The Drama by Sir Irving Henry (most inspirational books of all time TXT) 📕

That Burbage's fame as an actor outlived his life may be seen from the description given by Flecknoe:—

"He was a delightful Proteus, so wholly transforming himself into his part, and putting off himself with his clothes, as he never (not so much as in the 'tiring house) assumed himself again until the play was done.... He had all the parts of an [117]excellent orator, animating his words with speaking, and speech with acting, his auditors being never more delighted than when he spake, nor more sorry than when he held his peace. Yet even then he was an excellent actor still, never failing in his part when he had done speaking, but with his looks and gestures maintaining it still to the height."

It is not my intention, even if time permitted, to go much into the private life of the four actors of whom I propose to speak. Very little is known of Burbage's private life, except that he was married; perhaps Shakespeare and he may have been drawn nearer together by the tie of a common sorrow; for, as the poet lost his beloved son Hamlet when quite a child, so did Burbage lose his eldest son Richard. Burbage died on March 13th, 1617, being then about 50 years of age: Camden, in his Annals of James I., records his death, and calls him a[118] second Roscius. He was sincerely mourned by all those who loved the dramatic art; and he numbered among his friends Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and other "common players," whose names were destined to become the most honored in the annals of English literature. Burbage was the first great actor that England ever saw, the original representative of many of Shakespeare's noblest creations, among others, of Shylock, Richard, Romeo, Hamlet, Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. We may fairly conclude Burbage's acting to have had all the best characteristics of Natural, as opposed to Artificial acting. The principles of the former are so clearly laid down by Shakespeare, in Hamlet's advice to the players, that, perhaps, I cannot do better than to repeat them:—

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor[119] do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-show and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod; pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so[120] strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

When we try to picture what the theatre in Shakespeare's time was like, it strikes us that it must have been difficult to carry out those principles. One would think it must have been almost impossible for the actors to keep up the illusion of the play, surrounded as they were by such distracting elements. Figure to yourselves a crowd of fops, chattering like a flock of daws, carrying their stools in their hands, and settling around, and sometimes upon the stage itself, with as much noise as possible. To vindicate their importance in their own eyes they kept up a constant jangling of petty, carping criticism on the actors and the play. In the intervals of repose which they allowed their tongues, they ogled the ladies in the boxes, and made a point of [121]vindicating the dignity of their intellects by being always most inattentive during the most pathetic portions of the play. In front of the house matters were little better: the orange girls going to and fro among the audience, interchanging jokes—not of the most delicate character—with the young sparks and apprentices, the latter cracking nuts or howling down some unfortunate actor who had offended their worships; sometimes pipes of tobacco were being smoked. Picture all this confusion, and add the fact that the female characters of the play were represented by shrill-voiced lads or half-shaven men. Imagine an actor having to invest such representatives with all the girlish passion of a Juliet, the womanly tenderness of a Desdemona, or the pitiable anguish of a distraught Ophelia, and you cannot but realize how difficult under such circumstances great acting must have been. In [122]fact, while we are awe-struck by the wonderful intellectuality of the best dramas of the Elizabethan period, we cannot help feeling that certain subtleties of acting, elaborate by-play, for instance, and the finer lights and shades of intonation, must have been impossible. Recitation rather than impersonation would be generally aimed at by the actors.

Thomas Betterton was the son of one of the cooks of King Charles I. He was born in Tothill Street, Westminster, about 1635, eighteen years after the death of Burbage. He seems to have received a fair education; indeed, but for the disturbing effect of the Civil War, he would probably have been brought up to one of the liberal professions. He was, however, apprenticed to a bookseller, who, fortunately for Betterton, took to theatrical management. Betterton was about twenty-four years old when he began his dramatic career. [123]For upwards of fifty years he seems to have held his position as the foremost actor of the day. It was fortunate, indeed, for the interests of the Drama that so great an actor arose at the very time when dramatic art had, as it were, to be resuscitated. Directly the Puritans (who hated the stage and every one connected with it as heartily as they hated their Cavalier neighbors) came into power, they abolished the theatres, as they did every other form of intellectual amusement; and for many years the Drama only existed in the form of a few vulgar "Drolls." It must have been, indeed, a dismal time for the people of England; with all the horrors of civil war fresh in their memory, the more than paternal government allowed its subjects no other amusement than that of consigning their neighbors to eternal damnation, and of selecting for themselves—by anticipation—all the best reserved seats in heaven. [124]When the Restoration took place, the inevitable reaction followed: society, having been condemned to a lengthened period of an involuntary piety—which sat anything but easily on it—rushed into the other extreme; all who wanted to be in the fashion professed but little morality, and it is to be feared that, for once in a way, their practice did not come short of their profession. Now was the time when, instead of "poor players," "fine gentlemen" condescended to write for the stage; and it may be remarked that as long as the literary interests of the theatre were in their keeping, the tone of the plays represented was more corrupt than it ever was at any other period of the history of the Drama. It is something to be thankful for, that at such a time, when the highly-flavored comedies of Wycherley and Congreve were all the vogue, and when the monotonous profligacy of nearly all the [125]characters introduced into those plays was calculated to encourage the most artificial style of acting—it was something, I say, to be thankful for, that at such a time, Betterton, and one or two other actors, could infuse life into the noblest creations of Shakespeare. Owing, more especially, to Betterton's great powers, the tragedy of Hamlet held its own in popularity, even against such witty productions as Love for Love. It was also fortunate that the same actor who could draw tears as Hamlet, was equally at home in the feigned madness of that amusing rake Valentine, or in the somewhat coarse humor of Sir John Brute. By charming the public in what were the popular novelties of the day, he was able to command their support when he sought it for a nobler form of Drama. He married an actress, Mrs. Saunderson, who was only inferior in her art to her husband. Their married life seems to [126]have been one of perfect happiness. When one hears so much of the profligacy of actors and actresses, and that they are all such a very wicked lot, it is pleasant to think of this couple, in an age proverbial for its immorality, in a city where the highest in rank set an example of shameless licence, living their quiet, pure, artistic life, respected and beloved by all that knew them.

Betterton had few physical advantages. If we are to believe Antony Aston, one of his contemporaries, he had "a short, thick neck, stooped in the shoulders, and had fat, short arms, which he rarely lifted higher than his stomach. His left hand frequently lodged in his breast, between his coat and waistcoat, while with his right hand he prepared his speech." Yet the same critic is obliged to confess that, at seventy years of age, a younger man might have personated but could not have acted, Hamlet better. [127]He calls his voice "low and grumbling," but confesses that he had such power over it that he could enforce attention even from fops and orange-girls. I dare say you all know how Steele and Addison admired his acting, and how enthusiastically they spoke of it in The Tatler. The latter writes eloquently of the wonderful agony of jealousy and the tenderness of love which he showed in Othello, and of the immense effect he produced in Hamlet.

Betterton, like all really great men, was a hard worker. Pepys says of him, "Betterton is a very sober, serious man, and studious, and humble, following of his studies; and is rich already with what he gets and saves." Alas! the fortune so hardly earned was lost in an unlucky moment: he entrusted it to a friend to invest in a commercial venture in the East Indies which failed most signally. Betterton never reproached [128]his friend, he never murmured at his ill-luck. The friend's daughter was left unprovided for; but Betterton adopted the child, educated her for the stage, and she became an actress of merit, and married Bowman, the player, afterwards known as "The Father of the Stage."

In Betterton's day there were no long runs of pieces; but, had his lot been cast in these times, he might have been compelled to perform, say, Hamlet for three hundred or four hundred nights: for the rights of the majority are entitled to respect in other affairs besides politics,