“A merrier man,
Within the limits of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour withal.”
‘Vanderdecken,’ as it was called, was produced on July 8, 1878, but was found of too sombre a cast to attract. It was all, as Johnson once said, “inspissated gloom,” but there was abundant praise for the picturesque figure of the actor. Nothing could be more effective than his first appearance, when he was revealed standing in a shadowy way beside the sailors, who had been unconscious of his presence. This was his own subtle suggestion. A fatal blemish was the unveiling of the picture, on the due impressiveness of which much depended, and which proved to be a sort of grotesque daub, greeted with much tittering—a fatal piece of economy on the part of the worthy manageress. An unusually sultry spell of summer that set in caused “the booking to go all to pieces”—the box-keeper’s consolatory expression. Our actor, however, has not lost faith in the subject to this hour, and a year or two later he encouraged me to make another attempt; while Miss Terry has been always eager to attempt the heroine, in which she is confident of producing a deep impression.
At this time our actor’s position was a singular one. It had occurred to many that there was something strange and abnormal in the spectacle of the most conspicuous performer of his time, the one who “drew” most money of all his contemporaries, being under the direction of a simple, excellent lady, somewhat old-fashioned in her ideas, and in association with a mediocre company and economical appointments. There was here power clearly going to waste. It soon became evident that his talents were heavily fettered, and that he had now attained a position which, to say the least, was inconsistent with such surroundings. His own delicacy of feeling, and a sense of old obligation, which, however, was really slender enough, had long restrained him; but now, on the advice of friends, and for the sake of his own interests, he felt that matters could go on no longer, and that the time had arrived for making some serious change. The balancing of obligations is always a delicate matter, but it may be said that in such cases quite as much is returned as is received. The successful manager may “bring forward” the little-known actor, but the little-known actor in return brings fortune to the manager.
The situation was, in fact, a false one. Where was he to find an opening for those sumptuous plans and artistic developments for which the public was now ripe, and which he felt that he, and he alone, could supply? The breach, however, was only the occasion of the separation which must inevitably have come later. As it was, he had suggested a change in stage companionship: the attraction of the “leading lady,” with whom he had been so long associated, was not, he thought, sufficient to assist or inspire his own. As this arrangement was declined, he felt compelled to dissolve the old partnership.
It presently became known that the popular player was free, and ready to carry out the ambitious and even magnificent designs over which he had so long pondered. The moment was propitious. Except the little Prince of Wales’s, there was no theatre in London that was conducted in liberal or handsome style, and no manager whose taste or system was of a large or even dignified sort. Everything was old-fashioned, meagre, and mercantile. Everything seemed in a state of languor and decay. No one thought of lavish and judicious outlay, the best economy in the end. There was really but one on whom all eyes now instinctively rested as the only person who by temperament and abilities was fitted to restore the drama, and present it worthily, in accordance with the growing luxurious instinct of the time.
It was a rude shock for the manageress when this resolution was communicated to her. The loss of her actor also involved the loss of her theatre. She might have expostulated, with Shylock:
“You take my house, when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house.”