Complete Works of Bram Stoker

by Bram Stoker

  In another matter of this scene his natural kindness made a sweet little episode which he never afterwards omitted. When he said to the pretty little cup-bearer who offered him the poisoned goblet: “ Set it by awhile! “ he smiled at the child and passed his hand caressingly over the golden hair.

  Certain other parts of his Hamlet were unforget- table. His whirlwind of passion at the close of the play scene which, night after night, stirred the whole audience to frenzied cheers. The extraordinary way in which by speech and tone, action and time, he conveyed to his auditory the sense of complex and entangled thought and motive in his wild scene with Ophelia. His wonderment at the announcement of Horatio:

  “I think I saw him yester-night.” Hamlet. “ Saw who?”

  Horatio. “My Lord, the King your Father.” Hamlet. “The King — my father? “ And the wonderful way in which he conveyed his sense of difference of the subjective origin of the ghost at its second appearance at which Shakespeare hinted, following out Belleforest’s remark on the novel: “ in those days, the northe parts of the worlde, living as then under Sathans lawes, were full of inchanters, so that there was not any young gentleman whatsoever that knew not something therein sufficient to serve his turne, if need required.... Hamlet, while his father lived, had been instructed in that devilish art, whereby the wicked spirite abuseth mankind, and advertiseth him (as he can) of things past.”

  Of things past! Hamlet could know of things that had been though he could not read the future. This it was which was the essence of his patient acquiescence in the ways of time — half pagan fatalism, half Christian belief, as shown in that pearl amongst philosophic phrases:

  “If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all.”

  IV

  Hamlet was played ninety-eight nights on that first season. Four of them hang in my mind for very different reasons. The first was that wonderful opening night when the great audience all aflame with generous welcome and exalted by ready sympathy lifted us to unwonted heights.

  The second was on January 18, the eighteenth night of Hamlet. The Chinese Ambassador, the Marquis Tseng, came to see the play and with him came Sir Halliday Macartney.

  After the third act the Ambassador and Sir Haliday Macartney came to see Irving in his dressing-room, where they stayed some time talk’rig. It was interesting to note — Sir Halliday translated his remarks verbally — how accurately the Ambassador followed the play, which he had not read nor heard of. Where he failed was only on some small points of racial or theological difference. He seemed to be absolutely correct on the human side.

  Presently we all went down on the stage whilst Ellen Terry as Ophelia was in the midst of her mad scene. Irving and Sir Halliday and I were talking and, in the interest of the conversation, we all temporarily overlooked the Ambassador. Presently I looked round instinctively and was horrified to see that he had moved in on the stage and was then close to the edge of the arch at the back of the scene where Ophelia had made her entrance and would make her exit. He was in magnificent robes of Mandarin yellow and wore such adornments as are possible to a great official who holds the high grade and honour of the Peacock’s Feather. I jumped for him and just succeeded in catching him before he had passed into the blaze of the limelight. I could fancy the sudden amazement of the audience and the wild roar of laughter that would follow when in the midst of this most sad and pathetic of scenes would enter unheralded this gorgeous anachronism. Under ordinary circumstances I think I should have allowed the contretemps to occur. Its unique grotesqueness would have ensured a widespread publicity not to be acquired by ordinary forms of advertisement. But there was greater force to the contrary. The play was not yet three weeks old in its run; it was a tragedy and the holy of holies to my actor-chief to whom full measure of loyalty was due; and beyond all it was Ellen Terry who would suffer.

  V

  The third was a very sad occasion, but one which showed that the manager of a theatre must have “nerve “ to do the work entailed by his high responsibility. He remained in the wings 0.P. (“ Opposite Prompt “ in stage parlance) after scene ii of Act 1. The following scene (iii), is a front scene ready for the change to the “front scene “ where Polonius gives good advice to his children Laertes and Ophelia. After the few words between the brother and sister on the cue of Laertes: “ here my father comes,” Polonius enters speaking quickly as one in surprise: “ Yet here Laertes Aboard, aboard, for shame!”

  Irving instinctively turned on hearing the intonation of the voice, and after one lightning glance signed to the prompter to drop the act-drop, which was done instantly. I was standing beside him at the time talking to him and was struck by the marvellous rapidity of thought and action; of the decision which seemed almost automatic. Then the curtain having been drawn back sufficiently to let him pass he stepped to the footlights and said:

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to have to tell you that something has happened which I should not like to tell you; and will ask you to bear in patience a minute. We shall, with your permission, go on from the beginning with the third scene of Act 1.” He stepped back amid instantaneous and sympathetic applause. Perhaps some knew; some few must have seen for themselves what had occurred, and many undoubtedly guessed. But all recognised the mastery and decision which had saved a very painful and difficult situation. The curtain straightened behind him as he passed in on the stage.

  In an incredibly short time all was ready, for stage workmen as well as actors are adepts at their trade. Within seven or eight minutes the curtain went up afresh and the play began anew — with a different Polonius.

  That night a call went up for the whole company and employees — ” Everybody concerned on the stage “ at noon the next day.

  It was a grave and solemn gathering; and all were there except one who had received a kindly intimation that he need not attend. Irving came on the stage from the office on the stroke of the hour. Loveday and I were with him. He stood in front of the footlights with his back to the auditorium. He spoke for a few minutes only; but that speech must have sunk deeply into the hearts of every listener. He reminded them of the loyalty which is due from craftsmen to one another. Of the loyalty which is due to a manager who has to think for all. And finally of the loyalty which is due — and was on the unhappy occasion to which he referred — due to their own comrade. “ By that want of loyalty,” he said, “ in any of the forms, you have helped to ruin your comrade. Some of you must have noticed; at least those who dressed in the room with him or saw him in the Green Room. Had I been told — had the stage manager had a single hint from any one, we could, and would, have saved him. The lesson would perhaps have been to him a bitter one, but it would have saved him from worse disaster. As it is, no other course was open to me to save him from public shame. As it is, the disaster of last night may injure him for life. And it is you who have done this. Now, my dear friends and comrades, let this be a lesson to us all. We must be loyal to each other. That is to be helpful, and it is to the honour of our art and our calling!”

  There he stopped and turned away. No one said a word. For a short space they stood still and then melted slowly away in silence like the multitude of a dream.

  VI

  The fourth occasion was on the night of March 27 when Irving, having been taken with a serious cold, was unable to play — the first time he had been out of the bill for seven years! The note in my diary runs:

  “Stage very dismal. Ellen Terry met me in the passage and began to cry! I felt very like joining her!”

  I instance this as a fair illustration of how Irving was loved by all with whom he came in personal contact. _

  CHAPTER IX

  SHAKESPEARE PLAYS — I

  “The Merchant ofVenice” — Preparation — The Red Handkerchief — Booth and Irving — ” Othello” — A Dinner at Hampton Court — — The Hat

  I

  IRVING did not think of playing
The Merchant of Venice until he had been to the Levant. The season of 1879-8o had been arranged before the end of the previous season. We were to commence with The Iron Chest; Irving had considerable faith in Colman’s play and intended to give it a run. It was to be followed in due course, as announced in his farewell speech at the end of the second season, by The Gamester, The Stranger, Coriolanus, and Robert Emmett, a new play by Frank Marshall. It was rather a surprise, therefore, when on October 8 before the piece had run two weeks, he broached the subject of a new production. It had been apparent to us since his return from a yachting-trip in the Mediterranean that he was not so much in love with the play as he usually was with anything which he had immediately in hand. Even if a play did not seem to fill him, I never saw him show the slightest sign of indifference to it in any other case.

  On that particular evening he asked Loireday and me if we could stay and have a chop in the Beefsteak Room. He was evidently full of something of importance; it seemed a relief to him when supper was finished and the servant who waited had gone. When we had lit our cigars he said quietly:

  “I am going to do The Merchant ofVenice.” We both waited, for there was nothing to say until we should know a little more. He went on:

  “I never contemplated doing the piece which did not ever appeal very much to me until when we were down in Morocco and the Levant. You know the W alrus” (that was the fine steamer which the Baroness Burdett Coutts had chartered for her yachting party) “ put into all sorts of places. When I saw the Jew in what seemed his own land and in his own dress, Shylock became a different creature. I began to understand him; and now I want to play the part — as soon as I can. I think I shall do it on on the first of November! Can it be done?”

  Loveday answered it would depend on what had to be done.

  “That is all right,” said Irving. “ I have it in my mind. I have been thinking it over and I see my way to it. Here is what I shall have in the Casket ‘ scene.” He took a sheet of note-paper and made a rough drawing of the scene, tearing out an arch in the back and propping another piece of paper in it with a rough suggestion of a Venetian scene. “ I will have an Eastern lamp with red glass — I know where is the exact thing. It is, or used to be two or three years ago, in that furniture shop in Oxford Street, near Tottenham Court Road.”

  Then he went on to expound his idea of the whole play; and did it in such a way that he set both Loveday and myself afire with the idea. We talked it out till early morning. Indeed the Eastern sun was outlining the beauty of St. Mary’s-le-Strand as the time-roughened stone stood out like delicate tracery against the blush of the sunrise. Then and often since have I thought that Sir Christopher Wren must have got his inspiration regarding St. Mary’s on returning late — or early in the morning from a supper in Westminster. The church is ugly enough at other times, but against sunrise it is a picturesque delight.

  As we parted Irving smiled, as he said:

  “Craven had better get out that red handkerchief, I think.”

  Therein lay a little joke amongst us. Hawes Craven who was — as happily he still is — a great scene-painter and could work like a demon when time pressed. Ordinarily he wore when at work in those days a long coat once of a dark colour, and an old brown bowler hat, both splashed out of all recognition with paint. Scene-painting is essentially a splashy, business, the drops of paint from the great brushes, of necessity vigorously used to cover the acres of canvas, “ come not in single spies but in battalions.” But when matters got desperate, when the pressure of the time-gauge registered not in hours but in minutes, the head-gear was changed for a red handkerchief which twisted round the head made a sort of turban. This became in time a sort of oriflamme. We knew that there was to be no sleep, and precious little pause even for food, till the work was all done.

  Of course no mortal man could do the whole of the scenery in the three weeks available. Scenes had to be talked over, entrances and exits fixed and models made. Four scene-painters bent their shoulders to the task. Craven did three scenes, Telbin three, Hann three and Cuthbert one. The whole theatre became alive with work. Each night had its own tally of work with the running play; but from the time the curtain went down at night till when the doors were opened the following night work at full pressure never ceased. Properties and dresses and “ appointments “ came in completed every day. Rehearsals went on all day. On Saturday night, November 1, just over three weeks after he had broached the idea, and less than three from the time the work was actually begun — the curtain went up on The Merchant ofVenice.

  It had an unbroken run of two hundred and fifty nights; the longest run of the play ever known.

  It is a noteworthy fact that one of the actors, Mr. Frank Tyars, who played the Prince of Morocco, after being perfect for two hundred and forty-nine nights forgot some of his words on the two hundred and fiftieth.

  For twenty-six years that play remained in the working repertoire of Henry Irving. He played Shylock over a thousand times.

  II

  The occasion of Irving’s producing Othello during his own management was due to his love and remembrance of Edwin Booth. In 186o, at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, Irving began a long engagement. In the bill his name is announced: “ His first appearance.” In November of the following year Booth appeared as a star, playing Othello, Irving being the Cassio; Hamlet, Irving being the Laertes; A New Way to Pay Old Debts, he of course taking Sir Giles Overreach, and Irving Wellborn. For his benefit he gave on Friday night Romeo and Juliet, in which Irving played Benvolio to his Romeo. Often, when we talked of Booth some twenty years afterwards, he told me of the extraordinary alertness of the American actor; of his fierce concentration and tempestuous passion; of the blazing of his remarkable eyes. It will be seen from the comparison of their respective parts in the plays set out that the difference between them in the way of status as players was marked. The theatre has its own etiquette, and stars were supposed to have a stand-off manner of their own. These things have changed a good deal in the interval, but in the early sixties it was a real though an impalpable barrier, as hard to break through as though it were compact of hardier material than shadowy self-belief. Naturally the men did not have much opportunity for intimacy, but Irving never forgot the bright young actor who had won his heart as well as his esteem. Twenty years afterwards, when the younger man had won his place in the world, and when his theatre was becoming celebrated as a national asset, Booth again visited England. Whoever had arranged his business did not choose the best theatre for him. For in those days the Princess’s in Oxford Street did not have a high dramatic cachet. He got a good reception of course; but the engagement was not a satisfactory one, and Booth was much chagrined. I was there myself on the night of his opening, November 6, 188o, on which he played Hamlet. I was much disappointed with the ensemble; for though Booth was fine neither the production nor the support was worthy of his genius and powers. The management was a new one and the manager a man who had been used to a different class of theatre. Also there were certain things which jarred on the senses of any one accustomed to a finer order. This was none of Booth’s doing; he was the sufferer by it. Booth and Irving had met at once after the former had come to London, and had renewed their old acquaintance but on a more intimate basis. In those days there was a certain class of busybodies who tried always to make mischief between Americans and English; twenty-five years ago the entente cordiale was not so marked as became noticeable after the breaking out of the war between America and Spain. There were even some who did not hesitate to say that Booth had not been fairly received in London. Irving jumped to the difficulty, went at once to Booth and said to him:

  “Why don’t you come and play with me at the Lyceum? I’ll put on anything you wish; or if there is any play in which we can play together, let us do that.”

  Booth was greatly delighted, and took the overture in the same good spirit in which it was meant. He at once told Irving that he would like to appear in Othello. Irving said:r />
  “All right! You decide on the time; and I’ll get the play ready, if you will tell me how you would like it arranged.”

  Booth said he would like to leave all that to his host, as he had not himself taken a part in the production of plays for years and did not even attend rehearsals. So Irving took all the task on himself. When he asked Booth whether he would like to play Othello or Iago — for he played both — he said he would like to begin with Othello and that it would, he thought, be well if they changed week about; and so it was arranged. The performance began on May 2, 188i.

  By Booth’s wish Othello was only to be played three times a week, as he was averse from the strain of such a heavy part every night. The running bill — The Cup and The Belle’s Stratagem — kept its place on the other three. For the special performances some of the prices were altered, stalls nominally ten shillings becoming a guinea, the dress-circle seats being ten shillings instead of six. The prices for the off night remained as usual.

  The success of Othello was instantaneous and immense. During the seven weeks the arrangement lasted the houses were packed. And strange to say the takings of the off nights were not affected in any way.