Authors: William Savage
I
t can be imagined
in what a fine mood Adam and Captain Mimms set out to walk the short distance to the temporary theatre where the evening’s entertainment was to take place. Many other people were taking the same direction, so the players were going to have a good audience. Such travelling troops relied on the box office takings for all their needs. Most of the actors were not paid. Their reward came by an occasional ‘benefit performance’ at which the takings would be theirs.
The programme, Capt. Mimms had explained, was typical fare for an evening in a small town. Nothing of the grand tragedies or solemn historical plays you might find at a city theatre. Here the diet was one attuned to a less sophisticated audience. It was also more likely to be within the compass of the players themselves.
Tonight they would begin with a spoken monologue on the theme of the trials of love. That would doubtless be proclaimed in a most affecting voice by whichever of the actresses was deemed the prettiest. Then there was to be a ‘comic entertainment of dancing, performed by two famous dancers lately arrived from Italy’. Adam doubted these would have come from further than Cambridge or Ipswich, but kept that to himself.
The main dish of this theatrical feast would then follow. A ‘grand melodrama, entitled Forkbeard’s Curse or The Pirate’s Revenge upon a Villain’. That should allow for a good deal of the kind of stage fighting and effects with fireworks for which such companies were renowned. Finally, the evening would end with a farce. Today it was to be ‘The Contrived Maidenhead’, and would naturally involve a comely young whore and a rich old fool. She would convince him of her virginal innocence to raise the price of her favours. Meanwhile, she would be entertaining herself with several handsome young blades behind his back. Everyone would be able to guess the plot in advance, but it would matter little. The real purpose of the play would be to allow for a mass of double meanings and bawdy humour. Adam was expecting a fine evening of entertainment.
The opening monologue,
The Trial of Love
, was indeed delivered by a pretty girl. Adam judged her to be scarce fifteen years old. Yet she already showed signs of the dark-haired beauty she would doubtless become. It may even have been her first appearance on the stage, for her voice at the start was barely loud enough to carry more than halfway down the room.
Some wag called out, ‘Speak up, me darling! You make a damn pretty picture, but we’d like to hear the words as well.’
But if he hoped thus to put her out of countenance, this girl was made of sterner stuff. ‘You shout loud enough, sir,’ she called back, ‘but I dare say you ain’t pretty! Now let me get on and have done with your nonsense.’
The audience erupted in laughter and cheers. The girl, much emboldened by their support, now spoke out loudly, winking at the audience as she did so. The end of her performance was thus signalled by loud applause – mixed with many shouted suggestions of how certain patrons would like to make trial of her love in particular.
The dancers came on next, dressed in costumes doubtless last used for Harlequin and Colombina. Those clothes, and the dark hair of both man and woman, were probably the limit of their claim to have ‘lately arrived from Italy’. And if their dancing lacked somewhat in grace, they went to it with such enthusiasm and enjoyment that they too won the audience over. Their act was ended with wild applause. During her bows, Colombina made sure each was deep enough to allow the better class of patrons, seated in the front rows, a fine view of her firmly-rounded breasts.
N
ow came the melodrama
, which the most experienced of the players undertook. The first scene took place in the secret lair of Forkbeard, a notorious pirate. Forkbeard himself entered, telling the pirate with him that a ship of the Royal Navy had trapped and destroyed his pirate vessel. Thus he must now flee to save his own life. At those words, two sailors entered, led by a dashing young officer, who called on Forkbeard to surrender in the King’s name. A fight ensued between pirate and officer. At first, Forkbeard seemed to be winning. He even managed to wound the officer by a sudden trick (loud boos and hisses from the audience). Yet the officer recovered and fought back, while the sailor accompanying him put the second pirate to flight. At length, the officer darted at Forkbeard and ran him through. The pirate chief fell (huzzas on all sides) and the young officer declared that the seas were now safe for English ships again. Finally, he instructed the sailor with him to see Forkbeard properly buried. He might be a villain and a pirate, the officer said, but he had been born an Englishman and deserved respect (loud cries of agreement).
The second scene opened with the sailor left to bury Forkbeard ransacking his room, in hope of finding treasure. All he found was an old box, too light to contain gold or jewels. As he began to open it, he started back in alarm: Forkbeard was not dead!
Raising himself on one arm, the pirate chief branded the sailor a thief and a villain, ready to stoop even to robbing the dead. Pointing a shaking hand, he pronounced a curse on him, saying that if he opened the box he was holding, he would die a foul death. For a moment, the sailor stood in amazement. Then he leapt forward, drew his knife and stabbed Forkbeard to the heart. Finally, declaring he gave no credence to curses and such nonsense, he rushed from the room.
The second act followed after an interval, in which the sounds of scenery moving could be heard from behind the curtain. When the curtain rose, it was no surprise to find the location had moved to a room in England. Here a pert doxy was telling her mother, an amazingly ugly hag, how she had entranced a young fool of a gentleman into making her his mistress. All that stood in the way of a fine life of wealth and leisure was her wretched sailor husband. She always hoped he would fail to return from his voyages, but she suspected him to be an arrant coward who took good care to avoid danger of any kind. Now, she declared, he should not spoil her plans. At that, she pulled a small bottle from her pocket and showed it to her mother. It contained, she said, a powerful poison that she had obtained from the apothecary by telling him her home was overrun with rats. If her husband returned again, she planned to drop some into his drink as soon as she could.
At that moment, the door opened, revealing the sailor last seen killing Forkbeard. In a loud aside, the doxy exclaimed that this was her husband, who had once again returned, damn him! This would be the last time. At once, she turned back to the sailor, all affection and attention. She was overjoyed, she told him, that he was home with her again. Had he brought her a present?
Her husband then put Forkbeard's box on the table and told her that he won it in a fight to the death with a powerful and notorious pirate (loud cries of ‘liar!’ from all sides). Unfortunately, all he had found inside was an old book of parchment, written in some strange, foreign tongue. Opening the box, he now took out the book and showed it to her, saying he could see no value in it.
His wife at once branded him a fool. Were there not learned men eager to buy worthless books and papers, so long as they were old? All they had to do was to find a way of letting several such people know of this book, then sell it to the highest bidder. At once, her husband was full of resolve. Saying he had the perfect one in mind, he left to speak to the local rector, whom he described as an old fool much given to fancies of that sort. If he did not want the book, or could not afford their price, he would assuredly know who could. As he left the room, the curtain came down again.
This time, the gap between scenes was short and the curtain rose on the same room. The wife was now revealed in the arms of a foppish young man, lavishing kisses and caresses on him. After a moment, the lover broke away from her hold, announcing that his parents were set on him marrying some dull girl. It was just because she had a fortune, whereas he would far rather marry the woman now before him. It was clear that she had not told him she was married already.
In another aside, the faithless wife now told the audience that this young fool was better than nothing. Yet she doubted that he would stay out of debt long enough to give her the life she wanted. She would therefore help him spend his new wife’s money, then find another protector as quickly as she might. Spotting the pirate’s box on the table, she asked the fop if he knew of anyone interested in old books and the like.
He told her that his tutor at the university – an old dodderer who thought himself a great scholar of the occult – would be wild for such an object. Seeing an opportunity, the sailor's wife told him to send the man to her. She had something that he would pay handsomely for. It was a strange book full of secret writing ‘a sailor she knew’ had brought back for her as a curiosity. Turning once more to the audience, she declared that she knew well she could dispose of the book for far more money than her husband. Once she had rid herself of him, that money would be hers. Her current lover had proved to be less generous than she hoped, once he had from her what he wanted. She would thus use the money to set herself up in a fine house and attract richer prey.
The final act opened again in the sailor’s house. Entering, the sailor told the audience that he had agreed to sell the box and the book to the rector for the sum of twenty pounds. The rector would soon arrive bringing the money, but he would tell his wife the sum agreed was only ten pounds. The rest would afford him plenty of grog. It would also buy the favours of young Nancy at ‘The Ship Inn’. She, he declared, was as fancy a young piece as he had ever set his eyes upon and far more attractive to him than his complaining wife.
This same wife now entered from the other side of the stage. She too made an aside to the audience. She had sold the box and book to the young fop’s tutor for the sum of thirty pounds, which he had promised to bring her shortly. Seeing her husband, she tried first to induce him to leave, so that she might meet the tutor alone. He, of course, was expecting his own visitor and refused to budge, trying instead to persuade her to go out from the house.
After some argument, husband and wife sat down with their backs to one another. Now there came a thunderous knocking at the door and two men came in, both obviously irate.
These were the rector and the tutor, who had met in the lane outside. Eager to draw applause from a fellow enthusiast, each explained to the other about their intended purchases. Thus they found that the couple were in the process of selling the same object twice. Now they had come to demand satisfaction. They had sent for the constable to take both husband and wife before a magistrate.
While the sailor blamed all on his wife, saying he had not known of her treachery, she slipped from the room. In her absence, the sailor next tried to set the two antiquarians to bidding against one another for the box and book, but they refused. At length the wife returned, bearing a tray with three cups on it. Affecting a tone of sweet reason, she said she was sure it was all a misunderstanding. If they would be willing to sit and refresh themselves with a glass of her punch, matters might be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Her husband, still angry, snatched up the glass and drained it at a gulp. Rector and tutor also took glasses, meaning to drink in a more seemly fashion. Indeed, the rector had the glass against his lip when, on a sudden, the tutor gave a great cry. He threw his own glass upon the floor and dashed the other from the rector’s grip. In a fury, he told the amazed clergyman that he knew something of physic from his alchemical studies. Thus he had recognised the distinctive smell of a powerful poison in his glass. As both men turned to face the wife, her husband gave a great groan and clutched his stomach.
What followed was the typical death scene of such plays. The husband cursed his wife, snatched up the box and book and threw both into the fire. Then, with much groaning and sighing, he expired upon the hearth. Meanwhile, the other two had seized the wife and held her. When the actor playing the husband decided the audience had received proof of his ability to drag out a death scene, the constable entered. The wife was accused of murder, bound and led away to await the hangman’s noose.
When the curtain fell on this last scene, the audience might have been forgiven for thinking the play at an end. However, the curtain quickly rose again on the empty room, now lit from the left by an eerie, greenish light. Amidst the sounds of chains clanking and the groaning of tortured souls – doubtless supplied by the rest of the company behind the scenery – the ghost of Forkbeard entered. His face and hair had been rendered a deathly white and his clothes obscured by what was intended as a winding-sheet. Facing the audience, the apparition expressed delight at the death of the sailor and his wife, branding them both thieves and deceivers. His curse, he told the audience, needed no magic or prophesy. He was the proof that all those who resorted to crime and murder, as he had done, would end by tasting the treatment they handed out to others.
There followed a crash and a red flaring light of some kind of firework, a final burst of demonic laughter from off-stage, and the curtain came down. The play was over.
When the company assembled to take their bows, there could be no doubt that the audience had enjoyed their work. Cheers and huzzas greeted the young naval officer, jeers and catcalls the sailor, his wife and Forkbeard (or his ghost). Yet all were accompanied by loud applause and much waving of hats.
T
he farce
which ended the entertainment was exactly as predicted. The company, clearly buoyed up by the success of their principal performance, delivered it with great verve and gaiety. The double meanings came thick and fast, aided by more ribald comments from the back of the audience. The actress playing the (supposed) virgin, took every opportunity to show off her buxom figure. Once or twice, accidentally-on-purpose she even revealed shapely legs. As a result, the evening ended with all in high good humour, including Adam and Capt. Mimms.