Some time before the manager, who was on friendly terms with the gifted Helen Faucit, determined to revive a piece in which she had once made a deep impression, viz., ‘King Réné’s Daughter.’ This poem, translated by her husband, set out the thoughts and feelings of a young girl in the contrasted conditions of blindness and of sight recovered. With a natural enthusiasm for his art, Irving persuaded the actress, who had long since withdrawn from the stage, to emerge from her retirement and play her old character “for one night only.” This news really stirred the hearts of true playgoers, who recalled this actress in her old days of enchantment, when she was in her prime, truly classical and elegant in every pose, playing the pathetic Antigone. But, alas! for the old Antigone dreams; we could have wished that we had stayed away! The actress’s devices seemed to have hung too long a “rusty mail, and seemed quite out of fashion.” Irving did all he could, in an almost chivalrous style, and it was certainly a kindly act of admiration and enthusiasm for his art to think of such a revival. Such homage deserved at least tolerance or recognition.
Miss Terry herself had always fancied the character of Iolanthe, and it was now proposed to give the play as an after-piece to ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ a substantial meal for one night. Our heroine made a tender, natural, and highly emotional character of it. A new version or adaptation from the Danish had been made, for obvious reasons, by the trusty Wills: the piece was set off by one really lovely scene, which represented the heart of some deep grove, that seemed almost inaccessible to us, weird and jungle-like. A golden, gorgeous light played on the trees capriciously; there was a rich tangle of huge tropical flowers; while behind, the tall, bare trunks of trees were ranged close together like sentinels. Golden doors opened with a musical chime, or clang; strange, weird music, as of æolian harps, floated up now and again. With this background, knightly figures of the Arthurian pattern and ethereal maidens were seen to float before us. Miss Terry’s conception of the maid was not Miss Faucit’s, which was that of a placid, rather cold and elegant being. She cast over the character a rapture, as though she were all love and impulse, with an inexpressible tenderness and devotional trust, as when she exclaimed, “I go to find the light!” This sort of rapture also tinged Mr. Irving’s character, and the audience were lifted into a region where emotion reigned supreme.
CHAPTER VIII.
1880.
‘THE CORSICAN BROTHERS’ AND ‘THE CUP.’
With his usual tact the manager had determined on a change of entertainment which should offer a marked contrast to the classical success just obtained, and was now meditating a revival of the once popular romantic drama, ‘The Corsican Brothers,’ with all its spectral effects—certainly one of the best of many admirably-constructed and effective French pieces. To such a group belong the absorbing ‘Two Orphans,’ ‘Thirty Years of a Gambler’s Life,’ ‘Victorine,’ and others. ‘The Lady of Lyons’ is the only one of our répertoire that can be put beside these ingenious efforts. Some thirty years ago, when it was produced at the Princess’s, the horny-voiced Charles Kean performing the Brothers, it took hold of the public with a sort of fascination—the strange music of Stöpel, and the mysterious, gliding progress of the murdered brother across the stage, enthralling everyone. There was a story at the time that the acts, sent over from Paris in separate parcels for translation, had become transposed, the second act being placed first, and this order was retained in the representation with some benefit to the play. This may be a legend; but the fact is that either act could come first without making any serious difference.
Magnificent and attractive as was the mounting of this piece at the time, it was really excelled in sumptuousness on its later revival in 1891. The experience of ten years had made the manager feel a certainty in the results of his own efforts; his touch had become sure; the beautiful and striking effects were developed naturally, without that undue emphasis which often disturbs the onward course of a piece. All his agents had grown skilled in the resources of the scene; and he himself, enjoying this security, and confident as would be a rider on the back of a well-trained horse, could give his undoubted fancy and imagination full range. Hence that fine, unobtrusive harmony which now reigns in all his pictures. Even now the wonderful opera house, the forest glades, the salon in Paris, all rise before us. Nor was there less art shown in the subdued tone of mystery which it was contrived to throw over the scenes. The scenes themselves, even those of reckless gaiety, seemed to strike this “awesome” note. Much as the familiar “ghost tune” was welcomed, more mysterious, as it always seemed to me, was the “creepy variation” on the original theme, devised by Mr. H. Clarke, and which stole in mournfully at some impending crisis all through the piece. There was some criticism on the D’Orsay costumes of the piece; the short-waisted waist-coats, the broad-brimmed opera hats, and the rich cravats—Joinvilles, as they used to be called. These lent a piquancy, and yet were not too remote from the present time. Terriss, it must be said, was lacking in elegance and “distinction.” There always lingers in the memory the image of the smooth grace and courtesies of Alfred Wigan, who really made a dramatic character of the part—sympathetic and exciting interest. It is in these things that we miss the style, the bearing which is itself acting, without utterance of a word, and which now seems to be a lost art. One result of this treatment, as Mr. Clement Scott truly pointed out, was the shifting of sympathies. “Château-Renaud was, no doubt, a villain, but he was one of the first class, and with magnetic power in him. He had won for himself a high place. He was cold as steel, and reserved. For him to deal with Louis was child’s play. And yet all this was reversed: it was Louis that dominated the situation; no one felt the least apprehension for his fate.” This is a judicious criticism.
Familiarity has now somewhat dulled the effect of the gliding entrance of the ghostly Louis, which at first seemed almost supernatural. The art was in making the figure rise as it advanced, and an ingenious contrivance was devised by one of the stage foremen. It was a curious feeling to find oneself in the cavernous regions below the stage, and see the manager rush down and hurriedly place himself on the trap to be worked slowly upwards.[24]
The use of intense light has favoured the introduction of new effects in the shape of transparent scenery; that is, of a scene that looks like any ordinary one, but is painted on a thick gauzy material. Thus, in the first act, the back of the scene in the Corsican Palace is of this material, through which the tableau of the Paris duel is shown, a fierce light being cast upon it. In the original representation the whole wall descended and revealed the scene. The upper half ascending, the other offers something of a magic-lantern or phantasmagorian air. The same material is used in the dream in ‘The Bells,’ when the spectral trial is seen going on, made mysterious and misty by the interposition of this gauze.
In the duel scene one of the swords is broken by an accident; the other combatant breaks his across his knee, that the duel may proceed “on equal terms.” It is not, of course, to be supposed that a sword is broken every night. They are made with a slight rivet and a little solder, the fitting being done every morning, so that the pieces are easily parted. But few note how artfully the performers change their weapons; for in the early stages of the duel the flourishings and passes would have soon caused the fragments to separate. It is done during the intervals of rest, when the combatants lean on the seconds and gather strength for the second “round,” and one gets his new weapon from behind a tree, the other from behind a prostrate log.
But it is in the next act that the series of elaborate set scenes succeeding each other entails the most serious difficulties, only to be overcome in one way—viz., by the employment of an enormous number of persons. Few modern scenes were more striking than that of the Opera House lit à giorno, with its grand chandelier and smaller clusters running round. The blaze of light was prodigious; for this some five thousand feet of gas-tubing had to be laid down, the floor covered with snake-like coils of indiarubber pipes, and the whole to be contrived so as to be controlled from a single centre-pipe. There were rows of boxes with crimson curtains, the spectators filling them—some faces being painted in, others being represented by living persons. Yet nothing could be more simple than the elements of this Opera House. From the audience portion one would fancy that it was an elaborately built and costly structure. It was nothing but two light screens pierced with openings, but most artfully arranged and coloured. At its close, down came the rich tableau curtains, while behind them descended the cloth with the representation of the lobby scene in the Opera House. It used to be customary for the manager’s friends to put on a mask and domino and mingle with the gay throng of roysterers in the Opera House scene, or to take a place in one of the practicable boxes and survey the whole—and a curious scene it was. A cosy supper in the Beef-steak room, and a pleasant causerie through the small hours, concluded a delightful and rather original form of a night’s entertainment. This was followed by the double rooms of the supper party, a very striking scene: two richly-furnished rooms, Aubusson carpets, a pianoforte, nearly twenty chairs, sofas, tables, clocks, and a supper-table covered with delicacies, champagne bottles, flowers, etc. This is succeeded almost instantly by a scene occupying the same space—that of the forest, requiring the minutest treatment, innumerable properties, real trees, etc. This is how it is contrived. The instant the tableau curtains are dropped, the auxiliaries rush on the scene; away to right and left fly the portions of the Parisian drawing-room: tables, chairs, piano, sofa, vanish in an instant. Men appear carrying tall saplings fixed in stands; one lays down the strip of frozen pond, another the prostrate trunk of a tree—everyone from practice knowing the exact place of the particular article he is appointed to carry. Others arrive with bags of sand, which are emptied and strewn on the floor; the circular tree is in position, the limelights ready. The transformation was effected, in what space of time will the reader imagine? In thirty-eight seconds, by the stage-manager’s watch. By that time the tableau had been drawn aside, and Château-Renaud and his friend Maugiron were descending into the gloomy glade after their carriage had broken down.[25]
As we call up the memories of the Lyceum performances, with what a series of picturesque visions is our memory furnished—poetical Shakespearian pageants; romantic melodramatic stories, set forth with elegance and vraisemblance; plays of pathetic or domestic interest; exhilarating comedies; with highly dramatic poems, written by the late Poet Laureate, Wills, and others. Indeed, who could have conceived on the opening night of the Lyceum management, when ‘Hamlet’ was to be brought out, that this was to be the first of a regular series—viz., nine gorgeous and ambitious presentations of Shakespearian pieces, each involving almost stupendous efforts, intellectual and physical, that we were to see in succession ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ ‘Othello,’ ‘Twelfth Night,’ ‘Macbeth,’ ‘Henry VIII.,’ and ‘King Lear’? What a gift to the public in the shape of the attendant associations, in the glimpses of Italian and other scenery, the rich costumes, the archæology!