Complete Works of Bram Stoker (652 page)

I can supplement this brief note from memory. Irving read the play with quite extraordinary effect. He had quite an added gift for this sort of work. I heard him read through a good many plays in the course of a quarter of a century of work together and it was always enlightening. He had a way of conveying the cachet of each character by inflection or trick of voice or manner; and his face was always, consciously or unconsciously, expressive. So long before as 1859, when he had read The Lady of Lyons at Crosby Hall, the Daily Telegraph had praised, amongst other matters, his versatility in this respect. I have heard him read in public in a large hall both Hamlet and Macbeth, and his characterisation was so marked that after he had read the entries of the various characters he did not require to refer to them again by name. On this occasion he seemed familiar with every character, and, I doubt not, could have played any of them, so far as his equipment fitted him for the work, within a short time. Naturally the most effective part was that of Edgar of Ravenswood. Not only is it the most prominent part in the cast, but it was that which he was to play himself and to which he had given most special attention. In it he brought out all the note of destiny which rules in both novel and play. Manifestly Edgar is a man foredoomed, but not till the text sounded the note of doom in the weird and deathly utterances of Ailsie Gourlay could one tell that all must end awfully. Throughout, the tragic note was paramount. Well Edgar knew it; the gloom that wrapped him even in the moment of triumphant love was a birth-gift. As Irving read it that night, and as he acted it afterwards, there was throughout an infinite and touching pathos. But not this character alone, but all the rest were given with great and convincing power. The very excellence of the rendering made each to help the other; variety and juxtaposition brought the full effect. The prophecies, because of their multiplication, became of added import on Edgar’s gloom, and toned the high spirit of Hayston of Bucklaw. Lucy’s sweetness was intensified by the harsh domination of Lady Ashton. The sufferings of the faithful Caleb under the lash of Ailsie’s prophecy only increased its force.

We who listened were delighted. For myself I seemed to see the play a great success and one to be accomplished at little cost. We had now, since 1885, produced in succession three great plays, Faust, Macbeth and The Dead Heart, and had in contemplation another, Henry VIII., which would exceed them all in possibilities of expense both of production and of working. These great plays were and always must be hugely expensive. As I was chancellor of the exchequer I was greatly delighted to see a chance of great success combined with a reasonable cost and modest accessories. From the quiet effectiveness of Irving’s reading I was satisfied that the play would hold good under the less grand conditions. This opinion I still hold. I must not, however, be taken as finding fault with Irving’s view, which was quite otherwise. He looked on the play as one needing all the help it could get; and I am bound to say that his views were justified by success, for the play as he did it was an enormous success. The production account was not large in comparison with that of some other great plays, being a little under five thousand pounds. There were no author’s fees, as the play had long ago been bought outright and paid for, so that expense had been incurred and was chargeable against estate whether the play was produced or not. But the running expenses were very heavy, between £18o and 200 a performance. As it was the play was a heavy one for Ellen Terry; we could only play it six times a week. To the management there is always an added advantage in a matinee or any extra performance.

Ravenswood was presented on September 20, 1890, and altogether was given during the season one hundred and two times.

II

During its run we had a strange opportunity of experiencing the extraordinary way in which a play fluctuates with the public pulse. From the first night it was a great success, and the booking became so great that we were obliged to enlarge the time for the advance purchase of seats. Our usual time was four weeks, and as a working rule it was found well to keep to this. Where booking is not under great pressure too long a time means extra particularity in choice of seats, and a de facto curtailment of receipts. For Ravenswood we had to advance, first one week and then a second; so that about the end of the first month we were booking six weeks ahead. I may say that we were booked that long, for as each day’s advance sheet was opened it became quickly filled. The agents, too, were hard at work and we were not able to allot to any of them the full number of seats for which they asked. I have a special reason for mentioning this, as will appear. Now at the Lyceum from the time of my taking charge of the business we did not ever “ pencil “ to agents  —  that is, we did not let them have seats after the customary fashion “ on sale or return.” We had, be sure, good reason for this. Whatever seats they had they took at their own risk by week or month, a sort of running agreement terminable at fixed notice. When we arrived at the fiftieth performance the play was going as strong as ever, the receipts being on or about two thousand pounds per week. Within the end of the year, theatre receipts generally began to drop a little; Christmas is coming, and many things occupy family attention. The autumn visit visitors have all departed, and the fogs of November are bad for business. We did not therefore give it a second thought that the door receipts got a little less, for all the bookable seats were already secure. On Thursday, November 20, I had an experience which set me thinking. During that day I had visits from three of the theatre agents having businesses in the West End and the City. They came separately and with an unwonted secrecy. Each wished to see me alone, and being secured from interruption, stated the reason. Each had the same request and spoke in almost identical terms, so that the conversation of one will illustrate all. The first one asked me:

“Will you tell me frankly  —  if you don’t mind  are you really doing good business with Ravenswood “Certainly,” I answered. “ All we can do. Why you know that we can only let you have for six weeks ahead a part of the seats you have asked for.” After some odd nervousness he said again:

“I suppose I may take it that that applies to every one you deal with? I know I can trust you, for you always treat me frankly; and this is a matter I am exceedingly anxious about.” For answer I rang the bell for the commissionaire in waiting on the office and sent him round to the box office to bring me the booking sheets for six weeks ahead. These I duly placed before the agent  —  Librarian they called them in those days as they were the survivors of the old lending libraries who used to secure theatre tickets for their customers.

“See for yourself! “ I said; and he turned over the sheets, every seat on which was marked as sold.

“It is very extraordinary! “ he said after a pause. By this time my own curiosity was piqued and I asked him to tell me what it all meant.

“It means this,” he said. “ Things can’t go on at this rate. We have not sold a single ticket this week for any theatre in London!”

I opened a drawer and took out what we called the “ Ushers’ Returns “ for each night that week. We used to have, as means of checking the receipts of the house in addition to the tickets, a set of returns made by the ushers. Each usher had a sectional chart of the seats under his charge and he had to show which was occupied during the evening and which, if any, were unoccupied. I had not gone over these as all the seats having been sold it did not much matter to us whether they were occupied or not. To my surprise I found that on each night, growing as the week went on, were quite a number of seats unoccupied. On reference to the full plan I found that most of these were seats sold to the libraries, but that a good proportion of them had been booked at our own office. Neither of us could account for such a thing in any way. When the next, and then the third agent came there was a strong sense over me that something was happening in the great world. As a rule when there is pressure in a theatre the seats belonging to agents remaining unsold can always be disposed of in the theatre box office.

That night Irving had a little supper-party of intimate friends in the Beefsteak Room; amongst them one man, Major Ricarde-Seaver, well skilled in the world of haute finance. In the course of conversation I asked him:

“What is up? There is something going to happen! What is it? “ He asked me why I thought so and I told him.

“That is certainly strange! “ was his comment. “ Then you don’t know?”

“Know what? “ I asked. “ What is going to happen? “ His answer came after a pause.

“You will know soon. Possibly to-morrow; certainly the next day! “ The mystery was thickening. Again I asked:

“What is it? “ The answer came with a shock:

“Baring’s! They’ve gone under! “ Now any one of a speculative tendency in London, or out of it, could have that day made a fortune by selling “ bears “  —  and there is no lack of sportsmen willing to make money on a “sure thing.” And yet for three days at least there must have been in business circles some uneasiness of so pronounced a character that it for the time obliterated social life with many people. Had they knowledge where the public pulse lay, and how to time its beats, they might have plucked fortune from disaster.

In the Lyceum we became wide awake to the situation. In a time of panic and disaster there is no need for mimetic tragedy; the real thing crowds it out. The very next day we arranged to change the bill on the earliest day possible. As we were booked for six weeks we arranged to change the tragic Ravenswood for Much Ado About Nothing  —  the brighest and cheeriest comedy in our repertoire  —  on Monday, January 3.

This we did with excellent result. From the day of the failure of Baring’s the receipts began to dwindle. The nightly return dropped from three hundred pounds odd to two hundred pounds odd, and finally to one hundred pounds odd. With the change to Comedy they jumped up again at once to the tune of an extra hundred pounds a performance.

Except for some performances in the provinces in the autumn that was the last of Ravenswood. There was never a chance for its revival, though from that we might have expected much; it was burned in the fire at our storage in 1898  —  of which more anon.

III

Nance Old Held, as Ellen Terry plays it, is the concentration of a five-act comedy into one act and one scene. It is a play that allows an inexhaustible opportunity of the gifts of the great actress. For Ellen Terry’s gifts are of so wide a range that the mere variety of them is in itself a gift; and the congruity of them in such a play allows them to help each other and each to shine out all the stronger for the contrast.

Ellen Terry had long had in her mind Reade’s play as one to be given in a single act. And now that its opportunity came over the horizon she began to prepare it. This she did herself, I having the honour of assisting her. That preparation was a fine lesson in dramatic construction. Ellen Terry has not only a divine instinct for the truth in stage art, but she is a conscious artist to her finger-tips. No one on the stage in our time  —  or at any other time  —  has seen more clearly the direct force of sympathy and understanding between the actor and the audience. At the same time she was not herself an experienced dramatist. She knew in a general way what it was that was wanting and what she aimed at, but she could not always give it words. During rehearsal or during the play she would in a pause of her own stage work come dancing into my office to ask for help. Ellen Terry’s movements, when she was not playing a sad part, always gave one the idea of a graceful dance. Looking back now to twenty-seven years of artistic companionship and eternal community of ideas, I cannot realise that she did not always actually dance. She would point to some mark which she had made in the altered script and say: “ I want two lines there, please! “ “ What kind of lines? What about? “ I would ask. She would laugh as she answered:

“I don’t know. I haven’t the least idea. You must write them! “ When she would dance back again I would read her the lines. She would laugh again and say:

“All wrong, absolutely wrong. They are too serious,” or “ they are too light; I should like something to convey the idea of “ and she would in some subtle way  —  just as Irving did  —  convey the sentiment, or purpose, or emotion which she wished conveyed. She would know without my saying it when I had got hold of the idea and would rush off to her work quite satisfied. And so the little play would grow and then be cut again and grow again; till at last it was nearly complete. The last bit of it puzzled us both for a long time. At last she conveyed her idea to me that Alexander must not be left with a serious personal passion for Mrs. Oldfield and that yet she should not sink in his esteem. Finally I wrote a line which had the reward of her approbation. The actress was explaining to Mr. Alworthy how his son did not really love her:

“It was the actress he loved and not the woman!”

In this little play, which is typical of her marvellous range of varied excellences, she runs the whole gamut of human emotion. The part where the great actress, wishing to disenchant her boy lover, exemplifies her art and then turns it into ridicule could not be adequately played by any one not great in both tragedy and comedy. Her rendering here of Juliet’s great speech before taking the potion: “ My dismal scene I needs must act alone,” is given with the full tragic force with which she played the real part  —  when she swept the whole audience, and yet, without the delay of a second, she says to the emotional poet: “ Now, that’s worth one and ninepence to me! “ It is such moments as these that put an actor into history. Records are not troubled with mere excellence.

Happy, I say, should be the real dramatist who has the co-operation of Ellen Terry in a play she is to appear in  —  of a part she is to act.

CHAPTER XVIII

TENNYSON AND HIS PLAYS  —  I