RIP VAN WINKLE'S REMINISCENCES.* THE literature of dramatic belles lettres
contains few volumes that can compare in attractiveness with the delightful auto- biography of Joseph Jefferson, which, after running its course in an American magazine, has now been published in a form which is as good to look at as the contents are pleasant to read. Most actors, when they come to wield the pen, find it hard to avoid occasional lapses into the stilted style of the hero of melodrama. But, happily, there is hardly a trace of that in these memoirs, the chief merit of which is their abso- lute lack of all literary artifice, unless we give the preference to the unfailing kindliness of tone and modesty which characterise them from first to last. Members of the dramatic profession are, as a rule, singularly sensitive to ridicule ; in- deed, Mr. Jefferson says himself that he hates being quizzed. That does not prevent him, however, from recounting many anecdotes at his own expense. For example, after he had pro- duced a version of The Rivals, the text of which he had greatly revised, he relates how a colleague said that "it re. minded him of that line in Buchanan Read's poem : And Sheridan twenty miles away.'" Better still is the following anecdote of the queries put to him in his old age by a coloured canoe-boy in Louisiana :- "' Mr. Joe, will you ho mad if I ax you somefen '= No, John ; what is it ?'----There was a pause, then calling up all his courage, he broke forth with a question which I have no doubt he had meditated upon, and could contain no longer : What does you do in a show told him that it would be rather difficult for me to explain to him what my peculiar line of business was.—' Well,' said John, does you swallow knives '—I told him that I had no talent whatever in that way.—' Well, your son told me that you swallowed knives, and forks, and fire, and de Lord knows what all, and "believe he was just foolin' me.'—I agreed with him, saying that he was quite capable of it.—' Well, dero's one thing certain,' said John, you don't act in the circus.'—I asked him how he could be sure of that —Here he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, almost tipping the canoe over in his violent mirth. Oh, no—oh, no, sah : you can't fool me on dat. I've seen you get on your horse; you ain't no circus actor.' " Mr. Jefferson may not have ever indulged in feats of jugglery or horsemanship—he has, by-the-way, some very amusing comments elsewhere on the absurdity of the eques- trian drama--but there are few branche's of his profession of which be has not at some time had practical experience in his diversified career, from grinding colours to playing star parts. And when the drama failed, he readily took to other vocations, • Tho Autobiography of Joseph Jofforeon. London : T, Maher lInwin. New York t The Century Company, helping his father to paint signs, keeping a café in Mexico, or acting as a " drummer,"—i.e., commercial traveller. Taking to the stage to him was much like a duck's taking to the water, though his infantile debut was as disastrous as that of Madame Ristori, related in her Memoirs. His father and grandfather were actors before him, and his mother, brothers, and sister were all in the profession. Of his parents he gives a charming picture, his father's indomitable cheerfulness con- trasting with the patient heroism of his mother. As his son says, " this contented nature was his only inheritance ; but it was better than a fortune for nothing could rob him of it." They were always on the move, and as it was in the days before railways existed in the Western States, the ex- periences of the little company were sometimes more exciting than agreeable. On one occasion, the scenery and properties, which were being transported by sleighs on the frozen Missis-
sippi, broke through the ice, and were immersed in the river :- " My poor mother was in tears, but my father was in high spirits at his good luck, as he called it—because there was a sandbar where the sleigh went in ! So the things were saved at last, though in a forlorn condition. The opening had to be delayed, in order to dry the wardrobe and smooth the scenery. The halls of
the hotel were strung with clothes-lines, and the costumes of all nations festooned the doors of the bedrooms, so that when an unsuspicious boarder came out suddenly into the entry, he was likely to run his head into a damp Roman' shirt, or perhaps have the legs of a soaking pair of red tights dangling round his neck. Mildew filled the air. The gilded pasteboard helmets fared the worst. They had succumbed to the softening influences of the Mississippi, and were as battered and out of shape as if they had gone through the Pass of Thermopyhe. Limp leggings of scale armour hung wet and dejected from the lines ; low-spirited cocked
hats were piled up in a corner Theatrical scenery at its best looks pale and shabby in the day-time ; but a well-worn set after a six-hours' bath in a river presents the most woe-begone appearance that can well be imagined My father had painted the scenery, and he was not a little crestfallen as he looked
upon the ruins : a wood scene had amalgamated with a Roman street painted on the back of it, and had so run into stains and winding streaks that ho said it looked like a large map of South America ; and pointing out the Andes with his cane, he humorously traced the Amazon to its source."
In another passage he relates how the company, finding that the river by which they could alone reach their destination had fallen too low for steamboat navigation, bought a barge, and as occasion arose used their scenery in a manner " never before attempted in the annals of the stage." In the broad reaches, " if we had a fair wind blowing downstream, by hoisting one of the scenes for a sail we could increase our speed from two to three miles an hour. A hickory pole was cut from the shore, and a drop-scene, with a wood painted on one side and a palace on the other, was unfurled to the breeze. The wonder- stricken farmers, and their wives and children, would run out of their log-cabins, and, standing on the river-bank, gaze with amazement at our curious craft." To add to the sport, " our leading-man and the low-comedian would sometimes get a couple of old-fashioned broadswords and fight a melodramatic combat on the deck." This " barn-storming " life had its adventurous side also. When the company were at Houston, an old ex-actor named Stanley rode three hundred miles through the chaparral in the hope of persuading the troupe to visit San Antonio. The situation was gravely discussed, but the risk of falling in with the Indians eventually decided the company against the offer. How real that risk was may be gathered from the following anecdote of an incident that occurred in Florida during the Seminole war :— " It seems that a manager by the name of William C. Forbes had taken a theatrical company into the very jaws of the dis-
turbance. The troupe acted at the different forts and garrisons along the line of battle, and on a certain occasion, while going from one military station' to another without an escort, it was attacked and roughly handled by the savages. Forbes and most of his people escaped, but two unfortunate actors were captured and butchered. The theatrical wardrobe belonging to the com- pany fell into the hands of the Indians, who, dressing themselves up as Romans, Highlanders, and Shakespearian heroes, galloped i about in front of the very fort, though well out of gunshot, where Forbes and the more fortunate members of his company had fled for safety. Several of the Indians were afterwards taken, and as they were robed and decked in the habiliments of Othello, Hamlet, and a host of other Shakespearian characters,—for Forbes was eminently legitimate,—their identity as the murderers was estab- lished, and they were hanged in front of the garrison."
Stanley, Mr. Jefferson goes on to say, ridiculed their fears, declaring there would be no risk if the entire party kept together. "Going all hi, one waggon we would then exhibit the entire strength of the company,' and well armed with such theatrical weapons as we might possess, there would be no danger A cold shiver ran down my back as I imagined myself facing a Comanche with a weapon whose uncertainty had on more than one occasion compelled the heavy villain to commit suicide with a table-spoon."
Mr. Jefferson's life as an actor falls very naturally into two divisions. Until he was about thirty, he played an infinite amount of light or low-comedy parts without ever realising that he had it in him to move as well as to amuse his audience. His chance came at last in the same play that brought fame and fortune to Sothern, Tom Taylor's Our American Cousin. Until then he had never spoken a serious line upon the stage. But as Asa Trenehard in the love scene, he discovered that he possessed this power, and after following up his success in such parts as Caleb Plummer and Newman Noggs, began to cast about for a rMe in which his powers might have the fullest scope. That part, we need hardly remind our readers, he found in Washington Irving's Sketch-Book. Setting to work on the three already existing plays of Bip Van Winkle, he condensed them into a new version, which he produced in Washington at the close of 1859 with only moderate success, five years elapsing before the final alterations and additions were made by Dion Boueicault. In 1861 ho lost his wife, and set out for a long tour in Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. When at Hobart Town, he played in The Ticket-of-Leave Man, before an audience which contained at least one hundred of the genuine article, the result of which performance was to render him extremely popular with sonic of the old convicts. Their courtesies were flattering to him as an artist, but at times threatened to be very inconvenient.
Finally, in 1865 he appeared in London, in the revised version of Rip Van Winkle, an impersonation which no one who has ever witnessed it is likely to forget. It did not take the public by storm, but grew gradually into favour. Nothing more genial or pathetic has been seen on the boards in the present century. Persons for whom the stage as a rule has no attractions succumbed to the irresistible charm of this kindly dreamer. From that date he played little else but Rip, playing it, amongst other places, at the village of Catskill, to an audience of farmers and their wives " who bad come from far and near to see for the first time on the stage, the story which Washington Irving had laid almost at their very doors."
The pleasure given by the perusal of these memoirs is very much akin, though of course not so keen, to that excited by witnessing Mr. Jefferson's inimitable performances on the stage. There is a great deal of kindly sunny human nature in these pages, and also suet lacrinue rerum. They have also a historic interest from the exceedingly picturesque account which they give of the conditions of life in the Western States of America forty or fifty years back ; while to the student of dramatic literature on its personal side, the reminiscences and anecdotes of actors in which they abound render them a mine of interesting information. To most readers, however, their principal charm will probably be found to consist in the way in which the famous actor tells the story of his life without a taint of egotism or vanity, and unconsciously reveals a per- sonality which in great part accounts for the magnetism exerted by him on his audiences.
Previous page
