_THE FIRST PANTOMIME REHEARSAL_
Origin of Pantomime—Drury Lane in Darkness—One Thousand
Persons—Rehearsing the Chorus—The Ballet—Dressing-rooms—Children
on the Stage—Size of “The Lane”—A Trap-door—The Property-room—Made
on the Premises—Wardrobe-woman—Dan Leno at Rehearsal—Herbert
Campbell—A Fortnight Later—A Chat with the Principal Girl—Miss
Madge Lessing.
Exactly nine days before Christmas, 1902, the first rehearsal for
the pantomime of _Mother Goose_ took place at Drury Lane. It seemed
almost incredible that afternoon that such a thing as a “first night,”
with a crowded house packed full of critics, could witness a proper
performance nine days later, one of which, being a Sunday, did not
count.
The pantomime is one of England’s institutions. It originally came from
Italy, but as known to-day is essentially a British production, and
little understood anywhere else in the world. For the last three years,
however, the Drury Lane pantomime has been moved bodily to New York
with considerable success.
What would Christmas in London be without its Drury Lane? What would
the holidays be without the clown and harlequin? Young and old enjoy
the exquisite absurdity of the nursery rhyme dished up as a Christmas
pantomime.
The interior of that vast theatre, Drury Lane, was shrouded in
dust-sheets and darkness, the front doors were locked, excepting at the
booking office, where tickets were being sold for two and three months
ahead, and a long _queue_ of people were waiting to engage seats for
family parties when the pantomime should be ready.
At the stage door all was bustle; children of all ages and sizes were
pushing in and out; carpenters, shifters, supers, ballet girls, chorus,
all were there, too busy to speak to any one as they rushed in from
their cup of tea at the A.B.C., or stronger drink procured at the “pub”
opposite. It was a cold, dreary day outside; but it was colder and
drearier within. Those long flights of stone steps, those endless stone
passages, struck chill and cheerless as a cellar, for verily the back
of a theatre resembles a cellar or prison more than anything I know.
Drury Lane contains a little world. It is reckoned that about one
thousand people are paid “back and front” every Friday night. One
thousand persons! That is the staff of the pantomime controlled by Mr.
Arthur Collins. Fancy that vast organisation, those hundreds of people,
endless scenery, and over two thousand dresses superintended by one
man, and that a young one.
For many weeks scraps of _Mother Goose_ had been rehearsed in
drill-halls, schoolrooms, and elsewhere, but never till the day of
which I write had the stage been ready for rehearsal. They had worked
hard, all those people; for thirteen-and-a-half hours on some days they
had already been “at it.” Think what thirteen-and-a-half-hours mean.
True, no one is wanted continuously, still all must be on the spot.
Often there is nowhere to sit down, therefore during those weary hours
the performers have to stand—only between-whiles singing or dancing
their parts as the case may be.
“I’m that dead tired,” exclaimed a girl, “I feel just fit to drop,” and
she probably expressed the feelings of many of her companions.
The rehearsal of _The Rose of the Riviera_, was going on in the saloon,
which a hundred years ago was the fashionable resort of all the fops
of the town. Accordingly to the saloon I proceeded where Miss Madge
Lessing, neatly dressed in black and looking tired, was singing her
solos, and dancing her steps with the chorus.
“It is very hard work,” she said. “I have been through this song until
I am almost voiceless; and yet I only hum it really, for if we sang out
at rehearsal, we should soon be dead.”
The saloon was the ordinary _foyer_, but on that occasion, instead of
being crowded with idlers smoking and drinking during the _entr’actes_,
it was filled with hard-worked ballet girls and small boys who were
later to be transformed into dandies. They wore their own clothes. The
women’s long skirts were held up with safety-pins, to keep them out of
the way when dancing, their shirts and blouses were of every hue; on
their heads they wore men’s hats that did not fit them, as they lacked
the wigs they would wear later, and each carried her own umbrella,
many of which, when opened, seemed the worse for wear. At the end of
the bar was a cottage piano, where the composer played his song for
two-and-a-half hours, while it was rehearsed again and again—a small
man with a shocking cold conducting the chorus. He is, I am told, quite
a celebrity as a stage “producer,” and was engaged in that capacity by
Mr. George Edwards at the New Gaiety Theatre. How I admired that small
man. His energy and enthusiasm were catching, and before he finished
he had made those girls do just what he wanted. But oh! how hard he
worked, in spite of frequent resort to his pocket-handkerchief and
constant fits of sneezing.
“This way, ladies, please”—he repeated over and over, and then
proceeded to show them how to step forward on “_Would_—you like
a—flower?” and to take off their hats at the last word of the sentence.
Again and again they went through their task; but each time they seemed
out of line, or out of time, not quick enough or too quick, and back
they had to go and begin the whole verse once more. Even then he was
not satisfied.
“Again, ladies, please,” he called, and again they all did the passage.
This sort of thing had been going on since 11 o’clock, the hour of the
“call,” and it was then 4 p.m.—but the rehearsal was likely to last
well into the night and begin again next morning at 11 a.m. This was
to continue all day, and pretty well all night for nine days, when,
instead of a holiday, the pantomime was really to commence with its
two daily performances, and its twelve hours _per diem_ attendance at
the theatre for nearly four months. Yet there are people who think the
stage is all fun and frolic! Little they know about the matter.
Actors are not paid for rehearsals, as we have seen before, and many
weeks of weary attendance for the pantomime have to be given gratis,
just as they are for legitimate drama. Those beautiful golden fairies,
all glitter and gorgeousness, envied by spectators in front, only
receive £1 a week on an average for twelve hours’ occupation daily, and
that merely for a few weeks, after which time many of them earn nothing
more till the next pantomime season. It is practically impossible to
give an exact idea of salaries: they vary so much. “Ballet girls,”
when proficient, earn more than any ordinary “chorus” or “super,” with
the exception of “show girls.” Those in the rank of “principals,” or
“small-part ladies,” of course earn more.
Ballet girls begin their profession at eight years of age, and even in
their prime can only earn on an average £2 a week.
In the ballet-room an iron bar runs all round the sides of the
wall, about four feet from the floor, as in a swimming bath. It is
for practice. The girls hold on to the bar, and learn to kick and
raise their legs by the hour; with its aid suppleness of movement,
flexibility of hip and knee are acquired. Girls spend years of their
life learning how to earn that forty shillings a week, and how to keep
it when they have earned it; for the ballet girl has to be continually
practising, or her limbs would quickly stiffen and her professional
career come to an end.
No girl gets her real training at the Lane. All that is done in one
of the dancing schools kept by Madame Katti Lanner, Madame Cavalazzi,
John D’Auban, or John Tiller. When they are considered sufficiently
proficient they get engagements, and are taught certain movements
invented by their teachers to suit the particular production of the
theatre itself.
The ballet is very grand in the estimation of the pantomime, for
supers, male and female, earn considerably less salary than the ballet
for about seventy-two hours’ attendance at the theatre. Out of their
weekly money they have to provide travelling expenses to and from
the theatre, which sometimes come heavy, as many of them live a long
distance off; they have to pay rent also, and feed as well as clothe
themselves, settle for washing, doctor, amusements—everything, in fact.
Why, a domestic servant is a millionaire when compared with a chorus
or ballet girl, and she is never harassed with constant anxiety as to
how she can pay her board, rent, and washing bills. Yet how little the
domestic servant realises the comforts—aye luxury—of her position.
The dressing-rooms are small and cheerless. Round the sides run double
tables, the top one being used for make-up boxes, the lower for
garments. In the middle of the floor is a wooden stand with a double
row of pegs upon it, utilised for hanging up dresses. Eight girls
share a “dresser” (maid) between them. The atmosphere of the room may
be imagined, with flaring gas jets, nine women, and barely room to turn
round amid the dresses. The air becomes stifling at times, and there is
literally no room to sit down even if the costumes would permit of such
luxury, which generally they will not. In this tiny room performers
have to wait for their “call,” when they rush downstairs, through icy
cold passages, to the stage, whence they must return again in time to
don the next costume required.
Prior to the production, as we have seen, there are a number of
rehearsals, followed for many weeks by two performances a day,
consequently the children who are employed cannot go on with their
education, and to avoid missing their examinations a school-board
mistress has been appointed, who teaches them their lessons during
the intervals. These children must be bright scholars, for they are
the recipients at the end of the season of several special prizes for
diligence, punctuality, and good conduct.
An attempt was recently made to limit the age of children employed on
the stage to fourteen, but the outcry raised was so great that it could
not be done. For children under eleven a special licence is required.
Miss Ellen Terry said, on the subject of children on the stage: “I am
an actress, but first I am a woman, and I love children,” and then
proceeded to advocate the employment of juveniles upon the stage. She
spoke from experience, for she acted as a child herself. “I can put my
finger at once on the actors and actresses who were not on the stage
as children,” she continued. “With all their hard work they can never
acquire afterwards that perfect unconsciousness which they learn then
so easily. There is no school like the stage for giving equal chances
to boys and girls alike.”
There seems little doubt about it, the ordinary stage child is the
offspring of the very poor, his playground the gutter, his surroundings
untidy and unclean, his food and clothing scanty, and such being
the case he is better off in every way in a well-organised theatre,
where he learns obedience, cleanliness, and punctuality. The sprites
and fairies love their plays, and the greatest punishment they can
have—indeed, the only one inflicted at Drury Lane—is to be kept off the
stage a whole day for naughtiness.
They appear to be much better off in the theatre than they would be at
home, although morning school and two performances a day necessitate
rather long hours for the small folk. They have a nice classroom, and
are given buns and milk after school; but their dressing accommodation
is limited. Many of the supers and children have to change as best they
can under the stage, for there is not sufficient accommodation for
every one in the rooms.
The once famous “Green-room” of Drury Lane has been done away with. It
is now a property-room, where geese’s heads line the shelves, or golden
seats and monster champagne bottles litter the floor.
There have been many changes at Drury Lane. It was rebuilt after the
fire in 1809, and reopened in 1812, but vast alterations have been
carried out since then. Woburn Place is now part of the stage. Steps
formerly led from Russell Street to Vinegar Yard, but they have been
swept away and the stage enlarged until it is the biggest in the
world. Most ordinary theatres have an opening on the auditorium of
about twenty-five feet; Drury Lane measures fifty-two feet from fly to
fly, and is even deeper in proportion. The entire stage is a series
of lifts, which may be utilised to move the floor up or down. Four
tiers, or “flats,” can be arranged, and the floor moved laterally so
as to form a hill or mound. All this is best seen from the mezzanine
stage, namely, that under the real one, where the intricacies of lifts
and ropes and rooms for electricians become most bewildering. Here,
too, are the trap-doors. For many years they went out of fashion, as
did also the ugly masks, but a Fury made his entrance by a trap on
Boxing Day, 1902, and this may revive the custom again. The actor
steps on a small wooden table in the mezzanine stage, and at a given
sign the spring moves and he is shot to the floor above. How I loved
and pondered as a child over these wonderful entrances of fairies and
devils. And after all there was nothing supernatural about them, only
a wooden table and a spring. How much of the glamour vanishes when we
look below the surface, which remark applies not only to the stage, but
to so many things in life.
Every good story seems to have been born a chestnut. Some one always
looks as if he had heard it before. At the risk of arousing that
sarcastic smile I will relate the following anecdote, however.
A certain somewhat stout Mephistopheles had to disappear through a
trap-door amid red fire, but the trap was small and he was big and
stuck halfway. The position was embarrassing, when a voice from the
gallery called out:
“Cheer up, guv’nor. Hell’s full.”
Electricity plays a great part in the production of a pantomime, not
only as regards the lighting of the scenes, but also as a motive power
for the lifts which are used for the stage. Many new inventions born
during the course of a year are utilised when the Christmas festival is
put on.
The property-room presents a busy scene before a pantomime, and
really it is wonderful what can be produced within its walls. Almost
everything is made in _papier mâché_. Elaborate golden chairs and
couches, chariots and candelabras, although framed in wood, are first
moulded in clay, then covered with _papier mâché_. Two large fires
burned in the room, which when I entered was crowded with workmen, and
the heat was overpowering. Amid all that miscellaneous property, every
one seemed interested in what he was doing, whether making wire frames
for poke bonnets, or larger wire frames for geese, or the groundwork
of champagne bottles to contain little boys. Each man had a charcoal
drawing on brown paper to guide him, and very cleverly many of the
drawings were executed. Some of the men were quite sculptors, so
admirably did they model masks and figures in _papier mâché_. The more
elaborate pieces are prepared outside the theatre, but a great deal of
the work for the production is done within old Drury Lane.
What becomes of these extra property-men after the “festive season”?
Practically the same staff appear each Christmas only to disappear
from “The Lane” for almost another year. Of course there is a
large permanent staff of property-men employed, but it is only at
Christmas-time that so large an army is required for the gigantic
pantomime changes with the transformation scenes.
That nearly everything is made on the premises is in itself a marvel.
Of course the grander dresses are obtained from outside; some come
from Paris, while others are provided by tradesmen in London. The
expense is very great; indeed, it may be roughly reckoned it costs
about £20,000 to produce a Drury Lane Pantomime; but then, on the other
hand, that sum is generally taken at the doors or by the libraries in
advance-booking before the curtain rises on the first night.
An important person at Drury Lane is the wardrobe-woman. She has entire
control of thousands of dresses, and keeps a staff continually employed
mending and altering, for after each performance something requires
attention. She has a little room of her own, mostly table, so far as
I could see, on which were piled dresses, poke bonnets, and artists’
designs, while round the walls hung more dresses brought in for her
inspection. In other odd rooms and corners women sat busily sewing,
some trimming headgear, other spangling ribbon. Some were joining
seams by machinery, others quilling lace; nothing seemed finished, and
yet everything had to be ready in nine days, and that vast pile of
chaos reduced to order. It seemed impossible; but the impossible was
accomplished.
“Why this hurry?” some one may ask.
“Because the autumn drama was late in finishing, the entire theatre
had to be cleared, and although everything was fairly ready outside,
nothing could be brought into Drury Lane till a fortnight before Boxing
Day. Hence the confusion and hurry.”
Large wooden cases of armour, swords and spears, from abroad, were
waiting to be unpacked, fitted to each girl, and numbered so that the
wearer might know her own.
Among the properties were some articles that looked like round red
life-belts, or window sand-bags sewn into rings. These were the belts
from which fairies would be suspended. They had leather straps and
iron hooks attached, with the aid of which these lovely beings—as seen
from the front—disport themselves. What a disillusion! Children think
they are real fairies flying through air, and after all they are only
ordinary women hanging to red sand-bags, made up like life-belts, and
suspended by wire rope. Even those wonderful wings are only worn for
a moment. They are slipped into a hole in the bodice of every fairy’s
back just as she goes upon the stage, and taken out again for safety
when the good lady leaves the wings in the double sense. The wands and
other larger properties are treated in the same way.
Now for the stage and the rehearsal. We could hear voices singing,
accompanied by a piano with many whizzing notes.
The place was dimly lighted. Scene-shifters were busy rehearsing
their “sets” at the sides, the electrician was experimenting with
illuminations from above; but the actors, heeding none of these
matters, went on with their own parts. The orchestra was empty and not
boarded over; so that the cottage piano had to stand at one side of the
stage, and near it I was given a seat. A T-piece of gas had been fixed
above the footlights, so as to enable the prompter to follow his book,
and—gently be it spoken—allow some of the actors to read their parts.
The star was not there—I looked about for the mirth-provoking Dan Leno,
but failed to see him. Naturally he was the one person I particularly
wanted to watch rehearse, for I anticipated much amusement from this
wonderful comedian, with his inspiring gift of humour. Where was he?
A sad, unhappy-looking little man, with his MS. in a brown paper cover,
was to be seen wandering about the back of the stage. He appeared
miserable. One wondered at such a person being there at all, he looked
so out of place. He did not seem to know a word of his “book,” or, in
fact, to belong in any way to the pantomime.
It seemed incredible that this could be one of the performers. He wore
a thick top coat with the collar turned up to keep off the draughts,
a thick muffler and a billycock hat; really one felt sorry for him,
he looked so cold and wretched. I pondered for some time why this sad
little gentleman should be on the stage at all.
“Dan, Dan, where are you?” some one called.
“Me? Oh, I’m here,” replied the disconsolate-looking person, to my
amazement.
“It’s your cue.”
“Oh, is it? Which cue?” asked the mufflered individual who was about to
impersonate mirth.
“Why, so and so——”
“What page is that?”
“Twenty-three.”
Whereupon the great Dan—for it was really Dan himself—proceeded to find
number twenty-three, and immediately began reading a lecture to the
goose in mock solemn vein, when some one cried:
“No, no, man, that’s not it, you are reading page thirteen; we’ve done
that.”
“Oh, have we? Thank you. Ah yes, here it is.”
“That’s my part,” exclaimed Herbert Campbell. “Your cue is——”
“Oh, is it?” and poor bewildered, unhappy-looking Dan made another and
happier attempt.
It had often previously occurred to me that Dan Leno gagged his own
part to suit himself every night—and really after this rehearsal the
supposition seemed founded on fact, for apparently he did not know one
word of anything nine days before the production of _Mother Goose_, in
which he afterwards made such a brilliant hit.
“Do I say that?” he would inquire, or, “Are you talking to me?”
After such a funny exhibition it seemed really wonderful to consider
how excellent and full of humour he always is on the stage; but what
a strain it must be, what mental agony, to feel you are utterly
unprepared to meet your audience, that you do not know your words, and
that only by making a herculean effort can the feat be accomplished.
Herbert Campbell differs from Dan Leno not only in appearance but
method. He was almost letter-perfect at that rehearsal, he had studied
his “book,” and was splendidly funny even while only murmuring his
part. He evidently knew exactly what he was going to do, and although
he did not trouble to do it, showed by a wave of his hand or a step
where he meant business when the time came.
Herbert Campbell’s face, like the milkmaid’s, is his fortune. That
wonderful under lip is full of fun. He has only to protrude it, and
open his eyes, and there is the comedian personified. Comedians are
born, not made, and the funny part of it is most of them are so truly
tragic at heart and sad in themselves.
There is a story I often heard my grandfather, James Muspratt, tell of
Liston, the comic actor.
Liston was in Dublin early in the nineteenth century, and nightly his
performance provoked roars of laughter. One day a man walked into the
consulting-room of a then famous doctor.
“I am very ill,” said the patient. “I am suffering from depression.”
“Tut, tut,” returned the physician, “you must pull yourself together,
you must do something to divert your thoughts. You must be cheerful and
laugh.”
“Good Heavens! I would give a hundred pounds to enjoy a real, honest
laugh again, doctor.”
“Well, you can easily do that for a few shillings, and I’ll tell you
how. Go and see Liston to-night, he will make you laugh, I am sure.”
“Not he.”
“Why not?”
“Because I am Liston.”
Collapse of the doctor.
This shows the tragedy of the life of a comic actor. How often we see
the amusing, delightful man or woman in society, and little dream how
different they are at home. Most of us have two sides to our natures,
and most of us are better actors than we realise ourselves, or than our
friends give us credit for.
But to return to Drury Lane. Peering backwards across the empty
orchestra I saw by the dim light that in the stalls sat, or leaned,
women and children. Mr. Collins, who was in the front of the stage,
personally attending to every detail, slipped forward.
“Huntsmen and gamekeepers,” he cried. Immediately there was a flutter,
and in a few minutes these good women—for women were to play the
_rôles_—were upon the back of the stage.
“Dogs,” he called again. With more noise than the female huntsmen had
made, boys got up and began to run about the stage on all fours as
“dogs.”
They surrounded Dan Leno.
“I shall hit you if you come near me,” he cried, pretending to do so
with his doubled-up gloves.
The lads laughed.
“Growl,” said Mr. Collins—so they turned their laugh into a growl,
followed round the stage by Dan, and the performance went on.
It was all very funny—funny, not because of any humour, for that was
entirely lacking, but because of the simplicity and hopelessness of
every one. Talk about a rehearsal at private theatricals—why, it is no
more disturbing than an early stage rehearsal; but the seasoned actor
knows how to pull himself out of the tangle, whereas the amateur does
not.
About a fortnight after the pantomime began I chanced one afternoon to
be at Drury Lane again, and while stopping for a moment in the wings,
the great Dan Leno came and stood beside me, waiting for his cue. He
was dressed as Mother Goose, and leant against the endless ropes that
seemed to frame every stage entrance; some one spoke to him, but he
barely answered, he appeared preoccupied. All at once his turn came.
On he went, hugging a goose beneath which walked a small boy. Roars of
applause greeted his entrance, he said his lines, and a few moments
later came out amid laughter and clapping. “This will have cheered him
up,” thought I—but no. There I left him waiting for his next cue, but I
had not gone far before renewed roars of applause from the house told
me Dan Leno was again on the stage. What a power to be able to amuse
thousands of people every week, to be able to bring mirth and joy into
many a heart, to take people out of themselves and make the saddest
merry—and Dan can do all this.
The object of my second visit was to have a little chat with Miss
Madge Lessing, the “principal girl,” who exclaimed as I entered her
dressing-room:
“I spend eleven hours in the theatre every day during the run of the
pantomime.”
After that who can say a pantomime part is a sinecure? Eleven hours
every day dressing, singing, dancing, acting, or—more wearisome of
all—waiting. No one unaccustomed to the stage can realise the strain
of such work, for it is only those who live at such high pressure, who
always have to be on the alert for the “call-boy,” who know what it is
to be kept at constant tension for so many consecutive hours.
_Matinée_ days are bad enough in ordinary theatres, but the pantomime
is a long series of _matinée_ days extending over three months or
more. Of course it is not compulsory to stay in the theatre between
the performances; but it is more tiring, for the leading-lady, to
dress and go out for a meal than to stay in and have it brought to the
dressing-room.
Miss Lessing was particularly fortunate in her room; the best I have
ever seen in any theatre. Formerly it was Sir Augustus Harris’s office.
It was large and lofty, and so near the stage—on a level with which it
actually stood—that one could hear what was going on in front. This
was convenient in many ways, although it had its drawbacks. Many of
our leading theatrical lights have to traverse long flights of stairs
between every act; while Miss Lessing was so close to the stage she
need not leave her room until it was actually time to step upon the
boards.
It was a _matinée_ when the pantomime was in full swing that I bearded
the lion in her den, and a pretty, dainty little lion I found her.
It was a perilous journey to reach her room, but I bravely followed
the “dresser” from the stage door. We passed a lilliputian pony about
the size of a St. Bernard dog, we bobbed under the heads and tails
of horses so closely packed together there was barely room for us to
get between. The huntsmen were already mounted, for they were just
going on, and I marvelled at the good behaviour of those steeds; they
must have known they could not move without doing harm to some one,
and so considerately remained still. We squeezed past fairies, our
faces tickled by their wings, our dresses caught by their spangles,
so closely packed was humanity “behind.” There were about two hundred
scene-shifters incessantly at work moving “cloths,” and “flies,” and
“drops,” and properties of all kinds. Miss Lessing was just coming off
the stage, dressed becomingly in white muslin, with a blue Red Riding
Hood cape and poppy-trimmed straw hat.
“Come along,” she said, “this is my room, and it is fairly quiet here.”
The first things that strike a stranger are Miss Lessing’s wonderful
grey Irish eyes and her American accent.
“Both are correct,” she laughed. “I’m Irish by extraction, although
born in London, and I’ve lived in America since I was fourteen; so you
see there is ground for both your surmises.”
Miss Lessing is a Roman Catholic, and was educated at the Convent of
the Sacred Heart at Battersea.
“I always wanted to go on the stage as long as ever I can remember,”
she told me, “and I positively ran away from home and went over to
America, where I had a fairly hard time of it. By good luck I managed
to get an engagement in a chorus, and it chanced that two weeks later
one of the better parts fell vacant owing to a girl’s illness, and
I got it—and was fortunate enough to keep it, as she was unable to
return, and the management were satisfied with me. I had to work very
hard, had to take anything and everything offered to me for years. Had
to do my work at night and improve my singing and dancing by day; but
nothing is accomplished without hard work, is it? And I am glad I went
through the grind because it has brought me a certain amount of reward.”
One had only to look at Miss Lessing to know she is not easily daunted;
those merry eyes and dimpled cheeks do not detract from the firmness of
the mouth and the expression of determination round the laughing lips.
There was something particularly dainty about the “principal girl” at
Drury Lane, and a sense of refinement and grace one does not always
associate with pantomime.
“Why, yes,” she afterwards added, “I played all over the States,
and after nine years was engaged by Mr. Arthur Collins to return to
London and appear in the pantomime of _The Sleeping Beauty_. Of
course, I felt quite at home in London, although I must own I nearly
died of fright the first time I played before an English audience. It
seemed like beginning the whole thing over again. Londoners are more
exacting than their American cousins; but I must confess, when they
like a piece, or an artist, they are most lavish in their applause and
approbation.”
It was cold, and Miss Lessing pulled a warm shawl over her shoulders
and poked the fire. It can be cold even in such a comfortable
dressing-room, with the luxury of a fire, for the draughts outside,
either on the stage or round it, in such a large theatre are incredible
to an ordinary mind. Frequenters of the stalls know the chilly blast
that blows upon them when the curtain rises, so they may form some
slight idea of what it is like behind the scenes on a cold night.
“After the performance I take off my make-up and have my dinner,”
laughed Miss Lessing. “I don’t think I should enjoy my food if all this
mess were left on; at all events I find it a relief to cold-cream it
off. One gets a little tired of dinners on a tray for weeks at a time
when one is not an invalid; but by the time I’ve eaten mine, and had a
little rest, it is the hour to begin again, for the evening performance
is at hand.”
“At all events, though, you can read and write between whiles,” I
remarked.
“That is exactly what one cannot do. I no sooner settle down to a book
or letters than some one wants me. It is the constant disturbance, the
everlasting interruption, that make two performances a day so trying;
but I love the life, even if it be hard, and thoroughly enjoy my
pantomime season.”
“Have you had many strange adventures in your theatrical life, Miss
Lessing?”
“None: mine has been a placid existence on the whole, for,” she added,
laughing, “I have not even lost diamonds or husbands!”