Behind the Footlights

by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie

It so chanced that having bicycled through France from Dieppe along the banks of the Seine, my sister and I were leaving Paris on the first occasion of Sarah Bernhardt’s impersonation of Hamlet—that is to say, in May, 1899. We were so anxious to see her first performance, however, that we decided to stay an extra day. So far all was well, but not a single ticket could be obtained. Here was disappointment indeed. Of course our names were not on the first night list in Paris and, as in England, it is well-nigh impossible for any ordinary member of the public to gain admittance on such an occasion.

The gentleman in the box office became sympathetic at beholding our distress, and finally suggested he might let us have seats upstairs.

“It is very high up, but you will see and hear everything,” he added.

We decided to ascend to the gods, where, instead of finding ourselves beside Jupiter and Mars, Venus or Apollo, we were seated immediately behind the claque.

Never, never shall I forget my own personal experience of the performance of a claque. Six men sat together in the centre of the front row. The middle one had a marked book—fancy Shakespeare’s Hamlet marked for applause!—and according to that book’s instructions the Chef and his friends clapped once, twice, thrice.

On ordinary occasions the claque slept or read, and only woke up to make a noise when called upon by the Chef, who seemed to have free passes for his supporters every night, and took any one he liked to help him in his curious work. The noise those men made at Hamlet was deafening. The excitement of the leader lest the play should not go off well on a first night was terrible—and if their hands were not sore, and their arms did not ache, it was a wonder indeed. They were so appallingly near us, and so overpowering and disturbing, nothing but interest in the divine Sarah could have kept us in our seats during all those hot, stuffy, noisy hours. It was a Saturday night, the piece began at 8 p.m., and ended at 2 a.m.

Think of it, ye London first-nighters! Especially in a French theatre, where the seats are torture racks, the heat equal to Dante’s Inferno, and no sweet music soothes the savage breast, only long dreary entr’actes and the welcome—if melancholy—three raps French playgoers know so well.

Two years later, when I was again in Paris, there were different excitements in the air, one a strike of coal-miners, the other—and in Paris apparently the more important—a strike of the orchestras at the theatres. A few years previously there could not have been a strike, for the sufficient reason there were no orchestras; but gradually our plan of having music during the long waits crept in. The musicians at first engaged as an experiment were badly paid. When they became an institution they naturally asked for more money, which was promptly refused.

Then came the revolt. From the first violin to the big drum all demanded higher pay. It seems that theatre, music hall, and concert orchestras belong to a syndicate of Artistes Musiciens numbering some sixteen hundred members. During the strike I chanced to be present at a theatre where there was generally an orchestra—that night one small cottage piano played by a lady usurped its place. She managed fairly well—but a piano played by a mediocre musician, does not add to the gaiety of a theatre although it may decrease its melancholy. When November came, the strike ceased. The managers capitulated.

The orchestra in an English theatre is a little world to itself. The performers never mix with the actors, they have their own band-room, and there they live when not before the curtain. At the chief theatres, as is well known, the performers are extremely good, and that is because they are allowed to “deputise”; when there is a grand concert at the St. James’s Hall or elsewhere, provided they find some one to take their place in their own orchestra, they may go and play. Consequently, when there is a big concert several may be away from their own theatre. Many of these performers remain in the same orchestra for years. For instance, Mr. Alexander told me he met a man one day roving at the back of the stage, so he stopped and asked whom he wanted. The man smiled and replied: