Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (348 page)

On emerging, I saw that the company had at last begun to arrive. A tall, solemn-looking man was pacing the stage, and him I greeted. He was the stage manager, and so of course rather surly. I don’t know why stage managers are always surly, but they are.

In the course of the next few minutes, there trotted in a demure-looking little man, who turned out to be our “first low comedy,” and very good low comedy he was, too, though, from his wooden expression, you might have thought him as destitute of humor as the librettist of a comic opera. Then followed the heavy man, talking in a very gruff voice to a good-looking young fellow with him, who played the juveniles when our manager didn’t take them himself. Then, after a short interval, a lady — an old queer-looking little lady, who walked with a stick, and complained of rheumatism, and who, as soon as she reached the stage, plumped herself down on the thick end of a mossy bank, from which nothing would induce her to rise until she got up to go home. She was our “old woman.” She did the doting mothers and the comic old maids. She had played everything in her time, and could play anything still.

She would have taken Juliet, or Juliet’s nurse, whichever you liked, and have done both of them well. She would have been ten minutes making up for Juliet, and then, sitting in the middle of the pit, you would have put her down for twenty!

The next to appear was a gentleman (“walking”) in a fur-trimmed overcoat, patent-leather boots and white gaiters and lavender kid gloves. He carried a silver-headed cane in his hand, a glass in his left eye, a cigar in his mouth (put out as soon as he got to the stage, of course), and a small nosegay in his button-hole. His salary I subsequently discovered to be thirty shillings a week. After him came two ladies (not with any designs upon the young man: merely in the order of time). One of them was thin and pale, with a careworn look underneath the rouge, just as if she were some poor, hard-working woman, with a large family and small means, instead of an actress. The other was fat, fair, and — forty, if she was a day. She was gloriously “got up,” both as regards complexion and dress. I can’t describe the latter, because I never can tell what any woman has got on. I only know she conveyed an impression to my mind of being stuck out all round, and thrown out in front, and puffed out at the back, and towering up at the top, and trailing away behind, and all to such a degree, that she looked four times her natural size. As everybody was very glad indeed to see her and welcomed her with what seemed to be irrepressible joy, even the stage manager being civil, I naturally concluded that she was the embodiment of all the virtues known to human kind. The whispered remarks that I overheard, however, did not quite support this view, and I was at a loss to reconcile matters, until I learned that she was the manager’s wife. She was the leading lady, and the characters she particularly affected, and in which she was affected, were the girlish heroines, and the children who die young and go to heaven.

The rest of the company was made up of a couple of very old men, and a middle-aged stout one, two rather pretty girls, evidently possessed of an inexhaustible fund of humor, for they kept each other giggling all the morning; and the manager himself, who arrived last, and was less interested in the proceedings than any one else. No one took the slightest notice of me, though I purposely stood about in conspicuous positions, and I felt like the new boy at school.

When everybody had arrived, the rickety table was brought down to the front, and a bell rung; whereupon a small boy suddenly appeared for the first time, and was given the “parts” to distribute. It was a manuscript play, though well known to the company, nearly all of whom had played in it plenty of times before. All the parts were torn and greasy except one, which was prominently clean. When the boy came to that one he seemed puzzled, not knowing to whom it belonged; so he stood in the center of the stage and bawled out the name on it; and as it was my name, and I had to claim the part, I was at once lifted out of my obscurity, and placed in an opposite extreme hardly more comfortable.

CHAPTER V.

A Rehearsal.

HURRIEDLY unfolded the paper, to see what kind of a part I had got. I was anxious to begin studying it immediately. I had to form my conception of the character, learn the words and business, and get up gesture and expression all in one week. No time was therefore to be lost. I give the part in extenso:

Joe Junks.

Act I., scene I.

 — comes home.

It’s a rough night.

 — if he does.

Ay. Ay.

 — stand back.

(
Together
)’Tis he!

Fall down as scene closes in.

Act IV., scene 2.

On with rioters.

I was of a sanguine disposition at that time, but I didn’t exactly see how I was going to make much of a sensation with
that.
It seemed to me that my talents were being thrown away. An ordinary actor would have done for a part like that. However, if they chose to waste me, it was more their misfortune than mine. I would say nothing, but do the best I could with the thing, and throw as much feeling into the character as it would hold. In truth, I ought to have been very proud of the part, for I found out later on that it had been written especially for me by my manager, Our low comedy, who knew the whole piece by heart, told me this. Then he added, musingly: “A very good idea, too, of the boss’s. I always said the first act wanted strengthening.”

At last, everybody having been supplied with his or her part, and the leader of the band having arrived, the rehearsal really commenced. The play was one of the regular old-fashioned melodramas, and the orchestra had all its work cut out to keep up with it. Nearly all the performers had a bar of music to bring them on each time, and another to take them off; a bar when they sat down, and a bar when they got up again; while it took a small overture to get them across the stage. As for the leading lady, every mortal thing she did or said, from remarking that the snow was cold, in the first act, to fancying she saw her mother and then dying, in the last, was preceded by a regular concert. I firmly believe that if, while on the stage, she had shown signs of wanting to sneeze, the band would at once have struck up quick music. I began to think, after a while, that it must be an opera, and to be afraid that I should have to sing my part.

The first scene was between the old landlord of an old inn, some village gossips, and the villain of the piece. The stage manager (who played the villain — naturally) stood in the center of the stage, from which the rest of the company had retired, and, from there, with the manuscript in his hand, he directed the proceedings.

“Now then, gentlemen,” cried he, “first scene, please. Hallett, landlord, Bilikins, and Junks” (I was Junks), “up stage, right. I shall be here” (walking across and stamping his foot on the spot intended), “sitting at table. All discovered at rise of curtain. You” (turning and speaking to me, about whom he had evidently been instructed), “you, Mr. L., will be sitting at the end, smoking a pipe. Take up your cues sharply, and mind you, speak up or nobody will hear you: this is a big house. What are you going to give us for an overture, Mr. P.?” (I call the leader of the band Mr. P.). “Can you give us something old English, just before we ring up? Thanks, do — has a good effect. Now then, please, we will begin. Very piano all through this scene, Mr. P., until near the end. I’ll tell you where, when we come to it.”

Then, reading from our parts, we commenced. The speeches, with the exception of the very short ones, were not given at full length. The last two or three words, forming the cues, were clearly spoken, but the rest was, as a rule, mumbled through, skipped altogether, or else represented by a droning “er, er, er,” interspersed with occasional disjointed phrases. A scene of any length, between only two or three of the characters, — and there were many such, — was cut out entirely, and gone through apart by the people concerned. Thus, while the main rehearsal was proceeding in the center of the stage, a minor one was generally going on at the same time in some quiet corner — two men fighting a duel with walking sticks; a father denouncing his son, and turning him out of doors; or some dashing young gallant, in a big check ulster, making love to some sweet young damsel, whose little boy, aged seven, was sitting on her lap.

I waited eagerly for my cue, not knowing when it was coming, and, in my anxiety, made two or three false starts. I was put out of any doubt about it, when the time really did come, by a friendly nod from the gentleman who represented the landlord, and thereupon I made my observation as to the dreadful state of the weather in a loud, clear, and distinct voice, as it seemed to me.

As, however, nobody appeared to have heard me, and as they were evidently waiting for me, I repeated the information in a louder, clearer, and more distinct voice, if possible; after which the stage manager spoke and said:

“Now then, Mr. L., come along, let’s have it.” I explained to him that he had already had it, and he then replied, “Oh, that will never do at all. You must speak up more than that. Why, even
we
couldn’t hear you on the stage. Bawl it out. Remember this is a large place; you’re not playing in a back drawing-room now.”

I thought it was impossible for me to speak louder than I had, without doing myself some serious injury, and I began to pity the gallery boys. Any one never having attempted to speak in a large public building would hardly imagine how weak and insignificant the ordinary conversational tones are, even at their loudest. To make your voice “carry,” you have to
throw
it out, instead of letting it crawl out when you open your mouth. The art is easily acquired, and, by it, you are able to make your very whispers heard.

I was cautioned to look to this, and then we went on. The close of the scene was a bustling one, and the stage manager explained it thus: “You” (the landlord) “put the lantern close to my face, when you say “Tis he!’ I spring up, throwing down the table” (a stamp here, to emphasize this). “I knock you down. You two try to seize me; I break from you, and throw you down, and cross center” (doing so). “I gain door, open it, and stand there, pointing revolver. You all cower down.” We were squatting on our toes, as an acknowledgment of having been all bowled over like a set of nine-pins — or rather four-pins in our case — and we now further bobbed our heads, to show that we did cower.

“Picture,” says the stage manager approvingly, as drop falls. “Hurried music all through that, Mr. P. Mind you all keep well up the stage” (“up” the stage means toward the back, and “down” the stage, consequently, implies near the footlights), “so as to let the drop come down. What front drops have you got? Have you got an interior? We want a cottage interior.” This latter was spoken to a stage carpenter, who was dragging some flats about. Do not be shocked, gentle reader; a stage flat is a piece of scenery. No other kind of flat is ever seen on the stage.

“I dunno,” answered the man. “Where’s Jim? Jim!”

It appeared that Jim had just stepped outside for a minute. He came back at that point, however, wiping his mouth, and greatly indignant at hearing the sound of his own name.

“All right, all right,” was his wrathful comment, as he came up the yard; “don’t sing it; he ain’t dead. What the devil’s the matter? Is the ‘ouse a-fire?
You
never go out, do yer!”

Jim was the head carpenter, and was a sulky and disagreeable man, even for a stage carpenter. When he wasn’t “just stepped outside for a minute,” he was quarreling inside, so that instead of anybody’s objecting to his frequent temporary retirements, his absence was rather welcomed. He, in common with all stage carpenters, held actors and actresses in the greatest contempt, as people who were always in the way, and without whom the play would get on much better. The chief charm about him, however, was his dense stupidity. This trait was always brought into particular prominence whenever the question of arranging scenery was under discussion.

Fresh scenery is a very great rarity at the minor theaters. When anything very special is produced, and an unusually long run is expected, say, of a month or six weeks, one or two scenes may, perhaps, be specially painted, but, as a rule, reliance is placed upon the scenery, the gradual growth of years, already in stock, which, with a little alteration, and a good deal of make-shift, generally does duty for the “entirely new and elaborate scenery” so minutely described in the posters. Of course, under these circumstances, slight inconsistencies must be put up with. Nobody objects to a library drop representing “‘tween decks of the
Sarah Jane,”
or to a back parlor being called a banqueting hall. This is to be expected. Our stage manager was not a narrowminded man on the subject of accessories. He would have said nothing about such things as these. He himself had, on the occasion of one of his benefits, played
Hamlet
with nothing but one “interior” and “a garden,” and he had been a member of a fit-up company that traveled with a complete Shakesperian
répertoire
and four set scenes; so that he was not likely to be too exacting. But even
he
used to be staggered at Jim’s ideas of mounting. Jim’s notion of a “distant view of Hampstead Heath by moonlight,” was either a tropical island, or the back of an old transformation scene; and for any place in London — no matter what, whether Whitechapel or St. James’s Park — he invariably suggested a highly realistic representation of Waterloo Bridge in a snow-storm.

In the present instance, on being asked for the cottage interior, he let down a log cabin, with a couple of bowie knifes and revolvers artistically arranged over the fire-place; anticipating any doubt upon the subject of suitableness by an assurance that there you were, and you couldn’t do better than that. The objection, that a log cabin with bowie knives and revolvers over the fire-place, though it was doubtless a common enough object in the Australian bush or the backwoods of America, was never, by any chance, found in England, and that the cottage to be represented was supposed to be within a few miles of London, he considered as too frivolous to need comment, and passed it over in silent contempt. Further argument had the effect of raising up Jim’s stock authority, a certain former lessee, who had been dead these fifteen years, and about whom nobody else but Jim seemed to have the faintest recollection. It appeared that this gentleman had always used the log cabin scene for English cottages, and Jim guessed that
he
(the defunct lessee) knew what he was about, even if he (Jim) was a fool. The latter of Jim’s suppositions had never been disputed, and it was a little too late then to discuss the former. All I can say is, that if Jim’s Mr. Harris — as this mysterious manager was generally dubbed — really did mount his productions in the manner affirmed, their effect must have been novel in the extreme.