Part 21 (1/2)

M. Etienne Arago, writing some years since upon _les choristes_, calls attention to the important services rendered to the stage by its mute performers, and demands their wider recognition. He ventures to hold that as much talent is necessary to const.i.tute a tolerable _figurant_ as to make a good actor. He describes the _figurant_ as a multiform actor, a dramatic chameleon, compelled by the special nature of his occupation, or rather by its lack of special nature, to appear young or old, crooked or straight, n.o.ble or base-born, savage or civilised, according to the good pleasure of the dramatist. ”Thus, when Tancred declaims, _'Toi, superbe Orba.s.san, c'est toi que je defie!'_ and flings his gauntlet upon the stage, Orba.s.san has but to wave his hand and an attendant advances boldly, stoops, picks up the gage of battle, and resumes his former position. That is thought to be a very simple duty. But to accomplish it without provoking the mirth of the audience is _le sublime du metier--le triomphe de l'art!_”

The emotions of an author who for the first time sees himself in print, have often been descanted upon. The sensations of a ”super,”

raised from the ranks, entrusted with the utterance of a few words, and enabled to read the entry of his own name in the playbills, are scarcely less ent.i.tled to sympathy. His task may be slight enough, the measure of speech permitted him most limited; the reference to him in the programmes may simply run--

CHARLES (a waiter) Mr. JONES,

or even

RAILWAY PORTER Mr. BROWN,

but the delight of the performer is infinite. His promotion is indeed of a prodigious kind. Hitherto but a lay-figure, he is now endowed with life. He has become an actor! The world is at length informed of his existence. He has emerged from the crowd, and though it may be but for a moment, can a.s.sert his individuality. He carries his part about with him everywhere--it is but a slip of paper with one line of writing running across it. He exhibits it boastfully to his friends.

He reads it again and again; recites it in every tone of voice he can command--practises his elocutionary powers upon every possible occasion. A Parisian _figurant_, advanced to the position of _accessoire_, was so elated that he is said to have expressed surprise that the people he met in the streets did not bow to him; that the sentinels on guard did not present arms as he pa.s.sed. His reverence for the author in whose play he is to appear is boundless; he regards him as a second Shakespeare, if not something more. His devotion to the manager, who has given him the part, for a time approaches deliriousness.

”_Our_ new play will be a great go!” a promoted ”super” once observed to certain of his fellows, ”_I_ play a policeman! I go on in the last scene, and handcuff Mr. Rant. I have to say, 'Murder's the charge!

Stand back!' Won't that _fetch_ the house?”

There are soldiers doomed to perish in their first battle. And there have been ”supers” who have failed to justify their advancement, and, silenced for ever, have had to fall back into the ranks again. The French stage has a story of a _figurant_ who ruined at once a new tragedy and his own prospects by an unhappy _lapsus linguae_, the result of undue haste and nervous excitement. He had but to cry aloud, in the crisis of the drama: ”_Le roi se meurt!_” He was perfect at rehearsal; he earned the applause even of the author. A brilliant future, as he deemed, was open to him. But at night he could only utter, in broken tones: ”_Le meurt se roi!_” and the tragic situation was dissolved in laughter. So, in our own theatre, there is the established legend of Delpini, the Italian clown, who, charged to exclaim at a critical moment: ”Pluck them asunder!” could produce no more intelligible speech than ”Ma.s.sonder em plocket!” Much mirth in the house and dismay on the stage ensued. But Delpini had gained his object. He had become qualified as an actor to partic.i.p.ate in the benefits of the Theatrical Fund. As a mere pantomimist he was without a t.i.tle. But John Kemble had kindly furthered the claim of the foreign clown by entrusting him for once with ”a speaking part.” The tragedian, however, had been quite unprepared for the misadventure that was to result.

It used to be said that at the Parisian Cirque, once famous for its battle-pieces, refractory ”supers” were always punished by being required to represent ”the enemy” of the evening: the Russians, Prussians, English, or Arabs, as the case might be--who were to be overcome by the victorious soldiers of France--repulsed at the point of the bayonet, trampled upon and routed in a variety of ignominious ways. The representatives of ”the enemy” complained that they could not endure to be hopelessly beaten night after night. Their expostulation was unpatriotic; but it was natural. For ”supers” have their feelings, moral as well as physical. At one of our own theatres a roulette-table was introduced in a scene portraying the _salon_ at Homburg, or Baden-Baden. Certain of the ”supers” pet.i.tioned that they should not always appear as the losing gamesters. They desired sometimes to figure among the winners. It need hardly be said that the money that changed hands upon the occasion was only of that valueless kind that has no sort of currency off the stage.

When ”supers” appear as modern soldiers in action, it is found advisable to load their guns for them. They fear the ”kick” of their weapons, and will, if possible, avoid firing them. Once in a military play a troop of grenadiers were required to fire a volley. Their officer waved his sword and gave the word of command superbly; but no sound followed, save only that of the snapping of locks: Not a gun had been loaded. An unfortunate unanimity had prevailed among the grenadiers. Each had forborne to load his weapon, trusting that his omission would escape notice in the general noise, and a.s.sured that a shot more or less could be of little consequence. It had occurred to no one of them that his scheme might be put into operation by others beside himself--still less that the whole band might adopt it. But this had happened. For the future their guns were given them loaded.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

”GAG.”

The stage, like other professions, is in some sort to be considered as a distinct nation, possessing manners, customs, a code, and, above all, a language of its own. This, by the outside world, is designated ”slang;” just as in one country the tongue of another is vulgarly described as gibberish. Now and then, however, a word escapes from the peculiar vocabulary of the players, and secures the recognition and acceptance of the general public. It may not be forthwith registered in formal dictionaries, or sanctioned by the martinets of speech and style; still, like a French sou or a Jersey halfpenny appearing amongst our copper coins, it obtains a fair degree of currency and circulation, with little question as to the legitimacy of the mint from which it originally issued.

”Gag” is a word of this cla.s.s. It belongs of right to the actors, but of its age or derivation nothing can be ascertained, Modern lexicography of the best repute does not acknowledge it, and for a long time it remained unnoticed, even by the compilers of glossaries of strange and cant terms. Thus, it is not to be found in ”Grose's Cla.s.sical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,” published in 1796. This is a coa.r.s.e, but certainly a comprehensive work, and from its omitting to register ”gag,” we may a.s.sume that the word had no ascertained existence in Grose's time. In the ”Slang Dictionary; or, The Vulgar Words, Street Phrases, and 'Fast' Expressions of High and Low Society,” published in 1864, ”gag” is duly included, and defined to be ”language introduced by an actor into his part.” Long before this, however, the word had issued from the stage-door, and its signification had become a matter of general knowledge.

And even if the word be comparatively new, the thing it represents and defines is certainly old enough, dating, probably, from the very birth of the drama. So soon as the author began to write words for the actors to deliver, so soon, be sure, did the comedians begin to interpolate speech of their own contriving. For, as a rule, gag is the privilege and the property of the comic performer. The tragedian does not gag. He may require his part to be what is called ”written up” for him, and striking matter to be introduced into his scenes for his own especial advantage, but he is generally confined to the delivery of blank verse, and rhythmical utterances of that kind do not readily afford opportunities for gag. There have been Macbeths who have declined to expire upon the stage after the silent fas.h.i.+on prescribed by Shakespeare, and have insisted upon declaiming the last dying speech with which Garrick first enriched the character. But these are actors of the past. If Shakespeare does not often appear upon the modern stage, at any rate he is not presented in the disguised and mutilated form which won applause in what are now viewed as the ”palmy days” of the drama. And the prepared speeches introduced by the tragedians, however alien they may be to the dramatist's intentions, and independent of his creations, are not properly to be considered as gag.

It was in 1583, according to Howes' additions to Stow's ”Chronicle,”

that Queen Elizabeth, at the request of Sir Francis Walsingham, and with the advice of Mr. Edmond Tyllney, her Master of the Revels, selected twelve performers out of some of the companies of her n.o.bility, to be her own dramatic servants, with the special t.i.tle of the Queen's Players. They duly took the oaths of office, and were allowed wages and liveries as Grooms of the Chambers. Among these actors were included Robert Wilson, described as gifted with ”a quick, delicate, refined, extemporal wit;” and Richard Tarleton, of ”a wondrous, plentiful, pleasant, extemporal wit.” From this it would almost seem that these comedians owed their fame and advancement to their skill and inventiveness in the matter of gagging. No doubt these early actors bore some relation to the jesters who were established members of n.o.ble households, and of whom impromptu jokes and witticisms were looked for upon all occasions. Moreover, at this time, as Mr. Payne Collier judges, ”extemporal plays,” in the nature of the Italian _Commedie al improviso_, were often presented upon the English stage. The actors were merely furnished with a ”plat,” or plot of the performance, and were required to fill in and complete the outline, as their own ingenuity might suggest. Portions of the entertainments were simply dumb show and pantomime, but it is clear that spoken dialogue was also resorted to. In such cases the ”extemporal wit,” or gagging of the comic actors, was indispensably necessary. The ”comedians of Ravenna,” who were not ”tied to any written device,” but who, nevertheless, had ”certain grounds or principles of their own,” are mentioned in Whetstone's ”Heptameron,” 1582, and references to such performers are also to be found in Kyd's ”Spanish Tragedy,” and Ben Jonson's ”Case is Altered.” In ”Antony and Cleopatra” occurs the pa.s.sage:

The quick comedians Extemporally will stage us and present Our Alexandrian revels.

And Mr. Collier conjectures that when Polonius, speaking of the players, informs Hamlet that, ”for the law of writ and the liberty, these are your only men,” he is to be understood as commending their excellence, both in written performances and in such as left them at liberty to invent their own discourse.

But however intelligible and excusable its origin, it is certain that by the time Shakespeare was writing, the ”extemporal wit” of the theatre had come to be a very grave nuisance. There is no need to set forth here his memorable rebuke of the clowns who demonstrate their ”pitiful ambition” by speaking more than their parts warrant. It is to be observed, however, that while this charge is levelled only at the clowns, or comic performers, the faults of the serious players by no means escape uncriticised. The same speech condemns alike the rant of the tragedians and the gag of the comedians. Both are regarded as unworthy means of winning the applause of the ”groundlings” in one case, and the laughter of ”barren spectators” in the other. Sad to say, Hamlet, in his character of reformer of stage abuses, failed to effect much good. The vices of the Elizabethan theatre are extant, and thriving in the Victorian. It is even to be feared that the interpolations of the clowns have sometimes crept into and disfigured the Shakespearean text, much to the puzzlement of the commentators.

Often as Hamlet's reforming speech has been recited, it has been generally met and nullified by someone moving ”the previous question.”

At the same time, while there is an inclination to decry perhaps too strenuously the condition of the modern stage, it is fair to credit it with a measure of amendment in regard both to rant and gag. Of late years rant has certainly declined in public favour, and the ”robustious perriwig-pated fellow” tearing a pa.s.sion to tatters, to very rags, is a less familiar spectacle upon our boards than formerly; albeit, this statement is obviously open to the reply that the system of ”o'er doing Termagant,” and ”out-Heroding Herod” has ceased to prevail, inasmuch as the tragedies and vehement plays, which gave it opportunity and excuse, have vanished from the existing dramatic repertory. And gag, except perhaps in relation to certain interpolations, which are founded upon enduring, if absurd, histrionic traditions, acknowledges stricter limitations than it once did. A gagging Polonius, Dogberry, Gobbo, or Gravedigger could scarcely expect much toleration from a modern audience; while it is true enough, that these famous personages do not often present themselves upon the scene in these times. As a rule, the gag of the present period is to be found mainly in those more frivolous and ephemeral entertainments, which are not much to be d.a.m.nified by any excesses with which the comedians may be chargeable.

There is no gainsaying that in all times gag has been indulgently considered, and even encouraged by the majority of the audience.

Establis.h.i.+ng relations of a most intimate kind with his audience, the comic actor obtains from them absolute licence of speech and conduct.

He becomes their ”spoiled child,” his excesses are promptly applauded, and even his offences against good taste are speedily pardoned.

Of early gagging comedians, one of the most noted appears to have been Will Pinkethman, who flourished under William and Mary, and won honourable mention from Sir Richard Steele, in ”The Tatler.” Cibber describes Pinkethman as an imitator of Leigh, an earlier actor of superior and more legitimate powers. Pinkethman's inclination for ”gamesome liberties” and ”uncommon pleasantries” was of a most extravagant kind. Davies says of him that he ”was in such full possession of the galleries that he would hold discourse with them for several minutes.” Nor could he be induced to amend his method of performance. It was in vain the managers threatened to fine him for his exuberances; he was too surely a public favourite to be severely treated. At one time he came to a ”whimsical agreement” with Wilks, the actor, who suffered much from his playfellow's eccentricities, that ”whenever he was guilty of corresponding with the G.o.ds he should receive on his back three smart strokes of Bob Wilks's cane.” But even this penalty, it would seem, Wilks was too good-natured to enforce. On one occasion, however, as Davies relates, Pinkethman so persisted in his gagging as to incur the displeasure of the audience. The comedy was Farquhar's ”Recruiting Officer;” Wilks played Captain Plume, and Pinkethman one of the recruits. The captain enlisting him inquired his name. Instead of giving the proper answer, Pinkethman replied: ”Why, don't you know my name, Bob? I thought every fool knew that.” Wilks angrily whispered to him the name of the recruit, Thomas Appleton.