“Yes, Selina,” I said, feeling that it would be dangerous to let Patty speak just at that moment, “and there is a certain type of contemporary play, called revue, which recognizes that demand and seldom, if ever, fails to cater for it. In revues I have renewed acquaintance with the heroes of classical antiquity, with prominent crusaders, with Queen Elizabeth, with the Grand Monarque—a whole course of history, in fact. Let Bergson explain that, if he can. And, what is more wonderful still, our revue artists, whose talent is usually devoted to provoking laughter, seem willingly to forgo it for the honour of appearing as an historical personage. Mr. Robey and Mr. Keys, I should tell you, are both professional laughter-provokers, indeed are the heads of their profession, yet one is content to posture as Louis Quinze and the other as Beau Brummell without any real chance of being funny. So the past ever exerts its prestige over us. So the muse of history still weaves her spell.”
“Which was the muse of history, Patty, dear?” said Selina, whose equanimity was now happily restored.
“Oh, bother, I forget,” said Patty, “and, anyhow, I don’t think she has as much to do with revues as uncle pretends. Give me the real muse of revue who inspired Mr. Keys with his German waiter and his Spanish mandolinist and his Japanese juggler and——”
“This,” I said, to put an end to Patty’s indiscreet prattle, “must be the muse of geography.”
Patty gave me no change out of my half-crown. The boatman said he didn’t happen to have any. So much for Selina’s management!
THE SILENT STAGE
The spoken drama and the silent stage. I came across this dichotomy in The Times the other day, not without a pang, for it was a day too late. It is not a true dichotomy. It does not distinguish accurately between the story told by living actors to our faces and the story told by successive photographs of such actors. For the “silent stage” would cover pantomime, a form of drama, and a very ancient form, acted by living actors. It is not true, but it is for practical uses true enough. In life we have to make the best of rough approximations. I would have used this one gratefully had it occurred to me in my moment of need. But it did not.
Let me explain. One of our more notable comedians (I purposely put it thus vaguely, partly out of discretion, partly with a bid for that interest which the mystery of anonymity is apt to confer upon an otherwise matter-of-fact narrative, as George Borrow well knew)—one of our most notable comedians, then, had asked me to accompany him to a “cinema” rehearsal wherein he was cast for the principal part. I eagerly accepted, because the art of the “cinema” is becoming so important in our daily life that one really ought to learn something about it, and, moreover, because the cuisine of any art (see the Diary of the De Goncourts passim) is a fascinating thing in itself. Our rehearsal was to be miles away, in the far East of London, and the mere journey was a geographical adventure. The scene was a disused factory, and a disused factory has something of the romantic melancholy of a disaffected cathedral—not the romance of ruins, but the romance of a fabric still standing and valid, but converted to alien uses.
Our first question on arrival was, were we late? This question seems to be a common form of politeness with notable comedians, and is probably designed to take the wind out of the sails of possible criticism. No, we were not late—though everybody seemed to be suspiciously ready and, one feared, waiting. They were a crowd of ladies and gentlemen in elaborate evening dress, all with faces painted a rich café au lait or else salmon-colour, and very odd such a crowd looked against the whitewashed walls and bare beams of the disused factory. The scenery looked even more odd. It presented the middle fragments of everything without any edges. There was a vast baronial hall, decorated with suits of armour and the heaviest furniture, but without either ceiling or walls. There was a staircase hung, so to speak, in the air, leading to a doorway, which was just the framework of a door, standing alone, let into nothing. It seemed uncanny, until you remembered the simple fact that the camera can cover just as much, or as little, of a scene as it chooses. Great glaring “cinema” lights—I had not seen them since the Beckett-Carpentier flight—cast an unearthly pallor upon the few unpainted faces. The crowd of painted ladies and gentlemen hung about, waiting for their scene with what seemed to me astonishing patience. But patience, I suspect, is a necessary virtue at all rehearsals, whether “spoken” or “silent.”