Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/My neighbour at the theatre
MY NEIGHBOUR AT THE THEATRE.
I have a grievance, one of old standing too, and it is a wonder therefore that I have not long ere this rushed into print with the true British feeling that a course of letter-press is the only system of blood-letting applicable to such a case. A “letter to the ‘Times’” has many a time arrested a fever, if indeed it has not in some instances prevented a suicide. Pray let me therefore vent my feelings this once, and consider that in reading my grumblings you may have warded off from me an attack of brain-fever. My grievance is this; I can’t, that is, I am not allowed, to enjoy the theatres as I would. I am an old playgoer. I was brought up from my early childhood to believe in theatrical amusements, both my parents having been enthusiastic admirers of this kind of entertainment, and intense believers in Edmund Kean, the Kembles, and other celebrities of their day. Do I not remember how often I have heard them speak of going twenty nights in succession to see Grimaldi in the pantomime of “Mother Goose,” the first pantomime, as I have been told, which had a comic opening? But all this by the way—I speak of my theatrical experiences, not of those of my forefathers! I have stated my grievance to be, that, with a strong predisposition for the drama, I am not allowed to enjoy it, and why? Why, because I am always annoyed by my neighbour! Now I speak from an experience of a good many years, during several of which I was a constant attendant at the different theatres from pure love of the thing, and during the last few years of which I have been equally assiduous in my visits from severe compulsion, having been engaged to “do” the theatres for a weekly paper of great celebrity and increasing circulation. Throughout the whole period, however, I can safely say that two out of three of my evenings, so far as enjoyment goes, have been marred by my neighbour. Are all theatre-goers equally afflicted, or is it a special ban upon me? My tormentors assume manifold forms of annoyance; so manifold, indeed, that I do not expect to be able to recollect each of the varieties, but pray bear in mind that, of each form I am going to instance, I have met with repeated examples. I go to see a favourite actor, Fechter or Charles Kean, in one of Shakspeare’s tragedies. I go early, and find myself seated next to an old gentleman evidently a devout admirer of the immortal bard, and well up in all the different readings of particular passages adopted by actors of my day, and also those of his younger days. Thinks I to myself, well, I am in luck to-night at all events, especially when the old gentleman says, “Now, young man, recollect, if you please, that, though it gives me great pleasure to chat with you before the curtain goes up, and the more so as I find you really seem to understand something about Shakspeare, and the way his text ought to be rendered, it will annoy me excessively if you make any remarks to me after the curtain is once up, till the act-drop descends.” I hasten of course to assure the old gentleman that his sentiments upon this point are in exact accordance with mine, and we are thereupon great friends. We are in the dress-circle, the curtain rises, and all is rapt attention for the first scene of “Hamlet,” which, as the Ghost appears almost immediately, soon becomes very exciting. While the two soldiers are speaking, I look with some uneasiness at four empty seats next to me, feeling sure that the “party” will arrive late, and in the midst of an interesting speech. The Ghost, however, arrives before them, and the whole scene passes off, with those benches yet remaining vacant. I begin to nourish a hope that they will remain so. Scene II. Enter the King, Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, &c., &c. The King’s long introductory speech over, he reaches at length the words:
Ham.“But now, my Cousin Hamlet and my son,”
Ham. “A little more than kin, and less than kind.”
Ham. “A little more than kin, and less than k[Aside.
Box-keeper—Party for box 12, four seats in the front row.—[Bang, bang, go the seats]—Will you take a book of the play, sir?
Paterfamilias—Book of the play, let’s see; let’s see; no, no, got it in my library at home. Now Jane, you come and sit next me.
Jane—Oh, no, Pa; I think Tom would rather be next you.
The old Gentleman—Hush, hush!
Myself—Hush, hush, hush!
People in next box—Silence there.
Paterfamilias and Co. look rather frightened; soon, however, younger branches seem to recover, and when Mr. Kean is commencing:
“Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt.”
The son inquires of his papa, quite audibly:
“Who is that short gentleman in black velvet, Pa?”
His Papa whispers to him that he’s not sure, but he’ll look at the bill, a reference to which enables him to inform his son that it is Polonius!
But I need not carry the agonies of this performance further; you will of course understand that the same kind of criticism is carried on through the five acts. I should mention, however, that when, after the end of the scene between the Queen and Hamlet, in the third act, Paterfamilias announces in an authoritative tone to his family, “That he isn’t sure, after all, whether that fellow isn’t Hamlet himself,—”
“My friend!” the old gentleman, jumps up, exclaiming, “I can’t stand this any longer!” and after wishing me a hurried good-night, rushes out of the theatre.
Sometimes I get for a neighbour, a fellow who is the very antipodes of Paterfamilias; that is, knows all the actors and actresses too well, informing the people around him (albeit, perfect strangers to him):—
“Ah, ah, there’s Teddy Wright; what a chap he is, and there’s Sarah Jane!”
“Who, may I ask, is Sarah Jane?” inquires a staid-looking individual.
“Oh, why, Miss Woolgar, to be sure; everyone calls her Sarah Jane.”
And so on, down to the man who brings in a message; even he is known by his Christian name.
Now, I ask, is this sort of neighbour not irritating? But I haven’t nearly done yet. There is, (and this neighbour is a particular aversion of mine) the man or woman who sits next you, and has a method of laughing, the effect of which is a “hiss,” so like it that I have, on several occasions, heard an indignant audience insist upon an individual being “turned out,” who was enjoying the performance quite as much as themselves, but suffered from this unfortunate mode of expressing his or her enjoyment. Closely allied to this is another class of people, who, at every smart saying or bit of repartee in a farce, emit a “cluck, cluck” with their tongue against the roof of the mouth, which, if I had to endure it for longer than an hour or so at a stretch, would inevitably send me into an asylum.
Another case or two, and I think I have adduced sufficient instances to show that I have been in the matter of theatrical amusements a thorough martyr. I go to hear a favourite opera; my fate places me either next a person who has never heard the opera before, but has a book of it, which he studies carefully, and as each air comes on, interrupts my enjoyment of it to ask me to point out, in his book, “where they are now;” or, I am planted in the upper-boxes next a fellow “with a voice” who knows all the airs, and sings them in an undertone, with the performers. Again, I go to see a burlesque, which has made a great sensation, the points and hits at passing events of the day are so telling and so plentiful. My usual luck attends me here, too. I sit next an habitué of the theatres, whom I know slightly; but he has, poor man, a friend from the country with him, who, being unaccustomed to this sort of thing, fails to catch the points and allusions, and at each burst of laughter from the audience, you hear him: “Eh, what; what was that? I didn’t quite catch that; what did he say?” Anon, I go to see a three-act drama of “thrilling interest,” my immediate neighbour has a book; his immediate neighbour (a stranger to him) hasn’t a book, and presumes on that urbanity which marks the British play-goer to ask my neighbour, every five minutes, if he will allow him to look at his book “just for a moment only—a moment, very sorry to trouble him indeed. Let’s see, where is it? Oh, here, yes; thank you. Rather complicated the plot;—don’t you think so, sir?”
I, unfortunately, have an opera glass, so my next but one neighbour, in the intervals, during which he thinks fit to allow the rightful owner of the book to have possession of it, leans across him to me and borrows my glass, just to see “whether that isn’t a friend of his on the other side of the house;” and having satisfied himself that it isn’t, first stares right and left, and then quietly returns it with neither apology nor thanks.
Again, I once went to see Madame Ristori in “Adrienne Lecouvreur.” I did not dream of feeling my usual annoyances on such an occasion as this, the theatre being small, and the sort of performances appealing only to the sympathies of a limited circle, and that circle one of superior breeding and intelligence; but vain hope,—the curtain had not been up two minutes before I found I was oppressed by my usual bugbear. Two ladies sat in the stalls next to me, the one with a “book of the play” in her hand, in Italian and English, from which she read the play to her friend, in the vernacular, as it proceeded.
Now, I have no doubt, these two ladies, on their return home, were enthusiastic in their criticism of Madame Ristori’s delineation of the character she represented, but seeing that their undivided attention was given to the book during the whole performance, it does seem to me that they might have enjoyed the play quite as much by reading it at home; and, I may add, the arrangement would have been considerably more satisfactory to me.
I had nearly forgotten another bête noire of mine at the theatre, from whom I very often suffer. This is an individual who, at a farce, burlesque or pantomime, never allows the faintest smile to pass over his face. I do not know why, but a man of this “genus” exercises a sort of serpent-like fascination over me, so that, though I loathe him, I cannot restrain myself from constantly watching him, and at each sally which sets the house in a roar, I find myself turning round to look at the brute to see if he has been able to withstand that last joke, and there behold him with the same stolid look either of perfect indifference, or pity for the poor idiots who can be amused with such childish nonsense! Now this sort of fellow spoils my evening completely. I get restless and uncomfortable; why doesn’t he go away instead of remaining to look so martyrified?—why does he stop and make me nervous? This last instance, however (for I really must make an end of my grumblings), has fairly exhausted my patience, and probably that of my readers also: but I think I have made out a case, if not for legislative interference, at all events for the sympathies of a British public in favour of a poor playgoer.