_SIR HENRY IRVING AND STAGE LIGHTING_
Sir Henry Irving’s Position—Miss Geneviève Ward’s
Dress—Reformations in Lighting—The most Costly Play ever
Produced—Strong Individuality—Character Parts—Irving earned
his Living at Thirteen—Actors and Applause—A Pathetic Story—No
Shakespeare Traditions—Imitation is not Acting—Irving’s
Appearance—His Generosity—The First Night of _Dante_—First night of
_Faust_—Two Terriss Stories—Sir Charles Wyndham.
Henry Irving is a name which ought to be revered for ever in stageland.
He has done more for the drama than any other actor in any other
country. He has tactfully and gracefully made speeches that have
commanded respect. He has ennobled his profession in many ways.
As Sir Squire Bancroft was the pioneer of “small decorations,” so Sir
Henry Irving has been the pioneer of “large details.” Artistic effect
and magnificent stage pictures have been his cult; but nothing is too
insignificant for his notice.
Miss Geneviève Ward told me that in the play of _Becket_ a superb
costume was ordered for her. It cost fifty or sixty guineas, but when
she tried it on she felt the result was disappointing. A little unhappy
about the matter she descended to the stage.
“Great Heavens, Miss Ward! what have you got on?” exclaimed the actor
manager.
“My new dress, sire, may it please you well,” was the meek reply,
accompanied by a mock curtsey.
“You look a cross between a Newhaven fish-wife and a balloon,” he
laughed; “that will never do. It is most unbecoming. As we cannot make
you thinner to suit the dress, we must try and make the dress thinner
to suit you.”
They chaffed and laughed; but finally it was decided alterations
would spoil the costume—which in its way was faultless—so without
any hesitation Henry Irving relegated it to a “small-part lady,” and
ordered a new dress for Miss Ward.
Perhaps the greatest reform this actor ever effected was in the matter
of stage lighting. No one previously paid any particular attention to
this subject, a red glass or a blue one achieved all that was thought
necessary, until he realised the wonderful effects that might be
produced by properly thrown lights, and made a study of the subject.
It was Henry Irving who first started the idea of changing the
scenes in darkness, a custom now so general, not only in Britain but
abroad. He first employed varied coloured lights, and laid stress on
illumination generally. It was he who first plunged the auditorium into
darkness to heighten the stage effects.
“Stage lighting and grouping,” said Irving on one occasion, “are of
more consequence than the scenery. Without descending to minute
realism, the nearer one approaches to the truth the better. The most
elaborate scenery I ever had was for _Romeo and Juliet_, but as I was
not the man to play _Romeo_ the scenery could not make it a success.
It never does—it only helps the actor. The whole secret of successful
stage management is thoroughness and attention to detail.”
To Sir Henry Irving is also due the honour of first employing
high-class artists to design dresses, eminent musicians to compose
music which he lavishly introduced. It is said that his production of
_Henry VIII._, a sumptuous play, cost £16,000 to mount, but all his
great costume plays have cost from £3,000 to £10,000 each.
Sir Henry Irving is famous for his speeches. Few persons know he reads
every word of them. Carefully thought out—for he wisely never speaks at
random—and type-written, his MS. lies open before him, and being quite
accustomed to address an audience, he quietly, calmly, deliberately
reads it off with dramatic declamation. His voice has been a subject of
comment by many. That characteristic intonation so well known upon the
stage is never heard in private life, and even in reading a speech is
little noticeable.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Window & Grove, Baker Street, W._
SIR HENRY IRVING.]
If there ever was a case of striking individuality on the stage it is
surely to be found in Henry Irving. People often ask if it is a good
thing for the exponents of the dramatic profession to possess a strong
personality. It is often voiced that it is bad for a part to have the
prominent characteristics of the actor noticeable, and yet at the same
time there is no doubt about it, it is the men and women of marked
character who are successful upon the stage. They may possess great
capability for “make-up,” they may entirely alter their appearance,
they may throw themselves into the part they are playing; but tricks of
manner, intonations of voice, and peculiarities of gesture appear again
and again, and very often it is this particular personality that the
public likes best.
In olden days it was the fashion—if we may judge from last century
books—to speak clearly and to “rant” when excited; in modern days it is
the fashion to speak indistinctly, and play with “reserved force.” The
drama has its fancies and its fashions like our dresses or our hats.
No man upon the stage has gone through a more severe mill than Sir
Henry Irving. Forty-six years ago he was working in the provinces at
a trifling salary on which he had to live. Board, lodging, washing,
clothes, even some of his stage costumes, had to come out of that
guinea a week. The success he has attained has been arrived at—in
addition to his genius and ability—by sheer hard work and conscientious
attempts to do his best, consequently at the age of sixty-five he was
able to fill a vast theatre like Drury Lane when playing in such a
trying part as _Dante_.
The first years of the actor’s life were spent at an office desk. He
began to earn his own living as a clerk at thirteen; but during that
time he memorised and studied various plays. He learnt fencing, and
at the age of nineteen, when he first took to the stage, he was well
equipped for his new profession.
For ten years he made little headway, however, and first came into
notice as a comedian. In his early days every one thought Irving ought
to play “character parts.”
“What that phrase means,” he remarked later, “I never could understand,
for I have a prejudice in the belief that every part should be a
character. I always wanted to play the higher drama. Even in my boyhood
my desire had been in that direction. When at the Vaudeville Theatre,
I recited _Eugene Aram_, simply to get an idea as to whether I could
impress an audience with a tragic theme. In my youth I was associated
in the public mind with all sorts of bad characters, housebreakers,
blacklegs, thieves, and assassins.”
And this was the man who was to popularise Shakespeare on the modern
English stage—the man to show the world that Shakespeare spelt Fame and
Success.
That acting is a fatiguing art Irving denies. He once played Hamlet
over two hundred nights in succession, and yet the Dane takes more out
of him than any of his characters. Hamlet is the one he loves best,
however, just as Ellen Terry’s favourite part is Portia.
In Percy Fitzgerald’s delightful _Life of Henry Irving_ we find the
following interesting and characteristic little story:
“Perhaps the most remarkable Christmas dinner at which I have ever
been present, was one at which we dined upon underclothing. Do you
remember Joe Robins—a nice, genial fellow who played small parts in
the provinces? Ah, no! that was before your time. Joe Robins was once
in the gentleman’s furnishing business in London city. I think he had
a wholesale trade, and was doing well. However, he belonged to one
of the semi-Bohemian clubs; associated a great deal with actors and
journalists, and when an amateur performance was organised for some
charitable object, he was cast for the clown in a burlesque called _Guy
Fawkes_.
“Perhaps he played the part capitally; perhaps his friends were making
game of him when they loaded him with praise; perhaps the papers
for which his Bohemian associates wrote went rather too far when
they asserted that he was the artistic descendant and successor of
Grimaldi. At any rate Joe believed all that was said to and written
about him, and when some wit discovered that Grimaldi’s name was also
Joe, the fate of Joe Robins was sealed. He determined to go upon the
stage professionally and become a great actor. Fortunately Joe was
able to dispose of his stock and goodwill for a few hundreds, which
he invested, so as to give him an income sufficient to prevent the
wolf from getting inside his door, in case he did not eclipse Garrick,
Kean, and Kemble. He also packed up for himself a liberal supply of
his wares, and started in his profession with enough shirts, collars,
handkerchiefs, and underclothing to equip him for several years.
“The amateur success of poor Joe was never repeated on the regular
stage. He did not make an absolute failure; no manager would trust
him with big enough parts for him to fail in; but he drifted down to
“general utility,” and then out of London, and when I met him he was
engaged in a very small way, on a very small salary, at a Manchester
theatre.
“His income eked out his salary; Joe, however, was a generous,
great-hearted fellow, who liked everybody, and whom everybody liked,
and when he had money, he was always glad to spend it upon a friend or
give it away to somebody more needy than himself. So piece by piece, as
necessity demanded, his princely supply of haberdashery diminished, and
at last only a few shirts and underclothes remained to him.
“Christmas came in very bitter weather. Joe had a part in the Christmas
pantomime. He dressed with other poor actors, and he saw how thinly
some of them were clad when they stripped before him to put on their
stage costumes. For one poor fellow in especial his heart ached. In the
depth of a very cold winter he was shivering in a suit of very light
summer underclothing, and whenever Joe looked at him, the warm flannel
under-garments snugly packed away in an extra trunk weighed heavily
on his mind. Joe thought the matter over, and determined to give the
actors who dressed with him a Christmas dinner. It was literally a
dinner upon underclothing, for most of the shirts and drawers which
Joe had cherished so long went to the pawnbrokers, or the slop-shop
to provide the money for the meal. The guests assembled promptly, for
nobody else is ever so hungry as a hungry actor. The dinner was to be
served at Joe’s lodgings, and before it was placed on the table, Joe
beckoned his friend with the gauze underclothing into a bedroom, and
pointing to a chair, silently withdrew. On that chair hung a suit of
underwear, which had been Joe’s pride. It was of a comfortable scarlet
colour; it was thick, warm, and heavy; it fitted the poor actor as if
it had been manufactured especially to his measure. He put it on, and
as the flaming flannels encased his limbs, he felt his heart glowing
within him with gratitude to dear Joe Robins.
“That actor never knew—or, if he knew, could never remember—what he
had for dinner on that Christmas afternoon. He revelled in the luxury
of warm garments. The roast beef was nothing to him in comparison with
the comfort of his under-vest: he appreciated the drawers more than
the plum-pudding. Proud, happy, warm, and comfortable, he felt little
inclination to eat; but sat quietly, and thanked Providence and Joe
Robins with all his heart.
“‘You seem to enter into that poor actor’s feelings very
sympathetically.’
“‘I have good reason to do so,’ replied Mr. Irving, with his sunshiny
smile, ‘_for I was that poor actor!_’”
Irving, like most theatrical folk, has a weakness for applause. It is
not surprising that hand-clapping should have an exhilarating effect,
or that the volley of air vibrations should set the actor’s blood
a-tingling. Applause is the breath in the nostrils of every “mummer.”
On one occasion the great Kean finding his audience apathetic, stopped
in the middle of his lines and said:
“Gentlemen, I can’t act if you can’t applaud.”
There is no doubt about it, a sympathetic audience gets far more out of
the actor than a half-hearted apathetic one.
“The true value of art,” once said Henry Irving, “as applied to the
drama can only be determined by public appreciation. It is in this
spirit that I have invariably made it my study to present every piece
in such a way that the public can rely on getting as full a return
for their outlay as it is possible to give. I have great faith in the
justice of public discrimination, just as I regard the pit audience of
a London theatre as the most critical part of the house.
“Art must advance with the time, and with the advance of other arts
there must necessarily be advance in art as applied to the stage. I
believe everything that heightens and assists the imagination in a play
is good. One should always give the best one can. I have lived long
enough to find how short is life and how long is art,” he once pithily
remarked.
“Have you been guided by tradition in mounting Shakespearian plays?”
“There is no tradition, nor is there anything written down as to the
proper way of acting Shakespeare,” the great actor replied, and
further added: “Imitation is not acting—there is no true acting where
individuality does not exist. Actors should act for themselves. I
dislike playing a part I have seen acted by any one else, for fear
of losing something of my own reading of the character. We all have
our own mannerisms; I never yet saw any human being worth considering
without them.”
There is no doubt that Irving’s personality is strong and his
appearance striking. He is a tall man—for I suppose he is about six
feet high—thin and well knit, with curiously dark and penetrating eyes
which are kindly, and have a merry twinkle when amused. The eyebrows
are shaggy and protruding, and, oddly enough, remained black after his
hair turned grey. He almost always wears eyeglasses, which somehow suit
him as they rest comfortably on his aquiline nose. His features are
clear-cut and clean-shaven, and the heavy jaw and slightly underhanging
chin give strength to his face, which is always pale; the lips are thin
and strangely pallid in colouring. Irving, though nearing seventy, has
a wonderfully erect carriage, his shoulders are well thrust back and
his chest forward, and somehow his movements always denote a man of
strength and character. The very dark hair gradually turned grey and is
now almost white; it was fine hair, and has always been worn long and
thrown well back behind the ears.
There is something about the man which immediately arrests attention;
not only his face and his carriage, but his manner and conversation
are different from the ordinary. He is the kind of man that any one
meeting for the first time would wish to know more about, the kind of
man of whom every one would inquire, “Who is he?” if his face were not
so well known in the illustrated papers. He could not pass unnoticed
anywhere. But after all it is not this personality entirely that has
made his fame, for there are people who dislike it as much as others
admire it; but as he himself says, any success he has attained is due
to the capacity for taking pains.
That Irving’s success has been great no one can deny. His reign at the
Lyceum was remarkable in every way. He acted Shakespeare’s plays until
he made them the fashion. He employed great artists, musicians, and a
host of smaller fry to give him of their best. He produced wondrous
stage pictures—he engaged a good company, and one and all must own he
was the greatest actor-manager of the last quarter of the last century.
Not only England but the world at large owes him a debt of gratitude.
With him mere money-making has been a secondary consideration, and
this, coupled with his unfailing generosity, has always kept him
comparatively a poor man. No one in distress has ever appealed to him
in vain. He has not only given money, but time and sympathy, to those
less fortunate than himself, and Henry Irving’s list of charitable
deeds is endless. But for this he would never have had to leave the
Lyceum, a theatre with which his name was associated for so many years.
When Irving opened Drury Lane at Easter, 1903, with _Dante_ he had an
ovation such as probably no man has ever received from an audience
before. It was a pouring wet night; the rain descended in torrents, but
the faithful pittites were there to welcome the popular favourite on
his return from America. It so chanced that the audience were entering
the Opera House next door at the same moment, and this, combined with
the rain, which did not allow people to descend from their carriages
before they reached the theatre doors, made the traffic chaotic. I only
managed to reach my stall a second before the house was plunged in
darkness and the curtain rose.
And here let me say how much more agreeable it is to watch the play
from a darkened auditorium such as Irving originally instituted than
to sit in the glaring illumination still prevalent abroad. When the
lights went down, the doors were closed, and half the carriage folk
were shut out for the entire first act, thus missing that wondrous
ovation. The great actor looked the very impersonation of Dante, and
as he bowed, and bowed, and bowed again he grew more and more nervous,
to judge by the tremble of his lips and the twitching of his hands. It
was indeed a stirring moment and a proud one for the recipient. As the
play proceeded the audience found all his old art was there and the
magnificent _mise-en-scène_ combined to keep up the traditions of the
old Lyceum. That vast audience at Drury Lane rose _en masse_ to greet
him, and literally thundered their applause at the end of the play. The
programme is on the following page.
_APRIL 30th, 1903._
Theatre Royal
[Illustration]
Drury Lane,
LIMITED.
Managing Director ARTHUR COLLINS.
Business Manager SIDNEY SMITH.
HENRY IRVING’S SEASON.
Every Evening, at 8.15.
Matinée Every Saturday, at 2.30.
DANTE
BY
MM. SARDOU & MOREAU.
Rendered into English by LAURENCE IRVING.
Persons in the Play:
Dante HENRY IRVING
Cardinal Colonna { _Papal Legate, Resident_ } Mr. WILLIAM MOLLISON
{ _at Avignon._ }
Nello della Pietra (_Husband to Pia_) Mr. NORMAN MCKINNEL
Bernardino { _Brother to Francesca da Rimini,_ } Mr. GERALD LAWRENCE
{ _betrothed to Gemma_ }
Giotto } { Mr. H. B. STANFORD
Casella } _Friends to Dante_ { Mr. JAMES HEARN
Forese } { Mr. VINCENT STERNROYD
Bellacqua } { Mr. G. ENGLETHORPE
Malatesta (_Husband to Francesca_) Mr. JEROLD ROBERTSHAW
Corso (_Nephew to Cardinal Colonna_) Mr. CHARLES DODSWORTH
Ostasio (_A Familiar of the Inquisition_) Mr. FRANK TYARS
Ruggieri (_Archbishop of Pisa_) Mr. WILLIAM LUGG
The Grand Inquisitor Mr. WILLIAM FARREN,
Junr.
Paolo (_Brother to Malatesta_) Mr. L. RACE DUNROBIN
Ugolino Mr. MARK PATON
Lippo } _Swashbucklers_ { Mr. JOHN ARCHER
Conrad } { Mr. W. L. ABLETT
Enzio (_Brother to Helen of Swabia_) Mr. F. D. DAVISS
Fadrico Mr. H. PORTER
Merchant Mr. R. P. TABB
Merchant Mr. H. GASTON
Townsman Mr. T. REYNOLD
Townsman Mr. A. FISHER
A Servant M. J. IRELAND
Pia dei Tolomei (_Wife to Nello della Pietra_) } Miss LENA ASHWELL
Gemma (_Her Daughter_) }
The Abbess of the Convent of Saint Claire Miss WALLIS
Francesca da Rimini Miss LILIAN ELDÉE
Helen of Swabia { _Daughter-in-law_ } Miss LAURA BURT
{ _to Ugolino_ }
Sandra (_Servant to Pia_) Miss ADA MELLON
Picarda } { Miss E. BURNAND
Tessa } { Miss HILDA AUSTIN
Marozia } _Florentine_ { Miss MAB PAUL
Cilia } _Ladies_ { Miss ADA POTTER
Lucrezia } { Miss E. LOCKETT
Julia } { Miss MARY FOSTER
Fidelia Miss DOROTHY ROWE
Maria Miss MAY HOLLAND
Nun Miss EMMELINE CARDER
Nun Miss E. F. DAVIS
Custodian of the Convent of Saint Claire Miss GRACE HAMPTON
A Townswoman Miss MABEL REES
_Nobles, Guests of the Legate, Pages, Jesters, Nuns, Townsfolk,
Artisans, Street Urchins, Catalans, Barbantines, Servants, etc._
Spirits:
The Spirit of Beatrice Miss NORA LANCASTER
Virgil Mr. WALTER REYNOLDS
Cain Mr. F. MURRAY
Charon Mr. LESLIE PALMER
Cardinal Boccasini Mr. F. FAYDENE
Cardinal Orsini Mr. W. J. YELDHAM
Jacques Molay (_Commander of the Templars_) Mr. J. MIDDLETON
_Spirits in the Inferno._
Sir Henry Irving certainly has great magnetic gifts which attract and
compel the sympathy of his audience. He always looks picturesque, he
avoids stage conventionalities, and acts his part according to his own
scholarly instincts. Passion with him is subservient to intellect.
One American critic in summing him up said:
“I do not consider Irving a great actor; but he is the greatest
dramatic artist I ever saw.”
The version of _Faust_ by the late W. G. Wills which modern playgoers
know so well was one of the most elaborate and successful productions
of the Lyceum days, and amongst the beautiful scenic effects some
exquisite visions which appeared in the Prologue at the summons of
Mephistopheles will always be remembered. On the first night of the
production I am told—for I don’t remember the occasion myself—owing to
a temporary break down in the lime-lights, these visions declined to
put in an appearance at the bidding of the Fiend. The great actor waved
his arm and stamped his foot with no result. Again and again he tried
to rouse them from their lethargy, but all to no avail. The visions
came not. As soon as the curtain fell Irving strode angrily to the
wing, even his stride foreboded ill to all concerned, and the officials
trembled at the outburst of righteous wrath which they expected would
break forth. The first exclamations of the irate manager had hardly
left his lips before they were interrupted by a diminutive “call boy,”
who rushed forward with uplifted hand, and exclaimed in a high treble
key to the great actor-manager fresh from his newest triumph:
“Bear it, bear it bravely! _I_ will explain all to-morrow!”
The situation was so ridiculous that there was a general peal of
laughter, in which Irving was irresistibly compelled to join.
The last part played at the Lyceum by the veteran actor Tom Mead was
that of the old witch who vainly strove to gain the summit of the
Brocken, and was always pushed downwards when just reaching the goal.
In despair the wretched hag exclaims, “I’ve been a toiler for ten
thousand years, but never, never reached the top.” On the first night
of _Faust_, the worthy old man was chaffed unmercifully at supper by
some of his histrionic friends who insisted that the words he used
were, “I’ve been _an actor_ for ten thousand years, but never, never
reached the top.”
Those who saw the wonderful production of _The Corsican Brothers_ at
the Lyceum will remember the exciting duel in the snow by moonlight,
between Irving and Terriss. At the last dress rehearsal, which at the
Lyceum was almost as important a function as a first night, Terriss
noticed that as the combatants moved hither and thither during the
fight he seemed to be usually in shadow, while the face of the great
actor-manager was brilliantly illuminated. Looking up into the flies,
he thus addressed the lime-light man:
“On me also shine forth, thou beauteous moon—there should be no
partiality in thy glorious beams.”
A friend relates another curious little incident which occurred during
the run of _Ravenswood_ at the Lyceum. In the last act there was
another duel between William Terriss and Henry Irving. For the play
Terriss wore a heavy moustache which was cleverly contrived in two
pieces. Somehow, in the midst of the scuffle, one side of the moustache
got caught and came off. This was an awkward predicament at a tragic
moment, but Terriss had the presence of mind to swerve round before the
audience had time to realise the absurdity, and finished the scene with
his hair-covered lips on show. When they arrived in the wings Irving
was greatly perturbed.
“What on earth do you mean spoiling the act by jumping round like
that?” he demanded. “You put me out horribly: it altered the whole
scene.”
Terriss was convulsed with laughter and could hardly answer; and it
was only when Irving had spent his indignation that he discovered
his friend was minus half his moustache. This shows how intensely
interested actors become in their parts, when one can go through a long
scene and never notice his colleague had lost so important an adjunct.
Sir Charles Wyndham is one of the most popular actor-managers upon the
stage. He is a flourishing evergreen. Though born in 1841 he never
seems to grow any older, and is just as full of dry humour, just as
able to deliver a dramatic sermon, just as quick and smart as ever he
was.
He began at the very beginning, did Sir Charles, and he is ending at
the very end. Though originally intended for the medical profession, he
commenced his career as a stock actor in a provincial company, is now a
knight, and manager and promoter of several theatres. What more could
theatrical heart desire? And he has the distinction of having acted in
Berlin in the German tongue.
Wyndham gives an amusing description, it is said, of one of his first
appearances on the American stage, when he had determined to transfer
his affections from Galen to Thespis. He was naturally extremely
nervous, and on his first entrance should have exclaimed:
“I am drunk with ecstasy and success.”
With emphasis he said the first three words of the sentence, and then,
owing to uncontrollable stage fright, his memory forsook him. After a
painful pause he again exclaimed:
“I am drunk.” Even then, however, he could not recall the context. He
looked hurriedly around, panic seemed to overpower him as he once more
repeated:
“I am drunk—”; and, amid a burst of merriment from the audience, he
rushed from the stage.