Pinero was quite satisfied no doubt with the names which Alexander suggested, but he was not thereby debarred from criticising them and putting forward others. Are you sure that Miss So-and-so is really like Mrs Cortelyon? he asked. “Keep on telling me she is, or I shall doubt it.” In the end Amy Roselle was engaged for that short but important part. Cyril Maude was to all eyes the ideal Cayley Drummle. Pinero wanted a ray of brightness— “in a very serious play a ray of brightness is invaluable” and a vein of sympathetic kindly geniality. But again there was a large doubt whether Cyril Maude would be free to accept an engagement at the St. James’. Thereupon Pinero threw off a very interesting speculation.
Hicks is a bright young actor. Would he look too much like a young man with a wig on?
Seymour Hicks was twenty-three and looked younger. His great talents as a comedian and his irrepressible spirits had only lately lifted his head above the wide flat waters of mediocrity. How would his career have shaped if he had played the fine part of Cayley Drummle in that notable production? But Cayley Drummle must look his forty-five chirpy years and Seymour Hicks went off to the Gaiety and so to management on his own account. Pinero wavered between Charles Allan, an actor with a rasping voice long associated with the Haymarket Theatre, and Brandon Thomas, the author of Charley s Aunt. He inclined towards Brandon Thomas, but Cyril Maude was at the last moment available, and gave a polished and helpful rendering of a character not too easy to represent. Meanwhile Miss Elizabeth Robins was engaged to play Paula Tanqueray. But at the last moment the Brothers Gatti released Mrs Patrick Campbell, and Miss Robins with the generosity of her high soul abdicated what must have seemed to her the opportunity of her life. It is pleasant to know that she took her reward in another way and within a few years had earned a serious reputation as a novelist of imagination and a subtle style. Ben Webster, a regular member of the St. James’ company, stepped naturally into the short but important part of Captain Ardale and had lines as awkward to speak as any that were ever written in a modern play. It was always a mystery to me how any actor, however skilful, even if half in and half out of a window, could deliver such a speech as:
Isn’t this fun? A rabbit ran across my foot while I was hiding behind that old yew, and reveal any sense of fun in delivering it. But Pinero is not the only playwright of great note who can make you feel hot-and-cold and shy as you sit in the stalls.
Amidst such obstacles and hindrances the play was cast. It was cast in the end as perfectly as human circumstance has ever allowed. It was acted by a company which was the best fitted in London to make clear and significant the tragic story which its author had to tell. But it needed months of negotiation, and suspense, and debate to get the company together; and that, too, at a time when theatres had a regular clientele and arrangements could be made ahead with a reasonable prospect of carrying them out. Those who are minded to condemn off-hand the more slovenly productions of our day may learn from this recital how enormous is the difficulty of securing the right cast under the happy-go-lucky conditions when a theatre must be snatched at the last moment and a cast assembled between dawn and dusk.
CHAPTER IV
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray — The vitality of the play — Alexander’s acting — His sincerity — Clement Scott’s charge of plagiarism — Guy Domville, by Henry James
THE SECOND MRS. TANQUERAY is too well known a play to need either analysis or description. Since it took the playgoing world by storm over forty years ago it has been revived so often that few playgoers can have missed it; and the text of the play has been reprinted sixteen times. It is a tragedy of relentless logic from a text uttered by Paula Tanqueray herself just before she kills herself: “I believe the future is only the past again entered through another gate”. Accidental things — the sudden return of the daughter, Ellean, from her convent, the unexpected appearance of Captain Ardale — co-operate so to twist the knot that only Paula’s death can loosen it. But the spectator is left with the conviction that any other accidental things would have led to the same end. For the cause, nay the end itself, lies in the undisciplined character of Paula Tanqueray, a character hardened beyond all reshaping in the mould of her past passions. She has grown out of the life she knew — she can no longer endure the drunken Orreyd and his vulgar little doll of a wife, but she is at home in no other life. She is set in a purgatory of her own, jealous, dissatisfied, a creature of wild moods, mean acts, bitter regrets, and every now and then a fine and generous impulse.
Incidents in the play may seem to us now antiquated and over-stressed. Should we take as so serious a breach of good manners Ardale’s visit to say good-night to his lady-love? It is true that he trespasses, that he has not been formally introduced, that he slips through a hedge and crosses a meadow which belongs to his prospective father-in-law. But would the loved one herself be so annoyed, so severely reproach him? Would the father-in-law-to-be take so austere a view of Captain Ardale’s eagerness? It might even be held that the relationship in which Paula Tanqueray, Ellean, and Captain Ardale stood to one another — that is, Captain Ardale betrothed to the step-daughter of the woman with whom he has lived — would be regarded with less horror to-day. But it may be, on the other hand, that it is the fashion of our times which is evanescent and that a later day may bring back a rigid code, where all these proprieties will seem once more natural and just.
Character, however, does not date. The characters of Paula and of Aubrey Tanqueray, the lonely man who deludes himself that he can build up a life of happiness upon such a marriage, belong to all the ages; and the author who can set these people out in the garb which they wore and the manner in which they lived and the code which they obeyed in any era, may, for all we know, belong to all the ages too. Great authors when their work is over seem to follow a divine rule in that they perish for a while and come to life again and then only take their seats in the chairs of Fame. Defoe and Tennyson and Trollope are to be found now in that Hall. Shakespeare for many years after his death was held of small account. Meredith awaits the verdict of Time. There were two playwrights, Wilde and Pinero, whose best work was acted by Alexander at the St. James’ Theatre; and both of them reflected more than the passing shadows of their day. If I dwell overmuch, in this record of an actor’s career, on the work those authors did, I have Alexander’s warrant for it. Actor and author were not to be dissociated. At the invitation of Will Crooks he made a speech at Poplar on the encouragement of play-going as a rational form of amusement and instruction; and in the course of it he declared:
It is true that the writer of the play is the more important factor, for without him the actor’s work is of little avail.
And a little later on in his speech he added:
Literary men and actors have always been closely associated with each other; for they have been able to help each other.
Certainly Alexander helped no less as actor than producer. The care which he lavished upon his plays has obscured to some degree his merits as an actor. But they were great. Some of the chief parts which he played, Rassendyll, Karl Heinrich, Aubrey Tanqueray, have been played since by actors of high reputation, but they have never been given the same authority. The plays themselves have suffered from his absence rather more than from the lapse of time. One can still remember the moment in the first act of The Second Mrs Tanqueray when he read the letter from his daughter which announced that she had abandoned the religious life and was returning to his side. The second Mrs Tanqueray-to-be was in the room.
“What are you staring at?” she asked. “Don’t you admire my cloak?”
“Yes”, Aubrey answered. But all the trouble which was to come and the grim end to it were mirrored in his face. And in the final scene he acted with so quiet a tenderness, so hopeless a patience that one’s heart ached for his misery. Even those who did not like the play and were exhorting him to put before his public “good wholesome dramas which would elevate the rising generation”, paid their tribute to his mastery of his art. Letter a
fter letter written to him immediately after the performance tells of people in a quiver of emotion. Alexander had made his way as an actor before he became a manager. He believed in and respected the art of acting; and in consequence he brought to every part that he played an intense sincerity, a determination to extract from it and show all that it had to show. There was never a private joke carried on upon the stage of the St. James’ Theatre to the ruin of the play and the decline of the actors who indulged in it. Could anything be more destructive of an evening’s enjoyment than to be aware that a jest to which the audience has not the secret is occupying the attention of the company, instead of the play which it is supposed to be acting? Half-stifled laughter, grimaces made in a vain effort to keep a face serious, whispers under the breath — who has not lost an evening through some such tedious and insolent exhibition and decided to do without that particular theatre for the future? Alexander took pride and with justice in nothing more than in the sincerity of his acting. At a later period, half-way through the war, the dramatic critic of the Evening Standard and St. James Gazette took violent exception to Alexander’s revival of Bella Donna. The revival was “a practical satire upon the way in which we mismanage our English theatre” — whatever that phrase may mean. Following an unfortunate precedent of the late Lord Salisbury this critic called an Egyptian nobleman a “black” man, and suggested that Alexander in the part of Dr. Isaacson disguised himself as though he were loth to be too closely identified with it.
The attack was ferocious, coming at a time when the difficulties of keeping open a theatre not devoted to revues or the detection of spies were growing with every week. It took Alexander on the raw, and he protested. An interesting correspondence followed. The critic said that at this time one had no energy for controversy outside one’s work for the war. So if Sir George Alexander told him that the war had for the time being shelved all the standards, he would retire altogether from an impossible position. Alexander agreed that one had no energy for controversy outside one’s war work — as a matter of fact what with his work on the Collections Committee of the Red Cross, his organisation of matinees, and his efforts for the League of Mercy, he was exhausting a constitution already undermined and driving himself steadily to his death. He did not impugn the critic’s honesty and he claimed as much honesty for himself.
“But I think your statements that we mismanage our English theatre and that Sir George Alexander disguises himself for the part as though he were loth to be too closely identified with it, are assertions which are unfair and should not be allowed to pass without protest.”
The critic replied that the word “mismanaged” was not directed against the St. James’ Theatre and he admitted that a critic had no right to suggest even by implication that an actor had not an absolute faith in his part. From Alexander’s point of view nothing less than an act of treachery had been imputed to him. He would no more have played a part of which he was ashamed, or in which he did not believe, than he would have tried to make another actor laugh when they were both acting a serious scene. He was a fine comedy actor, he could point an epigram or get all the fun out of farce, but he must not be thought to be playing the fool. He was the very serious practitioner of an executive art. Authors may not be good prophets of their own work. A number of happy and confident letters written on the eve of a complete failure bear pathetic witness to it. But they can be excellent judges of the truth and competence with which their characters have been portrayed. And the letters written in a humbler vein after the failures express whole-heartedly enough their thanks for the ability of the acting. “I am to blame” was the common message to the St. James’ on the morning after a defeat; and after a success, a reasoned tribute testified not only to the good relations between the manager and the author, but to the excellence of Alexander’s acting. Here is one from the well-known man of letters, W. L. Courtney, written from the office of the Daily Telegraph on the night of the production of his one-act play Kit Marlowe.
Daily Telegraph
FLEET STREET,
LONDON, E.C.
Oct 31
MY DEAR ALEXANDER, —
I cannot do my work to-night without sending you a line about your impersonation of “Kit”. I could not say it to you personally — for I can not “heave my heart into my mouth”, any more than Cordelia could. But no author could possibly dream of a better hero than you made mine. In all sincerity you were just the ideal poet whom I was trying to describe — with the happiest changes from grave to gay, from comedy to tragedy, and through it all just that touch of impending doom, which is of the essence of romance. It came to me as a revelation — not of your powers, for I knew them before — but of my own dream.
How I longed for you to appear on the scene!, for the sketch was hanging fire a bit till your vitality gave it life.
I do not know, nor do I care much, what the critics may say of my play, except for your sake. But I do not envy the man who could see you unmoved, or fail to feel what a truly poetic atmosphere you lifted us into.
Ever yours gratefully, W. L. COURTNEY
It is amusing, by the way, to notice in how many instances the critic turned dramatist disdains the opinions of his brethren and expects their blame.
I could fill fifty pages with praise as enthusiastic and grateful from other authors upon their several occasions.
§
The Second Mrs Tanqueray, on its initial run, was played two hundred and twenty-seven times in London, and the money paid to see it amounted to £36,688: 13s. It is to be remembered that this was before the house was remodelled and its seating capacity enlarged. The run was broken for ten weeks by a provincial tour. Alexander, following the example of his great chief, Henry Irving, had been steadily working up, by successive tours, a close connection with the playgoers of the great provincial towns. During this autumn of 1893 he visited eight of them and the suburban theatre of Islington. Alexander included four plays in his repertoire, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, Liberty Hall, Lady Windermere’s Fan, and The Idler. His share of the receipts during the ten weeks amounted to £7300: 10: 3, and of that amount £4392: 9: 8 was taken by The Second Mrs Tanqueray. The play roused a great deal of discussion in its progress, and at Birmingham especially a newspaper controversy broke out. Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Idler had both been seen upon the tour of the previous year. The Second Mrs Tanqueray was the new bill and occupied the stage for the greater number of evenings.
It was not, however, only the audacity of the play which provoked attack. Clement Scott, the dramatic critic of the Daily Telegraph, launched in the Illustrated London News a definite charge of plagiarism against its author. He declared that Pinero had taken much more than his subject from a German play, Der Schatten, written by Lindau. Pinero’s reply was a writ for libel. He put the case into the hands of Sir George Lewis, regretting that the times had gone by when a public caning would have been the permitted way to meet the charge. The article appeared halfway through August. Yet towards the end of September, Clement Scott is writing to Pinero, “People are making mischief between us — we are such old friends too! I wish to do everything that an honourable man ought to do.” Pinero sent this piece of wheedling on unanswered to Sir George Lewis, who demanded from Clement Scott a withdrawal of the charge and a formal and explicit apology. A letter accordingly was drawn up by Sir George, and in his presence and in that of Pinero Clement Scott signed it. And there, one might have thought, the matter would have ended.
But Clement Scott’s apology was one of the pen, not of the mind. A few years later he revived his charge, but now in the Morning Telegraph of New York. In New York he couldn’t be touched by the law of England. He could slander as he willed; and he seized the occasion of another startling dramatic coincidence, as he termed it in inverted commas, to repeat his attack. In the Morning Telegraph of September 10th, 1900, he wrote:
The Second Mrs Tanqueray was produced at the St. James’ by Alexander. It was then found to be an echo of Lindau�
��s Der Schatten, adapted by the American critic Meltzer, who had previously read it to an English actress of some repute. Another dramatic coincidence. They are all speaking the truth. I believe Pinero.... In fact, I believe everybody — but is there a ghost walking about the St. James’ Theatre who tells plots to destitute dramatists?
The malice in the paragraph is evident and it is to be welcomed. For it revealed that the aim was rather to wound than to repair an injustice. To class an author of Pinero’s output and invention amongst the dramatists destitute of plots was an illuminating piece of folly. The paragraph, moreover, brought the lie direct from the American critic Meltzer. He wrote to Sir George Alexander from New York on September 14th, 1900:
MY DEAR SIR,
My attention has just been called to certain statements attributed to Mr Clement Scott by the New York Morning Telegraph. I have written to Mr Scott, denying that I ever made an adaptation of Lindau’s Der Schatten or submitted one to an English actress, and begging him to contradict his mistaken assertion.
At the time of the first production in America of The Second Mrs Tanqueray I published a signed review of the play in the New York World in which I suggested that Pinero’s admirable work and Lindau’s had both been inspired by some foreign drama — possibly Portuguese or Spanish. Believe me,
My dear Sir,
Very faithfully yours,
CHARLES HENRY MELTZER Formerly dramatic critic of the New York Herald and New York World.
George Alexander, Esq.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 842