Complete Works of Bram Stoker (641 page)

This was the audience that he had won  —  had made; and I myself, as a neophyte, was in full sympathy with them. With such an audience an artist can go far, and in such circumstances there seems nothing that is not possible on the hither side of life and health. The physicists tell us that it is a law of nature that there must be two forces to make impact; that the anvil has to do its work as well as the hammer. And it is a distinguishing difference between scientific and other laws that the former has no exceptions.

So it is in the world of the theatre. Without an audience in sympathy no actor can do his best. Nay more, he should have the assurance of approval, or else sustained effort at high pitch becomes impossible. Some people often think, and sometimes say, that an actor’s love of applause is due to a craving vanity. This may be in part true; and may even be wholly true in many cases; but those who know the stage and its needs and difficulties, its helps and thwarting checks, learn to dread a too prolonged stillness. The want of echoing sympathy embarrasses the player. For my own part, having lived largely amongst actors for a quarter of a century; having learned to understand their motives, to sympathise with their aims, and to recognise their difficulties, I can understand the basic wisdom of George Frederick Cook when on the Liverpool stage he stopped in the middle of a tragic part and coming down to the footlights said to the audience:

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you don’t applaud I can’t act!”

It was from Irving I heard the story; and he certainly understood and felt with that actor of the old days. If the members of any audience understood how much better value they would get for their money  —  to put the matter on its lowest basis  —  when they show appreciation of the actor’s efforts, they would certainly now and again signify the fullest recognition of his endeavour.

This “ Lyceum audience,” whose qualities endeared them to me from that first night, December 3o, 1878, became a quantity to be counted on for twenty-four years of my own experience. Nay more, for when the Lyceum came as a theatre to an end, the audience followed Irving to Drury Lane. They or their successors in title were present on that last night of his season, June 10, 1905, that memorable night when he said farewell, not knowing that it would be the last time he should ever appear in London as a player.

III

The production with which the season of 1878-9 opened was almost entirely new. When Irving took over the Lyceum the agreement between him and Mrs. Bateman entitled him to the use of certain plays and materiel necessary for their representation. But he never contented himself with the scenery, properties or dresses originally used. The taste of the public had so improved and their education so progressed, chiefly under his own influence, that the perfection of the seventies would not do for later days. For Hamlet new scenery had been painted by Hawes Craven, and of all the dresses and properties used few if any had been seen before. What we had seen in the provinces was the old production. I remember being much struck by the care in doing things, especially with reference to the action. It was the first time that I had had the privilege of seeing a play “ produced.” I had already seen rehearsals, but these except of pantomime had generally been to keep the actors, supers and working staff up to the mark of excellence already arrived at. But now I began to understand why everything was as it was. With regard to stagecraft it was a liberal education. Often and often in the years since then, when I have noticed the thoughtless or careless way in which things were often done on other stages, I have wondered how it was that the younger generation of men had not taken example and reasoned out at least the requirements of those matters incidental to their own playing. Let me give an example:

“In the last act, the cup from which Gertrude drinks the poison is an important item inasmuch as it might have a disturbing influence. In one of the final rehearsals, when grasped by Hamlet in a phrenzy of anxiety lest Horatio should drink: ‘ Give me the cup; let go; by heaven, I’ll have it! ‘ the cup, flung down desperately rolled away for some distance and then following the shape of the stage rolled down to the footlights. There is a sort of fascination in the uncertain movement of an inanimate object and such an occurrence during the play would infallibly distract the attention of the audience. Irving at once ordered that the massive metal goblet used should have some bosses fixed below the rim so that it could not roll. At a previous rehearsal he had ordered that as the wine from the cup splashed the stage, coloured sawdust should be used  —  which it did to exactly the same artistic effect.

In another matter of this scene his natural kindness made a sweet little episode which he never afterwards omitted. When he said to the pretty little cup-bearer who offered him the poisoned goblet: “ Set it by awhile! “ he smiled at the child and passed his hand caressingly over the golden hair.

Certain other parts of his Hamlet were unforget- table. His whirlwind of passion at the close of the play scene which, night after night, stirred the whole audience to frenzied cheers. The extraordinary way in which by speech and tone, action and time, he conveyed to his auditory the sense of complex and entangled thought and motive in his wild scene with Ophelia. His wonderment at the announcement of Horatio:

“I think I saw him yester-night.” Hamlet. “ Saw who?”

Horatio. “My Lord, the King your Father.” Hamlet. “The King  —  my father? “ And the wonderful way in which he conveyed his sense of difference of the subjective origin of the ghost at its second appearance at which Shakespeare hinted, following out Belleforest’s remark on the novel: “ in those days, the northe parts of the worlde, living as then under Sathans lawes, were full of inchanters, so that there was not any young gentleman whatsoever that knew not something therein sufficient to serve his turne, if need required.... Hamlet, while his father lived, had been instructed in that devilish art, whereby the wicked spirite abuseth mankind, and advertiseth him (as he can) of things past.”

Of things past! Hamlet could know of things that had been though he could not read the future. This it was which was the essence of his patient acquiescence in the ways of time  —  half pagan fatalism, half Christian belief, as shown in that pearl amongst philosophic phrases:

“If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all.”

IV

Hamlet was played ninety-eight nights on that first season. Four of them hang in my mind for very different reasons. The first was that wonderful opening night when the great audience all aflame with generous welcome and exalted by ready sympathy lifted us to unwonted heights.

The second was on January 18, the eighteenth night of Hamlet. The Chinese Ambassador, the Marquis Tseng, came to see the play and with him came Sir Halliday Macartney.

After the third act the Ambassador and Sir Haliday Macartney came to see Irving in his dressing-room, where they stayed some time talk’rig. It was interesting to note  —  Sir Halliday translated his remarks verbally  —  how accurately the Ambassador followed the play, which he had not read nor heard of. Where he failed was only on some small points of racial or theological difference. He seemed to be absolutely correct on the human side.

Presently we all went down on the stage whilst Ellen Terry as Ophelia was in the midst of her mad scene. Irving and Sir Halliday and I were talking and, in the interest of the conversation, we all temporarily overlooked the Ambassador. Presently I looked round instinctively and was horrified to see that he had moved in on the stage and was then close to the edge of the arch at the back of the scene where Ophelia had made her entrance and would make her exit. He was in magnificent robes of Mandarin yellow and wore such adornments as are possible to a great official who holds the high grade and honour of the Peacock’s Feather. I jumped for him and just succeeded in catching him before he had passed into the blaze of the limelight. I could fancy the sudden amazement of the audience and the wild roar of laughter that would follow when in the midst of this most sad and pathetic of scenes would enter unheralded this gorgeous anachronism. Under ordinary circumstances I think I should have allowed the contretemps to occur. Its unique grotesqueness would have ensured a widespread publicity not to be acquired by ordinary forms of advertisement. But there was greater force to the contrary. The play was not yet three weeks old in its run; it was a tragedy and the holy of holies to my actor-chief to whom full measure of loyalty was due; and beyond all it was Ellen Terry who would suffer.

V

The third was a very sad occasion, but one which showed that the manager of a theatre must have “nerve “ to do the work entailed by his high responsibility. He remained in the wings 0.P. (“ Opposite Prompt “ in stage parlance) after scene ii of Act 1. The following scene (iii), is a front scene ready for the change to the “front scene “ where Polonius gives good advice to his children Laertes and Ophelia. After the few words between the brother and sister on the cue of Laertes: “ here my father comes,” Polonius enters speaking quickly as one in surprise: “ Yet here Laertes Aboard, aboard, for shame!”

Irving instinctively turned on hearing the intonation of the voice, and after one lightning glance signed to the prompter to drop the act-drop, which was done instantly. I was standing beside him at the time talking to him and was struck by the marvellous rapidity of thought and action; of the decision which seemed almost automatic. Then the curtain having been drawn back sufficiently to let him pass he stepped to the footlights and said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to have to tell you that something has happened which I should not like to tell you; and will ask you to bear in patience a minute. We shall, with your permission, go on from the beginning with the third scene of Act 1.” He stepped back amid instantaneous and sympathetic applause. Perhaps some knew; some few must have seen for themselves what had occurred, and many undoubtedly guessed. But all recognised the mastery and decision which had saved a very painful and difficult situation. The curtain straightened behind him as he passed in on the stage.

In an incredibly short time all was ready, for stage workmen as well as actors are adepts at their trade. Within seven or eight minutes the curtain went up afresh and the play began anew  —  with a different Polonius.

That night a call went up for the whole company and employees  —  ” Everybody concerned on the stage “ at noon the next day.

It was a grave and solemn gathering; and all were there except one who had received a kindly intimation that he need not attend. Irving came on the stage from the office on the stroke of the hour. Loveday and I were with him. He stood in front of the footlights with his back to the auditorium. He spoke for a few minutes only; but that speech must have sunk deeply into the hearts of every listener. He reminded them of the loyalty which is due from craftsmen to one another. Of the loyalty which is due to a manager who has to think for all. And finally of the loyalty which is due  —  and was on the unhappy occasion to which he referred  —  due to their own comrade. “ By that want of loyalty,” he said, “ in any of the forms, you have helped to ruin your comrade. Some of you must have noticed; at least those who dressed in the room with him or saw him in the Green Room. Had I been told  —  had the stage manager had a single hint from any one, we could, and would, have saved him. The lesson would perhaps have been to him a bitter one, but it would have saved him from worse disaster. As it is, no other course was open to me to save him from public shame. As it is, the disaster of last night may injure him for life. And it is you who have done this. Now, my dear friends and comrades, let this be a lesson to us all. We must be loyal to each other. That is to be helpful, and it is to the honour of our art and our calling!”

There he stopped and turned away. No one said a word. For a short space they stood still and then melted slowly away in silence like the multitude of a dream.

VI

The fourth occasion was on the night of March 27 when Irving, having been taken with a serious cold, was unable to play  —  the first time he had been out of the bill for seven years! The note in my diary runs:

“Stage very dismal. Ellen Terry met me in the passage and began to cry! I felt very like joining her!”

I instance this as a fair illustration of how Irving was loved by all with whom he came in personal contact. _

CHAPTER IX

SHAKESPEARE PLAYS  —  I

“The Merchant ofVenice”  —  Preparation  —  The Red Handkerchief  —  Booth and Irving  —  ” Othello”  —  A Dinner at Hampton Court  —    —  The Hat

I

IRVING did not think of playing The Merchant of Venice until he had been to the Levant. The season of 1879-8o had been arranged before the end of the previous season. We were to commence with The Iron Chest; Irving had considerable faith in Colman’s play and intended to give it a run. It was to be followed in due course, as announced in his farewell speech at the end of the second season, by The Gamester, The Stranger, Coriolanus, and Robert Emmett, a new play by Frank Marshall. It was rather a surprise, therefore, when on October 8 before the piece had run two weeks, he broached the subject of a new production. It had been apparent to us since his return from a yachting-trip in the Mediterranean that he was not so much in love with the play as he usually was with anything which he had immediately in hand. Even if a play did not seem to fill him, I never saw him show the slightest sign of indifference to it in any other case.

On that particular evening he asked Loireday and me if we could stay and have a chop in the Beefsteak Room. He was evidently full of something of importance; it seemed a relief to him when supper was finished and the servant who waited had gone. When we had lit our cigars he said quietly: