one fact—amongst many—which afforded a real lesson in the art of acting
in all its phases—philosophy, effect, value and method. It is that of
the effect, intellectual as well as emotional, of a lightning-like
change in the actor’s manner. In this play, the Yorkshire schoolmaster,
who under the stress of violent emotion wrought by wrong to the woman he
loved, has avoided the danger of discovery and has for a long time
remained in outward peace in the house of Parson Meadows, the Vicar of
Knaresborough. The evil genius of his early day, Richard Houseman, who
alone knew of his crime, had succeeded in “tracking” him down; and now,
being in desperate straits, tried to blackmail him. Knowing his man,
however, he will not meet him. Such a one as Houseman is a veritable
“daughter of the horseleech”; the giving is each time a firmer ground
for further _chantage_. Houseman, grown desperate, threatens him that he
will expose him to Meadows; and Eugene Aram, who has loved in secret the
Vicar’s daughter Ruth, seeing all his cherished hopes of happiness
shattered, grows more desperate still. All the murderous potentialities
which have already manifested themselves wake to new life in the
“climbing” passion of the moment—the _hysterica passio_ of _King Lear_.
As Irving played it, the hunted man at bay was transformed from his
gentleness to a ravening tiger; he looked the spirit of murder incarnate
as he answered threat by threat. Just at that moment the door opened and
in walked Ruth Meadows, bright and cheery as a ray of spring sunshine.
In a second—less than a second, for the change was like lightning—the
sentence begun in one way went on in another without a quaver or pause.
The mind and powers of the remorse-haunted man who had for weary years
trained himself for just such an emergency worked true. Unfailingly a
sudden and marked burst of applause rewarded on each occasion this
remarkable artistic _tour de force_.
II
The play of _Richelieu_ had always a particular interest for those who
knew that in it he made his first appearance on the stage in the small
part of Gaston, Duke of Orleans.
Regarding this first appearance three names should be borne in memory as
those who helped the ambitious young clerk to an opening in the art he
had chosen. The names of two of these are already known. One was William
Hoskins, who at considerable self-sacrifice had helped to teach him his
craft, and who had predicted good things for him. The other was E. D.
Davis, an old actor, who was just entering upon the management of the
Lyceum Theatre, Sunderland; and who at Mr. Hoskins’ request gave him an
engagement.
The third friend made his way possible, and gave him opportunity of
appearing to advantage in his parts by supplying him with the sinews of
war. This friend was none other than his uncle, Thomas Brodribb, the
second of the four brothers of whom Irving’s father, Samuel, was fourth.
He was—perhaps fortunately for his nephew—a bachelor. He had but small
means; but also, happily, small wants. Amongst his assets he had a
policy of insurance on which many premiums had been paid; and wishing to
do something for his nephew on his starting on a new life, he made over
to him this policy so that he might realise on it. This his nephew did
to the result of nearly one hundred pounds sterling, all of which was by
degrees laid out carefully with most anxious thought on such wardrobe
and personal properties as are not usually “found” by provincial
managements. This kindly and timely assistance enabled the young actor
to appear during his first years on the stage in many parts with
something of that suitability of presence which his characters demanded.
In those early days the wardrobe of country theatres was limited and the
actors often chose their dresses in the sequence of importance; so that
it was much to a young man to be able to supplement such costume as came
to him. Could the generous, kindly-hearted Uncle Thomas have lived to
see the grand consequences eventually resulting in part from his
thoughtful kindness he might have indeed been proud.
There was this difference in Irving’s Richelieu and the same part as
played by any other actor I have seen. In the great scene of the quarrel
between Baradas and the Cardinal, when the former wants, for his own
purposes, to take, by the King’s authority, Julie from his custody, the
latter hurls at him the magnificently effective speech beginning: “Then
wakes the power which in the Age of Iron....”
This by the players of the old school was thundered out with the same
vigour with which they fought in their sword combats; and certainly the
effect was very telling. It was the act as well as the word of personal
mastery.
Irving kept the full effect; but did it in such a way that he superadded
to the Cardinal’s character the flickering spasmodic power of an infirm
old man. He too began in tones of thunder. To his full height he drew
the tall form that seemed massive in the sacerdotal robes. He was
manifestly inspired and borne up by the divine force of his sacred
office. But at the end he collapsed, almost sinking into a swoon. Thus
the effect was magnified and the sense of both reality and
characterisation enhanced.
III
With Louis XI., a part which in France is called _le grand rôle_, Henry
Irving was fairly familiar in his early years on the stage. He had
played the part of both Coitier and Tristan, and as one or other of
these in most of the scenes he had full experience of the acting value
of the title _rôle_. It would be very unlike the method of study
habitual to him even before he went on to the stage if he had not all
the time, both at rehearsal and performance, grasped the acting
possibilities of both character and situations, and devised new and
subtle means for characterisation. When in 1878 he had run the piece for
some three months he had learned much, both by practice and from the
opinions of his friends. In those days he did not often read criticisms
of an ordinary kind. He found that some of them, written by
irresponsible writers imperfectly equipped for their task, only
disturbed and irritated him. And so he only read such as had filtered
through the judgment of his friends; a habit which George Eliot had
adopted about the same time.
Though I had not seen his performance that year I could tell, in 1879,
from his anxiety about the rehearsal of certain scenes and the care
bestowed on the new or altered scenery and appointments, that his new
work was to be on a slightly different plane from the old.
After a few performances Louis XI. became a sort of holiday part to him.
There is in it but one change of dress: that between the fourth and
fifth acts. This change, though exceptionally heavy, is as nothing to
the exhaustion consequent on the many changes of costume necessary in
most heavy plays. These ordinarily absorb in swift and laborious work
the only breathing times between the periods of action. A series of
small labours may in the long run amount to more than one large one.
The limitation of violent effort in this play made him very “easy” in
it. In one scene only does such occur; that at the end of the fourth act
as originally played. Of late years he played it in four acts
altogether, amalgamating the first and second acts with much benefit to
the play.
Only once have I seen him put out at anything during the playing of
_Louis XI._ It was in Chicago on the night of Saturday, February 13,
1904. For five weeks following the burning of the Iroquois Theatre in
that city no theatre had been allowed to open. The official world, which
had itself been gravely in fault in allowing the theatre to be opened
before it had been tested, tried to show their integrity by imposing
rigid perfection—after the event—on other people. The Illinois Theatre,
where we were to play, was the first theatre opened, and naturally we
had to stand the brunt of official over-zeal. We had been harassed
beyond belief from the moment we entered the theatre.
On the night of _Louis XI._ all went well till the end of the bedroom
scene between the King and Nemours. Here, when the Duke had escaped, the
King calls for aid and his guards rush in with torches, and by their
master’s direction search the room for his enemy. The effectiveness of
the scene depends on the light thus introduced, for the scene is a dark
one, lit only by the King’s chamber-lamp. To Irving’s dismay the cue for
the lights was not answered. True, the guards came on, but in darkness.
The firemen in the wings had seized from the guards the spirit torches—
implements carefully made to obviate any possible danger from fire and
each carried by one of our men practised in the handling of them.
After a night or two matters got a little easier. The fire regulations,
which directed that the men of that department on the stage should make
requisition to the responsible manager who would see them carried out,
began to be more decorously observed.
IV
_The Lyons Mail_ is the especial title of Charles Reade’s version of _Le
Courier de Lyons_. The play has often been done in its older form but in
the newer only by Charles Kean and Henry Irving. Indeed when Irving took
it in hand he got Reade to make some changes, especially in the second
act, where Joseph Lesurques has the interview with his father, who
believes that he is guilty and that he saw him fire the shot by which he
himself was wounded.
Irving has often told me that in playing the double part the real
difficulty was not to make the two men unlike and guilt look like guilt,
but the opposite. He used to adduce instances told him by experienced
judges and counsel of where they had been themselves deceived by
demeanour. It is indeed difficult for any one to discriminate between
the shame, together with the submission to the Divine Law to which he
has been bred, of the innocent, and the fear, whose expression is
modified by hardihood, of the guilty. In Irving’s case the points of
difference were not merely overt; there were subtle differences of tone
and look and bearing—loftiness, for instance, as against supreme and
fearless indifference and brutality.
_The Lyons Mail_ was always one of the most anxious and exhausting of
his plays. In the first place he was always on the stage, either in the
one character of Lesurques or the other of Dubose—except at the end of
the play, where he appeared to be both. All the intervals were taken up
with necessary changes of dress. In the next place the _time_ is
all-important. In any melodrama accuracy as to time is important to
success; but in this one of confused identity it is all-important. There
are occasions when the delay of a single second will mar the best
studied effect, and when to be a second too soon is to spoil the plot.
In certain plays the actors must “overlap” in their speeches; the effect
of their work must be to carry the thought of the audience from point to
point without wavering. Thus they receive the necessary information
without the opportunity of examining it too closely. This is a part of
the high art of the stage. There can be illusions by other means than
light.
Once there was a peculiar _contretemps_ in the acting. Tom Mead was a
fine old actor with a tall thin form and a deep voice that sounded like
an organ. His part was that of Jerome Lesurques, the father of the
unhappy man whose double was the villain Dubose. He had played it for
many years and very effectively. The end of the first act comes when
Dubose, the robber and murderer, is confronted by Jerome Lesurques. The
old man thinks it is his son whom he sees rifling the body of the mail
guard. As he speaks the words: “Good God! my son, my son,” Dubose fires
at him, wounding him on the arm, and escapes as the curtain comes down.
On this particular night—it was one of the last nights in New York,
closing the tour of 1893–4—Mead forgot his words. Dubose stood ready
with his pistol to fire; but no words came. Now, if the audience do not
know that Jerome Lesurques thinks that his son is guilty the heart is
taken out of the play, for it is his unconscious evidence that proves
his son’s guilt. The words had to be spoken at any cost by _some one_.
Irving waited, but the old man’s memory was gone. So he himself called
out in a loud voice: “I’m not your son!” and shot him. And, strange to
say, none of the audience seemed to notice the omission.
Tom Mead was famous in his later years amongst his comrades for making
strange errors, and when he had any new part they always waited to see
what new story he would beget. Once on a voyage to America when we were
arranging the concert for the Seamen’s Orphans, he said he would do a
scene from _Macbeth_ if Mrs. Pauncefort would do it with him. She, a
fine old actress, at once consented and from thence on the members of
the company were waiting to see what the slip would be. They were
certain there would be one; to them there was no “might” or “if” in the
matter. The scene chosen was that of the murder of Duncan, and all went
well till the passage was reached:
“And Pity, like a naked new-born babe
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless carriers of the air.”
This noble passage he repeated as follows:
“And Pity, like a naked new-born babe
Seated on the horse. No! Horsed on the seat!
No! What is the word?”
Once before, during the first run of _Macbeth_, he played one of the
witches; when circling round the cauldron he had to say: “Cool it with a
baboon’s blood.” This he changed to:
“Cool it with a dragoon’s blood!”
As the words are spoken before Macbeth enters, Irving, standing ready in
the wings, of course heard the error. Later in the evening he sent for
Mead and called his attention to the error, pointing out that as the
audience knew so well the words of the swinging lines they might notice
an error, and that it would be well to read over the part afresh. This
he promised to do. Next night he got very anxious as the time drew near.
He moved about restlessly behind the scenes saying over and over again
to himself, “dragoon, no baboon—baboon!—dragoon!—dragoon!—baboon!” till
he got himself hopelessly mixed. His comrades were in ecstasy. When at
last he came to say the word he said it wrong; and as he had a voice
whose tones he could not modify this is what the audience heard:
“Cool it with dragoon’s blood—No, no, baboon’s. My God! I’ve said it
again! baboon’s blood.”
When we did _Iolanthe_, a version by W. G. Wills of _King René’s
Daughter_, Mead took the part of Ebn Jaira, an Eastern Wizard. At one
part of the piece, where things look very black indeed for the happiness
of the blind girl, he has to say: “All shall be well in that immortal
land where God hath His dwelling.” One night he got shaky in his words
and surprised the audience with:
“In that immortal land where God hath His—Ah—um—His apartments!”
Such mental aberrations used to be fairly common in the old days when
new parts had to be learned every night, and when the prompter, in so
far as the “book” was concerned, was a hard-worked official and not an
anachronism, as now. Macready had an experience of it once when playing
Hamlet. The actor who took the part of the Priest in the graveyard scene
was inadequately prepared and in the passage;
“for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles shall be thrown on her.”
he said, “shards, flints and beadles.” This almost overcame the star,
who was heard to murmur to himself before he went on: “Beadles!
Beadles!” and at the end of the play one behind him heard him say as he
walked to his dressing-room:
“He said ‘beadles’!”
V
_Charles I._ is rather too slight and delicate a play for great
popularity; and in addition its politics are too aggressive. Whenever I
think of it in its political aspect I am always reminded of a pregnant
saying of Dion Boucicault—I mean Dion Boucicault the Elder, for the
years have run fast—spoken in the beautiful Irish brogue which was
partly natural and partly cultivated:
“The rayson why historical plays so seldom succeed is because a normal
audience doesn’t go into the thayatre with its politics in its breeches
pockets!”
This is really a philosophical truth, and the man who had then written
or adapted over four hundred plays knew it. A great political situation
may, like any other great existing force, form a _milieu_ for dramatic
action; making or increasing difficulties or abrogating or lessening
them; or bringing unexpected danger or aid to the persons of the drama.
But where the political situation is supposed to be lasting or eternally
analogous, it is apt to create in the minds of an audience varying
conditions of thought and sympathy. And where these all-powerful forces
of an audience are opposed they become mutually destructive, being only
united into that one form which makes for the destruction of the play.
One of the most notable things of Irving’s _Charles I._ was his
extraordinary reproduction of Van Dyck’s pictures. The part in its
scenic aspect might have been called “Van Dyck in action.” Each costume
was an exact reproduction from one of the well-known paintings; and the
reproduction of Charles’s face was a marvel. In this particular case he
had a fine model, for Van Dyck painted the King in almost every possible
way of dignity. To aid him in his work Edwin Long made for him a
triptych of Van Dyck heads, and this used to rest before him on his
dressing-table on those nights when he played Charles.
Irving was a painter of no mean degree with regard to his “make-up” of
parts. He spared no pains on the work, and on nights when he played
parts requiring careful preparations, such as Charles I., Shylock, Louis
XI., Gregory Brewster (in _Waterloo_), King Lear, Richelieu and some few
others he always came to his dressing-room nearly an hour earlier than
at other times. It has often amazed me to see the physiognomy of Shylock
gradually emerge from the actor’s own generous countenance. Though I
have seen it done a hundred times I could never really understand how
the lips thickened, with the red of the lower lip curling out and over
after the manner of the typical Hebraic countenance; how the bridge of
the nose under his painting—for he used no physical building up—rose
into the Jewish aquiline; and, most wonderful of all, how the eyes
became veiled and glassy with introspection—eyes which at times could
and did flash lurid fire.
But there is for an outsider no understanding what strange effects stage
make-up can produce. When my son, who is Irving’s godson, then about
seven years old, came to see _Faust_ I brought him round between the
acts to see Mephistopheles in his dressing-room. The little chap was
exceedingly pretty—like a cupid, and a quaint fancy struck the actor.
Telling the boy to stand still for a moment he took his dark pencil and
with a few rapid touches made him up after the manner of Mephistopheles;
the same high-arched eyebrows; the same sneer at the corners of the
mouth; the same pointed moustache. I think it was the strangest and
prettiest transformation I ever saw. And I think the child thought so
too, for he was simply entranced with delight.
Irving loved children, and I think he was as enchanted over the incident
as was the child himself.
XIV
ART-SENSE
I
No successful play, perhaps, had ever so little done for it as _The
Bells_ on its production. Colonel Bateman did not believe in it, and it
was only the concatenation of circumstances of his own desperate
financial condition and Irving’s profound belief in the piece that
induced him to try it at all. The occasion was in its effect somewhat
analogous to Edmund Kean’s first appearance at Drury Lane; the actor
came to the front and top of his profession _per saltum_. The production
was meagre; of this I can bear a certain witness myself. When Irving
took over the management of the Lyceum into his own hands the equipment
of _The Bells_ was one of the assets coming to him. When he did play it
he used the old dresses, scenery and properties, and their use was
continued as long as possible. Previous to the American tour of 1883–4,
fifty-five performances in all constituted the entire wear and tear.
On our first expedition to America everything was packed in a very
cumbrous manner, the amount of timber, nails and screws used was
extraordinary. There were hundredweights of extracted screws on the
stage of the Star Theatre of New York whilst the unpacking was in
progress. When I came down to the theatre on the first morning after the
unloading of the stuff, Arnott, who was in charge of the mechanics of
the stage, came to me and said:
“Would you mind coming here a moment, sir, I would like you to see
something!” He brought me to the back of the stage and pointed out a
long heap of rubbish some four feet high. It was just such as you would
see in the waste-heap of a house-wrecker’s yard.
“What on earth is that?” I asked.
“That is the sink-and-rise of the vision in _The Bells_. In effecting a
vision on the stage the old method used to be to draw the back scenes or
“flats” apart, or else to raise the whole scene from above or take it
down through a long trap on the stage. The latter was the method adopted
by the scene-painter of _The Bells_.”
“Did it meet with an accident?” I asked.
“No, sir. It simply shook to bits just as you see it. It was packed up
secure and screwed tight like the rest!”
I examined it carefully. The whole stuff was simply rotten with age and
wear; as thoroughly worn out as the deacon’s wonderful one-horse shay in
Oliver Wendell Holmes’ poem. The canvas had been almost held together by
the overlay of paint, and as for the wood it was cut and hacked and
pieced to death; full of old screw-holes and nail-holes. No part of it
had been of new timber or canvas when _The Bells_ was produced eleven
years before. With this experience I examined the whole scenery and
found that almost every piece of it was in a similar condition. It had
been manufactured out of all the odds and ends of old scenery in the
theatre.
Under the modern conditions of Metropolitan theatres it is hard to
imagine what satisfied up to the “seventies.” Nowadays the scenery of
good theatres is made for travel. The flats are framed in light wood,
securely clamped and fortified at the joints; and in folding sections
like screens, each section being not more than six feet wide, so as to
be easily handled and placed in baggage-waggons. The scenes are often
fixed on huge castors with rubber bosses so as to move easily and
silently. But formerly they were made in single panels and of heavy
timber and took a lot of strength to move.
II
From the time of my joining him in 1878 till his death Irving played
_The Bells_ in all six hundred and twenty-seven times, being one hundred
and sixty-eight in London; two hundred and seventy-three in the British
provinces, and one hundred and eighty-six in America. During its first
run at the Lyceum in 1872–3 it ran one hundred and fifty-one nights, so
that in all he played _The Bells_ seven hundred and seventy-eight times,
besides certain occasions when he gave it in his provincial tours
previous to 1878. Altogether he probably played the piece over eight
hundred times.
Colonel Bateman originally leased the rights of the play from the author
Leopold Lewis. Finally, at a time of stress—sadly frequent in those days
with poor old Lewis—he sold them to Samuel French, from whom Irving
finally purchased them. Notwithstanding this double purchase Irving
used, after the death of Lewis, to allow his widow a weekly sum whenever
he was playing—playing not merely _The Bells_ but anything else—up to
the time of his death.
Mathias was an exceedingly hard and exhausting part on the actor, but as
years rolled on it became in ever greater demand.
III
The original choice of the play by Irving is an object-lesson of the
special art-sense of an actor regarding his own work. Irving _knew_ that
the play would succeed. It was not guessing nor hoping nor any other
manifestation of an optimistic nature. Had Bateman, in the business
crisis of 1872, not allowed him to put it on, he would infallibly have
put it on at some other time.