Read Ebook: Some eminent Victorians: Personal recollections in the world of art and letters by Carr J Comyns Joseph Comyns

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The sort of play in which Fechter scored his greatest success has long fallen out of fashion, but I cannot help thinking that if the actor were here to-day who could boast gifts equal to his, a play fitted to form a vehicle for the exercise of his powers would be quickly forthcoming.

Fechter's name naturally recalls other foreign actors and actresses who have visited our shores during the last thirty years. The greatest of them all, to my thinking, and I am not unmindful of the name of Salvini, was Madame Ristori. She had not, perhaps, the sudden power born of sudden impulse which Madame Bernhardt could boast, a power in which, I suppose, Madame Rachel was far superior to both. Indeed, I remember having a talk with Sir Frederick Leighton, who in his student days in Paris had known Rachel's acting well, and he assured me that Rachel stood as far above Sarah Bernhardt as Sarah Bernhardt stood above all other actresses of her time.

But Ristori's art, though it may have missed the occasional lightning flashes, was sustained throughout at a commandingly high level, sustained by a sense of style that gave continuous dignity and grace to all she did. Her Lucrezia Borgia rests with me as one of the most beautiful and at the same time most agonising performances I have ever seen upon the stage; and scarcely less memorable was her Marie Stuart.

And Oxenford assured me that he had since acted upon this clear note of warning, and had accordingly avoided as much as possible any kind of criticism that might invite a retort from the injured player, though he had on one occasion, as he confessed, indulged in an epigram that might, he feared, have injured his position. It was of some young actor, whose performance seemed to him more than usually incompetent, that he ventured the remark: "We are told that Mr. So-and-so is a promising performer. For our own part we can only say that we care not how often he promises so long as he never again performs."

But this was an isolated instance in the powers of sarcasm which he undoubtedly possessed, and for the most part he continued to the end of his career in a spirit of unruffled urbanity.

The visit of the French players during the Franco-German War stirred London not a little, and undoubtedly exercised a considerable influence upon the younger representatives of dramatic art in England.

Delaunay and Got were in their separate ways perfect masters of that restrained and balanced art which is the outcome of the French system of training, exhibited in its perfect form in the French National Theatre. And the restraint and modesty of their methods strongly appealed to that younger school of actors in England who were already striving after a greater naturalness of interpretation. But their appeal was made for the most part in the region of comedy, and it was the advent of Salvini, with his larger and more passionate individuality, that gave a new impulse to the rendering of tragic character.

Salvini was beyond question a superb performer. His natural equipment for an actor, as exhibited in a voice of unexampled power and charm, was in itself more than sufficient to warrant the extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm which greeted his appearance in London. And yet, for all his undeniable power, his actual rendering of the character of Othello never seemed to me to be in perfect keeping with the spirit and intention of the author.

Overmastering in his strength and superb in his rendering of the more passionate passages of the play, he missed, as I felt at the time, and as I still feel, the tragic sublimity that marks the closing scenes of the drama.

It was a particularly interesting evening, for it happened that only a few nights before Miss Terry and I had also together seen Madame Duse play the same part in the same theatre. Here again, I think, the Italian actress was finely inspired by the presence of her comrade, for she too had on that evening surpassed herself.

The contrast between the two performers was striking and complete, and would go far to prove how inexhaustible are the resources of the actor's art, and how varied the influences of each separate personality, even when they are employed upon the same material.

THE WORK OF THE THEATRE

In 1887 my friend Mr. Beerbohm Tree, who had already won considerable distinction as an actor, decided to enter upon the management of a London theatre, and he asked me to associate myself with the enterprise.

With the close of the season Mr. Tree shifted his quarters to the Haymarket, and there it still served him as his opening production while more important work was in preparation. Those early days of managerial experiences have left many pleasant recollections. We were both of us new at our task, and both unshaken in our faith in the readiness of the public to welcome every form of serious drama.

My alliance with Mr. Tree endured for some little time after his removal to the Haymarket, and it was not until two years later that, at the invitation of my friend Mr. Stuart Ogilvie, I undertook the independent direction of the Comedy Theatre.

He had a sense of the stage, but he had never been at the pains fully to master the conditions of the theatre, so that even in the best that he accomplished he could not make full use of its resources or duly observe its limitations.

It was during the period of my association with the Comedy Theatre that Irving invited me to write for him a play on the subject of King Arthur. He had already in his possession a drama by W. G. Wills upon the same theme, and at first the project took the form of an offer on his part that I should revise, and in part rewrite, Wills's somewhat slovenly essay. But when I tried to set myself to the task I found that, for me at least, it was impossible of achievement. I had long known and loved the Arthurian legends as they are enshrined in Sir Thomas Malory's exquisite romance, and it seemed to me that the tragedy that lay in the loves of Lancelot and Guinevere was susceptible of more dramatic treatment than Wills had accorded it. When I explained my difficulty to Irving he at once gave to his original proposal a new form, permitting me very willingly to abandon altogether Wills's experiment and to write for him a drama of my own.

When the time approached for its production he eagerly acquiesced, as I have already related, in my suggestion that Burne-Jones should be invited to design the scenery and costumes, and it was further agreed between us that the music, which was destined to form an important feature in the presentation of the piece, should be entrusted to Sir Arthur Sullivan.

Sullivan was already counted among my intimate friends. I had met him first many years before at Sir Coutts Lindsay's country-house in Scotland, and it was not long before the acquaintance ripened into a close and lasting friendship. To those who knew and loved Sullivan, and I think he was loved by all who knew him, the extraordinary charm of his personality will be unreservedly acknowledged.

There have been few men in our time in any walk of life who have possessed an equal measure of social fascination. His manner, always sympathetic and sincere, suffered no change in whatever company he found himself, and there was added to this finer quality of sympathy a quick and delicate sense of humour that made closer comradeship with him inspiring and delightful. And although he was well entitled to claim a separate consideration for the art to which his whole life was unsparingly devoted, it was wonderful to observe with what patience and tact he subordinated any distinctive claim which I have known other musicians, not so finely endowed, often to assert, and with how much skilful readiness he could adjust the competing requirements of music and the drama, when they had to be linked together, so as to produce a combined effect upon the audience.

The subject of King Arthur, while the production was in progress at the Lyceum, took a strong hold upon him, and it was only a very little while before his death that he made a proposition to me that I should so far rearrange the material I had treated as to provide a libretto for an opera he had in his mind to compose.

The near neighbourhood of Monte Carlo presented an element of temptation to Sullivan, who was a born gambler. But he was at the time so hard set upon his work that he announced to me on my arrival his fixed resolve that our visits to the Casino should be strictly limited to two days in the week. Like all born gamblers Arthur had his peculiar superstitions. He could not endure to be watched while he was playing; and if he chanced to catch sight of me anywhere near the table at which he was seated, his resentment found eloquent expression. It was only when I contrived to keep entirely out of sight that I was able to observe him as he sat wholly absorbed in the play. The excitement to which he yielded on these occasions was extraordinary, and the rapidity with which he covered the series of chosen numbers very often outran his own remembrance of what he had done.

I have seen him, as he passed from one table to the other, followed by a friendly croupier carrying a handful of gold which he himself was ignorant he had won. And when the evening closed, and we found ourselves once more in the train that was to take us back to Beaulieu, he would sometimes sink back entirely exhausted with the energy he had expended in his three hours' traffic in the rooms.

Our life at Beaulieu, wholly delightful as it was--for there never was a host to equal him in simple and graceful hospitality--had nevertheless its humorous aspects. We lived, indeed, a sort of Box and Cox existence. The brisk air and bright climate tempted me to rise early, and I was generally at work on the little terrace outside my room by nine o'clock in the morning. It was Sullivan's habit, on the other hand, to lie late, and our first meeting of the day occurred only at lunch-time. Sometimes, but not always, he would work a little during the afternoon, but it was only when dinner was over, and we had played a few games of bezique, that he set himself seriously to his task. We parted generally at about eleven, and then Arthur's musical day began. Withdrawing himself into a little glass conservatory that overlooked the Mediterranean, he would often remain at his desk, scoring and composing, till four or even five o'clock in the morning, and it was only rarely during the labour of composition that he had any need to have recourse to the piano to try over a few notes of the melody he had under treatment.

His actual pen-work when he was engaged in scoring his composition for the orchestra was of surprising neatness and delicacy, and I think it was this part of his task he enjoyed the most. He used to say to me that the invention of melody rarely presented to him any grave difficulty. It flowed naturally, almost spontaneously, when he had once fixed the musical rhythm which he felt the meaning of the words and the chosen metre of the verse rightly demanded. Here he took extraordinary pains to satisfy himself, and it was, I think, this spirit of exacting loyalty to the special quality of each separate lyric that gave to his work its special value in relation to the theatre.

"Well, my dear Arthur," I replied, "if that is what you propose, I can only assume that one of us two is a vulgar fellow, and I suppose I am the culprit."

And then, with a twinkle in his eye, he said, "Well, perhaps you prefer this," and proceeded to play the melody he had really composed for the purpose.

Those who followed his body to St. Paul's will not easily forget the touching solemnity of the occasion. His own Chorus from the Savoy was permitted to sing one of his own beautiful compositions as the coffin was slowly lowered into the vault. That so beautiful and sunny a nature, rich in all the qualities that make for sweet friendship, and so nobly endowed with gifts that leave his place as a musician lasting and secure, should have been consigned to such martyrdom of physical suffering ranks among those decrees of fate that it is vain to question and idle to seek to evade. Few men could boast of having conferred upon their generation such fresh and lasting enjoyment; for it may be confidently said that, in that long series of works in which his name will ever be associated with that of Sir William Gilbert, there was added to the garnered store of the world's pure pleasure a new harvest of delight reaped from a field that none had tilled before.

To those who love the theatre the labours of rehearsal, though they are exacting and sometimes exhausting, yield many delightful experiences. There comes a moment even in the writing of a play when the puppets of the author's invention seem suddenly to take a detached existence and to follow a law of development that is only half-consciously dictated by their creator. This impression, which I suppose nearly all writers in the region of fiction must have felt, is renewed and intensified as a play takes shape upon the stage. The intrusion of the actor's personality, sometimes enhancing the original conception, and always in some degree modifying the intended balance of the design, adds a new colour to the written page. And then, as day by day the scattered fragments are gradually united and the interpretation grows in emotional strength, there come moments of keen enjoyment of the actor's art that equal, if they do not surpass, any later impression that may be yielded when the performance is finally presented with the added effects of costume and scenery.

The bare, empty stage, with the players in their ordinary working-day dress, presents but a mournful appearance to a chance visitor who is a stranger to the scene. But those who work day by day in the theatre sometimes find, as the rehearsals advance, that this ill-lit, unfurnished void can on a sudden be transformed into a world of enchantment. The actor and the author together are as yet undisturbed in their task, and what is still to come in the way of added illusion their imagination can readily supply.

And yet the bringing together of all the contributory arts that are combined in the service of an important production has an interest of its own. From the initial step, when the little toy models of the scenic artist are passed and approved, to the final moment of the dress rehearsal, there is a vast amount of work to be done in every department, and during the progress of that work the theatre becomes a truly democratic institution. Author and composer, the master carpenter, the property master, and the electrician are linked together in a spirit of equal comradeship, and there is not one of them all who has it not in his power to make or mar the work of his fellows.

It is one of the inscrutable laws of the theatre that nothing is ever quite ready until the last moment. Costumes are delayed, properties are incomplete, or it may be some scene that did not quite fit its purpose is undergoing structural amendment, and has yet to receive the final touches at the hands of the scene-painter. All these circumstances, perhaps inevitable in view of the countless details that have to be fitted together in order to perfect the complex puzzles of a production, are apt to give to the final rehearsals an impression of chaos and confusion. It is not an uncommon remark made by those who are admitted to such rehearsals, "But you surely do not intend to produce this play in two days' time?" And, except to the expert who knows that what is lacking is already in an advanced stage of preparation, the doubt implied in the question is natural enough.

The protest against scenic display in the theatre is constantly renewed, but is not always very intelligently directed. That scenery can be inappropriate in its magnificence is true enough, but it is not less true that it can be equally inappropriate in its inefficiency. The question, when all is said, is one of taste and fitness, and involves no irrefutable principle.

To ignore the enlarged resources of the modern scene-painter's art would, I think, be foolish, even if it were possible. The problem before the theatre now is to control these resources, and to reconsider and to reforge the means which shall set them again in clear subjugation to the essential claims of the drama. It may be conceded that during the last thirty years the need of this subjugation has not always been sufficiently borne in mind, and there have been instances not a few where the eye has been fed at the expense of the ear. But this scenic art is a thing so beautiful in itself that it would be hard indeed if any mere pedantry of taste should force its exclusion from the theatre.

INDEX

Abbey, Edwin, 150

Academy, Royal, 59, 94, 106-7, 143, 146, 245; school of the, 109; duties of the, 127-30

Actors' Benevolent Fund, 189-90

Adelphi, the, 231

Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, 50

Albany, the, 37

Albemarle Hotel, 259

Albert, Prince Consort, 129

Albery, Mr., 230

Albion Tavern, Drury Lane, 233-35

Algiers, 103-5

Alverstone, Lord, 186-88

American ambassadors, orators among the, 189

Amiens, 154

Aquarium, the, 78

Armstrong, Lord, 50

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