FAMOUS DRURY LANE COMES TO LIFE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5326, 12 February 1947, Page 7

FAMOUS DRURY LANE COMES TO LIFE

"FIRST NIGHT" FOR SEVEN YEARS

Smiles, beams, laughter, excitement . . . everybody was happy when London's oldest and greatest theatre reopened . . . A whole district came to life when the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, had its "first11 night" for ^even years, writes H. G. Kippax in the Sydney Morning Herald. • •

The black, shabby little streets throbbed with excitement. Taxi-cabs coughed and wheezed their way through the drab 'maze; limousines nosed and snorted through the darkness from the Strand; people hurried through the dirty snow, drawn; like moths, towards the blaze of light about the theatre colonriade . . . In the "crush ^oom,', the "Valhalla," where Shalcespeare, Garricik, Keane, and Balfe stand outside the Royal Tier, shirtfronts gleamed, long gowns rustled, jewellery spankled. In the gallery — the gallery where Charles 'Lamb hissed his own play — , hundreds chattered, stared. In his box, Noel Coward, author of the new play, beamed. It was a great, worthy first night. • None were happier than the theatre staff. They had worked hdrd for weeks. From the stage, from the auditorium itself, and the labyrinth of passages and cubby-'holes accumulated over nearly three centuries, they had cleared the mess of offices, and partitions that had been E.N.S.A. headquarters. They had painted walls, restored the seating, repaired the damage of the blitz. Aided only by a few outside specialists, they had hoisted six huge sagging beams, displaced hy blast, back into positjon. From the vaults they brought out again the scarlet carpets, the chandeliers, the impedimenta of pomp and ceremony. The old theatre shone with new life. Coward's JNew Show The cast had worked hard. They had a hard taskmaster. For a. fortnight in a suburban theatre, for a fortnight in the Theatre Royal they had listened to the familiar staccato voice. Coward rehearsed his new show, an operetta called "Pacific 1860," from the self-same circle seat where he rehearsed "Cavalcade" more than a decade ago. With crinolines over their slacks, the chorus listened to the eomments, sometimes persuasive, sometinies caustic, from the microphone. The star, American Mary Martin, was having trouble with her walk. "On the toes . . . Please!" She twitched her crinoline, essayed the step. "Please! You're supposed to be in love . . . the world is beautiful! You look as though you couldn't care less — were only waiting for a slice of plum cake." "On the night I expect you'll fly down at me from a hox," says Miss Martin, and bursts into tears. Designer Gladys Calthrop, neat and efficient in brown slacks, blo'use and gay turban, hurries from the wings. Coward turns his attention to the orchestra . . . The Author Beams But on the first night, Miss Martin opened telegrams, received flowers, opened cables, received more flowers, waited for curtain. And in his box Noel Coward beamed. The first sentence of another chapter in the history of the magnificent theatre was about to he written. And what a history it is: a history not only of great actors and great plays, but of murder and highwaymen, of assassination and Royal rompnce, of fii*e and riots, of riches and ruin. This is the fourth Theatre Royal. The first one was given a Royal Patent in 11639, was actually built in 1663. Owner of the first patents was Davenant, reputedly Shakespeare's son — the theatre's linlc with England's greatest dramatist. It was hurned down in 1672. The second theatre lasted till 1794, when it was rebuilt, only to be destroyed by fire in '1809. The present theatre was remodelled in 1921.

Dozens of mep, S-heridan among them, have gone bankrupt or been virtually ruined by its management. Others have made fortunes. It has been closed for long periods only twice — once at the opening of its career by the Great Plague, lately for seven years by the World War. It has been the scene of riots, when soldiers hdd to be called to restore order, and of great blazing triumphs. It has seen an orange-girl called Nell Gwynne become its leading actress, and the same actress become mistress of Charles II. It has seen another of its greatest actresses, Mrs. Jordan, become the mistress of the prince who hecame William IV. She bore him ten children, * Drama In The Audience It is linked with the history of the nation, From the Royal box, German George II, stammering broken English, tried to tell .the crowded house the news he had just received — that th Jacohite rebels had been cut to pieces at Culloden. In the same box •George III narrowly escaped assassination. And in the rotunda, the same king boxed the ears of his son, the Prince Regent, af'terwards George IV, an incident which so shociked ppblie. opinion that the management divided the theatre into "Kfng's Side^' and "Prince's Side," and persuaded the Royal parties to lceep to them the notices can he seen in the rotunda to-day. A -highwayman, Scum Goodman, was once its leading actor. Its playwrights included Dryden, Sheridan, Congreve, and. Farquhar, its musicians Dihdin and Balfe. , Its famous names ring out Hke ■trumpets — Wren (who built the second theatre — his arches stillf support the main building); David Garrick and Edmund Kean; Betterfcon and

Macklin (who killed an actor in the greeil room); Mrs. Siddons (who was hissed off the stage and returned to become its greatest tragedienne and her brother, John Phillip Kemhle; Peg Woffington and Mrs. Abing'ton, who first played Lady Teazle, bo-th of whom nearly drove the feckless Sheridan to. mad'ness; great clowns like Grimaldi and Dan Leno. Ghosts Stalk the Passages •In the theatre to-day you can see the room, part of the older building, .where they loeked Sheridan to force h'im to finish "The School for Scandal"; you can see where the ghost walks . . . A peouliar ghQst! A daytime ghost. When thg^historian of *the theatre, Mr. Macqueen Pope, showed me the wall thro'ugh which the ghost appears, the passage across the upper circle on > w'hich he walks, and the wall through which he disappears, I tried to argue. "I have seen it many times," 'he replied. "It is=a man of middle age, in eighteenth century clothes, dressed in a long grey cloak. It carries a sword. It has never spoken to anybody. "On the 25th March, T939, when 250 people in 'The Dancing Years' show were assembled on the stage after rehearsal, it was seen by all of them, in broad daylight, crossing the upper circle. People who have never heard of it have complained at matinees that an 'actor' had come into the circle — the description is always the same. He was last seen in 1943." Mr. Pope showed me a little room which had been uneovered by workrnen last century. It was part of the former theatre and had been bricked up for decades. Inside they found the skeleton of a young man — with a knife in its oack. That, room is where the ghost ap- ' pe'ars to-day. Damage By Bombs 1 Mr. Pope, who has been Chief Warden, showed me where the bomb hit the theatre. It came at the upper , end, through the three tiers and i burst in the back stalls. The blast was I taken by the iron "fire curtain." If ' it had fallen twenty feet farther down i the blast, unshielded by the tiers, would have hrought the colossal roof I down. The nosecap fell through the. i theatre floor into the stalls bar, right | I in the middle of eight of the staff i who were sleeping there. None was j hurt. | And the same night, through the ' hole torn hy the bomb there came j an oil bomb! , On another occasion, when wardens were fijghting the 37 incendiaries which had hit the building, one fell unnoticed amid the E.N.S.A. cubby- { hole offices on the stage. It was disj covered, amid its highly inflammahle surroundings, the next day. Its heat had hurst open a baiTel of size and the size put the fire out before damage, was done. dn the first night, in his beloved "Valhalla," Mr. Macqueen Pope, whose family has been connected with the theatre for two centuries, whose ancesters, Jane Pope, created the role of Mrs. Candour for Sheridan, beamqd as the lights went down and Coward's enchanting overture began. He beamed— as -everyone else had beamed, even the Press critics, even, no doubt, the ghost. "A good first night," he said, and went in to see the curtain rise. ,