CHAPTER XVII THE FAT KNIGHT Falstaff sweats to death, -Shakespeare. In a month the company from Covent Garden went on tour. Consulting my records I find that I was put down for Wolfram in Italian, in which language I had first studied the opera, though for the performances with Alvary I had to work it over again in the original German; for Nevers in "Les Huguenots," for the Toreador in "Carmen"; for Vulcan in "Philemon and Baucis" in French; for Tonio in "I Pagliacci," and for Alfio in "Cavalleria Rusticana." I was also expected to do both Mephistopheles and Valentine in "Faust" and had to be ready to sing both Hans Sachs and Beckmesser in Italian in "Die Meistersinger." That was my repertory, and I prepared myself to perform any or all of these characters as called upon. The company being large, however, and the susceptible feelings of its foreign members having to be taken into consideration, I was asked to relinquish the part of Sachs, and Falstaff was given me instead. Much as I have longed to perform Hans Sachs, I have never been permitted to do so in opera; and upon this tour, even the part of Beckmesser was given to Pini Corsi, than whom there never was a finer buffo singer. As Ford in "Falstaff " he and I, with Julia Ravogli as Dame Quickly, had great fun, and eagerly looked forward to our perform ances. Our tour opened at Blackpool in Lancashire, with which county my family name had been associated for so many centuries, and the week we played at the Opera House Beerbohm Tree was also acting in Blackpool. I had been a great admirer of his amazing performance of Falstaff on the stage of the Haymarket Theatre, London, of which he was for years the manager, and had previously consulted him as to my costume and make-up. The interest he took in my performance was such that he came to my dressing room and gave me valuable hints, even painting my face with his own master hand, laying on the high lights and counseling me from the wealth of his own experience in this character how to make the audience feel that I was the great, gray, gross, greasy glutton I should appear to be. Tree went off to his own theatre while I in nervous agony proceeded with my own difficult part. In this character, not more than a few square inches of my actual self were visible to the audience; all they saw was what surrounded the poor little entity of me inside. On my legs were enormous pads made of sheep's wool, sewed inside of stockinette and so shaped as to resemble, when drawn on, what, of course, they should resemble, the legs of a fat man. In the first act I wore great boots that came above my knees; these, too, looked fat. About my body I had a sort of mattress into the padded arms of which I thrust my own arms while my dresser tied the whole contrivance up the back with many strings. Over this was a great leather jerkin, and over that again a cape. But all this was easy to put on and take off; the difficult and time-consuming element in the assumption of the fat knight's character was the make-up of the face and head. The beard had been especially constructed so that what seemed to be a pink skin, a triple chin, and a pair of fat jowls showed through a rather thin blond beard beginning to gray. This was held in place by a stout elastic band over my head, but, for safety's sake, it was also gummed to my skin. Below the chin a long flap of skinlike material hung down upon my breast and was tied under my arms behind. From the right side and from the left a fat neck seemed to descend into my clothing, and when the wig was put on a flap at the back resembling the many folds of a fat man's neck ran under my costume down my back and was tied around in front of me by tapes. The nose, pimpled, purple, and groggy, I fashioned out of a sort of putty which comes for the purpose and is supposed to stick to the flesh. When at last I was fully made up and costumed, and was getting along well into the middle of the opera, I found myself in such a bath of perspiration, descending like the precious ointment even unto Aaron's beard, that my heavy clothing was soaking wet, and my head and face were reeking with sweat that ran down inside of my whiskers. Unfortunately it also ran down my forehead and under the false nose, which was seen by the audience to loosen and elongate. At last, amid the shrieks of the spectators, the nose quietly slid from my face, down my "fair round belly," and dropped upon the stage under my feet. I could not see it over my huge front and, with my next step, accidentally trod upon the slippery mass and was thrown flat upon the floor. The audience, already in a state of merriment over the comedy, went almost hysterical with laughter, but I had to go bravely on with my part after being picked up, and glad enough was I that my disguise was thick enough to conceal my mortification. Tree had invited me to supper with him after the performance, and I recounted my uncomfortable experience to him and Haddon Chambers, whose play he was acting. We all had another good laugh when Tree told us of his own experience the first time he played Falstaff, when the string which tied his trunks on broke and the trousers slipped down around his heels until he could not move his feet at all, but had to hop off the stage to have his costume readjusted, while his audience enjoyed his mishap as heartily as mine had reveled in my misfortune. Such things as these help to carry us merrily through the arduous duties of our profession, where every night we live a life within a life. True indeed it is as Shakespeare says, "One man in his time plays many parts"; yet not all the plays ever devised can match the experiences of actual life. I played Falstaff more than twenty times that season and lost as many pounds in weight by the experience, losing also my temper nightly while getting into that miserable, uncomfortable costume; but my dresser knew how to take me, and a good tip would salve his wounded feelings as quickly as cocoa butter would obliterate my own disguise and bring me to myself once more. Almost as many stories are told of Beerbohm Tree as used to be circulated about Sir Henry Irving. Both these extraordinary actors are said to have taken all such tales as tributes to their popularity and with the best of grace, even to the enjoyment of seeing their peculiarities imitated by others. But Tree never quite relished the caustic wit of W. S. Gilbert, whom I heard make his famous commentary on Tree's performance of Hamlet. A |