I spoke of the autograph photographs which I had seen in the Haymarket green-room.
“How curious,” he said, “that you should mention them to-night. We have always intended to take them away, and only yesterday, after an interval of six years, I gave the order for their removal. This evening as we started for dinner they arrived in Berkeley Square. A strange coincidence.”
Lady Bancroft has the merriest laugh imaginable. I used to love to see her act when I was quite a girl, and somehow Miss Marie Tempest reminds me strongly of her to-day. She has the same lively manner.
Lady Bancroft’s eyes are her great feature—they are deeply set, with long dark lashes, and their merry twinkle is infectious. When she laughs her eyes seem to disappear in one glorious smile, and every one near her joins in her mirth. Mrs. Bancroft was comparatively a young woman when she retired from the stage, and one of her greatest joys at the time was to feel she was no longer obliged to don the same gown at the same moment every day.
At some theatres a dress rehearsal is a great affair. The term properly speaking means the whole performance given privately right through, without even a repeated scene. The final dress rehearsal, as a rule, is played before a small critical audience, and the piece is expected to run as smoothly as on the first night itself—to be, in fact, a sort of prologue to the first night. This is a dress rehearsal proper, such as is given by Sir Henry Irving, Messrs. Beerbohm Tree, Cyril Maude, George Alexander, or the old Savoy Company.
Before this, however, there are endless “lighting rehearsals,” “scenic rehearsals,” or “costume parades,” all of which are done separately, and with the greatest care. As we saw before, Mrs. Kendal disapproves of a dress rehearsal, but she is almost alone in her opinion. It is really, therefore, a matter of taste whether the whole performance be gone through in separate portions or whether one final effort be made before the actual first night. As a rule Sir Henry Irving has three dress rehearsals, but the principals only appear in costume at one of them. They took nine weeks to rehearse the operetta The Medal and the Maid, yet Irving put The Merchant of Venice with all its details on the Lyceum stage in twenty-three days.
Sir Henry strongly objects to the public being present at any rehearsal. “The impression given of an incomplete effort cannot be a fair one,” he says. “It is not fair to the artistes. A play to be complete must pass through one imagination, one intellect must organise and control. In order to attain this end it is necessary to experiment: no one likes to be corrected before strangers, therefore rehearsals—or in other words ‘experiments’—should be made in private. Even trained intellect in an outsider should not be admitted, as great work may be temporarily spoiled by some slight mechanical defect.”
In Paris rehearsals used to be great institutions. They were opportunities for meeting friends. In the foyers and green-rooms of the theatres, at répètitions générales, every one talked and chatted over the play, the actors, and the probable success or failure. This, however, gradually became a nuisance, and early in this twentieth century both actors and authors struck. They decided that even privileged persons should be excluded from final rehearsals, which are always in costume in Paris. As a sort of salve to the offended public, it was agreed that twenty-four strangers should be admitted to the last great dress rehearsal before the actual production of a new piece, hence everybody who is anybody clamours to be there.