[Speech of Sir Henry Irving at the fourteenth annual dinner of the
Playgoer's Club, London, February 14, 1898. The toast of "The Drama"
was proposed by B. W. Findon, and Sir Henry Irving was called upon to
respond.]
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--It is five years since I had the
pleasure of sitting at your hospitable board and listening to that
delightfully soothing and digestive eloquence with which we medicine one
another after dinner. [Laughter.] In the course of those five years I
daresay we have had many differences of opinion. The playgoer does not
always agree with the player, still less with that unfortunate object,
the poor actor-manager. But whatever you may have said of me in this
interval, and in terms less dulcet, perhaps, than those which your
chairman has so generously employed, it is a great satisfaction to me to
feel that I still retain your esteem and good-will. In a certain sense
you are the manager's constituents. You cannot eject him from the
office, perhaps, with that directness which distinguishes the
Parliamentary operations. But you can stay away from the theatre, and so
eject his play. [Laughter.] On the whole that is a more disconcerting
process than the fiercest criticism. One can always argue with the
critics, though on the actor's part I know that is gross presumption.
[Laughter.] But you cannot argue with the playgoer who stays away.
I am not making any specific accusations--only remarking that it is
staying-power which impresses the importance of the Playgoer's Club upon
the managerial mind. Moreover, to meet you like this has the effect of a
useful tonic. I can strongly recommend it to some gentlemen who write to
the newspapers. [Laughter.] In one journal there was a long
correspondence--the sort of thing we generally get at one season of the
year--about the condition of the stage, and a well-known writer who, I
believe, combines the function of a dramatic critic with the
responsibility of a watch-dog to the Navy, informed his readers that the
sad decadence of the British Drama was due to the evils of party
government. That is certainly an original idea; but I fancy that if the
author were to unfold it to this company, he would be told that he had
mistaken the Playgoer's Club for the War Office or the Admiralty. Still
we ought to be grateful to the man who reveals a perfectly fresh reason
for the eternal decline of the drama, though we may not, perhaps,
anticipate any revolution in theatrical amusements even from the most
thorough-going reform of the British Constitution.
In the public correspondence to which I have referred, a good deal was
said about the need for a dramatic conservatoire. If such an institution
could be rooted in this country, I have no doubt that it might yield
many advantages. Years ago I ventured to suggest that the municipal
system might be applied to the theatre, as it is on the Continent,
though I do not observe that this is yet a burning question in the
county council politics, or that any reforming administrator has
discovered that the drama ought to be laid on, like gas or water.
[Laughter.] With all our genius for local government we have not yet
found, like some Continental peoples, that the municipal theatre is as
much a part of the healthy life of the community as the municipal
library or museum. ["Hear! hear!"] Whether that development is in store
for us I do not know, but I can imagine certain social benefits that
would accrue from the municipal incorporation of a dramatic
conservatoire. It might check the rush of incompetent persons into the
theatrical profession. Some persons who were intended by Nature to adorn
an inviolable privacy are thrust upon us by paragraphers and
interviewers, whose existence is a dubious blessing--[laughter]--until
it is assumed by censors of the stage that this business is part and
parcel of theatrical advertisement.
Columns of this rubbish are printed every week, and many an actor is
pestered to death for tit-bits about his ox and his ass and everything
that is his. [Laughter.] Occasionally you may read solemn articles about
the insatiable vanity of the actor, which must be gratified at any cost,
as if vanity were peculiar to any section of humanity. But what this
organized gossip really advertises is the industry of the gentlemen who
collect it, and the smartness of the papers in which it is circulated.
"We learn this," "We have reason to believe"--such forms of intolerable
assurance give currency too often to scandalous and lying rumors which I
am sure responsible journalism would wish to discourage. But this, I
fear, is difficult, for contradiction makes another desirable paragraph,
and it is all looked upon as desirable copy. [Laughter.]
Of course, gentlemen, the drama is declining--it always has been
declining since the time of Roscius and beyond the palmy days when the
famous Elephant Raja was "starred" over the head of W. C. Macready, and
the real water tank in the Cataract of the Ganges helped to increase the
attractions of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. But we ourselves are
evidently in a parlous state at the present day, when actors vainly
endeavor to struggle through twenty lines of blank verse--when we are
told mechanical effects and vast armies of supers make up the production
of historical plays--when pathological details, we are told, are always
well received--when the "psychonosological" (whatever that may
be)--[laughter], is invariably successful--and when Pinero and Grundy's
plays do not appeal to men of advanced thought, as I read the other day.
In all the lament about the decline of the drama there is one recurring
note: the disastrous influence of long runs. If the manager were not a
grossly material person, incapable of ideals, he would take off a
successful piece at the height of its popularity and start a fresh
experiment. [Laughter.] But he is sunk in the base commercialism of the
age, and, sad to relate, he has the sympathies of the dramatic author,
who wants to see his piece run say a hundred nights, instead of twenty.
I don't know how this spirit of greed is to be subdued, though with the
multiplication of Play-houses, long runs may tend to become rare. A
municipal subsidy or an obliging millionaire might enable a manager to
vary his bill with comparative frequency, when he has persuaded the
dramatic author that the run of a play till the crack of doom is
incompatible with the interest of art. [Laughter.] I cannot help
suspecting that the chief difficulty of a manager, under even the most
artistic and least commercial conditions, will always be, not to check
the inordinate proportions of success, but to secure plays which may
succeed at all.
I hope you will not accuse me of taking a too despondent view of the
drama, for believe me, I do not. To be sure, we sometimes hear that
Shakespeare is to be annihilated, and that the poet's intellect has been
overrated. And lately a reverend gentleman at Hampstead announced his
intention of putting down the stage altogether. [Laughter.] The
atmosphere of Hampstead seems to be intellectually intoxicating; at any
rate it has a rather stimulating effect on a certain kind of dogmatic
mind. This intolerance has been very eloquently rebuked by a
distinguished man who is an ornament of the Church of England. It is
Dean Farrar who says that these pharisaical attacks on the stage are
inspired only by "concentrated malice." Well, the periodical
misunderstanding to which the stage is exposed need cause but little
disquiet. I have no doubt it will survive its many adventures, and that
it will owe not a little of its tenacious vitality to your unflagging
sympathy and hearty and generous encouragement. [Cheers.]
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