The Performance
THE PROLOGUE
Mention has already been made, at the beginning of the previous section,
of what immediately preceded the performance itself: the two (or three)
different “musics” and the ringing of the prompter’s bell. More exact
details are supplied by Charles Lamb in his essay My First Play, which
describes his experience at attending Drury Lane theatre in 1780. He does
not refer, in connection with the preliminaries here in question, to the
music, but only to “the orchestra lights” [i.e. those located on the desks
°f the musicians] which, he says, “at length arose. Once the bell sounded. . . .
It rang a second time. The curtain drew up.” The first bell was the cue
for the musicians to begin playing.es Its being rung a second time indicated
the cue for the cessation of the music, but more specifically the warning
to the audience that the play was about to begin. This last measure was
highly necessary for, without a doubt, members of that audience were still
trying to find their seats, perhaps disputing about the ownership of them,
still talking loudly, still slamming doors. It may be noted that, for the
identical reason that required the loud ringing of this bell at the commence¬
ment of the performance, the prompter rang it again at the beginning of
every act.*
If, however, the audience was to be favored with the speaking of a
prologue the curtain was not drawn up until this particular preliminary
had taken place. On 6 September 1792 at the Hay market the prologue “failed
ln a great degree, from the prompter ‘blabbing’ rather too loudly from
behind the curtain.”97 John Bernard recounts an anecdote about his arriving
at the theatre too late to speak the prologue at the proper time. But the
stage was still waiting, and in a confused manner, he did deliver it, even
though the prompter Wild, a notorious practical joker, had already rung
UP the curtain, “to increase my embarrassment. ”98 The usual procedure
was for the speaker to emerge, on the prompter’s side, from the door situated
^ Sec under DL, 30 April 1794.
jfommg A,*, 30 Nov. 1782.
98 lUr0pea>‘ Magazine, xxn (Sept. 1792), 233.
Retrospections of the Stage (London, 1830), II, 271-72.
lxxiii