This suggests the old rhyme:
“Thou hast so many pleasing, teazing ways about thee,
There’s no living with thee or without thee.”
[50] It was interesting to note, at a St. James’s Hall performance, June 25, the pleasant, eager vivacity of the actress, who, familiar as she was with the play, seemed to be repeating with her lips all the portions in which she was not concerned. In the more dramatic portions, it was plain she was eager to be on the scene once more. As she sat she anxiously waited for the orchestra to come in at their proper places, sometimes giving them the signal. This very natural behaviour interested everyone.
[51] Another play was written for him on the subject of ‘Mahomet,’ which he was inclined to bring out; but here again authority interposed, and “invited him,” as the French so politely have it, to abandon his purpose. It was at the end of the summer season of 1879 that our manager, after naming these pieces, spoke of others which he had in reserve, either revivals or wholly new ones. It is interesting to think that he had thought of the stormy and pathetic ‘Gamester,’ which has ever an absorbing attraction; ‘The Stranger’ also was spoken of; but their treatment would have offered too many points of similarity to Eugene Aram and other characters of “inspissated gloom.” On this occasion, when speaking of “the romantic and pathetic story” of Emmett, he announced a drama on the subject of Rienzi, which his friend Wills had prepared for him, but which has never yet seen the light. Years have rolled by swiftly since that night, and the author has often been heard to bewail the delays and impediments which hindered the production of what he no doubt considered his finest performance. Another great drama long promised and long due is ‘Coriolanus,’ for which Mr. Alma Tadema has designed scenery.
[52] An American lady, a Californian artist, was the first to enter the pit for the opening performance of ‘Henry VIII.’ at the Lyceum. “I and a friend went with our camp-stools and took our places next the door at ten o’clock in the morning. We were provided with a volume of Harper’s Magazine, a sketch-book, writing-paper, and a fountain-pen, caricatures of Henry Irving, and much patience. A newspaper spread under the feet and a Japanese muff warmer, with sandwiches and a bottle of wine, kept us comfortable. Two ladies were the next comers, and shortly a crowd began to collect. Real amusing it was, but not very elegant. After about two hours Mr. Bram Stoker came and had a look at us, and cheered our hearts by telling us that tea would be served from the neighbouring saloon (public-house). At last, at seven o’clock, we were rewarded for our patience by getting seats in the front row. The play was superb, and the audience—well, everyone looked as if he had done something.”
[53] As an instance of the manager’s happy touch in a trifling matter, we might name the State trumpets constantly “blaring” and sounding as the King approached, which offered nothing of the usual “super” arrangement. The men seemed to tramp along the street as though conscious of their own dignity, warning those whom it might concern to make way for their high and puissant lord.
[54] It was publicly stated that the “mounting” of this play had cost £15,000, and that the weekly expenses were some £800. The manager wrote to contradict this, as being altogether beyond the truth; though, he added, with a sigh, as it were, that he heartily wished the second statement were true, and that the expenses could be put at so low a figure.
[55] According to one writer, “an emissary was sent to Rome to acquire a Cardinal’s robe. After some time a friend managed to secure one of the very period, whereupon an exact copy, ‘both of colour and texture,’ was made. A price has to be paid for scenic splendours in the shape of the delays that they necessarily occasion. Thanks to the ingenuity of stage-carpenters and machinists, these delays at the Lyceum are reduced to a minimum time. ‘Henry VIII.’ being not one of the longest of the plays—though it is one-third longer than ‘Macbeth’—the text at the Lyceum has been treated with comparative leniency. ‘Hamlet,’ on the other hand, which comprises nearly four thousand lines, cannot on the modern system of sumptuous mounting possibly be given in anything approaching its entirety.” As a fact, very nearly one-half the play disappears from the modern acting copies. My friend Mr. W. Pollock, in a paper in the National Review, has justly urged in this connection that half a ‘Hamlet’ is better than no ‘Hamlet’ at all.
[56] To illustrate his most recent productions, the manager is accustomed to issue what is called “a souvenir,” an artistic series of pictures of the scenes, groupings, etc. It may be added, as a proof of the pictorial interest of the Lyceum productions, that in little more than a week after the first performance of ‘Becket’ no fewer than five-and-twenty illustrations, some of great pretension, had appeared in the papers. On the first night of ‘Lear’ a marchioness of artistic tastes was seen making sketches, which were published in an evening paper.