New Albion (28 page)

Friday, 26 January 1851

Two members of the local constabulary last night apprehended Neville Watts at the behest of Master Weekes’ father. The esteemed actor has been charged with sodomy, a crime, under the laws of this country, punishable by imprisonment and transportation. Young Master Weekes has not appeared in the theatre these past two days; we are told that he has relinquished his position as juvenile lead, and Mr. Wilton is actively searching for someone to take his place.

Despite that Master Weekes has been an innocent victim of Neville Watts’ duplicity, I find myself feeling sorry for Mr. Watts. He has fallen from a great height, for his career as an actor is surely at an end. I understand that he is locked away at Newgate, and I know that gentlemen of his persuasion tend to be ill-treated there. He awaits trial and sentencing.

Nor was this the looked-for boost toward moral reclamation which the New Albion’s management has so fervently sought. Mr. Wilton came to me this morning and expressed his dismay at Neville Watts’ stealth. “It amazes me,” he said, “that Mr. Watts could have conducted himself in such a perverted manner and that no one in this establishment recognized his behaviour.”

“It is amazing,” I admitted. While I have endeavoured to
effect a private cure for Mr. Watts’ perversion, I am not also pre
pared to take credit for his moral relapse.

Sunday, 28 January 1851

Knowing that my sojourn in London will soon be finished, I hired a hansom cab and ventured one last time with Sophie to Hyde Park and the Crystal Palace. We drove through Piccadilly, down Kensington Road, and finally along the south side of the park. With the Prince Consort’s Great Exhibition less than six
months away, Sir Joseph Paxton’s mighty Crystal Palace is near
ing completion. Workmen tinkered with the bolts of the steel framework inside the structure. Hundreds of onlookers were standing agog at the foot of the Palace.

We stood across the street from the Palace and craned our necks to get a view of the edifice. It glinted, like a mirror, reflecting the sun that was low in the January sky. I thought of Coleridge:
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…”
For what once seemed to me a window on the world, a free and healthy exchange of ideas, is now a vast panopticon and we are the prisoners inside, allowed neither privacy nor the right to cease our labours, viewed from all angles and at all hours of the day by surly prison guards. Who are these guards? They are ourselves. We have been enthralled by a sense of our own greatness. As I shielded my eyes with my hand to protect them from the scourging reflection of the sun’s rays off the glass, I felt I had glimpsed the future.

London will be an exciting city in a few months when the Great Exhibition is well underway. There will be Russian burgomasks and Spanish tarantellas. I understand that a Chinese junk will be moored on the River Thames. Royalty of every nationality will be in attendance. The citizens of London, rich and poor, will gawk at these international curiosities and will be gawked at in return.

And I will not be there.

As our carriage wound through the labyrinthine roads
toward Cloudsey Street, as it made its way past the boot-blacking
factories and iron foundries and the textile manufacturers, I thought of Mr. Farquhar Pratt, lately of the New Albion Theatre, and of the vicissitudes of his life. And as we journeyed back into the heart of the metropolis, with its odour of scorched metal, I thought of Manchester and where I was going, back to an older world and the welcoming familial embrace.

Wednesday, 31 January 1851

My last day at the New Albion Theatre was an uneventful one. Aloysius Hardacre, with Algernon in his lap, shouted “Hello!” at me as I entered through the stage door. The actors spent the afternoon rehearsing. I understand that Seymour Hicks has been appointed Interim Acting Manager while a new stage manager is being sought. He is not the most patient man. “Goddammit!” I heard him say to Mr. Holman, his mellifluous voice echoing down the corridor. “Do it the way Phillips told you yesterday.”

I busied myself putting various prompt scripts in order for the next stage manager. Late in the day, I was emptying my desk when Amelie Toffat rushed down to the stage level and hissed at me. “Come quick! Come quick, Mr. Phillips! There’s been some goings-on in the rehearsal hall!” She hurried off before I could respond or inquire what the to-do was about, and I followed her rather frantically up the stairs.

When I arrived in the doorway, I was confronted with almost the entire company. Fanny Hardwick was there, and the Parisian Phenomenon. George Simpson was there, with his arm around Suzy – they seem to have settled their differences and found a sadder, kinder marriage. There was Ernest Holman and Heywood, the new stock dramatist. Mrs. Hayes was there, in tears as usual and dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. So was the gas man Alexander Hasbrough and the prompter Tobias Smith. All of the stage hands were there, Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Hampton and Mr. Manning and Samuel Forbes. I looked around for Mr. and Mrs. Wilton, but they were not in the room.

Bewildered, I edged into the hall and found myself encircled by my compatriots. They were all wearing black armbands, no doubt the brainchild of Mrs. Hayes. They sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and “Auld Lang Syne” as only theatre people and soldiers can.

Mr. Hicks stepped forward and placed a burly arm on my shoulder. “Dearly beloved,” he intoned, in all his Keanesian splendor, “we are here today to celebrate the passing of our good friend and stage manager, Mr. Emlyn Phillips.”
This was greeted with immense jocularity from the assembly. “Mr. Phillips,” Hicks continued, “if you ever change your mind, we will welcome you back to the New Albion Theatre with open arms.”

“I thank you, Mr. Hicks,” I said, finding myself at an uncharacteristic loss for words. Then, with a lump in my throat, I managed to say to the rest of the company, “A most heartfelt thanks to all of you.”

“But if you ever work for another theatre in this city,” Mr. Hicks went on, “I will personally hunt you down and dance a hornpipe upon your precious prompt scripts.”

The party continued in this vein for two hours. Liberal quantities of wine were poured, and a cake was sliced and served. At twenty of seven, the actors were forced to repair to the dressing rooms to ready themselves for the evening’s bill. I gathered my belongings into a wooden crate, and then I took the long walk upstairs to Mr. Wilton’s office.

He was seated at his desk, looking like a disgruntled mole. Mrs. Wilton was standing at his shoulder. Their tableau would have made a fine dagguereotype.

“I’ve come to relinquish my key, sir,” I said.

Mr. Wilton scrutinized me for a long moment, and then he unclasped his gold watch from a chain on his waistcoat and slid it across the desk toward me. “I want you to have this,” he said, his gruffness hiding whatever emotion he might have felt. “I have thought of you as a son I never had, but I suppose it is decreed that sons must eventually leave their fathers.”

“Yes, it seems to be how things are done, sir,” I replied, look
ing at the cracked wooden floor.

There was a long uncomfortable silence. “Well, you had better
go down and manage the evening’s entertainment,” said Mr. Wilton in a monotone.

We shook hands and then I exited Mr. Wilton’s office with my gift. I walked down to the stage-left entrance and stood behind my desk, felt the watch warm in my hands. The play was about to commence.

Thursday, 1 February 1851

Having taken my leave from Mr. Wilton and the theatre yesterday, I have now commenced my journey back to Manchester, back home. The household belongings had been sent in advance by dray cart. It was with some sadness that we departed from
our little house in Cloudsey Road, especially for sentimental lit
tle Susan who has spent her formative years in London. I plucked a leaf of ivy from the vine at the side of the house for her and brought her, tearful, to one of the coaches I had rented. Then off we went, the five of us, on our pilgrimage by horse-cart and locomotive. I instructed our driver to pass by the New Albion on our way to Bishopsgate, and we were trundling down the street in the morning light just as Thomas Wilton, his back straight as a gun barrel, was nearing the backstage entrance and fishing in his pocket for keys. The set of his jaw, which I had marveled at over the years, was as imposing and determined as ever. His face was weathered and craggy. I did not wave or shout anything, and I do not believe he noticed us as we passed.

The End

Acknowledgements

In writing this historical novel, I have been particularly influenced by four books.
The Diary of Frederick Wilton
, edited by Jim Davis and Tracy C. Davis, has provided many insights into the profession of stage manager at a London minor theatre in the mid-Victorian period. Kellow Chesney’s fascinating book
The Victorian Underworld
is rich with detail about the lives, manners, and fashions of the lower classes in and around London. And Charles Dickens’
Household Words
has given me a clear understanding of the author’s view of the theatrical spectacles he attended. Jack London's
The People of the Abyss
was also influential.

The melodramas of George Dibdin Pitt, stock playwright at the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton in the 1840s, have also had a profound effect upon this manuscript. In several instances, I have used the titles and plotlines of Dibdin Pitt’s melodramas and attributed them to Ned Farquhar Pratt. I would like to thank the archivists in the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays Collection at the British Library for their support in this project.

I would also like to thank Dave Margoshes, who edited this book and pro
vided many helpful suggestions. And a hearty thank you to Don Kerr, David Carpenter, and John Livingstone Clark for their help and support.

About the Author

Dwayne Brenna
is the author of books of humour, poetry, and theatre history, as well as a number of stage plays. His books have been shortlisted for Saskatchewan Book Awards on several occasions. His stage plays have been produced at Dancing Sky Theatre in Meacham, 25th Street Theatre in Saskatoon, and Neptune Theatre in Halifax.
New Albion
is his first work of full-length fiction.

He has also contributed articles on theatre to
The Canadian Theatre Review
(Toronto),
Theatre Notebook
(London),
The Dictionary of National Biography
(London),
The Routledge Who’s Who of World Theatre
(London) and the Czech journal
Theatralia
.

Dr. Brenna has acted at the Stratford Festival and has appeared on television in various nationally and internationally broadcast programs including
For the
Record, Judge
(CBC Toronto),
The Great Electrical Revolution
, and
The Incredible Story Studio
(Mind's Eye).
His movie credits include
The Wars, Painted Angels, Black Light
, and
The Impossible Elephant
. A series of character-based vignettes called
The Adventures of Eddie Gustafson
, written and performed by Dr. Brenna, had a five-year run on CBC Radio.

© Dwayne Brenna, 2016

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