Read Ebook: Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections by Morris Clara

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1255 lines and 129140 words, and 26 pages

At last, on that opening night, we were all gathered ready for our first entrance and dance, which followed a few moments after the incident I have described. The tall girl had a queer look on her face as she stood in her place--her cue came, but she never moved.

I heard the rushing footsteps of the stage-manager: "That's you!" he shouted; "go on! go on, run!"

"Are you going on?" cried the frantic prompter.

She dropped her arms limply at her sides and whispered: "I--I--c-a-n-t!"

He turned, and as he ran his imploring eye over the line of faces, each girl shrank back from it. He reached me--I had no fear, and he saw it. "Can you go on there?" he cried. I nodded. "Then for God's sake go!"

I gave a bound and a rush that carried me half, across the stage before the manager caught me--and so I made my entrance on the stage, and danced and marched and sang with the rest, and all unconsciously took my first step upon the path that I was to follow through shadow and through sunshine--to follow by steep and stony places, over threatening bogs, through green and pleasant meadows--to follow steadily and faithfully for many and many a year to come.

On our first salary day, to the surprise of all concerned, I did not go to claim my week's pay. To everyone who spoke to me of the matter, I simply answered: "Oh, that will be all right." When the second day came I was the last to present myself at the box-office window. Mr. Ellsler was there and he opened the door and asked me to come in. As I signed my name on the salary list I hesitated perceptibly and he laughingly said: "Don't you know your own name?" Now on the first day of all, when the stage-manager had taken down our names, I had been gazing at the scenery and when he called out: "Little girl, what is your name?" I had not heard, and someone standing by had said: "Her name is Clara--Clara Morris, or Morrisey, or Morrison, or something like that," and he dropped the last syllable from my name Morrison, and wrote me down Morris; so when Mr. Ellsler put his question, "Don't you know your name?" that was certainly the moment when I should have spoken--but I was too shy, and there and thereafter held my peace, and have been in consequence Clara Morris ever since.

I having signed for and received my two weeks' salary, Mr. Ellsler asked why I had not come the week before, and I told him I preferred to wait because it would seem so much more if I got both weeks' salary all at one time. And he gravely nodded and said "it was rather a large sum to have in hand at one time"--and, though I was very sensitive to ridicule, I did not suspect him of making fun of me.

Then he said: "You are a very intelligent little girl, and when you went on alone and unrehearsed the other night you proved you had both adaptability and courage. I'd like to keep you in the theatre. Will you come and be a regular member of the company for the season that begins in September next?"

I think it must have been my ears that finally stopped my ever-widening smile while I made answer that I must ask my mother first.

"To be sure," said he, "to be sure! Well, suppose you ask her, then, and let me know whether you can or not."

Looking back and speaking calmly, I must admit that I do not now believe that Mr. Ellsler's financial future depended entirely upon the yes or no of my mother and myself; but that I was on an errand of life or death everyone must have thought who saw me tearing through the streets on that 90-in-the-shade summer day, racing along in a whirl of short skirts, with the boyish, self-kicking gait peculiar to running girls of thirteen.

One man, a tailor, ran out hatless and coatless and looked up the street anxiously in the direction from which I came. A big boy on the corner yelled after me: "S-a-a-y, Sis, where's the fire?" but you see they did not know that I was carrying home my first earnings--that I was clutching six damp one-dollar bills in the hands that had been so empty all my life! Poor little hands that had never held a greater sum than one big Canadian penny, that had never held a dollar bill till they had first earned it. But if the boy was blind to what I held, so was I blind to what the future held--which made us equal.

I had meant to take off my hat and smooth my hair, and in a decorous and proper manner approach my mother and deliver my nice little speech, and then hand her the money. But, alas! as I rushed into the house I came upon her unexpectedly--for, fearing dinner was going to be late, she was hurrying things by shelling a great basket of peas as she sat by the dining-room window. At sight of her tired face, all my nicely planned speech disappeared. I flung my arm about her neck, dropped the bills on top of the empty pods, and cried with beautiful lucidity: "Oh, mother! that's mine--and it's all yours!"

She kissed me, but to my grieved amazement put the money back into my hand, folding my four stiff, unwilling fingers over it, as she said: "No, you have earned this money yourself--you are the only one who has the right to use it--you are to do with it exactly as you please."

And while tears of disappointment were yet swimming in my eyes, triumph sprang up in my heart at her last words; for if I could do exactly as I pleased, why, after all, she should have the new summer dress she needed so badly. So I took the money to our room, and having secreted it in the most intricate and involved manner I could think of, I returned and laid Mr. Ellsler's offer before my mother, who at first hesitated, but learning that Mrs. Bradshaw was engaged for another season, she finally consented, and I rushed back to the theatre, where, red and hot and out of breath, I was engaged for the ballet for the next season. After this I was conscious of a new feeling, which I would have found it very hard to explain then. It was not importance, it was not vanity, it was a pleasant feeling, it lifted the head and gave one patience to bear calmly many things that had been very hard to bear. I know now it was the self-respect that comes to everyone who is a bread-winner.

Directly after breakfast next day I was off to get my mother's dress. I went quite alone, and my head was well in the air; for this was indeed an important occasion. I looked long and felt gravely at the edges of the goods, I did not know what for, but I had seen other people do it, and when my lavender-flowered muslin was cut off, done up and paid for, I found quite a large hole in my six dollars; for it was war time, and anything made of cotton cost a dreadful price. But, good Heaven! how happy I was, and how proud that I should get a dress for my mother, instead of her getting one for me! Undoubtedly, had there been a fire just then, I would have risked my life to save that flowered muslin gown.

I had not been more than two or three days in the theatre when I discovered that its people seemed to be divided into two distinct parties--the guyers and the guyed--those who laughed and those who were laughed at. All my life I have had a horror of practical joking, and I very quickly decided I would not be among the guyed. I had borrowed many of Mrs. Bradshaw's play books to read, and often found in the directions for costumes the old word "ibid." "Count Rudolph--black velvet doublet, hose and short cloak. Count Adolph, ibid." So when the property-man, an incorrigible joker, asked me to go home and borrow Mrs. Bradshaw's ibid for him, I simply looked at him and smiled a broad, silent smile and never moved a peg. He gave me a sharp look, then affecting great anger at my laziness, he wrote a request for an ibid and gave it to the fattest girl in the crowd, and she carried it to Mrs. Bradshaw, who wrote on it that her ibid was at Mrs. Dickson's, and the fat girl went to Mrs. Dickson's, who said she had lent it to Mr. Lewis--so the poor fat goose was kept waddling through the heat, from one place to another, until she was half dead, to the great enjoyment of the property-man.

Next day he was very busy, when, glancing up, he saw me looking on at his work. Instantly he caught up a bottle, and said: "Run upstairs to the paint-frame and ask the painter to put a little ad-libitum in this bottle for me--there's a good girl!"

Now I did not yet know what ad-libitum meant, but I was a very close observer, and I saw the same malicious twinkle in his eye that had shone there when he had sent the fat girl on her hot journey, and once more I slowly chewed my gum, and smiled my wide, unbelieving smile. He waited a moment, but as I did not touch the bottle he tossed it aside, saying: "What a suspicious little devil you are!"

And from that day to this I have been free from the attacks of the practical joker.

The Regular Season Opens--I have a Small Part to Play--I am among Lovers of Shakespeare--I too Stand at his Knee and Fall under the Charm.

Up to this time the only world I had known had been narrow and sordid and lay chill under the shadow of poverty; and it is sunlight that makes the earth smile into flower and fruit and laugh aloud through the throats of birds. But now, standing humbly at the knee of Shakespeare, I began to learn something of another world--fairy-like in fascination, marvellous in reality. A world of sunny days and jewelled nights, of splendid palaces, caves of horror, forests of mystery, and meadows of smiling candor. All peopled, too, with such soldiers, statesmen, lovers, clowns, such women of splendid chill chastity, fierce ambition, thistle-down lightness, and burning, tragic love as made the heart beat fast to think of.

At that time Forrest, crowned and wrapped in royal robes, was yet tottering on his throne. Charlotte Cushman was the Tragic Queen of the stage. Mr. James Murdoch, frail and aging, but still acting, was highly esteemed. Joseph Jefferson, E. L. Davenport, J. K. Hackett, Edwin Adams, John E. Owens, Dan. Setchell, Peter Richings and his daughter Caroline, Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Miss Lucille Western, Miss Maggie Mitchell, Mr. and Mrs. Conway, Matilda Heron, Charles Couldock, Joseph Proctor, Mr. and Mrs. Albaugh, Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, the Webb Sisters, Kate Reynolds, were all great favorites, not pausing to mention many more, while Edwin Booth, the greatest light of all, was rising in golden glory in the East.

Of the above-mentioned twenty-eight stars, eighteen acted in Shakespeare's plays. All stars played a week's engagement--many played two weeks, therefore at least twenty-four of our forty-two week season was given over to Shakespearean productions, and every actor and actress had the Bard at their tongue's tip.

In the far past the great disgrace of our profession was the inebriety of its men. At the time I write of, the severity of the managers had nearly eradicated the terrible habit, and I never saw but two of that class of brilliant actor-drunkards, beloved of newspaper story writers, who made too much of their absurd vagaries.

Looking back to the actors of '65, I can't help noticing the difference between their attitude of mind toward their profession, and that of the actor of to-day. Salaries were much smaller then, work was harder, but life was simpler. The actor had no social standing; he was no longer looked down upon, but he was an unknown quantity; he was, in short, an actor pure and simple. He had enthusiasm for his profession--he lived to act, not merely living by acting. He had more superstition than religion, and no politics at all; but he was patriotic and shouldered his gun and marched away in the ranks as cheerfully as any other citizen soldier.

They are sober, they are honest, they are generous, but they seem to have grown utterly flippant, and I can't help wondering if this alteration can have come about through the change in their mental pabulum.

At all events, as I watched and listened in the old days, it seemed to me they were never weary of discussing readings, expressions, emphasis, and action. One would remark, say at a rehearsal of "Hamlet," that Macready gave a certain line in this manner, and another would instantly express a preference for a Forrest--or a Davenport--rendering, and then the argument would be on, and only a call to the stage would end the weighing of words, the placing of commas, etc.

I well remember my first step into theatrical controversy. "Macbeth" was being rehearsed, and the star had just exclaimed: "Hang out our banners on the outward walls!" That was enough--argument was on. It grew animated. Some were for: "Hang out our banners! on the outward walls the cry is still: they come!" while one or two were with the star's reading.

I stood listening and looking on and fairly sizzling with hot desire to speak, but dared not take the liberty, I stood in such awe of my elders. Presently the "old-man" turned and, noticing my eagerness, laughingly said: "Well, what is it, Clara? you'll have a fit if you don't ease your mind with speech."

"Where it ought to be," interpolated the old gentleman, who was English.

"So," I went on, "don't you think it ought to be read: 'Hang out our banners! on the outward walls'--the outward walls, you know, is where the lookout are standing--'the cry--is still, they come!'"

A general laugh followed my excited explanation, but Uncle Dick patted me very kindly on the shoulder, and said: "Good girl! you stick to your picture--it's right and so are you. Many people read the line that way, but you have worked it out for yourself, and that's a good plan to follow."

A sharp "ahem!" right at my shoulder told me I had been overheard, and I turned to face--oh, horror! the stage-manager. He glared angrily at me, and began: "Since when have the ladies of the ballet taken to criticising the work of the stars?"

Humbly enough, I said: "I beg your pardon, sir, I was just talking to myself, that was all."

He looked at me in dead silence for a few moments, then he said: "Humph!" and walked away, while I rushed to the dressing-room and cried and cried, and vowed that never, never again would I talk to myself--in the theatre at all events. I mention these incidents to show how quickly I came under the influence of these Shakespeare-studying men and women, some of whom had received their very adequate education from him alone.

It was odd to hear how they used his words and expressions in their daily conversation. 'Twas not so much quoting him intentionally, as it was an unconscious incorporation into their own language of Shakespeare's lines.

Tramps were to them almost always "vagrom men." When one did some very foolish thing, he almost surely begged to be "written down an ass." The appearance of a pretty actress in her new spring or fall gown was as surely hailed with: "The riches of the ship have come on shore!"

I saw a pet dog break for the third time from restraint to follow his master, who put his hand on the animal's head and rather worriedly remarked: "'The love that follows us sometimes is our trouble--which still'" "'we thank as love!' But you'll have to go back, old fellow, all the same." If someone obliged you, and you expressed the fear that you had given him trouble, he would be absolutely certain to reply, pleasantly and quite honestly: "The labor we delight in physics pain!" And so on and on unendingly. And I almost believe that had an old actor seen these three great speeches: The "seven ages" of man, "To be or not to be!" and "Othello's occupation's gone," grouped together, he would have fallen upon his knees and become an idolator there and then.

Yes, I found them odd people, but I liked them. The world was brightening for me, and I felt I had a right to my share of the air and light, and as much of God's earth as my feet could stand upon.

I had had a little part entrusted to me, too, the very first week of the season. A young backwoods-boy, Tom Bruce, by name, and I had borrowed some clothes and had slammed about with my gun, and spoken my few words out loud and clear, and had met with approving looks, if not words, but not yet was the actress aroused in me, I was still a mere school-girl reciting her lessons. My proudest moment had been when I was allowed to go on for the longest witch in the cauldron scene in "Macbeth." Perhaps I might have come to grief over it had I not overheard the leading man say: "That child will never speak those lines in the world!" and the leading man was six feet tall and handsome, and I was thirteen and a half years old, and had to be called a "child!"

I was in a secret rage, and I went over and over my lines, at all hours, under all kinds of circumstances, so that nothing should be able to frighten me at night. And then, with my paste-board crown and white sheet and petticoat, I boiled-up in the cauldron and gave my lines well enough for the manager to say low, "Good! Good!" and the leading man next night asked me to take care of his watch and chain during his combat scene, and my pride of bearing was most unseemly, and the other ballet-girls loved me not at all, for you see they, too, knew he was six feet tall and handsome.

I find I am in a "Family Theatre"--I Fare Forth away from my Mother, and in Columbus I Shelter under the wing of Mrs. Bradshaw.

For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with theatrical terms of procedure, I will state that a company was generally made up of a leading man , first old man, second old man, heavy man, first comedian, second comedian, juvenile man, walking gentleman, and utility man.

That term, "heavy man," of course had no reference to the actor's physical condition, but it generally implied a deep voice, heavy eyebrows, and a perfect willingness to stab in the back or smilingly to poison the wine of the noblest hero or the fairest heroine in the business; so the professional player of villains was a heavy man.

Walking gentlemen didn't walk all the time; truth to tell, they stood about and pretended a deep interest in other people's affairs, most of the time. They were those absent Pauls or Georges that are talked about continually by sweethearts or friends or irate fathers, and finally appear just at the end of everything, simply to prove they really do exist, and to hold a lady's hand, while the curtain falls on the characters, all nicely lined up and bowing like toy mandarins.

The utility man was generally not a man, but a large, gloomy boy, whose mustache would not grow, and whose voice would crack over the few lines he was invited to address to the public. He sometimes led mobs, but more often made brief statements as to the whereabouts of certain carriages--and therein laid his claim to utility.

Then came the leading lady, the first old woman , the first singing soubrette, the walking ladies, the second soubrette , the utility woman, and the ladies of the ballet. These were the principal "lines of business," and in an artistic sense they bound actors both hand and foot; so utterly inflexible were they that the laws of the Medes and Persians seemed blithe and friendly things in comparison.

Mr. Augustin Daly was the first manager who dared to ignore the absolute "line." "You must trust my judgment to cast you for the characters you are best suited to perform, and you must trust my honor not to lower or degrade you, by casting you below your rightful position, for I will not be hampered and bound by any fixed 'lines of business.'" So said he to all would-be members of his company. The pill was a trifle bitter in the swallowing, as most pills are, but it was so wholesome in its effect that ere long other managers were following Mr. Daly's example.

But to return to our mutton. If the family theatre was disliked by those who had already won recognized positions, it was at least an ideal place in which a young girl could begin her professional life. The manager, Mr. John A. Ellsler, was an excellent character-actor as well as a first old man. His wife, Mrs. Effie Ellsler, was his leading woman--his daughter Effie, though not out of school at that time, acted whenever there was a very good part that suited her. The first singing soubrette was the wife of the prompter and the stage-manager. The first old woman was the mother of the walking lady, and so it came about that there was not even the pink flush of a flirtation over the first season, and, though another season was shaken and thrilled through and through by the elopement and marriage of James Lewis with Miss Frankie Hurlburt, a young lady from private life in Cleveland, yet in all the years I served in that old theatre, no real scandal ever smirched it.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet