VIOLET VANBRUGH LOOKS BACK

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 166, 31 July 1937, Page 11

VIOLET VANBRUGH LOOKS BACK

Miss Violet Vanbrugh, on her birthday on June 11, was given a lunebeon party by some friends, and celebrated, not quite accurately, her '" jubilee" on tbe stage. Actually, beginning as early as tbe age of sixteen, sbe has been on the stage just fifty-one years (writes the theatre correspondent, of : the London Observer). ^ An interesting and "r evealing key to her character was given me wben I went to talk to ber about this* even t. Was she, ready to talk' about ber early experienced, Toole's Theatre, Eer first appearance, the managements of Irving; Sir Charles Wyndham, tbe Kendals, and the great days of Augustin Daly — the wealth of experience going. so 1 far back through recent theatrical history? " "Miss Yanbrugh, you're supposed to be celebrating a jubilee. -You ought to be dragging in the 'great names of the past;' Pinero, for instance. Did he produce 'on a light rein'l "He did not!" "Is the story true or apocryphal that he once said to you or your t sister, during the difection of a play, 'You stand at the" back of this chair. You theu come round it, sit down, rest your head on your right hand — but I will give you.a tr.eat to-day, you can choose which side of - the .chair "you come round ? '' ■ "The story is • almost certainly apocryphal. Pinero would never have "allowed me "thaffreedom " of "choice! ;No, he pro'duced on a tight ■ rein — on the curb. And I often. thought that he didn't get tho best but of his actors by trying to direct them too rxgidly according to his own preconceived ideas." Two Shillings a Performance. ""What was 'Toole's Theatre,' where you made your first appearance? And • what salary- did-you get?" . ; "It was a little comedy theatre, on-. a site that now forms part of * tho Charing Cross Hospital. Neither its . stage-space nor its4 fire-precautions-would have been passed by a modern. L.C;G. My first salafy, - for • a ' walk- , on'" there, was two shillings a perform-. ance. When I .took.a sxnging part for the first time — in a Burhand burlesque called .'Faust , and Loose ' (how . •characteri8tic the pun in the -title?; ia of the period)— the \salary . was ■ raised

to a guinea a week. I got my first, engagement because we happened" to, know Ellen Terry.' ' ! , . "So 4t was the immense influence of • Ellen 'Terry that got you — two shillings a performance? ■ - " YotJf can put it like that.. The stage isn't easy to get on to now — and it wasn't then/'* "You played under Irving. Was be a terrific personality?" : ! "Terrifie is the wrong word. II suggests that he was a noisy personality. Powerful — but quiet. -Augustin Daly? — whom Shaw used to pitch into so strongly. I don't think he ever actually used to 'write in' new things to Sbakespeare's text, but he used to! cut it unmercifully. and he used to transpose things' from one play into another (altering the name3 appro- • pri-ately ) in''a -way that drove Shaw ■ mad. •'•..> - i 9.30 . . Eebearsals. ... "He - was a curious martlnet in tbe ranxling of his theatre. One wasn't all'owcd to go to anyone else's dressingroom, nor to Teceive letters at the theatre.. 'See here, Miss ■ Yanbrugh, I don'.t allow this in my company . . .' He used ,to .go -to early. Mass himself every morning,, and so was perfectly .fresh and on tlxe .spot wben he called his compapy.for rehearsal at 9.30. Thp young actors of tliose days weren't used. to appearing .in t.lie theatre beforo at least, 10,30. . All these, regulations may have been neeessax-y in tho American theatx-ieal life of those days, . Certainly I have never seen , a finer company tlxan his own comedy company iu America ..... . - "What are the changes I.-havo noticed? Not so many. The theatre always porsists, curipusly the same. There is the ..disappeanance of - the actor-manager. The old actor-manager used to be, in a sense, a host,, entertaining in his own house. Also, in.tlxo old days, actors used to livo moro of their lives in the theatre. Thcro wero far fewer social complications. Thp theatre was their life. And yet, even •as I say tliis, the wheel scexns to have bccoine full circlc. Tho young actors that my sister and T liavo just been with, tho young repcrtory actors in the fj-Qvinces — the theatre eeitaixily is their

life, and they sp'end their "whole time in it. " ' ' A last question. How much opposition" was thei-e when you and you sister, daughters of a Victorian Church dignitary, sudderily decxded to go on the stage?" "Not very much.' From the stage itself, none at all. 1 suppose that was because we were both so young, I only sixteen, and Irene not quite fourteen. My father regarded the whole thing as rather a f light into the blue — but, not necessarily a descent into i io bottomless pit. He would • probably rather -^v-o-had taken up' a more conventional profession — but he let us have our way."" • . It is- to- the -broadmindness of Prebendary . Barnes,. then,' that the stage owed, and still owes, two of its most bcloved: personalities.. - -