Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  But why should Meltzer make the suggestion that both Pinero and Lindau had been inspired by an unknown foreign dramatist? The subject of the play is not so rare that it needs a microscope to discover it, and once that subject is chosen by two men living in the same age and both of them playwrights, points of likeness are certain to appear. To my mind, it is astonishing that many more cases of similarity do not occur. They do at times, of course. There is an author living in London to-day who, having just finished his play, saw its replica presented, and put his own away in a drawer: where it remains. It seems, too, as if from time to time a subject gets into the air and is breathed in by more than one. It is not two years ago since two plays upon the Bronte family were produced within a few days of one another. Two plays with Nell Gwynne as the heroine ran side by side, one at the Haymarket with Julia Neilson playing the orange-girl, the other at the Prince of Wales’ with Marie Tempest. When one counts up all the plays which are written and submitted, the miracle is not that here and there two deal with the same theme but that so few challenge any comparison at all. There is certainly no reason to assume that an author in Germany and an author in England both found the same obscure play in a foreign language, and set to work to transcribe it as their own. But there is and always will be a class of jealous persons who, when they are forced to discover that a fine thing is fine, cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the man they know who did it, did it out of his own genius and wits.

  §

  The Second Mrs Tanqueray ended its long run on April 21 st, 1894, and a week later The Masqueraders, a strong romantic play by Henry Arthur Jones, took its place. Both Alexander and Mrs Patrick Campbell were again together in the principal parts, and gained an immediate success. Pinero, who found it a torment to see his own plays acted, could take the keenest and most generous enjoyment in the plays of his fellow dramatists. After being present on the night of July 25, he wrote:

  63 HAMILTON TERRACE,

  N.W.

  MY DEAR ALEC, —

  I had no opportunity last night, without running the risk of appearing to be merely complimentary, of telling you that I thought your acting of David Remon strong, sympathetic, and altogether delightful. No part that you have played, in my recollection, has brought out the grace and tenderness of your method so effectively.

  As for the play, I could see it again to-night with the utmost pleasure: I don’t often get this feeling nowadays.

  Yours always, P.

  The Masqueraders ran until the August holidays, shared the bill with The Second Mrs Tanqueray on the subsequent tour, and returned to see the year out at the St. James’ Theatre.

  There followed upon January 5th of 1895 one of those experiments which made Alexander’s management so honourable an affair. The play which he produced was a financial failure, chiefly indeed owing to the costly elegance in which it was framed and set; and it received on its opening performance an unmannerly and derisive greeting from the cheaper parts of the house.

  Henry James was a cultured American who had long made his home in England. He lived a sheltered, smooth life in a pleasant circle of friends. He wrote some exquisite and some very forcible short stories; but for the most part he wrote with infinite care uneventful novels which reflected faithfully the milder scenes of those well-mannered Victorian days. He had a small, select, and rather idolatrous public of his own; fans in fact. A. B. Walkley, for instance, the ingenious dramatic critic of The Times, once told me that he read the whole of Henry James once a year. James was, in addition, a man of means, and he divided his time between London and Rye, where he had a beautiful house panelled in mahogany and as polished as himself. It should be added that the moment the war broke upon England he got himself made a British citizen so that he might share the dangers and embarrassments of that country whose hospitality he had so long enjoyed. He was very particular and fastidious in his tastes. There was a touch of the old maid in him, and a precision in his speech which led him to add clause upon clause and qualification upon qualification, to express the exact shade of his meaning. He made a noble profession of faith when he renounced his American citizenship, and being now eligible for the coveted Order of Merit, was awarded it. A life of contentment no doubt, but there were crumpled rose-leaves even in his bed. He would have liked to have ridden a horse, so that he might live more intimately the English life of the countryside. He would have liked to have climbed mountains, believing that so he would have captured and been able to express that elusive passion for the hills which baffles the most skilful pens. In fact he was like nine people out of ten. He wanted to do the things which nature and the habit of his life had told him to leave to others. But I think that above all things, and again like nine people out of ten, he wanted to write a successful play.

  He had tried his hand already. For he had dramatised his own novel The American for Edward Compton, and that well-known exponent of the eighteenth-century comedies had produced it, during one of his London seasons, at the old Opera Comique in the Strand. It was almost inevitable then that the actor-manager who was actively trying to discover new playwrights and Henry James should be drawn into some sort of concatenation. The two men met. Henry James had three subjects in his mind: a three-act contemporary comedy, a three-act contemporary play, “less purely a comedy but on a subject very beautiful to my sense”, and Guy Domville, a play set in the eighteenth century. Unfortunately it was Guy Domville which was preferred by both men, and Henry James retired to Wellington Crescent, Ramsgate, to get on with the work. The script of the first act was sent, scenarios of the last two followed. Alexander was asked to remember that James was fully aware “of the lacunae which real treatment of the subject must make good (and will); all the transitions it will smooth over, all the insufficiently explained things it will vivify, all the expression and colour, all the lucidity and atmosphere, and superiority I shall undertake to make it supply”. So what with remembering all these things and acting at night, Alexander must have had a pretty busy time of it.

  Henry James then took his courage in both hands to mention in advance — he seems in their conversations to have kept this little matter slyly up his sleeve — that “his dénouement does not belong to the class of ending conventionally termed happy”.

  Mrs Tanqueray [he writes] seems to me to have performed the very valuable service of showing that the poor dear old British public, in whose name such imbecilities are committed, can rise to a denouement that isn’t a mere daub of rose-colour.

  Henry in fact was up on his toes.

  Terms were arranged, the play completed and rehearsed with an admirable company which included, besides Alexander himself, H. V. Esmond, Herbert Waring, W. G. Elliott, Marion Terry, Irene Vanbrugh, and Evelyn Millard. And on Saturday, January 5th, of 1895, the first performance was given. But alas, the poor dear old British public rose to the dénouement in a quite unexpected way. When the curtain fell, there were vociferous cries of “Author! author!” Behind the scenes the call was misunderstood. Somehow a blunder was made. The curtain was raised again and Alexander led on Henry James to such an explosion of cat-calls and boos and hisses as was seldom heard even in those days when first-night disturbances were not uncommon. H. G. Wells was present as the dramatic critic of the Pall Mall Gazette and he has given in the second volume of his Autobiography a vivid description of the scene.

  It was too much for Henry James. He was not the man for violence and brawls. He was too sensitive, too thin-skinned. He took his reception much more seriously than there was any need to do. I remember reading a published letter which he wrote long afterwards to his brother. The recollection of that sea of hostile faces white against the dark background of the gallery, still oppressed him as something horrible and vile. He wrote no more for the stage.

  CHAPTER V

  The Importance of Being Earnest — Negotiations and rehearsals — Its success and revivals — Frank Harris’ slanders and their refutation — The true authorship of Mr and. Mrs Daventry �
� The Ideal Husband revived — Zola and the English language

  AT THE ST. James’ Theatre clearly something had to be done and quickly. Guy Domville was certainly playing to an average of £90 a performance, but the receipts were dropping. There were plays enough in the making but none made. This management had been in existence only for four years and the time was not yet ripe for revivals. The young manager was in a quandary. But as it happened, in the early summer of the previous year Wilde had conceived the idea of a farcical comedy, and some correspondence had taken place between himself and Alexander about it. Wilde, however, was uncertain about the proper theatre for the piece. It seemed to him more suitable to Charles Wyndham or Charles Hawtrey than to George Alexander. Alexander moreover was seriously considering a visit to the United States, and if he were to produce the comedy in London, he would want it for his tour in America. But such a plan was outside Wilde’s reckonings altogether. He wrote frankly to Alexander that John Palmer, at one time a famous American impresario, wanted a comedy from him “with no real serious interest”.

  As regards the American rights, when you go to the States it won’t be to produce a farcical comedy. You will go as a romantic actor of modern and costume pieces. My play, though the dialogue is sheer comedy, and the best I have ever written, is of course in idea farcical. It could not be made part of a repertoire of serious or classical pieces — except for fun — once — as Irving plays Jeremy Diddler to show the Bostonians how versatile he is and how a man who can realise Hamlet for us, can yet hold his own with the best of fantastic farce players.

  I would be charmed to write a modern comedy-drama for you — and to give you rights on both sides of the disappointing Atlantic Ocean — but you, of all our young actors, should not go to America to play farcical comedy — you might just as well star at Philadelphia in Dr. Bill.

  Besides I hope to make at least £3000 in the States with this play — so what sum could I ask you for with reference to double rights? Something that you, as a sensible manager, would not dream of paying. No: I want to come back to you — I would like to have my play done by you (I must tell you candidly that the two young men’s parts are equally good) but it would be neither for your artistic reputation as a star in the States, nor for my pecuniary advantage, for you to produce it for a couple of nights in each big American town. It would be throwing the thing away. I may mention that the play is an admirable play. I can’t come up to town; I have no money.

  Wilde at this time, the summer of 1894, was terribly pressed for money. “I am sorry my life is so marred and maimed by extravagance”, he wrote on another occasion to Alexander. “But I cannot live otherwise. I, at any rate, pay the penalty of suffering.” But Wilde was an artist. He could shut out his duns on the doorstep of his mind and dwell within amongst the lively creatures of his fancy; and if whilst he worked he heard from time to time the knocking of those duns, it merely quickened his pen. Thus in a single month of 1894, at Worthing, he wrote The Importance of Being Earnest.

  Before the farce was written, but when it had taken shape in his thoughts, he sent a short description of it to Alexander:

  The real charm of the play, if it is to have a charm, must be in the dialogue. The plot is slight but, I think, adequate.

  .. Well, I think an amusing thing with lots of fun and wit might be made. If you think so too, and care to have the refusal of it — do let me know — and send me £150. If when the play is finished, you think it too slight — not serious enough — of course you can have the £150 back. I want to go away and write it — and it could be ready in October, as I have nothing else to do.... In the meanwhile, my dear Aleck, I am so pressed for money that I don’t know what to do. Of course I am extravagant — you have always been a good wise friend to me — so think what you can do.

  More than one groundless attack has been made upon Alexander for his dealings with Wilde and this chapter will have to take them up. Meanwhile, Wilde’s own words should be borne in mind. Alexander had always been a good wise friend to that ill-starred man and he was to prove so to the end of Wilde’s life.

  In the autumn the play was finished. Wilde had a bout of fever, and from his bed wrote to Alexander again:

  As you wished to see my somewhat farcical comedy, I send you the first copy of it. It is called “Lady Lancing” on the cover: but the real title is The Importance of Being Earnest. When you read the play you will see the punning title’s meaning. Of course the play is not suitable to you at all. You are a romantic actor: the people in it want actors like Wyndham and Hawtrey. Also you would be sorry if you altered the definite artistic line of progress you have always followed at the St. James’s. But, of course — read it and let me know what you think about it. I have very good offers from America for it.

  Of what happened immediately thereafter there is no evidence. Either Alexander thought the play too slight or Wilde thought the actor too serious, and by Christmas of that year, 1894, The Importance of Being Earnest was in the hands of Charles Wyndham. The failure of Guy Domville, however, made Alexander ask for it. Wyndham was in no immediate need of a play and he agreed to concede it on the condition that Alexander should consent to Wilde’s “writing me an original play before he writes yours”.

  Alexander on his side, consented. He wrote on February 7th, 1895:

  MY DEAR WYNDHAM,

  If Wilde is desirous of doing your play first I will not stand in the way — my scenario, of course, not being touched.

  You had better, therefore, make your arrangements with Wilde himself. c., Sincerely yours,

  G. A.

  From this arrangement it is apparent that there was a second play by Wilde, or rather the scenario of a second play, in existence upon which Alexander had a claim; and that the writing of this second play was to be deferred until Wilde had written a third play for Charles Wyndham. It is necessary to be clear upon this matter, for a question of literary honesty is involved. There was a second play mapped out, of which the scenario was in Alexander’s possession. The scenario will be produced later on in this chapter; and it will be seen that although Wilde never wrote it, it was written. It appeared over another name, was produced at another theatre, and because of the strength of its theme it had some success, even though there was none of Oscar Wilde’s wit to embellish it. For the moment, however, I am concerned only with The Importance of Being Earnest.

  It was put into rehearsal as soon as it became evident that Guy Domville could not be hoped long to survive his catastrophic debut. Alexander as usual was at the pains to assemble the best cast which he could obtain. For the part “equal to his own” — that of Algernon Moncrieffe — he secured an admirable comedian in Allan Aynesworth, who was to appear in nine other productions at the St. James’ Theatre. Miss Rose Leclercq was the Lady Bracknell who had a passion for cucumber sandwiches and thought that to be born or at any rate bred in a handbag, whether it had handles or not, displayed a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminded her of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. The two girls were played by Irene Vanbrugh and Evelyn Millard, who a year later was by her beauty and charm to make still more famous Anthony Hope’s Princess Flavia. Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble found their exact representatives in H. H. Vincent and Mrs George Canninge, whilst the two menservants fell to Franklin Dyall and Kinsey Peile. A small cast but one upon which it would have been difficult to have improved.

  “I know that you are at one with me”, Mrs Pearl Craigie wrote to Alexander in July of 1898 with reference to her own one-act play A Repentance, “in thinking that an actor of genius has everything to gain and nothing to lose by having the best talent possible among his supporters — and particularly in the case of those with whom he has scenes. The Irving method of frittering away priceless vitality on dead-weights has proved but too dangerous. The stronger the cast, the clearer the triumph.”

  Here Mrs Craigie was a little unfair to Sir Henry Irving. Irving surrounded himself habitually with the most effici
ent actors. One has only to remember his matchless production of Much Ado About Nothing to be sure of it. But he cut down the parts they played, so that their importance was diminished, and spectators familiar with a play of many good characters would be aware of only one of them and might well fancy that the others were insignificantly played. At the St. James’, however, the play was the thing.

  The rehearsals, however, in the case of The Importance of Being Earnest, dragged a little in spite of the excellent company. Wilde himself was fractious. His interruptions were so continuous that no scene could be taken through from the beginning to the end; and the day appointed for the production was coming near. Alexander accordingly took him aside and said:

  “We know now everything you want and if you’ll leave us alone to get on with the rehearsals we shall try our best to give it to you. But if you don’t, we shall never be ready. So I’ll send you a box for the first night and see you again after the performance.” According to Alexander’s story, Wilde was for a moment taken aback. But then with tremendous solemnity he replied:

  “My dear Aleck, I have still one more thing to say to you and to Aynesworth. So if you will both of you come and have supper with me to-night at the Albemarle Club, I shall not trouble you again.” It sounded portentous and alarming. Both Alexander and Aynesworth, tired with a long evening’s rehearsal, walked up St. James’ Street a little anxious and worried. What further alteration could Wilde want at this time of day? Of what did he now complain? They were met in the hall of the club by Wilde in full evening dress. He laid one friendly hand on Alexander’s shoulder, the other upon Aynesworth’s.

  “My dear Aleck,” he said, “and my dear Tony. I have only one thing to say to you. You are neither of you my favourite actor. We will now go into supper.” He then left the company to its own efforts and was interviewed the day before the production by a reporter who asked him whether he thought the play would be a success.