Complete Works of Bram Stoker (647 page)

Irving has often told me that in playing the double part the real difficulty was not to make the two men unlike and guilt look like guilt, but the opposite. He used to adduce instances told him by experienced judges and counsel of where they had been themselves deceived by demeanour. It is indeed difficult for any one to discriminate between the shame, together with the submission to the Divine Law to which he has been bred, of the innocent, and the fear, whose expression is modified by hardihood, of the guilty. In Irving’s case the points of difference were not merely overt; there were subtle differences of tone and look and bearing. Loftiness for instance, as against supreme and fearless indifference and brutality.

The Lyons Mail was always one of the most anxious and exhausting of his plays. In the first place he was always on the stage, either in the one character of Lesurques or the other of Dubosc-except at the end of the play where he appeared to be both. All the intervals were taken up with necessary changes of dress. In the next place the time is all-important. In any melodrama accuracy as to time is important to success; but in this one of confused identity it is all-important. There are occasions when the delay of a single second will mar the best studied effect, and when to be a second too soon is to spoil the plot. In certain plays the actors must “ overlap “ in their speeches; the effect of their work must be to carry the thought of the audience from point to point without wavering. Thus they receive the necessary information without the opportunity of examining it too closely. This is a part of the high art of the stage. There can be illusions by other means than light.

Once there was a peculiar contretemps in the acting. Tom Mead was a fine old actor with a tall thin form and a deep voice that sounded like an organ. His part was that of Jerome Lesurques, the father of the unhappy man whose double was the villain Dubosc. He had played it for many years and very effectively. The end of the first act comes when Dubosc, the robber and murderer, is confronted by Jerome Lesurques. The old man thinks it is his son whom he sees rifling the body of the mail guard. As he speaks the words: “ Good God! my son, my son,” Dubosc fires at him, wounding him on the arm, and escapes as the curtain comes down.

On this particular night  —  it was one of the last nights in New York, closing the tour of 1893-4  — 

Mead forgot his words. Dubosc stood ready with his pistol to fire; but no words came. Now, if the audience do not know that Jerome Lesurques thinks that his son is guilty the heart is taken out of the play, for it is his unconscious evidence that proves his son’s guilt. The words had to be spoken at any cost by some one. Irving waited, but the old man’s memory was gone. So he himself called out in a loud voice: “ I’m not your son! “ and shot him. And, strange to say, none of the audience seemed to notice the omission.

Tom Mead was famous in his later years amongst his comrades for making strange errors, and when he had any new part they always waited to see what new story he would beget. Once on a voyage to America when we were arranging the concert for the Seamen’s Orphans, he said he would do a scene from Macbeth if Mrs. Pauncefort would do it with him. She, a fine old actress, at once consented and from thence on the members of the company were waiting to see what the slip would be. They were certain there would be one; to them there was no “ might “ or “ if “ in the matter. The scene chosen was that of the murder of Duncan, and all went well till the passage was reached:

“And Pity, like a naked new-born babe Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless carriers of the air.”

This noble passage he repeated as follows:

“And Pity, like a naked new-born babe Seated on the horse. No! Horsed on the seat!

No! What is the word?”

Once before, during the first run of Macbeth, he played one of the witches; when circling round the cauldron he had to say: “ Cool it with a baboon’s blood.” This he changed to:

“Cool it with a dragoon’s blood! “ As the words are spoken before Macbeth enters, Irving, standing ready in the wings, of course heard the error. Later in the evening he sent for Mead and called his attention to the error, pointing out that as the audience knew so well the words of the swinging lines they might notice an error and that it would be well to read over the part afresh. This he promised to do. Next night he got very anxious as the time drew near. He moved about restlessly behind the scenes saying over and over again to himself, “ dragoon, no baboon  —  baboon!  —  dragoon!  —  dragoon!  —  baboon! “  —  till he got himself hopelessly mixed and his comrades were in ecstasy. When at last he came to say the word he said it wrong; and as he had a voice whose tones he could not modify this is what the audience heard:

“Cool it with dragoon’s blood  —  No, no, baboon’s. My God! I’ve said it again! baboon’s blood.”

When we did Iolanthe, a version by W. G. Wills of King Rene’s Daughter, Mead took the part of Ebn Jaira an Eastern Wizard. At one part of the piece, where things look very black indeed for the happiness of the blind girl, he has to say: “ All shall be well in that immortal land where God hath His dwelling.” One night he got shaky in his words and surprised the audience with:

“In that immortal land where God hath His-Ah  —  um  —  His  —  apartments!”

Such mental aberrations used to be fairly common in the old days when new parts had to be learned every night, and when the prompter, in so far as the “ book “ was concerned, was a hard-worked official and not an anachronism, as now. Macready had an experience of it once when playing Hamlet. The actor who took the part of the Priest in the graveyard scene was inadequately prepared and in the passage:

“for charitable prayers, Shards, flints, and pebbles shall be thrown on her.” he said, “ shards, flints and beadles.” This almost overcame the star, who was heard to murmur to himself before he went on; “ Beadles! Beadles “ and at the end of the play one behind him heard him say as he walked to his dressing-room: “ He said beadles’!”

V

Charles I. is rather too slight and delicate a play for great popularity; and in addition its politics are too aggressive. Whenever I think of it in its political aspect I am always reminded of a pregnant saying of Dion Boucicault  —  I mean Dion Boucicault the Elder, for the years have run fast  —  spoken in the beautiful Irish brogue which was partly natural and partly cultivated:

“The rayson why historical plays so seldom succeed is because a normal audience doesn’t go into the thayatre with its politics in its breeches pockets!”

This is really a philosophical truth, and the man who had then written or adapted over four hundred plays knew it. A great political situation may like any other great existing force form a milieu for dramatic action; making or increasing difficulties or abrogating or lessening them; or bring ing unexpected danger or aid to the persons of the drama. But where the political situation is supposed to be lasting or eternally analogous it is apt to create in the minds of an audience varying conditions of thought and sympathy. And where these all-powerful forces of an audience are opposed they become mutually destructive, being only united into that one form which makes for the destruction of the play.

One of the most notable things of Irving’s Charles I. was his extraordinary reproduction of Van Dyck’s pictures. The part in its scenic aspect might have been called Van Dyck in action. Each costume was an exact reproduction from one of the well-known paintings, and the reproduction of Charles’s face was a marvel. In this particular case he had a fine model, for Van Dyck painted the King in almost every possible way of dignity. To aid him in his work Edwin Long made for him a tryptich of Van Dyck heads, and this used to rest before him on his dressing-table on those nights when he played Charles.

Irving was a painter of no mean degree with regard to his “ make-up “ of parts. He spared no pains on the work and on nights when he played parts requiring careful preparations such as Charles I., Shylock, Louis XI., Gregory Brewster (in Waterloo), King Lear, Richelieu and some few others he always came to his dressing-room nearly an hour earlier than at other times. It has often amazed me to see the physiognomy of Shylock gradually emerge from the actor’s own generous countenance. Though I have seen it done a hundred times I could never really understand how the lips thickened, with the red of the lower lip curling out and over after the manner of the typical Hebraic countenance; how the bridge of the nose under his painting  —  for he used no physical building-up  —  rose into the Jewish aquiline; and, most wonderful of all, how the eyes became veiled and glassy with introspection  —  eyes which at times could and did flash like lurid fire.

But there is for an outsider no understanding what strange effects stage make-up can produce. When my son, who is Irving’s godson, then about seven years old, came to see Faust I brought him round between acts to see Mephistopheles in his dressing-room. The little chap was exceedingly pretty  —  like a cupid  —  and a quaint fancy struck the actor. Telling the boy to stand still for a moment he took his dark pencil and with a few rapid touches made him up after the manner of Mephistopheles; the same high-arched eyebrows; the same sneer at the corners of the mouth; the same pointed moustache. I think it was the strangest and prettiest transformation I ever saw. And I think the child thought so too, for he was simply entranced with delight.

Irving loved children and I think he was as enchanted over the incident as was the child himself.

CHAPTER XIV

ART-SENSE

“The Bells”  —  Worn-out Scenery  —  An Actor’s Judgment of a Part  —  ” Olivia “  —  ” Faust “  —  A Master Mind and Good Service  —  A Loyal Stage Manager and Staff  —  Whistler on Business  —  Twenty-fifth Anniversary of “The Bells”  —  A Presentation  —  A Work of Art” The Bells” a Classic  —  Visit of Illustrious Frenchmen  —  Sarcey’s Amusement

I

No successful play, perhaps, had ever had so little done for it as The Bells on its production. Colonel Bateman did not believe in it, and it was only the concatenation of circumstances of his own desperate financial condition and Irving’s profound belief in the piece that induced him to try it at all. The occasion was in its effect somewhat analogous to Edmund Kean’s first appearance at Drury Lane; the actor came to the front and top of his profession per saltum. The production was meagre; of this I can bear a certain witness myself. When Irving took over the management of the Lyceum into his own hands the equipment of The Bells was one of the assets coming to him. When he did play it he used the old dresses, scenery and properties and their use was continued as long as possible. Previous to the American tour of 1883-4, fifty-five performances in all constituted the entire wear and tear.

On our first expedition to America everything was packed in a very cumbrous manner; the amount of timber, nails and screws used was extraordinary. There were hundred-weights of extracted screws on the stage of the Star Theatre of New York whilst the unpacking was in progress. When I came down to the theatre on the first morning after the unloading of the stuff, Arnott, who was in charge of the mechanics of the stage, came to me and said:

“Would you mind coming here a moment, sir, I would like you to see something! “ He brought me to the back of the stage and pointed out a long heap of rubbish some four feet high. It was just such as you would see in the waste-heap of a house-wrecker’s yard.

“What on earth is that? “ I asked.

“That is the sink-and-rise of the vision in The Bells.” In effecting a vision on the stage the old method used to be to draw the back scenes or “ flats “ apart or else to raise the whole scene from above or take it down through a long trap on the stage. The latter was the method adopted by the scene-painter of The Bells.

“Did it meet with an accident? “ I asked.

“No, sir. It simply shook to bits just as you see it. It was packed up secure and screwed tight like the rest!”

I examined it carefully. The whole stuff was simply rotten with age and wear; as thoroughly worn out as the deacon’s wonderful one-horse shay in Oliver Wendell Holmes’ poem. The canvas had been almost held together by the overlay of paint, and as for the wood it was cut and hacked and pieced to death; full of old screw-holes and nail-holes. No part of it had been of new timber or canvas when The Bells was produced eleven years before. With this experience I examined the whole scenery and found that almost every piece of it was in a similar condition. It had been manufactured out of all the odds and ends of old scenery in the theatre.

Under the modern conditions of Metropolitan theatres it is hard to imagine what satisfied up to the “ seventies.” Nowadays the scenery of good theatres is made for travel. The flats are framed in light wood, securely clamped and fortified at the joints and in folding sections like screens, each section being not more than six feet wide so as to be easily handled and placed in baggage-waggons. The scenes are often fixed on huge castors with rubber bosses so as to move easily and silently. But formerly they were made in single panels and of heavy timber and took a lot of strength to move.

II

From the time of my joining him in 1878 till his death Irving played The Bells in all six hundred and twenty-seven times, being one hundred and sixty-eight in London; two hundred and seventy-three in the British provinces, and one hundred and eighty-six in America. During its first run at the Lyceum in 1872-3 it ran one hundred and fifty-one nights, so that in all he played The Bells seven hundred and seventy-eight times besides certain occasions when he gave it in his provincial tours previous to 1878. Altogether he probably played the piece over eight hundred times.

Colonel Bateman originally leased the rights of the play from the author, Leopold Lewis. Finally, at a time of stress  —  sadly frequent in those days with poor old Lewis  —  he sold them to Samuel French, from whom Irving finally purchased them. Nothwithstanding this double purchase Irving used, after the death of Lewis, to allow his widow a weekly sum whenever he was playing  —  playing not merely The Bells but anything else  —  up to the time of his death.