New Albion (18 page)

The stock playwright was busy making notations in his notepad. He sat in the third row of the auditorium, his slender arms poking out of the threadbare greatcoat that was draped over his shoulders in an effort to alleviate the December chill which has infiltrated the building. He looked up, catching the ardent gaze of the actors. “The remainder of the acts will be ready next week,” he said, waving his quill about and then returning to his manuscript.

The actors looked at one another in silent consternation. “How many acts are you intending to write?” Mr. Watts asked, looking as bewildered as a man who has newly washed up on the shores of Illyria.

“As many as it takes,” Pratty replied, writing furiously in the margins of his manuscript all the while. “As many as it takes to get it right.”

The glimmerings of horror on the actors’ faces betrayed the fact that they had come to think of Pratty as a madman. Neville Watts palled visibly. Fanny Hardwick gazed steadily at the floor as though she were searching for something so infinitesimal as a pin. Our elderly stock playwright was oblivious to this; his grainy face was buried in the parchment, and he continued scrawling as though he were solitary at his home and not in the theatre at all. Knowing that the actors’ objections had to be answered, I stood up from my seat beside Mr. Farquhar Pratt. “There is no need to panic, ladies and gentlemen,” I began, really without any idea of how I was going to finish. “Mr. Farquhar Pratt has promised to deliver the remainder of the play next week, allowing us plenty of time to rehearse.” These were radical words, coming from the lips of a stage manager whose mantra has been “hurry, when, and now,” and I could see that the actors had never expected me to say such a thing.

Neville Watts shook his head in disbelief. “But such a radical play,” he blurted, finally. “Such an absurd premise. What if it does not fly with an audience expecting the traditional harlequinade?”

“We have made some progress today,” I heard myself say. “And I for one have faith in Mr. Farquhar Pratt’s conception. We are all in his hands, as we have been these past nine years, and we must all have faith.” I am not certain why I was talking like this. A month ago, I myself had little faith in Pratty, but there was something in his demeanor, in his contemplative breathing, as he sat beside me in the stalls that led me to believe this pantomime was more important to him than all the rest of his lengthy if undistinguished oeuvre. It would be his swan song, his masterpiece, the supreme achievement of a long and often fruitless career in the theatre.

“Very well, then,” Neville Watts said, rising slowly to his feet and brushing away the dust from the back of his trousers. “When will we reconvene?”

“We will reconvene tomorrow at the same hour for further rehearsals,” I said. The actors exited the stage looking troubled, yes, but also somewhat more confident after my oration.

I heard George Simpson’s urgent appeal to another of the actors, as he descended the stairs to the dressing rooms: “But I still have no idea how to play Corrosion!”

* * *

Another theft in the theatre,
this time of the men’s valuables which had been left in the dressing room while the gentlemen rehearsed! (We are not in the habit of using the valuables box during rehearsals.) Neville Watts was the first to discover the robbery, having noticed that his chain, gold watch, and snuff box were missing shortly after the rehearsal for the pantomime. Suspicion fell upon Mr. Hicks, who had been in the dressing room through much of the rehearsal. He is also known to be in a state of perpetual want, owing to his affection for the bottle. Mr. Hicks must have sensed the silent accusations of the other actors because he harumphed and began clattering about the place with bravado. “Gentlemen,” he declaimed, “in Her Majesty’s Navy, we used to flog a man who was known to commit an act of thievery, and I would certainly recommend that course of action now.” I do not believe Mr. Hicks is guilty of the infraction. There was a sincerity in his glazed alcoholic eyes which was uncharacteristic of his fairly leaden acting style and which could not have been misread. Drunken men do not make good liars.

Old Mr. Hardacre was called upon to give his testimony. The retired actor is now deaf as a hitching post in the Seven Dials, and when we told him that there had been an act of thievery in the Dressing Room, he exclaimed with a flourish, “Lechery? I defy lechery! The little wren goes to it. The gilded fly doth lecher in my sight.”

“Not lechery,” I shouted into his ear horn. “Thievery! The Dressing Room’s been robbed! Again!”

The confusion having been cleared up, we were able to ascertain that Mr. Hardacre had seen no strangers entering by way of the Stage Door this afternoon. Fanny Hardwick later told me that Mr. Hardacre had been fast asleep in his chair when she arrived in the theatre, so it is entirely possible that some footpad might have slipped into the backstage area while he slept.

Mr. Wilton was called in, and his recommendation was that all company personnel maintain a high level of vigilance over the course of the next few weeks. “Christmas is coming on,” he said, “and we all know that the season makes desperate people more desperate.”

When the actors, satisfied that a plan of action was in place, had gone back upstairs for another rehearsal, Mr. Wilton advised me that I was to make irregular patrols of the dressing rooms, during rehearsals and performance evenings, for the next two weeks.

“I think we should perhaps keep an eye on Mr. Tyrone,” I whispered.

“Why, Phillips?” Old Stoneface responded with incredulity. “What makes you say that?”

“His behavior, sir,” I replied. “It’s furtive.”

“I really had thought better of you,” Mr. Wilton continued, “than to make suppositions about a man because he was not born on this island.”

“It’s nothing to do with where he was born, sir,” I protested. “It’s more to do with the fact that he’s dissatisfied with his lot here in the theatre, now that he’s been relieved of his acting duties.”

* * *

We received a missive
from the Police Commission late this after
noon, advising us that the circumstances of last week’s near riot were not to be recreated. “It is highly desirable,” the Commission stated, “that the New Albion Theatre present entertainments which contribute to the satisfaction and well-being of the citizens of Whitechapel. We must ask that you refrain from advertising attractions which are undeliverable.” The letter also contained a threat: “Further disturbances at this site will result in the closure of the theatre until such time as management can
prove that patrons of the theatre are willing to be civil and obe
dient.” The Commission promised that three Peelers would be posted at the theatre until Christmas, one plain clothes man outside the theatre immediately before and after performances and two uniformed officers, who would take their positions at the back of the stalls throughout performance evenings.

At any rate, it was a small audience this evening, with a trifling
three hundred and twenty-nine souls paying admission for the performances. All of those three hundred and twenty-nine souls wept heartily at the end of
Lady Hatton
, laughed heartily throughout the military burletta
My Own Blue Bell
, and exited the theatre peacefully at precisely ten-thirty-nine. I do not know if the spectators’ pacifism is owing to the presence of uniformed officers in the building or if the more radical element of our audience had merely stayed away.

Mr. Wilton called me into his office at the end of the evening. He was looking pensive, or perhaps fatigued, his frock coat wrinkled at the elbows as he slouched in his chair. What is more, his behavior was positively moribund and his voice even
more gravelly than usual. “In fifteen years of running this the
atre,” he told me, “I can honestly say that this is the lowest point to which we have fallen. Rioters in the theatre. No-show performers.” I was about to interject when Mr. Wilton held up his hand. “I am not blaming you, Phillips. You warned me against trusting that son of a bitch Wolsey. I have only myself to blame for not heeding your advice.”

“No one could have known what Enoch Wolsey was up to,” I ventured, “not myself or you or anyone.”

Mr. Wilton would not be consoled. His eyes were downcast; it appeared as though his tireless exertions in affairs of business over the past fifteen years had caught up with him. “I am a poor judge of character,” he muttered. “And to think that I used to be so blasted good at it.”

“You are a fine judge of character,” I replied, trying to lend an air of levity to the situation. “Otherwise you would not have hired me.”

“Yes,” he said, feeling the deep grain of his desktop with the palm of his hand, “we have been together through the thick of it, haven’t we, Phillips?” His face turned into the death mask of a grimace or a smile.

“Yes, sir, we have.” My blood surged in me, and I felt like a soldier on the Plains of Abraham.

“So what do we do now?” Mr. Wilton’s fatigued voice was without inflection.

“Well,” I said, “you could go back to fighting the Ashanti, and I could always go back to the furniture business. No bloody actors or audience members to deal with, sir.” Having said it, and looking upon my commander’s leathery visage, I was astonished at my own boldness.

Mr. Wilton chortled at this. “Yes, we could give up, couldn’t we, Phillips? But that is not our way, is it?
To give up in the face of adversity.”

“No, it is most certainly not, sir.” I was standing rifle barrel-straight, almost like a soldier at attention.

“I will write an open letter,” Mr. Wilton said. His wide jaw was jutted forward again in its habitual way. “It will be published in the
Times
and in the
Play-goers Guide
. In it, I will vilify Mr. Wolsey for absconding with our money and for not delivering on his promises. I will win back the hearts of these criminal bastards who come to see our plays. And I will have this theatre
filled to bursting for the opening of Pratt’s pantomime.”

Tuesday, 10 December 1850

There was much discussion in the Green Room today of the new minstrel show which opened in Covent Garden over the weekend. Mr. Hicks was most vehement in his castigation of Alfred Bunn et al. “It’s the last nail in the coffin of the National Drama,” he intoned, while tearing into a meat pie with his fork. “These darkies coming in here and taking jobs away from some of the finest actors in the world. What is it anyway but a bunch of niggers strumming on the old banjo and complaining that their grits and corn pone are dry?” We here on this tiny island love to feel superior to our American brethren, who have not
yet come to terms with the moral necessity of a cessation of slav
ery, but I fear that there is still little admiration for the African physiognomy here in England.

Neville Watts, who was sitting beside young Master Weekes and nursing a cup of tea, spoke in favor of the intrusion of the minstrels on the bills of a major London theatre. “Open it up,” he declared. “The theatre in Britain is now ingrown and filled with navel-gazing. There are too many
actors of little refinement on this island at present. Some of them, like Charles Kean, claim to have been educated at Eton but show no signs of that education in their work. Others are merely clods, insensible to the vocal and physical demands of our best playwrights.” Old dogs never sleep, and Neville Watts was on his high horse again, but he must surely have understood how what he had said applied to the majority of our company. Only last night, Mr. Hicks had slipped his tongue into the mouth of Fanny Hardwick as they shared a fond paternal kiss in
My Own Blue Bell
. The kiss had resulted in a backstage slap in the face and some hysterical chatter in the women’s dressing room. “Present company always excepted,” Neville Watts added, looking around sheepishly to see who else was in the room.

Seymour Hicks’ face reddened and his eyes grew moist.
“Well, I am certain that I don’t know of whom you are speak
ing,” he said to Mr. Watts, “but I will say that we did not ship out to America in 1776 and fight their so-called War of Independence so that we could bring the blighters’ slaves back to England to grace our stages in the place of duly trained British actors.” By the end of his statement, Mr. Hicks’ articulation had improved so dramatically as to cause a veritable flurry of beef and piecrust to spray from his oral cavity.

It looked for a moment as though old animosities between the two leading men had once again resurfaced, but then Pratty
waded into the fray. He had been off in a corner, making fever
ish revisions to his play script. “Time was,” he began, “when British Theatre was a family affair. The Kembles, Charles and Fanny. The progeny of Charles Dibdin the elder. The great Grimaldi and his son. The venerable Mrs. Pitt and her daughter. I myself am a descendant of the Restoration playwright George
Farquhar.” Pratty has made this assertion many times in the sev
eral years that I have known him, but I have it on good authority that his relationship with the great Farquhar is tenuous at best – something along the lines of a housemaid, in a house where the good George Farquahar had been a guest one night, having delivered herself of a baby soon thereafter. “Even those who have no theatre in their backgrounds have noted the close familial behavior of touring companies. On the Castle-Barnard-Penrith circuit, we used to eat together, sleep together, learn lines together, even dress together for the stage.”