Edward Marston - The Roaring Boy

‘Would you rather call a halt to the proceedings?’

Nicholas threw down a challenge that he knew would be ignored. Unlike Barnaby Gill, the playwright would never put selfish concerns before the good of the company. Survival was the order of the day and Hoode recognised that. It was time to unite with his fellows to bring The Corrupt Bargain safely into port, even if the harbour was not the one that the author had originally intended.

‘Tell us what to do, Nick,’ he said. ‘Guide us through.’

‘Stand close and hear me out.’

Snatching up the prompt book once more, Nicholas flicked through the pages and reiterated his decisions. Westfield’s Men listened intently though their eyes occasionally strayed to the supine figure of their colleague in the corner. Ben Skeat had spent a lifetime responding to the various crises that were thrown up regularly by a capricious profession. It fell to them to meet this dire emergency with the courage and imagination that the old actor would have shown.

Two plays now ran side by side. What the audience saw was an attenuated version of The Corrupt Bargain but the drama taking place behind the scenes was much more intense. Actors rehearsed new roles in a matter of seconds. Music was changed, entrances were altered, costumes were reassigned. George Dart, the smallest and most lowly of the assistant stagekeepers, was in a state of near-hysteria as the scenic devices he was due to move were given fresh locations. He soon had no idea what scene, what act, and what play they were engaged in, and simply hung on the commands of Nicholas Bracewell, praying that he would come through the ordeal without earning himself a sound beating.

Most of the actors adapted swiftly and successfully. Owen Elias, an ebullient Welshman, set a fine example as Count Emilio, turning speeches that he should have addressed to Duke Alonso into moving soliloquies. Edmund Hoode, too, was able to mould his part into the required shape, growing in confidence with each scene and slowly emerging as a worthy contender for the hand of Bianca. In this role, Richard Honeydew, youngest but easily the most gifted of the four apprentices, gave a faultless performance as the tragic maid and had the entire audience ready to defend his virginity.

The nature of the double drama was best illustrated by Barnaby Gill. Onstage, he was a revelation, expanding his role in all manner of ways to give other actors more time to think and to adjust accordingly. As the court jester, he was the licensed fool who was able to speak the harsh truth-albeit couched in riddles-to the wicked Don Pedro. He now introduced a range of jigs and hilarious songs that were a blaze of light in an otherwise dark tragedy. Gill borrowed freely from other plays in which he had shone and gave what was effectively a free-flowing exhibition of his remarkable comic skills.

Offstage, the actor’s Janus-face came into view.

‘I will not wear that friar’s habit!’ he snarled.

‘You must,’ insisted Nicholas.

‘It is a shroud lifted from a corpse!’

‘Ben Skeat has no more use for it now.’

‘Take it away. It smells of decay.’

‘We have no other costume fit for you.’

‘Find one!’ demanded Gill. ‘I’ll not touch that.’

A bell chimed to announce the scene in the cathedral. There was no time for niceties. Nicholas Bracewell grabbed the friar’s habit and fitted it unceremoniously over the spluttering Gill before propelling him on to the stage with a firm shove. The raving actor changed instantly into a serene friar and padded across the stage with measured tread to play a scene with the distraught Bianca. Nicholas allowed himself a sigh of relief. It was all too premature.

They were now into Act Five and exploring uncharted territory. With the friar re-entering the action, the scope and delicacy of their manoeuvres increased sharply. They had to pick their way line by line through the text, making constant revisions and refinements. Mistakes soon crept in. Speeches were either forgotten or delivered in the wrong sequence. Indeed, there was one moment when both Edmund Hoode and Barnaby Gill declaimed the same rhyming couplet from Duke Alonso in unison. It produced a restrained laugh in the assembled throng but that laugh became derisive when George Dart blundered onstage as a servant and promptly collided with a bench which now occupied a wholly new position. Instead of imparting his one line and quitting the stage, Dart stayed rooted to the spot and perspired dramatically with naked fear.

The Provost hustled him roughly towards the exit.

‘ Come, man. Your message. What is’t? ’

George Dart was pushed out of sight before he could deliver it and fresh sniggers arose. Barnaby Gill quelled them at once with an impromptu prayer. Since the audience believed him to be Duke Alonso in disguise, he used a voice as deep and mellifluous as that of Ben Skeat. A master of deft comedy, Gill showed that he could cope with more serious material when necessary. His sure-footed performance led the rest of the cast safely across the stepping-stones of the play and inculcated fresh hope in their hearts. The final scene at last came into view.

The stage was set for the execution of Count Emilio and the grim ritual was enacted with all due solemnity. Soldiers rushed on to the stage in the nick of time to pull the condemned man from beneath the axe, then arrest Don Pedro. Thanks to the intercession of the friar, the tyrant was finally deposed but he did not accept his fate meekly. He roared and ranted at all and sundry. Breaking free from his captors, he ran to the friar to throw back the man’s hood with a yell of “ Cucullus non facit monachum ”-the hood does not make the monk. There was a gasp from the audience.

Instead of revealing Duke Alonso as they expected, he exposed the head of the court jester. It was a moment of pure theatre, at once so startling and so comic that they did not know quite how to react and simply gaped in astonishment. Barnaby Gill gave them no time to discern the more farcical aspects of the play’s resolution. Showing admirable invention and no small degree of authority, he announced that the exiled Duke had died of a fever contracted during a visit to the prison. Alonso’s last wish was that Don Pedro should be overthrown and replaced by the more worthy rule of Count Emilio. The liberated prisoner was greeted with general acclamation by his new subjects.

There remained only one more strand of the play hanging loose and Owen Elias tied it off neatly. Beckoning his sister and the Provost to him, he joined their hands together in a symbolic gesture. Their marriage would be the first public event of his rule. The play ended with a formal dance, then the whole court went off to church for the nuptials.

The audience was pleasantly mystified. It was not the conclusion they had anticipated, and some of them felt obscurely cheated, but the mass of spectators glowed with approval. Applause was most generous. When Barnaby Gill led out the cast to savour their ovation, there were very few who noticed the absence of the exiled Duke of Genoa. While he lay dead in the tiring-house, The Corrupt Bargain was hailed. London had never seen anything quite like it before and, though the play had some puzzling elements and some baffling twists of plot, it also had an undeniable novelty.

Nicholas Bracewell remained behind the scenes and knelt beside his old friend with a sad smile. Ben Skeat deserved his fair share of that applause. Until the moment when he suddenly stepped out of the play, he was giving the finest performance of his career, clear-voiced, expressive and full of rich detail. Death had perhaps not intruded at such an unseemly hour, after all. It could be argued that Ben Skeat had been offered the most perfect exit for an actor.