On The Stage-And Off

“But even this sympathy must be left outside the theater doors. Once inside, the mind must be kept clear of all distracting thought. What is gone through on the stage is merely an exact repetition of what is conceived in the study, and a cool head and a good memory are the only reliable servants when once the curtain is up. Of course a man should feel what he is acting. Feeling is the breath of acting. It is to the actor what Aphrodite’s gift was to Pygmalion – it gives life to his statue. But this feeling is as much a matter of memory as the rest. The actual stage is too artificial for emotion to come to one naturally while there. Each passion is assumed and dropped by force of will, together with the words and action which accompany it.

“…I made a sensation here last Tuesday. I was playing the very part in which our Walking Gentleman met with his accident, and he was playing the villain, who tries to stab me while I am asleep. (The Heavy Man has left. He went soon after he had done the mischief.) Well, everything had gone very smoothly so far, and I was lying there on the couch at the back of the darkened stage, and he was leaning over me with the knife in his hand. I was quite still, waiting for my cue to awake, and wondering if I could manage to start up quickly, when I raised my eyes and caught sight of R – ‘s face. I may have done him an injustice. His expression may have been mere acting. The whole idea was, perhaps, due to nothing but my own imagination. I have thought this since. At the time it flashed across me: ‘He means to revenge himself on me for having taken his place. He is going to disfigure me just as he was disfigured.’ In an instant I sprung up and wrested the knife from his hand.

“We stood there looking at one another, and neither of us moved or spoke; he, livid underneath his color, and trembling from head to foot. How long we kept in that position I do not know, for the thud of the curtain upon the stage was the first thing that recalled me to myself. Up to when I had snatched the knife from him, all had been in exact accordance with the book. After that, I should have held him down by the throat, and made a speech of about eight lines. I think our impromptu tableau was more effective.

“There was immense applause, and everybody congratulated me on my success. ‘I suppose you know you cut out the end,’ said the manager; ‘but never mind that. I daresay you were a little nervous, and you acted splendidly, my boy.’”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t acting, and neither did R – …”

I left here to join a small touring company as Juvenile Lead. I looked upon the offer as a grand opportunity at the time, and following Horace’s * advice, grasped it by the forelock. I therefore, one Sunday morning packed my basket, went round the town and shook hands with everybody – not without a pang of regret, for there are few human beings we can be with for any length of time and not be sorry to say good-by to – and then, as the bright summer’s sun was setting and the church bells beginning to peal, I steamed away, or rather the engine did, and the city and its people faded out of my sight and out of my life.

* Not quite sure whose advice this is. Have put it down to Horace to avoid contradiction.

Sunday is the great traveling day for actors. It loses them no time. A company can finish at one town on the Saturday night, and wake up on Monday morning in the next, ready to get everything ship-shape for the evening. Or an actor can leave one show and join another at the other end of the kingdom without missing a single performance. I have known a man play in Cornwall on the Saturday, and at Inverness on the following Monday. But convenient though it is in this respect, in every other, Sunday traveling is most unpleasant, and, for their gratification, I can assure strict Sabbatarians that it brings with it its own punishment.

Especially to a man with a conscience – an article which, in those early days, I was unfortunate enough to possess. A conscience is a disagreeable sort of thing to have with one at any time. It has a nasty disposition – a cantankerous, fault-finding, interfering disposition. There is nothing sociable about it. It seems to take a pleasure in making itself objectionable, and in rendering its owner as uncomfortable as possible. During these Sunday journeys, it used to vex me by every means in its power. If any mild old gentleman, sitting opposite me in the carriage, raised his eyes and looked at me, I immediately fancied he was silently reproaching me, and I felt ashamed and miserable. It never occurred to me at the time that he was every bit as bad as I was, and that I had as much right to be shocked at him as he to be horrified at me. Then I used to ask myself what my poor aunt would say if she could see me. Not that it was of the slightest consequence what the old lady would have said, but the question was just one of those petty annoyances in which a mean-spirited conscience delights. I was firmly convinced that everybody was pointing the finger of scorn at me. I don’t know which particular finger is the finger of scorn: whichever it is, that, I felt, was the one that was pointed at me. At every station, my exasperating inward monitor would whisper to me: “But for such abandoned wretches as you, all those porters and guards would be sleeping peacefully in the village church.” When the whistle sounded, my tormentor would add; “But for you and other such despicable scoundrels, that grimy, toil-stained engine-driver would be dressed in his best clothes, lounging up against a post at his own street corner.” Such thoughts maddened me.

My fellow-passengers generally let on that they were going to see sick relatives, and I would have done the same if it hadn’t been for that awful basket of mine. But the inventive faculty of a newspaper reporter couldn’t have explained away a basket the size of an average chest of drawers. I might have said that it contained a few delicacies for the invalid, but nobody would have believed me, and there would have been a good lie wasted.

But it is not only to people with consciences that Sunday traveling presents vexations. Even you, my dear reader, would find it unpleasant. There is a subdued going-to-a-funeral air about the whole proceeding, which makes you melancholy in spite of yourself. You miss the usual bustling attributes of railway traveling. No crowded platforms! no piles of luggage! no newspaper boys! The refreshment rooms don’t seem the same places at all, and the damsels there are haughtier then ever. When you arrive at your destination, you seem to have come to a city of the dead. You pass through deserted streets to your hotel. Nobody is about. You go into the coffee-room and sit down there by yourself. After a while the boots looks in. You yearn toward him as toward a fellow-creature. You would fall upon his neck, and tell him all your troubles. You try to engage him in conversation, so as to detain him in the room, for you dread to be left alone again. But he doesn’t enter into your feelings: he answers all questions by monosyllables, and gets away as quickly as possible. You go out for a walk. The streets are dark and silent, and you come back more miserable than you started. You order supper, but have no appetite, and cannot eat it when it comes. You retire to your room early, but cannot go to sleep. You lie there and wonder what the bill will come to, and, while thinking of this, you are softly borne away into the land of dreams, and fancy that the proprietor has asked you for a hundred and eighty-seven pounds nine and fourpence ha’penny, and that you have killed him on the spot, and left the house in your nightshirt without paying.

THE show which I now graced with my presence was a “fit-up.” I didn’t know this beforehand, or I should never have engaged myself. A “fit-up” is only one grade higher than a booth, which latter branch of the profession, by the way, I have always regretted never having explored. I missed the most picturesque and romantic portion of the theatrical world by not penetrating into that time-forsaken corner. Booth life is a Bohemia within a Bohemia. So far as social and artistic position is concerned, it is at the bottom of the dramatic ladder; but for interest and adventure, it stands at the very top.

However, I never did join a booth, so there is an end of the matter. The nearest I approached to anything of the kind was this fit-up, and that I didn’t like at all. We kept to the very small towns, where there was no theater, and fitted up an apology for a stage in any hall or room we could hire for the purpose. The town-hall was what we generally tried for, but we were not too particular; any large room did, and we would even put up with a conveniently situated barn. We carried our own props, scenery, and proscenium, and trusted for the wood work to some local carpenter. A row of candles did duty for footlights, and a piano, hired in the town, represented the orchestra. We couldn’t get a piano on one occasion, so the proprietor of the hall lent us his harmonium.

I will not linger over my experience with this company; they were not pleasant ones. Short extracts from two letters, one written just after joining, and the other sent off just before I left, will be sufficient:

“Dear Jim: I find I’ve dropped the substance and grasped the shadow (I pride myself not so much on the originality of this remark as on its applicability). I shall leave as soon as possible, and try my luck in London. My ambition to play Juvenile Lead vanished the moment I saw the Leading Lady, who is, as usual, the manager’s wife. She is a fat greasy old woman. She has dirty hands and finger nails, and perspires freely during the course of the performance. She is about three times my size, and if the audiences to which we play have the slightest sense of humor – which, from what I have seen of them, I think extremely doubtful – our love-making must be a rare treat to them. How a London first-night gallery would enjoy it! I’m afraid, though, it’s only wasted down here. My arm, when I try to clasp her waist, reaches to about the middle of her back; and, when we embrace, the house can’t see me at all. I have to carry her half-way across the stage in one part! By Jove! I’m glad we don’t play that piece often.

“She says I shall never make a good ‘lover’ unless I throw more ardor (‘harder,’ she calls it) into my acting…”

“… Shall be with you on Monday next. Can’t stand this any longer. It’s ruining me. Seven-and-six was all I could get last week, and eleven shillings the week before. We are not doing bad business by any means. Indeed, we have very good houses. The old man has got the knack of making out good gag bills, and that pulls ‘em in for the two or three nights we stay at each place. You know what I mean by a ‘gag’ bill: ‘The Ruined Mill by Dead Man’s Pool. Grace Mervin thinks to meet a friend, but finds a foe. Harry Baddun recalls old days.

“Why do you not love me?”

“Because you are a bad man.”

“Then die!” The struggle on the brink!! “Help!!” “There is none to help you here.”

“You lie, Harry Baddun; I am here.” A hand from the grave!! Harry Baddun meets his doom!!!

“That’s what I mean by a gag bill.

“Whatever money is made, however, he takes care to keep for himself. He can always put up at the best hotel in the place, while we have to pawn our things to pay for the meanest of lodgings.

“It isn’t only actors who get robbed by these managers: authors also suffer pretty considerably. We have two copyright pieces in our list, both of which draw very well, but not a penny is paid for performing them. To avoid any chance of unpleasantness, the titles of the pieces and the names of the chief characters are altered. So that even if the author or his friends (supposing it possible for any author to have any friends) were on the lookout, they would never know anything about it. And, if they did, it would be of no use. It would be throwing good money after bad to attempt to enforce payment from the men who do this sort of thing, – and I hear that it is done all over the provinces, – they have no money and none can be got out of them. Your penniless man can comfortably defy half the laws in the statute book.

“What a nuisance firearms are on the stage! I thought I was blinded the other night, and my eyes are painful even now. The fellow should have fired up in the air. It is the only safe rule on a small stage, though it does look highly ridiculous to see a man drop down dead because another man fires a pistol at the moon. But there is always some mishap with them. They either don’t go off at all, or else they go off in the wrong place, and, when they do go off, there is generally an accident. They can never be depended upon. You rush on to the stage, present a pistol at somebody’s head, and say, ‘Die!’ but the pistol only goes click, and the man doesn’t know whether to die or not. He waits while you have another try at him, and the thing clicks again; and then you find out that the property man hasn’t put a cap on it, and you turn round to get one. But the other man, thinking it is all over, makes up his mind to die at once from nothing else but fright, and, when you come back to kill him for the last time, you find he’s already dead.

“We have recourse to some rum makeshifts here, to eke out our wardrobes. My old frock coat, with a little cloth cape which one of the girls has cutout for me pinned on underneath the collar, and with a bit of lace round the cuffs, does for the gallant of half the old comedies; and, when I pin the front corners back and cover them with red calico, I’m a French soldier. A pair of white thingumies does admirably for buckskin riding breeches, and for the part of a Spanish conspirator, I generally borrow my landlady’s tablecloth…”

It was about the end of October when I found myself once more in London. The first thing I then did was to go to my old shop on the Surrey-side. Another company and another manager were there, but the latter knew me, and, as I owned a dress suit, engaged me at a salary of twelve shillings weekly to play the part of a swell. When I had been there just one week, he closed. Whether it was paying me that twelve shillings that broke him, I cannot say; but on Monday morning some men came and cut the gas off, and then he said he shouldn’t go on any longer, and that we must all do the best we could for ourselves.

I, with two or three others, thereupon started off for a theater at the East End, which was about to be opened for a limited number of nights by some great world-renowned actor. This was about the fortieth world-renowned party. I had heard of for the first time within the last twelvemonth. My education in the matter of world-renowned people had evidently been shamefully neglected.

The theater was cunningly contrived, so that one had to pass through the bar of the adjoining public-house – to the landlord of which it belonged – to get to the stage. Our little party was saved from temptation, however, for I don’t think we could have mustered a shilling among the lot of us that morning. I was getting most seriously hard up at this time. The few pounds I had had left, after purchasing my wardrobe and paying my railway fares, etc., had now dwindled down to shillings, and, unless things mended, I felt I should have to throw up the sponge and retire from the stage. I was determined not to do this though, till the very last, for I dreaded the chorus of “I told you so’s,” and “I knew very well how ‘twould be’s,” and such like well-known and exasperating crows of triumph, with which, in these cases, our delighted friends glorify themselves and crush us.

The East End theater proved a stop-gap for a while. I was fortunate enough to be one of those engaged out of the crowd of eager and anxious applicants, among whom I met a couple from the fit-up company I had lately left, they having come to the same conclusion as myself, viz., that it was impossible to live well and “dress respectably on and off the stage” upon an average salary of ten shillings weekly. The engagement was only for a fortnight, and there is only one incident connected with it that I particularly remember. That was my being “guyed” on one occasion. We were playing a melodrama, the scene of which was laid in some outlandish place or other, and the stage manager insisted on my wearing a most outrageous costume. I knew it would be laughed at, especially in that neighborhood, and my expectations were more than fulfilled. I hadn’t been on the stage five seconds before I heard a voice from the gallery hoarsely inquire: “What is it, Bill?” And then another voice added: “Tell us what it is, and you shall have it.”

A good deal of laughter followed these speeches. I got hot all over, and felt exceedingly uncomfortable and nervous. It was as much as I could do to recollect my part, and it was with a great effort that I began my first line. No sooner had I opened my mouth, however, than somebody in the pit exclaimed, in tones of the utmost surprise, “Blowed if it ain’t alive!”

After that, the remarks on my personal appearance fell thick and fast: “Look well in a shop window, that bloke!” “Nice suit to take your gal out on a Sunday in!”

“This style, thirty shillings,” etc.; while one good-natured man sought to put me at my ease by roaring out in a stentorian voice, “Never you mind, old man; you go on. They’re jealous ‘cos you’ve got nice clothes on.” How I managed to get through the part I don’t know. I became more nervous and awkward every minute, and, of course, the more I bungled, the more the house jeered. I gained a good deal of sympathy behind, for most of them had had similar experiences of their own; but I was most intensely miserable all that evening, and, for the next night or two, quite dreaded to face the audience. Making game of any one is a very amusing occupation, but the “game” doesn’t see the fun till a long while afterward. I can’t bear to hear any of the performers chaffed when I’m at a theater. Actors are necessarily a sensitive class of people, and I don’t think those who make fun of them, when any little thing goes wrong, have any idea of the pain they are inflicting. It is quite right, and quite necessary sometimes, that disapprobation should be expressed, and that unmistakably, but it should be for the purpose of correcting real faults. “Guying” is, as a rule, indulged in only by the silliest portion of the audience, and for no other object but to display their own vulgar wit.

After my fortnight at the East End, I went as one of the chorus in a new opera-bouffe to be brought out at a West End theater. We rehearsed for three weeks, the piece ran for one, and then I again took a provincial engagement, which, as it was now close upon Christmas, was easy enough to obtain.

My stay in London had not been very profitable to me, but it had given my friends a treat, as they had been able to come and see me act again. At least, I suppose it was a treat to them, though they did not say so. My friends are always most careful never to overdo the thing in the matter of praise. I cannot accuse them of sycophancy. They scorn to say pleasant things that they don’t mean. They prefer saying unpleasant things that they do mean. There’s no humbug about them; they never hesitate to tell me just exactly what they think of me. This is good of them. I respect them for saying what they think; but if they would think a little differently, I should respect them still more. I wonder if everybody’s friends are as conscientious? I’ve heard of people having “admiring friends,” and “flattering friends,” and “over-indulgent friends,” but I’ve never had any of that sort myself. I’ve often thought I should rather like to, though, and if any gentleman has more friends of that kind than he wants, and would care to have a few of the opposite stamp, I am quite ready to swop with him. I can warrant mine never to admire or flatter under any circumstances whatsoever; neither will he find them over-indulgent. To a man who really wishes to be told of his faults, they would be invaluable; on this point they are candor itself. A conceited man would also derive much benefit from their society. I have myself.

CHAPTER XVIII. My Last Appearance

I LEFT London exactly twelve months from the day on which I had started to fulfill my first provincial engagement, and I did not return to it again while I was an actor. I left it with my baggage early in the morning by the newspaper express from Euston; I returned to it late at night, footsore and hungry, and with no other possessions than the clothes I stood upright in.

Of the last few months of my professional life, the following brief extracts will speak. A slightly bitter tone runs through some of them, but at the time they were written I was suffering great disappointment, and everything was going wrong with me – circumstances under which a man is perhaps apt to look upon his surroundings through smoke-colored glasses.

Three weeks after Christmas I write:

“… good and money regular.

“Business is almost always good, though, at pantomime time: the test will come later on, when we begin to travel. How a provincial audience does love a pantomime! and how I do hate it! I can’t say I think very highly of provincial audiences. They need a lot of education in art. They roar over coarse buffoonery, and applaud noisy rant to the echo. One might as well go to Billingsgate to study English as to the provinces to learn acting.

“I played First Low Comedy on Saturday night at half an hour’s notice, the real First Low Comedy being hopelessly intoxicated at the time. It’s a pity, amidst all the talk about the elevation of the stage, that the elevation of actors is not a less frequent occurrence. It can hardly improve the reputation of the profession in the eyes of the public, when they take up the Era and read advertisement after advertisement, ending with such lines as, ‘None but sober people need apply,’ ‘Must contrive to keep sober, at all events during the performance.’ ‘People who are constantly getting drunk need not write.’ I’ve known some idiots actually make themselves half tipsy on purpose before coming on the stage, evidently thinking, because they can’t act when they’ve got all their few wits about them, that they’ll manage better if they get rid of them altogether. There is a host of wonderful traditions floating about the theatrical world of this, that, and the other great actor having always played this, that, and the other part while drunk; and so, when some wretched little actor has to take one of these parts, he, fired by a noble determination to follow in the footsteps of his famous predecessor, gets drunk too.

“Bad language is another thing that the profession might spare a lot of, and still have enough remaining for all ordinary purposes. I remember a penny each time we swore. We gave it up after two hours’ trial: none of us had any money left.”

Six weeks later:

“… Business gets worse instead of better. Our manager has behaved very well indeed. He paid us our salaries right up to the end of last week, though any one could see he was losing money every night; and then on Saturday, after treasury, he called us all together, and put the case frankly. He said he could not continue as he had been doing, but that, if we liked, he was ready to keep on with us for a week or two longer upon sharing terms, to see if the luck turned. We agreed to this, and so formed ourselves into what is called a ‘commonwealth’ – though common poverty would be a more correct one night at – we all agreed to fine ourselves term in my opinion, for the shares each night, after deducting expenses, have been about eighteen-pence. The manager takes three of these shares (one for being manager, one for acting, and the other one to make up the three), and the rest of us have one each. I’m getting awfully hard up, though I live for a week, now, on less than what I’ve often given for a dinner…”

A week later, this company broke up, and I then joined another that was close handy at the time. It is from this latter that the following is written:

“… I just manage to keep my head above water, and that is all. If things get worse, I shall be done for. I’ve no money of my own left now.

“A very sad thing happened here last week. Our leading man died suddenly from heart disease leaving his wife and two children totally destitute. If he had been a big London actor, for half his life in receipt of a salary of, say, three thousand a year, the theatrical press would have teemed with piteous appeals to the public, all his friends would have written to the papers generously offering to receive subscriptions on his behalf, and all the theaters would have given performances at double prices to help pay his debts and funeral expenses. As, however, he had never earned anything higher than about two pounds a week, Charity could hardly be expected to interest herself about the case; and so the wife supports herself and her children by taking in washing. Not that I believe she would ask for alms, even were there any chance of her getting them, for, when the idea was only suggested to her, she quite fired up, and talked some absurd nonsense about having too much respect for her husband’s profession to degrade it into a mere excuse for begging…

“This company also went wrong. It was a terrible year for theaters. Trade was bad everywhere, and “amusements” was the very first item that people with diminishing incomes struck out of the list of their expenditure. One by one I parted with every valuable I had about me, and a visit to the pawnshop, just before leaving each town, became as essential as packing. I went through the country like a distressed ship through troubled waters, marking my track by the riches I cast overboard to save myself. My watch I left behind me in one town, my chain in another; a ring here, my dress suit there; a writing-case I dropped at this place, and a pencil-case at that. And so things went on – or, rather, off – till the beginning of May, when this letter, the last of the series, was written:

“Dear Jim: Hurrah! I’ve struck oil at last. I think it was time I did after what I’ve gone through. I was afraid the profession would have to do without me, but it’s all safe now. I’m in a new company – joined last Saturday, and we’re doing splendidly. Manager is a magnificent fellow, and a good man of business. He understands how to make the donkey go. He advertises and bills right and left, spares no expense, and does the thing thoroughly well. He’s a jolly nice fellow, too, and evidently a man of intelligence, for he appreciates me. He engaged me without my applying to him at all, after seeing me act one night last week, when he was getting his company together. I play First Walking Gent, at thirty-five shillings a week. He has been a captain in the army, and is a thorough gentlemen. He never bullies or interferes, and everybody likes him. He is going all round the North of England, taking all the big Lancashire and Yorkshire towns, and then going to bring us to London for the winter. He wants me to sign an agreement for one year certain at two pounds five. I haven’t appeared to be too anxious. It’s always best to hang back a bit in such cases, so I told him I would think it over; but of course I shall accept. Can’t write any more now. I’m just off to dine with him. We stop here three weeks, and then go to – . Very comfortable lodgings. Yours, – ”