“The least a bill ever comes to in a week is fifteen shillings, and that after studying economy in every way possible. Even though two of us lived together I never succeeded in reducing my share below that.”
“One has breakfast as a rule between ten and eleven—earlier, of course, if a rehearsal has been called for eleven, in which case ten minutes’ grace is given for the difference in local clocks; any one late after that time gets sharply reprimanded by the management. After rehearsal on tour a walk till two or three, a little shopping, dinner 4.30, a rest, a cup of tea at 6.30, after which meal one again proceeds to the theatre, home about 11.30, supper and bed. Week in, week out it is pretty much the same.
“For the first four years I only earned a guinea a week, and as it was necessary for me to find all my own costumes for the different parts in the companies in which I played, I had to visit second-hand shops and buy ladies’ cast-off ball dresses and things of that sort, although cheap materials and my sewing machine managed to supply me with day garments. It is extraordinary what wonderful effects one can get over the footlights with a dress which by daylight looks absolutely filthy and tawdry, provided it be well cut; that is why it is advisable to buy good second-hand clothes when possible.
“In my own theatre basket I have fourteen complete costumes, and with these I can go on any ordinary tour. I travelled for some time with a girl who, though well-born, had out of her miserable guinea a week to help members of her family at home. She was an excellent needlewoman, and used to send her sewing-machine with her basket to the theatre, where she sat nearly all day making clothes or cutting them out for other members of the company. By these means she earned a few extra shillings a week, which helped towards the expenses of her kinsfolk. She was a nice girl, but delicate, and I always felt she ought to have had all the fresh air possible instead of bending over a sewing-machine in a stuffy little dressing-room.
“Of course it is necessary for us to take great care of our private clothes, and in order to save them I generally keep an old skirt for trudging backwards and forwards through the dust and dirt, and for rehearsals, since at some of the ill-kept provincial theatres a good gown would be ruined in a few days; added to which, one often gets soaked on the way to and from the theatre, for we can rarely afford cabs, and even if we could, on a wet night the audience take all available vehicles, so that by the time the performers are ready to leave, not one is to be procured.”