The Church and the Theatre
The Catholic roots of the modern stage.
THEATRUM MUNDI:
Charles A. Coulombe
O, for a muse of fire that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and
fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
William Shakespeare, Henry V
Recently I attended a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest at the International Theological Institute here in Trumau, Austria. The entirely student-produced, directed, and acted effort was one of the best, if not the best of four or five performances I have seen. The witty script showed forth in the brilliant performances of the young cast, and I happily roared along with the audience at Wilde’s ageless late-Victorian wit. It was, I remarked to the very talented young man who played Jack Worthing, a tour-de-farce. That would have made Oscar laugh or cringe – I shudder to think which.
In either case, the theatre, alongside the Catholic Church, the military, and writing, was one of the dominant themes of the family to which I was born. My parents were both actors – radio actors when they met on the sound stage of the Luxe Theatre of the Air back in 1951. It was hereditary on my Dad’s side; my Mother was the first of hers, and this venture did not come with parental approval. But growing up, both in New York and in Hollywood, most of their friends were actors or tied to the profession one way or another. To our shared horror, one of my best friends my freshman year in High School and I discovered at the first parents’ night that our fathers were classmates at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.
As a result, I learned early on that theatre and the acting profession are a world of their own. There are past and present Actors’ clubs, bars, and restaurants: in Hollywood, the late lamented Masquers’ Club comes to mind (the first I ever joined); New York boasts or boasted the Players’ Club, The Lambs’ Club, Chumley’s, Sardi’s, and my Father’s beloved Carnegie Tavern; London had the Green Room, and retains The Garrick – but there are a great many more, in those and a hundred other cities the world over. There are even Actor’s churches.
But while a great many people think of the most successful film and television actors as “celebrities,” this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Once upon a time, they were considered less than respectable, like the Carnival, Medicine Show, Vaudeville, Circus, and other such performers, with whom they shared in part a common origin. The Lambs’ Club got its name from the two early 19th century English actors in New York who founded it as a social refuge when most club doors were closed to members of the Profession. They chose the title to commemorate Charles and Mary Lamb, a literary brother-and-sister couple in London, who at a time when actors received similar exclusion, kept open house for them. “Let’s go round to the Lambs,” became the constant saying for a time in the Metropolis when curtains fell. The two expatriates never forgot the kindness shown them at home, and named their new club accordingly.
“The Little Church Around the Corner,” actually Transfiguration Episcopal Church, got its name in 1870, when the actor George Holland died. William T. Sabine, the rector of the nearby (and now defunct) Church of the Atonement, refused to conduct funeral services for him, saying, “I believe there is a little church around the corner where they do that sort of thing.” Holland’s friend and sometime castmate, Joseph Jefferson, who was trying to arrange the funeral, replied “If that be so, God bless the little church around the corner!” It has been the spiritual home for non-Catholic actors in New York ever since. We Catholics have our own St. Malachy, the “Actor’s Chapel.” There is a similar arrangement in London, with Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane for Catholics, and St. Paul’s, Covent Garden for Anglicans. Both Paris and Rome also boast churches for Catholic actors.
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