A Book of the Play / Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character

by Dutton Cook

Quit not your theme to win the gaping rout,
Nor aim at Pinkey's leer with "S'death, I'm out!"
An arch dull rogue, who lets the business cool,
To show how nicely he can play the fool,
Who with buffoonery his dulness clokes,
Deserves a cat-o'-nine-tails for his jokes.

At this time, Pinkethman had been dead some years, and it is explained in a note, that no "invidious reflection upon his memory" was intended, but merely a caution to others, who, less gifted, should presume to imitate conduct which had not escaped censure even in his case. With all his irregularities, Pinkethman was accounted a serviceable actor, and was often entrusted with characters of real importance, such as Dr. Caius, Feeble, Abel Drugger, Beau Clincher, Humphrey Gubbin, and Jerry Blackacre.

But an actor who outdid even Pinkethman in impertinence of speech was John Edwin, a comedian who enjoyed great popularity late in the last century. A contemporary critic describes him "as one of those extraordinary productions that would do immortal honour to the sock, if his extravasations of whim could be kept within bounds, and if the comicality of his vein could be restrained by good taste." Reynolds, the dramatist, relates that on one occasion he was sitting in the front row of the balcony-box at the Haymarket, during the performance of O'Keeffe's farce of "The Son-in-Law," Parsons being the Cranky and Edwin the Bowkitt of the night. In the scene of Cranky's refusal to bestow his daughter upon Bowkitt, on the ground of his being such an ugly fellow, Edwin coolly advanced to the foot-lights, and said: "Ugly! Now I submit, to the decision of an enlightened British public, which is the ugliest fellow of us three; I, old Cranky, or that gentleman in the front row of the balcony-box?" Here he pointed to Reynolds, who hastened to abandon his position. Parsons was exceedingly angry at the interruption, but the audience appear to have tolerated, and even enjoyed the gag. As Reynolds himself leniently writes: "Many performers before and since the days of Edwin have acquired the power, by private winks, irrelevant buffoonery and dialogue, to make their fellow-players

laugh, and thus confound the audience and mar the scene; Edwin, disdaining this confined and distracting system, established a sort of entre-nous-ship (if I may venture to use the expression) with the audience, and made them his confidants; and though wrong in his principle, yet so neatly and skilfully did he execute it, that instead of injuring the business of the stage, he frequently enriched it."

Edwin seems, indeed, to have been an actor of some genius, notwithstanding his "extravasations of whim," and an habitual intemperance, which probably hastened the close of his professional career—for the man was a shameless sot. "I have often seen him," writes Boaden, "brought to the stage-door, senseless and motionless, lying at the bottom of a coach." Yet, if he could but be made to assume his stage-clothes, and pushed towards the lamps, he would rub his eyes for a moment, and then consciousness and extraordinary humour returned to him together, and his acting suffered in no way from the excesses which had overwhelmed him. Eccentricity was his forte, and it was usually found necessary to have characters expressly written for him; but there can be no doubt that he was very highly esteemed by the playgoers of his time, who viewed his loss to the stage as quite irreparable.

But of the comedians it may be said, that they not only "gag" themselves, but they are the cause of "gagging" in others. Their interpolations are regarded as heirlooms in the Thespian family. It is the comic actor's constant plea, when charged with adding to some famous part, that he has only been true to the traditions of previous performers. One of the most notable instances of established gag is the burlesque sermon introduced by Mawworm, in the last scene of "The Hypocrite." This was originated by Mathews, who first undertook the part at the Lyceum in 1809, and who designed a caricature of an extravagant preacher of the Whitfield school, known as Daddy Berridge, whose strange discourses at the Tabernacle in the Tottenham Court Road had grievously afflicted the actor in his youth. Mawworm's sermon met with extraordinary success; on some occasions it was even encored, and the comedy has never since been presented without this supreme effort of gag. Liston borrowed the address from Mathews, and gained for it so great an amount of fame, that the real contriver of the inter

polation had reason to complain of being deprived of such credit as was due to him in the matter. The sermon is certainly irresistibly comical, and a fair outgrowth of the character of Mawworm; at the same time it must be observed that Mawworm is himself an excrescence upon the comedy, having no existence in Cibber's "Non-Juror," upon which "The Hypocrite" is founded, or in "Tartuffe," from whence Cibber derived the subject of his play.

In the same way the additions made by the actors to certain of Sheridan's comedies—such as Moses's redundant iterations of "I'll take my oath of that!" in "The School for Scandal," and Acres's misquotation of Sir Lucius's handwriting: "To prevent the trouble that might arise from our both undressing the same lady," in "The Rivals," are gags of such long standing, that they may date almost from the first production of those works. Sheridan himself supervised the rehearsals, and took great pains to perfect the representation; but, with other dramatists, he probably found himself much at the mercy of the players. He even withheld publication of "The School for Scandal," in order to prevent inadequate performance of the comedy; but this precaution was attended with the worst results. The stage long suffered from the variety of defective copies of the work that obtained circulation. The late Mr. John Bernard, the actor, in his amusing "Retrospections of the Stage," has confessed that, tempted by an addition of ten shillings a-week to his salary, he undertook to compile, in a week, an edition of "The School for Scandal" for the Exeter Theatre, upon the express understanding that the manuscript should be destroyed at the end of the season. Bernard had three parts in his possession, for upon various occasions he had appeared as Sir Peter, as Charles, and as Sir Benjamin. Two members of the Exeter company were acquainted with the speeches of Old Rowley, Lady Teazle, and Mrs. Candour, while actors at a distance, upon his request, sent him by post the parts of Joseph and Sir Oliver. With these materials, assisted by his general knowledge of the play, obtained from his having appeared many times in authentic versions of it, the compiler prepared a fictitious and piratical edition of "The School for Scandal," which fully served the purpose of the manager, and drew good houses for the remainder of the season.

Altogether, while few writers have done so much for the stage as Sheridan, few have met with less reverent treatment at the hands of the actors. "The Critic" has long been known in the theatre as a "gag-piece;" that is, a play which the performers consider themselves entitled to treat with the most merciless licence. In this respect "The Critic" has followed the fate of an earlier work to which it owes much of its origin—"The Rehearsal," by the Duke of Buckingham. It is curious how completely Sheridan's own satire has escaped its due application. "This is always the way at the theatre," says Puff; "give these fellows a good thing and they never know when to have done with it." "The Critic" is not very often played nowadays; but every occasion of its revival is disfigured by the freedoms and buffoonery of its representatives. Modern costume is usually worn by Mr. Puff and his friends; and the anachronism has its excuse, perhaps, in the fact that the satire of the dramatist is as sound and relevant now as it was in the last century. And some modification of the original text might be reasonably permitted. For instance, the reference by name to the long-since departed actors, King, Dodd, and Palmer, and the once famous scene-painter, Mr. De Loutherbourg, must necessarily now escape the comprehension of a general audience. But the idiotic interpolations, and the gross tomfoolery the actors occasionally permit themselves in the later scenes of the play, should not be tolerated by the audience upon any plea or pretext whatever.

One kind of gag is attributable to failure of memory or deficiency of study on the part of the player. "I haven't got my words; I must gag it," is a confession not unfrequently to be overheard in the theatre. Incledon, the singer, who had been in early life a sailor before the mast, in the royal navy, was notorious for his frequent loss of memory upon the stage. In his time the word "vamp" seems to have prevailed as the synonym of gag. A contemporary critic writes of him: "He could never vamp, to use a theatrical technical which implies the substitution of your own words and ideas when the author's are forgotten. Vamping requires some tact, if not talent; and Incledon's former occupation had imparted to his manners that genuine salt-water simplicity to which the artifices of acting were insurmountable difficulties." Incledon had, however, a