A Gentleman Player.

by Robert Neilson Stephens.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF "HAMLET."

"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"--_Quoted in "As You Like It," from Marlowe's "Hero and Leander."_

At three o'clock in the afternoon of the cold first Monday in March, 1601, a red flag rose, and a trumpet sounded thrice, from a little gabled turret protruding up out of a large wooden building in a field in that part of Southwark known as the Bankside and bordering on the Thames west of London Bridge. This rude edifice, or enclosure, was round (not like its successor, hexagonal) in shape; was in great part roofless; was built on a brick and stone foundation, and was encircled by a ditch for drainage. It was, in fact, the Globe Theatre; and the flag and trumpet meant that the "Lord Chamberlain's servants" were about to begin their performance, which, as the bill outside the door told in rough letters, was to be that of a new "Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmark," written by William Shakespeare. London folk knew this Master Shakespeare well as one of the aforesaid "servants," as the maker of most of the plays enacted now by those servants, and, which was deemed far more to his honor, as the poet of "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece." Many who read the playbill guessed rightly that the new "tragicall historie" was based in part upon another author's old play, which they had seen performed many times in the past.[1]

The audience, in all colours and qualities of doublet and hose, ruff and cloak, feathered hat and plain cap and scholar's coif, had awaited noisily the parting of the worsted curtains of the stage projecting from one side of the circular interior of the barnlike playhouse. Around the other sides were wooden galleries, and under these was a raised platform divided into boxes called "rooms," whose fronts were hung with painted cloth. The stage and the actors' tiring-room behind it were under a roof of thatch. The boxes had the galleries for cover. But the great central O-shaped s.p.a.ce, known as the "yard," where self-esteeming citizens, and a.s.sertive scholars, and black-robed lawyers, and burly soldiers, and people of countless occupations, and people of no occupation at all, stood and crowded and surged and talked and chaffed, and bought fruit and wine and beer from the clamorous venders, had no ceiling but the sky. It had no floor but the bare ground, and no seats whatever.

The crowd in this so-called "yard" was expectant. The silk and velvet gentry sitting in the boxes, some of whom smoked pipes and ogled the few citizenesses in the better gallery, were for the most part prepared to be, or to seem, bored. The solid citizens in gallery and yard were manifestly there to get the worth of their eightpence or sixpence apiece, in solid entertainment. The apple-chewing, nut-cracking, fighting apprentices and riff-raff in the topmost gallery were turbulently ready for fun and tumult, whether in the play or of their own making. In the yard a few self-reliant women, not of the better order, and some of them smoking like men, struggled to hold their own amidst the hustling throng. Two or three ladies, disdaining custom and opinion, or careless or ignorant thereof, were present, sitting in boxes; but they wore masks.

Now and then, before the performance began, some young foppish n.o.bleman, scented, feathered, bejewelled, armed with gilt-hilted rapier in velvet sheath, and sporting huge rosettes on his shoes, would haughtily, or disdainfully, or flippantly, make his way to the lords' room, which was the box immediately overlooking the stage; or would pa.s.s to a place on the rush-covered stage itself, he or his page bearing thither a three-legged stool, hired of a theatre boy for sixpence. There, on similar stools at the sides of the stage, he would find others of his kind, some idly chatting, some playing cards; and could hear, through the rear curtains of arras screening the part.i.tion behind the stage, the talk and movements of the players in their tiring-room, hurrying the final preparations for the performance.

One of these gallants, having lighted his pipe, said, lispingly, to another, and with a kind of sn.i.g.g.e.r in the expression of his mouth:

"'Twill be a long time ere my lord of Southampton shall again sit here seeing his friend Will's plays."

Southampton, indeed, was in the Tower for complicity in the insurrection of his friend, the Earl of Ess.e.x, who had died on the block in February, and whose lesser fellow conspirators were now having their trials.

"A long time ere any of us may see Will's plays here, after this week,"

answered the other lord, dropping the rush with which he had been tickling a third lord's ear. "Don't you know, the chamberlain's actors are ordered to travel, for having played 'Richard the Second' for the Ess.e.x men when the conspiracy was hatching?"[2]

"Why, I've been buried in love,--a pox on the sweet pa.s.sion!--dallying at the feet of a gentlewoman in Blackfriars, the past month; and a murrain take me if I know what's afoot of late!"

"What I've told you; and that is why we've had so many different plays all in a fortnight, and two new ones of Will Shakespeare's. The players must needs have new pieces ready for the country towns, especially for the universities. These chamberlain's actors were parlously thick with the Ess.e.x plotters; 'tis well they have friends at court, of other leanings, like Wat Raleigh,--else they might find themselves ordered to a tower instead of to a tour!"

Ignoring the pun, and glancing up at the black drapery with which the stage was partly hung, the first exquisite remarked:

"Will Shakespeare must be in right mood for tragedy nowadays,--his friend Southampton in prison, and Ess.e.x a head shorter, and himself ordered to the country. Burn me if I know how a high-hearted knave like Shakespeare, that gentlemen admit to their company, and that has had the court talking of his poems, can endure to be a dog of an actor, and to scribble plays for that stinking rabble out yonder to gape at!"

Whatever were Will Shakespeare's own views on that subject, he had at that moment other matters in mind. In the bare tiring-room beyond the curtained part.i.tion at the rear of the stage, he moved calmly about among the actors, some of whom were not yet wholly dressed in the armor or robes or other costume required, some of whom were already disguised in false beard or hair, some already painted as to the face, some walking to and fro, repeating their lines in undertones, with preoccupied and anxious air; and so well did Master Shakespeare overcome the agitations of an author who was to receive five pounds for his new play, and of a stage-manager on whom its success largely depended, that he seemed the least excited person in the room. He had put on the armor for the part of the ghost, but his flowing hair--auburn, like his small pointed beard--was not yet confined by the helmet he should soon don.

His soft light brown eyes moved in swift but careful survey of the whole company; and then, seeing that the actors for the opening scene were ready, and that the others were in sufficient preparation for their proper entrances, he gave the signal for the flag and trumpet aloft.

At sight of the flag, late comers who had not yet reached the playhouse mended their speed,--whether they were n.o.blemen conveyed by boat from the great riverside mansions of the Strand; gentlemen riding horseback, or in coaches, or borne in wherries from city water-gates; or citizens, law scholars, soldiers, sailors, rascals, and plain people, arriving by ferry or afoot by London Bridge or from the immediate neighborhood. At sound of the trumpet, the crowd in the theatre uttered the grateful "Ah!" and other exclamations natural to the moment. From the tiring-room the subordinate actor who played the first sentinel had already pa.s.sed to his post on the stage, by way of the door in the part.i.tion and of an interstice in the rear curtains; other actors stood ready to follow speedily; the front curtains were drawn apart, and the first performance of Mr. William Shakespeare's earliest stage version of "Hamlet"--a version something between the garbled form now seen in the "first quarto" and the slightly altered form extant in the "second quarto"--was begun.

In the tiring-room,--where the actors awaiting their entrance cues could presently hear their fellows spouting on the stage without, and the "groundlings" in the yard making loud comments or suggestions, and the lords laughing lightly at their own affected chaff,--the pale yellow light of the chill March afternoon fell from high-placed narrow windows.

It touched the face of one tall, slender young player, whose mustaches required a close inspection to detect that they were false,--for at that time, when the use of dye was general, it was common for natural beards to look artificial. The hair of this youth's head also was brown, but it was his own. His blue eyes and rather sharp features had a look half conciliating, half defiant, and he was manifestly trying to conceal, by standing perfectly still instead of fidgeting or pacing the floor, a severe case of that perturbation which to this day afflicts the chief persons concerned in a first performance of a play.

He was approached by a graceful young person in woman's clothes,--with stomacher, puffed sleeves, farthingale, high-heeled shoes,--who had been gliding about, now with every step and att.i.tude of the gentle damsel he seemed to be, now lapsing into the gait and manner of the pert boy he was, and who said to the inwardly excited but motionless player:[3]

"Marry, Hal, take it not as 'twere thy funeral! Faith, thou'rt ten times shakier o' the knees than Master Shakespeare himself, and he writ the play. See how he claps his head-piece on, to go and play the ghost, as if he were but putting on his hat to go to the tavern for a cup of claret."

Hal looked as if he would deny the imputed shakiness; but seeing that the clever boy "Ophelia" was not to be fooled, he gave a quick sigh, and replied:

"'Tis my first time in so prominent a part. I feel as if I were the sign in front of the theatre,--a fellow with the world on his back. May I be racked if I don't half wish they'd given this 'Laertes' to Gil Crowe to play, after all!"

"Tut, Master Marryott! An thou pluck'st up no more courage, thou shalt ever be a mere journeyman. G.o.d knows thou art bold enough in a tavern or a brawl! Look at Mr. Burbage,--he has forgot himself and us and all the world, and thinks he is really Hamlet the Dane."

Hal Marryott, knowing already what he should see, glanced at Burbage, who paced, not excitedly but as in deep meditation, near the entrance to the stage. A short, stout, handsome man, with a thoughtful face, a fine brow, a princely port; like Shakespeare, he was calm, but while Shakespeare had an eye for everything but apparently the part himself was to play, Burbage was absorbed entirely in his own part and unconscious of all else, as if in the tiring-room he was already Hamlet from the moment of putting on that prince's clothes.[4]

"What a plague are you looking at, Gil Crowe?" suddenly demanded Hal Marryott of another actor, who was gazing at him with a malicious smile evidently caused by Hal's ill-concealed disquietude. "An it be my shoes, I'll own you could have made as good if you'd stuck to your proper trade!"

"Certes," replied Crowe, who wore the dress of Rosencrantz, and whose coa.r.s.e face bore marks of dissipation, "I'm less like to deny having been a shoemaker, which is true, than some are to boast of having been gentlemen, which may be doubtful."

Young Marryott's eyes flashed hot indignation. Before he could control himself to retort, an actor in a rich robe and a false white beard,[5]

who had overheard Master Crowe's innuendo, strode up and said:

"Faith, Crowe, you wrong the lad there. Who hath ever heard him flaunt his birth before us? Well you know it, if he doth at times a.s.sert his gentle blood, 'tis when forced to it; and then 'tis by act and manner, not by speech. Go your ways, Crowe; thou'st been overfree with the pottle-pot again, I'm afeard!"

"Nay," put in the impudent Ophelia, his elbows thrust out, his hands upon his hips, "Master Crowe had picked out the part of Laertes for himself; and because Master Shakespeare chose Hal to play it. Hal is a boaster and not truly gentle born."

"You squeaking brat," said Crowe, "but for spoiling thy face for the play, I'd put thee in thy place. I might have played Laertes, but that--"

Here he paused, whereupon the white-bearded Corambis (such was the name of Polonius in the first version) finished for him:

"But that y'are not to be trusted with important parts, lest the play be essentially spoiled an you be too drunk to act."

"Why, as for that," replied Crowe, "beshrew me but our gentleman here will stay as late at the tavern, and be roaring as loud for more sack when daylight comes, as any one."

For this home thrust Marryott had no reply. Crowe thereupon walked away, the Corambis joined another group, and the Ophelia sauntered across the room to view the costly raiment that a tiring man was helping Mr.

William Sly to put on for the part of the foppish courtier, later christened Osric. Left to his thoughts, the Laertes, nervously twirling his false mustaches, followed the ex-shoemaker with his eyes, and meditated on the latter's insolence. The more he reviewed it, and his own failure to rebuke it properly, the more wrathful he inwardly became.

His anger served as a relief from the agitation he had formerly undergone. So deeply buried was he in his new feelings, that he heeded not the progress of affairs on the stage; and thus he was startled when he felt his arm caught by Shakespeare, who was pointing to the entrance, and saying:

"What ails thee, Harry? They wait for thee on the stage."

Roused as from sleep, and seeing that Burbage and the others had indeed gone forth from the tiring-room, Hal ran to the entrance and out upon the stage, his mind in a whirl, taking his place before King Claudius with such abruptness that Burbage, surprised from his mood of melancholy self-absorption, sent him a sharp glance of reproof. This but increased his abashment, and he stared up at the placard that proclaimed the stage to be a room in the palace at Elsinore, in a kind of panic. The audience moved and murmured, restlessly, during the king's long speech, and Hal, imagining that his own embarra.s.sment was perceptible to all, made an involuntary step backward toward the side of the stage. He thus trod on the toe of one of the n.o.ble spectators, who was making a note in his tables, and who retaliated with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and a kick. Feeling that some means must be taken to attain composure, the more as his heart seemed to beat faster and his stomach to grow weaker, Hal remembered that he had previously found distraction in his wrath toward Gilbert Crowe. He therefore brought back to mind the brief pa.s.sage in the tiring-room. So deeply did he lose himself in this recollection, gazing the while at the juniper burning on the stage to sweeten the air, that it was like a blow in the face when he suddenly became aware of a prolonged silence, and of the united gaze of all the actors upon himself.

"What wouldst thou have, Laertes?" the king was repeating for the third time.

Hal, aware now that his cue had been given more than once, opened his lips to reply, but his first line had fled completely from his mind. In his blank confusion he flashed a look of dismay toward the entrance. His eyes caught those of Shakespeare, who had parted the arras curtains sufficiently to be visible to the players. Rather in astonishment than in reproach, the poet, serving on occasion as prompter, uttered half audibly the forgotten words, and Hal, caught back as from the brink of a bottomless pit, spoke out with new-found vigor:

"Dread my lord.

Your leave and favor to return to France,"

and the ensuing lines. But his delivery did not quiet down the audience,--which, indeed, though it had hushed for a moment at the play's opening, and again at the appearance of the ghost, was not completely stilled, until at last, upon the king's turning to Hamlet, the "wondrous tongue" of Burbage spoke.

When Hal presently made exit to the tiring-room, after the king and courtiers, he craved the pardon of Master Shakespeare, but the latter merely said:

"Tut, Hal, it hath happened to all of us in our time."

The derisive smile of Crowe did not sweeten Harry's musings while he waited for his next going on. Indeed, he continued to brood bitterly on the exhibition he had made of himself, and the stay he had caused in the play. His chagrin was none the less for that it was his friend and benefactor Shakespeare that had nominated him for the part of Laertes, and whose play he had brought to a momentary halt. In deep dejection, when the time came, he returned to the stage with the boy-Ophelia for his scene with her and Corambis.