Chapter V: Part 5

The limitation of violent effort in this play made him very “easy” in it. In one scene only does such occur; that at the end of the fourth act as originally played. Of late years he played it in four acts altogether, amalgamating the first and second acts with much benefit to the play.

Only once have I seen him put out at anything during the playing of _Louis XI._ It was in Chicago on the night of Saturday, February 13, 1904. For five weeks following the burning of the Iroquois Theatre in that city no theatre had been allowed to open. The official world, which had itself been gravely in fault in allowing the theatre to be opened before it had been tested, tried to show their integrity by imposing rigid perfection—after the event—on other people. The Illinois Theatre, where we were to play, was the first theatre opened, and naturally we had to stand the brunt of official over-zeal. We had been harassed beyond belief from the moment we entered the theatre.

On the night of _Louis XI._ all went well till the end of the bedroom scene between the King and Nemours. Here, when the Duke had escaped, the King calls for aid and his guards rush in with torches, and by their master’s direction search the room for his enemy. The effectiveness of the scene depends on the light thus introduced, for the scene is a dark one, lit only by the King’s chamber-lamp. To Irving’s dismay the cue for the lights was not answered. True, the guards came on, but in darkness. The firemen in the wings had seized from the guards the spirit torches— implements carefully made to obviate any possible danger from fire and each carried by one of our men practised in the handling of them.

After a night or two matters got a little easier. The fire regulations, which directed that the men of that department on the stage should make requisition to the responsible manager who would see them carried out, began to be more decorously observed.

IV

_The Lyons Mail_ is the especial title of Charles Reade’s version of _Le Courier de Lyons_. The play has often been done in its older form but in the newer only by Charles Kean and Henry Irving. Indeed when Irving took it in hand he got Reade to make some changes, especially in the second act, where Joseph Lesurques has the interview with his father, who believes that he is guilty and that he saw him fire the shot by which he himself was wounded.

Irving has often told me that in playing the double part the real difficulty was not to make the two men unlike and guilt look like guilt, but the opposite. He used to adduce instances told him by experienced judges and counsel of where they had been themselves deceived by demeanour. It is indeed difficult for any one to discriminate between the shame, together with the submission to the Divine Law to which he has been bred, of the innocent, and the fear, whose expression is modified by hardihood, of the guilty. In Irving’s case the points of difference were not merely overt; there were subtle differences of tone and look and bearing—loftiness, for instance, as against supreme and fearless indifference and brutality.

_The Lyons Mail_ was always one of the most anxious and exhausting of his plays. In the first place he was always on the stage, either in the one character of Lesurques or the other of Dubose—except at the end of the play, where he appeared to be both. All the intervals were taken up with necessary changes of dress. In the next place the _time_ is all-important. In any melodrama accuracy as to time is important to success; but in this one of confused identity it is all-important. There are occasions when the delay of a single second will mar the best studied effect, and when to be a second too soon is to spoil the plot. In certain plays the actors must “overlap” in their speeches; the effect of their work must be to carry the thought of the audience from point to point without wavering. Thus they receive the necessary information without the opportunity of examining it too closely. This is a part of the high art of the stage. There can be illusions by other means than light.

Once there was a peculiar _contretemps_ in the acting. Tom Mead was a fine old actor with a tall thin form and a deep voice that sounded like an organ. His part was that of Jerome Lesurques, the father of the unhappy man whose double was the villain Dubose. He had played it for many years and very effectively. The end of the first act comes when Dubose, the robber and murderer, is confronted by Jerome Lesurques. The old man thinks it is his son whom he sees rifling the body of the mail guard. As he speaks the words: “Good God! my son, my son,” Dubose fires at him, wounding him on the arm, and escapes as the curtain comes down.

On this particular night—it was one of the last nights in New York, closing the tour of 1893–4—Mead forgot his words. Dubose stood ready with his pistol to fire; but no words came. Now, if the audience do not know that Jerome Lesurques thinks that his son is guilty the heart is taken out of the play, for it is his unconscious evidence that proves his son’s guilt. The words had to be spoken at any cost by _some one_. Irving waited, but the old man’s memory was gone. So he himself called out in a loud voice: “I’m not your son!” and shot him. And, strange to say, none of the audience seemed to notice the omission.

Tom Mead was famous in his later years amongst his comrades for making strange errors, and when he had any new part they always waited to see what new story he would beget. Once on a voyage to America when we were arranging the concert for the Seamen’s Orphans, he said he would do a scene from _Macbeth_ if Mrs. Pauncefort would do it with him. She, a fine old actress, at once consented and from thence on the members of the company were waiting to see what the slip would be. They were certain there would be one; to them there was no “might” or “if” in the matter. The scene chosen was that of the murder of Duncan, and all went well till the passage was reached:

“And Pity, like a naked new-born babe
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless carriers of the air.”

This noble passage he repeated as follows:

“And Pity, like a naked new-born babe
Seated on the horse. No! Horsed on the seat!
No! What is the word?”

Once before, during the first run of _Macbeth_, he played one of the witches; when circling round the cauldron he had to say: “Cool it with a baboon’s blood.” This he changed to:

“Cool it with a dragoon’s blood!”

As the words are spoken before Macbeth enters, Irving, standing ready in the wings, of course heard the error. Later in the evening he sent for Mead and called his attention to the error, pointing out that as the audience knew so well the words of the swinging lines they might notice an error, and that it would be well to read over the part afresh. This he promised to do. Next night he got very anxious as the time drew near. He moved about restlessly behind the scenes saying over and over again to himself, “dragoon, no baboon—baboon!—dragoon!—dragoon!—baboon!” till he got himself hopelessly mixed. His comrades were in ecstasy. When at last he came to say the word he said it wrong; and as he had a voice whose tones he could not modify this is what the audience heard:

“Cool it with dragoon’s blood—No, no, baboon’s. My God! I’ve said it again! baboon’s blood.”

When we did _Iolanthe_, a version by W. G. Wills of _King René’s Daughter_, Mead took the part of Ebn Jaira, an Eastern Wizard. At one part of the piece, where things look very black indeed for the happiness of the blind girl, he has to say: “All shall be well in that immortal land where God hath His dwelling.” One night he got shaky in his words and surprised the audience with:

“In that immortal land where God hath His—Ah—um—His apartments!”

Such mental aberrations used to be fairly common in the old days when new parts had to be learned every night, and when the prompter, in so far as the “book” was concerned, was a hard-worked official and not an anachronism, as now. Macready had an experience of it once when playing Hamlet. The actor who took the part of the Priest in the graveyard scene was inadequately prepared and in the passage;

“for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles shall be thrown on her.”

he said, “shards, flints and beadles.” This almost overcame the star, who was heard to murmur to himself before he went on: “Beadles! Beadles!” and at the end of the play one behind him heard him say as he walked to his dressing-room:

“He said ‘beadles’!”

V

_Charles I._ is rather too slight and delicate a play for great popularity; and in addition its politics are too aggressive. Whenever I think of it in its political aspect I am always reminded of a pregnant saying of Dion Boucicault—I mean Dion Boucicault the Elder, for the years have run fast—spoken in the beautiful Irish brogue which was partly natural and partly cultivated:

“The rayson why historical plays so seldom succeed is because a normal audience doesn’t go into the thayatre with its politics in its breeches pockets!”

This is really a philosophical truth, and the man who had then written or adapted over four hundred plays knew it. A great political situation may, like any other great existing force, form a _milieu_ for dramatic action; making or increasing difficulties or abrogating or lessening them; or bringing unexpected danger or aid to the persons of the drama. But where the political situation is supposed to be lasting or eternally analogous, it is apt to create in the minds of an audience varying conditions of thought and sympathy. And where these all-powerful forces of an audience are opposed they become mutually destructive, being only united into that one form which makes for the destruction of the play.

One of the most notable things of Irving’s _Charles I._ was his extraordinary reproduction of Van Dyck’s pictures. The part in its scenic aspect might have been called “Van Dyck in action.” Each costume was an exact reproduction from one of the well-known paintings; and the reproduction of Charles’s face was a marvel. In this particular case he had a fine model, for Van Dyck painted the King in almost every possible way of dignity. To aid him in his work Edwin Long made for him a triptych of Van Dyck heads, and this used to rest before him on his dressing-table on those nights when he played Charles.

Irving was a painter of no mean degree with regard to his “make-up” of parts. He spared no pains on the work, and on nights when he played parts requiring careful preparations, such as Charles I., Shylock, Louis XI., Gregory Brewster (in _Waterloo_), King Lear, Richelieu and some few others he always came to his dressing-room nearly an hour earlier than at other times. It has often amazed me to see the physiognomy of Shylock gradually emerge from the actor’s own generous countenance. Though I have seen it done a hundred times I could never really understand how the lips thickened, with the red of the lower lip curling out and over after the manner of the typical Hebraic countenance; how the bridge of the nose under his painting—for he used no physical building up—rose into the Jewish aquiline; and, most wonderful of all, how the eyes became veiled and glassy with introspection—eyes which at times could and did flash lurid fire.

But there is for an outsider no understanding what strange effects stage make-up can produce. When my son, who is Irving’s godson, then about seven years old, came to see _Faust_ I brought him round between the acts to see Mephistopheles in his dressing-room. The little chap was exceedingly pretty—like a cupid, and a quaint fancy struck the actor. Telling the boy to stand still for a moment he took his dark pencil and with a few rapid touches made him up after the manner of Mephistopheles; the same high-arched eyebrows; the same sneer at the corners of the mouth; the same pointed moustache. I think it was the strangest and prettiest transformation I ever saw. And I think the child thought so too, for he was simply entranced with delight.

Irving loved children, and I think he was as enchanted over the incident as was the child himself.

XIV
ART-SENSE

I

No successful play, perhaps, had ever so little done for it as _The Bells_ on its production. Colonel Bateman did not believe in it, and it was only the concatenation of circumstances of his own desperate financial condition and Irving’s profound belief in the piece that induced him to try it at all. The occasion was in its effect somewhat analogous to Edmund Kean’s first appearance at Drury Lane; the actor came to the front and top of his profession _per saltum_. The production was meagre; of this I can bear a certain witness myself. When Irving took over the management of the Lyceum into his own hands the equipment of _The Bells_ was one of the assets coming to him. When he did play it he used the old dresses, scenery and properties, and their use was continued as long as possible. Previous to the American tour of 1883–4, fifty-five performances in all constituted the entire wear and tear.

On our first expedition to America everything was packed in a very cumbrous manner, the amount of timber, nails and screws used was extraordinary. There were hundredweights of extracted screws on the stage of the Star Theatre of New York whilst the unpacking was in progress. When I came down to the theatre on the first morning after the unloading of the stuff, Arnott, who was in charge of the mechanics of the stage, came to me and said:

“Would you mind coming here a moment, sir, I would like you to see something!” He brought me to the back of the stage and pointed out a long heap of rubbish some four feet high. It was just such as you would see in the waste-heap of a house-wrecker’s yard.

“What on earth is that?” I asked.

“That is the sink-and-rise of the vision in _The Bells_. In effecting a vision on the stage the old method used to be to draw the back scenes or “flats” apart, or else to raise the whole scene from above or take it down through a long trap on the stage. The latter was the method adopted by the scene-painter of _The Bells_.”

“Did it meet with an accident?” I asked.

“No, sir. It simply shook to bits just as you see it. It was packed up secure and screwed tight like the rest!”

I examined it carefully. The whole stuff was simply rotten with age and wear; as thoroughly worn out as the deacon’s wonderful one-horse shay in Oliver Wendell Holmes’ poem. The canvas had been almost held together by the overlay of paint, and as for the wood it was cut and hacked and pieced to death; full of old screw-holes and nail-holes. No part of it had been of new timber or canvas when _The Bells_ was produced eleven years before. With this experience I examined the whole scenery and found that almost every piece of it was in a similar condition. It had been manufactured out of all the odds and ends of old scenery in the theatre.

Under the modern conditions of Metropolitan theatres it is hard to imagine what satisfied up to the “seventies.” Nowadays the scenery of good theatres is made for travel. The flats are framed in light wood, securely clamped and fortified at the joints; and in folding sections like screens, each section being not more than six feet wide, so as to be easily handled and placed in baggage-waggons. The scenes are often fixed on huge castors with rubber bosses so as to move easily and silently. But formerly they were made in single panels and of heavy timber and took a lot of strength to move.

II

From the time of my joining him in 1878 till his death Irving played _The Bells_ in all six hundred and twenty-seven times, being one hundred and sixty-eight in London; two hundred and seventy-three in the British provinces, and one hundred and eighty-six in America. During its first run at the Lyceum in 1872–3 it ran one hundred and fifty-one nights, so that in all he played _The Bells_ seven hundred and seventy-eight times, besides certain occasions when he gave it in his provincial tours previous to 1878. Altogether he probably played the piece over eight hundred times.

Colonel Bateman originally leased the rights of the play from the author Leopold Lewis. Finally, at a time of stress—sadly frequent in those days with poor old Lewis—he sold them to Samuel French, from whom Irving finally purchased them. Notwithstanding this double purchase Irving used, after the death of Lewis, to allow his widow a weekly sum whenever he was playing—playing not merely _The Bells_ but anything else—up to the time of his death.

Mathias was an exceedingly hard and exhausting part on the actor, but as years rolled on it became in ever greater demand.

III

The original choice of the play by Irving is an object-lesson of the special art-sense of an actor regarding his own work. Irving _knew_ that the play would succeed. It was not guessing nor hoping nor any other manifestation of an optimistic nature. Had Bateman, in the business crisis of 1872, not allowed him to put it on, he would infallibly have put it on at some other time.

It would be difficult for an actor to explain in what this art-sense consists or how it brings conviction to those whose gift it is. Certainly any one not an actor could not attempt the task at all. In the course of a quarter of a century of intimate experience of this actor, when he has confided to me the very beginnings of his intentions and let me keep in touch with his mind when such intentions became at first fixed and then clamorous of realisation, I have known him see his way to personal success with regard to several characters. For instance:

When in 1885 he had arranged to do _Olivia_ and was making up the cast he put himself down as Dr. Primrose. I had not seen the play in which Ellen Terry had appeared under John Hare’s management—with enormous success for a long run—and I had no guiding light, except the text of the play, as to the excellence of the part as an acting one. But neither had Irving seen it. He too had nothing but the text to go by, but he was quite satisfied with what he could do. He knew of course from report that Ellen Terry would be fine. For myself I could not see in the Vicar a great part for so great an actor, and tried my best to dissuade him from acting it. “Get the best man in London, or out of it—at any price,” I said; “but don’t risk playing a part like that, already played exhaustively and played well according to accounts!”—Hermann Vezin had played it in the run. Irving answered me with all his considerate sweetness of manner:

“My dear fellow, it is all right! I can see my way to it thoroughly. If I can’t play the Vicar to please I shall think I don’t know my business as an actor; and that I really think I do!” This was said not in any way truculently or self-assertively, but with a businesslike quietude which always convinced. When any man was sincere with Irving, he too was always both sincere and sympathetic, even to an opposing view to his own. When one was fearless as well as sincere he gained an added measure of the actor’s respect.

Again, when in 1885 _Faust_ was being produced I began to have certain grave doubts as to whether we were justified in the extravagant hopes which we had all formed of its success. The piece as produced was a vast and costly undertaking; and as both the _décor_ and the massing and acting grew, there came that time, perhaps inevitable in all such undertakings of indeterminate bounds, as to whether reality would justify imagination. With me that feeling culminated on the night of a partial rehearsal, when the Brocken scene on which we all relied to a large extent was played, all the supers and ballet and most of the characters being in dress. It was then, as ever afterwards, a wonderful scene of imagination, of grouping, of lighting, of action, and all the rush and whirl and triumphant cataclysm of unfettered demoniacal possession. But it all looked cold and unreal—that is, unreal to what it professed. When the scene was over—it was then in the grey of the morning—I talked with Irving in his dressing-room before going home. I expressed my feeling that we ought not to build too much on this one play. After all it _might_ not catch on with the public as firmly as we had all along expected—almost taken for granted. Could we not be quietly getting something else ready, so that in case it did not turn out all that which our fancy painted we should be able to retrieve ourselves. Other such arguments of judicious theatrical management I used earnestly.

Irving listened, gravely weighing all I said; then he answered me genially:

“That is all true; but in this case I have no doubt. I _know_ the play will do. To-night I think you have not been able to judge accurately. You are forming an opinion largely from the effect of the Brocken. As far as to-night goes you are quite right; but you have not seen my dress. I do not want to wear it till I get all the rest correct. Then you will see. I have studiously kept as yet all the colour scheme to that grey-green. When my dress of flaming scarlet appears amongst it—and remember that the colour will be intensified by that very light—it will bring the whole picture together in a way you cannot dream of. Indeed I can hardly realise it myself yet, though I know it will be right. You shall see too how Ellen Terry’s white dress, and even that red scar across her throat, will stand out in the midst of that turmoil of lightning!”

He had seen in his own inner mind and with his vast effective imagination all these pictures and these happenings from the very first; all that had been already done was but leading up to the culmination.

IV

Let me say here that Irving loved sincerity, and most of all in those around him and those who had to aid him in his work—for no man can do all for himself. Alfred Gilbert the sculptor once said to me on seeing from behind the scenes how a great play was pulled through on a first night, when every soul in the place was alive with desire to aid and every nerve was instinct with thought:

“I would give anything that the world holds to be served as Irving is!”

He was quite right. There must be a master mind for great things; and the master of that mind must learn to trust others when the time of action comes. The time for doubting, for experimenting, for teaching and weighing and testing is in the antecedent time of preparation. But when _the_ hour strikes, every doubt is a fetter to one’s own work—a barrier between effort and success.

In artistic work this is especially so. The artist temperament is sensitive—almost super-sensitive; and the requirements of its work necessitate that form of quietude which comes from self-oblivion. It is not possible to do any work based on individual qualities, when from extrinsic cause some unrequired phase of that individuality looms large in the foreground of thought.

This quality is of the essence of every artist, but is emphasised in the actor; for here his individuality is not merely a help to creative power but is a medium by which he expresses himself. Thus it will be found as a working rule of life that the average actor will not, if he can help it, do anything or take any responsibility which will make for the possibility of unpopularity. The reason is not to be found in vanity, or in a merely reckless desire to please; it is that unpopularity is not only harmful to his aim and detrimental to his well-being, but is a disturbing element in his work _quâ_ actor. In another place we shall have to consider the matter of “dual consciousness” which Irving considered to be of the intellectual mechanism of acting. Here we must take it that if to a double consciousness required for a work a third— self-consciousness—is added, they are apt to get mixed; and fine purpose will be thwarted or overborne.

Thus it is that an actor has to keep himself, in certain ways at least, for his work. When in addition he has the cares and worries and responsibilities and labours and distractions of management to encounter daily and hourly, it is vitally necessary that he has trustworthy, and to him, sufficing assistance. It is quite sufficient for one man to originate the scope and ultimate effect of a play; to bring all the workers of different crafts employed in its production; to select the various actors each for special qualities, to rehearse them and the less skilled labourers employed in effect; in fact to bring the whole play into harmonious completeness. All beyond this is added labour, exhausting to the individual and ineffective with regard to the work in hand. When, therefore, an actor-manager has such trusty and efficient assistance as is here suggested many things become possible to him with regard to the finesse of his art, which he dared not otherwise attempt. _Somebody_ must stand the stress of irritating matters; there must be _some_ barrier to the rush of mordant distractions. Irving could do much and would have in the long run done at least the bulk of what he intended; but he never could have done _all_ he did without the assistance of his friend and trusty stage-lieutenant, who through the whole of his management stood beside him in all his creative work and shaped into permanent form his lofty ideas of stage effect. It is not sufficient in a theatre to see a thing properly done and then leave it to take care of itself for the future. Stage perfection needs constant and never-ending vigilance. No matter how perfectly a piece may be played, from the highest to the least important actor, in a certain time things will begin to get “sloppy” and fresh rehearsals are required to bring all up again to the standard of excellence fixed. To Loveday and the able staff under him, whose devotion and zeal were above all praise, the continued excellence of the Lyceum plays had to be mainly trusted.

Let it be clearly understood here, however, that I say this not to belittle Irving, but to add to his honour. In addition to other grand qualities he had the greatness to trust where trust was due. With him lay all the great conception and imagination and originality of all his accomplishments. He was quite content that others should have their share of honour.

When one considers the amazing labour and expense concerned in the “production” of a play, he is better able to estimate the value of devoted and trusted assistance.

V

Even the thousand and one details of the business of a theatre need endless work and care—work which would in the long run shatter entirely the sensitive nervous system of an artist. In fact it may be taken for granted that no artist can properly attend to his own business. As an instance I may point to Whistler, who, long after he had made money and lost it again and had begun to build up his fortune afresh, came to me for some personal advice before going to America to deliver his “Five o’clock” discourse. In the course of our conversation he said:

“Bram, I wish I could get some one to take me up and attend to my business for me—I can’t do it myself; and I really think it would be worth a good man’s while—some man like yourself,” he courteously added. “I would give half of all I earned to such a man, and would be grateful to him also for a life without care!”

I think myself he was quite right. He was before his time—long before it. He did fine work and created a new public taste ... and he became bankrupt. His house and all he had were sold; and the whole sum he owed would, I think, have been covered by the proper sale of a few of the pictures which were bought almost _en bloc_ by a picture-dealer who sold them for almost any price offered. He had a mass of them in his gallery several feet thick as they were piled against the wall. One of them he sold to Irving for either £20 or £40, I forget which.

This was the great picture of Irving as King Philip in Tennyson’s drama _Queen Mary_. It was sold at Christie’s amongst Irving’s other effects after his death and fetched over five thousand pounds sterling.

VI

During the run of _Cymbeline_ a pause of one night was made for a special occasion. November 25, 1896, was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first performance of _The Bells_, and on that memorable birth-night the performance was repeated to an immense house enthusiastic to the last degree.

After the curtain had finally fallen the whole of the company and all the employees of the theatre gathered on the stage for a presentation to Irving to commemorate the remarkable occasion. One and all without exception had contributed in proportion to their means. Most of all, Alfred Gilbert, R.A., who had given his splendid genius and much labour as his contribution. Of course on this occasion it was only the model which was formally conveyed. The form of the trophy was a great silver bell standing some two feet high, exquisite in design and with the grace and beauty of the work of a Cellini; a form to be remembered in after centuries. I had the honour of writing the destined legend to be wrought in a single line in raised letters on a band of crinkly gold on the curve of the bell. Gilbert had made a point of my writing it, and be sure I was proud to do so. It ran:

HONOUR TO IRVING THROUGH THE LOVE OF HIS COMRADES I RING THROUGH THE
AGES.

Gilbert was enthusiastic about it, for he said it fulfilled all the conditions of the legend on a bell. In the first place, according to the ancient idea, a bell is a person with a soul and a thought and a voice of its own; it is supposed to speak on its own initiative. In the second place, the particular inscription was short and easily wrought and would just go all round the bell. Moreover from its peculiar form the reading of it could begin anywhere. I felt really proud when he explained all this to me and I realised that I had so well carried out the idea.

VII

It may perhaps be here noted that according to the tradition of the Comédie-Française a play becomes a classic work when it has held the boards for a quarter of a century. The director, M. Jules Claretie, asked Irving if they might play _The Bells_ in the House of Molière. Of course he was pleased and sent to Claretie a copy of the prompt-book and drawings of the scenes and appointments.

Jules Claretie was by now an old friend. In 1879, when the Comédie-Française came to London and played at the Gaiety Theatre, he came over as one of the men of letters interested in their success. It was not till afterwards that he was selected as Director. I remember well one night when he came to supper with Irving in the Lyceum. This was before the old Beefsteak Room was reappointed to its old use; and we supped in the room next to his own dressing-room, occasionally used in these days for purposes of hospitality. There came also three other Frenchmen of literary note: Jules Clery, Jacques Normand and the great critic Francisque Sarcey. There was a marked scarcity of language between us; none of the Frenchmen spoke in those days a word of English, and neither Irving nor I knew more than a smattering of French. We got on well, however, and managed to exchange ideas in the manner usual to people who _want_ to talk with each other. It was quite late, and we had all begun to forget that we did not know each other’s language, when we missed Sarcey. I went out to look for him, fearing lest he might come to grief through some of the steps or awkward places in the almost dark theatre. In those days of gas lighting we always kept alight the “pilot” light in the great chandelier of bronze and glass which hung down into the very centre of the auditorium—just above the sight-line from the gallery. This pilot was a matter of safety, and I rather think that we were compelled, either by the civic authorities or the superior landlord, to see it attended to. The gas remaining in the pipes of the theatre was just sufficient to keep it going for four and twenty hours. If it went out there must be a leak somewhere; and that leak had to be discovered and attended to without delay.

I could not find Sarcey on the dim stage or in the front of the house. In a theatre the rule is to take up the curtain when the audience have passed out so that there may be as much time and opportunity as possible for ventilating the house. I began to get a little uneasy about the missing guest; but when I came near the corner of the stage whence the private staircase led to Irving’s rooms I heard a queer kind of thumping sound. I followed it out into the passage leading from the private door in Burleigh Street to the Royal box. This was shut off from the theatre by an iron door—not locked, but falling gently into the jambs by its own weight. When I pushed open the door I found Sarcey all by himself, dancing an odd sort of dance something after the manner of the “Gillie Callum.” It was positively weird. I never afterwards could think of Sarcey without there rising before me the vision of that lively, silent, thick-set, agile figure moving springily in the semi-darkness.

Jules Claretie was many times at the Lyceum after the first visit, and in his _régime_ the Theâtre-Français was the home of courtesy to strangers.

XV
STAGE EFFECTS

I

_The Lady of Lyons_ was produced on April 17, 1879. It kept in the bill for a portion of each week for the remainder of the first and the whole of the second season; in all forty-five times—no inconsiderable run of such an old and hackneyed play.

The production was a very beautiful one. There was a specially attractive feature in it: the French army. At the end of the fourth act Claude, all his hopes shattered and he being consumed with remorse, accepts Colonel Damas’ offer to go with him to the war in that fine melodramatic outburst:

“Place me wherever a foe is most dreaded—wherever France most needs a
life!”

As Irving stage-managed it the army, already on its way, was tramping along the road outside. Through window and open door the endless columns were seen, officers and men in due order and the flags in proper place. It seemed as if the line would stretch out till the crack of doom! A very large number of soldiers had been employed as supers, and were of course especially suitable for the work. In those days the supers of London theatres were largely supplied from the Brigade of Guards. The men liked it, for it provided easy beer-money, and the officers liked them to have the opportunity as it kept them out of mischief. We had always on our staff as an additional super-master, a Sergeant of Guards who used to provide the men, and was of course in a position to keep them in order.

The men entered thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, and it was really wonderful how, availing themselves of their professional training, they were able to seemingly multiply their forces. Often have I admired the dexterity, ease and rapidity with which that moving army was kept going with a hundred and fifty men. Four abreast they marched across the stage at the back. The scene cloth of the landscape outside the cottage was set far up the stage so that there was but a narrow space left between it and the wall, scarcely room for one person to pass; and it was interesting to see the perfection of drill which enabled those soldiers to meet the difficulties of keeping up the constant stream of the troops. They would march into the wings with set pace, but the instant they passed out of sight of the audience they would break into a run; in perfect order they would rush in single file round the back of the scene and arrive at the other side just in time to fall into line and step again. And so the endless stream went on. When Claude ran out with Damas the ranks opened and a cheer rose; he fell into line with the rest and on the army marched.

That marching army never stopped. No matter how often the curtain went up on the scene—and sometimes there were seven or eight calls, for the scene was one specially exciting to the more demonstrative parts of the house—it always rose on that martial array, always moving on with the resistless time and energy of an overwhelming force.

It was only fair that Irving should always get good service from supers, for they never had such a friend. When their standard pay was sixpence per night he gave a shilling. When that sum became standard he gave one and sixpence. And when that was reached he paid two shillings—an increase of 300 per cent. in his own time.

If the smallness of the pay, even now, should strike any reader, let me remind such that supers are not supposed to live on their pay. There are a few special people who generally dress with them, but such are in reality minor actors and get larger pay. The super proper is engaged during the day as porter, workman, gasman, &c. They simply add to their living wage by work at night. At the Lyceum, if a man only worked as a super, we took it for granted that he was in reality a loafer, and did not keep him.

II

_The Corsican Brothers_ is one of the pieces which requires picturesque setting. The story is so weird that it obtains a new credibility from unfamiliar _entourage_. Corsica has always been accepted as a land of strange happenings and stormy passions. Things are accepted under such circumstances which would ordinarily be passed by as bizarre. The production was certainly a magnificent one. There are two scenes in it which allow of any amount of artistic effort, although their juxtaposition in the sequence of the play makes an enormous difficulty. The first is the scene of the Masked Ball in the Opera House in Paris; the other the Forest of Fontainebleau, where takes place the duel between Fabian and de Château-Rénaud. Each of these scenes took up the whole stage, right away from the footlights to the back wall; thus the task of changing from one to the other, with only the interval of the supper at Baron de Montgiron’s to do it in, was one of extraordinary difficulty. The scene of the Masked Ball represented the interior of the Opera House, the scenic auditorium being furthest from the footlights. In fact it was as though the audience sitting in the Lyceum auditorium saw the scene as though looking in a gigantic mirror placed in the auditorium arch. The scene was in reality a vast one and of great brilliance. The Opera House was draped with crimson silk, the boxes were practical and contained a whole audience, all being in perspective. The men and women in the boxes near to the footlights were real; those far back were children dressed like their elders. Promenading and dancing were hundreds of persons in striking costumes. It must be remembered that in those days there were no electric lights, and as there were literally thousands of lights in the scene it was a difficult one to fit. Thousands of feet of gas-piping—the joining hose being flexible— were used; and the whole resources of supply were brought into requisition. We had before that brought the use of gas-supply to the greatest perfection attainable. There were two sources of supply, each from a different main, and these were connected with a great “pass” pipe workable with great rapidity, so that if through any external accident one of the mains should be disabled we could turn the supply afforded by the other into all the pipes used throughout the house. This great scene came to an end by lowering the “cut” cloth which formed the background of Montgiron’s salon, the door leading into the supper-room being in the centre at back. Whilst the guests were engaged in their more or less rapid banquet, the Opera scene was being obliterated and the Forest of Fontainebleau was coming down from the rigging-loft, ascending from the cellar and being pushed on right and left from the wings. Montgiron’s salon was concealed by the descent of great tableau curtains. These remained down from thirty-five to forty _seconds_ and went up again on a forest as real as anything can be on the stage. Trees stood out separately over a large area, so that those entering from side or back could be seen passing behind or amongst them. All over the stage was a deep blanket of snow, white and glistening in the winter sunrise—snow that lay so thick that when the duellists, stripped and armed, stood face to face, they each secured a firmer foothold by kicking it away. Of many wonderful effects this snow was perhaps the strongest and most impressive of reality. The public could never imagine how it was done. It was _salt_, common coarse salt which was white in the appointed light, and glistened like real snow. There were tons of it. A crowd of men stood ready in the wings with little baggage-trucks such as are now used in the corridors of great hotels; silent with rubber wheels. On them were great wide-mouthed sacks full of salt. When the signal came they rushed in on all sides each to his appointed spot and tumbled out his load, spreading it evenly with great wide-bladed wooden shovels.

III

One night—it was October 18—the Prince of Wales came behind the scenes as he was interested in the working of the play. It was known he was coming, and though the stage hands had been told that they were not supposed to know that he was present they all had their Sunday clothes on. It was the first time his Royal Highness had been “behind” in Irving’s management; and he seemed very interested in all he saw. King Edward VII. has and has always had a wonderful memory. That night he told Irving how Charles Kean had set the scenes, the rights and lefts being different from the present setting; how Kean had rested on a log in a particular place; and so forth. Some of our older stage men who had been at the Princess’s in Kean’s time bore it out afterwards that he was correct in each detail.

That night the men worked as never before; they were determined to let the Prince see what could, under the stimulating influence of his presence, be done at the Lyceum, of which they were all very proud. That night the tableau curtains remained down only _thirty seconds_—the record time.

_The Corsican Brothers_ was produced on September 18, 1880, and ran for one hundred and ninety performances in that season, _The Cup_ being played along with it ninety-two times. The special reason for _The Corsican Brothers_ being played during that season was that Ellen Terry had long before promised to go on an autumn tour in 1880 with her husband, Charles Kelly. It was, therefore, necessary that a piece should be chosen which did not require her services, and there was no part suitable to her in _The Corsican Brothers_. This was the only time she had a tour except with Irving, until when during his illness in 1899 she went out by herself to play _Madame Sans-Gêne_ and certain other plays. When she returned to the Lyceum at the close of her tour _The Cup_ was added to the bill.

IV

In the course of the run of _The Corsican Brothers_ there were a good many incidents, interesting or amusing. Amongst the latter was one repeated nightly during the run of the piece. In the first scene, which is the house of the Dei Franchi in Corsica, opportunity had been taken of the peculiarity of the old Lyceum stage to make the entrance of Fabian dei Franchi—the one of the twins remaining at home—as effective as possible. The old stage of the Lyceum had a “scene-dock” at the back extending for some thirty feet beyond the squaring of the stage. As this opening was at the centre, the perspective could by its means be enlarged considerably. At the back of the Dei Franchi “interior” ran a vine-trellised way to a wicket-gate. As there was no side entrance to the scene-dock it was necessary, in order to reach the back, to go into the cellarage and ascend by a stepladder as generously sloped as the head-room would allow. But when the oncomer did make an appearance he was some seventy feet back from the footlights and in the very back centre of the stage, the most effective spot for making entry as it enabled the entire audience to see him a long way off and to emphasise his coming should they so desire. In that scene Irving wore a Corsican dress of light green velvet and was from the moment of his appearance a conspicuous object. When, therefore, he was seen to ascend the mountain slope and appear at the wicket the audience used to begin to applaud and cheer, so that his entrance was very effective.

But in the arrangement the fact had been lost sight of that another character entered the same way just before the time of his oncoming. This was Alfred Meynard, Louis’s friend from Paris, a somewhat insignificant part in the play. Somehow at rehearsal the appearance of the latter did not seem in any way to clash with that of Fabian, and be sure that the astute young actor who played Alfred did not call attention to it by giving himself any undue prominence. The result was that on the first night—and ever afterwards during the run—when Alfred Meynard appeared the audience, who expected Irving, burst into wild applause. The gentleman who played the visitor had not then achieved the distinction which later on became his and so there was no reason, as yet, why he should receive such an ovation. From the great stage talent and finesse which he afterwards displayed I am right sure that he saw at the time what others had missed—the extraordinary opportunity for a satisfactory entrance so dear to the heart of an actor. It was a very legitimate chance in his favour, and nightly he carried his honours well. That first night a play of his own, his second play, was produced as the _lever de rideau_. The young actor was A. W. Pinero, and the play was _Bygones_. Pinero’s first play, _Daisy’s Escape_, had been played at the Lyceum in 1879.

V

The Masked Ball was a scene which allowed of any amount of fun, and it was so vast that it was an added gain to have as many persons as possible in it. To this end we kept, during the run, a whole rack in the office full of dominoes, masks and slouched hats, so that any one who had nothing else to do could in an instant make a suitable appearance on the scene without being recognised. As the masculine dress of the time, the forties, was very much the same as now, a simple domino passed muster. I shall never forget my own appearance in the scene a few nights after the opening. We had amongst others engaged a whole group of clowns. There were eight of them, the best in England; the pantomime season being still far off, they could thus employ their enforced leisure—they were of course changed as their services were required elsewhere according to their previously made agreements. These men had a special dance of their own which was always a feature of the scene, and in addition they used to play what pranks they would, rushing about, making fun of others, climbing into boxes and then hauling others in, or dropping them out—such pranks and _intrigué_ funniments as give life to a scene of the kind. When I ventured amongst them they recognised me and made a ring round me, dancing like demons. Then they seized me and spun me round, and literally played ball with me, throwing me from one to the other backwards and forwards. Sometimes they would rush me right down to the footlights and then whirl me back again breathless. But all the time they never let me fall or gave me away. I could not but admire their physical power as well as their agility and dexterity in their own craft.

The second time I went on I rather avoided them and kept up at the back of the stage. But even here I was, from another cause of mirth, not safe. I was lurking at the back when Irving, his face as set as flint with the passion of the insult and the challenge in the play, came hurriedly up the stage on his way to R.U.E. (right upper entrance). When he saw me the passion and grimness of his face relaxed in an instant and his laughter came explosively, fortunately unnoticed by the audience as his back was towards them. I went after him and asked him what was wrong, for I couldn’t myself see anything of a mirthful nature.

“My dear fellow!” he said, “it was you!” Then in answer to my look he explained:

“Don’t you remember how we arranged when the scene was being elaborated that in order to increase the effect of size we were to dress the shorter extras and then boys and girls and then little children in similar clothes to the others and to keep in their own section. You were up amongst the small children and with your height”—I am six feet two in my stockings—“with that voluminous domino and that great black feathered hat and in the painted perspective you look fifty feet high!” And he laughed again uproariously.

VI