Part 18 (1/2)
Powell was threatening to break every bone in his skin. In his dresser's opinion the actor was a man likely to keep his word. With a cry of ”Here I am, master!” Warren sprang up, clothed in sable draperies which were fastened to the handles of his bier. The house roared with surprise and laughter. Enc.u.mbered by his charnel-house trappings, the dead Lothario precipitately fled from the stage. The play, of course, ended abruptly. For once the sombre tragedy of ”The Fair Penitent” was permitted a mirthful conclusion.
Whenever unusual physical exertion is required of a player, a perilous fall, or a desperate leap, a trained gymnast is usually engaged as double to accomplish this portion of the performance. When in the stage versions of ”Kenilworth,” Sir Richard Varney, in lieu of Amy Robsart, is seen to descend through the treacherous trap and incur a fall of many feet, we may be sure that it is not the genuine Varney, but his double who undergoes this severe fate. The name of the double is not recorded in the playbill, however, and he wins little fame, let him acquit himself as skilfully as he may. Occasionally, however, doubles of this kind are found to emerge from obscurity and establish a reputation of their own. In 1820, a pantomime, dealing with the fairly tale of ”Jack and the Beanstalk,” was produced at Drury Lane.
The part of the hero was allotted to little Miss Povey, who declined, however, to undertake Jack's feat of climbing the famous beanstalk, a formidable structure reaching from the stage to the roof of the theatre. It became necessary to secure a subst.i.tute who should present some resemblance to the small and slight figure of the young actress, and yet be sufficiently strong and courageous to undertake the task she demurred to. The matter was one of some difficulty, and for some time no competent double was forthcoming. One morning, however, Winston, the stage-manager, descried a little active boy, acting as waterman's a.s.sistant, at the hackney-coach stand in Bedford Street, Covent Garden. He was carried to the theatre and his abilities put to the test at a rehearsal of the pantomime. His performance was p.r.o.nounced satisfactory. He nightly appeared during the run of ”Jack and the Beanstalk” as the climbing double of Miss Povey. Subsequently, he became one of the pupils of the clown. The boy said he believed his name was Sullivan. Years afterwards he was known to fame as Monsieur Silvain, ballet-master, and princ.i.p.al dancer of the Academic Royale, Paris, an artist of distinction, and a most respectable member of society.
Mrs. Mowatt, the American actress, has recorded in her Memoirs a curious instance of a double being employed in connection with a dummy to secure a theatrical illusion of a special kind. The play produced at the Olympic Theatre some twenty years ago, was an English version of the ”Ariane” of Thomas Corneille. In the original, Ariadne, upon the discovery of the perfidy of Theseus, falls upon a sword and expires. This catastrophe was altered in the adaptation, and a startling effect produced by the leaping of the heroine from a rock, and her plunging into the sea, while the s.h.i.+p of Theseus is seen departing in the distance. It was found necessary that three Ariadnes, similarly costumed, and identical in appearance, should lend their aid to accomplish this thrilling termination. Mrs. Mowatt, as Ariadne the first, paced the sh.o.r.e, and received the agonising intelligence of the desertion of Theseus. A ballet-girl, as Ariadne the second, climbed the rocks of the Island of Naxos, reaching the highest peak to catch the last glimpse of the vanis.h.i.+ng vessel. The third Ariadne was a most lifelike lay figure, which, on a given signal, was hurled from the cliff, and seen to fall into the abyss below.
The greatest difficulty seems to have been experienced at rehearsal in persuading Ariadne the second even to walk up the steep rocks of Naxos. The poor ballet-girl had been chosen for this duty less because of her courage than on account of an accidental resemblance she bore to Mrs. Mowatt. ”She stopped and shrieked halfway, protested she was dizzy, and might fall, and would not advance a step farther. After about half-an-hour's delay, during which the poor girl was encouraged, coaxed, and scolded abundantly, she allowed the carpenter, who had planned the rocky pathway, to lead her carefully up and down the declivity, and finally rushed up alone.” At a certain cue she was required to fall upon her face, concealed from the audience by an intercepting rock, and then the lay figure took its flight through the air.
The success of the performance appears to have been complete. The subst.i.tution of the double for Ariadne, and the dummy for the double, even puzzled spectators who were provided with powerful opera-gla.s.ses.
”The illusion was so perfect,” Mrs. Mowatt writes, ”that on the first night of the representation, when Ariadne leaped from the rock, a man started up in the pit, exclaiming in a tone of genuine horror: 'Good G.o.d! she is killed!'” How this exclamation must have rejoiced the heart of the stage-manager! For one would rather not consider the possibility of the ”man in the pit” having been placed there by that functionary with due instructions as to when and what he was to exclaim.
It is a sort of doubling when, in consequence of the illness or absence of a performer, his part is read by some other member of the company. In this way curious experiments have sometimes been made upon public patience. At Dublin, in 1743, Addison's tragedy was announced for representation, with Sheridan, the actor, in the character of Cato. Sheridan, however, suddenly declined to appear, the costume he had usually a.s.sumed in his performance of Cato being absent from the wardrobe. In this emergency, Theophilus Cibber submitted a proposition to the audience that, in addition to appearing as Syphax in the play, he should read the part Mr. Sheridan ought to have filled. The offer was accepted, the performance ensued, and apparently excited no opposition. Sheridan was much incensed, however, and published an address to the public. Cibber replied. Sheridan issued a second address, to which Cibber again responded. Their correspondence was subsequently reprinted in a pamphlet ent.i.tled ”Sock and Buskin.” But the fact remained that ”Cato” had been represented with the chief part not acted, but read by a player who had other duties to fulfil in the tragedy. One is reminded of the old-established story of the play of ”Hamlet” being performed with the omission of the character of the Prince of Denmark; a tradition, or a jest, which has long been attributed to Joe Miller, or some similar compiler of facetiae. It would seem, however, that even this absurd legend can boast some foundation of fact. At any rate, Mr. Parke, the respectable oboist of the Opera House, who published his Musical Memoirs in 1830, is found gravely recording of one Cubit, a subordinate actor and singer of Covent Garden Theatre, that once, ”when during one of his summer engagements at a provincial theatre, he was announced to perform the character of Hamlet, he was seized with a sudden and serious illness in his dressing-room, just before the play was going to begin; whereupon the manager, having 'no more cats than would catch mice,'
was constrained to request the audience to suffer them to go through with the play, omitting the character of Hamlet; which, being complied with, it was afterwards considered by the bulk of the audience to be a great improvement.” Mr. Parke proceeds to record, by way, perhaps, of fortifying his story: ”Although this may appear ridiculous and improbable, an occurrence of a similar kind took place several years afterwards at Covent Garden Theatre, when Cooke, the popular actor, having got drunk, the favourite afterpiece of 'Love a la Mode' was performed before a London audience (he being absent) without the princ.i.p.al character, Sir Archy MacSarcasm.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
BENEFITS.
Philip Henslowe, who, late in the sixteenth century, was proprietor of the old Rose Theatre, which stood a little west of the foot of London Bridge, at Bankside, combined with his managerial duties the occupation of p.a.w.nbroker, and was employed, moreover, as a kind of commission agent, or middleman, between dramatic authors and actors.
It probably seemed as natural to the manager to engage in these different employments as to require his players to ”double” or ”treble” parts in plays possessed of an unusually long list of _dramatis personae_. He had married Agnes Woodward, a widow, whose daughter, Joan, became the first wife of Edward Alleyn, the actor, the founder of Dulwich College. Henslowe had been the servant of Mrs.
Woodward, and by his union with her he acquired considerable property.
Forthwith he const.i.tuted himself ”a banker of the poor”--to use the modern euphonious synonym for p.a.w.nbroker--and advanced money for all needing it who were able to deposit with him plate, rings, jewels, wearing apparel, or other chattels of value. The playwrights of the time constantly obtained loans from him, not always that he might secure their compositions for his theatre, but often to relieve their immediate wants; and it is plain that he constantly availed himself of their necessitous condition to effect bargains with them very advantageous to his own interests. Robert Daborne, the dramatist, for instance, appears to have been particularly impecunious, and he was, moreover, afflicted with a pending lawsuit; the sums he obtained for his plays from the manager were therefore very disproportionate and uncertain. His letters to Henslowe are urgent in solicitations for payment on account of work in hand; he was often obliged to send his ma.n.u.scripts piecemeal to the manager, and on one occasion supplied a rough draft of the last scene of a play in order to obtain a few s.h.i.+llings in advance. The amounts paid for new plays at this time were very low. Before 1600 Henslowe never gave more than 8 for a play, but after that date there was a considerable rise in prices. In 1613 Daborne received 20 for his tragedy of ”Machiavell and the Devil.” In the same year, however, for another play, ”The Bellman of London,” he was content to take 12 and ”the overplus of the second day.” He had demanded 20 in the first instance, but being in great stress for money, had reduced his terms, beseeching Henslowe ”to forsake him not in his extremity.” Daborne's letters of entreaty indeed expose his poverty in a most pathetic manner, while occasionally they betray amusingly his vanity as an author. In one of his appeals to the manager, he writes: ”I did think I deserved as much money as Mr.
Ma.s.singer;” but this estimation of himself and his writings has not been confirmed by later ages.
The ”overplus of the second day” was probably, as a rule, not very considerable, seeing that a payment of 20 down was regarded as a higher rate of remuneration than 12 and ”the overplus,” whatever it might produce, in addition. Daborne's needs, however, may have induced him to prize unduly ”the bird in the hand.” Still his brother-authors held similar views on the subject. They, too, disliked the overplus system, while the managers as resolutely favoured it. So that, apart from the consideration that poverty clings to certainty because it cannot afford speculation, and that, to the literary character especially, a present payment of a specified sum is always more precious than possible undefined profits in the future, we may conclude that the overplus system generally told to the advantage of the managers. In the end the labourers had to yield to the capitalists; indeed, they could make little stand against them.
Authors have never manifested much faculty for harmonious combination, and a literary strike was no more conceivable then than now. In time a chance of the overplus became hardly separable from the method of paying dramatists. It was thought, perhaps, that better works would be produced by the writers who were made in some sort dependent for profit upon the success of their plays and partners in the ventures of the managers. In such wise the loss sustained from the condemnation of a play at its first representation would not fall solely upon the manager; the author would at least be a fellow-sufferer. Gradually the chance of the overplus was deferred from the second to the third performance. The system no doubt varied according to the position of the dramatist, who, if he were a successful writer, could make his own terms, so far as the selection of the overplus night was concerned.
Sir John Denham, in the prologue to his tragedy, ”The Sophy,” acted at Blackfriars about 1642, speaks of the second _or_ third day's overplus as belonging to the poet:
Gentlemen, if you dislike the play, Pray make no words on't till the second day Or third be pa.s.sed.
After the Restoration it became a settled practice that what was then called ”the author's night” should be the third performance of his play; and the dramatist in time received further profit from subsequent representations.
Then grant 'em generous terms who dare to write, Since now that seems as dangerous as to fight; If we must yield yet ere the day be fixt, Let us hold out the third, and, if we may, the sixth.
_Prologue, ”The Twin Rivals,” Farquhar, produced 1702._
”In Dryden's time,” writes Dr. Johnson, explaining that with all his diligence in play-writing the poet could not greatly improve his fortune,[2] ”the drama was very far from that universal approbation which it has now obtained. The playhouse was abhorred by the Puritans, and avoided by those who desired the character of seriousness or decency. A grave lawyer would have debased his dignity, and a young trader would have impaired his credit by appearing in those mansions of dissolute licentiousness. The profits of the theatre, when so many cla.s.ses of the people were deducted from the audience, were not great, and the poet had, for a long time, but a single night. The first that had two nights was Southern; and the first that had three was Rowe. There were, indeed, in those days, arts of improving a poet's profit, which Dryden forbore to practise; but a play seldom produced him more than a hundred pounds by the acc.u.mulated gain of the third night, the dedication, and the copy.”
[2] He had, it was alleged, entered into a contract to furnish four plays in each year.
These ”arts of improving a poet's profit” consisted in the canva.s.sing his friends and patrons, distributing tickets, and soliciting favour in all quarters. By his address in these matters, Southern's tragedy, ”The Spartan Dame,” produced him 500; indeed, he is said to have profited more by his writings for the stage than any of his contemporaries. Malone states that Addison was the first to abandon the undignified custom of appealing personally to the public for support. But it has been pointed out that this is an error. Addison gave the profits of ”Cato” to the managers, and was not required therefore to appeal on his own behalf to the public. Goldsmith's ”Good-natured Man,” it may be noted, was played ten consecutive nights, and the third, sixth, and ninth performances were advertised as ”appropriated to the author.” These three nights produced him 400, and he received 100 more from Griffin, the publisher, for the publication of the play--the entire receipts being immediately, with characteristic promptness, spent in the purchase of the lease of his chambers in Brick Court, Middle Temple, and in handsome furniture, consisting of ”Wilton carpets, blue moreen mahogany sofas, blue moreen curtains, chairs corresponding, chimney-gla.s.ses, Pembroke and card tables, and tasteful book-shelves.” According to Malone, one hundred guineas remained for many years, dating from 1726, the standard price paid by the publishers for a new play.
In addition to these ”authors' nights,” performances were occasionally given for the benefit of an author suffering from adverse circ.u.mstances. Thus, in 1733, a performance was organised at the Haymarket Theatre for the benefit of Mr. Dennis, the critic and dramatist. ”The Provoked Husband” was represented, and Pope so far laid aside his resentment against his old antagonist as to supply a prologue for the occasion. Nevertheless, it was noticed that the poet had not been able to resist the temptation of covertly sneering at the superannuated author, and certain of the lines in the prologue were found susceptible of a satirical application. Happily, poor Dennis, protected by his vanity or the decay of his intelligence, perceived nothing of this. Indeed, the poor old critic survived the benefit but twenty days, dying in the seventy-seventh year of his age. Other benefit performances on behalf of distressed men of letters, or their families, have frequently been given, even in quite recent times; but these are not to be confounded with the ”authors' nights,” as they were originally understood. ”Authors' nights,” strictly so called, have disappeared of late years. Modern dramatists are content to make private arrangements in regard to their works with the managers, and do not now publicly advance their personal claims upon the general consideration. They may profit by an ”overplus,” or be paid by the length of a ”run” of their plays, or may sell them out-right at once for a stipulated sum. The public have no knowledge of, and no concern in, the conditions of their method of transacting business. But from the old overplus system of the Elizabethan stage resulted those special performances called ”benefits,” still known to the modern playgoer, though now connected in his mind almost altogether with actors, and in no degree with authors. Nevertheless, it was for authors that benefits were originally inst.i.tuted, in opposition, as we have seen, to their wishes, and solely to suit the convenience and forward the interests of managers such as Mr. Henslowe.
Certainly in Shakespeare's time the actors knew nothing of benefits.
They obtained the best price they could for their services, and the risk of profit or loss upon the performance was wholly the affair of the manager. Indeed, it was long after the time when the chance of an overplus had become systematised as a means of paying authors, that it occurred to anyone that actors might also be remunerated in a similar way. In olden days the actor's profession was not favourably regarded by the general public; his social position was particularly insecure; he was looked upon as of close kin to the rogue and the vagabond, and with degrading possibilities in connection with the stocks and whipping-post never wholly remote from his professional career. An Elizabethan player, presuming to submit his personal claims and merits to the consideration of the audience, with a view to his own individual profit, apart from the general company of which he was a member and the manager whom he served, would probably have been deemed guilty of a most unpardonable impertinence. Gradually, however, the status of the actor improved; people began to concede that he was not necessarily or invariably a mountebank, and that certain of the qualities and dignities of an art might attach now and then to his achievements. The famous Mrs. Barry was, according to Cibber, ”the first person whose merit was distinguished by the indulgence of having an annual benefit play, which was granted to her alone,” he proceeds, ”if I mistake not, first in King James II.'s time, and which became not common to others until the division of the company, after the death of King William's Queen Mary.” However, in the preceding reign, in the year 1681, it appears by an agreement made between Davenant, Betterton, and others, that Charles Hart and Edward Kynaston were to be paid ”five s.h.i.+llings apiece for every day there shall be any tragedies or comedies or other representations at the Duke's Theatre, in Salisbury Court, or wherever the company shall act during the respective lives of the said Charles Hart and Edward Kynaston, excepting the days the young men or young women play for their own profit only.” Benefits would certainly seem to be here referred to, unless we are to understand the performances to be of a commonwealth kind, carried on by the players at their own risk, and independently of the managers. Still, to King James's admiring patronage of Mrs.
Barry, the benefit system, as it is at present known to us, has been generally ascribed; and clearly the monarch's memory deserves to be cherished on this account by our players. He can ill afford to forego the smallest claim to esteem, and undoubtedly he entertained a friendly regard for the stage and its professors. Indeed, the Stuarts generally were well disposed towards the arts, and a decidedly playgoing family.
For some years, however, actors' benefits did not extend beyond the case of Mrs. Barry. But in 1695 the patentees of the theatres were so unfortunately situated that they could not satisfy the claims of their actors, and were compelled to pay them ”half in good words and half in ready money.” Under these circ.u.mstances certain of the players compounded for the arrears of salary due to them by taking the risk of benefit performances. After a season or two these benefits were found to be so advantageous to the actors that they were expressly stipulated for in their agreements with the managers. On the other hand, the managers, jealous of the advantages secured in this wise by the players, took care to charge very fully for the expenses of the house, which were of course deducted from the gross receipts of the benefit-night, and further sought to levy a percentage upon the profits obtained by the actors. In 1702 the ordinary charge for house expenses, on the occasion of a benefit at Drury Lane, was about 34.