I “dropped in” at the Star Theatre on Friday mornin’ to pay my respects to my distinguished countryman, Henry Irving. He was glad to see me, and greeted me in his usual impulsive and gymnastic manner. After exchangin’ the usual courtesies, and after inviting him and Miss Terry to my little theatre, offerin’ to give ‘em a sportin’ matinee any time they would come, and show ‘em some good old English boxin’ and sluggin’, I came down to business. I congratulated Irving on his luck in havin’ been born, like myself, in Old England, and so getting a hundred times better treatment–receptions, puffs, gags, blackbirds, Yosemite and all that–than Mary Anderson, Rose Eytinge or Edwin Booth ever got in London–than he could ever have got on ten times his talent if he had happened to have been born in this country; and then I asked him point blank if he couldn’t help me to give Jem Mace a boost. The fact is that I was anxious to find the “open sesame” to the Great London Show Syndicate, which is the biggest kind of syndicate in the amusement line ever started. First, it got up a boom for Jumbo and unloaded him on Barnum; then on top of Jumbo it worked off Langtry on Abbey and the American public generally. And now it is boomin’ and workin’ off Irving and Terry, with all their troupe of special critics and reporters to do the puffin’ and blowin’. It has been managed splendidly and has played all parties for all they were worth, and so of course I wanted to get a hand in it for Jim’s sake and my own.
Probably we might have agreed on a “dicker” right there at rehearsal, only Matthew Arnold and Lord Mandeville called. Irving and Terry of course left Arnold to shift for himself while they waited on the lord, and so Matthew got talkin’ with me. And mistakin’ me for an American, he asked me whether the unfortunate fact, which he regretted now, that he had abused the Americans before he had seen ‘em, would make any difference? I told him I guessed not, because the Americans like bein’ abused, and besides, nobody in America had read his abuse anyhow. And then, seeing Lord Coleridge and W. H. Vanderbilt and Henry N. Smith comin’ in, I left.
And as I left, and thinkin’ over the great crowd of Englishmen now in the metropolis, the idea struck me that instead of celebratin’ the evacuation of New York by the British, as is now proposed, it might be a timely thing to get up a celebration of the recapture of New York by the British, as there are a lot of lords now here livin’ on Vanderbilt’s money, and others living on Villard’s free lunches; and then there is Langtry and Wallack’s company, and Irving’s company, and Notter and Scott, and as the papers say at a ball “others too numerous to mention,” all here in New York together, just as if it was another New London.
And, by the by, speakin’ of Irving’s high-toned style of arrivin’ over here, how it contrasts with the humble, hand-to-mouth fashion in which the first Anglo-American dramatic troupe came over to this country.
The first English actor who thought of visitin’ America, William Hallam, thought of visitin’ it because he couldn’t help it, because he was played out in old England and there was nowhere else for him to go. A good many English actors have come over on the same general principles since.
This William Hallam had been doin’ well for a while at the old Goodman’s Fields Theatre in London. But the great star Garrick havin’ deserted this establishment and gone to another theatre, the Goodman’s Fields establishment was likewise deserted by the public. Hallam tried all sorts of ways to get the people back, but they were like a flock of sheep then as now, and followed their leaders and the fashion, and Hallam and his company played to empty benches.
Then Hallam and his brother Lewis put their heads together, and pocketbooks–what was left of ‘em–together, and got up the first “combination” that ever visited America, bein’ driven to it by sheer desperation, not havin’ the slightest desire to see the country, not wantin’ to see it, and not knowin’ anythin’ about it. As for New York, they didn’t care anythin’ about it at all, for the very good reason that there was no New York then worth carin’ about. It was a very small place indeed, so small that they determined to strike for Virginia and seek their first money in the New World among the Southern planters.
Another reason why the Hallams and their company went first to the South instead of the North was because it was generally understood in London at that time that the New England colonies, and to a certain extent New York, were under the rule of Puritans and the blue laws, and that actors and actresses would not be welcome in New York at all. New York has certainly changed altogether, thrown a complete somersault, in this respect at least.
Well, the brothers Hallam started with their first Anglo-American theatrical company–that is to say, Lewis Hallam went to America with the people while his brother William, the original projector, remained in London to furnish other people and supplies as needed.
The company started with twenty-four stock plays, about half of ‘em Shakespearean. There were eight or nine farces also and two pantomimes. As there were then supposed to be no theatres in America the company took over its own scenery, precisely like the Irving company to-day.
They came over in a sailin’ vessel called The Charming Sally, and when not seasick, which was most of the time, they were rehearsin’, and rehearsin’ carefully.
They had plenty of time both to be sick in and to rehearse in. Quick passages were not known in those days, and a trip over the ocean meant business, not pleasure. When they got to America at last there was nobody prepared to receive ‘em, there was no demonstration in their honor, nobody knew ‘em or cared to know ‘em; they put up at a cheap tavern and made their first appearance in an old store, which they tried to fit up for a theatre.
Their comin’ didn’t make much stir, and on the first night, when they played The Merchant of Venice and a farce, the house was only half full. The manager played three characters that evenin’, his wife two and his little son two, so that was so that it was all in the family.
Still, with all this family business and all the this drawin’ a triple salary, if he could get it, the English manager in America was obliged to go pigeon shootin’ for his dinner and live on what he shot and nothin’ else. Luckily the theater stood right by the woods, and he used to stand in the green room and shoot pigeons through the window. There has been a good deal of “sport” of this kind in green rooms later, only the game has been “stool pigeons” and have been “plucked.”
For about a year the first English-American theatrical company tried this sort of barnstormin’. Then they got some new and more reliable information about New York, and began to think about goin’ there. Finally, when their little theatre burned down, they determined to see what New York amounted to for ‘emselves, and struck for the metropolis, walkin’ part of the way on foot, but making most of the journey by coach and by sailin’ vessel. They traveled very humbly, and New York never heard anythin’ about their comin’, till they came. They scattered around, after their arrival, at the cheap lodgin’ houses, and, although they didn’t find any prejudice against ‘em as they had expected, they didn’t get as much patronage at first as they had hoped. Old New York wasn’t a bit excited by the first London theatrical importation; it didn’t “enthuse.” It treated “the Virginia comedians,” as the London party were called, precisely as London has treated Fanny Davenport and Mary Anderson to-day, let ‘em act, and went to see ‘em acting, but never made any fuss over their actin’. New York has greatly changed on this point, too.
They took an old house in Nassau street, near where the old post office was later, and fitted it up after a fashion, for a theatre. They opened on a pretty warm Monday night in the middle of September, with a comedy and a musical farce, with about two hundred people in the house–eight shillin’s to the boxes, six shillin’s to the pit, three shillin’s to the gallery, the performances commencin’ promptly at six o’clock. Still even these prices were found too high, and on the second night the standard were lowered, and after the first month they were lowered again, although only three performances were given a week–every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, matinees bein’ then unknown. Manager Hallam had at first intended to have a “half-price” scale of admission after the third act each evenin’, just as they have always had in England. But he changed his mind and concluded it wouldn’t pay.
One of the actors of this company tried to make money outside of his profession by gettin’ up all sorts of quack medicines and inventions, for which he thought he had a “knack.” He spent nearly all his salary advertisin’ that he had an infallible way for making salt out of seawater. As there is plenty of seawater around New York a company was soon got up to test this patent, but it didn’t work, and the actor came to grief. He lost not only his money, but his place, and had to decamp. His salt wouldn’t “keep” him, or rather he couldn’t make his salt.
They were great on benefits at that time. Every actor and actress was entitled to a benefit, and on these occasions the actor or actor actress used to sell their own tickets at their residences and boardin’ houses, a custom which would be found pecuniarily profitable, I guess, to-day, at least in the case of a pretty actress or popular actor.
There was the usual amount, too, of squabblin’ among themselves and a good deal of ingenious “puffin’”, though not a circumstance to “the gags” of to-day. But altogether, though it didn’t score a big hit, and didn’t make any excitement, the first English company in New York was on the whole a success, so much so that Hallam while playin’ in New York did what all other managers have tried to do ever since, make dates outside of New York on the strength of his New York reputation. Only in this case, as Philadelphia was then a bigger city than New York, he was more anxious to capture Philadelphia than managers are to-day.
So he sent one of the members of his company–a Mr. Malone, one of whose grandchildren is an actress now–on to Philadelphia as his “advance agent,” though the term was then unknown.
Malone was a smart fellow and soon saw Governor Hamilton, the boss of Philadelphia, in person, and won him over. The Puritans and Quakers made a row about havin’ a theatre in their midst, but the theatre got the best of ‘em at last, and really there was no possible objection to this first English company. They were clever and decent. More than can be said of every English company since.
They arranged for twenty-four nights, eight weeks in Philadelphia, but did so well that they played six more. They then returned with all the honors to New York and played a second season here to better business than their first.
All this time manager Hallam had been lookin’ out for a new theater–a new buildin’ regularly built for dramatic purposes. But he didn’t do then as New York managers do now, look up town for a site, but he looked down town where houses and businesses were thickest. At last he selected a suitable site on Cruger’s wharf, between Old Slip and Coffee House Slip, and gave several seasons of tolerable success in that locality.
In course of time the inevitable “row” came between the “manager” and “leadin’ man” of the company–or the person who regarded himself as the leadin’ man. In this case the “leadin’” party was called Wignell, and he had it hot and heavy with Hallam; nobody ever knew exactly why, in which respect it exactly resembled a good many subsequent “rows.” But at any rate Wignell “rowed” and “seceded,” and several of Hallam’s people went with him. The original company was broken up, and Wignell and his party got some backers and started a theatre of their own in Boston.
After the “break-up” the Hallam company, as a company, disappeared forever; but two new theatres were started in New York–one on John street and one on Greenwich, and from that time on New York has been a great amusement city, as my English countrymen can testify.
