 | Mr. Buckstone's Voyage Round the Globe (in Leicester Square) |  |
11
Scene First.
—The Front of the Haymarket Theatre—The Box Book Keeper standing at Box Office Door.Enter an Author hastily, with a manuscript in his hand.
Author.
Have you seen Mr. Buckstone?
B. K.
Not to-day.
Author.
At the stage door they said he'd gone this way.
Plague take it! Of all things of human kind,
A manager's most difficult to find
When you want him! but just let him want you,
He's to be found all day and all night too!
He's not at home, I know—I have knocked there.
B. K.
At home. Oh, no! He is abroad somewhere.
He's got so strange a crotchet in his brain,
I fear he'll never be at home again.
Author.
What do you mean?
B. K.
We've apprehensions serious
His past success has made him quite delirious.
Since Mount Parnassus he last year ascended,
His interest in theatricals seems ended.
He looks upon the stage as a machine,
A vehicle to run the poles between,
And thinks no scene in all the British Drama
Is equal to a foreign panorama.
Author.
I'm not at all surpised. 'Tis ever so
With managers. The fellows never know
When of a thing the town has had enough.
If once they make a hit with any stuff,
12
Until the stuff's completely worn threadbare.
A great mistake! In all the best society
You'll hear the constant cry is for variety.
No piece should run above a night or two,
B. K.
Yours, I believe, sir, very seldom do.
Author.
Mine! I can't get for one of mine a chance
Because my dramas are not filched from France.
They are original!
B. K.
And I'll engage
Not one of them “adapted to the stage.”
Author.
Not one! or I would burn it—I protest!
B. K.
(aside)
Of all your plays, that Act would be the best.
Our Property Man comes.
Enter Property Man, laden with books.
What have you got
Under your arm?
Prop. M.
Of books a precious lot.
Author.
What are they, pray? and whom may they be for?
Prop. M.
All Murray's Handbooks for the Governor.
Germany, North and South, France, Holland, Spain,
Switzerland, up the Rhine, and back again,
Italy, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Greece,
Some of 'em twelve or fourteen bob a-piece.
And now I've got to go for loads of maps,
To Wyld and Arrowsmith's, and all them chaps.
I don't know what the Governor's about,
But if he can't an Easter piece bring out
Without this bother about foreign climes,
I'd rather get up fifty pantomimes.
(going)
B. K.
Go through the box office, 'twill save some paces,
And look as if some one had come for places.
(Exit Property Man through the office)
Author.
Here's the great little man, I do believe!
B. K.
Then stand aside, for should he you perceive,
It suddenly may strike his recollection
He's wanted in the opposite direction.
(they retire)
13
Mr. B.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men,”
Says Shakespeare, “which,” if it be taken when
'Tis “at the flood, leads on to fortune.” So
At least said Shakespeare a long time ago,
But now they've altered him so many ways,
No one can say exactly what he says.
But the fidelity of my quotation
Is not the great point for consideration.
It is a fact there is a tide now flowing
And nobody can doubt which way it's going.
It's running up at Exhibition stairs
And overflows all reserved seats and chairs.
Casts off the painter from the dry old Drama—
Empties her pit and fills his Panorama.
Last Spring-tide I was borne by it to Greece,
Got up Parnassus for an Easter piece,
And found there was a way to fortune by it.
Then should I hesitate again to try it,
With the same crew—in the same jolly boat!
No! I won't rest till I'm again afloat;
And with all canvass spread, and flag unfurled,
I'll sail in search of fortune—round the world!
Air—Mr. Buckstone—“All round my hat.”
Says Shakespeare, “which,” if it be taken when
'Tis “at the flood, leads on to fortune.” So
At least said Shakespeare a long time ago,
But now they've altered him so many ways,
No one can say exactly what he says.
But the fidelity of my quotation
Is not the great point for consideration.
It is a fact there is a tide now flowing
And nobody can doubt which way it's going.
It's running up at Exhibition stairs
And overflows all reserved seats and chairs.
Casts off the painter from the dry old Drama—
Empties her pit and fills his Panorama.
Last Spring-tide I was borne by it to Greece,
Got up Parnassus for an Easter piece,
And found there was a way to fortune by it.
Then should I hesitate again to try it,
With the same crew—in the same jolly boat!
No! I won't rest till I'm again afloat;
And with all canvass spread, and flag unfurled,
I'll sail in search of fortune—round the world!
All round the world, like a new Robinson Crusoe;
All round the world I will travel on the stage;
And if anybody asks me the reason why I do so,
I'll say because geography's becoming quite the rage.
All round the world I will travel on the stage;
And if anybody asks me the reason why I do so,
I'll say because geography's becoming quite the rage.
Author.
(advancing)
Breakers ahead!
Mr. B.
Whose voice is that I hear?
Author.
An author's.
Mr. B.
Then a breaker may be near.
For there are shoals of authors I would shun,
As very dangerous flats on which to run.
Author.
Sir, I am one—
Mr. B.
I feared as much. Good-day.
(going)
14
Nay—I am one, I was about to say,
Whose plays, if managers had penetration,
Would purify the stage—
Mr. B.
By ventilation?
Author.
An audience “fit, though few,” would grace your pit.
Mr. B.
I never thought an audience few was fit.
Author.
Such sordid views the risk of wreck increases;
Come to me for, and you won't go to pieces.
Mr. B.
What pieces have you written?—I forget.
Author.
I've written none that have been acted yet.
Mr. B.
Not acted! How could they success achieve?
Author.
Simply by being acted, I believe.
I have great confidence in all I do!
Mr. B.
You must have very great—to say so too!
Author.
Allow me just one scene to you to read,
And you shall judge.
Mr. B.
I can't just now, indeed!
I'm off, before the tide turns.
Author.
Off, sir—where?
Mr. B.
All round the globe!
Author.
The globe in Leicester Square?
Mr. B.
Pshaw! The great globe itself! In hopes to find—
Author.
What?
Mr. B.
Novelty!
Author.
There's nothing of the kind;
And why to see the world through perils roam,
When you can see it safely here at home?
As Mathews did, who, with his wit and whim—
“At home” to all the world—made it see him.
Mr. B.
No; monypolylogue is not my forte,
Though actors all like something of that sort;
But you have put a notion in my noddle—
Before I scour the globe I'll see the model;
And may upon some point or other pop,
To which I can go straight without a stop.
Author.
You'll own, then, my ideas are something worth?
Mr. B.
This is the best you ever had—on earth—
And if it prove a lucky one for me—
Author.
You'll bring my play out, won't you?
15
We shall see.
At all events, my circumnavigation
You shall arrange for stage representation
If you have no objection.
Author.
Sir, I'll do
All in the world I can to pull you through.
For all the world's a stage on which I may
At last get some one to produce my play.
Duo—Mr. Buckstone and Author—“Without a Companion.”
Mr. B.
Come, be my companion, then, into the square;
That journey, at least, won't take long;
No doubt, in the world, we shall get a hint there
For a scene, or a joke, or a song.
That journey, at least, won't take long;
No doubt, in the world, we shall get a hint there
For a scene, or a joke, or a song.
Author.
You're right, my good sir, we shall sure make a hit,
If with spirit we do something sprightly;
While safely at home in your arm-chair you'll sit,
And see all your places fill nightly.
If with spirit we do something sprightly;
While safely at home in your arm-chair you'll sit,
And see all your places fill nightly.
Both.
Then come on, we decide that a piece shall come out,
With a cast that is brilliant and strong;
So it draws, we don't care what on earth it's about,
And that of the matter's the short and the long.
With a cast that is brilliant and strong;
So it draws, we don't care what on earth it's about,
And that of the matter's the short and the long.
(Exeunt)
| Mr. Buckstone's Voyage Round the Globe (in Leicester Square) | |