LIKE most great movements in art, it had but a modest beginning. On a
memorable day one of my brothers was looking in the window of a little
toy-shop when he discovered some of those fascinating sheets of
characters to which Stevenson has devoted a charming essay. He happened
to have money in his pocket (it was indeed a memorable day), and he
brought home his treasure-trove with the air of a capitalist who has made
a wise investment. Schoolroom society approved his enterprise with
enthusiasm. We knew nothing about “The Woodman’s Hut,” the play to which
the characters in question belonged; it was enough for us that these
figures of men and women were clearly messengers from the Land of
Romance, and their mysterious attitudes only added to the interest with
which we regarded them. We got out our paint-boxes, and, as
unconsciously we were all Post-Impressionists, we soon made them more
mysterious still.
It will be remembered that Stevenson remained satisfied with this, which
might be regarded as the costumier’s work of the model theatre, but we
were more ambitious. Our first theatre was a small packing-case without
any sides, and in this our characters, mounted on cardboard and supplied
with firewood supports, were quite contented to display their red legs
and green bodies. Our scenery was indicated rather than drawn on brown
paper with coloured chalks, and would, I think, have pleased Mr. Gordon
Craig. Two Christmas-tree candles served for footlights, and, though we
had no book of the words, we made them up as we went along, and did very
well. It was strange how great a measure of illusion we achieved,
although we ourselves moved the puppets and spoke their lines. The
candles threw queer shadows across our faces, and it seemed as though
deeper voices than ours echoed in the room. We were always being
astonished by the eerie products of our own imagination when we were
merely trying to amuse ourselves; and the effect of our dramatic efforts
was quite remote from anything that we had intended. I understand that
older dramatists sometimes experience the same phenomenon.
Our activities could not long escape the criticism of the grown-up
people; but rather to our surprise, for candles were quite illicit
playthings, they contented themselves with a general caution as to the
perils of fire, and a particular injunction concerning the dropping of
candle-grease on the tablecloth. So we played with our theatre till
Christmas, by which time the members of our stock company were more than
a little battered and weary at the knees. Then there came a surprise.
Included in the number of our presents were a little theatre with a real
curtain that went up and down, and materials for three complete
productions. This time we had not only the characters, but the books of
words and scenery as well, and we prepared to do things on an
unprecedented scale. As a result, after extraordinary labour in the
scenic and costume departments, we were able to produce, on three
successive nights, “Paul Clifford,” “The Corsican Brothers,” and “The
Miller and his Men.” The repertory theatre was fairly under way.
First-nights were really thrilling in those days. The dignified
deportment of our actors, as yet unspoiled by success, roused the
audience to enthusiasm, and we did not weary of admiring simple stage
effects that would have moved us to scornful laughter in after-days. Yet
even in these early productions there lurked the seeds of artistic
disruption. Already our appreciation of the gallant bearing of Paul
Clifford passed all reasonable bounds, and threatened to develop into
that hero-worship that proves fatal to the talents of any actor. Already
we had an unwholesome craving for excessive realism in the staging of
plays, and we made use of the ingenuity of our elders to drive Grindoff’s
sinister windmill in the first act of “The Miller and his Men.” It might
be said that our theatre, _quâ_ repertory theatre, was doomed from the
start.
Nevertheless, at least two seasons of good work were accomplished before
our morbid imitation of Nature and the illimitable egotism of Paul
Clifford finally succeeded in driving art from the stage. During that
period we produced about fifteen new plays, and gave a large number of
one-night revivals. Our repertory ranged from “Hamlet” to “Dick
Whittington,” and I think one pleased us as much as the other. This
would have been more remarkable if Paul Clifford had not played the
title-part in both plays. We had soon come to prefer him to any other of
the heroes, and in consequence, whatever the play might be, he was bound
to be there in his riding-boots and handsome yellow satin coat. This
would have been well enough if he had been willing to keep his place, but
he soon became as ubiquitous as an actor-manager. Owing to the number of
rôles that he was called upon to fill, we had his pasteboard presentment
in a hundred different attitudes, and on one occasion when a stage-crowd
was required it was entirely composed of Paul Cliffords, and even then
there were rows of forlorn Paul Cliffords in the wings for whom there was
no room on the stage. This was the beginning of the end. We suffered
from the worst excesses of the star system; we began to be discontented
when Paul was not on the stage, and we were prepared to boo if that
dashing highwayman was not permitted to bluster across the most subtle
dramas.
About this time we deserted the old theatre that had been the scene of so
many triumphs for a larger and far more elaborate one. We had long had
gas footlights, but now our system of lighting was intricate enough to
suit Mr. Arthur Collins. Indeed, when, years afterwards, I was allowed
to explore the stage of Drury Lane, I found nothing to surprise me, save,
perhaps, the electric switchboard, with its pretty display of diminutive
electric lights. Our scenic sensations were only surpassed by those of
Mr. Bruce Smith. When we played a dramatisation of “Hard Cash,” the
scuttled vessel sank in a sea of real water. The fountains in our Garden
of Enchantment flung scented torrents into their moss-clad basins; and
when we sought to reproduce a burning house we succeeded in setting the
theatre on fire.
It will be understood that by that time we had come to rely on the
grown-up people for assistance in producing plays, and we had substituted
their perverted adult taste for our juvenile conceptions of drama. The
old plays, with their homely characters and dignified simplicity of
setting, no longer pleased us. We craved for a debauch of Paul Clifford,
and every new production had to be more elaborate in its insentient
mimicry of life than the one before. The inevitable happened. The more
our stage-setting approximated to Nature, and the more Paul pirouetted in
the limelight, the less we attained to that illusion which had been so
easy to achieve on a packing-case stage with two little coloured candles
for footlights. There came a day when Paul no longer interested us, and
we felt that we had exhausted the possibilities of the sensational. The
theatre was closed, and when, many months afterwards, a vague curiosity
led us to ask what had become of it, we learnt with but little regret
that our elders had given it away to some little boy whose taste in drama
was as yet unsophisticated. I wonder what he made of our real sea and
our practicable fountains!
Not very long ago I was turning over some old books, when a small piece
of cardboard slipped from between the pages and fell to the ground. It
was in the likeness of a man, a man dressed in riding-boots and yellow
satin; yet it was some moments before I realised that I was in the
presence of the once great Paul Clifford. With recognition came
something like remorse. It was no more than just to forgive his faults
after so many years, and he really was a very good actor until an excess
of praise turned his little pasteboard head.
I looked round the library, and after due consideration took a volume of
the Laureate’s poems from the shelves, and laid the tired highwayman to
rest between its pages.
“Sleep on, brave Paul!” I said softly. “No one will ever disturb you
there.”
And now I have written his epitaph.