The night of May 2 was an exciting one, even in the list of exciting Lyceum nights. The Americans were, of course, there in great force. Irving—Booth—Ellen Terry: this surely formed, in theatrical phrase, a galaxy of talent, and the cynosure of a crowded, brilliant audience. It was, indeed, a charming performance—intellectual, highly-coloured, and treated in the romantic fashion which the age seems to demand. The old days of lusty-throated, welkin-splitting declamation, emphasized with strides and lunges, are done with.
Of Irving’s Iago it would be difficult to say too much. There have been always the two extremes: one portraying the Ancient as a malignant, scowling, crafty villain, doing much work with his eyes; the other as a kind of dapper, sarcastic, sneering personage, much after the model of Mephistopheles, this tone being emphasized by an airy, fashionable dress, as though he were some cynical Venetian “about town.” In Irving was seen the man of power and capability. There was breadth of treatment—the character was coherent throughout. The keynote to the perplexing character was found in his humour. In “I hate the Moor!”—one of those secret, jealous, morbid broodings which belong to human nature—an admirably delivered soliloquy, he strives to find some reasonable excuse for this suggestion; ‘He has done my office’ is merely accepted as a suitable pretext. The mode in which this was, as it were, chased through the turnings of his soul; the anxious tone of search, “I know not if ’t be true”; the covering up his face, and the motion by which he let his hands glide, revealing an elated expression at having found what would “serve,” was a perfect exhibition of the processes of thought. All this was set off by a dress of singular appropriateness and richness: a crimson and gold jerkin, with a mantle of dull or faded green, sometimes alternated with a short cloak and a red mantle worn on one arm.
In Booth’s Othello there appeared to be a lack of vigour, and the elocutionist was too present. There was a system of “points.” Some critics were rude enough to say that “his make-up suggested at times an Indian juggler, while about the head he seemed a low-cast Bengali.” He was never the “noble Moor.” “He had a tendency at times to gobble like a turkey.” This was rather hard measure. But in the scene with Iago, and, above all, in the scenes with Desdemona, the frantic bursts of jealousy, the command of varied tones, the by-play, the fierce ordering of Emilia and his wife—all this was of a high class, and stirred us. Miss Terry’s Desdemona was pathetic, and her piteous pleadings and remonstrances went straight to the heart.
On the next performance the parts were interchanged. A figure arrayed in a flowing amber robe over a purple brocaded gaberdine; a small, snow-white turban; a face dark, yet not “black”—such was Irving’s conception of Othello, which indeed answered to our ideal of the Moor. His tall figure gave him advantage. His reading of the part, again, was of the romantic, passionate kind, and he leant more on the tender side of the character than on the ferocious or barbaric. In the scene of Desdemona’s death or murder, there was now another and more effective arrangement: the bed was placed in the centre of the stage, and the whole became more important and conspicuous. When it was at the side, as in the Booth arrangement, it was difficult to believe in the continued presence of the lady after her death, and there was an awkwardness in the efforts to keep in sight of the audience during the struggle. There is not space to give details of the points which distinguished this conception—it is virtually a new character; but it will always be played by Irving under a disadvantage, as the play of his expressive face—the meaning, “travelling” eyes—is greatly veiled by the enforced swarthiness and Æthiop tint.
Booth’s Iago had been seen before, and was much praised. It was on the old “Mephistopheles” lines. The dress, indeed, strangely meagre and old-fashioned, scarcely harmonized with the rich costumes about him.
The whole of this transaction, as I have said, did honour to the English actor. Nothing more cordially hospitable could have been imagined. At the time there was a “Booth party,” who gave out that their favourite had not had fair play at the Princess’s, and that on a properly-appointed stage his superiority to all rivals would be apparent. These and other utterances were scattered about freely. Irving might have passed them by with indifference. It was certainly not his duty to share his stage with a stranger and a rival. At the same time we may give him credit for a certain delicate finesse, and he may have later thought, with a smiling, good-humoured complacency, that, owing to his allowing the experiment, the issue had turned out very differently from what “good-natured people” had hoped. The mortification for the American must have been the greater from the disadvantage of the contrast, which brought out in the most forcible way the want of “distinction,” the stock of old, rather faded, devices with which he came provided, and which he tried on his audience with an antique gravity. Audiences have, unfortunately, but little delicacy. In their plain way they show their appreciation of whom they think “the better man” in a business-like manner; and I remember how they insisted that the encouraging applause which they gave to the new actor should be shared by his host.
It should be mentioned that the prices on this engagement were raised to the opera scale—a guinea in the stalls, half-a-guinea for the dress-circle.
When the actor took his benefit at the close of this laborious season, the theatre presented an opera-house appearance, and was filled to overflowing with a miscellany of brave men and fair women, the latter arrayed in special splendour and giving the whole an air of rich luxury and magnificence befitting the handsomest and best-appointed theatre in the kingdom. Bouquets of unusual brilliancy and dimensions were laid in position, clearly not brought for the enjoyment of the owners. The entertainment consisted of the stock piece of ‘The Bells.’ Mr. Toole performed Mr. Hollingshead’s farce, ‘The Birthplace of Podgers,’ a happy subject, which shows that the “germ” of the æsthete “business” existed twenty years ago. The feature of the night was the well-known scene from ‘The Hunchback,’ in which Modus is so pleasantly drawn into making a declaration. Sheridan Knowles is often ridiculed for his sham Elizabethan situations; yet it may be doubted if any living writer could treat this incident with such freshness or so naturally. It is a piece of good, wearing stuff, and will wear even better. When the scene drew up, the handsome curtains, festooned in rich and abundant folds, revealed a new effect, throwing out, by contrast, the pale greenish-tinted scene, and heightening the light so that the two figures were projected on this mellow background with wonderful brilliancy. Miss Terry’s performance was full of animation and piquancy. Most remarkable, indeed, was the new store of unexpected attitudes and graces revealed at every moment—pretty stoopings, windings, sudden half turns, inviting “rallyings”—so that even a Modus more insensible to her advances must have succumbed. But in truth this wonderful creature “adorns all she touches.” It is clear that there is a Jordan-like vein of comedy in her yet to be worked. Irving’s Modus was full of a quaint earnestness, and his air of helplessness in the hands of such a mistress was well maintained. Modus is generally made to hover on the verge of oafishness, so as to make it surprising that there should be any object in gaining such a being. Irving imparted a suitable air to it, and lifted the character into pure comedy.
At the end came the expected speech, delivered with a pleasant familiarity, and dwelling on past successes and future plans. As in the case of another Premier, announcement was made of “improvement for tenants” in the pit and boxes, who were to have more room—to be “rooted,” if not to the soil, in their places at least. It was a pleasant and remarkable season to look back upon: the enchanting ‘Cup,’ which lingers like a dream, or lotus-eating fancy; the ‘Corsican Brothers,’ so sumptuously mounted; the splendid ‘Othello,’ the meeting of the American and the English actor on the same stage, and their strangely opposed readings of the same characters.
The performance of ‘The Belle’s Stratagem,’ which supplemented the attraction of ‘Othello,’ was interesting, as it introduced once more to active life that excellent and sound old actor, Henry Howe, who is now perhaps the only link with the generation of the great actors. It was a graceful and thoughtful act of Irving’s to seek out the veteran and attach him to his company. During the decade of years that have since elapsed, he has always treated him with a kindly and courteous consideration. Everyone who knows Mr. Howe—and everyone who does is glad to be counted among his friends—can testify to his kindly and loveable qualities. He has not the least particle of that testy discontent which too often distinguishes the veteran actor, who extols the past and is discontented with the present, because it is discontented with him, or thinks that he lags superfluous on the stage. As we have talked with him of a summer’s afternoon, in his little retreat at Isleworth, the image of many a pleasant hour in the old Haymarket days has risen up with his presence. It is always pleasant to encounter his honest face in the Strand, where he lives, as he is hurrying to his work.[28]