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.
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.
But however flat things fell in front, the sensation behind was undoubted. When the excitement had partially subsided, there was an energetic inquiry for the man who had let down the curtain, but it appeared that he had left without stopping even to put on his hat. This did not transpire at the time, however, and, for half an hour afterward, the manager was observed to be wandering about with a crowbar, apparently looking for some one.
The premature rise of curtains is attended with still more ludicrous results. On one occasion, I call to mind, the “rag” went up unexpectedly, and discovered the following scene:
The king of the country, sitting by the side of his dying son. He is drinking beer out of a bottle. His wig and beard lie beside him on the floor.—The dying son, touching herself up by the aid of a powder-puff and a hand-glass.—The chief priest of the country (myself) eating a Bath bun, while a friendly super buttons him up the back.
Another time I recollect was at a very small provincial theater. There was only one dressing-room in the whole place, and that the ladies had of course. We men had to dress on the stage itself. You can imagine the rest—the yell, the confusion; the wild stampede; the stage looking like the south bank of the Serpentine after 8 P. M.; the rapid descent of the curtain; the enthusiastic delight of the audience. It was the greatest success we had during our stay.
I have a strong opinion, however, that this latter catastrophe was not due so much to accident as to a certain mean villain among the company, whose name, in consideration of his family, I refrain from mentioning.
REMAINED in London with my first manager during the whole summer season, which lasted about nine months, and I think that, altogether, it was the happiest period of my stage career. The company was a thoroughly agreeable one. It was a genial, jovial company—a “Here you are, my boy; just in time for a pull” sort of company—a “Hail fellow well met” with everybody else sort of company. Among players, there are none of those caste distinctions such as put an insurmountable barrier between the man who sells coal by the ton and the man who sells it by the hundredweight. “The Profession” is a Republic. Lead and Utility walk about arm-in-arm, and the Star and the Singing Chambermaid drink out of the same pewter. We were all as friendly and sociable together as brothers and sisters—perhaps even more so—and the evening spent in those bare dressing-rooms was the pleasantest part of the day. There was never a dull moment, but always plenty of bustle and fun, plenty of anecdotes, plenty of good stories—ah, they could tell ‘em!—plenty of flirting, and talking, and joking, and laughing.
What jolly little suppers they were, too, brought in smoking hot from the cook-shop over the way, and in the middle of which we had to be constantly rushing off with our mouths full to rescue some unfortunate female who was always getting into trouble, or to murder an uncle; and how wide we had to open our lips, when eating, lest we should rub the carmine off! How delicious a quart of six ale was after a row with the police, or a struggle with the man who had carried off the girl! How enjoyable a smoke when you had to hide your pipe in your boot each time you heard a footstep, because smoking was strictly prohibited!
I was not so contented at first as I might have been. I expected about three pounds a week salary after giving my one month gratis, and I did not get it. My agreement, it may be remembered, stipulated that I should receive a “salary according to ability” at the end of that time, but the manager said he did not think there would ever be enough money in the house to pay me at that scale, and suggested nine shillings a week instead, generously giving me the option of either taking it or leaving it. I took it.
I took it because I saw plainly enough that if I didn’t I should get nothing, that he could find twenty other young fellows as good as I to come without any salary at all, and that the agreement was not worth the paper it was written on. I was wroth at the time, but, seeing that the nine shillings was soon raised to twelve, and afterward to fifteen and eighteen, I had really, taking things as they were, nothing to grumble at; and, when I came to know a little more about, professional salaries, and learnt what even the old hands were glad to get, I was very well satisfied.
The company was engaged at summer prices, which are a good deal less than winter ones, and these latter average something less than the wages of an industrious sweep. The public, who read of this actor receiving a hundred and twenty pounds a night, of that actress making eight hundred pounds a week, of a low comedian’s yearly income being somewhere about six thousand pounds, and of a London manager who has actually paid his rates and taxes (so he says), can scarcely have any idea of what existence at the bottom of the stage ladder is like. It is a long ladder, and there are very few who possess a personal experience of both ends. Those who do, however, must appreciate the contrast. Mr. Henry Irving, speaking somewhere of his early days, mentions his weekly salary, I think, as having been twenty-five shillings; and no doubt, at the time, he thought that very good, and can most likely remember when he got less. In the provinces, thirty shillings is a high figure for a good all-round “responsibles,” and for that amount he is expected to be equal to Othello or Sir Peter Teazle at a moment’s notice, and to find his own dress. A “lead” may get three pounds in the winter, and a young “utility” thinks himself very well off indeed on a guinea. Now and again, the latter will get twenty-two or three shillings, but this only leads him into habits of extravagance, and he suffers for it afterward. At the minor London theaters, there being no expenses connected with traveling, etc., the salaries are even less, and from eighteen shillings to two pounds are about the sums promised.
I do not believe I should ever have got even the salary I did, if it had not been for the extraordinary circumstance of a really successful season, so successful, indeed, that the fact could not be disguised, and, for the last three or four months—excess of good fortune having evidently turned the manager’s head—salaries were paid regularly and in full! This is not romancing, it is plain, sober truth. Such a thing may surprise my readers, especially those who know much about the stage, but it cannot surprise them one fiftieth part so much as it surprised us. It completely bewildered the majority of the company. To have anything more than five shillings paid to them at one time seemed to confuse them, and, on treasury days, they went away from the theater with a puzzled air of affluence and responsibility.
They had not been accustomed to receiving salaries in that way. What they had been used to was, say, two-and-sixpence one day, sixpence at the beginning of the next night, another twopence after the first act, and eightpence as they were going away.
“That makes one-and-four you’ve had to-night, and two-and-sixpence last night makes three-and-ten, mind.”
“Yes, but, hang it all, you know, there was four shillings owing from last week, and five-and-sixpence from the week before, that I’ve never had yet.”
“My dear boy, for Heaven’s sake don’t talk about last week and the week before. Do let’s keep to one week at a time. We can’t go back to the Flood.”
They had been accustomed to haggle and fight for every penny they got; to dodge and trick and bully for their money in a way that a sixty-percent. money-lender would rather lose principal and interest than resort to; to entreat and clamor for it like Italian beggar children; to hang about after the acting manager like hungry dogs after a cat’s-meat man; to come down to the theater early in the morning and wait all day for him; to watch outside his room by the hour together, so as to rush in the moment the door was opened, and stick there till he threw them, a shilling; to lie in wait at dark corners and spring out upon him as he passed; to run after him upstairs and downstairs; to sneak after him into public-house bars; or to drive him into a corner and threaten to punch his head unless he gave them another sixpence—this last expedient, of course, being possible only when the actor was big and the acting manager little. Fortunately acting managers mostly were little, otherwise the profession would have died of starvation.
If, as sometimes happened, they left the acting manager alone, and went for the lessee himself, the latter would always refer them to the former, assuming for himself a magnificent indifference about such trivial things as money matters; and he would even play out the farce to the length of sending for the acting manager, and begging that gentleman, as a personal favor to himself, to let Mr. So-and-So be paid without further delay, which the acting manager would gravely promise should be done.
If it had not filled one with shame for one’s profession, it would have been amusing to listen to some of the comedies nightly played behind the scenes.
“Look here,” says the ghost of Hamlet’s father, suddenly darting out of its dressing-room, and confronting the acting manager, who, thinking the coast was clear, has made a dash down the passage; “look here, if I don’t have something, I don’t go on.”
“My dear boy,” replies the acting manager, in a tone of suppressed exasperation mingled with assumed sympathy, and glancing furtively about for a chance of escape, “I really cannot. I have not got a penny. I will see you later on, when I shall have some money. I must go now. There’s somebody waiting for me in front.”
“I don’t care who is waiting for you in front. I’ve been waiting for you behind for two nights, and I mean to have some money.”
“How can I give you any money, when I haven’t got any!” This is the gist of what he says. The embellishments had better not be added here. Realism is an excellent thing in its way, but a Zola must draw the line somewhere.
After this, seeing that the actor looks determined, he begins to fumble in his pocket, and at last brings out half a crown, and presents it—without compliments.
“This won’t do for me,” says the other, first pocketing the money; “I can’t live for four days on half a crown.”
Then the acting manager, with a further string of needless comments, thrusts five shillings into his hand, and rushes past, for he hears a footstep on the stairs, and fears another onslaught.
It is one of the chief characteristics of both managers and acting managers that they never do have any money. If caught holding it open in their hands, they always, from mere force of habit, say they haven’t got any. A common answer to an appeal is: “I really haven’t got any money at all, my boy; how much do you want?”
The women, of course, could not bully for their money, but they showed a quiet, never-tiring persistence, more effective perhaps than all our storming. Certain it is that on the whole they were more successful than the men, and this might have been attributed to their sex’s irresistible wheedling powers, if one could possibly have imagined such a thing as an acting manager open to humanizing influences.
Nobody grumbled at this state of things. The pleasure and surprise of getting any money at all was so great that the trouble of getting it was forgotten. They were too used to being robbed of all their earnings to mind being defrauded of only a part. An absconding manager was so common a thing that he did not even excite remark. He was regarded as something in the ordinary way of business, and his victims only sighed, when he was gone, and proceeded to look out for somebody else to cheat them.
And such another was by no means difficult to find in my time: the roll of theatrical managers teemed with thieves. It seemed to me that whenever a man got kicked out of everything else, he engaged as big a blackguard as himself for his acting manager and started a show. It must have been a profitable game, that played by these swindling managers, and there was no risk of any kind attending it. Nobody ever thought of interfering with them. If, by any clumsy accident on their own part, they did get within the clutches of the law, no harm came to them. County Court judges appeared to regard their frauds as mere practical jokes, and the worst they had to fear was a playful admonition of the “Ah well, you mustn’t do it again, you know,” kind.
In the profession itself, they were received with respect, as men of decided talent in their way. Even the most notorious of them were treated with civility, and care was taken never to mention before them such subjects as dishonesty and knavery, for fear of hurting their feelings. When actors and actresses went from London to Aberdeen to join Mr. Smith’s company, and found on arriving that Mr. Smith was the same man who had already swindled them under half a dozen different names at half a dozen different times and places, what do you think they did? Shook hands cordially with the gentleman, made some pleasant observations about having met before, and hoped, in whispers among themselves, that he would not serve them the same this time! Of course, on the first Saturday night, while they were on the stage, he would run off with all the week’s takings, go to the next town, and advertise for another company under the name of Jones.
It was no light matter for a man—and worse still for a poor girl—to be left without a penny or a friend in a strange town hundreds of miles from home. The poor players helped each other as well as they could, but provincial Pros, are—or, at least were—not a wealthy class, and, after having paid their fares down, and kept themselves for a week or a fortnight, the most bloated capitalists among them rarely had more than a few shillings remaining in their pockets. Wardrobes had to be left as security with irate landladies, and, until they were redeemed or replaced, no other engagement was possible. Friends, poor enough themselves, goodness knows, had to be begged of. Every kind of valuable, even the wedding ring, had to be pawned, and the return home was made with troubled faces and empty hands.
The misery caused by these scoundrels makes one’s blood boil to think of. I have known men and women forced to tramp home again half across the kingdom, seeking shelter in casual wards when the nights were too cold or wet to sleep under a haystack. I have known actors and actresses obliged to sell the clothes off their backs in order to get fresh stage wardrobes. I have known whole families, after having scraped together every penny they could get, so as to be able to join one of these companies, come back again a few days afterward, utterly destitute, and compelled to sell the few sticks of furniture they had about the place before making another start. I knew one poor fellow, left penniless in Glasgow, with a delicate young wife near her confinement, and they had to come back to London by boat—steerage passage—for, after pledging everything, that was all they had money enough for. It was fearful weather in the middle of January, and the vessel tossed about in the Channel for over a week, landing them just in time for the woman to die at home.
Some managers saved themselves the trouble of running away, and attempted to throw an air of respectability over the proceeding, by paying their company about one-and-sixpence apiece on treasury day, stating that they were very sorry, but that the thing had been a failure; that the houses had been all paper, the expenses unusually heavy, or any other of the stock lies always on hand. And he would think to comfort them by telling them that he himself had lost money, as though that were an unanswerable reason for their losing all theirs!
As to these men losing money of their own, that was impossible. They had not any to lose. Whatever they lost was somebody else’s; of that you may be sure. They were men without any capital whatever, and they made use of actors merely as cat’s paws in a speculation where all the risks were with the company, and all the advantages with themselves.
The “share” system was worse even than this. It meant, in plain language, that, if the undertaking failed, the actors shared the losses amongst them, and, if it succeeded, the manager pocketed the profits.
As a matter of fact, actors were then the least considered, and the most imposed upon of any people connected with the stage. If, at that time, one of my friends had started as a theatrical manager, I might, with a view of saving him unnecessary expense, have given him the following hints:
“You must pay your bill-poster, or he won’t stick up your bills, or, if he does, it will be topsyturvy. Pay for your advertisements, or they won’t get inserted. Pay your carpenters and sceneshifters, or they’ll make it decidedly uncomfortable for you. Pay your money-takers or they’ll pay themselves; your gas, or it will be cut off; your rent, or you will be turned into the street. Be careful to pay the supers, too, or you’ll find when it is time for them to go on that they’ve all gone off. For goodness sake, don’t keep your charwoman waiting for her wages; you’ll not have five minutes’ quiet until she is satisfied. And if you don’t wish to find yourself in the County Court on Monday morning, pay your call boy on Saturday night. You must pay these people. It is not a case of choice, there is simply no help for you; if you don’t you’ll have to shut up shop in a couple of days. But you needn’t pay any one else. If you have a few shillings left that you really don’t know what to do with, you might divide it among the actors and actresses; but you can please yourself entirely about this. They work just the same whether they are paid or not.
“Your author, by the by, is another person you never need pay. Indeed, in his case, it would be positively dangerous to do so. There is no telling what effect such a shock might have upon him.
“Your company will, it is true, pester you a good deal for their money, and grumble and threaten, but it never comes to anything, and, after a while, you get used to it, and don’t mind.”
As to actors and actresses taking any actual measures for their own protection, the idea never occurred to them in their wildest dreams. If you suggested such a thing to them, it took their breath away, and you were looked upon as a young man with dangerous revolutionary tendencies that would some day get you into trouble. It was useless for one man to attempt to do anything by himself. I remember an actor summoning a manager who had cheated him out of seven pounds, and, after spending about ten pounds in costs, he got an order for payment by monthly instalments of ten shillings, not one of which, of course, he ever saw. After that, it was next to impossible for him to get a shop (this expression is not slang, it is a bit of local color). No manager who had heard of the affair would engage him.
“A pretty pass the stage will come to,” said they, “if this sort of thing is to become common.”
And the newspapers observed, it was a pity that he (the actor) should wash his dirty linen in public.
I have been careful to use the past tense all through these remarks. Some of them would apply very well to the present time, but on the whole, things have improved since I was on the stage. I am glad of it.
UR season at the London theater came to a close early in December, and, about the end of November, we all be gan to take a great interest in the last page but one of “The Actor’s Bible.” Being just before Christmas, which is the busiest period of the theatrical year, there was no difficulty in getting another shop, for “Useful people,” “Clever people,” “Talented people,” “Knockabout people,” “First-class High Kickers,” and “Entire Dramatic Companies,” were wanted here, there, and everywhere. I only answered one advertisement, and was engaged at once; but this, no doubt, was owing to my having taken the precaution, when applying, of enclosing my photograph.
I was to join the company a week before Christmas, at a town in the west of England, where we were to open with pantomine. I was to give the first week for rehearsals at half salary, afterward receiving a guinea a week for “responsibles,” traveling expenses, when we went on tour, being paid by the management.
And here let me say that a more honorable and courteous gentleman than the manager of this company I never met. We did not even have to ask for our money; we were paid regularly, and to the last farthing, no matter whether business was good or bad. In short, he was an honest man, and as such held a conspicuous position among the theatrical managers of that day.
Previous to leaving London, I got together a small wardrobe. I already had a stock of boots and shoes, and tights, but these were only a few of the things required, and I found it rather an expensive matter before I had done. Varying in price from seven shillings to two pounds, wigs cost the most of anything, and I had to buy seven or eight of these—a “white Court,” a “brown George,” a “flowing ringlets,” a “scratch” (why called scratch I haven’t the faintest notion), a “comic oldman,” a “bald,” and a “flow” for everything that one was not quite sure about.
I picked up a good many odds and ends of costume in Petticoat Lane one Sunday morning. It is a famous place for theatrical wardrobes. I got a complete sailor’s suit for five shillings, and a suit of livery for sixteen. Old-fashioned swallowtails and embroidered waistcoats, knee breeches, blouses, pants, hats, cloaks, and swords were also to be had there in plenty, and at very small cost. My sisters made me some more things (they had become reconciled to my “mad trick” by this time, and had even got to rather like the idea of having an actor in the family), and for the rest I had to go to a regular costumier’s. All these articles, together with a pretty complete modern wardrobe, a bundle of acting editions and other books, a “make-up” box, a dressing-case, writing-case, etc., etc., made a pretty big pile, and, as this pile would be increased rather than diminished as time went on, I determined to get one big traveling basket to hold everything, and have done with it.
I did get a big one. I’ve got it now. It’s downstairs in the washhouse. I’ve never been able to get rid of it from that day to this. I’ve tried leaving it behind when removing into new lodgings, but it has always been sent on after me, generally in a wagon with a couple of men, who, evidently imagining they were restoring me a treasured heirloom, have been disappointed at my complete absence of enthusiasm. I have lured stray boys into the house, and offered them half a crown to take it away and lose it, but they have become frightened, and gone home and told their mothers, and, after that, it has got about in the neighborhood that I have committed a murder. It isn’t the sort of thing you can take out with you on a dark night, and drop down somebody else’s area.
When I used it, I had to do all my packing in the hall, for it was impossible to get the thing up and down stairs. It always stood just behind the front door, which left about six inches of space for people to squeeze past, and every one that came in got more or less injured. The owner of the house, returning home late at night, would pitch head foremost over it, and begin yelling murder and police, under the impression it was burglars. The girl, coming in with the beer, would bang up against it, and upset the jug over it, when the whole contents would become saturated, and smell like a public-house.
The language used in connection with that basket was simply appalling. It roused railway porters and cabmen to madness, and the savage way in which they rushed upon it used to make my blood run cold. Landladies, who upon my first call had welcomed me with effusion, grew cool and distant when the basket arrived. Nobody had a good word for it. Everywhere, it was hated and despised. I even feared that some day its victims would rise up and sweep it from the face of the earth. But no, it has survived both curses and kicks, and feeling it is hopeless ever to expect to get rid of it, I have made up my mind to be buried in it.
Faithful old basket! it is a good many years since you and I started on our travels that snowy seventeenth of December, and what a row we had with the cabman, ah me! But why did you desert me at Bristol? Why did you———
But stay, wherefore should I go on apostrophizing the miserable old thing in this imbecile manner, And now I come to think of it, why too should I sit here sucking the end of my pen and scowling savagely at the lamp, in the agonies of composition, when “copy,” which one of Field & Tuer’s devils is plaguing me for (I do wish they’d send a boy who couldn’t whistle), is lying ready to my hand?
Before me, borrowed for reference in penning these reminiscences, is a pile of letters, written during my travels to my old pal, Jim. Here’s one:
“Dear Jim:
“We (the basket and I) had a terribly cold journey down. Lost the basket at Bristol and had to telegraph after it. That basket will be the death of me, I know. There is one advantage, though; it stamps you as an actor at once, and the porters don’t expect any gratuities. Got jolly lodgings here. Nice, big bedroom, use of sitting-room, full attendance, and cooking for four bob a week. Pleasant, homely people, everything as clean as a new pin, and daughter rather pretty.
“I should have written before, but we have been so busy. Two and sometimes three rehearsals a day, to say nothing of painting the scenery, at which we all assisted. We had a crowded house for the opening on Boxing night, and have had very fair ones ever since—all over fifteen pounds.
“Sergeant Parry was in the stalls the other night, and a big London actor, whose name I forget just now. We (I say ‘we’ because we all help in everything—two of us went out early a morning or two ago bill-posting: we’ve got a regular billposter, but it’s his week for being drunk)—we, then, had a good deal of trouble training the supers and ballet. You should hear the supers dance: you can do so easily a mile off. They shake the whole building. Both they and the ballet are drawn from the fishing population of the town, and this is their first appearance on any stage. The ballet consists of eight at present, but that is only for the first go off, we shall reduce it to six in a little while. We have also got about a dozen children to do a May-pole dance. It’s a treat to see them. They are paid threepence a night, but they get three shillings’ worth of enjoyment out of it for themselves. There is one little girl with the face of an angel—I honestly confess I’ve never seen an angel’s face, and don’t suppose I ever shall till I die, but I think it is that sort of face. She is dressed by seven every evening, and, from then, till she goes on the stage at ten, she is dancing and singing on her own account all over the place. When the May-pole is at last set up, she stands and gazes at it open-mouthed, and laughs to herself with glee. In her excitement, she always dances round the wrong way, and with the wrong boy—but it’s always the same wrong boy, that is what makes it extraordinary. Happy wrong boy, only he doesn’t know he’s happy; he is so small. After the dance, the little boys kiss the little girls. You ought to see this little fairy turn aside and giggle, and push her little lover away. The boys are awfully shy over the business, but the little girls don’t seem a bit afraid. Such is the superiority of woman over man?
“The pantomime dresses all come from London, and are quite handsome and costly. The piece is Whittington and his Cat, written by the stage manager here, but it is nearly all songs and dances, and what little is spoken is more gag than book. I’ve two songs in one of my parts, and one in the other. I suppose singing is easy enough when you are used to it. It is the orchestra that puts me out, though. I should feel much freer without the music. We give them plenty of topical allusions on burning local questions, being careful, of course, to follow Mr. Pickwick’s advice, and ‘shout with the crowd.’ It fetches them immensely. The enthusiasm created nightly by a reference to the new lamp-post in the High Street is tremendous.
“Our low comedian is teaching me dancing, and I practice for about an hour a day. It’s terribly hard work, but I can nearly do a hornpipe already. I want to do that: there is nothing knocks a country audience like a hornpipe.
“The stage manager is a surly fellow, of course: but the manager himself is a brick, and treats us—the actors—with as much respect as if we were stage carpenters; and money is safe. Our leading man has never turned up, so his part has been cut out, and this has not improved the plot. I play a lazy clerk in the opening (it’s like going back to the old Civil Service days), and also prime minister of Tittattoo; having only three minutes for change. I get some legitimate fun out of the prime minister, but the clerk does not require artistic acting. I pretend to go to sleep, and then the clown, who plays another clerk catches me over the head with a clapper, and then I wake up and catch him over the head with the clapper, and then he rushes at me and hits me, and I take the nap from him, and then he takes a nap from me (it wakes you up, this sort of nap, I tell you), after which, we both have a grand struggle with the cat. I fell on my head the other night (lucky it wasn’t any other part of me), and broke a chair in the course of this struggle. I got an encore for that, but didn’t take it. I suppose you might call this knockabout business. I’m glad there are none of my friends here to see me. Acting isn’t all making love in tights, and fighting with a real sword.
“We play a drama before the Panto, on Saturday next. Fancy me as the heavy father, blessing the stage manager and the leading lady, whose united ages amount to about eighty. That is what I am going to do.
“We all dined with the manager on Christmas Day at his hotel, and had a very pleasant evening, keeping it up till four. We are each of us to have a ‘ben.’ before leaving here. I was rather pleased at this when I heard it, but the others displayed no rapture. Our walking gent, told me he never lost less than thirty shillings at his benefits. I don’t think I shall take one. You pay all expenses, and have half the receipts. The attraction about it to my mind, though, is that you can put up what you like, and choose your own parts. I should like to have a try at Romeo.
“I have tasted fame and don’t like it. I have been recognized in the street, and followed by a small crowd of children. They evidently expected me to stop at some corner and sing.
“The men’s dressing-room at the theater is up in the flies, and the only means of communication with it is by a ladder. This got removed the other night, so that our low comedian couldn’t get down. We didn’t know this, however, so the Lord Chamberlain went on and said, ‘Behold your Prince approaches,’ and of course he didn’t come. So the Lord Chamberlain said it again, and the house began to laugh; and then an excited voice from above cried out, ‘Shut up, you fool. Where’s the ladder?’
“Must ‘shut up’ myself now, for it’s half-past seven, and I’m on at eight. I’m very comfortable down here. Write soon, old chap, and give us all the news. Have you seen dear little ————?”
Oh! the rest has nothing to do with theatrical matters.