Like most great movements in art, it had but a modest beginning. On a memorable day one of my brothers was looking in the window of a little toy-shop when he discovered some of those fascinating sheets of characters to which Stevenson has devoted a charming essay. He happened to have money in his pocket (it was indeed a memorable day), and he brought home his treasure-trove with the air of a capitalist who has made a wise investment. Schoolroom society approved his enterprise with enthusiasm. We knew nothing about “The Woodman’s Hut,” the play to which the characters in question belonged; it was enough for us that these figures of men and women were clearly messengers from the Land of Romance, and their mysterious attitudes only added to the interest with which we regarded p. 42them. We got out our paint-boxes, and, as unconsciously we were all Post-Impressionists, we soon made them more mysterious still.
It will be remembered that Stevenson remained satisfied with this, which might be regarded as the costumier’s work of the model theatre, but we were more ambitious. Our first theatre was a small packing-case without any sides, and in this our characters, mounted on cardboard and supplied with firewood supports, were quite contented to display their red legs and green bodies. Our scenery was indicated rather than drawn on brown paper with coloured chalks, and would, I think, have pleased Mr. Gordon Craig. Two Christmas-tree candles served for footlights, and, though we had no book of the words, we made them up as we went along, and did very well. It was strange how great a measure of illusion we achieved, although we ourselves moved the puppets and spoke their lines. The candles threw queer shadows across our faces, and it seemed as though deeper voices than ours echoed in the room. We were always being p. 43astonished by the eerie products of our own imagination when we were merely trying to amuse ourselves; and the effect of our dramatic efforts was quite remote from anything that we had intended. I understand that older dramatists sometimes experience the same phenomenon.
Our activities could not long escape the criticism of the grown-up people; but rather to our surprise, for candles were quite illicit playthings, they contented themselves with a general caution as to the perils of fire, and a particular injunction concerning the dropping of candle-grease on the tablecloth. So we played with our theatre till Christmas, by which time the members of our stock company were more than a little battered and weary at the knees. Then there came a surprise. Included in the number of our presents were a little theatre with a real curtain that went up and down, and materials for three complete productions. This time we had not only the characters, but the books of words and scenery as well, and we prepared to do things on an unprecedented scale. As a result, after p. 44extraordinary labour in the scenic and costume departments, we were able to produce, on three successive nights, “Paul Clifford,” “The Corsican Brothers,” and “The Miller and his Men.” The repertory theatre was fairly under way.
First-nights were really thrilling in those days. The dignified deportment of our actors, as yet unspoiled by success, roused the audience to enthusiasm, and we did not weary of admiring simple stage effects that would have moved us to scornful laughter in after-days. Yet even in these early productions there lurked the seeds of artistic disruption. Already our appreciation of the gallant bearing of Paul Clifford passed all reasonable bounds, and threatened to develop into that hero-worship that proves fatal to the talents of any actor. Already we had an unwholesome craving for excessive realism in the staging of plays, and we made use of the ingenuity of our elders to drive Grindoff’s sinister windmill in the first act of “The Miller and his Men.” It might be said that our theatre, qua repertory theatre, was doomed from the start.
p. 45Nevertheless, at least two seasons of good work were accomplished before our morbid imitation of Nature and the illimitable egotism of Paul Clifford finally succeeded in driving art from the stage. During that period we produced about fifteen new plays, and gave a large number of one-night revivals. Our repertory ranged from “Hamlet” to “Dick Whittington,” and I think one pleased us as much as the other. This would have been more remarkable if Paul Clifford had not played the title-part in both plays. We had soon come to prefer him to any other of the heroes, and in consequence, whatever the play might be, he was bound to be there in his riding-boots and handsome yellow satin coat. This would have been well enough if he had been willing to keep his place, but he soon became as ubiquitous as an actor-manager. Owing to the number of r?les that he was called upon to fill, we had his pasteboard presentment in a hundred different attitudes, and on one occasion when a stage-crowd was required it was entirely composed of Paul Cliffords, and even then there were rows of p. 46forlorn Paul Cliffords in the wings for whom there was no room on the stage. This was the beginning of the end. We suffered from the worst excesses of the star system; we began to be discontented when Paul was not on the stage, and we were prepared to boo if that dashing highwayman was not permitted to bluster across the most subtle dramas.
About this time we deserted the old theatre that had been the scene of so many triumphs for a larger and far more elaborate one. We had long had gas footlights, but now our system of lighting was intricate enough to suit Mr. Arthur Collins. Indeed, when, years afterwards, I was allowed to explore the stage of Drury Lane, I found nothing to surprise me, save, perhaps, the electric switchboard, with its pretty display of diminutive electric lights. Our scenic sensations were only surpassed by those of Mr. Bruce Smith. When we played a dramatisation of “Hard Cash,” the scuttled vessel sank in a sea of real water. The fountains in our Garden of Enchantment flung scented torrents into their moss-clad basins; and p. 47when we sought to reproduce a burning house we succeeded in setting the theatre on fire.
It will be understood that by that time we had come to rely on the grown-up people for assistance in producing plays, and we had substituted their perverted adult taste for our juvenile conceptions of drama. The old plays, with their homely characters and dignified simplicity of setting, no longer pleased us. We craved for a debauch of Paul Clifford, and every new production had to be more elaborate in its insentient mimicry of life than the one before. The inevitable happened. The more our stage-setting approximated to Nature, and the more Paul pirouetted in the limelight, the less we attained to that illusion which had been so easy to achieve on a packing-case stage with two little coloured candles for footlights. There came a day when Paul no longer interested us, and we felt that we had exhausted the possibilities of the sensational. The theatre was closed, and when, many months afterwards, a vague curiosity led us to ask what had become of it, we p. 48learnt with but little regret that our elders had given it away to some little boy whose taste in drama was as yet unsophisticated. I wonder what he made of our real sea and our practicable fountains!
Not very long ago I was turning over some old books, when a small piece of cardboard slipped from between the pages and fell to the ground. It was in the likeness of a man, a man dressed in riding-boots and yellow satin; yet it was some moments before I realised that I was in the presence of the once great Paul Clifford. With recognition came something like remorse. It was no more than just to forgive his faults after so many years, and he really was a very good actor until an excess of praise turned his little pasteboard head.
I looked round the library, and after due consideration took a volume of the Laureate’s poems from the shelves, and laid the tired highwayman to rest between its pages.
“Sleep on, brave Paul!” I said softly. “No one will ever disturb you there.”
And now I have written his epitaph.