HUMOURS OF THE PLAYHOUSE
The function of the stage is a much discussed question. We shall assume that it is first and foremost a place of entertainment. Many are the comedies, from Shakespeare’s to Shaw’s, that have tickled the ribs of the “groundlings,” but there is also about stage performances a frequent element of diversion supplied by effects entirely unrehearsed. In most cases these “unrehearsed effects” assume the form of amusing blunders, in others they may be witty impromptus on the part of an actor or an auditor, “gags,” “wheezes,” what not! A laughable mistake has often afforded relief to a dull play; while, on the other hand, it may have been the means of spoiling an otherwise effective scene.
A curious thing about stage blunders is that, when one of the characters makes a mistake it is almost a certainty that some other member or members of the cast will follow suit. It is related of Charles Matthews, the famous comedian, that if he made one mistake in the course of a performance he was sure to commit several blunders before the conclusion of the play; this, no doubt, arising from over-anxiety to guard against slips. On one occasion he informed an astonished audience that he saw “a candle going along a gallery with a man in its hand,” and later in the play he stated that he had “locked the key and put the door in his pocket.”
John Kemble, according to an anecdote told of him in Tom Moore’s Diary, once made a very ludicrous mistake. He was performing one of his most famous parts at some country theatre, and, as is common in some provincial temples of the Drama, a child had been making its presence very pronounced by emitting the shrill noises peculiar to the average infant. At last Kemble could bear the infantine interruptions no longer, and advancing to the front of the stage he assumed his most tragic air and said—“Ladies and gentlemen, unless the play is stopped, the child cannot possibly go on.” Kemble’s audience on that occasion was not like the one in San Francisco in its early days. An opera company was performing in the rowdy city of the “Pacific Slope,” when a child in the auditorium created a great disturbance. The burly gold-seekers, who mainly composed the audience, ordered the players to stop till the child was finished with its entertainment, as an infant’s voice was such a rarity in the Wild West at that time that it awakened pleasant memories of the old home and tugged at the heart-strings of the rough-and-ready miners. This is a genuine instance of the play being stopped and “the child going on.”
ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE.
Touchstone (to Stage Manager). ’Ow do you expect me to speak my lines correct with all that ’owling and ’ooting and ’issing going on in front?
The public insist on seeing their stage favourites, even when they are not quite fit. A well-known actress sang “Carmen” from a bath-chair recently. What next?
A very amusing mistake is laid to the credit of Quin. On one occasion, while he was acting “Judge Balance” in The Recruiting Officer, he addressed Mrs. Peg Woffington in these terms—
“Sylvia, what age were you when your dear mother married?”
Peg made no reply to the embarrassing query, so Quin proceeded—
“I ask you what age you were when your mother was born?”
Thus going from bad to worse. The actress fortunately did not lose her presence of mind, and replied—
“I regret I cannot answer your question; but I can tell you how old I was when my mother died.”
Amusement is frequently afforded by some member of the audience losing himself in the play, and fancying that the scene before him is a page from real life. When such incidents occur, they form excellent testimonials to the dramatic abilities of the actors. A striking instance of this kind is related in connexion with the late Fanny Kemble. It occurred while she was appearing in Philadelphia as “Juliet.” She had just repeated the lines—
What’s here? A cup close in my true love’s hand?
Poison, I see, has been his timeless end—
when a tall, lanky, medical student in a stage box, who had evidently been deeply absorbed in the scene, thrust his hat on his head in great excitement, crying out in a voice that could be heard all over the theatre—“Keep him up, Juliet; I’ll run and fetch the stomach pump.”
An incident of a similar nature occurred many years ago at the London Princess Theatre. A well-known conveyancer, noted for absence of mind, during a performance of Macbeth, one of the witches replying to the Thane, that they were “doing a deed without a name,” started up exclaiming, to the bewilderment of the audience—“A ’deed without a name’! Why, it’s void. It’s not worth sixpence!” The last time Kean played Louis XI at the Edinburgh Theatre Royal, a young Irishman who had been sitting spellbound in the stalls, after the attendants had proclaimed, “The King is dead!” exclaimed, “And may the Lord have mercy on his guilty soul.”
[THE EVER-POPULAR CRIMINAL ON THE STAGE.]
Criminals (on the stage) are extraordinarily popular. In real life, we do not like being stolen from. On the stage, we love to see a fine, dashing criminal stealing from other people. The worse he is, the louder we applaud him.
ON THE STAGE— —AND OFF.
Sometimes a voice from the “gods” may be the means of swamping a play. This was the case with the only dramatic piece ever written by Miss Braddon, the famous novelist. In one of the acts a child was kidnapped from its mother, and at the end, when all the characters in the play were being made happy, the restoration of the child was taken for granted. This was a dramatic mistake, and while suited for a novel, was not to be accepted in the theatre. The omission passed unnoticed for half a minute after the fall of the curtain; then one of the “gods” leaned over the gallery and coolly inquired—“What about the kid?” The piece was doomed in the uncontrollable peals of laughter that followed.
Instances where members of a cast, through ignorance or forgetfulness, take some scene or dialogue literally, are most mirth-moving, if somewhat rare. A highly entertaining instance of this kind occurred once when John Kemble was playing Hamlet in a country town. An actor, who was sustaining the part of “Guilderstein,” was, or imagined himself to be, a capable musician. “Hamlet,” in the usual course of the play, asked him—
“Will you play upon this pipe?”
“My Lord, I cannot.”
“I do beseech you.”
“Well, if your lordship insists upon it, I will do as well as I can.”
And to the great consternation of “Hamlet” and the amazement of the audience, he proceeded to play “God Save the King.”
A delightful piece of literalism is told about a property man who on one occasion was deputizing at a rehearsal of Macbeth in which a well-known actor was filling the title rôle. Here is a scrap of the dialogue—
Property Man. As I looked towards Birnam, anon, methought the wood began to move.
Macbeth: Liar and slave!
P.M.: S’help me bob, sir, the blokes told me to say so.
To ludicrous instances there is no end; but perhaps one of the most comical occurred in a wretched little French theatre during the time of the first Revolution. Madame de Larme, who was playing “Juliet” on the occasion, was lying in the death scene on a tombstone. Outside, it was raining in torrents. A drop came through the roof and fell on “Juliet’s” nose. She made a face. Another drop found its way to her eyelid. She winked. Finally, she took to watching the drops and dodging them. The situation was at once appreciated by the audience, and it sympathized with the actress.
“Look out, Mrs. Juliet,” said one fellow, “there’s a big one coming. I see it.”
“Mind your eye,” said another.
“Madame,” said a third, rising, “will you accept my umbrella?”
But “Juliet” bore up bravely to the end, and finished the scene amid the applause of a sympathetic audience.
In a Glasgow theatre some forty years ago, the playgoers were treated to a very diverting scene that was not in the programme. The play was After Dark, and in one of the acts there is a very exciting railway scene in which a train crosses the stage just as one of the characters who has been tied to the rails is released. The manner in which the train is manipulated is very simple. A number of men, concealed behind it, run across the stage. On this occasion the man who was working the engine tripped and fell, carrying the engine with him, when about halfway across the stage. The man in charge of the tender, not having time to clear out of the way, fell over the engine-keeper, and the third fell over him, the curtain being run down on the most exciting railway disaster that ever occurred in Stageland, the audience laughing heartily the while.
[WHEN ACTORS ARE MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.]
Comedian. Is your play still running?
Tragedian. No—but the manager is!
At a theatre in Glasgow the writer witnessed a very amusing incident in the course of a representation of Theodora by Miss Grace Hawthorne’s Company. There is a tremendously “bluggy” scene in this drama, which closes with the heroine standing in the middle, while a collection of corpses strew the stage. On the night in question the drop curtain refused to perform its office, and after coming half-way down complacently stuck there. The dead bodies lay in dreadful suspense for some time, and then in despair got up and walked off!
Bill. See that cove, ’Arry? He takes the part of Hamlet.
’Arry. Well, good luck to him if the bloke’s in the right.
While this immensely delighted a nineteenth-century audience as an absurdity, it appears to have been quite the custom on the Restoration Stage, when players “died” in front of the curtain and were either carried off or walked away afterwards! This is seen from the famous epilogue spoken by Nell Gwynne in Dryden’s Tyrannick Love. She played a serious part on this occasion, and in the last act stabs herself twice, and dies. She lies dead on the stage; then, when the bearer comes to carry her off, she starts to her feet, exclaiming—
“Hold! Are you mad? You damned confounded dog! I am to rise and speak the epilogue.”
[GOOD AND BAD BUSINESS AT THE THEATRE.]
When a play is a success the theatre-goer is treated with less consideration than when it is a failure. In the latter case he is overwhelmed with attention and kind words.
Stage “waves” have often afforded no little amusement to the audience. The troubled ocean is simulated on the stage by a number of men lying on their backs under a painted canvas, kicking their legs and throwing their arms about with a certain amount of regularity, the men being blindfolded to prevent the dust getting into their eyes. During a performance of the Black Flag, at Dundee, a scene in which the waves were required was introduced and went with its usual success till one evening the curtain got entangled with the sea-cloth, and on the former being raised it carried the latter with it, exposing to the view of the audience the group of wave-makers lying on their backs vainly kicking the air. The audience, of course, screamed with laughter, which set the wave men wondering, and, thinking something was amiss, they unfastened the bandages over their eyes and discovered their undignified positions, quitting the stage with the greatest rapidity. The audience were not in a mood for settling down to watch the surging sea after this, and the remainder of the scene was omitted from that performance.
In this connexion the experience of a well-known comedian who started his career as a humble “wave,” will afford the reader some merriment. He writes:—“At last the shipwreck came on, and I was hustled under the sea-cloth along with a dozen other ‘supes.’ Our business was to make the sea rise in its might and wreck the gallant ship. We had been repeatedly cautioned at rehearsal not to use our hands, but to go down on all fours and produce the foaming billows by ‘humping’ our backs up and down. This was a very trying exercise; it was much easier to use our hands, though it gave to the rolling billows a jagged and unnatural appearance, and when the dry white paint sifted freely through the cloth, covering us up, choking and blinding us as the climax approached, I commenced in a fit of desperation to use my hands, so as to dodge the foam as much as possible, and keep it from totally blinding me. But I was soon perceived by the stage carpenter, who instantly dived under the cloth, labouring under wild excitement, and commenced cursing me in dumb show for not ‘humping’ my back as I had been told to do. He was so fierce that I quickly edged away from him. This made him worse. He signalled me to come back. I edged away a little further, and a moment later stood up through a hole in the cloth, as big as a barn door, in the midst of the angry breakers, and covered from head to foot with the white powder. There was not a sound in the house until I gave a terrible ‘chahoo!’ and suddenly dived back under the waves. Then you could not have heard the report of an eighty-ton gun a hundred yards away.”
Distinguished Amateur (who has been cast for the part of Sir Toby Belch). I suppose I shall want a little padding?
Costumier. Certainly. (Shouting) Ernest, bring down a full-size stomach!
A very droll interruption occurred one evening in a St. Helens theatre when the late Signor Foli was singing. The celebrated bass had just finished the first verse of his favourite song, “The Raft,” when a baby started squalling, and still continued as he began the second verse, commencing—
Hark! What sound is that
Which greets the mother’s ear?
but he got no further, being seized with uncontrollable laughter, which for the moment puzzled the audience, but presently it dawned upon them that the next line was—
’Tis, ’tis a baby’s voice;
and they joined the Signor in his mirth. He left the stage for a moment, and returned and sang in his exquisite style “Out on the Deep.”
[THE ACTOR’S ONE TOPIC—HIMSELF.]
Actors are charming people, but unfortunately they are so keen about their work, that their thoughts constantly recur to it, and they cannot keep their own latest achievements out of the talk. A lunch at an actors’ club is apt, in consequence, to be a trifle monotonous.
A SIDE-BOX TALK.
Roguy and Poguy.
Roguy. See that girl looking at me, Poguy?
Poguy. Don’t I? I declare she can’t keep her eyes off you.
Roguy. What women care for, Poguy, my boy, is not features, but expression.
[He pokes Poguy in the waistcoat.
Many good stories are told of the facetiousness of Dublin audiences. Here is one that Macready used to relate:—One night while performing “Pierre” in Venice Preserved, the Jaffier, an actor ponderous in person as well as in style, was drowsing out his dying speech, when a voice from the gallery exclaimed, “Ah, now, die at once!” to which another from the opposite side of the house responded, “Hould your tongue, you blackguard!” then, in a patronising tone to the Jaffier, “Take your time now!”
There was humour, and what is often much akin to that, pathos, in the appeal wrung from the unlucky representative of crook-backed Richard, who, finding it impossible to make head against the disapprobation evoked by his histrionic efforts, dropped blank verse, and in very plain prose told his audience—“Mr. Kean is playing this part in London at a salary of thirty pounds a night; I receive but fifteen shillings a week; and if it isn’t good enough for the money, may Heaven give you more humanity!”
At a crowded country theatre in France a woman fell from the gallery into the pit, and was picked up by one of the spectators, who, hearing her groaning, asked her if she was much injured. “Much injured!” exclaimed the woman; “I should think I am. I have lost the best seat in the very middle of the front row.”
THE BALD BARON
Or, THE FALSE HEIR AND THE ABSENT WILL
A SENSATIONAL DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS.
Bald Baron. Alas, noble stranger, my heir was taken off eighty years ago!
Noble Stranger. Yer’s a-go—old man, be-hold thy long-lost chyield.
(They embrace.)
[Curtain.
ACT I.
Agnes. Oh, agonies! sixty years have I waited for my Willie. Oh, will he never come.
(Enter) False Heir. Beauteous Screecher, fly with me—(Agnes faints)—ha, ha, she’s mine. Away!
(Enter Will.) Where there’s a will there’s a way.
[Curtain.
ACT II.
Scene, the private pass and the seedy glen.
Will. Treachery; I’ve got a drop too much.
False Heir. One down, who’ll make two?
Agnes (suddenly entering). Vill-ian—you!
[Curtain.
ACT III.
Terrific combat of many hours’ duration.
False Heir (mortally wounded). My time has come—Here are the papers—You are the Baron de la Bluebags.
[Grand display of blue-fire, and fall of Curtain.