Part 2 (1/2)
This seeming endeavour to secure the success of French acting by the aid of British bayonets still more infuriated the audience. Even Justice Deveil thought it prudent to order the withdrawal of the military. The actors attempted to speak, but their voices were overborne by hisses, groans, and ”not only catcalls, but all the various portable instruments that could make a disagreeable noise.” A dance was next essayed; but even this had been provided against: showers of peas descended upon the stage, and ”made capering very unsafe.” The French and Spanish Amba.s.sadors, with their ladies, who had occupied the stage-box, now withdrew, only to be insulted outside the theatre by the mob, who had cut the traces of their carriages. The curtain at last fell, and the attempt to present French plays at the Haymarket was abandoned, ”the public being justly indignant that whilst an arbitrary Act suppressed native talent, foreign adventurers should be patronised and encouraged.” It must be said, however, that the French actors suffered for sins not their own, and that the wrath of the public did not really reach the Lord Chamberlain, or effect any change in the Licensing Act.
For twenty years the Haymarket remained without a license of any endurance. The theatre was occasionally opened, however, for brief seasons, by special permission of the Chamberlain, or in defiance of his authority, many ingenious subterfuges being resorted to, so that the penalties imposed by the Act might be evaded. One of the advertis.e.m.e.nts ran--”At Cibber's Academy, in the Haymarket, will be a concert, after which will be exhibited (gratis) a rehearsal, in form of a play, called Romeo and Juliet.” Macklin, the actor, opened the theatre in 1744, and under the pretence of instructing ”unfledged performers” in ”the science of acting,” gave a variety of dramatic representations. It was expressly announced that no money would be taken at the doors, ”nor any person admitted but by printed tickets, which will be delivered by Mr. Macklin, at his house in Bow Street, Covent Garden.” At one of these performances Samuel Foote made his first appearance upon the stage, sustaining the part of Oth.e.l.lo.
Presently, Foote ventured to give upon the stage of the Haymarket, a monologue entertainment, called ”Diversions of a Morning.” At the instance of Lacy, however, one of the patentees of Drury Lane Theatre, whom Foote had satirised, the performance was soon prohibited. But Foote was not easily discouraged; and, by dint of wit and impudence, for some time baffled the authorities. He invited his friends to attend the theatre, at noon, and ”drink a dish of chocolate with him.”
He promised that he would ”endeavour to make the morning as diverting as possible;” and notified that ”Sir Dilbury Diddle would be there, and Lady Betty Frisk had absolutely promised.” Tickets, without which no person would be admitted, were to be obtained at George's Coffee House, Temple Bar. Some simple visitors, no doubt, expected that chocolate would be really served to them. But the majority were content with an announcement from the stage that, while chocolate was preparing, Mr. Foote would, with the permission of his friends, proceed with his instruction of certain pupils he was educating in the art of acting. Under this pretence a dramatic representation was really given, and repeated on some forty occasions. Then he grew bolder, and opened the theatre in the evening, at the request, as he stated, ”of several persons who are desirous of spending an hour with Mr. Foote, but find the time inconvenient.” Instead of chocolate in the morning, Mr. Foot's friends were therefore invited to drink ”a dish of tea” with him at half-past six in the evening. By-and-by, his entertainment was slightly varied, and described as an Auction of Pictures. Eventually, Foote obtained from the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, the Lord Chamberlain, a permanent license for the theatre, and the Haymarket took rank as a regular and legal place of entertainment, to be open, however, only during the summer months. Upon Foote's decease, the theatre devolved upon George Colman, who obtained a continuance of the license.
The theatre in Goodman's Fields underwent experiences very similar to those of the Haymarket. Under the provisions of the Licensing Act its performances became liable to the charge of illegality. It was without a patent or a license. It was kept open professedly for concerts of vocal and instrumental music, divided into two parts. Between these parts dramatic performances were presented gratis. The obscurity of the theatre, combined with its remote position, probably protected it for some time from interference and suppression. But on the 19th October, 1741, at this unlicensed theatre, a gentleman, who, as the playbill of the night untruly stated, had never before appeared on any stage, undertook the part of Richard III. in Cibber's version of Shakespeare's tragedy. The gentleman's name was David Garrick. Had he failed the theatre might have lived on. But his success was fatal to it. The public went in crowds from all parts of the town to see the new actor. ”From the polite ends of Westminster the most elegant company flocked to Goodman's Fields, insomuch that from Temple Bar the whole way was covered with a string of coaches.” The patentees of Drury Lane and Covent Garden interfered, ”alarmed at the deficiency of their own receipts,” and invoked the aid of the Lord Chamberlain.
The Goodman's Fields Theatre was closed, and Garrick was spirited away to Drury Lane, with a salary of 600 guineas a-year, a larger sum than had ever before been awarded to any performer.
It will be seen that the Chamberlain had deemed it his mission to limit, as much as possible, the number of places of theatrical entertainment in London. Playgoers were bidden to be content with Drury Lane and Covent Garden; it was not conceivable to the n.o.blemen and commoners occupying the Houses of Parliament, or to the place-holders in the Chamberlain's office, or in the royal household, that other theatres could possibly be required.
Still attempts were occasionally made to establish additional places of entertainment. In 1785, John Palmer, the actor famous as the original Joseph Surface, laid the first stone of a new theatre, to be called the East London, or Royalty, in the neighbourhood of the old Goodman's Fields Theatre, which had been many years abandoned of the actors and converted into a goods warehouse. The building was completed in 1787. The opening representation was announced; when the proprietors of the patent theatres gave warning that any infringement of their privileges would be followed by the prosecution of Mr. Palmer and his company. The performances took place, nevertheless, but they were stated to be for the benefit of the London Hospital, and not, therefore, for ”hire, gain, or reward;” so the actors avoided risk of commitment as rogues and vagabonds. But necessarily the enterprise ended in disaster. Palmer, his friends alleged, lost his whole fortune; it was shrewdly suspected, however, that he had, in truth, no fortune to lose. In any case he speedily retired from the new theatre.
It was open for brief seasons with such exhibitions of music, dancing, and pantomime, as were held to be unaffected by the Act, and permissible under the license of the local magistrates. From time to time, however, the relentless patentees took proceedings against the actors. Delpini, the clown, was even committed to prison for exclaiming ”Roast Beef!” in a Christmas pantomime. By uttering words without the accompaniment of music he had, it appeared, const.i.tuted himself an actor of a stage play.
Some five-and-twenty years later, Elliston was now memorialising the king, now pet.i.tioning the House of Commons and the Privy Council, in reference to the opening of an additional theatre. He had been in treaty for the Pantheon, in Oxford Street, and urged that ”the intellectual community would be benefited by an extension of license for the regular drama.” As lessee of the Royal Circus or Surrey Theatre, he besought liberty to exhibit and perform ”all such entertainments of music and action as were commonly called pantomimes and ballets, together with operatic or musical pieces, accompanied with dialogue in the ordinary mode of dramatic representations,”
subject, at all times, to the control and restraint of the Lord Chamberlain, ”in conformity to the laws by which theatres possessing those extensive privileges were regulated.” But all was in vain. The king would not ”notice any representation connected with the establishment of another theatre.” The other pet.i.tions were without result.
Gradually, however, it became necessary for the authorities to recognise the fact that the public really did require more amus.e.m.e.nts of a theatrical kind than the privileged theatres could furnish. But the regular drama, it was held, must still be protected: performed only on the patent boards. So now ”burletta licenses” were issued, under cover of which melodramas were presented, with entertainments of music and dancing, spectacle and pantomime. In 1809, the Lyceum or English Opera House, which for some years before had been licensed for music and dancing, was licensed for ”musical dramatic entertainments and ballets of action.” The Adelphi, then called the Sans Pareil Theatre, received a ”burletta license” about the same time. In 1813 the Olympic was licensed for similar performances and for horsemans.h.i.+p; but it was for a while closed again by the Chamberlain's order, upon Elliston's attempt to call the theatre Little Drury Lane, and to represent upon its stage something more like the ”regular drama” than had been previously essayed at a minor house. ”Burletta licenses” were also granted for the St. James's in 1835, and for the Strand in 1836.
And, in despite of the authorities, theatres had been established on the Surrey side of the Thames; but, in truth, for the accommodation of the dwellers on the Middles.e.x sh.o.r.e. Under the Licensing Act, while the Chamberlain was const.i.tuted licenser of all new plays throughout Great Britain, his power to grant licenses for theatrical entertainments was confined within the city and liberties of Westminster, and wherever the sovereign might reside. The Surrey, the Coburg (afterwards the Victoria), Astley's, &c., were, therefore, out of his jurisdiction. There seemed, indeed, to be no law in existence under which they could be licensed. They affected to be open under a magistrate's license for ”music, dancing, and public entertainments.”
But this, in truth, afforded them no protection when it was thought worth while to prosecute the managers for presenting dramatic exhibitions. For although an Act, pa.s.sed in the 28th year of George III., enabled justices of the peace, under certain restrictions, to grant licenses for dramatic entertainments, their powers did not extend to within twenty miles of London. Lambeth was thus neutral ground, over which neither the Lord Chamberlain nor the country justices had any real authority, with this difficulty about the case--performances that could not be licensed could not be legalised.
The law continued in this unsatisfactory state till the pa.s.sing, in 1843, of the Act for Regulating Theatres. This deprived the patent theatres of their monopoly of the ”regular drama,” in that it extended the Lord Chamberlain's power to grant licenses for the performance of stage plays to all theatres within the parliamentary boundaries of the City of London and Westminster, and of the Boroughs of Finsbury and Marylebone, the Tower Hamlets, Lambeth, and Southwark, and also ”within those places where Her Majesty, her heirs and successors, shall, in their royal persons, occasionally reside;” it being fully understood that all the theatres then existing in London would receive forthwith the Chamberlain's license ”to give stage plays in the fullest sense of the word;” to be taken to include, according to the terms of the Act, ”every tragedy, comedy, farce, opera, burletta, interlude, melodrama, pantomime, or other entertainment of the stage, or any part thereof.”
Thus, at last, more than a century after the pa.s.sing of the Licensing Act, certain of its more mischievous restrictions were in effect repealed. A measure of free trade in theatres was established. The Lord Chamberlain was still to be ”the lawful monarch of the stage,”
but in the future his rule was to be more const.i.tutional, less absolute than it had been. The public were no longer to be confined to Drury Lane and Covent Garden in the winter, and the Haymarket in the summer. Actors were enabled, managers and public consenting, to personate Hamlet or Macbeth, or other heroes of the poetic stage, at Lambeth, Clerkenwell, or Sh.o.r.editch, anywhere indeed, without risk of committal to gaol. It was no longer necessary to call a play a ”burletta,” or to touch a note upon the piano, now and then, in the course of a performance, so as to justify its claim to be a musical entertainment; all subterfuges of this kind ceased.
It was with considerable reluctance, however, that the Chamberlain, in his character of Licenser of Playhouses, divested himself of the paternal authority he had so long exercised. He still clung to the notion that he was a far better judge of the requirements and desires of playgoers than they could possibly be themselves. He was strongly of opinion that the number of theatres was ”sufficient for the theatrical wants of the metropolis.” He could not allow that the matter should be regulated by the ordinary laws of supply and demand, or by any regard for the large annual increase of the population.
Systematically he hindered all enterprise in the direction of new theatres. It was always doubtful whether his license would be granted, even after a new building had been completed. He decided that he must be guided by his own views of ”the interests of the public.” It is not clear that he possessed authority in this respect other than that derived from custom and the traditions of his office. The Act of 1843 contained no special provisions on the subject. But he insisted that all applicants for the licensing of new theatres should be armed with pet.i.tions in favour of the proposal, signed by many of the inhabitants in the immediate vicinity of the projected building; he 'required the Police Commissioners to verify the truth of these pet.i.tions, and to report whether inconvenience was likely to result in the way of interruption of traffic, or otherwise, from the establishment of a new theatre. Further, he obtained the opinion of the parish authorities, the churchwardens, &c., of the district; he was even suspected of taking counsel with the managers of neighbouring establishments; ”in short, he endeavoured to convince himself generally that the grant of the license would satisfy a legitimate want”--or what the Chamberlain in his wisdom, or his unwisdom, held to be such.
Under these conditions it is not surprising that for nearly a quarter of a century there was no addition made to the list of London theatres. But time moves on, and even Chamberlains have to move with it. Of late years there has been no difficulty in regard to the licensing of new theatres, and the metropolis has been the richer by many well-conducted houses of dramatic entertainment.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EXAMINER OF PLAYS.
The Lord Chamberlain holds office only so long as the political party to which he is attached remains in power. He comes in and goes out with the ministry. Any peculiar fitness for the appointment is not required of him; it is simply a reward for his political services. Of course different Chamberlains have entertained different opinions of the duties to be performed in regard to the theatres; and, in such wise, much embarra.s.sment has arisen. The Chamberlain's office is supported by a grant from the Civil List, which is settled upon the accession of the sovereign. In addition, fees are received for the licensing of theatres, and for the examination of plays.
The Examiner of Plays has long been recognised as a more permanent functionary than the Lord Chamberlain, although it would seem the precise nature of his appointment has never been clearly understood.
”I believe,” said Mr. Donne, the late Examiner, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee of 1866, ”that it is an appointment that expires with the sovereign (at least, I infer so from the evidence which Mr. Colman gave in the year 1833), but I cannot say that from my own knowledge: I believe it to be an appointment for life.”
In truth, the Examiner is simply the employe of the Chamberlain, appointed by him, and holding the office only so long as the superior functionary shall deem fitting. There is no instance on record, however, of the displacement of an Examiner, or of the cancelling by one Chamberlain of the appointment made by his predecessor. Power of this kind, however, would seem to be vested in the Chamberlain for the time being. Colman's evidence, it may be noted, is of no present worth. He was appointed as a consequence of the old Licensing Act, repealed in 1843.
The first Licenser of Plays sworn in after the pa.s.sing of the Licensing Act of 1737 was William Chetwynd, with a salary of 400 a-year. But this deputy of the Chamberlain was in his turn allowed a deputy, and one Thomas Odell was appointed a.s.sistant examiner, with a salary of 200 a-year. Strange to say, it was this Odell who had first opened a theatre in Goodman's Fields, which, upon the complaint of the civic authorities, who believed the drama to be a source of danger to the London apprentices of the period, he had been compelled forthwith to close. He applied to George II, for a royal license, but met with a peremptory refusal. In 1731 he sold his property to one Giffard, who rebuilt the theatre, and, dispensing with official permission, performed stage plays between the intervals of a concert, until producing Garrick, and obtaining extraordinary success by that measure, he roused the jealousy of the authorities, and was compelled to forego his undertaking.
The Licenser's power of prohibition was exercised very shortly after his appointment, in the case of two tragedies: ”Gustavus Vasa,” by Henry Brooke, and ”Edward and Eleonora,” by James Thomson. Political allusions of an offensive kind were supposed to lurk somewhere in these works. ”Gustavus Vasa” was especially forbidden ”on account of some strokes of liberty which breathed through several parts of it.”
On the Irish stage, however, over which the Chamberlain had no power, the play was performed as ”The Patriot;” while, by the publication of ”Gustavus Vasa,” Mr. Brooke obtained 1000 or so from a public curious as to the improprieties it was alleged to contain, and anxious to protest against the oppressive conduct of the Licenser. In 1805, with the permission of the Chamberlain, the play was produced at Covent Garden, in order that Master Betty, the Young Roscius, might personate the hero. But the youthful actor failed in the part, and the tragedy, being found rather dull, was represented but once. At this time Mr.
Brooke had been dead some years. In a preface to his play he had vouched for its purity, and denounced the conduct of the Licenser, as opposed to the intention of the Legislature, Dr. Johnson a.s.sisting his cause by the publication of an ironical pamphlet--”A Vindication of the Licenser from the malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr.