by Bram Stoker
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.
Mathias was an exceedingly hard and exhausting part on the actor, but as years rolled on it became in ever greater demand.
III
The original choice of the play by Irving is an object-lesson of the special art-sense of an actor regarding his own work. Irving knew that the play would succeed. It was not guessing nor hoping nor any other manifestation of an optimistic nature. Had Bateman, in the business crisis of 1872, not allowed him to put it on, he would infallibly have put it on at some other time.
It would be difficult for an actor to explain in what this art-sense consists or how it brings conviction to those whose gift it is. Certainly any one not an actor could not attempt the task at all. In the course of a quarter of a century of intimate experience of this actor, when he has confided to me the very beginnings of his intentions and let me keep in touch with his mind when such intentions became at first fixed and then clamorous of realisation, I have known him see his way to personal success with regard to several characters. For instance; When in 1885 he had arranged to do Olivia and was making up the cast he put himself down as Dr. Primrose. I had not seen the play in which Ellen Terry had appeared under John Hare’s management — with enormous success for a long run — and I had no guiding light, except the text of the play, as to the excellence of the part as an acting one. But neither had Irving seen it. He too had nothing but the text to go by, but he was quite satisfied with what he could do. He knew of course from report that Ellen Terry would be fine. For myself I could not see in the Vicar a great part for so great an actor, and tried my best to dissuade him from acting it. “ Get the best man in London, or out of it — at any price,” I said; “ but don’t risk playing a part like that already played exhaustively and played well according to accounts! “ Hermann Vezin had played it in the run. Irving answered me with all his considerate sweetness of manner:
“My dear fellow, it is all right! I can see my way to it thoroughly. If I can’t play the Vicar to please I shall think I don’t know my business as an actor; and that I really think I do!”
This was said not in any way truculently or self-assertively, but with a businesslike quietude which always convinced. When any man was sincere with Irving, he too was always both sincere and sympathetic, even to an opposing view to his own. When one was fearless as well as sincere he gained an added measure of the actor’s respect.
Again, when in 1885 Faust was being produced I began to have certain grave doubts as to whether we were justified in the extravagant hopes which we had all formed of its success. The piece as produced was a vast and costly undertaking; and as both the decor and the massing and acting grew, there came that time, perhaps inevitable in all such undertakings of indeterminate bounds, as to whether reality would justify imagination. With me that feeling culminated on the night of a partial rehearsal, when the Brocken scene on which we all relied to a large extent was played, all the supers and ballet and most of the characters being in dress. It was then, as ever afterwards, a wonderful scene of imagination, of grouping, of lighting, of action, and all the rush and whirl and triumphant cataclysm of unfettered demoniacal possession. But it all looked cold and unreal — that is, unreal to what it professed. When the scene was over — it was then in the grey of the morning — I talked with Irving in his dressing-room, where we had a sandwich and something else, before going home. I expressed my feeling that we ought not to build too much on this one play. After all it might not catch on with the public as firmly as we had all along expected — almost taken for granted. Could we not be quietly getting something else ready, so that in case it did not turn out all that which our fancy painted we should be able to retrieve ourselves. Other such arguments ofjudicious theatrical management I used earnestly.
Irving listened, gravely weighing all I said; then he answered me genially:
“That is all true; but in this case I have no doubt. I know the play will do. To-night I think you have not been able to judge accurately. You are forming an opinion largely from the effect of the Brocken. As far as to-night goes you are quite right; but you have not seen my dress. I do not want to wear it till I get all the rest correct. Then you will see. I have studiously kept as yet all the colour to that grey-green. When my dress of flaming scarlet appears amongst it — and remember that the colour will be intensified by that very light — it will bring the whole picture together in a way you cannot dream of. Indeed I can hardly realise it myself yet, though I know it will be right. You shall see too how Ellen Terry’s white dress and even that red scar across her throat will stand out in the midst of that turmoil of lightning!”
He had seen in his own inner mind and with his vast effective imagination a
ll these pictures and these happenings from the very first; all that had been already done was but leading up to the culmination.
IV
Let me say here that Irving loved sincerity, and most of all in those around him and who had to aid him in his work — for no man can do all for himself. Alfred Gilbert the sculptor once said to me on seeing from behind the scenes how a great play was pulled through on a first night, when every soul in the place was alive with desire to aid and every nerve was instinct with thought:
“I would give anything that the world holds to be served as Irving is!”
He was quite right. There must be a master mind for great things, and the master of that mind must learn to trust others when the time of action comes. The time for doubting, for experimenting, for teaching and weighing and testing is in the antecedent time of preparation. But when the hour strikes every doubt is a fetter to one’s own work — a barrier between effort and success.
In artistic work this is especially so. The artist temperament is sensitive — almost super-sensitive; and the requirements of its work necessitate that form of quietude which comes from self-oblivion. It is not possible to do any work based on individual qualities when from extrinsic cause some unrequired phase of that individuality looms large in the foreground of thought. Dickens, who was himself a sensitive man and understood both consciously and unconsciously the needs of artistic nature, was only putting the thought into humorous and exaggerated words when he made Mr. Chevy Slyme say that his friend had in his nature “ infernally fine-touched chords.”
This quality is of the essence of every artist, but is emphasised in the actor; for here his individuality is not merely a help to creative power but is a medium by which he expresses himself. Thus it will be found as a working rule of life that the average actor will not, if he can help it, do anything or take any responsibility which will make for the possibility of unpopularity. The reason is not to be found in vanity, or in a merely reckless desire to please; it is that unpopularity is not only harmful to his aim and detrimental to his well-being, but is a disturbing element in his work quit actor. In another place we shall have to consider the matter of “ dual consciousness “ which Irving considered to be of the intellectual mechanism of acting. Here we must take it that if to a double consciousness required for work a third — self-consciousness — is added, they are apt to get mixed; and fine purpose will be thwarted or overborne.
Thus it is that an actor has to keep himself, in certain ways at least, for his work. When in addition he has the cares and worries and responsibilities and labours and distractions of management to encounter daily and hourly, it is vitally necessary that he has trutsworthy and, to him, sufficing assistance. Oliver Wendell Holmes has a shrewd remark in one of his breakfast-table books; that “ genius should wed with character.” This has perhaps a wider application than the author intended, and the business side of art work is a fair example of its width. It is quite sufficient for one man to originate the scope and ultimate effect of a play; to bring all the workers of different crafts employed in its production; to select the various actors each for special qualities, to rehearse them and the less skilled labourers employed in effect; in fact to bring the whole play into harmonious completeness. All beyond this is added labour, exhausting to the individual and ineffective with regard to the work in hand. When, therefore, an actor-manager has such trusty and efficient assistance as is here suggested many things become possible to him with regard to the finesse of his art, which he dared not otherwise attempt. Somebody must stand the stress of irritating matters; there must be some barrier to the rush of mordant distractions. Irving could do much and would have in the long run done at least the bulk of what he intended; but he never could have done all he did without the assistance of his friend and trusty stage-lieutenant, H. J. Loveday, who through the whole of his management stood beside him in all his creative work and shaped into permanent form his lofty ideas of stage effect. It is not sufficient in a theatre to see a thing properly done and then leave it to take care of itself for the future. Stage perfection needs constant and never-ending vigilance. No matter how perfectly a piece may be played, from the highest to the least important actor, in a certain time things will begin to get “ sloppy “ and fresh rehearsals are required to bring all up again to the standard of excellence fixed. To Loveday and the able staff under him, whose devotion and zeal were above all praise, the continued excellence of the Lyceum plays had to be mainly trusted.
Let it be clearly understood here, however, that I say this not to belittle Irving, but to add to his honour. In addition to other grand qualities he had the greatness to trust where trust was due. With him lay all the great conception and imagination and originality of all his accomplishments. He was quite content that others should have their share of honour.
When one considers the amazing labour and expense concerned in the “ production” of a play, he is better able to estimate the value of devoted and trusted assistance.
V
Even the thousand and one details of the business of a theatre need endless work and care — work which would in the long run shatter entirely the sensitive nervous system of an artist. In fact it may be taken for granted that no artist can properly attend to his own business. As an instance I may point to Whistler, who, long after he had made money and lost it again and had begun to build up his fortune afresh, came to me for some personal advice before going to America to deliver his “ Five o’clock “ discourse. In the course of our conversation he said:
“Bram, I wish I could get some one to take me up and attend to my business for me — I can’t do it myself; and I really think it would be worth a good man’s while — some man like yourself,” he courteously added. “ I would give half of all I earned to such a man, and would be grateful to him also for a life without care!”
I think myself he was quite right. He was before his time — long before it. He did fine work and created a new public taste... and he became bankrupt. His house and all he had were sold; and the whole sum he owed would, I think, have been covered by the proper sale of a few of the pictures which were bought almost en bloc by a picture-dealer who sold them for almost any price offered. He had a mass of them in his gallery several feet thick as they were piled against the wall. One of them he sold to Irving for either X20 or X40, I forget which.
This was the great picture of Irving as King Philip in Tennyson’s drama Queen Mary. It was sold at Christie’s amongst Irving’s other effects after his death and fetched over five thousand pounds sterling.
VI
During the run of Cymbeline a pause of one night was made for a special occasion. November 25, 1896, was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first performance of The Bells, and on that memorable birth-night the performance was repeated to an immense house enthusiastic to the last degree.
After the curtain had finally fallen the whole of the company and all the employees of the theatre gathered on the stage for a presentation to Irving to commemorate the remarkable occasion. One and all without exception had contributed in proportion to their means. Most of all, Alfred Gilbert, R.A., who had given his splendid genius and much labour as his contribution. Of course on this occasion it was only the model which was formally conveyed. The form of the trophy was a great silver bell standing some two feet high, exquisite in design and with the grace and beauty of the work of a Cellini; a form to be remembered in after centuries. I had the honour of writing the destined legend to be wrought in a single line in raised letters on a band of crinkly gold on the curve of the bell. Gilbert had made a point of my writing it, and be sure I was proud to do so. It ran:
HONOUR TO IRVING. THROUGH THE LOVE OF HIS COMRADES. I RING THROUGH THE AGES.
Gilbert was enthusiastic about it, for he said it fulfilled all the conditions of the legend on a bell. In the first place, according to the ancient idea a bell is a person with a soul and a thought and a voice of its own; it is supposed to speak on its own initiative. In th
e second place, the particular inscription was short and easily wrought and would just go all round the bell. Moreover from its peculiar form the reading of it could begin anywhere. I felt really proud when he explained all this to me and I realised that I had so well carried out the idea.
VII
It may perhaps be here noted that according to the tradition of the Comedie-Francaise a play becomes a classic work when it has held the boards for a quarter of a century. The director, M. Jules Claretie asked Irving if they might play it in the House of Moliere. Of course he was pleased and sent to Claretie a copy of the prompt-book and drawings of the scenes and appointments.
Jules Claretie was by now an old friend. In 1879, when the Comedie-Francaise came to London and played at the Gaiety Theatre, he came over as one of the men of letters interested in their success. It was not till afterwards that he was selected as Director. I remember well one night when he came to supper with Irving in the Lyceum. This was before the Old Beefsteak Room was reappointed to its old use; and we supped in the room next to his own dressing-room, occasionally used in those days for purposes of hospitality. There came also three other Frenchmen of literary note Jules Clery, Jacques Normand and the great critic Francisque Sarcey. There was a marked scarcity of language between us as none of the Frenchmen spoke in those days a word of English, and neither Irving nor I knew more than a smattering of French. We got on well, however, and managed to exchange ideas in the manner usual to people who want to talk with each other. It was quite late, and we had all begun to forget that we did not know each other’s language, when we missed Sarcey. I went out to look for him, fearing lest he might come to grief through some of the steps or awkward places in the almost dark theatre. In those days of gas lighting we always kept alight the “ pilot “ light in the great chandelier of bronze and glass which hung down into the very centre of the auditorium — just above the sight-line from the gallery. This pilot was a matter of safety, and I rather think that we were compelled to see it attended to, either by the civic authorities or the superior landlord. The gas remaining in the pipes of the theatre was just sufficient to keep it going for four and twenty hours. If it went out there must be a leak somewhere; and that leak had to be discovered and attended to without delay.
