A Star’s Dressing-room—Long Flights of Stairs—Miss Ward at the Haymarket—A Wimple—An Awkward Predicament—How an Actress Dresses—Herbert Waring—An Actress’s Dressing-table—A Girl’s Photographs of Herself—A Grease-paint Box—Eyelashes—White Hands—Mrs. Langtry’s Dressing-room—Clara Morris on Make-up—Mrs. Tree as Author—“Resting”—Mary Anderson on the Stage—An Author’s Opinion—Actors in Society.
AFTER ascending long flights of stone stairs, traversing dreary passages with whitewashed walls, and doors on either side marked one, two, or three, we tap for admission to a dressing-room.
Where is the fairy pathway? where the beauty?—ah! where? That long white corridor resembles some passage in a prison, and the little chambers leading off it are not very different in appearance from well-kept convict cells, yet this is the home of our actors or actresses for many hours each day.
In some country theatres the dressing-rooms are still disgraceful, and the sanitary arrangements worse.
Even in London it is only the “stars” who have an apartment to themselves. At such an excellently conducted theatre as the Haymarket, Miss Winifred Emery has to mount long flights between every act. Suppose she has to change her costume four times[Pg 276] in the play, she must ascend those stone stairs five times in the course of each evening, or, in other words, walk up two hundred and fifty steps in addition to the fatigue of acting and the worry of quick changing, while on matinée days this exertion is doubled. She is a leading lady; she has a charming little room when she reaches it, and the excitement, the applause, and the pay of a striking part to cheer her—but think of the sufferers who have the stairs without the redeeming features. An actress once told me she walked, or ran, up eight hundred steps every night during her performance.
While speaking of dressing-rooms I recall a visit I paid to Miss Geneviève Ward at the Haymarket during the run of Caste (1902). It was a matinée, and, wanting to ask that delightful woman and great actress a question, I ventured to the stage door and sent up my card.
“Miss Ward is on the stage; but I will give it to her when she comes off in four minutes,” said the stage-door-keeper.
Accordingly I waited near his room.
The allotted time went by—it is known in a theatre exactly how long each scene will take—and at the expiration of the four minutes Miss Ward’s dresser came to bid me follow her up to the lady’s room. The dresser was a nice, complacent-looking woman, l’age ordinaire, as the French would say, arrayed in a black dress and big white apron.
Miss Ward had ascended before us, and was already seated on her little sofa.
[Pg 277]
“Delighted to see you, my dear,” she exclaimed. “I have three-quarters of an hour’s wait, so I hope you will stay to cheer me up.”
How lovely she looked. Her own white hair was covered by a still whiter front wig, while added colour had given youth to her face, and the darkened eyelids made those wondrous grey orbs of hers even more striking.
“Why, you look about thirty-five,” I exclaimed, “and a veritable grande dame!”
“It is all the wimple,” she said.
“And what may that be?”
“Why, this little velvet string arrangement from my bonnet, with the bow under my chin; when you get old, my dear, you must wear a wimple too; it holds back those double, treble, a nd quadruple chins that are so annoying, and restores youth—me voilà.”
Miss Ward was first initiated into the mysteries and joys of a wimple when about to play in Becket at the Lyceum.
While we chatted she took up her knitting—being as untiring in that line as Mrs. Kendal. Miss Ward was busy making bonnets for hospital children, and during all those long hours she waited in her dressing-room, this indefatigable woman knitted for the poor. After about half an hour her dresser returned and said:
“It is time for you to dress, madame.”
“Shall I leave?” I asked.
“Certainly not—there is plenty of room for us all;” and in a moment the knitting was put aside,[Pg 278] and her elaborate blue silk garment taken off and hung on a peg between white sheets. Rapidly Miss Ward transformed herself into a sorrowing mother—a black skirt, a long black coat and bonnet were placed in readiness, when lo, the dresser, having turned everything over, exclaimed:
“I cannot see your black bodice.”
Miss Ward looked perturbed.
“I do believe I have left it at home—I went back in it last night, if you remember, because I was lazy; and forgot all about it. Never mind, no one will see the bodice is missing when I put on my cloak, if I fasten it tight up, and I must just melt inside its folds.”
But when the cloak was fastened there still appeared a decidedly décolleté neck. Time was pressing, the “call boy” might arrive at any moment. Miss Ward seized a black silk stocking, which she twirled round her neck, secured it with a jet brooch, powdered her face to make it look more doleful, and was ready in her garb of woe ere the boy knocked.
Then we went down together.
These theatrical dressers become wonderfully expert. I have seen an actress come off the stage after a big scene quite exhausted, and yet only have a few minutes before the next act. She stood in the middle of her dressing-room while we talked, and at once her attendant set to work. The great lady remained like a block. Quickly the dresser undid her neck-band, and unhooked the bodice after removing the lace, took away the folded waistband, slipped off the skirt, and[Pg 279] in a twinkling the long ball dress was over the actress’s head and being fastened behind. Her arms were slipped into the low bodice, and while she arranged the jewels or her corsage the dresser was doing her up at the back. Down sat the actress in a chair placed for her, and while she rouged more strongly to suit the gaiety of the scene, the dresser was putting feathers and ornaments into her hair, pinning a couple of little curls to her wig to hang down her neck, and just as they both finished this rapid transformation the call boy rapped.
Off went my friend.
“I shall be back in seven minutes,” she exclaimed, “so do wait, as I have fourteen minutes’ pause then.”
The dresser caught up her train and her cloak, and followed the great lady to the wings, where I saw her arranging the actress’s dress before she went on, and waiting to slip on the cloak and gloves which she was supposed in the play to come off and fetch.
A good dresser is a treasure, and that is why most people prefer their own to those provided at the theatres.
Apropos of knowing exactly how long an actor is on the stage, I may mention that Herbert Waring once invited me to tea in his dressing-room.
“At what time?” I naturally asked.
“I’ll inquire from my dresser,” was his reply. “I really don’t know when I have my longest ‘wait.’”
Accordingly a telegram arrived next day, which said “tea 4.25,” so at 4.25 I presented myself at the[Pg 280] stage door, where Mr. Waring’s man was waiting to receive me.
Others joined us. A tin tray was spread with a clean towel; as usual, the theatrical china did not match, and the spoons and the seats were insufficient, but the tea and cakes were delicious, and the rough-and-tumble means of serving them in a star’s dressing-room only in keeping with the usual arrangements of austere simplicity behind the scenes.
“What was the most amusing thing that ever happened to you on the stage?”
Mr. Waring looked perplexed.
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Nothing amusing ever happens; it is the same routine day, alas, after day, the same dressing, undressing, acting, finishing, going gleefully home, and returning next day to begin exactly the same thing over again. I must be a very dull dog, but I cannot ferret out anything ‘amusing’ from the back annals of a long theatrical career,” and up he jumped to slip on his powdered wig—which he had removed to cool his head—and away he ran to entertain his audience.
Mr. Waring’s amusing experiences, or lack of them, seem very usual in theatrical life. What a delightful man he is, and what a gentleman in all his dealings. He is always loved by the companies with whom he acts, and never makes a failure with his parts.
The most important thing in an actress’s dressing-room is her table—verily a curious sight. It is generally very large, more often than not it is composed of plain deal, daintily dressed up in muslin[Pg 281] flouncings over pink or blue calico. There seems to be a particular fashion in this line, probably because the muslin frills can go to the wash—a necessary proviso for anything connected with the theatre. In the middle usually reposes a large looking-glass, and as one particular table is in my mind’s eye, I will describe it, as it is typical of many, and belonged to a beautiful comic-opera actress.
The looking-glass was ornamented with little muslin frills and tucks, tied with dainty satin bows, on to which were pinned a series of the actress’s own photographs. These cabinet portraits formed a perfect garniture, they represented the lady in every conceivable part she had ever played, and were tied together with tiny scarlet ribbons, the foot of one being fixed to the head of the next. The large mirror over the fireplace—for she was a star and had a fireplace—was similarly ornamented, so was the cheval glass, and above the chimneypiece was a complete screen composed of another set of her own photographs from another piece. These had to stand up, so the little red bows which fixed them went from side to side, by which means they stood along the board zig-zag fashion, like a miniature screen, without tumbling down. She was not in the least egotistical, it was simply the craze for photographs, which all theatrical folk seem to have, carried a little further than usual, and in her own dressing-room she essayed to have her own photographs galore. As she was very pretty and many of the costumes charming, she showed her good taste.
[Pg 282]
In front of the looking-glass was a large pincushion stuffed with a multiplication of pins of every shape and size, endless hat-pins, safety-pins, and little brooches, in fact, a supply sufficient to pin everything on to her person that exigency might require. There were large pots of powder, flat tablets of rouge, hares’ feet, for putting on the rouge, fine black pencils for darkening eyes, blue chalk pencils for lining the lids, wonderful cherry-red arrangements for painting Cupid’s lips, for even people with large mouths can by deft artistic treatment be made to appear to have small ones. There were bottles of white liquid for hands and neck, because it is more important, of course, to paint the hands than the face, otherwise they are apt to look appallingly red or dirty behind the footlights.
There were two barber’s blocks on which stood the wigs for the respective acts, since it is much quicker and less trouble to put on a wig than adjust one’s hair, and probably no one, except Mrs. Kendal, has ever gone through an entire theatrical career and only twice donned a wig.
Of course there were endless powders as well as perfumes of every sort and kind. There were hand-mirrors and three-fold mirrors, and electric light that could be moved about, for it is important to look well from all sides when trotting about the stage.
Theatrical dressing-rooms are so small that the dressing-table is their chief feature, and if there be room for a sofa or arm-chair, they are accounted luxurious.
All the costumes, as a rule, are hung against the[Pg 283] wall, which is first covered with a calico sheet, then each dress is hung on its own peg, over which other calico sheets fall. This does not crush them, keeps all clean, and avoids creases; nevertheless, the most brilliant theatrical costumes look like a series of melancholy ghosts when not............