The Cornish are born actors and actresses, but the natural talent is
suppressed early, and it is not considered respectable to do or say
anything like a "play-actor." But the talent breaks bounds and shows
itself even in the last moments of the aged, composing their features,
so as to "look 'ansum" after death.
The county has no theatre, no vaudeville, nothing in which to develop
the dramatic instincts of a dramatic people. Now and again a travelling
company, or piece of one, gives a performance in a hall licensed
for dramatic presentations; but the people have become shy of being
seen with uncovered faces at plays not labelled "sacred." Susannah,
with realistic touches, would be popular, if the Lord Chamberlain
could see his way to license the performance. When away from home
the people patronize theatres and music-halls, and, on their return,
sing favourite hymns to comic opera. Dancing is prohibited in places,
and is "taboo" even when winked at; but some of the day schools are
now teaching children how to use their feet and legs to music, under
the head of "exercises" or "physical instruction." When an Italian
organ-grinder comes into a village, the children dance as though they
like it. The Flora, or Flurry, dance has some claim to be Cornish, and
in time may be danced well again in the open air at fairs and feasts.
The Cornish are imaginative, vivacious, quick to realize situations.
When there is any difficulty about words, a man or woman will get over
it by acting the part. Watch the men disputing, and you see unrehearsed
comedy--and very good comedy in its way. The old Cornish were very fond
of mysteries and miracle-plays, which were performed in the open, and
for the love of the thing. If one may believe, tens of thousands of
people used to tramp over the pathless downs to see a miracle-play, or
a series of plays, performed in some natural amphitheatre. The plays
speak for themselves. Some still exist, and we have only to fancy
the tens of thousands standing and squatting around, gazing rapt and
full-eyed upon the stage hour after hour, and then day by day, until
the mysteries were finished for the season. Men, women, and children
all "trapsed" to these plays, and, like the Japs of to-day, never left
the scene as long as there was anything to see. The performances were
realistic enough, and angels and devils took their parts in a manner
to upset any respectable system of theology. The actors learned their
parts, and the prompter, book in hand, followed the actors and told
them what to say when they were at a loss. The prompter was known as
the "ordinary," and on one occasion the ordinary, being a pleasant
conceited gentleman, played "a merry prank" with a poor actor who was
not well up in his part. The story runs: "His turn came: quoth the
ordinary, 'Go forth, man, and show thyself.' The gentleman steps out
upon the stage, and, like a bad clerk in Scripture matters, cleaving
more to the letter than the sense, pronounced those words aloud. 'Oh,'
says the fellow softly in his ear, 'you mar all the play.' And with
this his passion the actor makes the audience in like sort acquainted.
Hereon the prompter falls to flat railing and cursing in the bitterest
terms he could devise; which the gentleman with a set gesture and
countenance still soberly related, until the ordinary, driven at last
into mad rage, was fain to give all over; which trousse, though it
break off the interlude, yet defrauded not the beholders, but dismissed
them with a great deal more sport and laughter than twenty such guaries
could have afforded."[E]
[E] This is the only indigenous stage story in existence, and is
preserved by Carew.
In former times, Midsummer Eve festivities were celebrated with much
joyousness and dancing through the streets, and the lighting of
bonfires at night, so that, seen from the sea, the coast-line showed a
blaze of light. This was originally a pagan celebration of the summer
solstice, and the Romish Church took it over and rechristened it,
calling the rejoicing the festivals of St. John and St. Peter. The
Reformed Church took over the festivals as a legacy, and they lingered
on in the land until dissent brought out their fire brigades and at
last extinguished them. There is another "pagan" celebration which will
not die. The public May-time rejoicings were nearly extinguished once,
but are active again, and the good people of Helston dress up, and sing
and dance from morn to night, because the spring has come again, and
the land may once more be made beautiful with flower and corn. At one
time the Church encouraged these public rejoicings, and gave them as
much of a religious appearance as possible, but now there is nothing
to suggest religion except the "collection" which the dancers make for
their own benefit.
When the Cornish language fell into disuse, fell also all prospect of
a drama indigenous to a land of which one can never say how much is
real. The sad autumn leaves fell upon the literary remembrances of the
people when old Dolly Pentreath died, and as some one must have been
the last to speak the language, as well Dolly as another, and better,
perhaps, as we can see her portrait and her monolith. The old popular
performances under the blue sky died out with the tongue, and then
followed the travelling showman and the lady in tights and spangles,
and then the old Christmas mummers with their diabolrie and three-men
songs. The English drama in no form has any hold in the county now, and
even Shakespeare is caviare to the general. Only one Cornishman made
his mark upon the stage, and of no great credit he, so we let him pass;
but the county is foster-mother to Sir Henry Irving, fittest of all men
to have been a son, so well he "loved the fancies and legends of the
people."[F]
[F] When Sir Henry died, it was remembered that he whose soul was all
Cornish, had never acted in the county.
"There are comedies and tragedies with scenes laid in Cornwall in
plenty, but no Cornish drama or dramatist," said the Bookworm. And yet
there might have been.
[Illustration: BOSCASTLE HARBOUR.]
Tregeagle is the Cornish Faust. The story took a few centuries
to develop, and there is nothing to be added now to heighten its
dramatic effect. Tregeagle was a young man of ambition, with a vein
of discontent running through his composition. One day, when brooding
over what he was, and what he would be, seeing all things in false
perspective, Old Artful made his acquaintance, and there was the usual
bargain, signed, sealed and delivered. "This is my act and deed,"
said Tregeagle, putting his finger on the red seal drawn from his own
veins. Tregeagle was to live in airy-fairy palaces, and have the run
of every man's preserves until such time as Old Artful choose, and
then--well, what was left of his tissue-paper soul would be wanted in
another place. Old Artful behaved in the handsomest manner, and Mr.
Tregeagle lived in a palace in up-to-date splendour, with men-servants
and maid-servants, and every one took off his hat or curtsied as he
passed, and he was as hard to the poor as a landlord's agent, and rode
roughshod over whom he would. In fact, he couldn't be a greater swell
before the days of motors. All went gaily with him, until, one day, he
consulted his diary and found that his lease under the contract had
nearly expired, and then he became "hurried in his mind," and lost
appetite, and cast about to see if he could save himself, and pay no
forfeit. Now, Old Artful was a good judge of character and knew his
man, so, when the time was up, he let the fairy palace, with all its
beautiful gardens and stables and greenhouses, sink into the earth,
and covered them over with water so deep that some said no plummet
could find bottom. Having trapped his man so nicely, Old Artful was in
good humour, and gave Tregeagle a limpet-shell with a hole in it, and
told him he might work out his redemption by emptying the lake; for,
said he, "you can't expect to have all the good things of this world
without paying for them, either in money or marbles." Tregeagle looked
at the limpet-shell, so small that a thimbleful of water would overflow
it, and then at the hole in the bottom, but he cared little for that
as he could stop it up with his finger. It was a hopeless task, yet
he was comforted by the thought that in the matter of the hole, by
stopping it with his finger, he would score one off Old Artful. Then
he commenced baling the water from the lake; and when he would rest,
Old Artful's imps spurred him on and on until he shrieked and roared,
so that all the people round about him shook in their shoes. "To roar
like Tregeagle," became a saying when one was groaning under deserved
punishment. The unhappy man is still working at his task, and it is
said there is not so much water in the lake as aforetime.
"Then Old Artful will have outwitted himself after all, for he gave the
fellow a task intended to be endless," said Guy.
"There is hope; and that is where the Cornish story differs from many
variations of Faust," said the Bookworm.
"I like the Cornish all the better for that," said Guy.
[Illustration: BRETON ONION-BOY.]