Ye actors who act what our writers have writ,
Pray stick to your parts and spare your own wit;
For when with your own you unbridle your tongue,
I'll hold ten to one you are "all in the wrong!"
But this, with other cautioning of like effect, has availed but little. The really popular actor gains a height above the reach of censure. He has secured a verdict that is scarcely to be impeached or influenced by exceptional criticism. Still it may be worth while to urge upon him the importance of moderation, not so much for his own art's sake—on that head over-indulgence may have made him obdurate—but in regard to his playfellows of inferior standing. He is their exemplar; his sins are their excuses; and the licence of one thus vitiates the general system of representation.
The French stage is far more hedged round with restrictions than is our own, and cultivates histrionic art with more scrupulous care. In its better works gag is not tolerated, although free range is accorded it in productions of the opera bouffe and vaudeville class. Here the wildest liberty prevails, and the gagging actor is recognised as exercising his privileges and his wit within lawful bounds. The Parisian theatres may, indeed, be divided into the establishments wherein gag is applauded, and those wherein it is abominated. By way of a concluding note upon the subject, let an authentic story of successful French gag be briefly narrated.
Potier, the famous comedian, was playing the leading part in a certain vaudeville, and was required, in the course of the performance, to sit at the table of a cheap café and consume a bottle of beer. The beer was brought him by a figurant, or mute performer, in the character of a waiter, charged with the simple duty of drawing the cork from the bottle and filling the glass of the customer. Potier was struck with the man's neat performance of his task, and especially with a curious comical gravity which distinguished his manner, and often bestowed upon the humble actor an encouraging smile or a nod of approval. The man at length urged a request that he might, as he poured out the beer, be permitted to say a few words. Potier sanctioned
the gag. It moved the laughter of the audience. Potier gagged in reply: and there was more laughter. During later representations the waiter was allowed further speeches, relieved by the additional gag of Potier, until at the end of a week it was found that an entirely new scene had been added to the vaudeville, and eventually the conversation between Potier and the garçon—not a line of which had been invented or contemplated by the dramatist—became the chief attraction of the piece. It was the triumph of gag. The figurant, from this modest and accidental beginning of his career as an actor, speedily rose to be famous. He was afterwards known to the world as ARNAL, one of the most admirable of Parisian farçeurs.
CHAPTER XXXII.
BALLETS AND BALLET-DANCERS.
Dr. Barten Holyday, in the notes to his translation of "Juvenal," published at Oxford in 1673, describes the Roman plays as being followed by an exodium "of the nature of a jig after a play, the more cheerfully to dismiss the spectators"—the word "jig" signifying in the doctor's time something almost of a ballet divertissement, with an infusion of rhyming songs or speeches delivered by the clown of the theatre to the accompaniment of pipe and tabor. Jigs of this kind commonly terminated the performances upon the Elizabethan stage, which otherwise consisted of one dramatic piece only. Mr. Payne Collier holds that these supplemental exhibitions probably originated with, and certainly depended mainly upon, the actors who supported the characters of fools and clowns in the regular dramatic representations. He points out that Tarleton, one of Queen Elizabeth's players, much famed for his comicality, obtained great success by his efforts in jigs, and that, upon the showing of the tract entitled Tarleton's "News from Purgatory," jigs usually lasted for an hour. The precise nature of these entertainments cannot now be ascertained; for although each jig had what may be called its libretto, which was duly printed and published when the popularity of the work so required, yet no specimen of any such performance is now extant. The Stationers' registers, however, contain entries in 1595 of two jigs described respectively as Phillips's "Jig of the Slippers," and Kempe's "Jig of the Kitchen-stuff Woman."