CHAPTER XI. First Provincial Experiences
THOUGHT I was safe for the summer with this company, and congratulated myself upon having found such good quarters. The glorious uncertainty of the boards, however, almost rivals that of the turf. From one reason and another, we broke up without ever going on tour, so that, two months after leaving London, I found myself back there again on my way to the opposite side of the kingdom to join another company.
But, short as was my first country engagement, it gave me a pretty good insight into what provincial work was like. The following is from one of my letters, written after about a fortnight’s experience of this work, which did not begin until the pantomime was withdrawn:
“The panto, is over. I wasn’t by any means fond of it, but I’m sorry for one thing. While it was running, you see, there was no study or rehearsal, and we had the whole day free, and could—and did—enjoy ourselves. But no skating parties now! no long walks! no drives! no getting through a novel in one day! We play at least two fresh pieces every night and sometimes three. Most of them here already know their parts as well as they know their alphabet, but everything is new to me, and it is an awful grind. I can never tell until one night what I’m going to play the next. The cast is stuck up by the stage door every evening, and then, unless you happen to have the book yourself, you must borrow the stage manager’s copy, and write out your part. If somebody else wants it, too, and is before you, you don’t get hold of it till the next morning perhaps, and that gives you about eight hours in which to work up a part of say six or seven lengths (a ‘length’ is forty-two lines).
“Sometimes there’s a row over the cast. Second Low Comedy isn’t going to play old men. That’s not his line; he was not engaged to play old men. He’ll see everybody somethinged first.—First Old Man wants to know what they mean by expecting him to play Second Old Man’s part. He has never been so insulted in his life. He has played with Kean and Macready and Phelps and Matthews, and they would none of them have dreamt of asking him to do such a thing.—Juvenile Lead has seen some rum things, but he is blowed if ever he saw the light comedy part given to the Walking Gentleman before. Anyhow he shall decline to play the part given him, it’s mere utility.—Walking Gent, says, well it really isn’t his fault; he doesn’t care one way or the other. He was cast for the part, and took it.—Juvenile Lead knows it isn’t his fault—doesn’t blame him at all—it’s the stage manager he blames. Juvenile Lead’s opinion is that the stage manager is a fool. Everybody agrees with him here; it is our rallying point.
“The general result, when this sort of thing occurs, is that the part in dispute, no matter what it is, gets pitched on to me as ‘Responsibles.’ There’s a little too much responsibility about my line. I like the way they put it, too, when they want me to take a particularly heavy part. They call it ‘giving me an opportunity!’ If they mean an opportunity to stop up all night, I agree with them. That is the only opportunity I see about it. Do they suppose you are going to come out with an original and scholarly conception of the character, when you see the part for the first time the night before you play it? Why, you haven’t time to think of the meaning of the words you repeat. But even if you had the chance of studying a character, it would be no use. They won’t let you carry out your own ideas. There seems to be a regular set of rules for each part, and you are bound to follow them. Originality is at a discount in the provinces.
“I have lived to see our stage manager snubbed—sat upon—crushed. He has been carrying on down here, and swelling around to that extent you’d have thought him a station-master at the very least. Now he’s like a bladder with the air let out. His wife’s come.
“The company is really getting quite famili-fied. There are three married couples in it now. Our Low Comedian’s wife is the Singing Chambermaid—an awfully pretty little woman (why have ugly men always got pretty wives?). I played her lover the other night, and we had to kiss two or three times. I rather liked it, especially as she doesn’t make-up much. It isn’t at all pleasant getting a mouthful of powder or carmine.
“I gained my first ‘call’ on Saturday, before a very full house. Of course I was highly delighted, but I felt terribly nervous about stepping across when the curtain was pulled back. I kept thinking, ‘Suppose it’s a mistake, and they don’t want me.’ They applauded, though, the moment I appeared, and then I was all right. It was for a low comedy part—Jacques in The Honeymoon. I always do better in low comedy than in anything else, and everybody tells me I ought to stick to it. But that is just what I don’t want to do. It is high tragedy that I want to shine in. I don’t like low comedy at all. I would rather make the people cry than laugh.
“There is one little difficulty that I have to contend with at present in playing comedy, and that is a tendency to laugh myself when I hear the house laughing. I suppose I shall get over this in time, but now, if I succeed in being at all comical, it tickles me as much as it does the audience, and, although I could keep grave enough if they didn’t laugh, the moment they start I want to join in. But it is not only at my own doings that I am inclined to laugh. Anything funny on the stage amuses me, and being mixed up in it makes no difference. I played Frank to our Low Comedian’s Major de Boots the other night. He was in extra good form and very droll, and I could hardly go on with my part for laughing at him. Of course, when a piece is played often, one soon ceases to be amused; but here, where each production enjoys a run of one consecutive night only, the joke does not pall.
“There is a man in the town who has been to the theater regularly every night since we opened. The pantomime ran a month, and he came all through that. I know I was sick enough of the thing before it was over, but what I should have been sitting it out from beginning to end every evening, I do not like to think. Most of our patrons, though, are pretty regular customers. The theater-going population of the town is small but determined. Well, you see, ours is the only amusement going. There was a fat woman came last week, but she did not stay long. The people here are all so fat themselves they thought nothing of her.”
