It was in the stock companies that we learned the great lesson of usefulness; we played everything—tragedy, comedy, farce, and burlesque. There was no question of parts "suiting" us; we had to take what we were given.
The first time I was cast for a part in a burlesque I told the stage manager I couldn't sing and I couldn't dance. His reply was short and to the point. "You've got to do it," and so I did it in a way—a very funny way at first, no doubt. It was admirable training, for it took all the self-consciousness out of me to start with. To end with, I thought it capital fun, and enjoyed burlesque as much as Shakespeare.
What was a [stock company]? I forget that in these days the question may be asked in all good faith, and that it is necessary to answer it. Well, then, a stock company was a company of actors and actresses brought together by the manager of a provincial theater to support a leading actor or actress—"a star"—from London. When [Edmund Kean], [the Kembles], [Macready], or [Mrs. Siddons] visited provincial towns, these companies were ready to support them in Shakespeare. They were also ready to play burlesque, farce, and comedy to fill out the bill. Sometimes the "stars" would come for a whole season; if their magnitude were of the first order, for only one night. Sometimes they would rehearse with the stock company, sometimes they wouldn't. There is a story of a manager visiting Edmund Kean at his hotel on his arrival in a small provincial town, and asking the great actor when he would rehearse.
"Rehearse! I'm not going to rehearse—I'm going to sleep!"
"Have you any instructions?"
"Instructions! No! Tell 'em to keep at a long arm's length away from me and do their d——d worst!"
At Bristol, where I joined Mr. [J.H. Chute]'s stock company in 1861, we had no experience of that kind, perhaps because there was no Kean alive to give it to us. And I don't think that our "worst" would have been so very bad. Mr. Chute, who had married Macready's half-sister, was a splendid manager, and he contrived to gather round him a company which was something more than "sound."
Several of its members distinguished themselves greatly in after years. Among these I may mention [Miss Marie Wilton (now Lady Bancroft)] and Miss [Madge Robertson] (now Mrs. Kendal).
Lady Bancroft had left the company before I joined it, but Mrs. Kendal was there, and so was Miss [Henrietta Hodson] (afterwards Mrs. Labouchere). I was much struck at that time by Mrs. Kendal's singing. Her voice was beautiful. As an example of how anything can be twisted to make mischief, I may quote here an absurd tarradiddle about Mrs. Kendal never forgetting in after years that in the Bristol stock company she had to play the singing fairy to my Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The simple fact, of course, was that she had the best voice in the company, and was of such infinite value in singing parts that no manager in his senses would have taken her out of them. There was no question of my taking precedence of her, or of her playing second fiddle to me.
Miss Hodson was a brilliant burlesque actress, a good singer, and a capital dancer. She had great personal charm, too, and was an enormous favorite with the Bristol public. I cannot exactly call her a "rival" of my sister [Kate]'s, for Kate was the "principal lady" or "star," and Henrietta Hodson the "soubrette," and, in burlesque, the "principal boy." Nevertheless, there were certainly rival factions of admirers, and the friendly antagonism between the Hodsonites and the Terryites used to amuse us all greatly.