‘SUPERS’ ON THE STAGE.

Supernumeraries on the stage, ordinarily called ‘supers,’ receive a small pay, but are not reckoned within the rôle of actors. They make up a crowd, when a crowd is wanted in the piece, and so on. Though viewed as a kind of nobodies, they cannot be done without, and managers need to take care not to give them offence.

These humble players have been aptly described as serfs of the stage, for whom there is no manumission. Let them work as hard as they will, play their parts as well as they may, their merits meet scant recognition either before or behind the curtain. For the wage of some threepence an hour, they have to submit to being bullied and badgered, and put to all manner of personal discomfort. Still, with a sense of inferiority, the super considers himself an actor. He treads but the lowest rung; but his foot is on the theatrical ladder. The climbers above may superciliously ignore the connection; but he feels that he too is an actor, and sometimes asserts his fellowship; like the poverty-stricken fellow who publicly hailed David Garrick as his ‘dear colleague,’ on the score that it was his crowing that made the ghost of buried Denmark start like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons; and the less obtrusive super who, when told of Macready’s death, exclaimed: ‘Ah! another of us gone!’

It is recorded that a French super playing an assistant-footman in a popular opéra-bouffe for the first time, fell down in a fit, brought on by the excitement consequent upon his having to ‘create the rôle.’ Too much zeal is always inconvenient. At a performance not very long since of Richard III., the armies contending at Bosworth were so carried away by professional ardour that the mimic fray came very near the real thing; and one gallant archer introduced himself to the manager’s notice with an arrow through his nose, so astonishing that gentleman that he salved the wound with half a sovereign. The next evening the casualties rose to such alarming proportions, that a like treatment would have well-nigh exhausted the treasury.

Such realistic combats would have delighted Forrest the American tragedian, famous for his ‘powerful’ acting. Rehearsing the part of a brave Roman warrior at the Albany Theatre, Forrest stormed at the representatives of the minions of a tyrant for not attacking him with sufficient spirit. At last the captain of the supers inquired if he wanted to make ‘a bully-fight of it,’ and received an affirmative answer. Evening came, and in due course the fighting scene was reached. Forrest ‘took the stage,’ and the half-dozen myrmidons advanced against him in skirmishing order. ‘Seize him!’ cried the tyrant. Striking a pugilistic attitude, the first minion hit out from the shoulder, and gave the Roman hero a fair ‘facer;’ the second minion following up with a well-judged kick from behind; while the others rushed in for a bout at close-quarters. The eyes of the astounded actor flashed fire; there was a short scrimmage of seven, and then one super went head first into the big drum and stopped there, four retired behind the scenes to have their wounds dressed, and the last of the valiant crew finding himself somehow up in the flies, rushed out upon the roof of the theatre bawling ‘Fire!’ with all the energy left him; while the breathless tragedian was bowing his acknowledgments of the enthusiastic plaudits of the excited audience.

Considering how often the super changes his nationality, one would expect him to be too thorough a cosmopolitan to cherish any insular or continental prejudices. They nevertheless have their sympathies and antipathies. ‘Shure, sir,’ said an Irishman who had for some nights died a glorious death fighting for Fatherland, ‘it’s mighty onpleasant to have to be a German; I’d rather play a Frenchman.’ He had to be contented by receiving the manager’s assurance that if he continued to work up his agony well, he might be permitted to change his uniform at the end of the month. Greater success awaited a stalwart navvy, who after crossing the Danube several times at Alexandra Park, declared he must ‘chuck it up’ if he could not be a Turk. His desire was granted; and the next afternoon he was pitching Russians into the water with a will.

In the old days of the Paris Cirque, a rule is said to have obtained, compelling supers who had incurred the management’s displeasure to go on as ‘the enemy,’ destined to succumb to native valour, by which means the difficulty of getting men to appear as the foes of France was obviated. When the Battle of Waterloo was first produced on the English stage, in one of the battle-scenes the French troops drove a British division across the mimic field. This was done for a few nights. One morning, after rehearsal, the leader of the supernumerary red-coat corps, gathering his followers around him, said: ‘Boys, we mustn’t retreat before the Johnny Crapauds again, to be goosed by the pit. It’s all very well at rehearsal, but when it comes to real acting it won’t do. Let us turn upon the yelling demons and pitch them into the pit!’ And they did it too, astonishing the ‘Frenchmen,’ to say nothing of the audience; as greatly as Mr George Jones was once astonished by certain theatrical pirates. He, as an American sailor, had to rescue a fair captive from the clutches of the aforesaid ruffians. Unfortunately he had contrived to mortally offend the four supers concerned; and when he rushed to the lady’s aid with: ‘Come on, ye villains! One Yankee tar is more than a match for four lubberly sharks!’ instead of leading off in a broadsword fight, the pirate captain shouted: ‘I guess not!’ and seizing Jones by the legs and arms, the pirates carried him off the stage, deposited him in the property closet, and then returning, bore off the damsel to their rocky retreat; leaving the curtain to come down before a very much puzzled audience, to whom no explanation was vouchsafed.

Somebody—we think Mr Dutton Cook—tells a good story of an accessoire once attached to the Porte St-Martin Theatre. M. Fombonne had won managerial praise for the adroitness with which he handed letters or coffee-cups upon a salver and his excellent manner of announcing the names of stage-guests and visitors. Naturally enough, he thought his services might be more liberally rewarded, and made his thought known.

‘Monsieur Fombonne,’ said the manager, ‘I acknowledge the justice of your application. I admire and esteem you. You are one of the most useful members of my company. I well know your worth; no one better.’

Glowing with pleasure at this recognition of his merits, M. Fombonne, with one of his best bows, said: ‘I may venture then to hope’——

‘By all means, Monsieur Fombonne,’ interrupted the manager. ‘Hope sustains us under all our afflictions. Always hope. For my part, hope is the only thing left me. Business is wretched. The treasury is empty. I cannot possibly raise your salary. But you are an artist, and therefore above pecuniary considerations. I do not, I cannot offer you money; but I can gratify a laudable ambition. Hitherto you have ranked only as an accessoire; from this time you are an actor. I give you the right of entering the grand foyer. You are permitted to call Monsieur Lemaitre mon camarade; to tutoyer Mademoiselle Theodorine. I am sure, Monsieur Fombonne, that you will thoroughly appreciate the distinction I have conferred upon you.’ The manager read his man rightly; the promoted accessoire was more than satisfied.

Not so well pleased was the English super who asked for a rise, pleading that he had been playing his part with the utmost care and zeal for a hundred consecutive nights. The manager inquired what part he played.

‘Why, sir,’ said he, ‘I am in the fourth act; I have to stake twenty pounds in the gambling scene.’

‘Very well,’ quoth the manager; ‘from to-night you shall double the stakes.’

Was it the same manager, we wonder, to whom Mr Sala’s small super came crying for a redress of his grievance? He had been cast to play ‘double-four’ in a pantomimic game of animated dominoes; but the dresser had allotted ‘double-four’ to his brother Jim, and insisted upon his being contented with donning the tabard of ‘four and a blank.’ He had protested, he had howled, he had punched Jim’s head, without effect.

‘What am I to do?’ the little pantomimist cried. ‘I’d sooner give up the profession, than be took down so many pegs without never ’avin done nuffin.’

‘Never mind, my boy,’ replied the amused stage-manager; ‘you shall play double-four; and if you behave yourself properly till Boxing Night you shall play double-six.’

That little fellow would never have made such a mess of his ‘business’ as did a street urchin who made his first appearance on any stage under the auspices of Mr J. C. Williamson, when the latter was playing Struck Oil in a country town. Led on by the ear by Lizzie Stofel, and asked: ‘What for you call me Dutchy?’ the debutant blurted out: ‘Cause you told me to!’—to the immense delight of the house. As soon as the act was over, he was told he might go in front; and before any one could stop him, he pulled back the curtain, climbed over the footlights into the orchestra, and coolly left the theatre.

At a performance of Norma at the Cork Theatre, in which Cruvelli played the heroine, the little daughters of the carpenter were pressed into service to represent the children of the priestess. As the curtain drew up on the second act they were seen lying on Norma’s couch quiet enough, for they were frightened nearly to death by the glare of light, the noise in front, and their unaccustomed surroundings. Their fright increased as Norma vented her jealous rage in recitative; and when, dagger in hand, she rushed towards them, they gave a shriek, tumbled off their couch, and ran off the stage as fast as their legs would take them, while the theatre rang with laughter, and Norma herself was fain to sit down until she had recovered from the effect of the unexpected episode.

Boleno the clown never evoked heartier merriment than that caused by his first appearance in public as one of the ‘principal waves’ in the nautical piece Paul Jones. It was at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, soon after the ‘real water,’ for which that house was long famous, had given place to the conventional canvas sea with its wave-rolling boys underneath. The last scene represented the ocean, bearing on its expanse of waters two ships preparing for action. The waves rolled as the boys bobbed up and down, and all would have gone well, had not Master Harry discovered a small hole in the canvas above him. Into this hole he put two fingers, intending to take a peep at the front of the house. The rotten stuff gave way; the waters of the Atlantic divided, and disclosed a small head besmeared with blue paint—the result of friction against the painted cloth. Catching sight of this, young Joe Grimaldi, who was the captain in command of one of the vessels, called out: ‘Man overboard!’ while the stage-carpenter shook his fist at the appalled offender, causing that luckless young rascal to disappear from view, and bob with such vigour at a remote distance, that a sudden storm seemed to have broken over the ocean far away.

An American critic, disgusted with the mob in Julius Cæsar, when that play was acted lately at Booth’s Theatre, because they shewed no discrimination, cheering the meanest soldier walking in procession, while they let Cæsar and Antony go by unrecognised, insists upon the supernumeraries being better taught. It is certainly the duty of the stage-manager to see that they are properly instructed, but it is no use to ask too much of them; like the actor-manager who called upon his supers to assume an oily smile of truculent defiance; and the author of Jeanne d’Arc, who in his stage directions requires the representatives of the English spectators at the procession to the pyre to give vent to a buzz and murmur of hatred and exultation; and the representatives of the Amazon’s countrymen to express their feelings in a buzz and murmur of love, pity, and sympathy. Such exacting gentlemen remind one of the French manager who fined one of the supernumeraries engaged in Paul et Virginie for not making himself black enough, and afterwards discovered that the man he had fined was a nigger born.