I Was Playing The Part Of Richard The Third In A Country Barn, And
Absolutely "Out-Heroding Herod." An Agent Of One Of The Great London
Theatres Was Present.
He was on the lookout for something that might be
got up as a prodigy.
The theatre, it seems, was in desperate
condition - nothing but a miracle could save it. He pitched upon me for
that miracle. I had a remarkable bluster in my style, and swagger in my
gait, and having taken to drink a little during my troubles, my voice
was somewhat cracked; so that it seemed like two voices run into one.
The thought struck the agent to bring me out as a theatrical wonder; as
the restorer of natural and legitimate acting; as the only one who
could understand and act Shakespeare rightly. He waited upon me the
next morning, and opened his plan. I shrunk from it with becoming
modesty; for well as I thought of myself, I felt myself unworthy of
such praise.
"'Sblood, man!" said he, "no praise at all. You don't imagine that I
think you all this. I only want the public to think so. Nothing so easy
as gulling the public if you only set up a prodigy. You need not try to
act well, you must only act furiously. No matter what you do, or how
you act, so that it be but odd and strange. We will have all the pit
packed, and the newspapers hired. Whatever you do different from famous
actors, it shall be insisted that you are right and they were wrong. If
you rant, it shall be pure passion; if you are vulgar, it shall be a
touch of nature. Every one shall be prepared to fall into raptures, and
shout and yell, at certain points which you shall make. If you do but
escape pelting the first night, your fortune and the fortune of the
theatre is made."
I set off for London, therefore, full of new hopes. I was to be the
restorer of Shakespeare and nature, and the legitimate drama; my very
swagger was to be heroic, and my cracked voice the standard of
elocution. Alas, sir! my usual luck attended me. Before I arrived in
the metropolis, a rival wonder had appeared. A woman who could dance
the slack rope, and run up a cord from the stage to the gallery with
fire-works all round her. She was seized on by the management with
avidity; she was the saving of the great national theatre for the
season. Nothing was talked of but Madame Saqui's fire-works and
flame-colored pantaloons; and nature, Shakespeare, the legitimate
drama, and poor Pillgarlick were completely left in the lurch.
However, as the manager was in honor bound to provide for me, he kept
his word. It had been a turn-up of a die whether I should be Alexander
the Great or Alexander the copper-smith; the latter carried it. I could
not be put at the head of the drama, so I was put at the tail. In other
words, I was enrolled among the number of what are called useful men;
who, let me tell you, are the only comfortable actors on the stage. We
are safe from hisses and below the hope of applause. We fear not the
success of rivals, nor dread the critic's pen. So long as we get the
words of our parts, and they are not often many, it is all we care for.
We have our own merriment, our own friends, and our own admirers; for
every actor has his friends and admirers, from the highest to the
lowest. The first-rate actor dines with the noble amateur, and
entertains a fashionable table with scraps and songs and theatrical
slip-slop. The second-rate actors have their second-rate friends and
admirers, with whom they likewise spout tragedy and talk slip-slop; and
so down even to us; who have our friends and admirers among spruce
clerks and aspiring apprentices, who treat us to a dinner now and then,
and enjoy at tenth hand the same scraps and songs and slip-slop that
have been served up by our more fortunate brethren at the tables of the
great.
I now, for the first time in my theatrical life, knew what true
pleasure is. I have known enough of notoriety to pity the poor devils
who are called favorites of the public. I would rather be a kitten in
the arms of a spoiled child, to be one moment petted and pampered, and
the next moment thumped over the head with the spoon. I smile, too, to
see our leading actors, fretting themselves with envy and jealousy
about a trumpery renown, questionable in its quality and uncertain in
its duration. I laugh, too, though of course in my sleeve, at the
bustle and importance and trouble and perplexities of our manager, who
is harassing himself to death in the hopeless effort to please every
body.
I have found among my fellow subalterns two or three quondam managers,
who, like myself, have wielded the sceptres of country theatres; and we
have many a sly joke together at the expense of the manager and the
public. Sometimes, too, we meet like deposed and exiled kings, talk
over the events of our respective reigns; moralize over a tankard of
ale, and laugh at the humbug of the great and little world; which, I
take it, is the very essence of practical philosophy.
Thus end the anecdotes of Buckthorne and his friends. A few mornings
after our hearing the history of the ex-manager, he bounced into my
room before I was out of bed.
"Give me joy! give me joy!" said he, rubbing his hands with the utmost
glee, "my great expectations are realized!"
I stared at him with a look of wonder and inquiry. "My booby cousin is
dead!" cried he, "may he rest in peace! He nearly broke his neck in a
fall from his horse in a fox-chase.
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