The Spirit of a Victorian Actress... Alive and Kicking in the Stalls!

Florence Marryat On Stage

When Florence Marryat first joined the Patience Company to play the part of Lady Jane, she only had four days rehearsal. The actress  whom she succeeded, however, when she heard that Florence had arrived, took herself off, and the manager requested Florence would appear the same night of her arrival. This was rather an ordeal for the actress, because she had never sung "on the operatic stage" before, and she was not note perfect. But as a matter of obligation and although she was very nervous about it, Florence consented to do her best.

At the end of the second act, Lady Jane had to appear suddenly on the stage with the word “Away!” – Afterwards, Florence could not tell whether she made a mistake in pitching the note a third higher or lower. She knew it was not out of harmony, but it was sufficiently wrong to send the chorus astray, and bring her heart up into her mouth. It never occurred after the first night, but Florence never stood at the wings again waiting for that particular entrance without a kind of dread lest she should repeat the error.

After a while she perceived a good deal of whispering about her in the company, and she asked a colleague for the reason of it, particularly as he had previously asked her to stand as far from him as she could upon the stage, because she "magnetized" him so strongly that he couldn’t sing if she was near him.

“Well!... Do you know,” he answered, “that a very strange thing occurs occasionally with reference to you, Miss Marryat? While you are standing on the stage, sometimes you appear seated in the stalls. Several people have seen it beside myself. I assure you it is true.”

“And when do you see me then?” Florence enquired with amazement.

“It’s always at the same time,” he answered, “just before you run on at the end of the second act. Of course it’s only an appearance, but it’s very queer."

Florence told him then of the strange feelings of distrust of herself she experienced each night at that very moment, when her spirit seemed to have preceded herself upon the stage…

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