Part 23 (1/2)
Macbeth, indeed, was never ”dressed” agreeably to the taste of antiquarian critics, until the ornate revivals of the tragedy by Mr.
Phelps, at Sadler's Wells, in 1847, and by Mr. Charles Kean, at the Princess's Theatre, some five years later. The costumes were of the eleventh century on each of these occasions, Mr. Phelps's version of the play being so strictly textual, that the musical embellishments, usually attributed to Locke, but in truth supplied by Leveridge, were discarded for the first time for very many years. Lady Macduff was restored to the list of _dramatis personae_, from which she had so long been banished, and the old stage direction in the last scene--”enter Macduff with Macbeth's head upon a pole,” was implicitly followed. But these revivals were a consequence of earlier reproductions of Shakespeare, with rigid regard to accuracy of costume, and general completeness of decoration. John Kemble had taken certain important steps in this direction, and his example had been bettered by his brother Charles, under whose management of Covent Garden, ”King John”
was produced, the costumes being supervised by Mr. Planche, and every detail of the representation receiving most attentive study. Great success attended this experiment, although, in the first instance, there had prevailed a strong inclination to deride as ”stewpans” the flat-topped helmets worn by King John and his barons. After this, accuracy of costume, especially in relation to the plays of Shakespeare, became the favourite pursuit of managers. Mr. Macready ventured upon various revivals, archaic and decorative, at Covent Garden and Drury Lane; Mr. Phelps followed suit at Sadler's Wells, and Mr. Charles Kean at the Princess's, until it seemed that correctness of attire, and splendour of scenery and appointments, could no further be carried; indeed, alarm arose lest the drama should perish altogether under the weight of upholstery and wardrobe it was doomed to bear. Already the art of acting, in its more heroic aspects, had undergone decline; there was danger of the player sinking to the level of a mere dummy or lay-figure for the exhibition of costly raiment.
Still, these luxurious ill.u.s.trated editions of Shakespeare were attractive and popular, although it is probable that the audience esteemed them less for their archaeological merits than on account of their charms as spectacles. Indeed, few in the theatre could really be supposed to prize the cut of a tunic, or the shape of a headdress, or to possess such minute information as enabled them to appraise the worth, in that respect, of the entertainment set before them. However, pages from the history of costume were displayed, indisputable in their correctness, and those who listed might certainly gather instruction. Here was to be seen King John in his habit as he lived; here appeared the second and third Richards, King Henry, Queen Katherine, and Wolsey; now was presented London, with its inhabitants in the Middle Ages; now, the Venice of Shylock; and, anon, the Bithynia of the days of King Leontes. The spectators applauded the finery and the skill of the embellishments; and their favourable verdict upon these counts carried with it, presumably, approval of the players, and, perhaps, a measure of homage to Shakespeare.
The pa.s.sion for extreme decoration, in relation both to scenery and dresses, has not known abatement of late years, though it has sought other subjects than those supplied by Shakespeare--most unwittingly; for never could the poet have even dreamed of such a thing as ”a correct and superb” revival. But the question, as to the benefit done to histrionic art by these representations, remains much where it was. To revert to the shortcomings of the Elizabethan stage would be, of course, impossible; the imaginations of the audience would now steadily refuse to be taxed to meet the absence of scenery, the incongruity of costumes, and the other deficiencies of the early theatre. Some degree of accuracy our modern playgoers would demand, if they disdained or disregarded minute correctness. Certainly, there would be dissatisfaction if a player, a.s.suming the part of King Henry VIII., for instance, neglected to present some resemblance to the familiar portraits of the king by Holbein. Yet the same audience would be wholly undisturbed by anachronisms touching the introduction of silken stockings, or velvet robes, the pattern of plate armour, or the fas.h.i.+on of weapons. After all, what is chiefly needed to preserve theatrical illusion is a certain harmony of arrangement, which shall be so undemonstratively complete as to escape consideration; no false notes must be struck to divert attention from the designs of the dramatist and from his interpreters, the players; and to these the help derived from scenery and dresses should always be subordinated.
Yet, when has the theatre been thus ordered, or have audiences been so disciplined? Beaumont, probably, had good reason for writing to Fletcher, concerning a performance of his ”Faithful Shepherdess”--
Nor want they those who as the boy doth dance Between the acts, will censure the whole play; Some like if the wax lights be new that day; But mult.i.tudes there are whose judgment goes Headlong according to the actors' clothes.
The playgoers of Garrick's time, and long afterwards, were habituated to the defective system of theatrical costume--had grown up with it.
To them it was part of the stage as they had always known it, and they saw no reason for fault-finding. And it is conceivable that many plays were little affected by the circ.u.mstance that the actors wore court suits. It was but a s.h.i.+fting of the period of the story represented, a change of venue; and Romeo, in hair-powder, interested just as much as though he had a.s.sumed an auburn wig. The characters were, doubtless, very well played, and the actors appeared, at any rate, as ”persons of quality.” In historical plays one would think the objection to anachronism much more obvious; for there distinct events and personages and settled dates were dealt with. But there was an understanding that stage costume was purely a conventional matter--and so came to be tolerated most heterogeneous dressing: the mixing together of the clothes of almost all centuries and all countries, in a haphazard way, just as they might be discovered heaped up in a theatrical wardrobe. It was not a case of simple anachronism; it was compound and conflicting. Still, little objection was offered.
And even a critic above quoted, writing in 1759, and proposing greater accuracy in the costumes of historical plays, refrains from suggesting that comedy should be as strictly treated. He even advances the opinion that the system of dress in vogue at the date of the play's production should be disregarded according to ”the fluctuations of fas.h.i.+on.” ”What should we think,” he demanded, ”of a Lord Foppington now dressed with a large full-bottomed wig, laced cravat, b.u.t.tons as large as apples, or a Millament with a headdress four storeys high?”
And there is something to be said for this view. The writer of comedy pictures manners, and these do not change immediately. His portraits remain recognisable for a generation, probably. Lord Foppington had descendants, and his likeness, with certain changes of dress, might fairly pa.s.s for theirs for some time. But, of course, the day must arrive when the comedy loses value as a reflection of manners; it is interesting as a transcript of the past, but not of the present. It is doubtless difficult to fix this date with preciseness; but when that has been accomplished the opportunity of the antiquarian costumier has arrived.
Macklin, who reformed the costume of Macbeth, also, it should be recorded, was the first actor who ”dressed Iago properly.” It seems that formerly the part was so attired, or ”made up,” that Iago's evil nature was ”known at first sight; but it is unnatural to suppose that an artful villain like him would choose a dress which would stigmatise him to everyone. I think,” adds the critic, ”that as Ca.s.sio and he belong to one regiment they should both retain the same regimentals.”
By way of final note on the subject is subjoined the opinion of the author of ”Vivian Grey,” recorded in that work touching the dress that should be worn by Oth.e.l.lo. ”In England we are accustomed to deck this adventurous Moor in the costume of his native country--but is this correct? The Grand Duke of Reisenberg thought not. Oth.e.l.lo was an adventurer; at an early age he entered, as many foreigners did, into the service of Venice. In that service he rose to the highest dignities--became general of her armies and of her fleets; and finally the viceroy of her favourite kingdom. Is it natural to suppose that such a man should have retained, during his successful career, the manners and dress of his original country? Ought we not rather to admit that, had he done so, his career would in fact not have been successful? In all probability he imitated to affectation the manners of the country which he had adopted. It is not probable that in such, or in any age, the turbaned Moor would have been treated with great deference by the common Christian soldier of Venice--or, indeed, that the scandal of a heathen leading the armies of one of the most powerful of European states, would have been tolerated for an instant by indignant Christendom.... Such were the sentiments of the Grand Duke of Reisenberg on this subject, a subject interesting to Englishmen; and I confess I think they are worthy of attention. In accordance with his opinion, the actor who performed Oth.e.l.lo appeared in the full dress of a Venetian magnifico of the Middle Ages: a fit companion for Cornaro, or Grimani, or Barberigo, or Foscari.”
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
HARLEQUIN AND CO.
What is called the ”legitimate drama” has always found in pantomime just such a rival and a relative as Gloucester's lawfully-begotten son Edgar was troubled with in the person of his base-born brother Edmund.
The authentic professor of histrionic art may even have been addressed occasionally by his illicit opponent in something like Edmund's very words:
Why b.a.s.t.a.r.d? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us With base? with baseness? with b.a.s.t.a.r.dy? base, base?
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land; Our father's love is to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Edmund As to the legitimate: fine word ”legitimate.”
The antagonism between the two forms of entertainment is by no means of to-day merely. Shakespeare noted with an air of regret that ”inexplicable dumb shows and noise” enjoyed public admiration in his day, and, centuries before, the audiences of the ancient actors underwent reduction by reason of the rival performances of the dancers, mimes, and mountebanks of the period. The Roman people began in time to care less for the comedians than for the mimes. Some of these had the art to represent an entire play, such as the ”Hercules Furens,” to the delight and astonishment of the spectators. Augustus is said to have reconciled the Romans to many severe imposts by recalling their favourite mime and dancer, Pylades, who had been banished for pointing with his finger at a spectator who had offended him. The ”dumb shows” referred to by Hamlet, however, were not so much distinct entertainments as excrescences upon the regular performances of the theatre, interpolations to win the applause of the groundlings.
Pantomime proper was a development of ballet; the result of an endeavour to connect one dance with another by means of a slight string of story. In England systematised entertainments of dancing and singing were brought upon the English stage by Davenant, ”to check,”
we are told, ”the superiority enjoyed by the royal comedians in their exhibition of the regular drama.” English singing, however, had declined in public favour when the taste for Italian opera arose here about the close of the seventeenth century, and dancing became then the only feasible counter-attraction to the regular drama. The first ballets were produced at small cost; but by-and-by the managers increased more and more their expenditure on account of the dancers, until the rival theatres were compared to candidates at an election, competing in bribery to secure ”a majority of the mult.i.tude.” Cibber, while defending himself against Pope's attack upon him in ”The Dunciad,” admitted that he had not virtue enough to starve by opposing the public, and pleaded guilty to the charge of having as a manager produced very costly ballets and spectacles. At the same time he condemned the taste of the vulgar, avowed himself as really on the side of truth and justice, and compared himself to Henry IV. of France changing his religion in compliance with the wishes of his people!
Hitherto the ballets had dealt exclusively with mythological subjects, and nothing of the Italian element comprised in modern pantomime had been apparent in our stage performances. It is probable that even upon their first introduction to our theatre the real significance of the characters of ancient Italian comedy was never wholly comprehended by the audience. Few could have then cared to learn that types of national or provincial peculiarity, representatives of Venice, Bologna, Naples, and Bergamo, respectively, were intended by the characters of Pantaloon, the Doctor, Scapin, and Harlequin. Yet, in the first instance, the old Italian comedy was brought upon the English stage with some regard for its original integrity, and the characters were personated by regular actors rather than by mimes. So far back as 1687 Mrs. Behn's three-act farce of ”The Emperor of the Moon” was produced, and in this appeared the characters of Harlequin and Scaramouch, who play off many tricks and antics, while there are parts in the play corresponding with the pantaloon, the lover, and the columbine of more modern pantomime. But at this date, and for some years, harlequin was not merely the sentimentalist, att.i.tudiniser, and dancer he has since become. He was true to his Italian origin, and very much the kind of harlequin encountered on his native soil and described by Addison: ”Harlequin's part is made up of blunders and absurdities; he is to mistake one name for another, to forget his errands, and to run his head against every post that appears in his way.” Marmontel describing, however, the harlequin of the French stage, writes: ”His character is a mixture of ignorance, simplicity, cleverness, stupidity, and grace; he is a kind of sketch of a man, a tall child, yet with gleams of reason and wit, and all whose mistakes and follies have something arch about them. The true mode of representing him is to give him suppleness, agility, the playfulness of a kitten, with a certain grossness of appearance, which renders his conduct more absurd; his part is that of a patient, faithful valet, always in love, always in hot water, either on his master's or his own account, troubled and consoled as easily as a child, and whose grief is as entertaining as his joy.”
It will be observed that the character thus described more nearly resembles the modern clown than the modern harlequin, and the early harlequins of the English stage were therefore naturally played by the low comedians of the time. The harlequin of Mrs. Behn's farce was personated by an actor named Jevon, who was followed in the part by Pinkethman, a comedian much commended by Steele in ”The Tatler.”
Pinkethman was found so amusing in his motley coat, and what Cibber calls ”that useless unmeaning mask of a black cat,” that certain of his admirers fancied that much of the drollery and spirit of his grimace must be lost by the concealment of his face. Yielding to their request, therefore, he played one night without his mask. But the result was disappointing. ”Pinkethman,” it is recorded, ”could not take to himself the shame of the character without being concealed; he was no more harlequin; his humour was quite disconcerted; his conscience could not with the same effrontery declare against nature without the cover of that unchanging face. Without that armour his courage could not come up to the bold strokes that were necessary to get the better of common-sense.”
Early in the eighteenth century the characters of the Italian comedy were introduced into ballets. Harlequin ceased to speak, and a.s.sumed by degrees a more romantic, a less comic air, and the peculiarities of modern pantomime were gradually approached. Rich, the manager of the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields and afterwards of Covent Garden--the ”immortal Rich” of ”The Dunciad”--became famous for his pantomimes, and under the name of Lun acquired great distinction as a harlequin.
Pope handles severely the taste of the town in regard to pantomimes, and the excessive expenditure incurred on account of them. ”Persons of the first quality in England” were accused of attending at these representations twenty and thirty times in a season. The line ”Lo! one vast egg produces human race,” had reference to the trick, introduced by Rich, of hatching harlequin out of a large egg. This was regarded as a masterpiece of dumb show, and is described in glowing terms by a contemporary writer. ”From the first clipping of the egg, his receiving motion, his feeling the ground, his standing upright, to his quick harlequin trip round the empty sh.e.l.l, through the whole progression, every limb had its tongue and every motion a voice.” Rich was also famed for his ”catching a b.u.t.terfly” and his ”statue scene;”
his ”taking leave of columbine” was described as ”graceful and affecting;” his trick of scratching his ear with his foot like a dog was greatly admired; while in a certain dance he was said to execute 300 steps in a rapid advance of three yards only. A writer in _The World_ (1753) ironically recommended the managers to dispense entirely with tragedy and comedy, and to entertain the town solely with pantomime, people of taste and fas.h.i.+on having given sufficient proof that they thought it the highest entertainment the stage was capable of affording--”the most innocent we are sure it is, for where nothing is said and nothing meant very little harm can be done.” Garrick, it was fancied, might start a few objections to this proposal; ”but,” it was added, ”with those universal talents which he so happily possesses, it is not to be doubted but he will in time be able to handle the wooden sword with as much dignity and dexterity as his brother Lun.”
Possibly harlequin became a mute, in the first instance, to suit the limited capacity in the matter of elocution of some such performer as Rich; or the original dumbness of the harlequinade figures may be attributable to the strictness with which of old the theatres, unprotected by patents, were prohibited from giving _spoken_ entertainments. What were then called the ”burletta houses” were permitted performances of dancing, singing, tumbling, juggling--anything, indeed, but _speech_ unaccompanied by music. The popularity of these performances was beyond question, however, and, in time, the mute drove the speaking harlequin from the stage: the great theatres probably copying the form of pantomimes of the minor houses, as they were by-and-by also induced to follow the smaller stages in the matter of their melodramas and burlettas.
The comic ”openings” known to modern times had no place in Rich's pantomimes. These were divided into two parts, the first being devoted to scenic surprises and magical transformations of a serious nature, and the last to all kinds of comic antics, tumbling and dancing. No allusions to pa.s.sing events or the follies of the day were, however, introduced.