New Friends and Stranger Companies...2!

I've spent much of the last six weeks either fretting about my new found status as a driver, fretting about the purchase of a car or fretting about an impending PhD deadline.  The solution, I have found, has been to retreat to 1881 and read old newspaper reviews of Shakespeare productions.

A crash course in Shakespearean touring companies of the 1880s has left me realising that I really don't know very much at all.   I've thoroughly enjoyed reading about George Rignold, for example, whose production of Henry V gave star billing to his white charger 'Crispin'.  I have also enjoyed discovering that Ellen Wallis wasn't above falsifying some of the glowing reviews she used in publicity.  I've felt sad for Charles Dillon, former London star, who died on the High Street in Hawick where he was playing Othello at the Corn Exchange - rather a come-down for a man who once ran the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane - and I've marvelled at the extent of Henry Irving's tour of just about every bit of Lyceum scenery, drapery and property that could be crammed onto a specially chartered train by the redoubtable Messrs Loveday and Stoker.  

There are some things I've been unable to find a home for as yet, including a fabulous story about Barry Sullivan losing his temper over a prie-dieu which Charles Flower had purchased for the new Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. Sullivan had it banished from the stage on the grounds that it would distract the audience from his rendition of 'To be or not be'.  

But my favourite story concerns an American actor, a certain Daniel Howard Harkins, who toured through the UK from 1879 to 1881.  D.H. Harkins billed himself as a great star - one of the foremost tragedians of the age - although one of the Belfast newspapers, reviewing his performance as Othello, confessed that they had been unable to cope with his bizarre methods of emphasising apparently random words in his speeches.  

Advert from The Era 16/4/81

As well as acting, Harkins had been a soldier in the American Civil War, rising to the rank of Major in the Unionist Army as part of the 1st New York Volunteer Cavalry.  His career on stage seems to have had its fair share of disputes and fallings out, and in 1868 he was involved in a wrangle over royalty payments which had a bizarre and rather terrifying outcome.

The Daily Alta California for 11th September 1868 relates the entire event with evident relish, quoting the New York Times at length.  Complications over the royalty payments owed for a production of  Foul Play seem to have led to the closure of the theatre and the sacking of Harkins, who then decamped to another theatre and staged the exact same play there.  The owner of the rights to the play then took out a warrant for Harkins' arrest.  

That evening, the first and second acts of the performance ran smoothly, but just before the start of Act 3 a series of pistol shots  and the sound of one of the actresses shouting 'Oh my husband!' alerted the audience to the fact that a full scale drama was unfolding behind the scenes.  Around 9pm, six men - 'ruffians' in the paper's words, although they were actually working for the Sheriff - had gathered at the stage door and demanded admittance in order to confront and arrest Harkins.  On being denied admission, they had barged through the door, injuring the stage door man and run up the steps into the wings, looking for Harkins. Not finding him they then went through the Green Room, disturbing the ladies of the Company  who were dressing there, and then seem to have rampaged through the dressing rooms, before heading back to the stage.  

Harkins, realising what was happening, had slipped under the stage, through the orchestra and escaped through the auditorium into the street.  The men - who were armed with revolvers - tried to follow him but found themselves surrounded by the backstage crew and performers who would not allow them to pass.  Shots rang out and the elderly theatre nightwatchman and one of the gas-lighters were both badly injured. By this time, reinforcements had arrived and five of the six men - one had managed to escape.

Incredibly, the performance continued with an understudy stepping into Harkins' role. The whole production was apparently later closed down by a high court injunction.  

Now, none of that is of the slightest use to me really.  But I  thoroughly enjoyed reading about it!