The Duke of Connaught’s Theatre was packed to overflowing for the opening performance of “Benvenuto Cellini.” Incidentally, every member of the dramatic profession, not otherwise engaged, made it a duty to be present, some even going to the extremity of paying for their seats.
The news that something unusual in the way of acting was likely to occur had spread with the rapidity of a fire. Be it said that most of his fellow-players were heartily sympathetic with Eliphalet for the failure they were confident he would make, but their sympathy did not take the form of staying away.
Before the curtain rose, each member of the company came forward to wish him luck, and he, with old-world courtesy, thanked them all and waited, apparently unmoved, for his cue.
The first scene in which he was to appear was a very Rabelaisian interlude wherein he made love, of a base kind, to his model. At rehearsals he had been worse in this than in any other part of the play. His efforts to acquire a light touch had been little short of bricklayer’s pastry, and the poor girl with whom the scene took place was in an agony of dread at the coming ordeal. What was her amazement, then, when Eliphalet Cardomay acted the whole racy interlude as though he were reading a lesson from the Bible.
At first the audience did not know what to make of it, the reading was so utterly at variance with the lines. Then, like a wave, it struck them that here was originality at its highest. Here in these full-throated accents, these absurd parsonic gestures, was a brilliant satirical reading—a fragment of exquisite characterisation.
There was an ovation when Eliphalet left the stage.
In the author’s box Sir Owen Frazer was heard to say, with extraordinary force, considering he had lost his voice, “I’m damned! Damn it!”
Oscar Raven plucked Wakefield by the sleeve. “What on earth do you make of it?” he said.
“It will make the play,” came the reply.
“But I can’t understand. Does he know what he’s doing?”