The representations of these strolling actors, FitzGerald tells us, took place sometimes in a coach-house or barn, or sometimes in a room of an inn; even the open inn-yard, with its galleries running round, was now and then converted into a theatre. All sorts of old clothes and decorations were borrowed, a few candles stuck in bottles in front, and then the play began. Very often the proceeds did not cover expenses, and either debts were made or the owner of the inn let them go scot-free in consideration of the amusement they had afforded his guests.
The shifts and tribulations, related later by the Kembles themselves, seem almost incredible. Stephen Kemble, the wittiest of the family, described with great humour a season of privation in a wretched village, where the unfortunate actors could not muster a farthing, and were in consequence dunned and abused by their landladies. To avoid their persecution he lay in bed two days, suffering the pangs of hunger, and then was obliged to take refuge in a distant turnip-field, where he persuaded a fellow-actor to accompany him by boasting of the hospitality and size of the establishment.
In one town the theatre was said to have been built, the stage in Sussex, the audience in Kent, the two being divided by a ditch, so as to enable the players to evade their bailiffs by escaping into another county. There is a certain humour and tragedy running through all these theatrical histories, that makes us laugh at one moment at the comical incidents related, and makes us sad the next to think of men of talent—often men of genius—being subjected to such degradation.
It is difficult to understand how Sarah and John
