IX.
BURLESQUE OF FICTION AND SONG.
The writers of stage travestie have gone less to fiction forsubject-matter than might have been expected. Half a dozen romancesprevious to Scott, half a dozen of Scott's own stories, about the samenumber of modern novels, and still fewer foreign masterpieces--theserepresent the sources of all the most important of the burlesques whichhave been based upon invented prose narrative.
The earliest of the tales which have been thus dealt with is "RobinsonCrusoe." Of this time-honoured story, the first whimsical treatmentwas that which took the shape of a piece called "Crusoe the Second,or the Shipwrecked Milliners," presented at the Lyceum in 1847. Thiswas written by Stocqueler, and had for interpreters Mr. and Mrs.Keeley, with Alfred Wigan (as Crusoe). It was followed, in 1860, at thePrincess's, by the "Robinson Crusoe" of H. J. Byron. Seven years later,no fewer than six writers joined in the production of a perversion ofDefoe's tale, brought out at the Haymarket in 1867, and bearing thenames of H. J. Byron, W. S. Gilbert, T. Hood, jun., H. S. Leigh, W. J.Prowse, and Arthur Sketchley. In this (which was given at a _matinee_for the benefit of the family of Paul Gray, the artist) the partswere all sustained by well-known men of art and letters. After thisthere came, in 1876, at the Folly, the "Robinson Crusoe" of Mr. H. B.Farnie,[48] which, in its turn, was followed, just ten years later,by yet another arrangement of the story, in which Mr. Farnie had theco-operation of Mr. Reece.
[48] With Miss Lydia Thompson as Robinson, Mr. Lionel Brough as Jim Cocks, and Mr. Willie Edouin as Man Friday.
To the Adelphi, in 1846, belongs an "extra extravagant extravaganza,"founded by Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett and Mark Lemon on the "PeterWilkins" of Robert Paltock (first printed in 1750). This burlesquehad for its full title--"Peter Wilkins, or the Loadstone Rock and theFlying Indians," and had for its chief interpreters--Miss Woolgar asthe hero, Paul Bedford as Jack Adams, and Miss E. Chaplin as Youriwkee.Dr. Johnson's "Rasselas" attracted the attention of William Brough,and was made, in 1862, the foundation of a burlesque produced at theHaymarket.
In 1765 Horace Walpole published his mediaeval imagining, "The Castleof Otranto," by which so many of us have in our youth been thrilled.In 1848 Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett set himself to make fun of itssingularities, and the result was a very brightly written piece,enacted at the Haymarket.[49] In this, Manfred's son Conrad is foundimprisoned under the gigantic helmet of Alphonso, and the distractedfather at once begins to give way to comic word-splitting:--
[49] With Keeley as Manfred, Bland as the Marquis Vincenza, Miss P. Horton as Theodore, Miss Reynolds as Isabella, and Mrs. W. Clifford as Hippolita.
If he's beneath that hat, His bier, by this time, must be precious flat! I'll not believe it! no, my life upon it! No one would dare my Conrad thus to bonnet. But stay!--has anybody got a lever, To give a lift to this gigantic beaver? (_The helmet is raised at the back; Manfred looks under it._) Alas! he speaks the truth--my son lies low, Poor little chap, under this great _chapeau_. My. Conrad gone!--This is a sad disaster, The die is cast by this unlucky castor! Can no one tell me how or whence it came? Is there no ticket with the hatter's name? If I knew grief before, this hat has capped it,-- My boy, crush'd 'neath this hated nap, has napped it!
In the opening scene, Hippolita, Conrad's mother, ventures to suggestto Manfred that the boy is not of marriageable age, sixteen summers nothaving yet passed o'er his head:--
_Man._ Time flies, you know; thro' life one quickly flings One's sixteen summersets, after sixteen springs.
_Hip._ 'Tis my maternal tenderness that speaks: As yet no whiskery down adorns his cheeks.
_Man._ I'll hear no more! talk not of down to me-- The boy's as downy as a boy need be.
In the year following the publication of "The Castle of Otranto," the"Vicar of Wakefield" was given to the world. It appears to have escapedtravestie until 1885, when--thinking more, no doubt, of Mr. Wills's"Olivia" than of Goldsmith's _chef d'oeuvre_--Messrs. Stephens andYardley brought out at the Gaiety "The Vicar of Wideawakefield,"in which Mr. Arthur Roberts and Miss Laura Linden sought, notunsuccessfully, to reproduce and heighten some of the artisticpeculiarities of Mr. Irving and Miss Ellen Terry. Mrs. Shelley's"Frankenstein," published in 1818, received its first dramatic_reductio ad absurdum_ in 1849, when the Brothers Brough made it thesubject of a burlesque;--its second in 1887, when Messrs. "RichardHenry" turned out at the Gaiety a travestie, of which I shall havesomething to say in my next chapter. In the Broughs' version Wright wasFrankenstein and Paul Bedford the Monster, and much fun was made out ofthe finishing touches which Frankenstein gave to his work. "O." Smith,Miss Woolgar, and Miss Chaplin were also in the cast.
Sir Walter Scott's novels have obtained a fair amount of notice fromthe comic dramatists. "Ivanhoe," for example, has exercised thehumorous powers of three--of Robert Brough (at the Haymarket in 1850),of H. J. Byron (at the Strand in 1862), and of T. F. Plowman (at theCourt in 1871). Byron (who called his work "Ivanhoe in accordance withthe Spirit of the Times"[50]) had the aid of Miss Charlotte Saunders ashis Wilfred, of Charles Rice as his Brian de Bois-Guilbert, of "Johnny"Clarke as his Isaac of York, of Miss Eleanor Bufton as his BlackKnight, of Miss Swanborough as Rowena, of Jenny Rogers as his Rebecca,and of Miss Polly Marshall, Miss Fanny Hughes, and Poynter in otherparts. In the provinces he was his own Isaac of York.
[50] This burlesque has been used, during the present year, as the foundation for a travestie played by the Cambridge Amateur Dramatic Company, under the title of "Ivanhoe a la Carte" (in allusion to Mr. D'Oyly Carte's production of Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Ivanhoe"). To this adaptation, it is said, new lyrics were contributed by Messrs. J. K. Stephen and R. C. Lehmann.
"Isaac of York," by the way, was the title given by Mr. Plowman to hiseffort, which had a good deal of ingenuity and "go." Here, for example,is an extract from the scene at the banquet at which Cedric entertainshis guests. Ivanhoe is soliloquising aside, and his utterances areinterrupted by the demands of the _personae_ sitting at table:--
_Ivanhoe_ (_soliloquising aside_). 'Tis strange once more my native boards to tread, Beneath the roof where I was born and----
_Rowena._ _Bread!_
_Ivan._ If she should recognise me, she'd be flustered. My utmost self-possession must be----
_Rebecca._ _Mustard!_
_Ivan._ She's lovelier than ever. Happy fate, Her beauteous face once more to contem----
_Isaac._ _Plate!_
_Ivan._ That scamp, Sir B., I'll challenge--that's quite clear, And (if I can) despatch him to his----
_Cedric._ _Beer!_
_Ivan._ I'll meet him boldly with my----
_Isaac._ _Knife and fork!_
_Ivan._ And fight till one of us is dead as----
_Sir Brian._ _Pork!_
_Ivan._ When Richard comes he'll stop such idle praters, These plottings Normans and base agi----
_Isaac._ _Taters!_
_Ivan._ He'll make 'em in their knavish doings halt; His action will be battery and as----
_Reb._ _Salt!_
_Ivan._ Out of his land he'll soon make each a stepper, When he returns, by Jove, he'll give 'em----
_Isaac._ _Pepper!_
In another scene Isaac gives vent to a piece of mock-heroic execrationdirected against Brian de Bois-Guilbert:--
Avenge me, then, ye fates, I do implore. May he, like me, be martyr to lumbag_er_, Tic-doloreux, sciatica, and ag_er_, Sore-throats, neuralgia, hooping-cough, and sneezing, Rheumatics, asthma, colds, and bronchial wheezings. And while the north-east wind doth round him blow, Ye clouds, hail, mizzle, drizzle, sleet, and snow; Rain rakes and pitchf
orks, kittens, cats and dogs, While down his throat pour vapours, mists, and fogs. May broken chilblains ever stud his toes, May icicles hang pendent from his nose, May winter's cold his shaving-water freeze, May he be stopped whene'er he's going to sneeze. And when appalled you loudly call for helps, May palsies seize you----
_Sir B._ Oh, shade of Mr. Phelps![51]
[51] Mr. Plowman had Mr. Righton for his Isaac, Miss Kate Bishop for his Ivanhoe, Miss Nelly Bromley for his Rowena, Miss Oliver for his Rebecca, Mr. Alfred Bishop for his Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and Mlle. Cornelie D'Anka for his Richard Coeur-de-Lion.
Next to "Ivanhoe" in popularity for travestie we may place "Rob Roy."Mr. Sydney French took it in hand at the Marylebone in 1867, and Mr.William Lowe gave it a very Scotch rendering, in 1880, under the titleof "Mr. Robert Roye, Hielan Helen his Wife, and Dougal the Dodger." Butthe "standard" burlesque on the subject is, of course, Mr. Burnand's"Robbing Roy" (Gaiety, 1879), in which Mr. Terry was such a diverting"Roy," with Miss Farren as Francis, Miss Vaughan as Diana, and Mr.Royce as an admirable Dougal. Of the "Bride of Lammermoor" there havebeen two burlesque versions--Oxberry's, at the Strand in 1848; and H.J. Byron's, at the Prince of Wales's in 1865. "Kenilworth" has beensimilarly honoured. There was the piece brought out at the Strand in1858 by Andrew Halliday and a collaborator, and there was that whichMessrs. Reece and Farnie contributed to the Avenue Theatre in 1885."Guy Mannering" has engaged the attention of Mr. Burnand: we can allremember his "Here's another Guy Mannering," brought out at theVaudeville in 1874. For the solitary travestie of "The Talisman," thelate J. F. M'Ardle is responsible. It was first played at Liverpool inthe year last named.
Lord Lytton's novels and romances have been ridiculed on the stagevery much less frequently than have his dramas. "The Very Last Daysof Pompeii," by Mr. Reece, and "The Last of the Barons," by Mr. DuTerreaux, are, so far as I know, the only stage works in which hisprose fiction has been perverted. The former was seen at the Vaudevillein 1872, and the latter at the Strand in the same year. In "The Lastof the Barons," Atkins was the Kingmaker, Mr. Edward Terry portrayingEdward IV. as a great dandy, and endowing him with an amusing lisp.
When we turn to the stories of more recent times, we think at onceof the "No Thoroughfare" of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, andof the "Foul Play" of Charles Reade and Dion Boucicault, as havingsuffered at the hands of the irreverent scribes. The former romancesuggested to Hazlewood junior his "No Thorough-fair beyond Highbury,or the Maid, the Mother, and the Malicious Mountaineer." This was in1868; and in the following year the elder George Grossmith emulatedHazlewood's example at the Victoria Theatre. "Foul Play" was parodiedby Mr. Burnand, not only in the pages of _Punch_, but in "Fowl Play,or a Story of Chikkin Hazard," produced at the New Queers in 1868.[52]Of the bright writing in this "book," no better specimen could wellbe furnished than the song which Wylie sings in description of thescuttling of the _Proserpine_. This I give in full:--
[52] In this piece Mr. Toole was the Robert Penfold, Mr. Lionel Brough the Joseph Wylie, Mr. Gaston Murray the General Rollingstone, Mr. Wyndham the Arthur Waddles, and Miss Ellen Farren (then in her novitiate) the Nancy Rouse.
I'm a werry wicked cove, with my one, two, three _Characters_ in the history as follars Of a sickly gal and me, and a missionary_ee_, In a choker white and nobby pair o' collars. The _Proserpine_ an' guns Weighed such a lot of tuns, And I was the mate and the butler, And as I wanted funs You gave two thousand puns To me to go below, and so to scuttle her.
_Both._ {He's} a werry wicked cove, with {his} one, two, {I'm} {my} three Cha_rac_ters in the history as follars; Of the sickly girl and {he} and the missionary_ee_, {me} In a choker white and nobby pair of collars.
There was copper there and gold, both o' yours not mine, 'Twas a werry awful risk, but I ran 'un; And the Copper, labelled Gold, went aboard the _Proserpine_ And the Gold, labelled Copper, on the _Shannon_. Oh, it went down like a line, On board the _Proserpine_, And it was not my little game to stop'er, And the gold comes safe in the _Shannon_ ship, While you gets the walue for the copper.
The _Proserpine_ went down in a one, two, three, Which she did to the werry bottom; They called out for the boats, and the ropes, and floats, But couldn't get 'em cos I'd _got_ 'em. So they got a boat and sail, As wouldn't stand a gale, And the lady and the gent jumps _in_ her, And the missionary_ee_ Took a pound of tea, But they hadn't got no grub for their dinner.
_Both._ {I'm} a very wicked cove, with my one, two, three, {You're} Which is a quotation from Cocker; But I mourns for that Gal and the Missionaryee Which is both gone down to Davy Jones's Locker.
Among other recent fictions which have obtained the distinction ofstage travestie may be named "Lady Audley's Secret," "Little LordFauntleroy," and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Inthe first of these instances H. J. Byron was the operator--the scene,the St. James's Theatre in 1863. Mrs. Burnett's pretty conceptionwas tortured into "The Other Little Lord Fondleboy" (1888), and Mr.Stevenson's weird invention into "The Real Case of Hide and Seekyll"(Royalty, 1888), for which the younger George Grossmith must bear theblame.
The literature of dramatic parody does not owe much to foreign fiction.Farnie gave us "Little Gil Bias" at the Princess's in 1870, and in thesame year Mr. Arthur Wood produced at the Olympic a comic paraphraseof "Paul and Virginia." It was in 1870, too, that Messrs. Eldred andPaulton turned out, at Liverpool, "The Gay Musketeers," which wasfollowed at the Strand in 1871 by "The Three Musket-Dears" of Messrs.J. and H. Paulton. Of the "Monte Cristo Junior" of Messrs. "RichardHenry" I shall have something to say anon.
Dividing Song for the moment into Poem and Ballad, we note that thepoems of Lord Byron have been the inspiring cause of at least fournotable burlesques. His lordship's "Don Juan" suggested the "BeautifulHaidee" of H. J. Byron (1863) and the "Don Juan Junior" of the"Brothers Prendergast" (1880); while his "Corsair" is the basis ofWilliam Brough's "Conrad and Medora" (Lyceum, 1856), and his "Brideof Abydos" prompted the piece with the same title which H. J. Byronwrote for the Strand Theatre. In "Conrad and Medora" Miss Marie Wiltonwas "the Little Fairy at the Bottom of the Sea," the title-parts beinggiven to Miss Woolgar and Mrs. Charles Dillon, and that of Birbantoto Mr. Toole. The Bride of Abydos--Zuleika--had Miss Oliver for herrepresentative.
With Byron it seems natural to associate his friend Tom Moore, whose"Lalla Rookh" has had exceptional favour with the parodists. Four ofthese have been fascinated by her charms--Mr. J. T. Denny in 1885,Mr. Horace Lennard in the previous year, Vincent Amcotts in 1866, andlast, but not least, William Brough (at the Lyceum) in 1857. It was tobe expected that, when travestying Moore, Brough should parody "TheMinstrel Boy," and so we have from him the following lines, sung byMiss Woolgar as Feramorz:--
The minstrel boy through the town is known, In each quiet street you'll find him, With his master's organ--it is ne'er his own, And his monkey led behind him. "Straw laid down!" cries the minstrel boy, "Some sick man here needs quiet; 'Bobbin' around' will this house annoy, At any rate, I'll try it!"
The minstrel grinds, and his victims pay;-- To his claims he's forced compliance! To the poet's study then he takes his way-- To the men of art and science. And cries, "My friends, in vain you'd toil At books, at pen, or easel; One roving vagabond your work shall spoil,"-- He plays "Pop goes the Weasel."
Elsewhere, Namouna, the Peri, gave utterance to the followingreflections on the levelling power of love[53]:--
[53] Reminding one of H. J. Byron's couplet:--
Love levels all--it elevates the clown, And often brings the fattest people down.
Love makes all equal--scorns of rank the rules; Makes kings and beggars equal--equal fools. Love brings (dis
tinctions overboard all pitchin') The low-born peeler to the grandee's kitchen; Makes the proud heiress of paternal acres Smile kindly on the young man from the baker's. Kings will forget their state at love's dictation, Cabmen their rank, and railway-guards their station. Love makes the housemaid careless--masters wroth, And makes too many cooks to spoil their broth.
In this piece Mrs. Charles Dillon was the Lalla Rookh, and Mr. Toolerepresented "a fabulous personage, not found in the poem," calledKhorsanbad.
One, at least, of our burlesque writers--Mr. Gilbert Arthura'Beckett--has had the courage to tackle a poem of Coleridge; to wit,his "Christabel," from which, however, Mr. A'Beckett derived onlycertain suggestions for his work. In his "Christabel, or the BardBewitched," represented at the Court in 1872, the Bard, Bracy, wasplayed by Mr. Righton, who made a special feature of a travestie of Mr.Irving in "The Bells." He pretended that he had murdered a muffin-man,and that, consuming all he could of the muffins left in the man'sbasket, he had deposited the remainder in the area. Miss Nelly Bromleywas the Christabel.
Scott's "Lady of the Lake" gave Mr. Reece the idea for a burlesqueperformed at the Royalty in 1866. In the same year Andrew Hallidaybrought out at the Adelphi a comic piece, happily entitled "TheMountain Dhu, or the Knight, the Lady, and the Lake." Mr. Toole was theimpersonator of the Mountain Dhu, Paul Bedford the Douglas, Miss Hughesthe Malcolm Graeme, Miss Woolgar (Mrs. Mellon) the Fitzjames, and MissFurtado the Lady of the Lake. "The Lady of the Lane" was the titlegiven by H. J. Byron to the travestie from his pen which saw the lightat the Strand in 1872. In this case Mr. Edward Terry was the Roderickand Miss Kate Bishop the Ellen, Mrs. Raymond making a great hit as thedemented Blanche.
Our present Laureate provoked in 1870 the satiric powers of Mr. W. S.Gilbert, whose "Princess," played at the Olympic, was described by theauthor as "a whimsical allegory," as well as "a respectful perversionof Mr. Tennyson's poem."[54] In this production Mr. Gilbert wrote hislyrics to the melodies of popular airs, after the manner of the time.The major portion of the travestie is familiar to present-day audiencesas having formed, in the main, the text of "Princess Ida," for whichSir Arthur Sullivan composed such charming music. Nevertheless, Icannot refrain from quoting, as a happy specimen of Mr. Gilbert'slater manner in burlesque,[55] the speech addressed by the Princessto her disciples--a speech marked by agreeable _naivete_ and happymock-heroics:--
[54] Mr. David Fisher was the King Hildebrand, and Miss Maria Simpson (Mrs. W. H. Liston), his son Prince Hilarion; Miss Augusta Thomson being the Cyril, Miss Mattie Reinhardt the Princess Ida, Miss Fanny Addison the Lady Psyche, Mrs. Poynter the Lady Blanche, and Miss Patti Josephs the Melissa.
[55] In a sense, all Mr. Gilbert's comic operas are burlesques, for they are full of travestie, especially of the conventionalities of grand opera and melodrama. At the same time, they cannot be called burlesques in the everyday, theatrical sense of the term.
In mathematics Woman leads the way! The narrow-minded pedant still believes That two and two make four! Why, we can prove-- We women, household drudges as we are-- That two and two make five--or three--or seven-- Or five-and-twenty, as the case demands!... Diplomacy? The wily diplomate Is absolutely helpless in our hands: He wheedles monarchs--Woman wheedles him! Logic? Why, tyrant man himself admits It's waste of time to argue with a woman! Then we excel in social qualities-- Though man professes that he holds our sex In utter scorn, I'll undertake to say If you could read the secrets of his heart, He'd rather be alone with one of you Than with five hundred of his fellow-men! In all things we excel. Believing this, Five hundred maidens here have sworn to place Their foot upon his neck. If we succeed, We'll treat him better than he treated us; But if we fail--oh, then let hope fail too! Let no one care one penny how she looks! Let red be worn with yellow--blue with green, Crimson with scarlet--violet with blue! Let all your things misfit, and you yourselves At inconvenient moments come undone! Let hair-pins lose their virtue; let the hook Disdain the fascination of the eye,-- The bashful button modestly evade The soft embraces of the buttonhole! Let old associations all dissolve, Let Swan secede from Edgar--Grant from Gask, Sewell from Cross--Lewis from Allenby-- In other words, let Chaos come again!
Into the region of the Ballad the comic playwrights have madecomparatively few incursions. "The Babes in the Wood," "Lord Bateman,""Billy Taylor," "Villikins and his Dinah," and "Lord Lovel,"--these arethe stories which have been most in favour with burlesque purveyors.R. J. Byron took up the first-named subject in 1859, when the companyat the Adelphi (where the piece was produced) included Miss Woolgar(Sir Rowland Macassar), Mr. Toole and Miss Kate Kelly (the Babes), PaulBedford (the First Ruffian), and Mrs. Billington (the Lady Macassar).Then, in 1877, there came a provincial version by Messrs. G. L. Gordonand G. W. Anson; and, next, in 1884, at Toole's Theatre, the "Babes"of Mr. Harry Paulton, in which Mr. Edouin and Miss Atherton were thecentral figures. The first travestie of "Lord Bateman" was made byCharles Selby at the Strand in 1839; then there was the production byR. B. Brough in 1854 at the Adelphi; and, still later, there was thepiece by H. J. Byron, at the Globe (1869). Passing over the "BillyTaylor" of Buckstone (1829), we arrive at "The Military Billy Taylor"of Mr. Burnand, which came out forty years later. It is to Mr. Burnand,also, that we owe "Villikins and his Dinah," played by amateurs atCambridge, as well as "Lord Lovel and the Lady Nancy Bell," which hewrote for the same place and performers.
A Book of Burlesque: Sketches of English Stage Travestie and Parody Page 11
