The change from the external pandemonium to the hive of humming industry in which I then stood, was striking and singular. Outside were blasphemy and drunkenness. Inside, boundless activity, order, hard work, and cheerful hearts. There was very much to do, but every man had his especial work assigned him, every girl her allotted task. An unaccustomed person might have pronounced as mere confusion, that shifting of scenes, that forming, unforming, and reforming of groups, that unintelligible dumb show, that collecting, scattering, and gathering together of ‘young ladies’ in sober-coloured dresses and business-like faces, who were to be so resplendent in the evening as fairies, all gold, glitter, lustrous eyes, and virtuous intentions. There was Mr. Beverley—perhaps the greatest magician there—not only to see that nothing should mar the beauty he had created, but to take care that the colours of the costumes should not be in antagonism with the scenes before which they were to be worn. There was that Michael Angelo of pantomimic mask inventors, Mr. Keene, anxiously looking to the expressions of the masks, of which he is the prince of designers. Then, if you think those graceful and varied figures of the ballet as easy to invent, or to trace, as they seem, and are, at last, easily performed, you should witness the trouble taken to invent, and the patience taken to bring to perfection—the figures and the figurantes—on the part of the artistic ballet-master, Mr. Cormack. But, responsible for the good result of all, there stands Mr. Roxby, stern as Rhadamanthus, just as Aristides, inflexible as determination can make him, and good-natured as a happy child, he is one of the most efficient of stage-managers, for he is both loved and feared. No defect escapes his eye, and no well-directed zeal goes without his word of approval. Messrs. Falconer and Chatterton are meanwhile busy with a thousand details, but they wisely leave the management of the stage to their lieutenant-general, who has the honour of Old Drury at heart.
When a spectator takes his seat in front of the curtain, he is hardly aware that he is about to address himself to an entertainment, for the production of which nearly nine hundred persons—from the foremost man down to the charwoman—are constantly employed and liberally remunerated. Touching this ‘remuneration,’ let me here notice that I have some doubt as to the story of Quin ever receiving 50l. a night. By the courtesy of Mr. ——, the gentleman at the head of the Drury Lane treasury, and by the favour of the proprietors, I have looked through many of the well-kept account-books of bygone years. These, indeed, do not, at least as far as I have seen, go back to the days of Quin, but there are traces of the greater actor Garrick, who certainly never received so rich an honorarium. His actual income it is not easy to ascertain, as his profits as proprietor were mixed up with his salary as actor. It has often been said that Garrick was never to be met with in a tavern (always, I suppose, excepting the ‘Turk’s Head’), but he appears to have drawn refreshment during the Drury Lane seasons, as there is unfailing entry in his weekly account of ‘the Ben Jonson’s Head bill,’ the total of which varies between sixteen and five-and-twenty shillings.
At Drury Lane, John Kemble does not appear to have ever received above 2l. a night, exclusive of his salary as a manager. Nor did his sister’s salary for some years exceed that sum. When Edmund Kean raised the fallen fortunes of old Drury, he only slowly began to mend his own. From January 1814, to April 1815, during the time the house was open, Kean’s salary was 3l. 8s. 8d. nightly. If the theatre was open every night in the week, that sum was the actor’s nightly stipend, whether he performed or not. If there were only four performances weekly, as in Lent, he and all other actors were only paid for those four nights. Within the period I have named, Elliston received a higher salary than Kean, namely 5l. per night, or 30l. per week, if the house was open for six consecutive nights. The salary of Dowton and Munden, during the same period, was equal to that of Kean. They received at the rate of 3l. 8s. 8d. nightly, or 20l. weekly, if there were six performances, irrespective as to their being employed in them or not. That great actor Bannister, according to these Drury Lane account-books, at this period received 4s. per night less than Kean, Dowton and Munden; while Jack Johnstone’s salary was only 2l. 10s. nightly, and that was 6s. 8d. less than was paid to the handsome, rather than good player, Rae.
It was not till April 1815, when Kean was turning the tide of Pactolus into the treasury, that his salary was advanced to 4l. 3s. 8d. per night. This was still below the sum received by Elliston. Kean had run through the most brilliant part of his career, before his salary equalled that of Elliston. In 1820, it was raised to 30l. per week if six nights; but Elliston’s stipend at that time had fallen to 20l., and at the close of the season that of Kean was further raised to 40l. for every six nights that the house was open. That sum is occasionally entered in the books as being for ‘seven days’ pay,’ but the meaning is manifestly ‘for the acting week of six days.’
At this time Mrs. Glover was at the head of the Drury Lane actresses, and that eminent and great-hearted woman never drew from the Drury Lane treasury more than 7l. 13s. 4d. weekly. From these details, it will be seen that the most brilliant actors were not very brilliantly paid. The humbler yet very useful players were, of course, remunerated in proportion.
There was a Mr. Marshall who made a successful début on the same night with Incledon in 1790, in the ‘Poor Soldier,’ the sweet ballad-singer, as Dermot; Marshall, as Bagatelli. The latter soon passed to Drury Lane, where he remained till 1820. The highest salary he ever attained was 10s. per night; yet with this, in his prettily-furnished apartments in Crown Court, where he lived and died, Mr. Marshall presided, like a gentleman, at a hospitable table, and in entertaining his friends never exceeded his income. You might have taken him in the street for one of those enviable old gentlemen who have very nice balances at their bankers.
The difference between the actor’s salaries of the last century and of this, is as great in France as in England. One of the greatest French tragedians, Lekain, earned only a couple of thousand livres, yearly, from his Paris engagement. When Gabrielli demanded 500 ducats yearly, for singing in the Imperial Theatre at St. Petersburg, this took the Czarina’s breath away. ‘I only pay my field-marshals at that rate,’ said Catherine.
‘Very well,’ replied Gabrielli, ‘your Majesty had better make your field-marshals sing.’
With higher salaries, all other expenses have increased. Take the mere item of advertisements, including bill-sticking and posters at railway stations, formerly, the expense of advertising never exceeded 4l. per week; now it is never under 100l. Of bill-stickers and board-carriers, upwards of one hundred are generally employed. In the early part of the last century, the proprietors of a newspaper thought it a privilege to insert theatrical announcements gratis, and proprietors of theatres forbade the insertion of their advertisements in papers not duly authorised!
Dryden was the first dramatic author who wrote a programme of his piece (‘The Indian Emperor’), and distributed it at the playhouse door. Barton Booth, the original ‘Cato,’ drew 50l. a year for writing out the daily bills for the printer. In still earlier days, theatrical announcements were made by sound of drum. The absence of the names of actors in old play-books, perhaps, arose from a feeling which animated French actors as late as 1789, when those of Paris entreated the maire not to compel them to have their names in the ‘Affiche,’ as it might prove detrimental to their interests. Some of our earliest announcements only name the piece, and state that it will be acted by ‘all the best members of the company, now in town.’ There was a fashion, which only expired about a score or so of years ago, as the curtain was descending at the close of the five-act piece, which was always played first, an actor stepped forward, and when the curtain separated him from his fellows, he gave out the next evening’s performance, and retired, bowing, through one of the doors which always then stood, with brass knockers on them, upon the stage.