The Prisoners of Mainz

by Alec Waugh

And as the two chief resources of the average subaltern are athletics and the theatre, this suppression of one channel, diverted to the stage the entire enthusiasm of the camp. Of course each of us thinks his own little part of the world the best: our school, our company, our battalion, they seem to each individual one of us perfect

and unique. It is only natural that we should think the P.O.W. Theatre, Mainz, the absolute Alhambra of the Gefangenenlagers. However bad our shows had been we should have thought them supreme. But really, considering that every costume had to be improvised, every piece of scenery painted on flimsy paper, and that female attire was unpurchasable, I do not think that its shows could have been better staged. Certainly the scenic effects towards the end of our captivity were better than anything one would have seen at a provincial pantomime, though that is in itself hardly a recommendation.

Programmes began modestly enough in the days of soup and sauerkraut. We were hungry then and had little spare vitality. But a concert party was formed that called itself the “Pows,” and which gave performances every Saturday. There were many difficulties, the chief one being an entire lack of revue music. In order to get a song the aid of many had to be invoked. A committee of six would sit round a table trying to remember the words of “We’ve got a little Cottage” or “When Paderewski plays.” Each person remembered a stray line or phrase, and gradually like a jigsaw puzzle the fabric was completed. And then the music had to be written, and luckily the “Pows” possessed in Aubrey Dowdon a musical director who could write music as fast as he could write a letter. He scored the parts, and the musician strummed them out. The result was a most amusing vaudeville performance. There were some excellent voices, romantic and humorous; Aubrey Dowdon was himself no mean vocalist, and there was Milton Hayes.

Indeed it is hard not to make the account of those early performances a mere chronicle of Milton Hayes. He was the supreme humorist. All he had to do was to stand on the stage and smile, and the audience was happy. It was a wonderful smile, that unconscious innocent affair that only childhood is supposed to know. And to watch Hayes perform was like watching a child play with bricks. It was as if he were making his jokes simply for his own pleasure, building up his toy palace of fun, and then turning to his audience to ask them how they liked it. A small stage and a small room give scope for a far deeper intimacy than is possible in the large proscenium of a London hall, where the artist can see before him only a dull blur of faces through the dusk. At Mainz Milton Hayes could see and, as it were, speak to each individual present, and before he had been on the stage five minutes one felt as if he were an old friend that one had known all one’s life. He caught the true spirit of intimacy, the kindredship with his audience, that is the whole secret of the music-hall profession.

During the first two months the programme did not change much. There would be always some slight variety in a new stunt by Hayes, a new tune by Dowdon, or a topical sketch. But the old numbers continually cropped up. “The Money Moon” and “When you’re a long way from Home”—these never left us. Still, they received a hearty welcome. The audience in an Offiziergefangenenlager is not too captious. It goes not to criticise but to be amused. And so for the first two months the “Pows” continued to entertain us every Saturday. After a while the stress of private composition caused Milton Hayes to drop out more or less, but the company went on with an undiminished vigour. And then suddenly a rumour went round the camp that a rival company was being formed, and that in a fortnight’s time the “Shivers” would start their continental tour.

The general good being the one standard by which to judge any collective innovation, the enterprise of the “Shivers” must be considered the greatest benefit the camp received. Competition roused the ambition of the “Pows.” Each party swore to outdo the other. There ensued a race of progressive excellence. Each performance was produced with a more lavish outlay of the public funds; each time the curtain rose a deeper gasp paid homage to scenic artists; and the composers ceased to rely for their material on the work of other men. They began to write their own songs and their own music; the old ragtime and coon melodies disappeared, and instead we had original airs and topical numbers. And here the “Pows” had a great advantage, for their musical director, who in these pages shelters himself beneath the pseudonym of Aubrey Dowdon, had a gift for libretto that we soon expect to see on the playbills of the Alhambra, and his company finally beat all records with a musical operetta entitled The Girl on the Stairs. All the songs were original, and it was marvellously staged. There were eastern grottos, and the gleam of white shoulders through the dusk. There was a long serenade to the Jehlum River girl, in which brown tanned slaves prostrated themselves before the half-naked form of a sylph arrayed in veils. There were humour and naughtiness, horseplay and burlesque. It was a triumph of impromptu and ingenuity, after which the activities of the “Shivers” fell woefully flat.

From the psychological standpoint the professional jealousy of those weeks of hectic rivalry provided food for much deliberation. The rivalry once definitely acknowledged, the camp did its best to foment contention. The manager of the “Shivers” would be told that, unless he was careful, he would be absolutely washed out by the “Pows,” and the same story was carried to Dowdon. There were few things more amusing than to sit behind either party during a rival performance. They would simulate great enthusiasm, but all the time they would be exchanging shy and nervous glances. There would be whispers of—

“Do you think it’s good?”