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'The principal novelty of the week has been the publication [by J. Mitchell] of the above Letter from Mr. C. Mathews to the Dramatic Authors of France. Anticipating the effect which the new international copyright law may have upon the staple source of our theatrical entertainments, the manager calls upon the French dramatists to be more circumspect in their plots and dialogue; to write in a manner more becoming the refinements of the English taste, and the properties and elegancies of the Lyceum theatre in particular; and concludes by assuring them that their only chance of success is to secure a brisk sale for their compositions in this country. The letter is a lively compound of wit and illogical assurance, written in that easy, voluble, semi-satirical tone which is characteristic of the actor, and so far convenient to him, that it may be taken in jest or earnest, as truth or irony, according to the temper and prejudices of the reader. For ourselves, we incline to regard it, not as an invocation to Parisian playwrights to start a vaudeville manufactory for the especial use and abuse of the British public, but as an ironical squib for the encouragement and fruition of native talent. It is written in French, and smart French too, and the author does not use it pedantically or obtrusively. His object is not so much to obtain a seat in the French Academy as to have a little quiet chat about matters that intimately concern both parties. All he asks is to be understood, and if he has not allowed his phrases to be corrected, it has been because he was afraid of having them Frenchified, and so run the risk of their losing that English stamp (cachet Anglais) which is the best guarantee for their authenticity.
'For the benefit of English dramatists (it cannot be needed for adapters) Mr. Mathews adds a translation from himself by himself, and this is presented as a specimen of "fair imitation," according to the terms of the international copyright convention. And now, says Mr. Mathews, to business:-
'"Gentlemen – I am a weasel. Don't be astonished, I am telling you the simple truth; - a guilty but repentant weasel, who comes to compliment you on your having succeeded at length in putting a ring through his nose. Yes, Gentlemen, you see before you one of the dramatic weasels of the 'Perfide Albion,' who have so long sucked the eggs of your Gallic nightingales, and I am here to offer you my congratulations on your having at last asserted your rights in the British dominions. I congratulate you with all the sincerity of the old fox who declares himself delighted when he hears that his bosom friends the geese have at last been clapped safely under an iron coop. At the precise moment which I can no longer steal with impunity, I am seized with and irresistible desire to become honest. I have robbed you, plundered you, disfigured you, maimed you, assassinated you; I admit it all; and the love of virtue only enters my head at the very foot of the gallows – a kind of repentance by no means uncommon in this wicked world.
'"Sincerely, Gentlemen, I am the Manager of an English Theatre, and I throw myself at your feet to implore your forgiveness and ask your advice. Manager, did I say! more: Manager-Author-Actor. Manager of the Lyceum, Author of several of your pieces, Actor of all the good parts I can get."
'The Manager-Author-Actor then proceeds to lay before the dramatists of France, what he doubtless considers a correct estimate of the condition and prospects, social, analytical, and financial, of the London theatres:-
'"There are twenty-three theatres now open in the Metropolis! There's a chance for you, gentlemen! Eh? What a fortune for the French authors! Only think! Twenty-three theatres, living, existing, but by the appropriation of your ideas! Isn't that your view of the case? Wait a minute and I'll open your eyes for you."
'The list is as follows: - "1. Her Majesty's. 2. St. James's. 3. Covent Garden. 4. Drury Lane. 5. Haymarket. 6. Lyceum. 7. Princess's. 8. Adelphi. 9. Olympic. 10. Strand. 11. Marionettes. 12. Surrey. 13. Astley's. 14. Victoria 15. Queen's. 16. Marylebone. 17. Sadler's Wells. 18. City. 19. Standard. 20. Pavilion. 21. Grecian Saloon. 22 Britannia Saloon. 23. Bower Saloon."
'Mr. Mathews then passes them in review, somewhat disparagingly to be sure, but in a running commentary of witty sarcastic humour:-
'"A few years ago, Her Majesty's was the only Italian Opera in London, but as there were not amateurs enough to ensure its constant success, another Opera was started at Covent Garden to oppose it; an honourable rivalry sprung up as to which could give away the greatest number of free admission, and a succession of disinterested attempts have been made ever since to impart fresh life into both establishments, by the most expensive endeavours to cut each other's throats.
'"Drury-Lane, the other ex-national house, is, alas! more like an Omnibus than a Theatre, a huge Omnibus running short stages at a very low price, but with plenty of noise, changing its coachman every other day, and in order to entice the mob (though without succeeding in the attempt, printing the slang of the cads upon the way-bill. Authors have but little to hope for here. The present manager [briefly, Frederick Gye of Covent Garden Theatre], Poet-librettist, dreams of nothing but English operas, marble halls, and ballets. Drop a tear, Gentlemen, and pass on in silence. It is the mausoleum of Shakspeare.
'"The Olympic is a respectably conducted Theatre, but its low prices of admission cannot allow any great extravagance in authorship… You may glen slightly in this little field, Gentlemen, I think, by wheedling the manager-actor, and coaxing him adroitly on his weak side – that of his sons.
'"The last twelve Theatres belong rather to the outskirts than to London itself. They have an audience of their own, and a jolly one it is – hearty and uproarious. An audience with sound lungs, hard hands, and the digestion of an ostrich; always ready to bold the raw material provided for it.
'"The Victoria [i.e. The Old Vic] is a model house, the type of a school to which it gives its name. It is the incarnation of the English 'domestic drama,' or rather of the drama of English domestics. There you will always find the truest pictures of virtue in rags, and vice in fine linen. There flourish the choicest specimens of all the crimes that make life hideous, robbery, rape, murder, suicide. It is a country abounding in grand combats of four – a region peopled with angelic maid servants, comic house-breakers, heroic sailors, tyrannical masters, poetical clodhoppers, and diabolical barons. The lower orders, rush there in mobs, and in shirt sleeves, applaud frantically, drink ginger beer, munch apples, crack nuts, call the actors by their Christian names, and throw them orange peel and apples by way of bouquets. Fly, Gentlemen, this is no place for you, - you are only known here as frog-eating foreigners, whose armies are easily put to the rout by a couple of stage tars and a heroine with a horse pistol. There's not the ghost of a chance for you. They live upon roast beef and plum pudding, and abominate French kickshaws.
'"We will now turn to the City.
'"At the head of the theatres there is Sadler's Wells, and a very different place it is from any we have yet spoken of. The classical, the stately, the stilted, banished from its natural home, finds refuge within its walls. The National drama has retired here, as to a watering place, for the benefit of its health. The loftiest, the severest tragedy is represented in all its dreary integrity by solemn veterans. Shakspeare especially – Shakspeare undefiled – textural. [Philip] Massinger, [Francis] Beaumont and [John] Fletcher, even rugged John Marston – all that is venerable and artificial. It is the Odéon of the suburbs. The very farces they play are ancient. All the old worn out and long-forgotten pieces are dug up to enjoy a second youth, and figure in the eyes of young Islington as sparkling novelties. It is a downright dramatic curiosity shop. Pantomime is not excluded; on the contrary, is generally well done. Such Saturnalia are allowed at Christmas, and sometimes they venture on a new tragedy, moulded, however, on the antique; but woe to the man who mentions puny French authors. Translators avant! The theatre is picturesquely situated on the banks of a City Canal, shaded agreeably by leafless genealogical trees, and its audience is composed of metropolitan villages, the unsophisticated inhabitants of the verdant pavement which graces this Rus in Urbe; a most respectable and above all a most classical audience, seeing and hearing for the first time the divine Shakspeare and his nervous contemporaries; loving, I may say doating [sic] upon their very obscurities; indeed, the less it understands, the more is this worthy audience pleased – it is so very respectable. It shies apples now and then, does this superior audience, but they are always classical ones – apples of the kind that Paris used to throw at Venus.
'"The City is the natural son of the Victoria, and inherits its parent's tastes. It has the same task to fulfil. It is a sort of Newgate Calendar dramatised – an Apotheosis of the seven deadly sins – a chapel of ease to the Old Bailey.
'"The the Pavilion, the shipping interest is represented – its playbill ought to be posted at Lloyd's Vessels are nightly wrecked in latitude O.P., longitude P.S. As you enter you smell the 'distempered sea.' You sniff the brine of the 'set waters,' and feel the dusty spray of the canvas waves. At the Victoria, the sanctity of the domestic hearth is invaded – here the very Ocean is laid under contribution, and success is sought amidst the roar of its breakers – success as boundless as the ocean it springs from. The object of the management is to 'hold the mirror up' to sailors. An eternal tide of marine melo-dramas and nautical novelties ebbs and flows in this dry Naumachia, where 'life afloat' is depicted by fresh-water seamen before an audience of real tars. I leave you to judge whether the pieces are not likely to be pitched tolerably strong to suit the web-footed connoisseurs who roll in at half price, who help to whistle the act music, and only applaud a dialogue made up of cabins, cables, and cabooses, booms, binnacles, and backy boxes; whose nearest notion of attic salt is saltpetre, and whose sides are only to be tickled with points like pikes, quips like quids, and jokes like junks."
'The Haymarket, Princess's, and Adelphi are generously excused from criticism, because these and the Lyceum are the only theatres in which the author allows there is any market for French produce. And the following is the statistical result of his investigations:-
'"During the year 1851, (according to the Almanach des Spectacles of M. Palianti), the Parisian Theatres brought out 263 new pieces, and of these how many do you suppose were translated from our twenty-three London houses, from the first of January to the 31st of December? Eight!
'"Out of the 263 Parisian novelties only eight during the whole year! I think you will acknowledge, Gentlemen, that this is a little fact you did not altogether expect.
'"Out of 263 pieces, then, we have only selected eight. If you will allow me I will explain the cause of this phenomenon. It is rather delicate ground to touch on I know, but, as it is a matter of business, you must excuse me if I say that the fault is entirely your own, Gentlemen, and, what's more, that the average will never be greater as long as you continue to write such pieces as you have been writing lately. You must admit yourselves that they are much too full of indecency, anachronism, immorality, and dirt.
'"Almost all your modern works are made up of details, which it would be impossible for us to think of touching – even at the Gymnase, where formerly such charming little comedies, reflecting life and manners, used to be represented with so much taste and elegance.
'"The curtain rises. In walks a pretty woman – a woman of rank and fashion – into an elegant boudoir. 'Ah, ah!' you say, 'now we are all right!' Are you, my good friend? Wait a moment. It soon comes out that the lady is the affianced bride of one worthy man, the wife of another, in love with a third, and with a child by a fourth; notwithstanding all which, she is just as much beloved by indulgent audiences, who invariably contrive to find some mitigating circumstance to justify her interesting little irregularities.
'"We may try our fortune at the other theatres, but it is every where the same. Milliners' girls and lawyers' clerks, living together in the most unceremonious manner; Actresses talking openly and unblushingly of their numerous lovers; Ballet-girls, with accidental children by unknown fathers; interesting young ladies, who fall asleep, they don't know why, at the end of the first act, to awake with a baby, they don't know how, at the beginning of the second. In short, nothing but mistresses, accoucheurs, midwives, we nurses, infants, cradles, and feeding-bottles, in every direction.
'"What are we to do with all this?" says the volatile Charles. "Must we begin by imbibing Dolby's Carminative, and dip our pens in Mrs. Johnson's American Soothing Syrup? Change this rotten system. Give us good, well-considered, pleasant works, free from dirt and indecency, and we shall infallibly buy largely."
'The profligacy of the French drama is perhaps the only part of this letter that is not exaggerated, and we have given full publicity to Mr. Mathews' remarks more as a warning to English dramatists than with the hope that it will be of any service to the Parisian state. The time is now arrived when our dramatic authors must think for themselves. Let us have no more real water and live donkeys, (et tu, Brute!), disembodied bogies and revivificated murderers, but a genuine unalloyed dramatic school of our own. We look to our Manager-Author-Actor, and repentant weasel, to set an example.'
(The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Science and Art, London, Saturday, 24 July 1852, pp.581b-582b)
One of the copies of Lettre de M. Charles Mathews aux auteurs dramatiques de la France in the British Library is furnished with MS notes.
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The Great Vance and the Lauri Family
at the London Pavilion, September 1864
'London Pavilion. - Mr. Vance is one of the prominent "draws" here at present. He mostly affects the evening dress kind of comic song, replying on his concluding imitation of the orthodox danseuse to exhibit his power of delineating character. Mr. Vance is undoubtedly humorous, and his comicality is of an easy and spontaneous character. One song in particular, describing the amusements of some "jolly" young men, Mr. Vance sings as if he thoroughly enjoyed it himself, and that goes far towards making others appreciate it. His Pas Seul and reproduction of the coquettish little ways peculiar to stars of the ballet are received with unbounded applause. Altogether there is a freshness and geniality in Mr. Vance's efforts worthy of every acknowledgement. Those clever pantomimists, the Lauri Family, are now performing nightly in a ballet full of the wildest fun from beginning to end. The characters are a miller, his daughter, her lover, a sailor, an overgrown boy in a pinafore, a kind of latterdemalion village curé, and a nondescript personage with very loose trousers and a very large boots. There is a quickness of action and an extreme neatness in the doings of this talented party, which render then almost unrivalled as grotesque pantomimists. A very effective selection from Martha is also performed, containing the "beer" song, "M'appari," and "The Last Rose of Summer," responding to the inevitable encore with "My Beautiful Rhine".'
(The Era, London, Sunday, 1 July 1866, p.11d)
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Louie Sherrington, Miss Fitzhenry et al
at the Royal Cambridge music hall, London, 1868
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