More Anecdotes of tii« heatre '^ ^>- c -l;-' /9/^/ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 079 583 765 The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924079583765 A TVTT7r^r»r\T'rro — — — Uniform with this Volume ANECDOTES OF PULPIT AND PARISH COLLECTED AND ABRANGKD BY ARTHUR H. ENGELBAOH "Nearly a thousand good stories." Pall Mall Gazette. " Abundant and well selected, contains a fund of wit and humour." Evening^ Standard. "An excellent book for whiling away an hour at any time." Sunday Times. ANECDOTES OF THE THEATRE COLLECTED AND ABBANGBD BY ARTHUR H. ENGELBAGH AUTHOR OF "ANKODOTER OF BENCH AND BAR" t LONDON GRANT RICHARDS LTD. PUBLISHERS PRINTED BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED EDINBURGH 1914 ANECDOTES OF THE THEATRE GOOD story is told of a rich banker at Paris, A who, though a sexagenarian, fancied himself a perfect Adonis, and was always behind the scenes, hanging about and making love to Mademoiselle Saulnice, to whom the machinist of the Opera House was paying his addresses. Determined to be re- venged, and profiting by the moment when his rival, in uttering soft nonsense, had inadvertently placed his foot upon a cloud, the machinist gave a whistle, which was the signal for raising the cloud. When the curtain was drawn up the audience were not a little edified at seeing the banker, with powdered head, and gorgeously attired in evening costume, embroidered coat and waistcoat, ascending to the clouds by the side of Minerva, represented by the object of his devotion. UPON another occasion, in the days of pigtails, when an elderly gentleman, with French gallantry, was stooping down to present an actress with a bouquet and kiss her hand, she was suddenly told the stage was waiting ; off she ran, and appeared before the audience unconscious that her aged " ;: 2 ANECDOTES OF THE THEATRE admirer's wig had fallen off and clung to the spangles of her dress. Loud was the laughter of those in front, and louder still was it when the bald-headed victim appeared at the wing shorn of his capillary ornament. THE following bon mot is ascribed to Compton. Meeting a fiiend one day when the weather had taken a most sudden and unaccountable turn from cold to warmth, the subject was mooted as usual, and characterised by the gentleman as being "most extraordinary." "Yes," replied Compton " it is a most unheard-of thing. We've jumped from winter into summer without a spring." ONE morning Compton and Douglas Jerrold proceeded together to view the pictures in the " Gallery of Illustrations." On entering the ante- room they found themselves opposite to a nvmiber of very long looking-glasses. Pausing before one " of these, Compton remarked to Jerrold : You've come here to admire works of art ! Very w eU ; first feast yovir eyes on that work of nature ! " pointing to his own figure reflected in the glass. " Look at it " " there's a picture for you ! Yes," repHed Jerrold, " " regarding it intently ; very fine, very fine indeed ! " Then, turning to his friend : Wants hanging, though ! QUICK and free from the slightest taint of ill nature was Jerrold' s remark about the affec- tionate letters written from America by an actor who had left his wife in London witliout money, and who — ANECDOTES OF THE THEATRE 3 ' " had never sent her any. ' What kindness ! he said aloud, with strong emphasis, when one of the letters was read aloud in the green-room of the Haymarket. " " Kindness ! ejaculated one of the actresses in- dignantly, " when he never sends the poor woman a penny?" "Yes," said Jerrold '' unremittihg kindness." BARHAM records a story of King, the actor, who, meeting an old friend, whose name he could not recollect, took him home to dinner. By way of making the discovery, he addressed him in the evening, having previously made several in- " effectual efforts : My dear sir, my friend here and myself have had a dispute as to how you spell your name; indeed, we have wagered a bottle of wine upon it." " Oh, with two P's," was the answer, which left them no wiser than before. STORY is told of a somewhat pompous A announcement, at one of Foote's dinner- parties, when the Drury Lane manager was among " " the guests, on the arrival of Mr Garrick's servants ; " whereupon : Oh, let them wait," cried the wit, add- ing in an affected undertone to his own servant, " but sufficiently loud to be generally heard : But, James, be sure you lock up the pantry." COMPTON had a wholesome horror of amateur actors, and on one occasion, when an egotis- tical young gentleman buttonholed him to discant on acting, he administered an unmistakable reproof s 4 ANECDOTES OF THE THEATRE " to the presumptuous one. I am anxious to become a professional now," said the young man, "for I always get splendid notices, and all my friends think I should make a great hit." "What line?" in- quired Compton. "Well," smiled the youth, "I play all the funny parts, but I don't succeed in mak- ing my audience laugh heartily. I want to make them scream as you do—to make the house ring with laughter, in fact." "Ah," dryly replied " Compton, change your line of character a bit ; try Hamlet, and let me know how you succeed." THE late Sir Henry Irving delighted in telling the following story of Compton. " I shall never forget," said Irving, " the speech which he made on the first hundredth night of Hamlet, when, after the performance, the event was celebrated by a supper, given by my dear friend, IVIr Bateman, at which a number of our friends and associates were present. Mr Compton was then playing nightly the character of Sam Savory, in the farce of The Fish out of Water. This farce had preceded Hamlet one hundred nights, and he took occasion to impress this fact upon us in the following way. We were all in high spirits. Mr Bateman' s health, Mr Compton' and my own were drunk amidst enthusiasm and jocularity. Compton, with his pecuUar gravity, ended the reply to the toast Avitli which, he was ' associated somewhat after this fashion : Thank you, gentlemen, for your appreciation of my efforts in that immortal drama, The Fi^h out of Water. I take this opportunity of thanking my friend Irving " ANECDOTES OF THE THEATRE 5 for the really indefatigable support which he has given me in that agreeable little trifle of Hamlet with which, as you know, we are in the habit of winding up the evening.' The burst of laughter which greeted this, I shall ever remember." " FANNY KEMBLE says in her Memoirs : When I was acting Lady Townley, in the scene where her husband complains of her late hours, ' and she insolently retorts : I won't come home till four to-morrow morning,' and receives the startling ' reply with which Lord Townley leaves her : Then, madam, you shall never come home again,' I was apt to stand for a moment aghast at this threat ; and one night, during this pause of breathless dismay, one of the gallery auditors, thinking, I suppose, that I was wanting in proper spirit not to make some ' ! rejoinder, exclaimed : Now then, Fanny ' which very nearly upset the gravity produced by my father's impressive exit, both in me and in the audience. CHARLES KEMBLE used to tell a story about some poor foreigner, dancer or panto- mimist in the country, who, after many annual attempts to clear his expenses, came forward one evening,* with a face beaming with pleasure and gratitude, and addressed the audience in these " worids : Dear public ! moche obUge. Ver good again." benefice—only lose half-a-crown—^I come 6 ANECDOTES OF THE THEATRE THE late Mr Charles Mathews related that on one occasion, in The Critic, the gentleman who had rehearsed Lord Burleigh's part in the morning was missing at night. " Send in anybody," said the stage manager. The "anybody" was found, dressed, and the book put into his hands. " He read the stage direction : Enter Lord Burleigh, " bows to Dangle, shakes his head, and exits." Any- body " did enter, bowed to Dangle, shook his (Dangle's) head, and made his exit. CYRIL MAUDE tells a good story of theatrical " spoof." " On one occasion," he writes, "we were rummaging in some of the old HajTnarket boxes in search of some old records when, at the bottom of one, we came upon some very ancient music in manuscript, upon which Time had laid so heavy a hand that it crumbled to pieces when we touched it. Our stage manager was struck with an idea, and so, picking out one of these pieces, he sent it to be carefully framed. A couple of days after he went to our musical director with a face upon which was nothing but solemnity, and informed him that, knowing him to be a lover of musical curiosities, he would be glad to hear that he had come across an original piece of Beethoven's music, which was for sale at the extremely low price of half-a-guinea. Our enthusiastic musical director would not rest until he had seen the treasure, which he instantly purchased, declaring it to be an undoubted specimen of the great master's original work. He was not particularly pleased to learn a few days later that it ANECDOTES OF THE THEATRE 7 was a piece of an old band part used in the younger Colman's day.