temperature was eighty in the shade.
"The Wild Rabbit" survived three weeks only. It drew L34 the first
night--and that was the high-water mark in the matter of receipts. One
night the box-office took a mere L8. Seeing that the expenses were about
L600 a week, it will be understood that the failure was severe and
complete, and in most circumstances one lesson of the kind would have
been enough. However, a number of friends of mine had secured the rights
of "Melnotte," an operatic version of that good old comedy, "The Lady of
Lyons." They did not ask me to invest any capital, but they invited me
to let them have the use of my name in booking a tour for the provinces,
as they themselves were unknown to theatrical managers. Upon that basis
an eight weeks' tour was arranged. Gathering together about sixty
artistes all told, they rehearsed them and bought all the scenery, and
were almost on the eve of the first production of "Melnotte." Then one
fine morning there came the thunderbolt. They told me that all the money
they had put into the venture had gone! It had gone before the company
had even left London. What was to be done? Seemingly their idea was
centred in how speedily they could cut their losses and abandon the
venture. Such a thing to me was impossible. With my name attached to the
tour, a breach of faith with so many provincial managers would have
been a serious blow to my reputation, and apart from that, the fact that
sixty of my fellow artistes were in danger of being thrown out of work
compelled me to take both a moral and a financial obligation on my
shoulders and run the show myself. I could only hope for the best and
wait patiently for the report of my manager that the tour was
flourishing.
That report never came. Every week I had to post a big cheque to cover
the deficit on the takings, and every week made it clearer that,
although the play itself was a good one, it was a thoroughly bad
speculation. Something certainly was amiss. I could not leave London
myself, and the only alternative was to offer a friend his railway fare
and expenses and ask him to run into the country, see the play and tell
me frankly what was amiss. "Harry," said my friend very meaningly, "I've
never done you a bad turn. I've seen it--_once_." Once was enough!
Eight weeks saw the end of "Melnotte." From the first it was a forlorn
hope, and in any case it was impossible to run a company successfully
unless one could be on the spot to superintend the production. The only
satisfaction I had out of it--and I admit it with some feelings of
pride--was that of standing by my fellow professionals, and, at whatever
cost to myself, "playing the game." I have never made--and never shall
be lured to make--another plunge into management. The risks are too
great.
Sometimes I am inclined to contrast my bad luck in these business
ventures with the good fortune of a friend who once asked me for a loan
of L90. He was in humble circumstances then, but he had a little money
of his own and his ambition was to buy the licence of a public-house in
Holloway. I lent him the cash, and later on he came to repay me, with
many thanks for thus giving him his opportunity. Years afterwards we met
again. Upon the basis of that little public-house he had built a
comfortable fortune, for he was a director of a brewery concern, had a
big interest in various industrial undertakings, and eventually became a
well-known member of Parliament. "You have been my mascot," he said--and
there have been others who for various reasons have said the very same
thing!
[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "THE LORD CHANCELLOR" IN "IOLANTHE."]
Once I met a "dear friend"--you may know the kind yourself--who was
terribly anxious that I should be "in" with him in a rich gold mine in
Alaska. He brought some nuggets to show me, and they were so plentiful,
he told me, that he had picked these from the top of the ground.
Evidently I must have been a particularly credulous person, because he
got a good deal of my money, whereas all I got was experience!
Where hobbies are concerned my luck always seems to be appalling. I have
had a mania for turning my hands to all sorts of things. It began, I
remember, with my determination to commence breeding poultry, and having
made up my mind to this, it had to be done very thoroughly. I bought
quite a number of chickens and wired them within a very small space. The
poor things had nothing like enough room, and they began to get bad
tempered, to fight one another, and to pull out their feathers. Further,
having pulled out their rivals' feathers and found the oil at the roots
very tasty, they set to in earnest, and before long there was not one
bird with a feather left in the place. They were all bald! A more
miserable collection of freaks you could never imagine. With
characteristic humour Dan Leno sent me a bottle of Tatcho for them!
From hens to ducks was not a far cry. So I bought a number of ducks'
eggs, hatched them in an incubator, and at last decided that it was time
the little wretches had their first swim. I accordingly carried them
down to a pond to put them in. Alas! once more for my amateur
enthusiasm! The ducklings were too young for that, and they got cramp
and died.
Nothing daunted, I turned now to bulldogs, and in order to do things
well I bought seven big kennels, complete with iron gates. They would
have done credit to a big estate, where breeding is done on up-to-date
lines, and were quite out-of-place in my suburban garden at Chiswick. To
begin with we could not get the kennels into the garden. For hours they
were on the street pavement while we cogitated just how we were going to
get them round to the back of the house, and it was only after a
police-officer had intervened with an order to remove them forthwith,
because they were a nuisance, that we found that if there is a will,
there must be a way.
"Captain Corcoran" was the name I gave to my best bulldog, and as he
brought me luck, I was glad I had chosen that name from "Pinafore." He
was a sturdy fellow, the winner of very many championships, and his
progeny have since also carried off valuable prizes. But even my one
successful hobby was doomed to be blighted. One day two crafty-looking
individuals came to my house and said they wanted to see me about a dog.
They were Americans, and they wanted, they told me, to buy "Captain
Corcoran." I told them I would not sell him--not at any price. They
found it a waste of time to try to fix up a deal. "Well," they said as
their parting shot, "we're going to have him, anyhow." Within a day or
two police officers called to warn me that two expert dog thieves had
taken rooms in the neighbourhood, and I was forced to the conclusion,
much as I disliked it, that I must dispose of "Captain Corcoran." Later
on I commenced to breed dachshunds and Borzois, but somehow I did not
care for the "doggy" people with whom I had to mix, and the end was that
I gave up dogs altogether.
Then I determined I would venture into the more tranquil arts of
floriculture. I would have my own flower garden, and what was more,
everything in it should be done by myself. My wife, shrewd woman, said
nothing. It was a case of "leave him alone, and he'll play for hours."
From Holland I ordered an immense number of bulbs and put them into the
ground. Months went by, but not a sign was there of my hyacinths. I
pondered deeply over my manual of useful hints for gardening. Watered
them? Yes. Raked the soil? Yes. What was wrong? Certain it was that
these flowers never bloomed in the spring!
Eventually, I saw a tiny yellow spike creeping out of the earth, but the
colour and nature of it were not "according to plan." At last I called
in a gardener. "Oh," he declared, doing his best to soften the blow,
"you've planted the bulbs upside down." And so I had! The poor little
shoots had to dig down into the soil before they could curve round and
creep into the light. Nearly everything in that unfortunate garden had
been planted upside down.
Friends of mine chaffed me unmercifully over that topsy-turvy exploit.
When they came to my house they would turn all the ornaments upside
down. Before I entered the room they would reverse the chairs, the
settee and anything they could lay their hands upon, and then they would
explain themselves by saying, "We thought you liked things like that,
old man. The bulbs you know. We've just heard about the bulbs."
Well, after the failure with the hens, the ducks, and the flowers, there
seemed only one other diversion to try, and that was photography. Even
that did not survive very long, nor yet did my attempt to cultivate
mushrooms in my cellar, a craze that threatened very literally to get
the place into bad odour. But there are two recreations to which I still
remain faithful, and they, after all, are worth all the rest put
together. One is golf and the other painting. Golf is a great game for
keeping the actor fit, and his mind clear for his work, and it is very
popular in our profession. Now and then, too, a day with the palette and
easel is a wonderful pleasure to me, and seldom do I take up the brush
without a thought of poor old Trood and his studio at Chelsea.
One diversion at least in which I have had my share of success has been
in the fancy dress balls at Covent Garden. Once I took the first prize
with a representation of Nelson, the costume of which was copied in
every detail from the uniform of the great seaman preserved in Greenwich
Museum, and I remember that my entry was signalised by Dan Godfrey's
orchestra striking up "'Twas in Trafalgar Bay." Then I took the chief
honours with a wonderful bust of Nero, in connection with which I
received enormous help from my old friend, the celebrated sculptor,
Albert Toft. From my waist downward I was encased in what appeared to be
a blood-marble pedestal. My face was whitened, my eyes were closed, and
my brow was adorned with the laurel leaf, and when the lights were
focussed on my rigid figure and the plaster frame it was acclaimed as a
marvellously clever imitation of the statue of the great Roman Emperor.
Once again I took the first prize at Covent Garden with the subject of
the Knave of Clubs. The costume was a silk one, half black and half
white, and on it were fastened the names of all the well-known clubs in
London. Even the members of the Beef Steak Club found that their
institution had not been overlooked--and that this title appeared on the
costume in an appropriate place!
Nowadays, when we are on tour, it is very pleasant to be able to travel
by motor-car instead of by train. With my Austin-20 car I have now
covered well over 42,000 miles, and probably the only occasion when I
deliberately exceeded the speed limit was once outside Plymouth. A
doctor with a troublesome car was held up in the roadway. When I drew up
and asked whether I could help him, he told me he had been a
quarter-of-an-hour trying to get the engine to go, though he was due at
a very critical operation some miles away. It was, indeed, a matter of
life and death, and in my own car he was very speedily taken to the
hospital. It was in the same district, I think, that I gave a "lift" to
a man who was footsore and weary, and who said at the end of the
journey, "I suppose you won't tell the gov'nor about this, will you?"
Evidently he had mistaken me for somebody's chauffeur!
Some years ago, when I was setting out from my home at Chiswick, I was
held up by a 'bus bound for Twickenham. It was crowded already, and the
conductor had to refuse a poor old woman who wanted to board it, and who
was very distressed, because she had a job at Twickenham, "and if I
don't get there," she told me, "they'll think I'm too old for work and
they won't want me again." The problem was easily solved. I offered to
take her where she was going. She had never been in a motor-car before,
and in trying to stammer her thanks, she asked me to tell her my name
"so that I shall never forget you." So I handed her my card--she
certainly did not know anything about me or what was my profession--and
went on my way. Judge of my surprise when, soon after the end of the
war, I found that that old lady had bequeathed to me the two little
rooms and all the furniture that had been her poor, but neat and cosy,
home at Hammersmith. Luckily, I heard of a demobilised soldier who, with
his wife and child, was urgently in need of a shelter, and it was a
great pleasure to me to be able to turn this touching legacy to such
good account.
Speaking of hobbies, I don't think I knew a more curious taste than that
of an old friend of mine who was a big-game shot and traveller, and who
had a miniature zoo of his own at his home at Derby. Once, when the
company was playing in that town, he invited me to go and stay the night
with him after the performance, and in his library we sat chatting until
the early hours of the morning. He told me many graphic stories about
his expeditions into strange lands, about the tigers and elephants he
had shot, and about his marvellous escapes. One story was about a
faithful servant of his, a powerfully-built black, who stood right in
front of an infuriated wounded elephant, which trampled on him and
killed him, as the poor fellow doubtless knew would be the case, though
he was ready to chance all so that his master might be protected. I
remember that my friend, having told me this incident, added, "They are
the greatest men on God's earth, are these blacks."
"Just half-a-minute," then said the explorer. Listening to those strange
adventures in the jungle had already set my nerves on edge, and to be
left alone in that dimly-lit room, with everything outside and inside it
silent and still, was really uncanny. I heard my host walk along the
corridor, open one or two doors, and apparently enter the garden. He had
left me alone in that house! In a few moments I heard an unnatural tread
in the corridor. Pit-pat, pit-pat! My eyes almost sprang out of my head.
Pit-pat, pit-pat. Nearer and nearer it came until at last into the room
there sauntered a--tiger! My friend walked in behind it.
"For God's sake take it away," I screamed, drawing my feet up into the
chair and expecting every second the beast would pounce, "Take it away!"
The tiger was really only a cub, but coming like an apparition into that
room, it seemed to be the biggest and most ferocious and most ghastly
sight on earth. Large beads of perspiration were on my forehead, my
heart was beating itself out of my body, and through my mind flashed the
countless sins of my youth. My last hours had come. "Take it away," I
yelled, again and again, "it will tear us to pieces."
Now I think of it, the tiger did not really look as if it had much of an
appetite, or if it had, the idea of making a tough meal of an actor did
not appeal to its palate. The hunter tried to assure me that the beast
was "quite all right." It flopped down by his side, and as he stroked
it, the cub purred in a manner which, to me at all events, was not at
all pleasant. "I know just how long you can keep them," my host
explained. "This one will be harmless for another month. Then it will be
dangerous. It is quite all right to-night. Come and stroke it!"
Not I! So long as the tiger remained there I kept cringed up in my seat
on the other side of the room, and mighty thankful I was when he had
taken his strange pet away. I've an old-fashioned notion that a library
is not the happiest place for a menagerie. I heard that just a month
afterwards the beast did, in fact, turn on the big-game shot, and his
arm was terribly ripped. He must have trusted it just a day too long.
[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "KO-KO" IN "THE MIKADO"]
IX.
GILBERT AND SULLIVAN.
_World-wide Fame of the Operas--The Secrets of Their
Charm--Sullivan's Music and the Popular Taste--Gilbert and the
Englishman--Stage Figures That Are True to National Type--The
Germans and "H.M.S. Pinafore"--Characters That Mirror
Ourselves--Gilbert's Versatility--Pedigree of the
Operas--Practical Hints for Amateurs--The Importance of the
First Entrance--Studying the Art of Make-up--A Splendid Heritage
of Humour and Song._
The Gilbert and Sullivan public are said to number three millions.
Exactly how this figure is arrived at I cannot say, but it is presumed
to represent those who make it a point of honour to see the operas
whenever they possibly can, who are familiar with all the music and the
songs, and who lose no chance of making others as enthusiastic as they
are. Literally they are to be found the whole world over--from China to
Peru--and the operas are as successful in Australia and America as they
are in the United Kingdom. I was told once of an Englishman, exiled in
the wilds of China, who had an audience of Celestials listening at his
garden gate while he was warbling to himself "Take a Pair of Sparkling
Eyes!"
What a wonderful thing it is that plays which are all well over thirty
years old should have such a faithful following! Clearly there must be
something exceptional about them, some magnetic force that draws the
multitudes to them, some elixir that gives to them the freshness of
eternal youth. Imitators have tried hard to capture the secret of their
sweet simplicity. That they have failed so far to do so is a
misfortune. The Savoy operas still stand alone, unchallenged either by
any changing in popular taste or by the passage of time, though if there
were more of them it would be good for the public that loves such
honest, wholesome enjoyment. It would also be good for the stage. What
is the secret?
Sullivan's music often reminds me of a beautiful garden. No attempt is
there here to picture in bold orchestral strokes the frowning peaks, the
expansive landscapes or the scenes of pomp and splendour. The canvas is
ever a miniature one. Each melody is comparable to a lily or a
daffodil--just as unpretentious and just as charming--while the whole
has the fragrance of the flowers that bloom in the spring. We love this
music because it soothes and delights. It is not too "intellectual." We
appreciate it as a free and easy distraction, just as we appreciate a
popular novel, though we may have high-brow moments when we peer into
our Darwin and Spencer. Sullivan's greatest virtue was that he wrote
music that was "understanded of the people."
British folk, as we know, are easy going. We are a little too inclined
to doff the thinking-cap at the first opportunity. Speaking generally,
we are not a studious race, and we don't want to be bothered with
"problems." Sullivan's music is never in the problem style--the problem
of intricate chords and modern progressions--and just as certainly does
it avoid the strident atrocities of the modern ragtime type. It is
transparent and simple. It sparkles like the stream in the sunshine, and
it is always joyous, buoyant and happy. We want more of such music.
Give the people more of these delicate melodies--frankly popular as they
are, and yet supremely good music--and into their own lives will enter
much of the same romantic warmth and content.
All this shows how Sullivan in his music was perfectly and typically
British. What about Gilbert? In his way I think he was the same. British
audiences, he knew, did not want either abstruse plots or out-and-out
farces, but they did like to be indulged with gentle ripples of
laughter. They did not care over-much for the incongruous, but they did
love rollicking, good-natured burlesque. And Gilbert was a master of
burlesque. Endless arrows are released from his bow, but they hit the
mark without disfiguring it, for the tips are not dipped in poison. The
Briton can laugh with the best when his own weaknesses and foibles are
held up to satire. Certain people would go at once into a tantrum. The
Germans, as we know, could never understand "H.M.S. Pinafore." They said
it was impossible! No doubt to them it was impossible. Gilbert was
making play with Britain's proudest possession--her Navy. Well, the
Germans could never have produced a Gilbert of their own in any case,
but imagine the enormity of the crime if such a one had written a play
caricaturing the omnipotent German War Lords and the old German Army!
Whatever the national costume in which the Gilbert characters are
dressed, and however remote the age to which these costumes belong, we
know at once that the garb is the purest "camouflage." We have met their
like in present-day London or Glasgow or Liverpool. What a lot of folk
in real life we know with the same little oddities! _The Duke of
Plaza-Toro_, though described as a Spanish grandee, is really very much
an Englishman. He sings, too, about the human weakness for small titles
and orders, and we know that that is not an exclusive weakness of the
Venetians or the Baratarians in "The Gondoliers." The cap can find a
head to fit it much nearer home. Then there is the character of _Sir
Joseph Porter_ in "Pinafore." No doubt he is an exaggerated political
type, but he is not exaggerated, after all, beyond recognition.
"The Yeomen of the Guard" is, of all operas ever written, the one most
essentially English. The Elizabethan setting is there, and so is the
happy spirit of old Merrie England. Slightly, perhaps, it may be a
drama, but it brings to the surface the tears of gentle melancholy only.
That also stamps it as typically British. _Colonel Fairfax_, under the
shadow of the executioner's axe, does not strike a dramatic pose and
tell us that it is a far, far better thing he is going to do than he has
ever done. Not a bit! In effect, he says its rather hard luck, but there
it is anyhow, and after all things might be very much worse. A British
officer always was ready to face death with a smile. Nor does _Jack
Point_ himself, the most lovable of characters, make a parade of his
grief. The burning, aching pain is smothered almost to the end beneath
the outward jesting, and when his honest heart breaks there is no murmur
against the cruelty of fate, nor any cry of vengeance upon the rival who
has won _Elsie Maynard_.
Yes, we British people can often see ourselves in these characters as
if in a mirror, and it is probably due to this, together with the
exquisite blend of inimitable music and wit, that the popularity of
these operas is so strong and enduring. Stage "puppets" as they may be,
they do show us a lot about both our virtues and follies, but rather
more about our follies, because as a race we are notoriously shy of our
praises being sung! They are always ready to own up to their weaknesses
in some capital song. So like the self-depreciating British! Like the
rest of us, too, they are for ever getting into some dilemma or other,
and they disentangle themselves without excitement or flurry. Each point
is made without the banging of drums or the sounding of trumpets.
Contrast this with Wagner, who makes a terrible fuss about the merest
trifle, and works up his orchestration in a manner that might suggest
that the heavens were falling. Whether we like our music like this must
be a matter of taste and individual discretion. Here in Gilbert and
Sullivan at all events we have common sense--for there can be common
sense even in the ridiculous--and a tranquilising atmosphere. In a busy,
workaday world, with its ceaseless nervous and physical strain, it is
surely a grateful attribute, a pleasant diversion between the burdens of
one day and those of the next!
Sir William Gilbert, as I have said before, had a master mind as a
playwright. Every opera he wrote had a definite and an interesting plot,
and a plot which had, moreover, a purpose. "H.M.S. Pinafore," as we
know, was a shrewd shaft aimed at some of the absurdities of our
political life, though I say this without being in any way a politician
myself! In "Patience" he held up to ridicule the aesthetic craze of the
'eighties. With "Iolanthe" we enter the fantastic field, and to me there
is always something uncommonly whimsical in the idea that Parliament is
ruled by the fairies, who thus must be the real rulers of England.
"Princess Ida" was a clever anticipation of the women's movement, though
it is well-known that Gilbert took the outlines of the story from
Tennyson. Then "The Mikado" transports to the romantic and picturesque
land of Japan. "Ruddigore" was intended to be a travesty on the
melodramatic stage. Following this came an historical play, designed to
show his gifts in a new, more serious and no less successful light. I
refer, of course, to "The Yeomen of the Guard." Then "The Gondoliers"
carried us to beautiful Venice, whilst last of all were "Utopia
Limited," which I trust will soon be revived, and "The Grand Duke." It
is remarkable that so wide a range could be covered in one series of
plays.
* * * * *
Gilbert, at an O.P. Club dinner in 1906, admitted his "indebtedness to
the author of the 'Bab Ballads,' from whom I have so unblushingly
cribbed." The diligent student of the ballads and the operas will find
many evidences of the development of ideas from the chrysalis to the
butterfly stage. I have to thank Mr. Robert Bell for the following
notes--confirmed and amplified by Gilbert during his lifetime--on the
pedigree of a few of the more popular operas:--
"H.M.S. Pinafore" "Captain Reece," "The
Baby's Vengeance," "General
John," "Lieutenant-Colonel
Flare," "The Bumboat
Woman's Story," "Joe
Golightly," "Little Oliver."
"The Yeoman of the Guard" "Annie Protheroe," "To
Phoebe."
"Iolanthe" "The Fairy Curate," "The
Periwinkle Girl."
"Patience" "The Rival Curates."
"H.M.S. Pinafore," it will be seen, owed more to the ballads than did
any of the later operas, and it will be noticed that _Captain Corcoran_,
with his solicitude for his crew and his carefully moderate language,
was clearly of the stock of _Captain Reece_, of "The Mantelpiece," who
"Did all that lay within him to
Promote the comfort of his crew;
A feather bed had every man
Warm slippers and hot-water can,
Brown Windsor from the captain's store,
A valet, too, to every four."
--an example of unselfishness to be compared in the other branch of the
Service only with the altruism of "Lieutenant-Colonel Flare." The main
theme of the opera--the babies changed in their cradles--was a great
favourite with Gilbert. In the ballads it appears in "General John" and
"The Baby's Vengeance," which latter poem may have suggested, moreover,
certain details in "Ruddigore." The origin of _Robin Oakapple's_
bashfulness may possibly be traced back to "The Married Couple," in
which the pair were betrothed in infancy, as also happens in "Princess
Ida."
"Iolanthe" has an obvious resemblance to "The Fairy Curate." In both a
fairy marries a mortal, with the result in one case of the curate,
_Georgie_, and in the other the Arcadian shepherd, _Strephon_. Then we
are bound to notice how the feud of the two poets in "Patience" is
modelled on the emulation of the _Rev. Clayton Hooper_ and the _Rev.
Hopley Porter_ in "The Rival Curates." Indeed, the parallel between the
ballad and the opera was originally so complete that in the opera the
dragoons were curates, and _Bunthorne_ and _Grosvenor_ clergymen! Sir
William, however, began to doubt whether it was good taste to hold up
the clergy to a certain amount of ridicule, and so he changed the
principals into aesthetes, and the curates into dragoons.
Coming to "The Yeomen of the Guard" we find that _Wilfred Shadbolt_,
with his anecdotes of the prison cells and the torture chamber, had a
prototype in the jailor in "Annie Protheroe." In both a condemned man is
reprieved and enabled to outwit his rival for the love of a lady. "Were
I thy Bride" is also a song with an obvious affinity to the ballad, "To
Phoebe." So we might continue to trace in the ballads ideas which the
playwright turned to the happiest account in the operas. Strangely
enough, "The Mikado" is the opera which best keeps its secrets, and one
searches the poems in vain for anything in the nature of a "pedigree."
Lucky is the actor or actress who secures an engagement in these operas
at the outset of his or her career on the stage. The Savoy tradition
which Gilbert and Sullivan founded was, of course, entirely different to
anything which had preceded it, and the great feature of this new school
was the insistence that was and still is placed on clear enunciation,
distinct vocal phrasing, and refinement of manner and gesture. The
beginner who is trained on these lines is thus taught the essentials of
genuine artistry, and it is also a great advantage to a new-comer that,
early in his professional life, he has played in pieces which have such
an infectious spirit about them and before audiences that are always so
ready with encouragement. By the management itself good work is
invariably recognised, and it is always possible, as has happened in my
own case, for one to rise from the chorus itself to the principal parts.
Gilbert and Sullivan's works are now given by hundreds of amateur
societies all the year round, and often we hear that parties of those
who are going to play in them have travelled some distance to see us,
and so to gather notes for their own performances. Scattered about these
pages are many practical hints for these amateur players. From an "old
hand" they may be of some service, not merely because they are drawn
from my own long experience, but because many of these points were given
me by Gilbert himself and by great actors like Irving. It will be
useful, I think, if I now summarise and amplify these suggestions, which
are applicable chiefly to those who are to play in these operas, but
which in a general way may be helpful to all amateur and young
professional performers. Here they are:--
1. Study your part very thoroughly beforehand, and when on the stage
forget all about yourself, and live that part entirely. Concentrate all
your thoughts upon it, and if it is a whimsical part, see that you get
the right atmosphere before you begin.
2. Speak clearly and deliberately. Never forget the man at the back of
the gallery, and so long as your enunciation is distinct, your words
will reach him without any need for shouting. Special care should be
taken to phrase clearly when singing.
3. Be perfectly natural in your actions and gestures. The secret of this
is, whether you are actually speaking or not, to wrap yourself up in
your part and in the play, and so save yourself from being troubled with
self-consciousness.
4. Give your audience credit for humorous perception. Gilbert's wit, in
other words, is such that the actor must not force his lines through
fear, as it were, that the people in front will otherwise not be
intelligent enough to "see the joke." Indeed, the more serious and
intense he is in many cases, the more oblivious he pretends to be to the
absurdity of what he is saying, the quainter and more delightful is the
effect on the other side of the footlights.
5. Exceptional instances apart, the actor who is speaking or being
spoken to, or who is singing a song, should stand well to the front of
the stage. Not only does this let you make the best use of your voice,
but it helps you, what is more important, to rivet the attention of the
audience.
6. Keep up a keen personal interest in the play. If you are in the
chorus, your job is not solely to help in the singing and to show off a
picturesque costume, but to assist in focussing the interest on the
central incident. If, on the other hand, you are listless and stare
about the theatre, it is bound to rob the whole performance of freshness
and spontaneity.
7. The Gilbert and Sullivan atmosphere, as I have said several times
elsewhere, is "repose." This is impossible if every member of the
company--and even the leading principal himself--indulges in little
mannerisms liable to take the audience's eye from the central point.
8. Never forget that a company, so far from being divided into
principals and chorus, is really one big family, and success depends on
one and all "pulling together." Still less should the principals forget
what they owe to the chorus for loyally backing them up, and a little
kindly appreciation, a word of encouragement from themselves, as the
more experienced players, to those who are anxious to learn, goes a
mighty long way.
Now that the old stock companies have become almost things of the past,
our amateur operatic societies should be recognised as one of the best
recruiting fields for theatrical talent, and it is a fact that from
their ranks many great artistes have sprung. I myself have seen numbers
of these amateur shows, and in most of them there have been two or three
performers who, with work and experience, could take a creditable place
on the professional stage. For this reason I am anxious to give them all
the advice it is in my power to give. First and foremost, therefore, I
should insist that before any words are memorised the part itself must
be thoroughly studied, so that one knows exactly what the author intends
and just what sort of figure one has to depict. Especially have I made
it my aim, on my first entrance in any part, to let the audience see
just what the character is, whether a comedian, a tragedian, a lover, a
fool, or a "fop." _Feel_ that you are actually one of these, and
especially when you make your first entry, and the battle is half won
already. You will then have something of what people variously call
"magnetism" or "personality" or "atmosphere." This _feeling_ of your
part at the first entrance is of vital importance, and as far as you
can, you must try to keep it up right through the play.
Take the case of _Jack Point_. From the moment he enters the audience
should know the manner of man that he is and he must win their sympathy
immediately. He is a poor strolling player who has been dragged from
pillar to post. Footsore and weary though he is, _Jack Point_ is anxious
to please the crowd who have roughly chased him and _Elsie Maynard_ in,
for if he fails them have they not threatened to duck him in the nearest
pond? _Jack_ and _Elsie_ are no ordinary players. In Elizabethan times
the street dancer was a familiar character. The Merry-man and his maid,
however, tell us that they can sing _and_ dance too, a wonderful
accomplishment. All this and more is made clear on their first entry. It
should be the same in the interpretation of all the other parts.
When the _Duke of Plaza-Toro_ arrives, he must at once impress the
audience that, although impecunious, he still expects the deference due
to birth and breeding. _Ko-Ko_, on the other hand, is a cheap tailor
suddenly exalted to the rank of Lord High Executioner, and from _his_
first entrance it is obvious that he was never brought up in the
dignified ways of a Court. He tells the gentlemen of Japan that he is
"much touched by this reception." Somehow one feels that that speech was
written out for him when he received his appointment, that he has since
recited it forty times a day, and that now the upstart is trying to make
believe it is entirely extempore! Then there is _Sir Joseph Porter_.
Whenever I play this role I do my best to cultivate a sense of immense
self-importance. I do this, of course, whilst waiting my cue, but the
effect of it should be seen on the stage. _Bunthorne_'s first appearance
should be done in such a way as to stamp him definitely for what he
is--an affected "poseur." The exaggeration may be relaxed a little
afterwards--but it _must_ be there at the beginning.
So long as one has studied one's part beforehand, particularly in regard
to the nature of the first entry, the memorisation of the words becomes
more or less easy. And amateurs ought to realise what a tremendous help
to them it would be to practice their own facial "make-up." Generally
they leave that to an expert, but if they practised it themselves, they
would find it a very fascinating, and certainly an important, branch of
the actor's profession. Many and many a time have I taken my pencils and
colours, retired to some quiet room at home, and spent an afternoon
experimenting in make-up. Notwithstanding that I have never played any
Shakespearian characters, I have made up privately for dozens of them,
and the practice has helped me in innumerable ways.
For instance, I used to be fond of making up as the hunchback _Richard
the Third_, and I turned these experiments to account when I had to play
the role of _King Gama_. Shakespeare's _Touchstone_ also appealed to me,
and having made up as this clown so often, I had many useful ideas when
I came to do _Jack Point_. The deathly pallor of the poor jester at the
end was contrived from many similar experiments. Setting photographs
before me, I would make myself resemble the late Lord Roberts and the
late Sir Evelyn Wood, and these were used as a model when I had to be
_Major-General Stanley_. Several visits to the Law Courts gave me
valuable hints for the _Lord Chancellor_. The _Duke of Plaza-Toro_ was
studied from an old print of a grandee. _Ko-Ko's_ make up, which was
bound to be a difficult one, was the outcome of a good deal of sketching
on paper, particularly in regard to the treatment of the lines round the
eyes. When Mrs. D'Oyly Carte first saw me as _Bunthorne_, she exclaimed
"How you do remind me of Whistler!" That was a compliment. It was from
Whistler, of course, that this role was understood to be drawn, and so I
was not loath to copy the poet's photograph, even to the white lock in
his ample jet-black hair!
Yes, make-up well rewards one for all the time one spends in practising
it, and many brother professionals agree with me that the great
past-masters of the art were the late Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and the
late Wilson Barrett. With them, of course, make-up concerned not merely
the face but the figure, and it was wonderful how Tree, to instance only
two of his great parts, could adapt himself either to the portly and
blustering _Falstaff_ or to the lean and haggard _Svengali_. And
Barrett, though ordinarily stocky of build, could appear at times as a
towering, dominating personality. Seeing that these men were big
theatrical figures, they were not compelled to sink their identities in
the parts they were playing, and yet they were such great artistes that
they always did so completely.
I close this book with a simple story of the different operas. This
will, I am sure, be read with interest both by those who know them
already and by those, the younger generation, who are growing up to know
and love them too for what they are--a heritage of pure humour and song
of which the nation may well be proud, and to which it will remain
faithful as long as the spirit of laughter abides in its heart.
Dear are their melodies to England's heart,
Pure English is the fount from which they flow,
As frank and tender as was English art
In the rich times of Purcell, Arne and Blow;
As English the libretto every whit,
Jests how well polished, whimsies how well said;
True English humour, and true English wit,
Sword-sharp yet kindly, hearty yet well-bred.
Thus have they lasted, and out-last the years.
Being in their fantasy to life so true,
So intermix't with laughter and with tears.
So gay, so wise, so old, and yet so new.
Long may they, living for our children's joy,
Renew the triumphs of the old Savoy!