  Of all the vested rights that mankind is heir to none is more sacred than the right of an actor to abuse his manager. It is among the blessed privileges which help to make life cheerful and sunny, for, when all is said, what would be the joy of existence if we might not criticise those whom Providence has placed above us. Even a king may be abused, behind his royal back, and so an humble manager shall not escape. There was a manager of Oldfield's day who surely did not escape, and that was Christopher Rich, Esquire, one of the patentees of Drury Lane Theatre, and sole director, as a rule, in the affairs of that Thespian temple. Thespian temple, indeed! What cared Mr. Rich for Thespis or for art? He looked upon actors as a lot of cattle whose sole mission in life was to make him rich in pocket as well as in name, and who might, after the performance of that pious act, betake themselves to the Evil Gentleman for aught he cared. Several modern managers have been equally appreciative, but it is a comfort to reflect that a portion of the fraternity are vast improvements on crusty Christopher, who was described by a contemporary as "an old snarling lawyer, master and sovereign; a waspish, ignorant pettifogger in law and poetry; one who understands poetry no more than algebra; he wou'd sooner have the Grace of God than do everybody justice."[A] [Footnote A: Gildon's "Comparison Between the Two Stages."] This was the measly director in whose company Nance figured for a time, and for whom she must have had a profound if discreetly-concealed contempt. Cibber, who seems to have keenly gauged the man, has left us an account of how Rich[A] treated his actors. "He would laugh with them over a bottle and bite them in their bargains. He kept them poor, that they might not be able to rebel; and sometimes merry, that they might not think of it." How graphic is this picture, with its vision of sly, crafty Christopher, as he denies the players their well-earned wages and then hurries them off to a neighbouring tavern, there to get them hilarious on cheap wine and grudgingly to pay the reckoning. "All their articles of agreement," continues Colley, "had a clause in them that he was sure to creep out at, viz., their respective sallaries were to be paid in such manner and proportion as others of the same company were paid; which in effect made them all, when he pleas'd, but limited sharers of loss, and himself sole proprietor of profits; and this loss or profit they only had such verbal accounts of as he thought proper to give them. 'Tis true, he would sometimes advance them money (but not more than he knew at most could be due to them) upon their bonds; upon which, whenever they were mutinous, he would threaten to sue them. This was the net we danc'd in for several years. But no wonder we were dupes," whimsically adds Colley, "while our master was a lawyer." [Footnote A: Christopher Rich was the father of John Rich, a manager who excelled in pantomime, and who appreciated the "legitimate" as little as did his father.] And a very commonplace, foxy and inartistic lawyer he was, too, with his fondness for money bags and his willingness to oblige the town with anything it wanted. To his narrow mind there was no great difference between a lot of rope-dancers and a company of players, or, if there should be, the advantage was quite in favour of the former. We see the same commercial spirit to-day, when the average manager rents his house for one week to an Irving or a Mansfield, and perhaps turns it over, the following Monday night, to the tender mercies of performing dogs and cats. 'Tis all grist that comes to his mill, and what cares he whether that grist represent "Macbeth" or canine drama? Cibber was not above looking at the practical side of things, but he had no patience, nevertheless, with the Philistianism of Rich, who had that fatal fondness for "paying extraordinary prices to singers, dancers, and other exotick performers, which were as constantly deducted out of the sinking sallaries of his actors."[A] [Footnote A: Operatic singers and dancers, mostly recruited from the Continent, were fast becoming fashionable, and, as their appearance on the scene interfered with the profits of the actors, it may be imagined that the latter held the strangers in much contempt.] For it seems that Master Rich had not bought his share of the Drury Lane patent to elevate the stage, but rather to get a fortune therefrom. "And to say truth, his sense of everything to be shown there was much upon a level with the taste of the multitude, whose opinion and whose money weigh'd with him full as much as that of the best judges. [Colley was evidently thinking of himself as one of these judges.] His point was to please the majority who could more easilly comprehend anything they saw than the daintiest things that could be said to them." Nay, Christopher actually went so far that he once sought the services of an elephant to add to the strength of his company, thus anticipating the realism of our own time, when a few cows, a horse or two, a lot of chickens and some real straw will cover a multitude of sins in the construction of a play.[A] Yet, sad to relate, the elephant was never allowed to lend weight to the drama, as "from the jealousy which so formidable a rival had rais'd in his dancers, and by his bricklayer's assuring him that if the walls were to be open'd wide enough for its entrance it might endanger the fall of the house [the old theatre in Dorset Garden, which Rich wished to use] he gave up his project, and with it so hopeful a prospect of making the receipts of the stage run higher than all the wit and force of the best writers had ever yet rais'd them to." [Footnote A: Apropos to the appearance of elephants on the stage, a capital anecdote is told by Colman in his "Random Records." Johnstone, a machinist employed at Drury Lane during the latter portion of the eighteenth century, was celebrated for his superior taste and skill in the construction of flying chariots, triumphal cars, palanquins, banners, wooden children to be tossed over battlements, and straw heroes and heroines to be hurled down a precipice; he was further famous for wickerwork lions, pasteboard swans, and all sham birds and beasts appertaining to a theatrical menagerie. He wished on a certain occasion to spy the nakedness of the enemy's camp, and therefore contrived to insinuate himself, with a friend, into the two-shilling gallery, to witness the night rehearsal of a pantomime at Covent Garden Theatre. Among the attractions of this Christmas foolery a real elephant was introduced, and in due time the unweildly brute came clumping down the stage, making a prodigious figure in a procession. The friend who sat close to Johnstone jogged his elbow, whispering, "This is a bitter bad job for Drury. Why, the elephant's alive!—he'll carry all before him, and beat you hollow. What d'ye think on't, eh?" "Think on't," said Johnstone, in a tone of the utmost contempt, "I should be very sorry if I couldn't make a much better elephant than that at any time!"] Yet it was under the auspices of such a man that Oldfield made several of her most brilliant successes, not forgetting the memorable appearance as Lady Betty. And all the while, no doubt, Mr. Rich was thinking how much more sensible an attraction would be an elephant or a tight-rope walker. But Nance, who had now a firm friend in Cibber, went merrily on her way, creating new characters in comedy and astonishing even her most enthusiastic admirers by the imposing air she could frequently give to a tragic part. In none of them, grave or gay, was she more charming than as Sylvia, the heroine of Farquhar's "Recruiting Officer," a play in which she graced man's clothes. Sylvia is a delightful creature who masquerades as a dashing youth, and thereby has the privilege of watching her lover, Captain Plume. Of course the deception is discovered, and all ends happily in the orthodox fashion [the only bit of orthodoxy about the performance, by-the-way]. The girl is allowed to marry the Captain and settles down, we may suppose, to the pleasures of domesticity and woman's gowns. The comedy was admirably acted throughout, Wilks, Cibber, and that prince of mimics, Dick Estcourt, being in the cast, and the seal of popular approval was quickly put upon the production. At present such a seal should bring hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars into the pockets of the author, but it is possible that a few paltry pounds represented the profits of Farquhar.[A] [Footnote A: The "Recruiting Officer" first saw the light in April 1706.] In the meantime the spirit of discontent was abroad among the members of the Drury Lane company. Well it might be when the manager of the house, as Cibber points out, "had no conception himself of theatrical merit either in authors or actors, yet his judgment was govern'd by a saving rule in both. He look'd into his receipts for the value of a play, and from common fame he judg'd of his actors. But by whatever rule he was govern'd, while he had prudently reserv'd to himself a power of not paying them more than their merit could get, he could not be much deceived by their being over or undervalued. In a word, he had with great skill inverted the constitution of the stage, and quite changed the channel of profits arising from it; formerly (when there was but one company) the proprietors punctually paid the actors their appointed sallaries, and took to themselves only the clear profits: But our wiser proprietor took first out of every day's receipts two shillings in the pound to himself; and left their sallaries to be paid only as the less or greater deficiencies of acting (according to his own accounts) would permit. What seem'd most extraordinary in these measures was, that at the same time he had persuaded us to be contented with our condition, upon his assuring us that as fast as money would come in we should all be paid our arrears." Lawyer Rich lived too soon. How useful would he have been in these latter days, when irresponsible managers infest the profession and turn an honest penny by trading on the credulity and unbusinesslike qualities of many a deluded player. The average manager pays his debts and is quite as stable and upright in his dealings as one could desire, but what can be said of the man who take companies "on the road," after making all sorts of glowing promises, and finally elopes with the money-box, leaving his actors stranded in a strange city. Incidents of this kind, which to the victims have more of tragedy than any play in their repertoire, occur almost every day during the theatrical season, but nothing is done to prevent the ever-increasing scandal. The erstwhile proprietor of the company returns by Pullman car to New York, complains loudly about "poor business," a "sunken fortune," &c., and then prepares to take out another combination. As for his dupes, who are probably half-starving in some third class western town, they may walk home on the railroad ties. Yes, Mr. Rich was evidently intended for a wider sphere and a more progressive age than those he had to adorn. But despite all his financial talents some of the best players in Drury Lane were ready to desert from that house the moment the chance came. [Illustration: WILLIAM CONGREVE By Sir GODFREY KNELLER, 1709] The chance did come, in the season of 1706-7, when Mrs. Oldfield, Wilks, Mrs. Rogers, and several others, went over to the handsome new theatre in the Haymarket, and were joined there later by Cibber. This imposing house was opened in the spring of 1705 by Congreve and Vanbrugh, and to it had gone Betterton and his associates at Lincoln's Inn Fields. But noble old Roscius, who had so long cast his welcome spell upon London theatre-goers, was getting old and feeble, and so were several of the other members; the spell was well-nigh broken, and not even a trial of that "new-fangled" style of entertainment, Italian opera,[A] could make the management a success. [Footnote A: How Italian opera was despised by certain critics of Queen Anne's reign has already been shown in "Echoes of the Playhouse." In his "Essay on the Operas after the Italian Manners," Dennis writes (1706): "If that is truly the most Gothic, which is the most oppos'd to Antick, nothing can be more Gothick than an Opera, since nothing can be more oppos'd to the ancient Tragedy, than the modern Tragedy in Musick, because the one is reasonable, the other ridiculous; the one is artful, the other absurd; the one beneficial, the other pernicious; in short, the one natural and the other monstrous."] Now enters upon the scene the redoubtable Owen Swiney, who plays a short but brilliant part in the theatrical world, and next, with all his money gone, enters upon a twenty years' exile on the Continent. Then he will come home, to be made Keeper of the King's Mews, and presently our Colley will immortalise him in one of those pen-portraits which make so many of the Poet Laureate's friends or foes stand out clear and distinct against the background of the "Apology." Here is the picture, fresh and beaming as ever: * * * * * "If I should farther say, that this person has been well known in almost every metropolis in Europe; that few private men, with so little reproach, run through more various turns of fortune; that, on the wrongside of three-score,[A] he has yet the open spirit of a hale young fellow of five and twenty; that though he still chuses to speak what he thinks to his best friends with an undisguised freedom, he is, notwithstanding, acceptable to many persons of the first rank and condition; that any one of them (provided he likes them) may now send him, for their service, to Constantinople at half a day's warning; that Time has not yet been able to make a visible change in any part of him but the colour of his hair, from a fierce coal-black to that of a milder milk-white: When I have taken this liberty with him, methinks it cannot be taking a much greater if I at once should tell you that this person was Mr. Owen Swiney." [Footnote A: Swiney, or MacSwiney, died in 1754, after making Peg * * * * * Swiney was an ardent Irishman who had, for some mysterious reason, formed a friendship with Rich, and his advice and energy often stood the manager of Drury Lane in good stead. When, in the summer of 1706, Vanbrugh proposed that Swiney should lease the Haymarket, Sir John being anxious to relinquish management, just as Congreve had done some time before, cunning Christopher gave his consent, curiously enough, to what was nothing more or less than the setting up of a rival company of actors. In the first place, he probably looked upon his players as an encumbrance, since he was in the vein for operatic entertainments just then, and, furthermore, he pictured himself as a future monopolist controlling the destinies of two houses. For he never dreamed, did this haggling, pettifogging lawyer, that Swiney would swerve from the old time allegiance to him, and he felt so secure on this point that he privately encouraged the desertion of his own forces. He made one exception, however, by stipulating that Cibber should remain at Drury Lane. Colley was too experienced, too versatile a man to be lost with impunity; he could do everything in a theatre, from acting to writing good plays and bad poetry, and while the wily Rich chiefly depended upon his singers and dancers, he said "it would be necessary to keep some one tolerable actor with him, that might enable him to set those machines a going." It so happened that Cibber was one of the men that Swiney needed most, and, while the new manager of the Haymarket apparently acquiesced in the exception insisted on by Rich, it was not long before he showed his hand. It was a better hand than that of his whilom associate, who had been foolish enough to think that he held the trump card in the game. The card in question was a little matter of two hundred pounds owing from Swiney to Rich, and the latter fondly believed that this loan would bind the debtor to him as with hooks of steel. But we do not love men the more because they chance to be our creditors; sometimes, indeed, we love them the less for it, and so these two hundred pounds did not prevent the Celt from breaking over the traces of the Englishman. Let Cibber continue the story: * * * * * "The first word I heard of this transaction was by a letter from Swiney, inviting me to make one in the Hay-Market Company. whom he hop'd I could not but now think the stronger party. But I confess I was not a little alarm'd at this revolution. For I considered that I knew of no visible fund to support these actors but their own industry; that all his recruits from Drury Lane would want new cloathing; and that the warmest industry would be always labouring up hill under so necessary an expence, so bad a situation, and so inconvenient a theatre," &c. * * * * * In fine, Master Colley resolved that it would be the course of wisdom to stay at Drury Lane, where he seems to have enjoyed to an unusual degree the confidence of the very manager whom afterwards he did not hesitate to abuse. So when Cibber came up to London from Gloucestershire, where he had been spending his vacation, he returned to the fold of his old master. * * * * * "But I found our company so thinn'd that it was almost impracticable to bring any one tolerable play upon the stage. When I ask'd him where were his actors, and in what manner he intended to proceed? he reply'd, Don't you trouble yourself, come along, and I'll shew you. "He then led me about all the by-places in the house, and shew'd me fifty little backdoors, dark closets, and narrow passages in alterations and contrivances of which kind he had busied his head most part of the vacation; for he was scarce ever without some notable joyner or a bricklayer extraordinary, in pay, for twenty years. And there are so many odd obscure places about a theatre, that his genius in nook-building was never out of employment, nor could the most vain-headed author be more deaf to an interruption in reciting his works, than our wise master was while entertaining me with the improvements he had made in his invisible architecture; all which, without thinking any one part of it necessary, tho' I seem'd to approve, I could not help now and then breaking in upon his delight with the impertinent question of—But, Master, where are your actors?" * * * * * This exhibition of a spirit so commonplace and inartistic proved too much for Cibber. Perhaps he might have pardoned it had there been no salary owing him, for your greatest apostle of the drama will sometimes do a good deal of winking at glaring inconsistencies when a money quid pro quo looms up in the distance. Here was a case, however, where the quid pro quo loomed not at all, and the author of the "Careless Husband" became correspondingly disgusted. I told him (Rich) I came to serve him at a time when many of his best actors had deserted him; that he might now have the refusal of me; but I could not afford to carry the compliment so far as to lessen my income by it; that I therefore expected either my casual pay to be advanced, or the payment of my former sallary made certain for as many days as we had acted the year before. No, he was not willing to alter his former method; but I might chuse whatever parts I had a mind to act of theirs who had left him. * * * * * "When I found him, as I thought, so insensible, or impregnable, I look'd gravely in his face, and told him—He knew upon what terms I was willing to serve him, and took my leave." * * * * * Shortly after the interview Cibber joined the Haymarket company, and one result of his defection was an open quarrel between Rich and Swiney. This season of 1706-7 was a memorable one for Oldfield. She then played for the first time with the chaste Anne Bracegirdle,[A] whom she quickly cast into the shade. So apparent, indeed, was the shadow that the elder of the two retired from the stage in the course of a few months, in the very prime of her beauty. It was a pathetic incident, and yet the cloud had its silver lining. How often are we called upon to pity players who linger before the footlights long after they should have made their exits; instead of departing at the right moment, leaving behind them charming memories, they die by inches in full view of the audience. [Footnote A: "Mrs. Bracegirdle was perhaps a woman of a cold constitution," says Genest.] [Illustration: MRS. ANNE BRACEGIRDLE] Perhaps poverty keeps them at work, but, be that as it may, the public gives a sigh of relief when the few remaining sparks of genius are at last snuffed out. When one of them is taken from us, and we read of the death in the morning paper, we murmur, "Poor old Jones! Well, it's certainly time he shuffled off." Then we drink our coffee placidly, turn to some other news, and never think of him again. Many a once-beloved actor gets this cruel epitaph. There was nothing superannuated about Bracegirdle when she made her exit, for the actress still displayed that comeliness which had, until recently, held the attention of London. "She was of a lovely height," says Tony Aston, "with dark brown hair and eyebrows, black, sparkling eyes, and a fresh, blushy complexion; and, whenever she exerted herself, had an involuntary flushing in her breast, neck, and face, having continually a cheerful aspect, and a fine set of even white teeth; never making an exit, but that she left the audience in an imitation of her pleasant countenance." When Aston wrote Mrs. Bracegirdle was still living. "She has been off the stage these 26 years or more, but was alive July 20, 1747, for I saw her in the Strand, London, then—with the remains of charming Bracegirdle." Poor old Diana! Time brought her at least one revenge; she had outlived Nance Oldfield these many years.[A] [Footnote A: Bracegirdle died in September 1748.] "Bracey," as Cibber loved to call her, had just left the boards when George Farquhar's lively comedy, "The Beaux' Stratagem," was produced at the Haymarket. Perhaps she saw the performance from the audience side of the house, and was generous enough to admire the sparkle of Oldfield as Mrs. Sullen; and perhaps, as she was a very charitable body, Mistress Bracegirdle went to pay a last visit to the brilliant author of the play. For poor, worn-out Farquhar was dying, nor could the laughter with which the theatre re-echoed bring much merriment into that poverty-stricken home which he was so soon to leave for a world where there would be neither guineas nor debts. The ill man was game to the last, and his sense of humour never deserted him. When Oldfield was rehearsing Mrs. Sullen (a woman who separates from one husband only to have another, Archer, in prospect) she told Wilks that "she thought the author had dealt too freely with Mrs. Sullen, in giving her to Archer, without such a proper divorce as would be a security to her honor." Wilks, who was to play Archer, spoke of this criticism to Farquhar in the course of a visit to the dying playwright. "Tell her," gaily replied the latter, "that for her peace of mind's sake, I'll get a real divorce, marry her myself, and give her my bond she shall be a real widow in less than a fortnight." Poor fellow! He was faithful to Mistress Farquhar unto the end, but who shall say that he had forgotten the old days which began so fairly at the Mitre Tavern? [Illustration: MRS. BRACEGIRDLE As the Sultaness] Soon there will be another theatrical revolution by which the rival companies of the Haymarket and Drury Lane will be united under one management at the latter house, while Owen Swiney will be left free to devote his attention to Italian opera. This union comes about through the efforts of Colonel Brett[A], a very dÉbonnaire gentleman from Gloucestershire, whom Cibber, his warmest admirer, trots out for our inspection in the perennial "Apology." It appears that Sir Thomas Skipwith, who has a share in the Drury Lane Patent, becomes so disgusted with the antics of Rich and his refusal to make any accounting of the profits of the house, that he presents Brett with his interest.[B] To the Colonel the gift is a congenial one; he has passed many a pleasant hour behind the scenes at Drury Lane, and doubtless thinks that in doing so he writes himself down a very knowing dog. [Footnote A: Colonel Brett was the father of Anne Brett, who became a very dear friend of George I.] [Footnote B: Sir Thomas afterwards asserted that he only gave his share to Brett strictly "in trust."] Probably he is, for Cibber says that though he spent some time at the Temple, "he so little followed the Law there that his neglect of it made the Law (like some of his fair and frail admirers) very often follow him." As he had an uncommon share of social wit and a handsome person, with a sanguine bloom in his complexion, no wonder they persuaded him that he might have a better chance of fortune by throwing such accomplishments into the gayer world than by shutting them up in a study. * * * * * "The first view that fires the head of a young gentleman of this modish ambition just broke lose from business is to cut a figure (as they call it)in a side box at the play, from whence their next step is to the Green Room behind the scenes, sometimes their non ultra. Hither at last, then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall into his lap. And though possibly the charms of our theatrical nymphs might have their share in drawing him thither, yet in my observation the most visible cause of his first coming was a more sincere passion he had conceived, for a fair full-bottom'd perriwig which I then wore in my first play of the 'Fool in Fashion' in the year 1695." * * * * * This love affair would suggest what Mr. Gilbert calls: "A Passion À la Plato were we not to remember that in Anne's time handsome full-bottomed periwigs were regarded with an enthusiasm far too fervid to be called Platonic. Actors made it a point to have this indispensable headgear as elaborate as possible, and it is even related that Barton Booth and Wilks actually paid forty guineas each "on the exorbitant thatching of their heads." * * * * * But let loquacious Colley have his say: "For it is to be noted that the Beaux of those days were of a quite different cast from the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of the peacock in their mein than (which now seems to be their highest emulation) the pert air of a lap-wing. Now, whatever contempt philosophers may have for a fine perriwig, my friend, who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very well that so material an article of dress upon the head of a man of sense if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him a more partial regard and benevolence than could possibly be hoped for in an ill-made one." * * * * * Brett expresses such an admiration for this particular full-bottomed periwig that Cibber is highly flattered, and the two are soon laughing themselves into the best of terms. Nay, they spend the night roistering over a bottle or two of wine, and dear, vain Colley, like many who come after him, falls into the belief that he is a bold, fast man. With an air of conscious rakishness that is charmingly ridiculous, he writes: "If it were possible the relation of the happy indiscretions which passed between us that night could give the tenth part of the pleasure I then received from them, I could still repeat them with delight." Instead of pausing, however, to relate those happy indiscretions, Cibber prattles on in his colloquial way, telling us that through the goodly offices of Sir Thomas Skipwith, Brett was introduced to the divorced wife of the Earl of Macclesfield, "a lady who had enough in her power to disencumber him of the world and make him every way easy for life."[A] [Footnote A: One story of the day made this woman the mother of "While he was in pursuit of this affair [coyly adds the Apologist] which no time was to be lost in (for the Lady was to be in town for but three weeks) I one day found him idling behind the scenes before the play was begun. Upon sight of him I took the usual freedom he allow'd me, to rate him roundly for the madness of not improving every moment in his power in what was of such consequence to him. [Oh, fie, thou worldly old Colley.] Why are you not (said I) where you know you only should be? If your design should once get wind in the town, the ill-will of your enemies or the sincerity of the Lady's friends may soon blow up your hopes, which in your circumstances of life cannot be long supported by the bare appearance of a gentleman." * * * * * And now Cibber announces that he expects to shock us, although the story he goes on to disclose is not in any sense improper. Could it be that according to his eighteenth century reverence for precedence the crime lay in the rough and tumble way in which, as he ventures to show, an humble player treated the future husband of a dethroned Countess. Here, at least, is the awful tale: * * * * * "After twenty excuses to clear himself of the neglect I had so warmly charged him with, he concluded them with telling me he had been out all the morning upon business and that his linnen was too much soil'd to be seen in company. Oh, ho! said I, is that all? Come along with me, we will soon get over that dainty difficulty. Upon which I haul'd him by the sleeve into my shifting-room, he either staring, laughing, or hanging back all the way. There, when I had lock'd him in, I began to strip off my upper cloaths, and bade him do the same; still he either did not or would not seem to understand me, and continuing his laugh, cry'd, What! is the puppy mad? No, No, only positive, said I; for look you, in short, the play is ready to begin, and the parts that you and I are to act to-day are not of equal consequence; mine of young Reveller (in 'Greenwich Park'[A]) is but a rake; but whatever you may be, you are not to appear so; therefore take my shirt and give me yours; for depend upon't, stay here you shall not, and so go about your business. [Footnote A: A play written by Mountford.] "To conclude, we fairly chang'd linnen, nor could his mother's have wrap'd him up more fortunately; for in about ten days he marry'd the Lady." |
|
