LONDON, March 20, 1898.
[DEAR MOTHER:]
The Nellie Farren benefit was the finest thing I have
seen this year past. It was more remarkable than the
Coronation, or the Jubilee. It began at twelve o'clock on
Thursday, but at ten o'clock Wednesday night, the crowd began
to gather around Drury Lane, and spent the night on the
sidewalk playing cards and reading and sleeping. Ten hours
later they were admitted, or a few of them were, as many as
the galleries would hold. Arthur Collins, the manager of the
Drury Lane and the man who organized the benefit, could not
get a stall for his mother the day before the benefit. They
were then not to be had, the last having sold for twelve
guineas. I got two the morning of the benefit for three
pounds each, and now
people believe that I did get into the Coronation! The people
who had stalls got there at ten o'clock, and the streets were
blocked for "blocks" up to Covent Garden with hansoms and
royal carriages and holders of tickets at fifty dollars
apiece. It lasted six hours and brought in thirty thousand
dollars. Kate Vaughan came back and danced after an absence
from the stage of twelve years. Irving recited The Dream of
Eugene Aram, Terry played Ophelia, Chevalier sang Mrs.
Hawkins, Dan Leno gave Hamlet, Marie Tempest sang The Jewel of
Asia and Hayden Coffin sang Tommy Atkins, the audience of
three thousand people joining in the chorus, and for an encore
singing "Oh, Nellie, Nellie Farren, may your love be ever
faithful, may your pals be ever true, so God bless you Nellie
Farren, here's the best of luck to you." In Trial by Jury,
Gilbert played an associate judge; the barristers were all
playwrights, the jury the principal comedians, the chorus
girls were real chorus girls from the Gaiety mixed in with
leading ladies like Miss Jeffries and Miss Hanbury, who could
not keep in step. But the best part of it was the pantomime.
Ellaline came up a trap with a diamond dress and her hair down
her back and electric lights all over her, and said, "I am the
Fairy Queen," and waved her wand, at which the "First Boy" in
the pantomime said, "Go long, now, do, we know your tricks,
you're Ellaline Terriss"; and the clown said, "You're wrong,
she's not, she's Mrs. Seymour Hicks." Then Letty Lind came on
as Columbine in black tulle, and Arthur Roberts as the
policeman, and Eddy Payne as the clown and Storey as
Pantaloon.
The rest of it brought on everybody. Sam Sothern played
a "swell" and stole a fish. Louis Freear, a housemaid, and
all the leading men appeared as policemen.
No one had more than a line to speak which just gave the
audience time to recognize him or her. The composers and
orchestra leaders came on as a German band, each playing an
instrument, and they got half through the Washington Post
before the policemen beat them off. Then Marie Lloyd and all
the Music Hall stars appeared as street girls and danced to
the music of a hand-organ. Hayden Coffin, Plunkett Greene and
Ben Davies sang as street musicians and the clown beat them
with stuffed bricks. After that there was a revue of all the
burlesques and comic operas, then the curtain was raised from
the middle of the stage, and Nellie Farren was discovered
seated at a table on a high stage with all the "legitimates"
in frock-coats and walking dresses rising on benches around
her.
The set was a beautiful wood scene well lighted. Wyndham
stood on one side of her, and he said the yell that went up
when the curtain rose was worse than the rebel yell he had
heard in battles. In front of her, below the stage, were all
the people who had taken part in the revue, forming a most
interesting picture. There was no one in the group who had
not been known for a year by posters or photographs: Letty
Lind as the Geisha, Arthur Roberts as Dandy Dan. The French
Girl and all the officers from The Geisha, the ballet girls
from the pantomime, the bareback-riders from The Circus Girl;
the Empire costumes and the monks from La Poupee, and all the
Chinese and Japanese costumes from The Geisha. Everybody on
the stage cried and all the old rounders in the boxes cried.
It was really a wonderfully dramatic spectacle to see the
clown and officers and Geisha girls weeping down their grease
paint. Nellie Farren's great song
was one about a street Arab with the words: "Let me hold
your, nag, sir, carry your little bag, sir, anything you
please to give — thank'ee, sir!" She used to close her hand,
then open it and look at the palm, then touch her cap with a
very wonderful smile, and laugh when she said, "Thank'ee,
sir!" This song was reproduced for weeks before the benefit,
and played all over London, and when the curtain rose on her,
the orchestra struck into it and the people shouted as though
it was the national anthem. Wyndham made a very good address
and so did Terry, then Wyndham said he would try to get her to
speak. She has lost the use of her hands and legs and can
only walk with crutches, so he put his arm around her and her
son lifted her from the other side and then brought her to her
feet, both crying like children. You could hear the people
sobbing, it was so still. She said, "Ladies and Gentleman,"
looking at the stalls and boxes, then she turned her head to
the people on the stage below her and said, "Brothers and
Sisters," then she stood looking for a long time at the
gallery gods who had been waiting there twenty hours. You
could hear a long "Ah" from the gallery when she looked up
there, and then a "hush" from all over it and there was
absolute silence. Then she smiled and raised her finger to
her bonnet and said, "Thank'ee, sir," and sank back in her
chair. It was the most dramatic thing I ever saw on a stage.
The orchestra struck up "Auld Lang Syne" and they gave three
cheers on the stage and in the house. The papers got out
special editions, and said it was the greatest theatrical
event there had ever been in London.
DICK.
