A History of Pantomime Part 9

Of Rich, Garrick wrote:--

"When Lun appeared with matchless art and whim, He gave the power of speech to every limb; Though masked and mute conveyed his quick intent, And told in frolic's gestures all he meant."

Rich, however, erred in thinking himself a better actor than a Pantomimist; and, in fact, he thought himself a finer actor than the great Garrick himself. "You should see _me_ play Richard!" was a favourite cry of his.

In 1782, after seeing the Pantomime of "Robinson Crusoe," Walpole said, "How unlike the Pantomimes of Rich, which were full of wit, and coherent, and carried on by a story."

As I have shown above, Rich had, like many other people, his own particular little idiosyncrasies, and when in the season 1746-7 he netted nearly 9,000 from his Pantomimes, to the chagrin of Garrick and Quin, he was very angry and much annoyed because he, as Harlequin, had contributed little or nothing. Another mannerism of his was to despise the regular drama on these occasions, and he has been known to look at the packed audience through a small hole in the curtain, and then e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, "Ah! you are there, you fools, are you? Much good may it do you!"

Rich used to address everyone as "Mister." On one occasion Foote, being incensed at being so addressed, asked Rich why he did not call him by his name. "Don't be angry," says Rich, "I sometimes forget my own name."

"I know," replied Foote, "that you can't write your own name, but I wonder you should forget it."

The first of Rich's successes was "Harlequin Sorcerer." On its production Pope wrote:--

"Behold a sober sorcerer rise Swift to whose wand a winged volume flies; All sudden, gorgon's hiss and dragon's glare, And ten horned fiends and giants rush to war.

h.e.l.l rises, heaven descends, and dance on earth, G.o.ds, imps and monsters, music, rage and mirth, A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball, Till one wide conflagration swallows all; Thence a new world to nature's laws unknown, Breaks out refulgent with a heaven its own; Another Cynthia her new journey runs, And other planets circle after suns.

The forests dance, the rivers upwards rise, Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies; At last, to give the whole creation grace, Lo! one vast egg produces human race."

Of Harlequin, in "Harlequin Sorcerer," being hatched from an egg by the rays of the sun. This has been called a master-piece of Rich's Miming "From the first chipping of the egg (says Jackson) his receiving of motion, his feeling of the ground, his standing upright, to his quick Harlequin trip round the empty sh.e.l.l, through the whole progression, every limb had its tongue, and every motion a voice."

As probably occurring in "Harlequin Sorcerer," there is an amusing incident. The belief in the possibility of a supernatural appearance on the stage existed (says an old writer) about the beginning of the eighteenth century. A dance of infernals having to be exhibited, they were represented in dresses of black and red, with fiery eyes and snaky locks, and garnished with every pendage of horror. They were twelve in number. In the middle of their performance, while intent upon the figure in which they had been completely practised, an actor of some humour, who had been accommodated with a spare dress, appeared among them. He was, if possible, more terrific than the rest, and seemed to the beholders as designed by the conductor for the princ.i.p.al fiend. His fellow furies took the alarm; they knew he did not belong to them, and they judged him an infernal in earnest. Their fears were excited, a general panic ensued, and the whole group fled different ways; some to their dressing-rooms, and others, through the streets, to their own homes, in order to avoid the destruction which they believed to be coming upon them, for the profane mockery they had been guilty of. The odd devil was _non inventus_. He took himself invisibly away, through fears of another kind. He was, however, seen by many, in imagination, to fly through the roof of the house, and they fancied themselves almost suffocated by the stench he had left behind. The confusion of the audience is scarcely to be described. They retired to their families, informing them of this supposed appearance of the devil, with many of his additional frolics in the exploit. So thoroughly was its reality believed that every official a.s.surance which could be made the following day did not entirely counteract the idea. The explanation was given by Rich himself, in the presence of his friend Bencraft, the contriver, and perhaps the actor of the scheme, which he designed only as an innocent affair, to confuse the dancers, without adverting to the serious consequences which succeeded.

I have met with another author, who, in giving an account of this transaction, places it as a much earlier period, and says it was during the performance of "Dr. Faustus," and that when the devil took flight he carried away with him the roof of the theatre. This story may be alluded to in a very curious work, ent.i.tled, "The Blacke Booke" (a proper depository), "London, printed in black letter, by T.C. for Jeffery Chorlton, 1604." "The light burning serjant Lucifer" says of one, running away through fear of fire at a brothel, "Hee had a head of hayre like one of my divells in 'Doctor Faustus,' when the olde theatre crakt and frighted the audience."

Emulating Rich, Drury Lane then followed with "Mars and Venus," of which Colley Cibber says: Was formed into something more than motion without meaning into a connected presentation of dances in character, wherein the pa.s.sions were so happily expressed, and the whole story so intelligibly told by a mute narration of gesture only, that even thinking spectators allowed it to be both a pleasing and a rational entertainment; though, at the same time, from our distrust of its reception we durst not venture to decorate it with any extraordinary expense of scenes or habits; but upon the success of this attempt it was rightly concluded that if a visible expense in both were added to something of the same nature, it could not fail of drawing the town proportionately after it.

From this original hint there (but every way unequal to it) sprang forth that succession of monstrous medlies, that have so long infested the stage, and which arose upon one another alternately, at both houses, outvying in expense, like contending bribes on both sides at an election, to secure a majority of the mult.i.tude.

If I am asked (after condemning these fooleries myself) how I came to a.s.sent or continue my share of expense to them? I have no better excuse for my error, than confessing it. I did it against my conscience, and had not virtue enough to starve by opposing a mult.i.tude that would have been too hard for me.

("The Drama's laws the Drama's patrons give," has always been an axiom of the stage; and worthy Colley Cibber, notwithstanding his antagonism, and the rivalry of Rich, had too good a knowledge of this truism not to do otherwise but follow the popular voice.)

Notwithstanding then (Cibber continues) this, our compliance with the vulgar taste, we generally made use of these Pantomimes, but as crutches to our weakest plays. Nor were we so lost to all sense of what was valuable, as to dishonor our best authors in such bad company. We still had a due respect to several select plays, that were able to be their own support; and in which we found constant account, without painting and patching them out.... It is a reproach to a sensible people to let folly so quickly govern their pleasures.

Henry Fielding, the novelist, was one of Harlequin's a.s.sailants. "The comic part of the English Pantomimes," he says, "being duller than anything before shown on the stage could only be set off by the superlative dulness of the serious portion, in which the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses were so insufferably tedious, that Harlequin was always a relief from still worse company." Eager for theatrical reform, the "Weekly Miscellany" of 1732, said that plays were not intended for tradesmen, and denounced Pantomimes as infamous.

Another compet.i.tor, who entered the lists against Rich, was Thormond, a dancing-master, and at Drury Lane Theatre he produced "Dr. Faustus," in 1733. Speaking of this Pantomime, Pasquin mentions that "An account is very honestly published, to save people the trouble of going to see it."

In a Pantomime produced at Drury Lane in the following year, there were Macklin, Theo. Cibber (who ultimately lost his life by s.h.i.+pwreck in the Irish Sea, in company with a troupe of Pantomimists), Mrs. Clive, and Mrs. Cibber. At the performance it was announced that the money paid would be returned to anyone who went out before the overture; but no one availed themselves of the concession. Commenting on the occurrence, a contemporary writer observes:--"Happy is it that we live in an age of taste, when the dumb eloquence and natural wit and humour of Harlequin are justly preferred to the whining of Tragedy, or the vulgarity of Comedy."

Garrick, at Drury Lane, finding his audience with no heart for tragedy, and that they must have Pantomime, very wisely said, "If you won't come to 'Lear' and 'Hamlet,' I must give you Harlequin." And Harlequin he did give them, in the person of Woodward, one of the best of Harlequins that ever trod the stage. A contemporary print of the time, represents Woodward being weighed in one scale, with all the great actors of the day in the other, and Woodward makes them all kick the beam.

To satirise the prevailing fas.h.i.+on, Garrick penned the following:--

They in the drama find no joys, But doat on mimicry and toys; Thus, when a dance is on my bill, n.o.bility my boxes fill; Or send three days before the time To crowd a new-made Pantomime.

Garrick's success, however, was, I am of opinion, undoubtedly owing to his being such a clever Pantomimist. "We saw him," says Grimm, "play the dagger scene in 'Macbeth' in a room in his ordinary dress, without any stage illusion; and, as he followed with his eyes the air-drawn dagger, he became so grand that the a.s.sembly broke into a cry of general admiration. Who would believe that this same man, a moment after, counterfeited, with equal perfection, a pastry cook's boy, who, carrying a tray of tartlets on his head, and gaping about him at the corner of the street, lets his tray fall, and, at first stupified by the accident, bursts at last into a fit of crying?"

All our great actors have been good Mimics, and herein, doubtless, lies the secret of their success. The mere intonation of words unaccompanied by a strict knowledge of "that dumb, silent language," Pantomime, is only _parroting_. Herein, therefore, lies the true imitativeness of the actor, and _the natural form of acting_. The word actor "Is a name only given to the persons in a dramatic work, _because they ought to be in continual action during the performance of it_." It does not mean that the actor is to stand still, and to be in action only with his tongue when speaking his "lines." No! he bears the honoured name of actor, and he should bring the full power of gesture language--Pantomime--that he has at his control into play in order to be convincing in the character that, for the time being, he is.

Action (mentions Betterton, in his "History of the English Stage,"

1741), can never be in its perfection but on the stage. Action, indeed, has a natural excellence in it superior to all other qualities; action is motion, and motion is the support of nature, which without it would sink into the sluggish ma.s.s of chaos. Life is motion, and when that ceases, the human body so beautiful, nay so divine, when enlivened by motion, becomes a dead and putrid corpse, from which all turn their eyes. The eye is caught by anything in motion, but pa.s.ses over the sluggish and motionless things as not the pleasing object of its view.

The natural power of motion, or action, is the reason that the attention of the audience is fixed by any irregular, or even fantastic action, on the stage, of the most indifferent player; and supine and drowsy when the best actor speaks without the addition of action. The stage ought to be the seat of pa.s.sion in its various kinds, and, therefore, the actors ought to be thoroughly acquainted with the whole nature of the affections, and habits of the mind, or else they will never be able to express them justly in their looks and gestures, as well as in the tone of their voice and manner of utterance. They must know them in their various mixtures, as they are differently blended together in the different characters they represent; and then that excellent rule in the "Essay on Poetry" will be of equal use to the poet and player:--

Who must look within to find These _secret_ turns of Nature in the mind; Without this part in vain would be the whole, And but a _body_ all without a soul?

A few words more just to lay further stress on the importance of Pantomime, and then to return to our History. Take any part in any play, strip from it in its enactment the whole of its gesture language, could we realise that the actor appearing in it was portraying nature for us?

Replace the Pantomime so essential to the part, and the character becomes--or rather should become if properly played--a creature of flesh and blood the same as ourselves. Pantomime, on the other hand, does not require words to be spoken to express its meaning, as it is quite expressible without.

A contemporary account of the production of the Pantomime "Harlequin Dr.

Faustus," at Drury Lane Theatre, forms interesting reading, in addition to providing a contrast with present-day Pantomime.

Every action is executed to different agreeable music, so adapted that it properly expresses what is going forward; in the machinery there is something so highly surprising that words cannot give a full idea of it.

The effects described seem to be marvellous, considering the state of theatrical mechanism. A devil riding on a fiery dragon rides swiftly across the stage. Two country men and women enter to be told their fortunes, when Dr. Faustus waves his wand, and four pictures turn out of the scenes opposite, representing a judge and a soldier, a dressed lady, and a lady in riding habit; the scene changes to the outside of a handsome house, when the louting men, running in, place their backs against the door. The front of the house turns, and at the same instant the machine turns, a supper ready dressed rises up. The countrymen's wives remain with the Doctor, who (afterwards) goes out. He beckons the table, and it follows him. Punch, Scaramouch, and Pierrot are next met by the Doctor, who invites them into a banquet. The table ascends into the air. He waves his wand, and a.s.ses' ears appear at the sides of their heads. A usurer lending money to Dr. Faustus demands a limb as security, and cuts off the Doctor's leg, several legs appear on the scene, and the Doctor strikes a woman's leg with his wand, which immediately flies from the rest, and fixes to the Doctor's stump, who dances with it ridiculously. The next scene opens, disclosing the Doctor's study. He enters affrighted, and the clock strikes one; the figures of Time and Death appear. Several devils enter and tear him in pieces, some sink, some fly out, each bearing a limb of him. The last, which is the grand scene, is the most magnificent that ever appeared on the English stage--all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses discovered with the apotheosis of Diana, ascending into the air.

The tricks that formed part and parcel of the Pantomimes, in causing surprise and wonderment, placed Harlequin, for his extraordinary feats, in the first rank of magicians. Oftentimes, however, they were the cause of many accidents.

Chetwood--William Rufus Chetwood--who had, in the eighteenth century, a bookseller's shop in Covent Garden, and was, for twenty years, prompter for Drury Lane, a writer of four plays, and a volume of sketches of the actors whom he had met, says:--"A tumbler at the Haymarket beat the breath out of his body by an accident, and which raised such vociferous applause that lasted the poor man's life, for he never breathed more.

Indeed, his wife had this comfort, when the truth was known, pity succeeded to the roar of applause. Another accident occurred in the Pantomime of 'Dr. Faustus' (previously referred to), at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, where a machine in the working threw the mock Pierrot down headlong with such force that the poor man broke a plank on the stage with his fall, and expired; another was sorely maimed that he did not survive many days; and a third, one of the softer s.e.x, broke her thigh."

Vandermere, the Harlequin, one of the most agile that ever trod the stage, on one occasion, in the pursuit by the Clown, leaped through a window on to the stage, a full thirteen feet. Performing at the Dublin theatre one night, having a prodigious leap to make, the persons behind the scenes not being ready to receive him in the customary blanket, he fell upon the stage and was badly bruised. This accident occasioned him to take a solemn oath that he would never take another leap upon the stage; nor did he violate his oath, for when he afterwards played Harlequin another actor of his size, and of considerable activity was equipped with the parti-coloured habit, and when a leap was necessary Vandermere pa.s.sed off on one side of the stage as Dawson--Vandermere's understudy--entered at the other, and undertook it.

How little do we know of the tragic ending of these poor unhappy Pantomimists' lives. Their names even have not been handed down to us, and they, like probably many more with whose quips and quiddities we have laughed at with infinite zest, have long since gone "to that bourne from whence no traveller returns," and perhaps, "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung."

On February 12, 1739, Rich produced, at Covent Garden (opened in December 1732, with Congreve's "Way of the World"), "Orpheus and Eurydice." On the mounting something like 2,000 were spent.

Rich devised the scenario and comic scenes. Lewis Theobald wrote the libretto, and George Lambert--founder of the Beefsteak Club--painted the scenery. Hippisley played Clown, Manager Rich was the Harlequin, and Signor Grimaldi, father of the celebrated Mime, to be noted further on, was the Pantaloon. This is the first instance of a member of the Grimaldi family (says Mr. W.J. Lawrence) appearing in English Pantomime.

The following was the argument and the curious arrangement of the scenes:--Interlude I.--Rhodope, Queen of Thrace, practising art magic, makes love to Orpheus. He rejects her love. She is enraged. A serpent appears who receives Rhodope's commands, and these ended, glides off the stage. Here the comic part begins. In the Opera (as practically it was) a scene takes place between Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice's heel is pierced by the serpent, behind the scenes. She dies on the stage--after which the comic part is continued. Interlude II. Scene: h.e.l.l. Pluto and Orpheus enter. Orpheus prevails on Pluto to restore Eurydice to him.

Ascalox tells Orpheus that Eurydice shall follow him, but that if he should look back at her before they shall have pa.s.sed the bounds of h.e.l.l, she will die again. Orpheus turns back to look for Eurydice, Fiends carry her away. After this the comic part is resumed. Interlude III.--Orpheus again rejects Rhodope's solicitations. Departs. The scene draws, and discovers Orpheus slain. Several Baccants enter in a triumphant manner. They bring in the lyre and chaplet of Orpheus.

Rhodope stabs herself. The piece concludes with the remainder of the comic part.

"'The Scots Magazine' for March, 1740, says:--'Orpheus and Eurydice'

draws the whole town to Covent Garden, whether for the Opera itself (the words of which are miserable stuff) or for the Pantomimical Interlude, with which it is intermixed, I cannot determine. The music is pretty good, and the tricks are not foolisher than usual, and some have said that they have more meaning than most that have preceded them. The performance is grand as to the scenery. What pleases everybody is a regular growth of trees, represented more like nature than what has yet been seen upon the stage, and the representation of a serpent so lively as to frighten half the ladies who see it. It is, indeed, curious in its kind, being wholly a piece of machinery, that enters, performs its exercise of head, body, and tail in a most surprising manner, and makes behind the curtain with a velocity scarcely credible. It is about a foot and a half in circ.u.mference of the thickest part, and far exceeds the former custom of stuffing a bag into such likeness. It is believed to have cost more than 200; and when the mult.i.tude of wings, springs, etc., whereof it consists, are considered, the charge will not appear extravagant. The whole Royal family have been to see this performance; and, from what can be judged, everybody else will see it before the end of the season, the house being every day full at 3 o'clock, though seldom empty till after eleven."

Sam Hoole--father of the translator of Ta.s.so and Ariosto--was Rich's chief machinist at this period, and the inventor of this famous serpent.

He had, according to c.u.mberland, a shop where he sold mechanical toys.

Having a large stock of serpent toys left on his hands he became a ruined and bankrupt man.

"Orpheus and Eurydice" was revived by Rich in 1747, and again in 1755; when it ran 31 nights. In 1768 it was reproduced by his successors at Covent Garden. In October, 1787, it was again put in the bill, and this time by Royal Command, it was said.

Of the number of Pantomimes brought out by Rich I shall not dilate on, and those that I have referred to will, doubtless, show what all these "plays without words" were like.

During the summer season of 1761, at Drury Lane, Murphy and Foote endeavoured

"From Pantomime to free the stage And combat all the ministers of the age,"