A Book Of The Play Part 11

But the Marcellus of this special occasion was mute. "Longer, longer,"

whispered the prompter. Then out spoke Marcellus, to the consternation of his a.s.sociates: "Well, say two hundred!" So prosaic a Marcellus is only to be matched by that literal Guildenstern who, when besought by Hamlet to "Play upon this pipe," was so moved by the urgent manner of the tragedian, that he actually made the attempt, seizing the instrument, and evoking from it most eccentric sounds.

It is curious how many of the incidents and details of representation escape the notice of the audience. And here we are referring less to merits than to mischances. Good acting may not always obtain due recognition; but then how often bad acting and accidental deficiencies remain undetected! "We were all terribly out, but the audience did not see it," actors will often candidly admit. Although we in front sometimes see and hear things we should not, some peculiarity of our position blinds and deafens us too much. Our eyes are beguiled into accepting age for youth, shabbiness for finery, tinsel for splendour.

Garrick frankly owned that he had once appeared upon the stage so inebriated as to be scarcely able to articulate, but "his friends endeavoured to stifle or cover this trespa.s.s with loud applause," and the majority of the audience did not perceive that anything extraordinary was the matter. What happened to Garrick on that occasion has happened to others of his profession. And our ears do not catch much of what is uttered on the stage. Young, the actor, used to relate that on one occasion, when playing the hero of "The Gamester"

to the Mrs. Beverley of Sarah Siddons, he was so overcome by the pa.s.sion of her acting as to be quite unable to proceed with his part.

There was a long pause, during which the prompter several times repeated the words which Beverley should speak. Then "Mrs. Siddons coming up to her fellow-actor, put the tips of her fingers upon his shoulders, and said, in a low voice, 'Mr. Young, recollect yourself.'"

Yet probably from the front of the house nothing was seen or heard of this. In the same way the players will sometimes prompt each other through whole scenes, interchange remarks as to necessary adjustments of dress, or instructions as to "business" to be gone through, without exciting the attention of the audience. Kean's pathetic whisper, "I am dying, speak to them for me," when, playing for the last time, he sank into the arms of his son, was probably not heard across the orchestra.

Mrs. f.a.n.n.y Kemble, in her "Journal" of her Tour in America, gives an amusing account of a performance of the last scene of "Romeo and Juliet," not as it seemed to the spectators, but as it really was, with the whispered communications of the actors. Romeo, at the words "Quick, let me s.n.a.t.c.h thee to thy Romeo's arms," pounced upon his playfellow, plucked her up in his arms "like an uncomfortable bundle,"

and staggered down the stage with her. Juliet whispers; "Oh, you've got me up horridly! That'll never do; let me down! Pray let me down!"

But Romeo proceeds, from the acting version of the play, be it understood:

There, breathe a vital spirit on thy lips, And call thee back, my soul, to life and love!

Juliet continues to whisper: "Pray put me down; you'll certainly throw me down if you don't set me on the ground directly." "In the midst of 'cruel, cursed fate,' his dagger fell out of his dress. I, embracing him tenderly, crammed it back again, because I knew I should want it at the end." The performance thus went on:

ROMEO. Tear not my heart-strings thus!

They break! they crack! Juliet! Juliet!

[_Dies._

JULIET (_to corpse_). Am I smothering you?

CORPSE. Not at all. But could you, do you think, be so kind as to put my wig on again for me? It has fallen off.

JULIET (_to corpse_). I'm afraid I can't, but I'll throw my muslin veil over it. You've broken the phial, haven't you? (_Corpse nodded_).

JULIET (_to corpse_). Where's your dagger?

CORPSE (_to Juliet_). 'Pon my soul I don't know.

The same vivacious writer supplies a corresponding account of the representation of "Venice Preserved," in which, of course, she appeared as Belvidera. "When I went on, I was near tumbling down at the sight of my Jaffier, who looked like the apothecary in 'Romeo and Juliet,' with the addition of some devilish red slashes along his thighs and arms. The first scene pa.s.sed off well, but, oh! the next, and the next to that! Whenever he was not glued to my side (and that was seldom), he stood three yards behind me; he did nothing but seize my hand and grapple it so hard that, unless I had knocked him down (which I felt much inclined to try), I could not disengage myself. In the senate scene, when I was entreating for mercy, and struggling, as Otway has it, for my life, he was prancing round the stage in every direction, flouris.h.i.+ng his dagger in the air. I wish to heaven I had got up and run away: it would have been natural, and have served him extremely right. In the parting scene--oh, what a scene it was!--instead of going away from me when he said, 'Farewell for ever!'

he stuck to my skirts, though in the same breath that I adjured him, in the words of my part, not to leave me, I added, aside, 'Get away from me, oh do!' When I exclaimed, 'Not one kiss at parting!' he kept embracing and kissing me like mad, and when I ought to have been pursuing him, and calling after him, 'Leave thy dagger with me!' he hung himself up against the wing, and remained dangling there for five minutes. I was half crazy. I prompted him constantly, and once, after struggling in vain to free myself from him, was obliged, in the middle of my part, to exclaim, 'You hurt me dreadfully, Mr. ----.' He clung to me, cramped me, crumpled me--dreadful! I never experienced anything like this before, and made up my mind that I never would again."

Yet the ludicrous imperfections of this performance pa.s.sed unnoticed by the audience. The applause seems to have been unbounded, and the Jaffier of the night was even honoured by a special call before the curtain!

There is hardly necessity for further record of the curiosities of stage whispers; but here is a story of a _sotto voce_ communication which must have gravely troubled its recipient. A famous Lady Macbeth, "starring" in America, had been accidentally detained on her journey to a remote theatre. She arrived in time only to change her dress rapidly and hurry on the scene. The performers were all strangers to her. At the conclusion of her first soliloquy, a messenger should enter to announce the coming of King Duncan. But what was her amazement to hear, in answer to her demand, "What is your tidings?"

not the usual reply, "The king comes here to-night," but the whisper, spoken from behind a Scotch bonnet, upheld to prevent the words reaching the ears of the audience, "Hus.h.!.+ I'm Macbeth. We've cut the messenger out--go on, please!"

Another disconcerted performer must have been the provincial Richard III., to whom the Ratcliffe of the theatre--who ordinarily played harlequin, and could not enter without something of that tripping and twirling gait peculiar to pantomime--brought the information, long before it was due, that "the Duke of Buckingham is taken!" "Not yet, you fool," whispered Richard. "Beg pardon; thought he was," cried Harlequin Ratcliffe, as, carried away by his feelings or the force of habit, he threw what tumblers call "a Catherine wheel," and made a rapid exit.

We conclude with noting a stage whisper of an old-established and yet most mysterious kind. In a book of recent date dealing with theatrical life, we read that the words "John Orderly" uttered by the proprietor of a strolling theatre, behind the scenes, or in the wings of his establishment, const.i.tute a hint to the players to curtail the performances and allow the curtain to fall as soon as may be. Who was "John Orderly," and how comes his name to be thus used as a watchword?

The Life of Edwin the actor, written by (to quote Macaulay) "that filthy and malignant baboon, John Williams, who called himself Anthony Pasquin," and published late in the last century, contains the following pa.s.sage: "When theatric performers intend to abridge an act or play, they are accustomed to say, we will 'John Audley' it. It originated thus: In the year 1749, Shuter was master of a booth at Bartholomew Fair in West Smithfield, and it was his mode to lengthen the exhibition until a sufficient number of persons were gathered at the door to fill the house. This event was signified by a fellow popping his head in at the gallery door and bellowing out 'John Audley!' as if in the act of inquiry, though the intention was to let Shuter know that a fresh audience were in high expectation below. The consequence of this notification was that the entertainments were instantly concluded, and the gates of the booth thrown open for a new auditory." That "John Audley" should be in time corrupted into "John Orderly," is intelligible enough. We don't look to the showman or the strolling manager for nicety or correctness of p.r.o.nunciation. But whether such a person as John Audley ever existed, who he was, and what he did, that his name should be handed down in this way, from generation to generation, we are still left inquiring.

CHAPTER XVIII.

STAGE GHOSTS.

The ghost, as a vehicle of terror, a solvent of dramatic difficulties, and a source of pleasurable excitement to theatrical audiences, seems to have become quite an extinct creature. As Bob Acres said of "d.a.m.ns," ghosts "have had their day;" or perhaps it would be more correct to say, their night. It may be some consolation to them, however, in their present fallen state, to reflect that they were at one time in the enjoyment of an almost boundless prosperity and popularity. For long years they were accounted among the most precious possessions of the stage. Addison writes in "The Spectator": "Among the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets, to fill the minds of the audience with terror, the first place is due to thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending of a G.o.d, at the vanis.h.i.+ng of a devil, or at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into several tragedies with good effect, and have seen the whole a.s.sembly in very great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost, especially when he appears in a b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt. A spectre has very often saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked solemnly across the stage, or rose through a cleft in it and sunk again without speaking one word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors, and when they only come in as aids and a.s.sistances to the poet, they are not only to be excused but to be applauded."

The reader may be reminded that Shakespeare has evinced a very decided partiality for ghosts. In "The Second Part of King Henry VI.,"

Bolingbroke, the conjurer, raises up a spirit. In "Julius Caesar,"

Brutus is visited in his tent by the ghost of the murdered Caesar. In "Hamlet," we have, of course, the ghost of the late king. In "Macbeth"

the ghost of Banquo takes his seat at the banquet, and in the caldron scene we are shown apparitions of "an armed head," "a b.l.o.o.d.y child,"

"a child crowned, with a tree in his hand," and "eight kings" who pa.s.s across the stage, "the last with a gla.s.s in his hand." In "Richard III." quite a large army of ghosts present and address themselves alternately to Richard and to Richmond. The ghosts of Prince Edward, Henry VI., Clarence, Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan, Hastings, the two young Princes, Queen Anne, and Buckingham invoke curses upon the tyrant and blessings upon his opponent. It would be hard to find in the annals of the drama another instance of such an a.s.sembly of apparitions present upon the stage at the same time.

In Otway's tragedy of "Venice Preserved," the ghosts of Jaffier and Pierre, which confronted the distracted Belvidera in the last scene, were for a long time very popular apparitions, although in later performances of the play it was thought proper to omit them, and to allow the audience to imagine their presence, or to conclude that Belvidera only fancied that she saw them. Here, however, is the extract from the original play:

BELVIDERA. Ha! look there!

[_The Ghosts of Jaffier and Pierre rise together, both b.l.o.o.d.y._ My husband b.l.o.o.d.y, and his friend too! Murder!

Who has done this? Speak to me, thou sad vision!

[_Ghosts sink._ On these poor trembling knees, I beg it. Vanished!

Here they went down. Oh! I'll dig, dig the den up.

You shan't delude me thus. Ho! Jaffier, Jaffier, Peep up and give me but a look. I have him!

I've got him, father! Oh, now I'll smuggle him!

My love! my dear! my blessing! help me! help me!

They have hold on me, and drag me to the bottom.

Nay, now they pull so hard. Farewell. [_She dies._

MAID. She's dead.

Breathless and dead.

This may seem very sad stuff, but it would be unfair to judge Otway's plays by this one extract. "Venice Preserved" is now shelved as an acting drama, but it was formerly received with extraordinary favour, and is by no means deficient in poetic merit. Campbell, the poet, speaks of it, in his life of Mrs. Siddons, as "a tragedy which so constantly commands the tears of audiences that it would be a work of supererogation for me to extol its tenderness. There may be dramas where human character is depicted with subtler skill--though Belvidera might rank among Shakespeare's creations; and 'Venice Preserved' may not contain, like 'Macbeth' and 'Lear,' certain high conceptions which exceed even the power of stage representation--but it is as full as a tragedy can be of all the pathos that is transfusable into action."

Belvidera was one of Mrs. Siddons's greatest characters. Campbell notes that "until the middle of the last century the ghosts of Jaffier and Pierre used to come in upon the stage, haunting Belvidera in her last agonies, which certainly require no aggravation from spectral agency." The play was much condensed for presentment on the stage; but it would not appear that Belvidera's dying speech, quoted above, was interfered with. Boaden, in his memoir of the actress, expressly commends Mrs. Siddons's delivery of the pa.s.sage, "I'll dig, dig the den up!" and the action which accompanied the words.

For the time ghosts had been only incidental to a performance; by-and-by they were to become the main features and attractions of stage representation. Still they had not escaped ridicule and caricature. Fielding, in his burlesque tragedy of "Tom Thumb,"

introduced the audience to a scene between King Arthur and the ghost of Gaffer Thumb. The king threatens to kill the ghost, and prepares to execute his threat, when the apparition kindly explains to him, "I am a ghost and am already dead." "Ye stars!" exclaims King Arthur, "'tis well."

In his humorous notes to the published play, Fielding states, with mock gravity: "Of all the particulars in which the modern stage falls short of the ancient, there is none so much to be lamented as the great scarcity of ghosts. Whence this proceeds I will not presume to determine. Some are of opinion that the moderns are unequal to that sublime sort of language which a ghost ought to speak. One says ludicrously that ghosts are out of fas.h.i.+on; another that they are properer for comedy; forgetting, I suppose, that Aristotle hath told us that a ghost is the soul of tragedy," &c. &c. But when, towards the commencement of the present century, melodrama was first brought upon the boards, the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe were being dramatised, and such pieces as "The Tale of Mystery," "The Bleeding Nun," and "The Castle Spectre," were obtaining public favour, it was clear that room was being made for the stage ghost; the way was cleared for it to become the be-all and the end-all of the performance, the prominent attraction of the evening.

Here is an extract from Lewis's "Castle Spectre," including certain stage directions, by no means the least important part of the play.

_Enter_ Ha.s.sAN, _hastily_.

Ha.s.sAN. My lord, all is lost! Percy has surprised the castle, and speeds this way!

OSMOND. Confusion! Then I must be sudden! Aid me, Ha.s.san!

Ha.s.sAN _and_ OSMOND _force_ ANGELA _from her father, who suddenly disengages himself from_ MULEY _and_ ALARIC. OSMOND, _drawing his sword, rushes upon_ REGINALD, _who is disarmed, and beaten upon his knees; when at the moment that_ OSMOND _lifts his arm to stab him,_ EVELINA'S _ghost throws herself between them_. OSMOND _starts back and drops his sword._

OSMOND. Horror! What form is this?

ANGELA. Die!

_Disengages herself from_ Ha.s.sAN, _who springs suddenly forward, and plunges her dagger in_ OSMOND'S _bosom, who falls with a loud groan and faints. The ghost vanishes._ ANGELA _and_ REGINALD _rush into each other's arms._