ON THE STAGE-AND OFF

In penning the following pages I have endeavored to be truthful. In looking back upon the scenes through which I passed, I have sought to penetrate the veil of glamour Time trails behind him as he flies, and to see things exactly as they were—to see the rough road as well as the smiling landscape, the briers and brambles as well as the green grass and the waving trees.

Now, however, that my task is done, and duty no longer demands that memory should use a telescope, the mellowing haze of distance resumes its sway, and the Stage again appears the fair, enchanted ground that I once dreamt it. I forget the shadows, and remember but the brightness. The hardships that I suffered seem now but picturesque incidents; the worry only pleasurable excitement.

I think of the Stage as of a lost friend. I like to dwell upon its virtues and to ignore its faults. I wish to bury in oblivion the bad, bold villains and the false-hearted knaves who played a part thereon, and to think only of the gallant heroes, the virtuous maidens, and the good old men.

Let the bad pass. I met far more honest, kindly faces than deceitful ones, and I prefer to remember the former. Plenty of honest, kindly hands grasped mine, and such are the hands that I like to grip again in thought. Where the owners of those kindly hands and faces may be now I do not know. Years have passed since I last saw them, and the sea of life has drifted us farther and farther apart. But wherever on that sea they may be battling, I call to them from here a friendly greeting. Hoping that my voice may reach across the waves that roll between us, I shout to them and their profession a hearty and sincere God Speed.

ON THE STAGE-AND OFF.

CHAPTER I. I Determine to Become an Actor.

[Original]

HERE comes a time in every one’s life when he feels he was born to be an actor. Something within him tells him that he is the coming man, and that one day he will electrify the world. Then he burns with a desire to show them how the thing’s done, and to draw a salary of three hundred a week.

This sort of thing generally takes a man when he is about nineteen, and lasts till he is nearly twenty. But he doesn’t know this at the time. He thinks he has got hold of an inspiration all to himself—a kind of solemn “call,” which it would be wicked to disregard; and when he finds that there are obstacles in the way of his immediate appearance as Hamlet at a leading West-end theater, he is blighted.

I myself caught it in the usual course. I was at the theater one evening to see Romeo and Juliet played, when it suddenly flashed across me that that was my vocation. I thought all acting was making love in tights to pretty women, and I determined to devote my life to it. When I communicated my heroic resolution to my friends, they reasoned with me. That is, they called me a fool; and then said that they had always thought me a sensible fellow, though that was the first I had ever heard of it.

But I was not to be turned from my purpose.

I commenced operations by studying the great British dramatists. I was practical enough to know that some sort of preparation was necessary, and I thought that, for a beginning, I could not do better than this. Accordingly, I read through every word of Shakespeare,—with notes, which made it still more unintelligible,—Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and Lord Lytton. This brought me into a state of mind bordering on insanity. Another standard dramatist, and I should have gone raving mad: of that I feel sure. Thinking that a change would do me good, I went in for farces and burlesques, but found them more depressing than the tragedies, and the idea then began to force itself upon me that, taking one consideration with another, an actor’s lot would not be a happy one. Just when I was getting most despondent, however, I came across a little book on the art of “making-up,” and this resuscitated me.

I suppose the love of “making-up” is inherent in the human race. I remember belonging, when a boy, to “The West London United Concert and Entertainment Association.” We used to meet once a week for the purpose of regaling our relations with original songs and concertina solos, and on these occasions we regularly burnt-corked our hands and faces. There was no earthly reason for doing so, and I am even inclined to think we should have made our friends less unhappy if we had spared them this extra attraction. None of our songs had the slightest reference to Dinah. We didn’t even ask each other conundrums; while, as for the jokes, they all came from the audience. And yet we daubed ourselves black with as much scrupulousness as if it had been some indispensable religious rite. It could only have been vanity.

“Making-up” certainly assists the actor to a very great degree. At least, I found it so in my case. I am naturally of mild and gentle appearance, and, at that time, was particularly so. It was no earthly use my standing in front of the glass and trying to rehearse the part of, say, a drunken costermonger. It was perfectly impossible for me to imagine myself the character. I am ashamed to have to confess it, but I looked more like a young curate than a drunken costermonger, or even a sober one, and the delusion could not be sustained for a moment. It was just the same when I tried to turn myself into a desperate villain; there was nothing of the desperate villain about me. I might, perhaps, have imagined myself going for a walk on Sunday, or saying “bother it,” or even playing ha’penny nap, but as for ill-treating a lovely and unprotected female, or murdering my grandfather, the thing was absurd. I could not look myself in the face and do it. It was outraging every law of Lavater.

My fiercest scowl was a milk-and-watery accompaniment to my bloodthirsty speeches; and, when I tried to smile sardonically, I merely looked imbecile.

But crape hair and the rouge pot changed all this. The character of Hamlet stood revealed to me the moment that I put on false eyebrows, and made my cheeks look hollow. With a sallow complexion, dark eyes, and long hair, I was Romeo, and, until I washed my face, loved Juliet to the exclusion of all my female cousins. Humor came quite natural when I had a red nose; and, with a scrubby black beard, I felt fit for any amount of crime.

My efforts to study elocution, however, were not so successful. I have the misfortune to possess a keen sense of the ludicrous, and to have a morbid dread of appearing ridiculous. My extreme sensitiveness on this point would have been enough to prevent my ever acting well under any circumstances, and, as it was, it hampered and thwarted me at every turn: not only on the stage, but even in my own room, with the door locked. I was always in a state of terror lest any one should overhear me, and half my time was taken up in listening on one side of the key-hole, to make sure that no one was listening on the other; while the slightest creak on the stairs was sufficient to make me stop short in the middle of a passage, and commence whistling or humming in an affectedly careless manner, in order to suggest the idea that I was only amusing myself. I tried getting up early and going to Hampstead Heath, but it was no good. If I could have gone to the Desert of Sahara, and assured myself, by the aid of a powerful telescope, that no living creature was within twenty miles of me, I might have come out strong, but not else. Any confidence I might have placed in Hampstead Heath was rudely dissipated on the very second morning of my visits. Buoyed up by the belief that I was far from every vestige of the madding crowd, I had become quite reckless, and, having just delivered, with great vigor, the oration of Antony over the body of Cæsar, I was about starting on something else, when I heard a loud whisper come from some furze bushes close behind me: “Ain’t it proper, Liza! Joe, you run and tell ‘Melia to bring Johnny.”

I did not wait for Johnny. I left that spot at the rate of six miles an hour. When I got to Camden Town I looked behind me, cautiously. No crowd appeared to be following me, and I felt relieved, but I did not practice on Hampstead Heath again.

After about two months of this kind of thing, I was satisfied that I had learned all that could possibly be required, and that I was ready to “come out.” But here the question very naturally arose, “How can I get out?” My first idea was to write to one of the leading managers, tell him frankly my ambition, and state my abilities in a modest but a straightforward manner. To this, I argued, he would reply by requesting me to call upon him, and let him see for himself what I could do. I should then go to the theater at the time appointed, and send up my card. He would ask me into his private room, and, after a little general conversation on the weather, and the latest murder, etc., etc., he would suggest my rehearsing some short scene before him or reciting one or two speeches. This I should do in a way that would quite astonish him, and he would engage me on the spot at a small salary. I did not expect much at first, but fancied that five or six pounds per week would be near the mark. After that, the rest would be easy. I should go on for some months, perhaps a year, without making any marked sensation. Then my opportunity would come. A new play would be produced, in which there would be some minor part, not considered of any importance, but which in my hands (I had just read the history of “Lord Dundreary,” and believed every word of it) would become the great thing in the play, and the talk of London.

I should take the town by storm, make the fortune of my manager, and be the leading actor of the day. I used to dwell on the picture of the night when I should first startle the world. I could see the vast house before me with its waves of wild, excited faces. I could hear their hoarse roar of applause ringing in my ears. Again and again I bowed before them, and again and again the cheers burst forth, and my name was shouted with waving of hats and with bravos.

I did not write to a manager, though, after all. A friend who knew something about the subject said he wouldn’t if he were I, and I didn’t.

I asked him what course he would advise, and he said: “Go to an agent, and tell him just exactly what you want.” I went to two or three agents, and told them all just exactly what I wanted, and they were equally frank, and told me just exactly, what they wanted, which, speaking generally, was five shillings booking fee, to begin with. To do them justice, though, I must say that none of them appeared at all anxious to have me; neither did they hold out to me much hope of making my fortune. I believe my name is still down in the books of most of the agents—at least, I have never been round to take it off—and I expect that among them they will obtain for me a first-class engagement one of these days, when I am Bishop of London, or editor of a society paper, or something of that sort.

It was not for want of worrying that they did not do anything for me then. I was forever what I called “waking them up,” a process which consisted of studying the photos in the outer office for half an hour, and then being requested to call again. I had regular days for performing this duty, on the mornings of which I would say to myself: “Well, I must go round, and wake those agents up again to-day.” When I had said this, I felt quite important, and had some vague idea that I was overworking myself. If, on my way, I happened to meet a friend, I greeted him with “Haven’t got a minute, old man. I’m just going round to my agents,” and, scarcely stopping to shake hands, would rush off, leaving him with the impression that I had been telegraphed for.

But I never succeeded in rousing them to a full sense of their responsibilities, and, after a while, we began to get mutually tired of one another; especially as about this time I managed to get hold of two or three sham agents,—or rather, they managed to get hold of me,—who were much more pleased to see me. One of these, a very promising firm (though not quite so good at performing), had its offices then in Leicester Square, and consisted of two partners, one of whom, however, was always in the country on important business, and could never be seen. I remember they got four pounds out of me, for which they undertook, in writing, to obtain me a salaried London engagement before the expiration of a month. Just when the time was nearly up, however, I received a long and sympathetic letter from the mysterious traveling partner. This hitherto rusticating individual had, it appeared, returned to town the previous day, but only to discover a state of things that had shocked him beyond all expression. His partner, the one to whom I had paid the four pounds, besides defrauding nearly all the clients by taking money for engagements which he had no possible means of obtaining, had robbed him, the writer of the letter, of upward of seventy pounds, and had bolted, no one knew whither. My present correspondent expressed himself deeply grieved at my having been so villainously cheated, and hoped I would join him in taking proceedings against his absconding partner—when found. He concluded by stating that four pounds was an absurd sum to charge for obtaining such an engagement as had been held out to me, and that if I would give him (who really had the means of performing his promises) two pounds, he would get me one in a week, or ten days at the outside. Would I call and see him that evening? I did not go that evening, but I went the first thing the next morning. I then found the door locked, and a notice on it that all letters were to be left with the housekeeper. Coming downstairs, I met a man coming up, and asked him if he knew where either of the partners could be found. He said that he would give a sovereign to know, and that he was the landlord. I heard of the firm again the other day, and I believe it is still flourishing, though with the customary monthly change as to name and address. By the by, I wonder if the agent nuisance will ever be stamped out. Perhaps, now that education is compulsory, the next generation of actors and managers may be able to look after their own affairs, and so dispense with the interference of these meddlers on commission.

CHAPTER II. I Become an Actor.

[Original]

MONG the sham agents must be classed the “Professors,” or “X. Y. Z.‘s,” who are always “able to place two or three” (never more than two or three: it would be no use four applying) “lady and gentlemen amateurs, of tall or medium stature, either dark or fair, but must be of good appearance, at a leading West-end theater, in good parts: Salaried engagement.” These gentlemen are appreciative, and very quick to discern real talent. They perceived mine in a moment. They were all of them sure that I should make a splendid actor, and I was just the man they wanted. But they were conscientious. They scorned to hide the truth, and told me of my faults without reserve. They said that I was full of promise, that I had the makings of a really great actor in me, but—and the remarkable part of it was that no two of them agreed as to that “but.” One said it was my voice. All that I wanted was to train my voice; then I should be perfect. Another thought my voice was a very fine one, but told me that my attitudes would not do at all. When my attitudes were a little more artistic, he could get me an engagement at once. A third, after hearing me recite a trifle or two from Macbeth, clapped me on shoulder, and insisted on shaking hands. There were tears almost in his eyes, and he appeared quite overcome. He said:

“My boy, you have got it in you. You are an actor! but—you want chic.”

I had not got the slightest notion what he meant. I said:

“You think so.”

He was sure of it. It would be impossible for me to succeed without chic: with chic, I should soon be famous. I determined, at any price, to get chic, and I deferentially put it to him, how he thought I could obtain it. He paused for a minute or so, evidently considering how it could be done, while I stood anxiously awaiting the result. Suddenly a bright idea seemed to strike him. He laid his hand confidentially on my arm, and in the impressive voice of a man who is communicating some extraordinary discovery, said: “Come to me, twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, say, from eight to nine.” Then he drew back a few paces to see what effect it had upon me.

I replied that I supposed he meant he would teach it me. He seemed struck with my intelligence, and acknowledged that that was just precisely what he did mean. He explained—always in the same strictly confidential manner, as though he would not for the world have any one else know—that he had had great experience in this particular branch of dramatic education. He had letters now in his desk from well-known actors and actresses, persons of the greatest eminence, acknowledging that they owed their present position entirely to his teaching, and thanking him for all that he had done for them. He would show me those letters, and he rose to do so. But no, on second thoughts he would not; they were written in confidence, and it would not be right for him to let others see them—not even me, whom he felt he could trust. To do him justice, he never did show those letters, either to me, or, as far as I could learn, to any one else, though I subsequently came across three or four people who expressed an earnest desire to see them.

But I was slowly and painfully gaining experience, and I went away without leaving the five-pound note which I—“as a man of business’”—ought to have seen was an absurdly small amount, his usual charge being twenty guineas; only, somehow or other, he had taken an interest in me, and felt sure I should reflect credit on his teaching, and so make it up to him in that way.

Another class that make a very good thing out of stage-struck asses, are the “managers” (?) who have vacancies for “an amateur lady and gentleman in a specially selected company.” They are men who evidently believe in the literal truth of Jaques’s opinion as to all men and women being players, for they put raw novices into the leading parts with a confidence as to the result that is simply touching. The Thespian aspirant, who has never acted out of his own back parlor, feels a little nervous, though, at being cast for Banquo and Colonel Damas, to open with on the following Saturday. He cannot quite make up his mind whether a mistake has been made, a practical joke played upon him for the amusement of the rest of the company, or whether it is that the manager is really an intelligent man, who knows ability when he sees it. He does not like to speak about it, lest it should be thought he was not confident of his own powers—a failing of which the stage tyro is not usually guilty. Besides which, the parts might be taken from him, and this he by no means desires, although, at the same time, he is perfectly sure that he could play every other character in the piece much better. I had only one experience of the sham manager—at least, of this kind of sham manager. Unfortunately, there are other kinds, as most actors know to their cost, but these I have not come to yet. No, and I wish I had never gone to them, either.

There were about half a dozen of us noodles who had answered one advertisement, and we met every night for rehearsals at a certain house in Newman Street. Three or four well-known professionals, who were then starring in the provinces, but who would join us at the beginning of the next week, were to fill the chief parts, and we were to start for Gravesend immediately after their arrival. I had been engaged at a weekly salary of one pound fifteen shillings, and had been cast for the parts of Gilbert Featherstone in Lost in London, and the King in Hamlet. Everything went smoothly; there had been no suggestion of a premium or anything of that kind; and although I had, by this time, grown exceedingly suspicious, I began to think that this, at all events, was not a swindle. But I soon found out the trick. On the fifth night of the rehearsals, our manager was particularly pleasant, and complimented me on what he called my really original reading of the parts. During the pauses, he leant familiarly on my shoulder, and discussed the piece with me. We had a little argument about the part of the King. He differed from me, at first, on one or two points, but afterward came round to my views, and admitted that I was right. Then he asked me how I was going to dress the part. I had thought of this, even before I had studied the words, so I was as pat as could be on the subject, and we went through all the details, and arranged for a very gorgeous costume, indeed. He did not try to stint me in the leasts though I was once or twice afraid he might grumble at the cost. But no, he seemed quite as anxious as I was that the thing should be done in good style. It would be a little expensive, as he himself said, but then, “you may just as well do the thing properly, while you are about it,” he added, and I agreed with him. He went on to reckon up the amount. He said that he could get the things very cheap—much cheaper than any one else, as he had a friend in the business, who would let him have them for exactly what they cost to make. I congratulated him on the fact, but feeling no personal interest in the matter, began to be rather bored by his impressiveness on the subject. After adding it all up, he came to the conclusion that nine pounds ought to cover the lot.

“And very cheap, too,” said he; “the things will be good, and will always come in useful;” and I agreed with him again, and remarked that I thought they would be well worth the money; but wondering what on earth all this had got to do with me.

Then he wanted to know whether I would pay the money that evening, or bring it with me next time.

“Me! me pay!” I exclaimed, rendered ungrammatical by surprise. “What for?”

“What for! Why, for the costume,” replied he; “you can’t play the part without, and if you got the things yourself, you’d have to pay about four pounds more, that’s all. If you haven’t got all the money handy,” he continued soothingly, “let me have as much as you can, you know, and I’ll try and get my friend to trust you for the rest.”

On subsequent inquiry among the others, I found that three of them had already let him have about five pounds each, and that a fourth, intended to hand him over four pounds ten the following night. I and another agreed to wait and see. We did not see much, however. We never saw the well-known professionals, and, after the next evening, we never saw our manager again. Those who had paid saw less.

I now thought I would try hunting for myself, without the aid of agents or advertisements. I might be more successful, and certainly could not be less. The same friend that had recommended me not to write to the managers, concurred with me in this view, and thought I could not do better than drop in occasionally at “The Occidental”; and I accordingly so dropped in. I suppose there is no actor who does not know “The Occidental,” though it does try to hide itself down a dark court, being, no doubt, of a retiring disposition, like the rest of the profession.

I found the company there genial and pleasant, and without any objection to drinking at my expense. When, however, I hinted my wish to join the profession, they regarded me with a look of the most profound pity, and seemed really quite concerned. They shook their heads gravely, told me their own experiences, and did all they could to dissuade me from my intention. But I looked upon them as selfish fellows who wanted to keep young talent from the stage. Even if their advice were given honestly, I argued, it was no use taking any notice of it. Every one thinks his own calling the worst, and if a man waited to enter a profession until those already in it recommended him to, he might sit and twiddle his thumbs for the rest of his life. So I paid no attention to their warning, but continued in my course, and, at length, found some one to help me.

He was a large, flabby-looking individual, who seemed to live on Scotch whisky and big cigars, and was never either drunk or sober. He did not smell refreshing—a fact he made all the more impressive by breathing very hard, right into one’s face, while talking. He had formerly been a country manager, but how he earned his livelihood now, was always a mystery to me, as, although he rented a dirty little back room in a street leading out of the Strand, and called it his office, he never did anything there but go to sleep. He was, however, well known to the theatrical frequenters of “The Occidental,”—better known than respected, as I afterward learnt,—while he himself knew everybody, and it appeared to me that he was just the very man I wanted. At first, he was not any more enthusiastic than the others, but my mentioning that I was prepared to pay a small premium in order to obtain an appearance, set him pondering, and, in the end, he didn’t see why it could not be done. When I stated the figure I was ready to give, he grew more hopeful still, and came to the conclusion that it could be done. He did not even see why I should not make a big name, if I only left myself entirely in his hands.

“I have done the same thing for other people,” said he, “and I can for you, if I like. There is ————,” he went on, getting talkative all at once, “he is drawing his eighty pounds a week now. Well, damn it all, sir, I made that man—made him. He’d never have been anything more than a third-rate provincial actor, if it hadn’t been for me. Then look at ————, at the ———, I knew him when he was having twenty-two shillings a week for responsibles, with old Joe Clamp, and that only when he could get it, mind you. I brought him up to London, started him at the Surrey, took him on to the West-end, and worked him up to what he is. And now, when he passes me in his brougham, he don’t know me,” and my newfound friend heaved a sigh, and took another pull to drown his grief at the ingratitude of human nature.

“Yes, sir,” he continued, on emerging from his glass, “I made those men, and why shouldn’t I make you?”

As I could not show any reason for his not doing so, he determined that he would; although he supposed that I should turn out just the same as the rest of them, and forget him, when I was at the top of the tree. But I assured him most solemnly that I would not, and that I should be just as pleased to see him, when I was a great man, as I was then, and I shook hands warmly with him, as a token of how pleased I was to see him then; for I felt really grateful to him for the favors he was going to bestow on me, and I was quite vexed that he should think I might prove ungrateful, and neglect him.

When I saw him the next day, he told me he had done it. He had arranged an engagement for me with a Surrey-side manager, to whom he would introduce me to-morrow, when the agreement could be signed, and everything settled. I was, accordingly, to be at his office for the purpose at eleven o’clock the following morning—and to bring the money with me. That was his parting injunction.

I did not walk back to my lodgings, I skipped back. I burst open the door, and went up the stairs like a whirlwind; but I was too excited to stop indoors. I went and had dinner at a first-class restaurant, the bill for which considerably lessened my slender means. “Never mind,” I thought, “what are a few shillings, when I shall soon be earning my hundreds of pounds!” I went to the theater, but I don’t know what theater it was, or what was the play, and I don’t think I knew at the time. I did notice the acting a little, but only to fancy how much better I could play each part myself. I wondered how I should like these particular actors and actresses, when I came to know them. I thought I should rather like the leading lady, and, in my imagination, sketched out the details of a most desperate flirtation with her, that would send all the other actors mad with jealousy. Then I went home to bed, and lay awake all night, dreaming.

I got up at seven the next morning, and hurried over my breakfast, so as to be in time for the appointment at eleven. I think I looked at my watch (I wonder where that watch is now!) at least every other minute. I got down to the Strand a little before ten, and wandered up and down a small portion of it, frightened to go a stone’s throw from the office, and yet dreading to go too near it. I bought a new pair of gloves. I remember they were salmon color, and one of them split as I was trying to get it on, so I carried it crumpled up in my hand, and wore the other one. When it got within twenty minutes of the time, I turned into the street where the office was, and loitered about there, with an uncomfortable feeling, that every one living in it knew what I had come about, and was covertly watching me from behind blinds and curtains. It seemed as though eleven o’clock never would come, but Big Ben tolled it out at last, and I walked up the door, trying to look as if I had just strolled!

When I reached the office, no one was there, and the door was locked. My heart sank within me. Had the whole thing been a cruel hoax? Was it to be another disappointment? Had the manager been murdered? Had the theater been burned down? Why were they not here? Something extraordinary must have happened to make them late on such an important occasion as this. I spent half an hour of intense suspense and then they arrived. They hoped they had not kept me waiting, and I replied, “Oh no, not at all,” and murmured something about having only just come myself.

As soon as we all three were inside the little office, I was introduced to the manager, who turned out to be an actor I had often seen on the boards, but who did not look a bit like himself, though he would have done very well for his own son; he was so much shorter and younger than he ought to have been. The clean-shaven face gives actors such a youthful appearance. It was difficult to believe, at first, that the sedate-looking boys I used to meet at rehearsal, were middle-aged men with families, some of them.

Altogether, my future manager did not realize my expectations of him. He was not dressed with that reckless disregard for expense that I had looked for in a man of his position. To tell the truth, he presented a very seedy figure, indeed. I put it down, however, to that contempt for outward appearance, so often manifested by men of great wealth, and called to mind stories of millionaires who had gone about almost in rags; and I remembered, too, how I had once seen the mother of one of our leading burlesque actresses, and how I had been surprised at her extreme dinginess—the mother’s.

They had the agreements all ready, and the manager and I signed in each other’s presence, and exchanged. Then I handed him a ten-pound bank note, and he gave me a receipt for it. Everything was strictly formal. The agreement, especially, was very plain and precise, and there could be no mistake about it. It arranged for me to give my services for the first month gratis, and after that I was to receive a salary according to ability. This seemed to me very fair, indeed. If anything, it was, perhaps, a little reckless on his part, and might press heavily upon him. He told me candidly, however, that he did not think I should be worth more than thirty shillings a week to him for the first two or three months though, of course, it would depend upon myself entirely, and he should be only too pleased if it, proved otherwise. I held a different opinion on the subject, but did not mention it, thinking it would be better to wait and let time prove it. So I merely said I wished for nothing but what was fair and just, and it appearing that this was exactly what he wanted me to have, we parted on the best of terms; but not before all particulars had been arranged. He was going to open for the summer season in three weeks’ time, and the rehearsals were to commence about a fortnight before. For the next week, therefore, I was nothing; after that, I was an Actor!!! *

* My friends deny this. They say I never became an actor. I say I did, and I think I ought to know.

CHAPTER III. Through the Stage Door

[Original]

T was not until about a week before the opening night, that I received a summons to attend at the theater. Eleven o’clock was the time appointed for “the company to assemble on the stage,” and, accordingly, at a few minutes before that hour, I stood in front of the stage-door.

It was a dingy-looking place, up a back street, with a barber’s shop on one side, and a coal shed on the other. A glorious spring sunshine made it look, by contrast, still more uninviting, and I likened it to the entrance to the enchanted palace in the fairy tales, where the gloomier the portal through which the prince passes, the more gorgeous the halls beyond. This was before I had seen the inside.

But it wouldn’t do for me to stop there meditating. It was already two minutes past eleven and the rest of the company would be waiting for me.

I laid my hand upon the latch, and——

A moment, please. Before I throw open that door and let daylight in upon the little world behind, let me offer a word or two of preparatory explanation.

The theatrical world is a big world. From one of the leading London theaters to a traveling booth (I intend no slighting allusion to our talented American cousin) is a wide stretch, and embraces a great variety. My experience was confined to three or four of these varieties, and by no means extended to the whole. My short career was passed among the minor London theaters, and second and third rate traveling companies; and it is of these, and these only, that I shall speak. But of these—of what came under my actual observation, that is—I shall speak freely, endeavoring to record things exactly as I found them—nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. It may be that, in the course of my comments, I shall think it necessary to make a few more or less sensible and original remarks; to tell actors and actresses what they ought to do, and what they ought not to do; to explain to managers how they ought to manage their own business; and to give good advice generally all round. Therefore, at the outset, I wish to be clearly understood that, when so doing, I have in mind only that part of the theatrical world with which I am acquainted. As regards such theaters as, for example, the Lyceum or the St. James’s, they are managed quite as well, perhaps, as I could manage them myself, and I have no fault to find with them. Even if I had, I should not do so here, for in these reminiscences I intend to talk only about what I understand—an eccentric resolution for an author, I admit; but no matter, I like to be original now and then. With this understanding, we will push back the door and enter.

I found a wheezy little old man inside, boxed up behind a glass partition, toasting a bloater before a small fire. On that morning, I felt kindly disposed toward all living things, and I therefore spoke kindly, even to this poor old buffer. I said:

“Good-morning. It’s a fine day.”

He said, “Shut the door, can’t yer; or else get outside.”

Acting on this suggestion, I shut the door, and then stood leaning against it, while he finished toasting the bloater. When I saw that this operation was completed I had another try at him. I remarked that my name was ————. Of course, I had assumed a stage name. They all do it. Heaven only knows why; I am sure they don’t. While in the profession, I met a young fellow whose real name happened to be the very one that I had assumed, while he had taken my real name for his assumed one. We were both happy and contented enough, until we met; but afterward we took a sadder view of life, with all its shams and vanities.

As the mere announcement of my name had no visible effect upon the stage-door keeper—for such I found him to be—I fired my last shot, and told him I was an actor. It roused him. It electrified him to such a degree, that he took his gaze off the bloater, and looked at me. Having feasted his eyes upon me to his full satisfaction, he said, “Down the yard,” and returned to what, I suppose, was his breakfast; there being a dismal, just-got-up sort of look about him.

Gathering from this that there was a yard somewhere in the neighborhood, and that, when I had found it, I was to go down it, I started off to look for it. I discovered it at last, quite unexpectedly, by the process of stumbling over a friendly cat, and bursting open a door with my head. The moment I got into it, I was surrounded by at least half a dozen of the feline species. They looked hungry, and welcomed me with enthusiasm, under an absurd idea that I was the cat’s meat man, whom I did not resemble in the least. Cats are kept at theaters to keep away the rats, but sometimes the cats themselves become so numerous as to be rather more of a nuisance than the rats, and then it is necessary to keep some one to keep away the cats. They take a great interest in the drama, these cats. They always make a point of coming on in the middle of the most pathetic scenes, when they take the center of the stage, and proceed to go through one or other of their decidedly peculiar toilet exercises.

Going down the yard, as directed, and groping my way through a dark passage at the end, I found myself in a vast, gloomy vault, full of hollow echoes, and strange, shapeless shadows; at least, that is what it seemed to me.

I cannot say, now, what notions I had previously formed of “behind the scenes.” They were dispelled so rudely and suddenly, that all trace of them is lost. I know they were formed; partly by Dower Wilson’s charming sketches, where fairy damsels (in the costume of their country) lean gracefully against the back of the landscapes, with their pretty legs crossed; partly by the descriptions of friends who said they had been there; and partly from my own imagination—a vivid one. The reality, however, exceeded my wildest expectations. I could never have dreamt of anything so utterly dismal, as an empty theater by daylight, or rather day-darkness. No, not even after a supper of beefsteaks and porter.

At first, I could see nothing; but, after a while, I got used to the dimness, and was able to look about me. The decorations of the place (such as they were—such as might be expected in a theater where the stalls were three shillings, and the gallery fourpence) were shrouded in dirty white cloths. The music stools and stands in the orchestra, together with the big drum, and the violoncello in a green baize case, were all in a heap in the corner, as if they had had a performance on their own account during the night, and had ended up by getting drunk. This idea was further suggested by the appearance of the gallery bar, which could be seen from the stage, though it looked about half a mile off, and which was crowded with empty bottles and dirty pewter pots and glasses. Shabby, patched scenery—a mere unintelligible daub, seen close to—was littered all round me; propped up against the great wooden beams which supported the flies, or against the side walls; piled up at the back, in what was called the “scene dock”; lying down flat at my feet; or hanging suspended over my head. In the center of the stage was a rickety table, and on the table was a candle, stuck in a ginger-beer bottle. A solitary sunbeam, having sneaked in through some odd crevice, threw a band of light across the gloom, and showed up the dust, of which the place seemed full. A woman, with a noisy cold in her head, was sweeping out the pit; and some unseen animal, which I judged to be a small boy, by the noise it made, was performing a shrill whistle somewhere in the region of the dress circle. The roar from the streets sounded dull and muffled, but the banging of a door, or the falling of a chair within the building, made such a noise, that the spiders ran into their holes for fright.

CHAPTER IV. Behind the Scenes.

[Original]

HAD the stage all to myself for about half an hour. It is the etiquette of the theater for every one to be late. You estimate the position of an actor, by the time he is late for rehearsal. If he (I don’t say a word about ladies: they are always an hour late for everything, bless ‘em) is twenty minutes behind, he is most likely mere utility. If a man keeps everybody waiting an hour and a half, you may put him down as a star.

I occupied the time pleasantly enough in wandering about, and finding out all I could. I climbed up a shaky wooden staircase to the “flies,” and looked down upon the stage from a height of fifty feet. I scrambled about up there amidst ladders, and small platforms, and ropes, and pulleys, and windlasses, and gas pipes, and empty gas bags, and beer cans, and darkness, and dust. Then, up another ladder, leading higher still, and along a narrow plank, crossing from one side of the stage to the other, over a perfect hanging forest of scenery.

Clambering round behind, I came to the scene-painting room. It was a long, narrow sort of loft, forty feet above the stage. One side of it was of canvas—part of an enormous sheet, which passed right through it, in at the top and out at the bottom. This sheet of canvas, on which a scene was being painted, was suspended from the roof of the theater by means of pulleys, so that the whole could be raised or lowered at pleasure, and every portion of it brought within reach of the scene-painter, without his moving.

If I have not explained myself clearly, try this: Take your wife’s best traveling trunk (choosing a time when she is not at home), wrench the cover off, and then hold the box up against the window blind, in such a position that the blind is where the cover would have been. There you have it. The box is the scene-painter’s room—the blind, the scene.

There was plenty of light and color (the latter in buckets) in the room, but very little else. A long, deal table, crowded with brushes and paint pots, ran nearly the whole length of it. The scene-painter’s palette, a marble slab about six feet square, lay on the floor, and, near it, one of the brushes with which the sky had been laid on. This brush was the size of an ordinary carpet broom. Noting these things, I left the studio, and descended.

A little lower down was the wardrobe room.

There was not much in it though. Dresses are borrowed as they are wanted, now, from the costumiers round Covent Garden and Drury Lane; everything being found for so much a week. Years ago, I believe, each theater used to make, and keep, its own costumes. Even now, a few old-fashioned provincial houses have a substantial wardrobe attached to them, but these are the exceptions, and, as a rule, little, if any thing, is kept in stock. Here, there were a few pairs of very loose and baggy-looking tights, half a dozen rusty tin helmets, a heap of buff shoes in a corner—half of them right, half left, sort ‘em as you want ‘em—some natty waistcoats—red and blue, with a dash of yellow; the sort of thing stage Yorkshiremen wear when they come to London, black cloaks for any one who might wish to dissemble, and an assortment of spangled things. These were the principal items, all of which had seen their best days.

Between the yard and the stage was a very big room, containing so heterogeneous a collection of articles that at first I fancied it must be a cooperative store in connection with the theater. It was, however, only the property room, the things therein being properties; or, more commonly, “props,” so called, I believe, because they help to support the drama. I will give you some of the contents of the room haphazard as I recollect them. There was a goodly number of tin cups, painted black up to within half an inch of the rim, so as to give them the appearance of being always full. It is from these vessels that the happy peasantry carouses, and the comic army get helplessly fuddled. There is a universality about them. They are the one touch of (stage) nature which makes the whole world kin. They are used alike by the Esquimaux and the Hottenot. The Roman soldiery appear never to have drunk out of anything else: while, without them, the French Revolution would lose its chief characteristic. Besides these common cups, there were gold and silver ones, used only for banquets, and high-class suicides. There were bottles, and glasses, and jugs, and decanters. From these aids to debauchery, it was pleasant to turn to a cozy-looking tea service on a tray with a white table cloth: there was a soothing suggestion of muffins and domestic bliss about it. There was plenty of furniture, a couple of tables, a bedstead, a dresser, a sofa, chairs—half dozen of them, high-backed ones, for “hall in the old Grange,” etc.; they were made by fixing pasteboard backs on to ordinary cane chairs. The result was that they were top heavy, and went over at the slightest touch; so that picking them up, and trying to make them stand, formed the chief business of the scenes in which they were used.

I remember the first time our light comedy attempted to sit down on one of these chairs.

It was on the opening night. He had just said something funny, and, having said it, sat down, crossed his legs, and threw himself back, with all that easy, negligent grace so peculiarly his own. Legs were the only things that could be seen for the next few minutes.

Other “props” were, a throne, gorgeous in gilt paper and glazed calico; a fire-grate, stuffed with red tinfoil; a mirror, made with silver paper; a bunch of jailer’s keys; handcuffs; leg irons; flat irons; rifles; brooms; bayonets; picks and crowbars for the virtuously infuriated populace; clay pipes; daggers made of wood; stage broadswords—there is no need to describe these, everybody knows them, they are like nothing else on earth; battle axes; candlesticks; a pound or two of short dips; a crown, set with diamonds and rubies each as big as a duck’s egg; a cradle—empty, an affecting sight; carpets, kettles, and pots; a stretcher; a chariot; a bunch of carrots; a costermonger’s barrow; banners; a leg of mutton, and a baby. Everything, in short, that could possibly be wanted, either in a palace or a garret, a farmyard or a battle-field.

Still wandering about, I came across a hole in the floor at the side of the stage, and groped my way down a ladder to the region beneath, where the fairies come from, and the demons go to. It was perfectly dark, and I could see nothing. It smelt very moldy, and seemed to be full of cunning contrivances for barking your shins. After bumping myself about a good deal there, I was glad to find my way out again, deferring all further investigations to some future period, with a candle.

On emerging, I saw that the company had at last begun to arrive. A tall, solemn-looking man was pacing the stage, and him I greeted. He was the stage manager, and so of course rather surly. I don’t know why stage managers are always surly, but they are.

In the course of the next few minutes, there trotted in a demure-looking little man, who turned out to be our “first low comedy,” and very good low comedy he was, too, though, from his wooden expression, you might have thought him as destitute of humor as the librettist of a comic opera. Then followed the heavy man, talking in a very gruff voice to a good-looking young fellow with him, who played the juveniles when our manager didn’t take them himself. Then, after a short interval, a lady—an old queer-looking little lady, who walked with a stick, and complained of rheumatism, and who, as soon as she reached the stage, plumped herself down on the thick end of a mossy bank, from which nothing would induce her to rise until she got up to go home. She was our “old woman.” She did the doting mothers and the comic old maids. She had played everything in her time, and could play anything still. She would have taken Juliet, or Juliet’s nurse, whichever you liked, and have done both of them well. She would have been ten minutes making up for Juliet, and then, sitting in the middle of the pit, you would have put her down for twenty.

The next to appear was a gentleman (“walking”) in a fur-trimmed overcoat, patent-leather boots and white gaiters and lavender kid gloves. He carried a silver-headed cane in his hand, a glass in his left eye, a cigar in his mouth (put out as soon as he got to the stage, of course), and a small nosegay in his button-hole. His salary I subsequently discovered to be thirty shillings a week. After him came two ladies (not with any designs upon the young man: merely in the order of time). One of them was thin and pale, with a careworn look underneath the rouge, just as if she were some poor, hard-working woman, with a large family and small means, instead of an actress. The other was fat, fair, and—forty, if she was a day. She was gloriously “got up,” both as regards complexion and dress. I can’t describe the latter, because I never can tell what any woman has got on. I only know she conveyed an impression to my mind of being stuck out all round, and thrown out in front, and puffed out at the back, and towering up at the top, and trailing away behind, and all to such a degree, that she looked four times her natural size. As everybody was very glad indeed to see her and welcomed her with what seemed to be irrepressible joy, even the stage manager being civil, I naturally concluded that she was the embodiment of all the virtues known to human kind. The whispered remarks that I overheard, however, did not quite support this view, and I was at a loss to reconcile matters, until I learned that she was the manager’s wife. She was the leading lady, and the characters she particularly affected, and in which she was affected, were the girlish heroines, and the children who die young and go to heaven.

The rest of the company was made up of a couple of very old men, and a middle-aged stout one, two rather pretty girls, evidently possessed of an inexhaustible fund of humor, for they kept each other giggling all the morning; and the manager himself, who arrived last, and was less interested in the proceedings than any one else. No one took the slightest notice of me, though I purposely stood about in conspicuous positions, and I felt like the new boy at school.

When everybody had arrived, the rickety table was brought down to the front, and a bell rung; whereupon a small boy suddenly appeared for the first time, and was given the “parts” to distribute. It was a manuscript play, though well known to the company, nearly all of whom had played in it plenty of times before. All the parts were torn and greasy except one, which was prominently clean. When the boy came to that one he seemed puzzled, not knowing to whom it belonged; so he stood in the center of the stage and bawled out the name on it; and as it was my name, and I had to claim the part, I was at once lifted out of my obscurity, and placed in an opposite extreme hardly more comfortable.

CHAPTER V. A Rehearsal.

[Original]

HURRIEDLY unfolded the paper, to see what kind of a part I had got. I was anxious to begin studying it immediately. I had to form my conception of the character, learn the words and business, and get up gesture and expression all in one week. No time was therefore to be lost. I give the part in extenso:

JOE JUNKS.

Act I., scene I.

———— comes home.

It’s a rough night.

————- if he does.

Ay. Ay.

——— stand back.

(Together) ‘Tis he!

Fall down as scene closes in.

Act IV., scene 2.

On with rioters.

I was of a sanguine disposition at that time, but I didn’t exactly see how I was going to make much of a sensation with that. It seemed to me that my talents were being thrown away. An ordinary actor would have done for a part like that. However, if they chose to waste me, it was more their misfortune than mine. I would say nothing, but do the best I could with the thing, and throw as much feeling into the character as it would hold. In truth, I ought to have been very proud of the part, for I found out later on that it had been written especially for me by my manager. Our low comedy, who knew the whole piece by heart, told me this. Then he added, musingly: “A very good idea, too, of the boss’s. I always said the first act wanted strengthening.”

At last, everybody having been supplied with his or her part, and the leader of the band having arrived, the rehearsal really commenced. The play was one of the regular old-fashioned melodramas, and the orchestra had all its work cut out to keep up with it. Nearly all the performers had a bar of music to bring them on each time, and another to take them off; a bar when they sat down, and a bar when they got up again; while it took a small overture to get them across the stage. As for the leading lady, every mortal thing she did or said, from remarking that the snow was cold, in the first act, to fancying she saw her mother and then dying, in the last, was preceded by a regular concert. I firmly believe that if, while on the stage, she had shown signs of wanting to sneeze, the band would at once have struck up quick music. I began to think, after a while, that it must be an opera, and to be afraid that I should have to sing my part.

The first scene was between the old landlord of an old inn, some village gossips, and the villain of the piece. The stage manager (who played the villain—naturally) stood in the center of the stage, from which the rest of the company had retired, and, from there, with the manuscript in his hand, he directed the proceedings.

“Now then, gentlemen,” cried he, “first scene, please. Hallett, landlord, Bilikins, and Junks” (I was Junks), “up stage, right. I shall be here” (walking across and stamping his foot on the spot intended), “sitting at table. All discovered at rise of curtain.” “You” (turning and speaking to me, about whom he had evidently been instructed), “you, Mr. L., will be sitting at the end, smoking a pipe. Take up your cues sharply, and mind you, speak up or nobody will hear you: this is a big house. What are you going to give us for an overture, Mr. P.?” (I call the leader of the band Mr. P.). “Can you give us something old English, just before we ring up? Thanks, do—has a good effect. Now then, please, we will begin. Very piano all through this scene, Mr. P., until near the end. I’ll tell you where, when we come to it.”

Then, reading from our parts, we commenced. The speeches, with the exception of the very short ones, were not given at full length. The last two or three words, forming the cues, were clearly spoken, but the rest was, as a rule, mumbled through, skipped altogether, or else represented by a droning “er, er, er,” interspersed with occasional disjointed phrases. A scene of any length, between only two or three of the characters,—and there were many such,—was cut out entirely, and gone through apart by the people concerned. Thus, while the main rehearsal was proceeding in the center of the stage, a minor one was generally going on at the same time in some quiet corner—two men fighting a duel with walking sticks; a father denouncing his son, and turning him out of doors; or, some dashing young gallant, in a big check ulster, making love to some sweet young damsel, whose little boy, aged seven, was sitting on her lap.

I waited eagerly for my cue, not knowing when it was coming, and, in my anxiety, made two or three false starts. I was put out of any doubt about it, when the time really did come, by a friendly nod from the gentleman who represented the landlord, and thereupon I made my observation as to the dreadful state of the weather in a loud, clear, and distinct voice, as it seemed to me.

As, however, nobody appeared to have heard me, and as they were evidently waiting for me, I repeated the information in a louder, clearer, and more distinct voice, if possible; after which the stage manager spoke and said:

“Now then, Mr. L., come along, let’s have it.” I explained to him that he had already had it, and he then replied, “Oh, that will never do at all. You must speak up more than that. Why, even we couldn’t hear you on the stage. Bawl it out. Remember this is a large place; you’re not playing in a back drawing-room now.”

I thought it was impossible for me to speak louder than I had, without doing myself some serious injury, and I began to pity the gallery boys. Any one never having attempted to speak in a large public building would hardly imagine how weak and insignificant the ordinary conversational tones are, even at their loudest. To make your voice “carry,” you have to throw it out, instead of letting it crawl out when you open your mouth. The art is easily acquired, and, by it, you are able to make your very whispers heard.

I was cautioned to look to this, and then we went on. The close of the scene was a bustling one, and the stage manager explained it thus: “You” (the landlord) “put the lantern close to my face, when you say ‘’Tis he!’ I spring up, throwing down the table” (a stamp here, to emphasize this). “I knock you down. You two try to seize me; I break from you, and throw you down, and cross center” (doing so). “I gain door, open it, and stand there, pointing revolver. You all cower down.” We were squatting on our toes, as an acknowledgment of having been all bowled over like a set of nine-pins—or rather four-pins in our case—and we now further bobbed our heads, to show that we did cower.

“Picture,” says the stage manager approvingly, as drop falls. “Hurried music all through that, Mr. P. Mind you all keep well up the stage” (“up” the stage means toward the back, and “down” the stage, consequently, implies near the footlights), “so as to let the drop come down. What front drops have you got? Have you got an interior? We want a cottage interior.” This latter was spoken to a stage carpenter, who was dragging some flats about. Do not be shocked, gentle-reader; a stage flat is a piece of scenery. No other kind of flat is ever seen on the stage.

“I dunno,” answered the man. “Where’s Jim? Jim!”

It appeared that Jim had just stepped outside for a minute. He came back at that point, however, wiping his mouth, and greatly indignant at hearing the sound of his own name.

“All right, all right,” was his wrathful comment, as he came up the yard; “don’t sing it; he ain’t dead. What the devil’s the matter? Is the ‘ouse a-fire? You never go out, do yer!”

Jim was the head carpenter, and was a sulky and disagreeable man, even for a stage carpenter. When he wasn’t “just stepped outside for a minute,” he was quarreling inside, so that instead of anybody’s objecting to his frequent temporary retirements, his absence was rather welcomed. He, in common with all stage carpenters, held actors and actresses in the greatest contempt, as people who were always in the way, and without whom the play would get on much better. The chief charm about him, however, was his dense stupidity. This trait was always brought into particular prominence whenever the question of arranging scenery was under discussion.

Fresh scenery is a very great rarity at the minor theaters. When anything very special is produced, and an unusually long run is expected, say, of a month or six weeks, one or two scenes may, perhaps, be specially painted, but, as a rule, reliance is placed upon the scenery, the gradual growth of years, already in stock, which, with a little alteration, and a good deal of make-shift, generally does duty for the “entirely new and elaborate scenery” so minutely described in the posters. Of course, under these circumstances, slight inconsistencies must be put up with. Nobody objects to a library drop representing “‘tween decks of the Sarah Jane,” or to a back parlor being called a banqueting hall This is to be expected. Our stage manager was not a narrow minded man on the subject of accessories. He would have said nothing about such things as these. He himself had, on the occasion of one of his benefits, played Hamlet with nothing but one “interior” and “a garden,” and he had been a member of a fit-up company that traveled with a complete Shakesperian répertoire and four set scenes; so that he was not likely to be too exacting. But even he used to be staggered at Jim’s ideas of mounting. Jim’s notion of a “distant view of Hampstead Heath by moonlight,” was either a tropical island, or the back of an old transformation scene; and for any place in London—no matter what, whether Whitechapel or St. James’s Park—he invariably suggested a highly realistic representation of Waterloo Bridge in a snow-storm.

In the present instance, on being asked for the cottage interior, he let down a log cabin, with a couple of bowie knifes and revolvers artistically arranged over the fire-place; anticipating any doubt upon the subject of suitableness by an assurance that there you were, and you couldn’t do better than that. The objection, that a log cabin with bowie knives and revolvers over the fire-place, though it was doubtless a common enough object in the Australian bush or the backwoods of America, was never, by any chance, found in England, and that the cottage to be represented was supposed to be within a few miles of London, he considered as too frivolous to need comment, and passed it over in silent contempt. Further argument had the effect of raising up Jim’s stock authority, a certain former lessee, who had been dead these fifteen years; and about whom nobody else but Jim seemed to have the faintest recollection. It appeared that this gentleman had always used the log cabin scene for English cottages, and Jim guessed that he (the defunct lessee) knew what he was about, even if he (Jim) was a fool. The latter of Jim’s suppositions had never been disputed, and it was a little too late then to discuss the former. All I can say is, that if Jim’s Mr. Harris—as this mysterious manager was generally dubbed—really did mount his productions in the manner affirmed, their effect must have been novel in the extreme.

Nothing could induce Jim to show anything else that morning, although the manager reminded him of a cottage scene having been expressly painted for the last lessee. Jim didn’t know where it was. Besides, one of the ropes was broken, and it couldn’t be got at then; after which little brush with the enemy, he walked away and took up a row with the gas man at the very point where he had dropped it twenty minutes before.

Scenery and props were not being used at this, the first rehearsal, the chief object of which was merely to arrange music, entrances and exits, and general business; but of course it was desirable to know as soon as possible what scenery was available, and whether it required any altering or repairing.

In the second scene the leading lady made her first appearance, an event which called forth all the energies of the orchestra. It would not do for her to burst upon the audience all at once. Great and sudden joy is dangerous. They must be gradually prepared for it. Care was exercised that the crisis should be well led up to, and that she should appear exactly at the right moment. When all was satisfactorily settled, the cue was announced to her by the stage manager. He said it was “Pom-pom—pom-pom—pom-pom—pom—Pom—POM.”

“That’s your cue, my dear.”

On the stage, everybody calls the actresses “My dear.” You soon pick it up, especially in the case of the young and pretty ones.

“Where do I come on from?” asked the leading lady.

“I can’t say, my dear, until I’ve seen the drop. There’ll most likely be a door in it, and then you can come on from the back.”

Entrances from the back, it may be remarked, are the favorite ones. Indeed, some artistes will never come on from anywhere else. Of course, you make a much better impression on an audience, as regards first appearance, by facing them on your entrance and walking straight down toward them, than by coming on sideways and then turning round. Entrances from the back, however, are sometimes carried to excess, and a whole scene is rendered unnatural and absurd, merely to gratify personal vanity.

I will finish what I have to say about this rehearsal by giving a verbatim report of a small part of it; viz., the fourth scene of the first act. The actual scene is this:

STAGE MANAGER, standing CENTER with his back to the footlights. Close behind him, perched in a high chair, the LEADER OF THE BAND solus, representing the orchestra with a fiddle. Two or three groups of artists, chatting at the wings. THE HEAVY MAN facing up and down at the back, conning his part in an undertone, and occasionally stopping to suit the action to the word. LOW COMEDY AND WALKING GENT., going through scene by themselves in L. 3. E. SINGING CHAMBERMAID, flirting with JUVENILES (only one of them), R. 2. E. PROPERTY MAN, behind, making a veal and ham pie out of an old piece of canvas and a handful of shavings. COUPLE OF CARPENTERS, in white jackets, hovering about with hammers in their hands and mischief in their eyes, evidently on the look-out for an excuse to make a noise. CALL BOY all over the place, and always in the way—except when wanted.

OUR FIRST OLD MAN (standing R. C., and reading part by the aid of a large pair of specs). “‘Er-er—wind howls—er-er-er—night as this, fifteen years ago—er—sweet child—er-r-r—stolen away—er-r-r—baby prattle—er-ears—er-r—shall I never hear her voice again?”

He looks up, and finding that nobody makes any sign of caring a hang whether he does or not, he repeats the question louder.

STAGE MANAGER (severely, as if this was a question that really must be answered). “’ Shall I never hear her voice again?’ Oh! that’s a music cue, Mr. P. Have you got it down? Miss ————”

(stage name of the manager’s wife) “sings a song there, without.”

MR. P. “No, I’ll put it down now. What is it—’ hear her voice again?’” (Writes on some loose slips of paper, lying before him on the stage.)

“Have you the music?”

STAGE MAN. “Oh, anything dismal does. No matter what, so long as it gives ‘em the hump. What will you have, my dear?” MANAGER’S WIFE (who has just finished a social bottle of Bass with another lady). “Oh, the old thing, you know. ‘Home, sweet home.’” JUVENILES (in a whisper to LOW COM.). “Is she going to sing?”

LOW COM. “Yes, always does it.”

JUVENILES. “Oh, my——!”

MAN. WIFE and THE FIDDLE do first verse of “Home, sweet home.”

FIRST OLD MAN. “‘Ah, that voice—er-er—echo of old memories—er-er-er—houseless wanderer-dry herself’” (crossing and opening an imaginary door). “Poor child—er-er-er—I’m an old man—er—my wife’s out—return and—er—the homeless orphan.’”

MAN. WIFE. “Will there be any lime-light on here?”

FIRST OLD WOMAN (sotto voce). “Oh, let her have some lime-light. She wants to let her back hair down.”

STAGE MAN. “Certainly, my dear. There’ll be a fire-place in this corner, and red lime-light from it.”

MAN. WIFE. “Oh, all right; I only wanted to know. Now, what was it—‘homeless orphan.’ Oh, that’s my long speech, you know: ‘Is this a dream that I have dreamt before—played here when a child.’”

FIRST O. M. “‘Sweet child—your face recalls strange memories of er-er-er—been just your age.’”

STAGE MAN. (interrupting). “Slow music throughout.”

FIRST O. M. (continuing). “‘Never from that night—er—golden—I can’t believe she’s dead.’”

Scrape from the fiddle, followed by bar, to bring on FIRST OLD WOMAN.

FIRST O. W. (without moving from her seat, and coming straight to the cue with a suddenness which startles everybody). “‘Fold you to my breast.’”

MAN. WIFE. “’ Mother! ‘—Got the rheumatism again?”

FIRST O. W. “Got it again! It’s never gone yet, drat it—’ My child!’”

Powerful scrape from the fiddle.

FIRST O. M. “Where am I?”

STAGE MAN. “Left, down stage.”

MAN. WIFE. “We embrace, left center. Knock heard.”

STAGE MAN. (crossing center). “That’s me. * Keep it up: it’s a picture. You and Mrs. ———— there, embracing, and the old boy down in the corner, when I open the door.—Rain and wind for this scene, mind.”

* That was the way he treated Lindley Murray. We were inexpressibly grieved and shocked—all of us—but what were we to do?

HOVERING CARPENTER (at top of his voice). “Jim! wind and rain for last scene of first act.”

Husky but indignant voice from the flics expressing an earliest desire that every one should go to the devil.

STAGE MAN. (who always rehearsed his speeches at full length, and in a tone of voice as if he were reciting the multiplication table). “‘I am pursued. My life is at stake. Hide me from these bloodhounds who are on my track. Hark! they are here. Thank Heaven, they are past. I am safe. Ha, who is this we have here? ‘Sdeath, I am in luck to-night. Sir Henry will thank me, when I bring his strayed lamb back to him. Come with me, my little runaway,’ Nay, resist not, or ‘twill be the worse for all.’ I catch hold of you. We struggle. ‘Come, I say, with me. Come, I say!”

FIRST O. W. “* Die together!”

Scrape from the fiddle.

STAGE MAN. (loudly, after waiting a minute). “‘Die together.’”

FIRST O. M. “I beg pardon. I didn’t hear.” (Fumbles with his part, and loses his place.)

MAN. WIFE. “He really ought to use an ear-trumpet.”

FIRST O. M. Er-r-r—Heaven will give me strength—er—can strike a blow!” (Shakes his stick at STAGE MANAGER.)

Tremendous hammering suddenly begun at back, eliciting forcible expressions of disapproval from all the members of the company, with the exception of the FIRST OLD MAN, who doesn’t hear it, and goes on calmly with the rehearsal all by himself.

STAGE MAN. (in a rage). “Stop that noise! Stop that noise, I say!”

Noise continues.

JIM (eager for the fray). “How can we do our work without noise, I should like to know?”

STAGE MAN. (crossly). “Can’t you do it at some other time?”

JIM (angrily). “No, we can’t do it at some other time! Do you think we’re here all night?”

STAGE MAN. (mildly). “But, my dear fellow, how can we go on with the rehearsal?”

JIM (in a rage), “I don’t know anything about you and your rehearsal! That’s not my business, is it? I do my own work; I don’t do other people’s work! I don’t want to be told how to do my work!” (Pours forth a flood of impassioned eloquence for the next ten minutes, during which time the hammering is also continued. Complete collapse of STAGE MANAGER, and suspension of rehearsal. Subsequent dryness on the part of JIM.)

MAN. WIFE (when rehearsal is at last resumed). “Just try back that last bit, will you, for positions?”

The last two or three movements gone over again. Then:

STAGE MAN. “We all three struggle toward door. Stand back, old man! I do not wish to harm thee!—I push you aside. ‘Back, or it will be murder!’—This must be well worked up. ‘Who dares to stay me?’ (to LOW COMEDY). “There’ll be a bar to bring you on. You know the business.”

LOW COM. (coming forward). “’ Shure and I will.’”

Scrape from fiddle.

STAGE MAN. “Well then there’s our struggle.” (STAGE MANAGER and LOW COMEDY take hold of each other’s shoulders, and turn round). “I’ll have the book in the left-hand side.”

LOW COM. “‘Ah, begorra, shure he’s clane gone; but, be jabers, I’ve got this ‘” (holding up an imaginary pocket-book), “‘and it’s worth a precious deal more than he is.’”

STAGE MAN. “End of first act.—Tommy, go and fetch me half a pint of stout.”

CHAPTER VI. Scenery and Supers

[Original]

E had five rehearsals for this play.

“What the dickens do they want with with so many?” was the indignant comment of the First Old Woman. “Why, they’ll rehearse it more times than they’ll play it.”

I thought five a ridiculously small number at the time, especially when I remembered my amateur days, and the thirty or so rehearsals, nearly all full-dressed ones, required for a short farce; but there came a time when I looked upon two as betokening extraordinary anxiety about a production. In the provinces, I have known a three-act comedy put on without any rehearsal at all, and with half the people not even knowing the patter. “Business” was arranged in whispered consultations, while the play was proceeding, and when things got into a more than usually glorious muddle, one or other of the characters would come off the stage and have a look at the book. As for the prompter, after vainly struggling to keep them to one act at a time, and to dissuade the hero from making love to the wrong girl, he came to the conclusion that he was only in the way, and so went and had a quiet pipe at the stage-door, and refrained from worrying himself further.

The rehearsals got more ship-shape as we went on. At the fourth every one was supposed to be “letter perfect,” and “parts” were tabooed. On this occasion, the piece was played straight through with nothing omitted, and the orchestra (two fiddles, a bass-viol, cornet, and drum) appeared in full force. For the last rehearsal, props and scenery were called. We had an exciting time with Jim, over the scenery, as might be expected. He had a row with everybody, and enjoyed himself immensely.

I saw our scene painter then for the first time. He was a jolly little fellow, and as full of cheery contrivance as a Mark Tapley. No difficulties seemed to daunt him. If a court of justice were wanted for the following night, and the nearest thing he had to it were a bar parlor, he was not in the least dismayed. He would have the bar parlor down; paint in a bit here; paint out a bit there; touch up a bit somewhere else—there was your court of justice! Half an hour was quite long enough for him to turn a hay-field into a church-yard, or a prison into a bedroom.

There was only one want, in the present case, that he didn’t supply, and that was cottages. All the virtuous people in the play lived in cottages. I never saw such a run on cottages. There were plenty of other residences to which they would have been welcome—halls, palaces, and dungeons the saloon cabin of a P. and O. steamer, drawingroom of No. 200 Belgrave Square (a really magnificent apartment this, with a clock on the mantelpiece). But no, they would all of them live in cottages. It would not pay to alter three or four different scenes, and turn them all into cottages, especially as they might, likely enough, be wanted for something else in a week’s time; so our one cottage interior had to accommodate about four distinct families. To keep up appearances, however, it was called by a different name on each occasion. With a round table and a candle, it was a widow’s cottage. With two candles and a gun, it was a blacksmith’s house. A square table instead of a round one—“Daddy Soloman’s home on the road to London. ‘Home, sweet home.’” Put a spade in the corner, and hang a coat behind the door, and you had the old mill on the Yorkshire moors.

It was all no use though. The audience, on the opening night, greeted its second appearance with cries of kindly recognition, and at once entered into the Humor of the thing. A Surrey-side Saturday-night audience are generally inclined to be cheerful, and, if the fun on the stage doesn’t satisfy them, they rely on their own resources. After one or two more appearances, the cottage became an established favorite with the gallery. So much so, indeed, that when two scenes passed without it being let down, there were many and anxious inquiries after it, and an earnest hope expressed that nothing serious had happened to it. Its reappearance in the next act (as something entirely new) was greeted with a round of applause, and a triumphant demand to know, “Who said it was lost?”

It was not until the last rehearsal that the supers were brought into play—or work, as they would have called it. These supers were drawn from two distinct sources. About half of them were soldiers, engaged to represent the military force of the drama, while the other half, who were to be desperate rioters, had been selected from among the gentry of the New Cut neighborhood.

The soldiers, who came under the command of their sergeant, were by far the best thing in the play. They gave an air of reality to all the scenes in which they appeared. They were soldiers, and went about their business on the stage with the same calm precision that they would have displayed in the drill yard, and with as much seriousness as if they had been in actual earnest. When the order was given to “fix bayonets and charge,” they did so with such grim determination, that there was no necessity at all to direct the stage mob to “feign fear and rush off L. I. E.” They went as one man, in a hurry. There was no trouble, either, about rehearsing the soldiers—no cursing and swearing required, which, in itself, was an immense saving of time. The stage manager told the sergeant what was wanted. That gruff-voiced officer passed the order on to his men (first translating it into his own unintelligible lingo), and the thing was done.

To represent soldiers on the stage, real soldiers should, without doubt, be employed, but it is no good attempting to use them for anything else.

They are soldier-like in everything they do. You may dress them up in what you choose, and call them what you will, but they will never be anything else but soldiers. On one occasion, our manager tried them as a rabble. They were carefully instructed how to behave. They were told how to rush wildly on with a fierce, tumultuous yell; how to crowd together at the back of the stage, and, standing there, surging backward and forward like an angry sea, brandish their weapons, and scowl menacingly upon the opposing myrmidons of the law, until, at length, their sullen murmurs deepening into a roar of savage hate, they would break upon the wall of steel before them, and sweep it from their path, as pent-up waters, bursting their bonds, bear down some puny barrier.

That was the theory of the thing. That is how a stage mob ought to behave itself. How it really does behave itself is pretty generally known. It comes in with a jog-trot, every member of it prodding the man in front of him in the small of his back. It spreads itself out in a line across the stage, and grins. When the signal is given for the rush, each man—still grinning—walks up to the soldier nearest to him, and lays hold of that warrior’s gun. The two men then proceed to heave the murderous weapon slowly up and down, as if it were a pump handle. This they continue to do with steady perseverance, until the soldier, apparently from a fit of apoplexy—for there is no outward and visible cause whatever to account for it—suddenly collapses, when the conquering rioter takes the gun away from him, and entangles himself in it.

This is funny enough, but our soldiers made it funnier still. One might just as well have tried to get a modern House of Commons to represent a disorderly rabble. They simply couldn’t do it. They went on in single file at the double quick, formed themselves into a hollow square in the center of the stage, and then gave three distinct cheers, taking time from the sergeant. That was their notion of a rabble.

The other set, the regular bob (sometimes eighteenpence) a night “sups,” were of a very different character. Professional supers, taken as a class, are the most utterly dismal specimens of humanity to be met with in this world. Compared with them, “sandwich-men” are dashing and rollicky. Ours were no exception to the rule. They hung about in a little group by themselves, and looked like a picture of dejected dinginess, that their mere presence had a depressing effect upon everybody else. Strange that men can’t be gay and light-hearted on an income of six shillings a week, but so it is.

One of them I must exclude from this description—a certain harmless idiot, who went by the title of “Mad Mat,” though he himself always gave his name as “Mr. Matthew Alexander St. George Clement.”

This poor fellow had been a super for a good many years, but there had evidently been a time when he had played a very different part in life. “Gentleman” was stamped very plainly upon his thin face, and where he was not crazy he showed thought and education. Rumor said that he had started life as a young actor, full of promise and talent, but what had set him mad nobody knew. The ladies naturally attributed it to love, it being a fixed tenet among the fair sex that everything that happens to mankind, from finding themselves in bed with their boots on to having the water cut off, is all owing to that tender passion. On the other hand, the uncharitable—generally a majority—suggested drink. But nobody did anything more than conjecture: nobody really knew. The link between the prologue and the play was lost. Mat himself was under the firm conviction that he was a great actor who was only kept from appearing in the leading rôles by professional jealousy. But a time would come, and then he would show us what he could do. Romeo was his great ambition. One of these days he meant to act that character. He had been studying it for years, he once whispered to me in confidence, and when he appeared in it, he knew he should make a sensation.

Strange to say, his madness did not interfere at all with his superial duties. While on the stage he was docile enough, and did just as he saw the other supers do. It was only off the stage that he put on his comically pathetic dignity; then, if the super-master attempted to tell him what to do he would make a ceremonious bow, and observe, with some hauteur, that Mr. St. George Clement was not accustomed to be instructed how to act his part. He never mixed with the other supers, but would stand apart, talking low to himself, and seeming to see something a long way off. He was the butt of the whole theater, and his half-timid, half-pompous ways afforded us a good deal of merriment; but sometimes there was such a sad look in Mat’s white face, that it made one’s heart ache more than one’s sides.

His strange figure and vague history haunted my thoughts in a most uncomfortable manner. I used to think of the time when those poor vacant eyes looked out upon the world, full of hope and ambition, and then I wondered if I should ever become a harmless idiot, who thought himself a great actor.

CHAPTER VII. Dressing.

[Original]

E had no dress rehearsal. In the whole course of my professional life, I remember but one dress rehearsal. That was for a pantomime in the provinces. Only half the costumes arrived in time for it. I myself appeared in a steel breast-plate and helmet, and a pair of check trousers; and I have a recollection of seeing somebody else—the King of the Cannibal Islands, I think—going about in spangled tights and a frock coat. There was a want of finish, as one might say, about the affair.

Old stagers, of course, can manage all right without them, but the novice finds it a little awkward to jump from plain dress rehearsals to the performance itself. He has been making love to a pale-faced, middle-aged lady, dressed in black grenadine and a sealskin jacket, and he is quite lost when smiled upon by a high-complexioned, girlish young thing, in blue stockings and short skirts. He finds defying stout, good-tempered Mr. Jones a very different thing to bullying a beetle-browed savage, of appearance something between Bill Sykes and a Roman gladiator, and whose acquaintance he then makes for the first time. Besides, he is not at all sure that he has got hold of the right man.

I, in my innocence, so fully expected at least one dress rehearsal, that, when time went on, and there were no signs of any such thing, I mooted the question myself, so that there should be no chance of its being accidentally overlooked. The mere idea, however, was scouted. It was looked upon as the dream of a romantic visionary.

“Don’t talk about dress rehearsals, my boy,” was the reply; “think yourself lucky if you get your dress all right by the night.”

The “my boy,” I may remark, by no means implied that the speaker thought me at all youthful. Indeed, seeing that I was eighteen at the time, he hardly could, you know. Every actor is “my boy,” just, as before mentioned, every actress is “my dear.” At first I was rather offended; but when I heard gray-headed stars, and respectable married heads, addressed in the same familiar and unceremonious manner, my dignity recovered itself. It is well our dignity is not as brittle as Humpty Dumpty. How very undignified we should all become, before we had been long in this world.

As a matter of fact, nobody—at all events, none of the men, with the exception of Chequers—seemed to care in the slightest about what they should wear. “Chequers” was the name we had given to our walking gentleman, as a delicate allusion to the pattern of his overcoat. I think I have already described the leading features in this young man’s private-life apparel. He went in a good deal for dress, and always came out strong. His present ambition was to wear his new ulster in the piece, and this he did, though, seeing that the action of the play was supposed to take place a century ago, it was hardly consistent with historical accuracy. But then historical accuracy was not a strong point with our company, who went more on the principle of what you happened to have by you. At the better class of London theater, everything is now provided by the management, and the actor has only to put on what is given him. But with the theaters and companies into which I went, things were very different; costumes being generally left to each person’s individual discretion. For ordinary modern dress parts, we had to use our own things entirely, and in all cases we were expected to find ourselves in hosiery and boot leather, by which I mean such things as tights and stockings, and the boots and shoes of every period and people; the rest of the costume was provided for us—at all events in London.

In the provinces, where every article necessary for either a classical tragedy or a pantomime has often to be found by the actor himself, I have seen some very remarkable wardrobe effects. A costume play, under these circumstances, rivaled a fancy dress ball in variety. It was considered nothing out of the way for a father, belonging to the time of George III, to have a son who, evidently from his dress, flourished in the reign of Charles II. As for the supers, when there were any, they were attired in the first thing that came to hand, and always wore their own boots.

Picturesqueness was the great thing. Even now, and at some of the big London houses, this often does duty for congruity and common sense. The tendency to regard all female foreigners as Italian peasant girls, and to suppose that all agricultural laborers wear red waistcoats embroidered with yellow, still lingers on the stage.

Even where costumes were provided, the leading actors, and those who had well-stocked wardrobes of their own, generally preferred to dress the part themselves, and there was nobody who did not supplement the costumier’s ideas to some greater or less extent.

I am speaking only of the men. Actresses nearly always find their own dresses. There is no need of a very varied wardrobe in their case, for in spite of all the talk about female fashions, a woman’s dress is much the same now as in the time of the Mrs. Noahs—at least, so it seems to me, judging from my own ark. The dress that Miss Eastlake wore in the Silver King would, I am sure, do all right for Ophelia; and what difference is there between Queen Elizabeth and Mrs. Bouncer? None whatever, except about the collar and the sleeves; and anybody can alter a pair of sleeves and make a ruff. Why do actresses have so many dresses? As far as mere shape is concerned, one would do for everything, with a few slight alterations. You just tack on a tuck or a furbelow, or take in a flounce, and there you are.

Maybe I’m wrong, though.

We were told to look in at the costumier’s some time during the week, for him to take our measurement, and those of us who were inexperienced in theatrical costumiers did so, and came away with a hopeful idea that we were going to be sent clothes that would nearly fit us. The majority, however, did not go through this farce, but quietly took what they found in their dressing-rooms on the opening night, and squeezed themselves into, or padded themselves out to it, as the necessity happened to be.

The dressing-rooms (two rows of wooden sheds, divided by a narrow passage) were situated over the property-room, and were reached by means of a flight of steps, which everybody ascended and descended very gingerly indeed, feeling sure each time that the whole concern would come down before they got to the other end. These apartments had been carefully prepared for our reception. The extra big holes in the partitions had been bunged up with brown paper, and the whitewash had been laid on everywhere with a lavishness that betokened utter disregard of the expense; though as, before a week was over, nearly the whole of it had been transferred to our clothes, this was rather a waste, so far as the management was concerned. It was even reported that one of the rooms had been swept out, but I never saw any signs of such a thing having been done myself either then or at any other time, and am inclined to look upon the statement merely in the light of a feeler, thrown out for the purpose of getting at the views of the charwoman. If so, however, it was a failure. She said nothing on hearing it, but looked offended, and evidently considered it a subject that should not have been mentioned to a lady.

One or two of the doors still hung upon their hinges, and could, with a little maneuvering, be opened or shut; but in most cases they had been wrenched off, and stood propped up against their own posts, like drunken revelers taken home by the cabmen. The only means therefore of getting in or out of the rooms was by lifting them bodily away. It was a pretty sight to watch some stout, short-winded actor, staggering about the place with one of these great doors in his arms, trying to make it stand up. After a series of fearful efforts, he would get it wedged firmly across the passage, and, at that exact moment, some one would be sure to come rushing upstairs in a desperate hurry to get to his room. He could not, of course, pass while the wretched door was in that position, so, with a view of expediting matters, he would lay hold of the other side of it, and begin tugging. The first man, not being able to see what was going on, and thinking larks were being played with him, would plunge about more wildly than ever, and jam the door down on the other fellow’s toes. Then they would both grapple madly with it, one on each side, bump each other’s head with it, crush each other with it against the sides of the passage, and end by all three going down in a heap together, the door uppermost.

The furniture provided, simple though it was, had evidently been selected with a thoughtful desire that everything should be in keeping: it consisted of a few broken chairs. The supply of toilet requisites in hand, too, seemed to be rather limited, but great care and ingenuity had been displayed in their distribution. There not being enough basins and jugs to go all around, these had been divided. Some rooms had a jug but no basin, while others had a basin but no jug, either circumstance being a capital excuse for leaving them without any water. Where there was neither basin nor jug, you could safely reckon on a soap-dish. We were supplied with towels, the allowance being one a fortnight—a small thin one with a big hole in the middle—among six, but we brought our own soap: at least some of us did, and the others, without a moment’s hesitation, appropriated it. One of the rooms was better appointed than the others, being able to boast a washstand, made out of an old cane chair that had lost its back and one of its legs. This article of luxury was the cause of a good deal of bitterness at first among the occupants of the less-favored apartments, but its tendency toward sudden and unexpected collapse soon lessened this feeling of envy. Even its owners ceased to take any pride in it after a while, and it was eventually kicked to pieces in a fit of frenzy by Juveniles; it having been the cause, as far as we could gather from his disjointed blasphemy, of his being compelled to play all the rest of that evening in sopping wet tights.

A blear-eyed individual used to hang about these rooms of a night. He called himself a dresser, though, for all the dressing he ever did, he might just as well have been a kitchen one. He got a dressing himself once for upsetting a pot of paint over Jim’s supper; but that was the only one he ever, to my knowledge, assisted at. However, he came in handy to go out for sheep’s head and porter.

But although the dressing-rooms surprised me somewhat, they did not disappoint me. I had built no expectations upon them. I had conjured up no airy visions concerning them. Mine eyes had not hungered to gaze upon their imagined glories. No, the dressing-rooms I bore up under; it was the green room that crushed me. It was about the green room that my brightest hopes had been centered. It was there that I was to flirt with Beauty, and converse with Intellect. I had pictured a brilliantly lighted and spacious apartment with a polished oak floor, strewn with costly rugs; gilded walls, hung with choicest gems of art; and a lofty, painted ceiling. There would be luxurious easy-chairs and couches, upon which to rest ourselves between our artistic labors; a piano, from which fairy fingers would draw forth rapturous strains, while I turned over the music; and carved cabinets, filled with old china, and other rare and precious knickknacks. Heavy curtains, over the door, would deaden the outside din to a droning murmur, which would mingle pleasantly with the low hum of cheerful conversation within; whilst the flickering firelight, flashing upon the Spanish mahogany furniture, and glittering reflected in the many mirrors round the room, would throw a touch of homeliness over what might otherwise have been the almost too dazzling splendor of the place.

There was no green room. There never had been a green room, I never saw a green room, except in a play, though I was always on the lookout for it. I met an old actor once who had actually been in one, and I used to get him to come and tell me all about it. But even his recollections were tinged with a certain vagueness. He was not quite sure whether it had been at Liverpool or at Newcastle that he had come across it, and at other times he thought it must have been at Exeter. But wherever it was, the theater had been burnt down a good many years ago—about that he was positive.

On one occasion, I went specially to a big London theater where, I was assured, there really was one, and it cost me four-and-sevenpence in drinks. I found the green room all right, but they said I had better not go in, because it was chock full of properties, and I might break something in the dark.

The truth is that where a green room was originally provided, it has been taken by the star or the manager, as his or her private room, and the rest of the company, are left to spend their off time either in their own dressing-rooms, where they are always in each other’s way, or at the wings, where they catch cold, and are hustled by the scene-shifters.

CHAPTER VIII. My “First Deboo”

[Original]

N Saturday came the opening night, and with it my first appearance before the British public—my “first deboo” as our perruquier called it. In thinking about it beforehand, I had been very much afraid lest I should be nervous; but strange to say, I never experienced stage-fright at any time. I say strange, because, at that period of my life at all events, I was—as true greatness generally is—of a modest and retiring disposition. In my very early youth, I believe, I was not so. I am told that in my frock and pinafore days, I used to stand upon the table, and recite poetry, to the intense gratification of my elderly relatives (ah, the old folks knew how to enjoy themselves, when I was a boy!); and an old nurse of mine always insisted that on one occasion I collected half a crown in an omnibus by my spirited rendering of “Baa, baa, black sheep.” I have no recollection of this performance myself though, and, if it really did take place, where’s the money? This part of the question has never, to my mind, been satisfactorily cleared up.

But however self-possessed I may have been at eight, I was anything but so at eighteen. Even now, I would not act to a drawing-room full of people for a thousand pounds—supposing the company considered the effort worth that sum. But before a public audience, I was all right, and entirely free from that shyness about which, in private life, my lady friends so bitterly complain. I could not see the people for one thing—at all events, not those beyond the third row of stalls. The blaze of light surrounding one on the stage, and the dimness of the rest of the house, give the audience a shadowy and ghost-like appearance, and make it impossible to see more than a general mass of white faces. As I never noticed the “hundreds upon hundreds of glaring eyes,” they did not trouble me, and I let ‘em glare. The most withering glance in the world won’t crush a blind man.

If I had been nervous on the first night, I think I should have had a good excuse for it, knowing, as I did, that a select party of my most particular friends, including a few medical students and clergymen’s sons, were somewhere in the theater; having come down, in a body with the intention of giving me a fair start, as they said. They had insisted on coming. I had begged them not to trouble themselves on my account, but they wouldn’t hear of it. They said it would be such a comfort to me to know that they were there. That was their thoughtful kindness. It touched me.

I said: “Look here, you know, if you fellows are going to play the fool, I’ll chuck the whole blessed thing up.”

They said they were not going to play the fool they were coming to see me. I raised no further objections.

But I checkmated them. I lied to those confiding young men with such an air of simple truthfulness, that they believed me, though they had known me for years. Even now, after all this time, I feel a glow of pride when I think how consummately I deceived them. They knew nothing of the theaters or actors over the water so I just gave them the name of our first old man, and told them that that was the name I had taken. I exaggerated the effect of making-up, and impressed upon them the idea that I should be so changed that they would never believe it was I; and I requested them especially to note my assumed voice. I did not say what character I was going to play, but I let slip a word now and then implying that my mind was running on gray hairs and long-lost children, and I bought a stick exactly similar to the one the poor old gentleman was going to use in the part, and let it lie about.

So far as I was concerned, the plan was a glorious success, but the effect upon the old man was remarkable. He was too deaf to hear exactly what was going on, but he gathered enough to be aware that he was the object of a certain amount of attention, and that he was evidently giving great satisfaction to a portion of the audience; which latter circumstance apparently surprised him. The dear fellows gave him a splendid reception when he first appeared. They applauded everything he said or did throughout the play, and called for him after every act. They encored his defiance of the villain, and, when he came on without his hat in a snow scene, they all pulled out their pocket handkerchiefs and sobbed aloud. At the end they sent a message round to tell him to hurry up, as they were waiting for him at the stage door, an announcement that had the effect of sending him out by the front way in wonderfully quick time.

On the whole, that first night passed off pretty well. First nights are trying times at all theaters. The state of excitement behind the scenes is at fever heat, and the stage manager and the head carpenter become positively dangerous. In sensation pieces, where the author plays second fiddle to the scene-shifter, this, of course, is especially the case.

Now—as all modern playgoers know—there are never any hitches or delays on first nights. At all events, not at any of the West-end houses, where everything is always a “triumph of stage management!” But in my time, hitches on first nights were the rule rather than the exception, and when a scene was got through without any special mishap, we felt we were entitled to shake hands with one another. I remember one first night at a London theater where the sensation was to be the fall of a house, crushing the villain (literally) at the end of the fourth act. Great expectations were entertained about this “effect.” It was confidently calculated that the collapse of this building would bring down the house, and so no doubt it would have done, if, owing to a mistake in the cues, the curtain had not come down first. The house fell beautifully, the dummy villain was killed on the spot, and the heroine saved in the nick of time by the hero (who, in these plays, is always just round the corner), but the audience only wondered what all the noise was about, and why no one had struck an attitude at the end of the act.

ON THE STAGE-AND OFF

The Brief Career Of A Would-Be Actor

By Jerome K. Jerome

New YorkHenry Holt And Company1891

[Original]

PREFACE.

ON THE STAGE-AND OFF.

CHAPTER I. I Determine to Become an Actor.

CHAPTER II. I Become an Actor.

CHAPTER III. Through the Stage Door

CHAPTER IV. Behind the Scenes.

CHAPTER V. A Rehearsal.

JOE JUNKS.

CHAPTER VI. Scenery and Supers

CHAPTER VII. Dressing.

CHAPTER VIII. My “First Deboo”

New York
Henry Holt And Company
1891