Part 11

Willard had an ambition to build a theatre at the top of Lower Regent Street, where the County Fire Office, so long a London landmark, stood; but, granting the site to have been available, it had no depth: the theatre could only have been erected on a part of the Regent Palace Hotel, and reached by burrowing under the road--so far as my architectural knowledge serves me. With the demolition of the County Fire Office the last fragment of the old colonnade disappeared, which, I remember, in my boyhood extended on both sides of the Quadrant from the Circus to Vigo Street.

Early retirement from management prevented intimacy with several prominent actors, who otherwise might have been associated {199} with our work. For instance, Lewis Waller was only once our guest, as things happened. Of his acting, my wife and I were among the warm admirers. The first play in which he commanded our attention was _The Profligate_, which Pinero wrote for Hare when his management of the Garrick Theatre began. One recalls with admiration his acting as Hotspur, Brutus, Faulconbridge, and King Henry V.

I am sorry I did not know him better, or see more of him. He was a great loss to the stage he loved.

[Sidenote: Too many windows]

It was, naturally, a satisfaction to my wife, as to me, when Herbert Tree became our successor at the Haymarket. We felt the future of the theatre to be secure for a while, and that its traditions would be worthily maintained. He did all sorts of good work there, ranging from _Hamlet_ and _Henry V_ to _The Dancing Girl_ and _Trilby_, until he was responsible for building its beautiful opposite neighbour, the present His Majesty's Theatre, where he migrated. During its erection I was walking one day on the opposite side with Comyns Carr, who asked me what I thought of it. He seemed to be greatly amused by my answer: "Too many windows to clean."

Good fortune continued to smile upon the smaller house under the joint management of {200} Frederick Harrison and Cyril Maude. Much of its deserved success was due, in those days, to the art of Winifred Emery, which was then approaching its best, before cruel disease came in the plenitude of her powers and robbed her of that very front position which is reached by so few, and which I think she would surely have attained in her maturity.

Herbert Tree was for many years a power and an authority upon our stage: he rendered its alluring profession great service. I still trust in the hope that successors may be found with something of his splendid courage, his boundless imagination, to follow in his firmest footsteps and leave as memorable marks.

In private life he was an amusing creature, a delightful companion, a perfect host. It was once said of him, not altogether without truth, that he walked in a dream, talked in a dream, ate in a dream, drank in a dream, smoked in a dream, and acted in a dream.

He had enormous energy in starting things, but less strength in carrying his ideas through: he grew tired quickly through his love of change.

I will end with a comic note, for which I am indebted to Pinero. It so happened that the names of Arthur Pinero and Herbert Tree were announced for knighthood in the same Honours {201} List. A man who was an old friend of both wrote a letter of felicitation to each of them; but unfortunately he put his letters into the wrong envelopes. The one Pinero received was as follows: "My dear Tree. Hearty congratulations. You ought to have had it long ago. But why Pinero?" The distinguished dramatist sent this letter to the distinguished actor with the necessary explanation, and in return had from him the note intended for himself. This was it: "My dear Pinero. Hearty congratulations. You ought to have had it long ago. But why Tree?"

[Sidenote: The Kendals]

"Will" Kendal, until he "passed into the night," chanced to be my oldest theatrical friend. We first met at Birmingham, in our early struggling days, and not again until he had planted his feet firmly at the Haymarket. Mrs. Kendal I knew in the following year, when we acted together in the country. She was Madge Robertson then, and a "flapper" of fifteen, already foreshadowing her brilliant future. After the Kendals married, my wife and I had the great advantage of their services in our company for two seasons. When, later on, their successful partnership with Hare came to an end, they travelled much in America, where they became special favourites and amassed a large fortune.

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Kendal was an actor in the foremost rank, being trained by some years of hard work in the provincial "stock companies," as we of the "old brigade" all were. There were certain parts he played to perfection. I never saw his equal as Captain Absolute in _The Rivals_, young Marlow in _She Stoops to Conquer_, and Charles Courtly in _London Assurance_.

It must be full five and forty years since George Alexander called upon my wife one Sunday afternoon with a letter of introduction from our dear friend, Sir Morell Mackenzie. We were sorry, for all our sakes, that we could only offer him encouragement. He had much in his favour; was acting with a travelling company in the Robertson comedies, and warmly recommended for a London engagement, which he soon received from Irving at the Lyceum. Many pleasant tributes from Ellen Terry were paid to him during his stay there, and he rendered yeoman service to his chief. Alexander's long and successful management of the St. James's Theatre was beyond reproach, and for years gave stability to the stage and good repute to those who worked with him. He was a staunch friend to English dramatists and produced plays written by Arthur Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, Alfred Sutro, Anthony Hope, Claude Carton, Haddon Chambers, Louis {203} Parker, Stephen Phillips, Oscar Wilde, and Henry James: a worthy record.

[Sidenote: "Mrs. Tanqueray"]

The finest feather in Alexander's managerial cap--his _panache_--was the production of Pinero's great play, _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_. He alone had the courage--a quality most essential in theatrical enterprise--to risk what thirty years ago was a dangerous undertaking, the truth and humanity of the play, which has kept it vigorously alive, being at the time of its production lost sight of in the sensation caused by the selection of such a daring scheme and subject for the stage. That fears existed for the success of the play on that score may now excite wonder in the minds of the present advanced generation.

The part of Paula has been a vehicle for the widely differing genius and conceptions of so many eminent actresses--Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Duse, Jane Hading, Mrs. Kendal, Miss Gladys Cooper, and numerous other distinguished foreigners--that special interest attaches to the curious incidents surrounding the first production of the play and the original casting of the heroine.

The play was in the first instance offered to Hare, who very decidedly refused it. On Hare's rejection, it was offered to Alexander, who, though greatly impressed by its strength, {204} also, but reluctantly, declined it. Pinero then proposed to Alexander that he should do the play at a _matinée_, without being asked for any author's fee. This proposal was agreed to; and the play was announced for a series of morning performances. It happened, however, that Alexander's forthcoming production was _Liberty Hall_, a comedy written by Claude Carton, who, not unnaturally, represented to Alexander that the performances of _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ in the afternoons might militate against the success of the regular evening bill. (An odd little coincidence is that one of the characters in _Liberty Hall_ was originally named Tanqueray--a name which Carton, out of consideration for Pinero, changed to Harringay.) Alexander thereupon undertook that, if Pinero would release him from his agreement to give morning performances of _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, he would at the earliest opportunity put the play into the evening bill. In these circumstances the play was produced towards the end of the season of 1893.

[Sidenote: The first Paula]

In the ordinary course the original Paula would have been Winifred Emery, but the expected arrival of one of her daughters robbed her of the chance. The choice at the time was very limited, actresses of prominence all being engaged. It happened, however, {205} that at the Adelphi a young and handsome lady of no long stage experience, named Mrs. Patrick Campbell, was acting in a drama by G. R. Sims. There were doubts whether the methods of an actress who had graduated at the Adelphi were suitable to the St. James's, but Pinero suggested to Alexander that they should see what impression she produced upon them in a talk with her in a room. The interview took place, and after it Pinero told Alexander that, if she would act on the stage as she talked in his office, he felt pretty sure that she was the woman for the part. But her engagement was dependent on her release by the management of the Adelphi. Word promptly came that this was refused, and once more the author of the play and the manager of the St. James's were up to their necks in difficulties. Pinero then proposed to Alexander that he should wind up the matter by engaging Miss Elizabeth Robins, who had lately made a striking success in Ibsen's _Hedda Gabler_, and he proceeded to do so.

As was the custom then, the date and hour were fixed for the author to read his play to the actors and actresses who were to represent it. Alexander was engaged to have luncheon that day in Portland Place, and Pinero arranged to call for him on his way to the theatre. As {206} he drove up in a hansom, Alexander came out of the house in a state of great excitement, crying out: "We can get Mrs. Campbell!"

It appeared that he had only just heard from her that, thanks to pressure put upon them by G. R. Sims, the managers of the Adelphi had consented to release her. On reaching the St. James's Theatre, Pinero said to Alexander: "Look here; this is your job. I will go for a walk in St. James's Park and come back in half an hour to read my play either to Miss Robins or Mrs. Campbell, as it may turn out."

Alexander went to his room, rang the bell, asked if Miss Robins had arrived, and on learning that she was in the theatre requested her to come and see him. She soon entered, holding the book of the play. Alexander told her that an unexpected condition of things had arisen. He would put his cards on the table. Did Miss Robins know that the part of Paula had been first offered to Mrs. Campbell, who, in fact, had been engaged to play it? He was answered: "Yes." Alexander then said: "She has been set free, and is in the theatre. What am I to do?"

Pointing to the book in her hand, Miss Robins replied: "Mr. Alexander, this is the chance of my life. It is also the chance of {207} Mrs. Campbell's life. She is a friend of mine, and I will not take the chance from her."

It was, in my opinion, a great mistake on Alexander's part to add the cares of the London County Council to the management of an important theatre. The strain, I have no doubt, shortened his life, which was of great service to his calling.

[Sidenote: Sir Frank Benson]

"Alec" was always my good friend; and when he summoned a meeting of the leading actors and managers in 1916, the year the Shakespearean Tercentenary was to be celebrated at Drury Lane Theatre, he put the matter so strongly to those assembled that there was no gainsaying his suggestion that I should there and then be invited to speak the address on the occasion if, as he hoped, I would undertake the task. It was no mean effort, and I am afraid that egotism is again fast getting the better of me and urging me to print the result of my labour. My excuse is that the event had national importance: a dramatic episode being the knighthood conferred by the King on Frank Benson, who had given the best years of his life to spreading the love of Shakespeare throughout the land.

Here is the address:

"I am proud, indeed, that it was thought {208} fitting by my comrades to give me the unsought honour, on this great day, of addressing you on their behalf. I thank them for the privilege with all my heart, and promise to bear in mind the wise counsel of Polonius, 'brevity is the soul of wit!' I can only speak from my point of view. There are debts which can never be paid in full; there is homage which never can be amply rendered; there is love no tongue can truly tell. All these are Shakespeare's. As every tribute must fall short of what is really due, I resolved to speak my own words--the best in my power to frame--rather than be but the echo of an abler brain.

"In my early days in theatreland, with the audacity of youth, I acted many characters in Shakespeare's plays and then laid some budding leaves of a modest chaplet at the shrine of the master whose works have made the stage eternal. Now, in my old age, I rejoice in the remembrance that I have been what William Shakespeare was--an actor. With a boundless prodigality he has enriched this England which claims his birth--the dear land he loved so deeply and called:

'This fortress built by Nature for herself, This precious stone set in the silver sea.'

"We owe to Shakespeare the most alluring, the most entrancing creations in our mother-tongue. How much poorer should we be if we lacked the imperishable charm of those {209} Princesses of the drama--Juliet, Rosalind, Ophelia, Beatrice, Viola, Miranda, Portia, Imogen, Desdemona, and Cordelia. They are not withered by age, nor stricken by decay. The Angel of Death passes them by. They are celestial and immortal. What joy that mighty pen must have given for three hundred years to the gifted women who have portrayed those matchless heroines.

"As Shakespeare is 'for all time,' so is he for all men the 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' From whom can even monarchs surer look for majesty? Who so inspires the statesman with true patriotism? Who so teaches the gentleman his conduct; the preacher simple piety; the soldier chivalry and courage? Who gives the poet nobler themes; the painter loftier models; the lover sweeter idols; a son such sound advice? Who so plainly tells the player of his faults? and by whom is youth so upheld by hope, or declining years so soothed with consolation?

"I remember well a visit I paid upon a dusky evening to Westminster Abbey. As I walked beneath its stately roof, to the sounds of the organ, twilight shadows were cast down the sacred aisles. It seemed easy under such influence to believe the legend that, while writing the awful scene between Hamlet and his father's ghost, Shakespeare passed a long night alone within those hallowed walls. In the fading light I looked upon the monument {210} in Poets' Corner and read the lines from _The Tempest_ as they are inscribed there:

'The cloudcapt towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And like the baseless Fabric of a Vision Leave not a wrack behind.'

What grandeur, what pathos, are in the words; but we will not believe them--at least not of him. The lustre--the undying lustre--Shakespeare's transcendent genius has shed upon the world marches down the ages undimmed by time."

I lately came across a tribute to Shakespeare which provoked alike my admiration and surprise: the author being that brilliant wit and humorist, Douglas Jerrold. These are his words:

"The great magician who has left immortal company for the spirit of man in his weary journey through this briary world--has bequeathed scenes of immortal loveliness for the human fancy to delight in--founts of eternal truth for the lip of man to drink, and drink--and for all time to be renovated with every draught."

[Sidenote: Charles Wyndham]

Of that accomplished and delightful comedian, Charles Wyndham, there are bright thoughts of the happiness he gave to playgoers {211} during an exceptionally prolonged career. Its only blemish, indeed, was its length, when the inevitable decay, which at last declines to be warded off, became manifest towards the end.

His early successes were made at the Criterion Theatre, in plays of an amusing and frivolous kind, such as _The Great Divorce Case_, _Pink Dominoes_ and _Betsy_. These were followed by far better work, of a higher kind, and the production of those admirable comedies by Henry Arthur Jones, _The Case of Rebellious Susan_ and _The Liars_.

I confess to having thought, had I remained longer on the stage, how happy I should have been to have played some types of those delightful, helpful, elderly men, who often make life pleasanter to the young, and were so perfectly acted by Wyndham.

He retained his youthful appearance until late in life: the preservation of his "figure" was amazing, and he remained a good walker to the end, but never carried a cane.

To recall a peculiarity of his hard working days, I have frequently known him stop at a post office and scrawl a hurried letter or send a telegram to himself, as a reminder of something important that he had to remember or to do.

The memory of Charles Wyndham should {212} always be held in high regard for his unbounded generosity and devoted service to the Actors' Benevolent Fund. It was a pleasure and a privilege to me to propose that Lady Wyndham should be chosen to follow in his footsteps as its president.

Charles Hawtrey was a very old friend. We knew him first at his father's well-known preparatory school for Eton, where I sent my son. The next phase came soon afterwards, when he confided to us his wish to go upon the stage; a wish my wife and I at once encouraged. This appeared a little before we commenced our Haymarket career with a revival of Lord Lytton's comedy, _Money_. We said he could appear as a young member in the club scene, with a few lines to speak. Hawtrey enthusiastically accepted the offer. Unfortunately, an illness prevented its fulfilment, or he would have been the companion of Fred Terry in making his first appearance on that eventful evening.

Our paths in life, both on and off the stage, were much asunder, but we were always the best of friends, and I remember with pleasure a strong wish he expressed, during one of our meetings at Marienbad, when a scheme was on foot to build a theatre for him in the Haymarket, that he might christen it "The Bancroft." {213} My wife and I were sorry when the scheme fell through.

He leaves the happiest memories to his shoals of friends--from the early days, of _The Private Secretary_; the middle stage, of _Lord and Lady Algy_ and _The Man from Blankley's_; to end, with the gay maturity of _Ambrose Applejohn's Adventure_,--and laughter all the way.

Charles Hawtrey was the actor I have alluded to who had the widest knowledge of the Bible of any layman I have known.

[Sidenote: John Hare]

My intimate and affectionate relations, both private and professional, with John Hare make me a little shy of writing about him with the warmth his long and brilliant career upon the stage deserves. I was his oldest professional friend, having been a member of the company he first joined. In the following year my wife offered him an engagement, and for ten years he was prominent among the attractive company of the old Prince of Wales's Theatre. No young actor was, perhaps, so fortunate as himself, appearing as he did in three such successive and distinctive character parts as Lord Ptarmigant, the sleepy old Peer in _Society_, Prince Perovsky, the courtly Russian diplomat in _Ours_, and Sam Gerridge, the humble gasfitter in _Caste_. The delicacy and finish of Hare's {214} acting was of great service to the Robertson comedies, in all of which he appeared.

When he left us it was to enter into friendly managerial rivalry. I applauded the step as a wise one on his part; but, after so many years of close intimacy, I felt the wrench. From that moment the dressing-room he and I had shared knew me no more, and I found a lonely corner on another floor.

And a friendly rivalry it was. If we had our _Diplomacy_, he had his _Olivia_, a delightful play, in which Ellen Terry made so conspicuous a success and Terriss laid the firm foundation of his fine career. My sole disappointment in connection with this beautiful production was that Hare had not plucked up the courage to attack the part of the dear old Vicar himself.

It is not for me to dwell upon his career, which was always to the credit of his calling, or enumerate his successes, only naming Pinero's brilliant works, _The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith_ and _The Gay Lord Quex_. In the first of them Mrs. Patrick Campbell clinched her previous triumph; in the second Irene Vanbrugh seized the opportunity of rushing to the front, where she has remained ever since.

On an occasion when Hare proposed my health in distinguished company, it was pleasant {215} to listen to words which were too flattering to allow of their repetition.

[Sidenote: Meissonier of our stage]

I am inclined to say that Hare's best and most complete individual work was his delightful portrait of old Benjamin Goldfinch in _A Pair of Spectacles_, a performance which gave us something of the simplicity and benevolence of the immortal Samuel Pickwick. I think of Hare, in all he did, as the Meissonier of our stage.

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X

ONE OTHER EMPTY CHAIR

"If we really love those whom we lose, We never really lose those whom we love."

The time has come for me to offer my apology for this book. In my lonely, but not unhappy, old age, the most void of all the Empty Chairs which now surround me is the one so long filled by my partner for more than fifty years.

Let me begin by saying that the foundation of our fortunes was due, solely, to her courage in gallantly deciding that danger was preferable to dullness, and in producing _Society_, the first of the Robertson comedies, against adverse advice and the fact that the manuscript had been "turned down" by the leading London managers of the day. It may be that the brave decision was also pleasant to her because at the time our mutual attachment was steadily ripening, and, although the part she was willing to take was not prominent, the character which would fall to my lot was a good one and likely to advance my position, if I played it well.

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[Sidenote: The return to Nature]

To the exceptional and startling success upon production of Robertson's five delicate little comedies, and to the frequently-recurring revivals of them, we owed much. They appeared just when they were wanted to revive interest in the drama. Nature was Robertson's goddess, and he looked upon the bright young manager as the high-priestess of the natural school of acting.

When the prolific fountain ceased, through the early and untimely death of Robertson, the choice of plays until the end of our career was left to me. I was honoured and helped by implicit confidence in my judgment; no word of rebuke passed her lips for a mistake, no word of praise was withheld when it was thought merited. No spark of professional jealousy was born to her; she always loved to act with the ablest and best equipped of her comrades. She had no place for the more sordid side of life, and was as free from extravagance as she was indifferent about money. Her life from childhood was passed in the service of the public until I thought the time had come for it to be less strenuous.