“The die being now cast,” according to the accepted expression, John Brodribb, who had now become Henry Irving, bade adieu to his desk, and bethinking him of the Hoskins letter, applied to Mr. Davis, a country manager, who had just completed the building of a new theatre at Sunderland. With a slender stock of money he set off for that town. By an odd coincidence the name of the new house was the Lyceum. The play appointed was ‘Richelieu,’ and the opening night was fixed for September 29, 1856. The young actor was cast for the part of the Duke of Orleans, and had to speak the opening words of the piece.
Mr. Alfred Davis, a well-known provincial actor, and son of the northern manager, used often to recall the circumstances attending Irving’s “first appearance on any stage.” “The new theatre,” he says, “was opened in September, 1856, and on the 29th of that month we started. For months previously a small army of scenic artists had been at work. Carpenters, property-makers, and, of course, costumiers, had been working night and day, and everything was, as far as could be foreseen, ready and perfect. Among the names of a carefully-selected corps dramatique were those of our old friend Sam Johnson (now of the Lyceum Theatre, London); George Orvell (real name, Frederick Kempster); Miss Ely Loveday (sister of H. J. Loveday, the present genial and much-respected stage-manager of the Lyceum), afterwards married to Mr. Kempster; and a youthful novice, just eighteen, called Henry Irving. Making his first appearance, he spoke the first word in the first piece (played for the first time in the town, I believe), on the first or opening night of the new theatre. The words of the speech itself, ‘Here’s to our enterprise!’ had in them almost a prophetic tone of aspiration and success. So busy was I in front and behind the scenes, that I was barely able to reach my place on the stage in time for the rising of the curtain. I kept my back to the audience till my cue to speak was given, all the while buttoning up, tying, and finishing my dressing generally, so that scant attention would be given to others. But even under these circumstances I was compelled to notice, and with perfect appreciation, the great and most minute care which had been bestowed by our aspirant on the completion of his costume. In those days managers provided the mere dress. Accessories, or ‘properties’ as they were called, were found by every actor. Henry Irving was, from his splendid white hat and feathers to the tips of his shoes, a perfect picture; and, no doubt, had borrowed his authority from some historical picture of the Louis XIII. period.”
“The impersonation,” as the neophyte related it long afterwards, “was not a success. I was nervous, and suffered from stage fright. My second appearance as Cleomenes in ‘A Winter’s Tale’ was even more disheartening, as in Act V. I entirely forgot my lines, and abruptly quitted the scene, putting out all the other actors. My manager, however, put down my failure to right causes, and instead of dispensing with my services, gave me some strong and practical advice.”
All which is dramatic enough, and gives us a glimpse of the good old provincial stage life. That touch of encouragement instead of dismissal is significant of the fair, honest system which then obtained in this useful training school.
CHAPTER II.
1857-1859.
EDINBURGH AND THE SCOTTISH THEATRES.
At the Sunderland Theatre he remained only four months, and though the manager pressed him to stay with him, the young actor felt that here he had not the opportunities he desired. He accordingly accepted an engagement at the Edinburgh Theatre, which began on February 9, 1857.
Among the faces that used to be familiar at any “first night” at the Lyceum were those of Mr. Robert Wyndham and his wife. There is something romantic in the thought that these guests of the London manager and actor in the height of his success and prosperity should have been the early patrons of the unfriended provincial player. Mr. Wyndham was one of the successors of that sagacious Murray to whom the Edinburgh stage owes so much that is respectable. Here our actor remained for two years and a half, enjoying the benefits of that admirable, useful discipline, by which alone a knowledge of acting is to be acquired—viz., a varied practice in a vast round of characters. This experience, though acquired in a hurried and perfunctory fashion, is of enormous value in the way of training. The player is thus introduced to every shade and form of character, and can practise himself in all the methods of expression. Now that provincial theatres are abolished, and have given place to the “travelling companies,” the actor has few opportunities of learning his business, and one result is a “thinness” or meagreness of interpretation. In this Edinburgh school our actor performed “a round,” as it is called, of no fewer than three hundred and fifty characters! This seems amazing. It is, in truth, an extraordinary list, ranging over every sort of minor character.
He here also enjoyed opportunities of performing with famous “stars” who came round the provinces, Miss Ellen Faucit, Mrs. Stirling, Vandenhoff, Charles Dillon, Madame Celeste, “Ben” Webster, Robson, the facetious Wright, the buoyant Charles Mathews, his life-long friend Toole, of “incompressible humour,” and the American, Miss Cushman.[1] This, it is clear, was a period of useful drudgery, but in it he found his account. The company visited various Scotch towns, which the actor has described pleasantly enough in what might seem an extract from one of the old theatrical memoirs. He had always a vein of quiet humour, the more agreeable because it is unpretending and without effort.
It would be difficult to give an idea of the prodigious labour which this earnest, resolute young man underwent while struggling to “learn his profession” in the most thorough way. The iron discipline of the theatre favoured his efforts, and its calls on the exertions of the actor seem, nowadays, truly extraordinary. In another laborious profession, the office of “deviling” for a counsel in full practice, which entails painful gratuitous drudgery, is welcomed as a privilege by any young man who wishes to rise. A few of these Edinburgh bills are now before me, and present nights of singularly hard work for so young a man. We may wonder, too, at the audience which could have stomach for so lengthy a programme. Thus, one night, January 7, 1858, when the pantomime was running, the performances began with the pantomime of ‘Little Bo-Peep,’ in which we find our hero as Scruncher, “the Captain of the Wolves.” After the pantomime came ‘The Middy Ashore,’ in which he was Tonnish, “an exquisite,” concluding with ‘The Wandering Boys,’ in which we again find him as Gregoire, “confidential servant to the Countess Croissey.” We find him nearly always in three pieces of a night, and he seems, in pieces of a light sort, to have been “cast” for the gentlemanly captain of the “walking” sort; in more serious ones, for the melodramatic and dignified characters. In ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ he was the hero; and also Jack Wind, the boatswain, the chief mutineer, in ‘Robinson Crusoe.’ In the course of this season Toole and Miss Louisa Keeley came to the theatre, when Irving opened the night as the Marquis de Cevennes in ‘Plot and Passion,’ next appearing in the “laughable farce” (and it is one, albeit old-fashioned), ‘The Loan of a Lover,’ in which he was Amersfort, and finally playing Leeford, “Brownlow’s nephew,” in ‘Oliver Twist.’
The young man, full of hope and resolution, went cheerfully through these labours, though “my name,” as he himself tells us, “continued to occupy a useful but obscure position in the playbill, and nothing occurred to suggest to the manager the propriety of doubling my salary, though he took care to assure me I was ‘made to rise.’” This salary was the modest one of thirty shillings a week, then the usual one for what was termed “juvenile lead.” The old classification, “walking lady,” “singing chambermaid,” “heavy father,” etc., will have soon altogether disappeared, simply because the round of characters that engendered it has disappeared. Now the manager selects, at his goodwill and pleasure, anybody, in or out of his company, who he thinks will best suit the character.