The Understudy

"The Understudy" by Robert Barr is a satirical novel that explores the world of theater through the experiences of its protagonist, an understudy who grapples with the challenges of ambition, unfulfilled dreams, and the often absurd realities of the performing arts. Set against the backdrop of a bustling theatrical scene, the story delves into themes of identity, envy, and the pursuit of recognition, as the understudy navigates the complexities of relationships and the unpredictable nature of show business. With Barr's trademark wit, the novel offers a humorous yet insightful commentary on the precarious balance between success and obscurity in the life of an artist.

• Short story

								
The Monarch in the Arabian story had an ointment which, put upon the
right eye, enabled him to see through the walls of houses. If the
Arabian despot had passed along a narrow street leading into a main
thoroughfare of London, one night just before the clock struck twelve,
he would have beheld, in a dingy back room of a large building, a very
strange sight. He would have seen King Charles the First seated in
friendly converse with none other than Oliver Cromwell.

The room in which these two noted people sat had no carpet and but few
chairs. A shelf extended along one side of the apartment, and it was
covered with mugs containing paint and grease. Brushes were littered
about, and a wig lay in a corner. A mirror stood at either end of the
shelf, and beside these, flared two gas-jets protected by wire baskets.
Hanging from nails driven in the walls were coats, waist-coats, and
trousers of more modern cut than the costumes worn by the two men.

King Charles, with his pointed beard and his ruffles of lace, leaned
picturesquely back in his chair, which rested against the wall. He was
smoking a very black brier-root pipe, and perhaps his Majesty enjoyed
the weed all the more that there was just above his head, tacked to the
wall, a large placard, containing the words, "No smoking allowed in
this room, or in any other part of the theatre."

Cromwell, in more sober garments, had an even jauntier attitude than
the King, for he sat astride the chair, with his chin resting on the
back of it, smoking a cigarette in a meerschaum holder.

"I'm too old, my boy," said the King, "and too fond of my comfort;
besides, I have no longer any ambition. When an actor once realises
that he will never be a Charles Kean or a Macready, then come peace and
the enjoyment of life. Now, with you it is different: you are, if I may
say so in deep affection, young and foolish. Your project is a most
hare-brained scheme. You are throwing away all you have already won."

"Good gracious!" cried Cromwell, impatiently, "what have I won?"

"You have certainly won something," resumed the elder calmly, "when a
person of your excitable nature can play so well the sombre, taciturn
character of Cromwell. You have mounted several rungs, and the whole
ladder lifts itself up before you. You have mastered two or three
languages, while I know but one, and that imperfectly. You have studied
the foreign drama, while I have not even read all the plays of
Shakespeare. I can do a hundred parts conventionally well. You will,
some day, do a great part as no other man on earth can act it, and then
fame will come to you. Now you propose recklessly to throw all this
away and go into the wilds of Africa."

"The particular ladder you offer me," said Cromwell, "I have no desire
to climb; I am sick of the smell of the footlights and the whole
atmosphere of the theatre. I am tired of the unreality of the life we
lead. Why not be a hero instead of mimicking one?"

"But, my dear boy," said the King, filling his pipe again, "look at the
practical side of things. It costs a fortune to fit out an African
expedition. Where are you to get the money?"

This question sounded more natural from the lips of the King than did
the answer from the lips of Cromwell.

"There has been too much force and too much expenditure about African
travel. I do not intend to cross the Continent with arms and the
munitions of war. As you remarked a while ago, I know several European
languages, and if you will forgive what sounds like boasting, I may say
that I have a gift for picking up tongues. I have money enough to fit
myself out with some necessary scientific instruments, and to pay my
passage to the coast. Once there, I shall win my way across the
Continent through love and not through fear."

"You will lose your head," said King Charles; "they don't understand
that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original.
Didn't Livingstone try that tack?"

"Yes, but people have forgotten Livingstone and his methods. It is now
the explosive bullet and the elephant gun. I intend to learn the
language of the different native tribes I meet, and if a chief opposes
me and will not allow me to pass through his territory, and if I find I
cannot win him over to my side by persuasive talk, then I shall go
round."

"And what is to be the outcome of it all?" cried Charles. "What is your
object?"

"Fame, my boy, fame," cried Cromwell, enthusiastically, flinging the
chair from under him and pacing the narrow room. "If I can get from
coast to coast without taking the life of a single native, won't that
be something greater than all the play-acting from now till Doomsday?"

"I suppose it will," said the King, gloomily; "but you must remember
you are the only friend I have, and I have reached an age when a man
does not pick up friends readily."

Cromwell stopped in his walk and grasped the King by the hand. "Are you
not the only friend I have," he said; "and why can you not abandon this
ghastly sham and come with me, as I asked you to at first? How can you
hesitate when you think of the glorious freedom of the African forest,
and compare it with this cribbed and cabined and confined business we
are now at?"

The King shook his head slowly, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. He
seemed to have some trouble in keeping it alight, probably because of
the prohibition on the wall.

"As I said before," replied the King, "I am too old. There are no pubs
in the African forest where a man can get a glass of beer when he wants
it. No, Ormond, African travel is not for me. If you are resolved to
go, go and God bless you; I will stay at home and carefully nurse your
fame. I shall from time to time drop appetising little paragraphs into
the papers about your wanderings, and when you are ready to come back
to England, all England will be ready to listen to you. You know how
interest is worked up in the theatrical business by judicious puffing
in the papers, and I imagine African exploration requires much the same
treatment. If it were not for the Press, my boy, you could explore
Africa till you were blind and nobody would hear a word about it, so I
will be your advance agent and make ready for your home-coming."

At this point in the conversation between these two historic
characters, the janitor of the theatre put his head into the room and
reminded the celebrities that it was very late, whereupon both King and
Commoner rose, with some reluctance, and washed themselves; the King
becoming, when he put on the ordinary dress of an Englishman, Mr. James
Spence, while Cromwell, after a similar transformation, became Mr.
Sidney Ormond; and thus, with nothing of Royalty or Dictatorship about
them, the two strolled up the narrow street into the main thoroughfare

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