Junius Brutus Booth: Theatrical Prometheus

1. A Gentleman of the Name of Booth

1 A Gentleman ofthe Name ofBooth will you see the players well bestowed? ... let them be well us'd, for they are the abstract and briefchronicles of the time. -Hamlet; II, ii, 522-25 T hey almost always called him "Mr. Booth." Eventually they called him the Booth. But Mr. Booth, aspiring tragedian, had not yet reached his twenty-first birthday as he prepared himself to step into the glittering dazzle of Drury Lane Theatre's stage.l That unseasonably balmy day, 20 February 1817, Drury Lane playbills throughout London blazoned Mr. Booth's debut there, to perform raga to Edmund Kean's Othello. Kean reigned supreme over the London stage, but on that night young Mr. Booth dared to challenge the older star's ascendancy. Professionally, only one of them could survive this encounter unscathed . The Drury Lane management gleefully realized this bill's wide appeal and correctly expected a distinguished audience to pack the theatre. Patrons besieged tlle box office, paying the premium price of over a pound each for seats in the pit. Lord Erskine, a former lord chancellor, now a member ofthe theatre's administrative committee, 1 2 Junius Brutus Booth anticipated an evening ofunexcelled high tragedy- and profits. John Howard Payne exclaimed later, "1 thought the applause would never stop."2 William Godwin cried, "This is a night to rememberl"3 Kean had faced challengers before, and he had inevitably destroyed them. He and his fans had driven earlier rivals offthe London stage, often out of the acting profession. Kean's more rabid fans had even organized a dub, the Wolves, to crush any pretender to Kean's domination. Composed largely oftavern loafers and idle sycophants, the Wolves met often with tile hard-drinking Kean in pubs and barrooms. Some Londoners accused Kean of forming the 'Wolves himself for his own protection, the members vowing to hound any rival offthe stage. And on 20 February1817, the entire pack, slavering at the prospect ofa new victim, had gathered at Drury Lane. Many theatregoers marveled at the temerity ofthis Mr. Booth, this upstart, this lad who would cross swords with the mighty Edmund Kean. Some remembered him from the previous year at Covent Garden, Drury Lane's rival theatre. There Booth had played such minor roles as the rustic shepherd, Silvius, inAsYouLikeltJ but he had stimulated no particular enthusiasm or notice. Other playgoers had seen Booth in the English provinces, starring as the bravura Richard III or the fiendish Sir Giles Overreach, both roles in which Kean had enthralled London audiences. And a few recalled Booth's touring the Continent a few years earlier in similar roles. But the Drury Lane audience felt no need to travel outside London to see excellent acting. They considered themselves the world's most sophisticated and knowledgeable playgoers, their stage superior to any other, and Kean the best actor alive. Booth's successes elsewhere meant nothing to them; he had yet to prove himself Provincial stars glutted the market; periodically they came from the country to assail London, seeking adulation, notoriety, and fortune. For the most part they failed miserably and retreated to less sophisticated, more receptive audiences in the hinterlands. Many were called; almost none were chosen. This new actor, however, this Mr. Booth, seemed made ofsterner stuff Only a week earlier he had arrived in London from Brighton to star as Richard III at Covent Garden. The performers there, secure in their metropolitan contracts, recalled him as the "little Silvius" ofthe previous season and sneered at his presumptions to stardom. Indeed, A Gentleman ofthe Name ofBooth 3 one ofthe actresses, Sally Booth, asked Booth to add the letter e to his name, lest audiences think them related. Booth declined, dryly suggesting that Miss Booth had tried for some years to change her own surname through matrimony with a lamentable lack ofsuccess.4 Thus just as Kean had come from the provinces to Drury Lane in 1814, unheralded, unknown, and facing the hostility ofthe resident company, so Booth came to Covent Garden three years later. At~d like Kean, the newcomer quite conquered his audiences; newspaper accounts spoke ofthe rapturous and unanimous applause as Booth took his bows. Even more telling, when another actor announced the next night's bill asAMidsummerNight'sDream, in which Booth would not appear, the audience shouted him down, roaring out "Richard the Third! Booth as Richard!" The actor retreated from the stage, consulted...