“It wouldn't surprise me,” observed a good-looking gentleman in a velvet coat, “if there occurred somewhere in the proceedings a drinking chorus for male voices.”
“Possibly, if we are good,” added a thin lady with golden hair, “the heroine will confide to us her love troubles, which will interest us and excite us.”
The door at the further end of the room opened and a name was called. An elderly lady rose and went out.
“Poor old Gertie!” remarked sympathetically the thin lady with the golden hair. “I'm told that she really had a voice once.”
“When poor young Bond first came to London,” said the massive gentleman who was sitting on my left, “I remember his telling me he applied to Lord Barrymore's 'tiger,' Alexander Lee, I mean, of course, who was then running the Strand Theatre, for a place in the chorus. Lee heard him sing two lines, and then jumped up. 'Thanks, that'll do; good morning,' says Lee. Bond knew he had got a good voice, so he asked Lee what was wrong. 'What's wrong?' shouts Lee. 'Do you think I hire a chorus to show up my principals?'”
“Having regard to the company present,” commented the fishy-eyed gentleman, “I consider that anecdote as distinctly lacking in tact.”
The feeling of the company appeared to be with the fish-eyed young man.
For the next half hour the door at the further end of the room continued to open and close, devouring, ogre-fashion, each time some dainty human morsel, now chorus gentleman, now chorus lady. Conversation among our thinning ranks became more fitful, a growing anxiety making for silence.
At length, “Mr. Horace Moncrieff” called the voice of the unseen Charon. In common with the rest, I glanced round languidly to see what sort of man “Mr. Horace Moncrieff” might be. The door was pushed open further. Charon, now revealed as a pale-faced young man with a drooping moustache, put his head into the room and repeated impatiently his invitation to the apparently coy Moncrieff. It suddenly occurred to me that I was Mr. Horace Moncrieff.
“So glad you've found yourself,” said the pale-faced young man, as I joined him at the door. “Please don't lose yourself again; we're rather pressed for time.”
I crossed with him through a deserted refreshment bar—one of the saddest of sights—into a room beyond. A melancholy-looking gentleman was seated at the piano. Beside him stood a tall, handsome man, who was opening and reading rapidly from a bundle of letters he held in his hand. A big, burly, bored-looking gentleman was making desperate efforts to be amused at the staccato conversation of a sharp-faced, restless-eyed gentleman, whose peculiarity was that he never by any chance looked at the person to whom he was talking, but always at something or somebody else.
“Moncrieff?” enquired the tall, handsome man—whom I later discovered to be Mr. Hodgson, the manager—without raising his eyes from his letters.
The pale-faced gentleman responded for me.
“Fire away,” said Mr. Hodgson.
“What is it?” asked of me wearily the melancholy gentleman at the piano.
“'Sally in Our Alley,'” I replied.
“What are you?” interrupted Mr. Hodgson. He had never once looked at me, and did not now.
“A tenor,” I replied. “Not a full tenor,” I added, remembering the O'Kelly's instructions.
“Utterly impossible to fill a tenor,” remarked the restless-eyed gentleman, looking at me and speaking to the worried-looking gentleman. “Ever tried?”
Everybody laughed, with the exception of the melancholy gentleman at the piano, Mr. Hodgson throwing in his contribution without raising his eyes from his letters. Throughout the proceedings the restless-eyed gentleman continued to make humorous observations of this nature, at which everybody laughed, excepting always the melancholy pianist—a short, sharp, mechanical laugh, devoid of the least suggestion of amusement. The restless-eyed gentleman, it appeared, was the leading low comedian of the theatre.
“Go on,” said the melancholy gentleman, and commenced the accompaniment.
“Tell me when he's going to begin,” remarked Mr. Hodgson at the conclusion of the first verse.
“He has a fair voice,” said my accompanist. “He's evidently nervous.”
“There is a prejudice throughout theatrical audiences,” observed Mr. Hodgson, “in favour of a voice they can hear. That is all I am trying to impress upon him.”
The second verse, so I imagined, I sang in the voice of a trumpet. The burly gentleman—the translator of the French libretto, as he turned out to be; the author of the English version, as he preferred to be called—acknowledged to having distinctly detected a sound. The restless-eyed comedian suggested an announcement from the stage requesting strict silence during my part of the performance.
The sickness of fear was stealing over me. My voice, so it seemed to me, disappointed at the effect it had produced, had retired, sulky, into my boots, whence it refused to emerge.
“Your voice is all right—very good,” whispered the musical conductor. “They want to hear the best you can do, that's all.”
At this my voice ran up my legs and out of my mouth. “Thirty shillings a week, half salary for rehearsals. If that's all right, Mr. Catchpole will give you your agreement. If not, very much obliged. Good morning,” said Mr. Hodgson, still absorbed in his correspondence.
With the pale-faced young man I retired to a desk in the corner, where a few seconds sufficed for the completion of the business. Leaving, I sought to catch the eye of my melancholy friend, but he appeared too sunk in dejection to notice anything. The restless-eyed comedian, looking at the author of the English version and addressing me as Boanerges, wished me good morning, at which the everybody laughed; and, informed as to the way out by the pale-faced Mr. Catchpole, I left.
The first “call” was for the following Monday at two o'clock. I found the theatre full of life and bustle. The principals, who had just finished their own rehearsal, were talking together in a group. We ladies and gentlemen of the chorus filled the centre of the stage. I noticed the lady I had heard referred to as Gertie; as also the thin lady with the golden hair. The massive gentleman and the fishy-eyed young man were again in close proximity; so long as I knew them they always were together, possessed, apparently, of a sympathetic antipathy for each other. The fishy-eyed young gentleman was explaining the age at which he thought decayed chorus singers ought, in justice to themselves and the public, to retire from the profession; the massive gentleman, the age and size at which he thought parcels of boys ought to be learning manners across their mother's knee.
Mr. Hodgson, still reading letters exactly as I had left him four days ago, stood close to the footlights. My friend, the musical director, armed with a violin and supported by about a dozen other musicians, occupied the orchestra. The adapter and the stage manager—a Frenchman whom I found it good policy to mistake for a born Englishman—sat deep in confabulation at a small table underneath a temporary gas jet. Quarter of an hour or so passed by, and then the stage manager, becoming suddenly in a hurry, rang a small bell furiously.
“Clear, please; all clear,” shouted a small boy, with important air suggestive of a fox terrier; and, following the others, I retreated to the wings.
The comedian and the leading lady—whom I knew well from the front, but whom I should never have recognised—severed themselves from their companions and joined Mr. Hodgson by the footlights. As a preliminary we were sorted out, according to our sizes, into loving couples.
“Ah,” said the stage manager, casting an admiring gaze upon the fishy-eyed young man, whose height might have been a little over five feet two, “I have the very girl for you—a beauty!” Darting into the group of ladies, he returned with quite the biggest specimen, a lady of magnificent proportions, whom, with the air of the virtuous uncle of melodrama, he bestowed upon the fishy-eyed young man. To the massive gentleman was given a sharp-faced little lady, who at a distance appeared quite girlish. Myself I found mated to the thin lady with the golden hair.
At last complete
, we took our places in the then approved semi-circle, and the attenuated orchestra struck up the opening chorus. My music, which had been sent me by post, I had gone over with the O'Kelly, and about that I felt confident; but for the rest, ill at ease.
“I am afraid,” said the thin lady, “I must ask you to put your arm round my waist. It's very shocking, I know, but, you see, our salary depends upon it. Do you think you could manage it?”
I glanced into her face. A whimsical expression of fun replied to me and drove away my shyness. I carried out her instructions to the best of my ability.
The indefatigable stage manager ran in and out among us while we sang, driving this couple back a foot or so, this other forward, herding this group closer together, throughout another making space, suggesting the idea of a sheep-dog at work.
“Very good, very good indeed,” commented Mr. Hodgson at the conclusion. “We will go over it once more, and this time in tune.”
“And we will make love,” added the stage manager; “not like marionettes, but like ladies and gentlemen all alive.” Seizing the lady nearest to him, he explained to us by object lesson how the real peasant invariably behaves when under influence of the grand passion, standing gracefully with hands clasped upon heart, head inclined at an angle of forty-five, his whole countenance eloquent with tender adoration.
“If he expects” remarked the massive gentleman sotto voce to an experienced-looking young lady, “a performance of Romeo thrown in, I, for one, shall want an extra ten shillings a week.”
Casting the lady aside and seizing upon a gentleman, our stage manager then proceeded to show the ladies how a village maiden should receive affectionate advances: one shoulder a trifle higher than the other, body from the waist upward gently waggling, roguish expression in left eye.
“Ah, he's a bit new to it,” replied the experienced young lady. “He'll get over all that.”
Again we started. Whether others attempted to follow the stage manager's directions I cannot say, my whole attention being centred upon the fishy-eyed young man, who did, implicitly. Soon it became apparent that the whole of us were watching the fishy-eyed young man to the utter neglect of our own business. Mr. Hodgson even looked up from his letters; the orchestra was playing out of time; the author of the English version and the leading lady exchanged glances. Three people only appeared not to be enjoying themselves: the chief comedian, the stage manager and the fishy-eyed young gentleman himself, who pursued his labours methodically and conscientiously. There was a whispered confabulation between the leading low comedian, Mr. Hodgson and the stage manager. As a result, the music ceased and the fishy-eyed young gentleman was requested to explain what he was doing.
“Only making love,” replied the fishy-eyed young gentleman.
“You were playing the fool, sir,” retorted the leading low comedian, severely.
“That is a very unkind remark,” replied the fishy-eyed young gentleman, evidently hurt, “to make to a gentleman who is doing his best.”
Mr. Hodgson behind his letters was laughing. “Poor fellow,” he murmured; “I suppose he can't help it. Go on.”
“We are not producing a pantomime, you know,” urged our comedian.
“I want to give him a chance, poor devil,” explained Mr. Hodgson in a lower voice. “Only support of a widowed mother.”
Our comedian appeared inclined to argue; but at this point Mr. Hodgson's correspondence became absorbing.
For the chorus the second act was a busy one. We opened as soldiers and vivandieres, every warrior in this way possessing his own private travelling bar. Our stage manager again explained to us by example how a soldier behaves, first under stress of patriotic emotion, and secondly under stress of cheap cognac, the difference being somewhat subtle: patriotism displaying itself by slaps upon the chest, and cheap cognac by slaps upon the forehead. A little later we were conspirators; our stage manager, with the help of a tablecloth, showed us how to conspire. Next we were a mob, led by the sentimental baritone; our stage manager, ruffling his hair, expounded to us how a mob led by a sentimental baritone would naturally behave itself. The act wound up with a fight. Our stage manager, minus his coat, demonstrated to us how to fight and die, the dying being a painful and dusty performance, necessitating, as it did, much rolling about on the stage. The fishy-eyed young gentleman throughout the whole of it was again the centre of attraction. Whether he were solemnly slapping his chest and singing about glory, or solemnly patting his head and singing about grapes, was immaterial: he was the soldier for us. What the plot was about did not matter, so long as he was in it. Who led the mob one did not care; one's desire was to see him lead. How others fought and died was matter of no moment; to see him slaughtered was sufficient. Whether his unconsciousness was assumed or natural I cannot say; in either case it was admirable. An earnest young man, over-anxious, if anything, to do his duty by his employers, was the extent of the charge that could be brought against him. Our chief comedian frowned and fumed; our stage manager was in despair. Mr. Hodgson and the author of the English version, on the contrary, appeared kindly disposed towards the gentleman. In addition to the widowed mother, Mr. Hodgson had invented for him five younger brothers and sisters utterly destitute but for his earnings. To deprive so exemplary a son and brother of the means of earning a livelihood for dear ones dependent upon him was not in Mr. Hodgson's heart. Our chief comedian dissociated himself from all uncharitable feelings—would subscribe towards the subsistence of the young man out of his own pocket, his only concern being the success of the opera. The author of the English version was convinced the young man would not accept a charity; had known him for years—was a most sensitive creature.
The rehearsal proceeded. In the last act it became necessary for me to kiss the thin lady.
“I am very sorry,” said the thin lady, “but duty is duty. It has to be done.”
Again I followed directions. The thin lady was good enough to congratulate me on my performance.
The last three or four rehearsals we performed in company with the principals. Divided counsels rendered them decidedly harassing. Our chief comedian had his views, and they were decided; the leading lady had hers, and was generous with them. The author of the English version possessed his also, but of these nobody took much notice. Once every twenty minutes the stage manager washed his hands of the whole affair and left the theatre in despair, and anybody's hat that happened to be handy, to return a few minutes later full of renewed hope. The sentimental baritone was sarcastic, the tenor distinctly rude to everybody. Mr. Hodgson's method was to agree with all and listen to none. The smaller fry of the company, together with the more pushing of the chorus, supported each in turn, when the others were not looking. Up to the dress rehearsal it was anybody's opera.
About one thing, and about one thing, only, had the principals fallen into perfect agreement, and that was that the fishy-eyed young gentleman was out of place in a romantic opera. The tenor would be making impassioned love to the leading lady. Perception would come to both of them that, though they might be occupying geographically the centre of the stage, dramatically they were not. Without a shred of evidence, yet with perfect justice, they would unhesitatingly blame for this the fishy-eyed young man.
“I wasn't doing anything,” he would explain meekly. “I was only looking.” It was perfectly true; that was all he was doing.
“Then don't look,” would comment the tenor.
The fishy-eyed young gentleman obediently would turn his face away from them; and in some mysterious manner the situation would thereupon become even yet more hopelessly ridiculous.
“My scene, I think, sir!” would thunder our chief comedian, a little later on.
“I am only doing what I was told to do,” answered the fishy-eyed young gentleman; and nobody could say that he was not.
“Take a circus, and run him as a side-show,” counselled our comedian.
“I am afraid he would never be any good as a side-show,” replied
Mr. Hodgson, who was reading letters.
On the first night, passing the gallery entrance on my way to the stage door, the sight of the huge crowd assembled there waiting gave me my first taste of artistic joy. I was a part of what they had come to see, to praise or to condemn, to listen to, to watch. Within the theatre there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement, amounting almost to hysteria. The bird-like gentleman in his glass cage was fluttering, agitated. The hands of the stage carpenters putting the finishing touches to the scenery were trembling, their voices passionate with anxiety; the fox-terrier-like call-boy was pale with sense of responsibility.
I made my way to the dressing-room—a long, low, wooden corridor, furnished from end to end with a wide shelf that served as common dressing-table, lighted by a dozen flaring gas-jets, wire-shielded. Here awaited us gentlemen of the chorus the wigmaker's assistant, whose duty it was to make us up. From one to another he ran, armed with his hare's foot, his box of paints and his bundle of crepe hair. My turn arriving, he seized me by the head, jabbed a wig upon me, and in less than a couple of minutes I left his hands the orthodox peasant of the stage, white of forehead and pink of cheek, with curly moustache and lips of coral. Glancing into the glass, I could not help feeling pleased with myself; a moustache, without doubt, suited me.
The chorus ladies, when I met them on the stage, were a revelation to me. Paint and powder though I knew their appearance to consist of chiefly, yet in that hot atmosphere of the theatre, under that artificial glare, it seemed fit and fascinating. The close approximation to so much bare flesh, its curious, subtle odour was almost intoxicating. Dr. Johnson's excuse to Garrick for the rarity of his visits to the theatre recurred to me with understanding.
“How do you like my costume?” asked the thin lady with the golden hair.
“I think you—” We were standing apart behind a piece of projecting scenery. She laid her hand upon my mouth, laughing.
“How old are you?” she asked me.
“Isn't that a rude question?” I answered. “I don't ask your age.”
Paul Kelver Page 27