Dutton Cook

“ The stage storm still bursts upon the drama from time to time; the theatre is still visited in due course by its rainy and tempestuous season; and thunder and lightning are, as much as in Addison's time, among the favourite devices of our playwrights, "put in practice to fill the minds of an audience with terror." The terror may not be quite of the old kind, but still it does well enough. ”

“ Véron, writing of his experiences as manager of the Paris Opera House forty years ago, affirms: "Il y a des beautés de jour et des beautés du soir; une peau brune, jaune, ou noire, devient blanche à éclat de la lumière; les cheveux noirs réussissent mieux aussi au théâtre que les cheveux blonds." But the times have changed; the arts of the theatrical toilet have no doubt advanced greatly. On the stage now all complexions are brilliant, and light tresses are pronounced to be more admirable than dark. ”

“ Should he forget that he was Richard? Should he remember that he was only Mr. Bensley? He resolved to ignore the accident, to abandon his wig. Shorn of his locks, he delivered his speech in his most impressive manner. Of course he had to endure many interruptions. An Irish audience is rarely forbearing—has a very quick perception of the ludicrous. The jeering and ironic cheering that arose must have gravely tried the tragedian. "Mr. Bensley, darling, put on your jasey!" cried the gallery. "Bad luck to your politics! Will you suffer a Whig to be hung?" But the actor did not flinch. ”

“ Although we in front sometimes see and hear things we should not, some peculiarity of our position blinds and deafens us too much. Our eyes are beguiled into accepting age for youth, shabbiness for finery, tinsel for splendour. Garrick frankly owned that he had once appeared upon the stage so inebriated as to be scarcely able to articulate, but "his friends endeavoured to stifle or cover this trespass with loud applause," and the majority of the audience did not perceive that anything extraordinary was the matter. ”

“ And usually, we may note, the playgoer is youthful. An old playgoer is almost a contradiction in terms. He is merely a young playgoer who has grown old. He talks of the plays and players of his youth, but he does not, in truth, visit the theatre much in his age; and invariably he condemns the present, and applauds the past. Things have much degenerated and decayed, he finds; himself among them, but of that fact he is not fully conscious. There are no such actors now as once there were, nor such actresses. The drama has declined into a state almost past praying for. ”

“ Summer or winter he has no voice in the question; he must clothe himself warmly or scantily, just as he is bidden. "Always fleshings when there's a frost," a "super" was once heard to grumble, who conceived the classical system of dress or undress—and for that matter, perhaps, the classical drama also—to be invented solely for his inconvenience and discomfort. But more trying than this antique garb is the demoniac mask of pantomime, which is as a diver's helmet ill provided with appliances for admitting air or permitting outlook. ”

“ Puppets lose their power to please when the spectators are bent upon detecting the wires by which they are made to move.
The old melodramatic stage ghost—the spectre of "The Castle Spectre" school of plays—the phantom in a white sheet with a dab of red paint upon its breast, that rose from behind a tomb when a blow was struck upon a gong and a teaspoonful of blue fire was lighted in the wings, probably found its last home in the travelling theatre long known as "Richardson's." ”

“ That a headache too often follows hard upon a dramatic entertainment must be tolerably plain to anyone who has ever sat in a theatre. Surely a better state of things must have existed a century ago, when the grandsires and great-grandsires of us Londoners were in the habit of frequenting the theatres night after night, almost as punctually as they ate their dinner or sipped their claret or their punch. ”

“ They regard the theatre as a place to be noisy in, and for the vehement expression of their own restless natures. When they cannot greet a player with acclamations, they will clamorously deride a footman, or other servant of the theatre, who appears before the foot-lights with a broom, or a watering-pot, a carpet, or other necessary of representation; or they will issue boisterous commands to the gentlemen of the orchestra to "strike up" and afford an interlude of music. To these of the audience it is almost painful that a theatre should be peaceful or a stage vacant ”

“ Your bucks of the pit are miracles of learning,
Who point out faults to show their own discerning;
And critic-like bestriding martyred sense,
Proclaim their genius and vast consequence.
There were now critics by profession, who duly printed and published their criticisms. The awful Churchill's favourite seat was in the front row of the pit, next the orchestra. "In this place he thought he could best discern the real workings of the passions in the actors, or what they substituted instead of them," says poor Tom Davies, whose dread of the critic was extreme. ”

“ It is sufficient to say, indeed, that it was the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. To a very large class, therefore, the persecution of the players and the suppression of the stage must have been grave misfortune and real privation. To many the theatre still supplied not merely recreation but education and enlightenment as well. That there was any rising of the public on behalf of the players does not appear. Puritanism was too strong for opposition; and besides, the playgoer, by the nature of his favourite pursuit, almost avows himself a man of peace and obedient to the law. ”

“ It was in order, no doubt, the more to conciliate the audience that epilogues assumed, oftentimes, a playfulness of tone that would scarcely have been tolerated in the case of prologues. The delivery of an epilogue by a woman (i.e. by a boy playing the part of a woman) was clearly unusual at the time of the first performance of "As You Like It." "It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue," says Rosalind; "but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. ”

“ Hope sustains us under all our afflictions. Always hope. For my part, hope is the only thing left me. Business is wretched. The treasury is empty. I cannot possibly raise your salary. But you are an artist, and therefore above pecuniary considerations. I do not—I cannot—offer you money. But I can gratify a laudable ambition. Hitherto you have ranked only as an accessoire; from this time forward you are an actor. ”

“ The group of panting "supers," with their mimic heads under their arms—their faces smeared with red or blue, in accordance with direction, not of their own choice—to be discovered behind the scenes during the performance of a Christmas piece, is an impressive portion of the spectacle, although it is withheld from the contemplation of the audience. There have been "supers" who have approached very near to death by suffocation, from the hurtful nature of their attire, rather than fail in the discharge of their duties. For there is heroism everywhere. ”

“ One thunder of applause from pit, boxes, and gallery is equal to a whole immortality of posthumous fame." But if the thunder is but stage thunder? If the applause is supplied to order, through the agency of a M. Auguste? Upon another occasion Hazlitt expresses more tenderness for the ephemeral glories of the actor's art. "When an author dies it is no matter, for his work remains. When a great actor dies, there is a void produced in society, a gap which requires to be filled up. ”

“ And Cibber, in his apology, has placed on record an elaborate lament, "that the momentary beauties flowing from an harmonious elocution cannot, like those of poetry, be their own record; that the animated graces of the actor can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them; or, at least, can but faintly glimmer through the memory or imperfect attestation of a few surviving spectators." ”

“ So prosaic a Marcellus is only to be matched by that literal Guildenstern who, when besought by Hamlet to "Play upon this pipe," was so moved by the urgent manner of the tragedian, that he actually made the attempt, seizing the instrument, and evoking from it most eccentric sounds.
It is curious how many of the incidents and details of representation escape the notice of the audience. And here we are referring less to merits than to mischances. Good acting may not always obtain due recognition; but then how often bad acting and accidental deficiencies remain undetected! ”

“ It is, in my opinion, a very odd spectacle to see a queen venting her passion in a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two persons act on the stage at the same time are very different; the princess is afraid that she should incur the displeasure of the king, her father, or lose the hero, her lover, whilst her attendant is only concerned lest she should entangle her feet in her petticoat. ”

“ The complete suspension of applause, genuine or factitious, must result in the exceeding depression of the player. He must feel himself deprived of his proper sustenance; and something of dismay must possess him, when he finds that all his efforts move his audience in no way; that they are not en rapport with him; that while he labours they are listless. Henderson committed himself to the exaggeration that no actor could perform well, unless he was systematically flattered both on and off the stage. ”

“ Dryden complains of the "tumults to which we are subject in England by representing duels, battles, and the like, which renders our stage too like the theatres where they fight prizes. For what is more ridiculous than to represent an army with a drum and four men behind it, all which the hero of the other side is to drive before him? or to see a duel fought and one slain with two or three thrusts of the foils, which we know are so blunted that we might give a man an hour to kill another in good earnest with them?" ”

“ The makeshifts and artifices of the theatre have to be met half-way, and indulgently accepted.
The stage could not live without its whispers, which, after all, are only whispers in a non-natural sense. For that can hardly be in truth a whisper, which is designed to reach the ears of some hundreds of persons. But the "asides" of the theatre are a convenient and indispensable method of revealing to the audience the state of mind of the speaker, and of admitting them to his confidence. ”

“ He mentions that the catcall has quite a contrary effect to the martial instrument then in use; and instead of stimulating courage and heroism, sinks the spirits, shakes the nerves, curdles the blood, and inspires despair and consternation at a surprising rate. "The catcall has struck a damp into generals, and frightened heroes off the stage. At the first sound of it I have seen a crowned head tremble, and a princess fall into fits." He concludes with mention of an ingenious artist who teaches to play on it by book, and to express by it the whole art of dramatic criticism. ”

“ Garrick, as his portrait reveals, played the part with a clean-shaven face, and John Kemble followed his example; but could the ghost of Hamlet's father ever have defied the poet's portraiture of him, and walked the platform of Elsinore Castle without a "sable-silvered" chin? Has an audience ever viewed tolerantly a bald Romeo, or a Juliet grown gray in learning how to impersonate that heroine to perfection? It is clear that at a very early date the players must have acquired the simple arts of altering and amending their personal appearance in these respects. ”

“ The shade of the departed king, if tolerably treated, seldom provokes a smile, even from the most hardened and jocose of spectators. But in "Macbeth" the scene must be well lighted, for the nobles, courtiers, and guests are at high banquet; and the ghost must appear towards the front of the stage, otherwise Macbeth will be compelled to turn his back upon the public, and his simulated horror will be absolutely thrown away; if the actor's face cannot be seen, his acting, of necessity, goes for little or nothing. ”

“ It would seem to have been a revival of a production of David Garrick's. "It is called a speaking pantomime," writes Hazlitt; "we had rather it had said nothing. It is better to act folly than to talk it. The essence of pantomime is practical absurdity keeping the wits in constant chase, coming upon one by surprise, and starting off again before you can arrest the fleeting 'phantom:' the essence of this piece was prosing stupidity remaining like a mawkish picture on the stage, and overcoming your impatience by the force of ennui. ”

“ Ridicule of a stage army was one of the established points of humour in the old burlesque of "Bombastes Furioso," and many a pantomime has won applause by the comical character of the troops brought upon the scene. It should be said, however, that of late years the more famous battles of the theatre have been reproduced with remarkable liberality and painstaking. In lieu of "four swords and bucklers," a very numerous army of supernumeraries has marched to and fro upon the boards. ”

“ The interior fittings of the theatre were completely destroyed; the furniture and hangings being carried into the street and made a bonfire of, the curtain surmounting the flaming heap like a gigantic flag. A riot at the Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1721, led to George I.'s order that in future a guard should attend the performances. This was the origin of the custom that long prevailed of stationing sentries on either side of the proscenium during representations at the patent theatres. Of late years the guards have been relegated to the outside of the buildings. ”