AP! Tap! Tap!
The first night in Boston, the ultimate goal of the "Eleanor" show.
Ziegler, the orchestra leader, raised his arms, and his men straightened into attention. Half the lights in the house went slowly dim and the footlights flared up, forming a warm, golden border on the lower edge of the curtain. An expectant silence passed over the orchestra circle while the attaches and idle loungers at the back of the house sauntered, from force of habit, up to the rail behind the last row of seats. Among them was Arnold Bellsmith, his hands instinctively clenched, his fingers chilly with nervousness. His eyes were fixed on the orchestra leader's back, his shoulders instinctively "humping" the tempo of the rests which composed the first two bars of the overture.
The conductor, beating the cadence of the unplayed notes, glanced to right and to left, then made a vigorous snap toward the contrabasses. At his gesture a curious wave of surprise swept over the house, for, instead of the blare of brass which such a gesture at such a moment usually brings forth, there followed nothing but the grotesque, swaggering pizzicato on the double-bass viols:
Barnes himself had described it accurately. It was irresistibly "a man with a wooden leg."
To the bass viols were next added the cellos and then the violas, the second and first violins, in increasing importance and increasing volume, all playing that one absurd little rhythm, alternate instruments bowing and alternate instruments pizzicato. And all the time, unceasing, monotonous as a clock-tower, came that principal theme from the contrabasses:
It was a progression as unmistakable as a flight of stairs and as massive as a pyramid. As the rhythm advanced to and included the first violins the least musical soul in the house was looking expectantly toward the silent side of the orchestra, wondering what would happen when the spark of melody should leap across the gap and set a blaze on the other side.
It happened just as curiosity reached the bursting-point, for as the first violins reached the end of their little rondo Zeigler, turning to the other side of his orchestra, made that same expectant snap and, from clear at the other end, the lowest kettledrum took up the rhythm, echoing it back:
But only for a minute did this reply rest with the kettledrums, for suddenly, with another step, in absolute contrast, burst out the clarinets in a whirling and screeching cackle.
Yet, in grim determination, apparently mirthlessly, one side of the orchestra still went on in its endless, wooden-legged
while the other side—the wood winds and the brass, muted to a tinny squeak—fussed and fumed and fretted all over three octaves, the higher kettledrum now coming in at all sorts of odd intervals with fussy, little, tottering, old-maidish steps that made petulant little rushes, then stopped inanely just short of the expected climax.
And endlessly, monotonously, kept up the contrabasses:
A leonine man with gray hair in the second row of the orchestra circle turned to a pinched little man with nose-glasses who was sitting behind him.
"That's one of the weirdest things I ever heard," said the leonine man, "and yet it's pure music. Ever hear of this thing before?"
The little man shook his head impatiently. His eyes were on the conductor. He did n't want to be interrupted, but the leonine man was very much pleased with himself.
"Sounds to me like a tone poem built on the theme of 'The Jabberwock,'" he added, and jotted it down on the margin of his program,—"Jabberwock theme." He intended to use that in his review in "The Boston Times" the following morning.
A French horn blared, the theme and the tempo were changed, and slowly the orchestra wove into the saner melody of the "Eve Song." In its various movements the overture rose and fell, then, subtly, at the very end, slipped back by gradual steps again into the bull-fiddle motif. The remaining lights of the house went dark, double curtains slowly parted, and upon an empty stage, into a garden scene bathed in mellow sunlight, came stumping grotesque little Charlie Barnes, in his rôle of the wooden-legged gardener. As he himself had said, his motif had been "planted." With almost a roar of delight, the spirit of the audience rose up to greet him.
At the rear of the house Bellsmith, standing taut, smiled to himself and relaxed, as if a perilous moment had been passed safely. As he turned, Israels sauntered up to him in the semi-darkness, the imaginary toothpick still twirling in his lips. As he had always been stoic in misfortune, so now was he stereotyped in success.
"Knocking 'em cold," commented Israels.