interesting occurrence which illustrates the influence of the actor on
the author, especially when the former is a good stage manager. Marshall
came to supper in the room which antedated the Beefsteak Room for that
purpose. The occasion was to discuss the _scenario_ which had by then
been enlarged to proportions comprehensive of detail—not merely the
situations but the working of them out. Only the three of us were
present. We were all familiar with the work so far as it was done; for
not only used Marshall to send Irving a copy of each act and scene of
the _scenario_ as he did it, but he used very often to run in and see me
and consult about it. I would then tell Irving at a convenient
opportunity; and when next the author came I would go over with him
Irving’s comments and suggestions. This night we all felt to be a
crucial one. The play had gone on well through its earlier parts; indeed
it promised to be a very fine play. But at the point it had then reached
it halted a little. The scene was in Dublin during a phase or wave of
discontent even with the “patriotic” party as accepted in the play.
Something was necessary to focus in the minds of certain of the
characters the fact and cause of discontent and to emphasise it in a
dramatic way. After supper we discussed it for a long time. All at once
Irving got hold of an idea. I could see it in his face; and he could see
that I saw he had something. He glanced at me in a way which I knew well
to be to back him up. He deftly changed the conversation and began to
speak of another matter in which Marshall was interested. I knew my cue
and joined in, and so we drifted away from the play. Presently Irving
asked Marshall to look at a playbill which he had had framed and hung on
the wall. It was one in which Macready was “starred” along with an
elephant called “Rajah”—this used in later years to hang in Irving’s
dressing-room. Marshall stood up to look at it closely. Whilst he was
doing so, with his back to us, Irving got half-a-dozen wine glasses by
the stems in his right hand and hurled them at the door, making a
terrific crash and a litter of falling glass. Frank Marshall, a man of
the sunniest nature, was not built spiritually in a heroic mould. He
gave a cry and whirled round, his face pale as ashes. He sank groaning
into a chair speechless. When I had given him a mouthful of brandy he
gasped out:
“What was it? I thought some one had thrown a bomb-shell in through the
window!”
“That was exactly what I wanted you to think!” said Irving quietly.
“That is what those in Curran’s house would have felt when they
recognised that the fury to which they had been listening and whose
cause they did not understand was directed towards them. You are in the
rare position now, my dear Marshall, of the dramatist who can write of
high emotion from experience. The audience are bound to recognise the
sincerity of your work. Just write your scene up to that effect. Let the
audience feel even an indication of the surprise and fear that you have
just felt yourself, and your play will be a success!” He said this very
seriously but with a bland smile and his eyes twinkling; for through all
the gravity of the issue in the shape of a good play he enjoyed the
humour of the situation. Frank Marshall recovered his nerves and his
buoyancy after a while, and when we broke up in the early morning he
took his way home, eager to get to work afresh and full of ideas.
As Irving was for the time debarred from playing the piece, when
completed he let Boucicault have it to see what he could do with it. He
did not, I think, improve it. Boucicault played it himself in America,
but without much success.
The following list, not by any means complete, will show something of
the wide range which Irving covered in his search for suitable plays. I
give it because certain writers, who do not know much of the man whom
they criticise so flippantly or so superciliously, have been in the
habit of saying that Irving did not encourage British dramatists. To
those who were on the “inside track” their utterances often meant that
he did not accept, pay for, and produce _their_ worthless plays or those
of their friends, and he did not talk about his business to chance
comers. Moreover, he held that it was not good for any one to produce an
inferior play. The greatest of all needs of a theatre manager is a
sufficiency of plays, and it is sheer ignorant folly for any one to
assert that a manager does not accept good plays out of some crass
obstinacy or lack of ability on his own part.
_Author._ _Play._
W. G. Wills Rienzi
„ Mephisto
„ King Arthur
„ Don Quixote
Frank Marshall Robert Emmett
Richard Voss Schuldig
J. I. C. Clarke George Washington
„ Don Quixote
Fergus Hume The Vestal
Penrhyn Stanlaws The End of the Hunting
H. T. Johnson The Jester King
Egerton Castle and Walter Pollock Saviolo
O. Booth and J. Dixon Jekyll and Hyde (from Stevenson)
J. M. Barrie The Professor’s Love Story
F. C. Burnand The Isle of St. Tropez
„ The Count
H. Guy Carleton The Balance of Comfort
Ludwig Fulda The Bloody Marriage[5]
Footnote 5:
This was dramatised for Irving by W. L. Courtney, but the opportunity
for its production had not come at the time of his last illness.
For obvious reasons I do not give what any of these authors received for
play or option or advance fees; but the total was over nine thousand
pounds.
Regarding one of the plays, Irving’s exact reason for not playing it was
that he felt it would not suit him—or rather that he would not suit it.
He liked the play extremely, and when after studying the _scenario_ very
carefully he had to come to the conclusion that it was not in his own
special range of work, he obtained permission from the author to submit
it to two of his friends in turn, John L. Toole and John Hare. Both
these players were delighted with the work, but neither had it in his
vogue. Finally another actor saw his way to it, and made with it both a
hit and fortune.
The play was Barrie’s _The Professor’s Love Story_; the actor who played
it E. S. Willard. This is a good instance of delayed fortune. For my own
part, knowing the peculiar excellences and strength of the three players
who refused it, I cannot but think that they were all right. The play is
an excellent one, but wants to be exactly fitted. Irving was naturally
too strong for it; Toole was a low comedian, and it is not in the vein
of low comedy; Hare’s incisive finesse would have militated against that
unconsciousness of effect which is the “note” of the Professor.
III
In addition to the above plays on which he adventured wholly or in part
Irving made efforts regarding plays by other authors, amongst whom were
Mrs. Steel, K. and Hesketh Pritchard, Marion Crawford, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, Henry Arthur Jones, W. L. Courtney, Miss Mary Wilkins, Robert
Barr. These included the possible dramatisation of several novels.
A. W. Pinero was always regarded by Irving as a great intellectual
force, and to the last he was in hopes that some day he would have the
opportunity of playing in a piece by him. He often expressed his wish to
Pinero; and more than once have Pinero and I talked and corresponded on
the subject. Pinero, however, would not think of giving Irving a play
that would not have suited him. He had for Irving a very profound regard
and a deep personal affection. They were always the best of friends and
Pinero was loyalty itself. I do not think that any man understood
Irving’s power and the excellence of his method better than he did. I
fear, however, that that very affection and regard stood in the way of a
play; Pinero, I think, wanted to surpass himself on Irving’s behalf.
LX
MUSICIANS
I
Musicians always took a deep interest in Irving’s work both as actor and
manager. They seemed to understand in a peculiarly subtle way the
significance of everything he did.
II
BOITO
Boito came to the Lyceum on June 13, 1893, when we were playing
_Becket_. I talked with him in his box and in the little drawing-room of
the royal box. He afterwards came round on the stage to see Irving. He
was wonderfully impressed with _Becket_. He said to me that Irving was
“the greatest artist he had ever seen.” Two nights later, 15th June, he
came to supper in the Beefsteak Room. Irving had got some musicians and
others to meet him. The following were of the party: A. C. Mackenzie,
Villiers Stanford, Damrosch, Jules Claretie, Renaud, Brisson, Le Clerc,
Alfred Gilbert, Toole, Hare, Sir Charles Euan Smith, Bancroft, Coquelin
Cadet—an extraordinary group of names in so small a gathering.
III
PADEREWSKI
Paderewski was greatly taken with Irving’s playing and with the man
himself. He came to supper one night in the Beefsteak Room. Irving met
him several times and was an immense admirer of his work. He offered to
write for Irving music for some play that he might be doing.
I remember one very peculiar incident in which Paderewski had a part.
Whilst we were playing in New York, Hall Caine, who had been up in
Canada trying to arrange the copyright trouble there, came to New York
also. One Sunday in November 1895 he and I took a walk in the afternoon.
Our destination took us down Fifth Avenue, which in those days was a
great Sunday promenade. Hall Caine was soon recognised—he is, as some
one said, “very like his portraits”; and as he has an enormous vogue in
America certain of the crowd began to follow him at a little distance.
It is of the nature of a crowd to increase, if merely because it _is_ a
crowd; and in a short time I saw, when by some chance I looked back, a
whole streetful of people close behind us and the crowd momentarily
swelling. We increased our pace a little, wishing to get away; but the
crowd kept equal pace. Between 42nd and 40th Street we met another crowd
coming up the Avenue following Paderewski who was walking with a friend.
We stopped to talk, whereupon _both_ crowds pressed in on us—it was too
interesting an opportunity to be missed to see two such men, and each so
remarkable in appearance, together.
It was with some difficulty, and by going into a hotel on one side and
leaving it by another that we managed to escape.
IV
GEORG HENSCHEL
Georg Henschel was from the very first a great admirer of Irving away
back from 1879, and so he used to come to the Lyceum and sometimes stay
to supper in the Beefsteak Room, or in the room we used before it. I
shall never forget one night when he sang to us. There were a very few
others present, all friends and all lovers of music. Two items linger in
my memory unfailingly; one a lullaby of Handel and the other the
“Elders’ Song” from Handel’s _Susannah_. We had all become great friends
before he went to Boston where—I think succeeding Gerische—he took over
the conductorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He had wished to
study practically orchestral music. One forenoon—February 28, 1884—by
previous arrangement Irving and I went to the Music Hall to hear his
orchestra play Schumann’s _Manfred_. It was quite a private performance
given entirely for Irving; the gentlemen of the orchestra, all fine
musicians, were delighted to play for him. He was entranced with the
music and the rendering of it. When we were driving back to the Vendôme
Hotel in Commonwealth Avenue where we were both staying he talked all
the time about the possibilities of producing Byron’s play. He had had
it in his mind for a long time as a work to be undertaken; indeed the
_répétition_ which we had just heard was the outcome of his having
mentioned the matter to Henschel on a previous occasion. He was nearer
to making up his mind to a definite production that morning than he had
ever been or ever was afterwards.
It was agreed between them that later on, if he should undertake to do
_Julius Cæsar_, for which he had already arranged the book, Henschel was
to compose the music for it.
V
HANS RICHTER
Hans Richter was another great admirer of Irving. He too is a great
master of his own art, and has the appreciative insight that only comes
with greatness. Richter was not only a musician; he had had so much
experience of stage production at Bayreuth and elsewhere that if he did
not originate he at least understood all about it. I remember one day,
24th October 1900, after lunch with the Miss Gaskells in Manchester,
when he talked with me about the new effect for _The Flying Dutchman_ at
the Wagner Festival on the following year. This was especially regarding
lighting. They had succeeded in so arranging lights that the two ships
were to approach each other, one in broad sunlight, the other bathed in
moonlight.
With Hans Richter I had once the felicity of another such experience in
its own way as Irving’s comprehensive reading of _Hamlet_; truly another
delightful experience of the survey of a great work at the hands of a
master. It was when in the house of my friend E. W. Hennell, Hans
Richter amongst a few friends sat down to the piano and gave us a
_résumé_ of Wagner’s _Meistersinger_, singing snatches of the songs as
he went on, and now and again explaining some subtle purpose in the
music that he played. It was an hour of breathless delight which no
money could purchase. With my wife I attended the Wagner Cycle at
Bayreuth that summer and heard the opera in all its magnificent
perfection; but I never got so clear an insight to the great composer’s
purpose as when Richter pictured it for us.
VI
THE ABBÉ FRANZ LISZT
On 14th April 1886 Abbé Liszt came to the Lyceum to see _Faust_ and to
stay to supper in the Beefsteak Room. He was then the guest of Mr.
Littleton, staying at his house at Sydenham. At that time musical London
made such a rush for the old man that it was absolutely necessary to
guard him when he came to the theatre. All the real music lovers of the
younger generation wanted to see him, for they had not had opportunity
before and were not likely to have it again. He was then seventy-five
years of age and had practically given up playing inasmuch as he only
played to please himself or his friends. That night he was accompanied
by Mr. and Mrs. Littleton together with the sons and daughters-in-law of
the latter, and by Stavenhagen his pupil, and Madame Muncacksy. As it
was necessary to keep away all who might intrude upon him—enthusiasts,
interviewers, cranks, autograph-fiends, notoriety seekers who would like
to be seen in his box—we arranged a sort of fortress for him. Next to
the royal box on the grand tier O.P. was another box separated only by a
partition, part of which could be taken down. This box was on the
outside from the proscenium. We had the door of this box screwed up so
that entrance to it could only be had through the royal box. Liszt sat
here with some of the others unassailable, as one of the Mr. Littletons
kept the key of the other box and none could obtain entrance without
permission.
There was an interesting party at supper in the Beefsteak Room, amongst
them, in addition to the party at the play, the following: Ellen Terry,
Professor Max Müller, Lord and Lady Wharncliffe, Sir Alexander and Lady
Mackenzie, Sir Alfred Cooper, Walter Bach and Miss Bach, Sir Morell
Mackenzie, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Littleton, Mr. and Mrs. Augustus
Littleton, Mr. and Mrs. William Beatty Kingston, and the Misses Casella.
Liszt sat on the right hand of Ellen Terry who faced Irving. From where
I sat at the end of the table I could not but notice the quite
extraordinary resemblance in the profiles of the two men. After supper
Irving went round and sat next him, and the likeness became a theme of
comment from all present. Irving was then forty-eight years of age; but
he looked still a young man, with raven-black hair and face without a
line. His neck was then without a line or mark of age. Liszt, on the
other hand, looked older than his age. His stooping shoulders and long
white hair made him seem of patriarchal age. Nevertheless the likeness
of the two men was remarkable.
Stavenhagen played, but as it was thought by all that Liszt must be too
tired after a long day no opening was made for him, much as all longed
to hear him. The party did not break up till four o’clock in the
morning. The note in my diary runs:
“Liszt fine face—leonine—several large pimples—prominent chin of old
man—long white hair down on shoulders—all call him ‘Master’—must have
had great strength in youth. Very sweet and simple in manner. H. I.
and he very much alike—seemed old friends as they talked animatedly
though knowing but a few words of each other’s language—but using much
expression and gesticulation. It was most interesting.”
The next day Irving and my wife and I, together with some others,
lunched with the Baroness Burdett-Coutts in Stratton Street to meet
Liszt. After lunch there was a considerable gathering of friends asked
to meet him. Lady Burdett-Coutts very thoughtfully had the pianos
removed from the drawing-rooms, lest their presence might seem as though
he were expected to play. After a while he noticed the absence and said
to his hostess:
“I see you have no pianos in these rooms!” She answered frankly that she
had them removed so that he would not be tempted to play unless he
wished to do so.
“But I would like some music!” he said, and then went on:
“I have no doubt but there is a piano in the house, and that it could be
brought here easily!” It was not long before the servants brought into
the great drawing-room a grand piano worthy of even his hands. Then
Antoinette Sterling sang some ballads in her own delightful way. The
contralto tones went straight to one’s heart.
“Now I will play!” said Liszt. And he did.
It was magnificent and never to be forgotten.
VII
GOUNOD
Gounod came, as far as I know, but once to the Lyceum. That was during
the first week of the season—6th September, 1882–during the continuance
of the run of _Romeo and Juliet_. He came round to Irving’s
dressing-room at the end of the third act and sat all the time of the
wait chatting. Gounod was a man who seemed to speak fully formed
thoughts. It was not in any way that there was about his speech any
appearance of formality or premeditation. He seemed to speak right out
of his heart; but his habit or method was such that his words had a
power of exact conveyance of the thoughts. One might have stenographed
every sentence he spoke, and when reproduced it would require no
alteration. Form and structure and choice of words were all complete.
After chatting a while Irving was loth to let him go. When the call-boy
announced the beginning of Act IV.—in which act Irving had no part—he
asked Gounod to stay on with him. So also at the beginning of Act V.
When he had to go on the stage for the Apothecary scene, he asked me to
stay with Gounod till he came back—I had been in the dressing-room all
the time. Whilst Irving was away Gounod and I chatted; several things he
said have always remained with me.
He was saying something about some “great man” when he suddenly stopped
and, after a slight pause, said:
“But after all there is no really ‘great’ man! There are men through
whom great things are spoken!”
I asked him what in his estimation were the best words to which he had
composed music. He answered almost at once, without hesitation:
“‘Oh that we two were maying!’ I can never think of those words without
emotion! How can one help it?” He spoke the last verse of the poem from
_The Saint’s Tragedy_:
“Oh! that we two lay sleeping
In our nest in the churchyard sod,
With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth’s breast,
And our souls at home with God.”
As he spoke, the emotion seemed to master him more and more; at the last
line the tears were running down his cheeks. He spoke with an
extraordinary concentration and emphasis. It was hard to believe that he
was not singing, for the effect of his speaking the words of Charles
Kingsley’s song was the same. His speech seemed like—was music.
Later on I asked him who in his opinion was the best composer. “Present
company, of course, excepted!” I added, whereat he smiled. After a
moment’s thought he answered:
“Mendelssohn! Mendelssohn is the best!” Then after another but shorter
pause: “But there is only one Mozart!”
VIII
SIR ALEXANDER MACKENZIE
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who was one of the oldest and closest of
Irving’s friends, had much to do with him in his productions. He
composed the music for _Ravenswood_ and _Coriolanus_. At Irving’s burial
in Westminster Abbey a part of the latter, the _Marcia Funèbre_, was
played whilst the coffin was being borne from the choir to the grave.
In addition to these important works, Mackenzie wrote the music for
_Manfred_, which Irving intended at one time to produce. He was also
engaged on the music for _Richard II._, a large part of which was
completed when the play was abandoned owing to Irving’s serious illness
in 1898.
Mackenzie in an “interview” shortly after Irving’s death, told a pretty
story of how the end of _Ravenswood_ had been changed. Irving had
arranged that the last scene should be the waste of quicksand, wherein
Edgar was lost, seen in the cold glare of moonlight—suggestive of
misery. When, however, he heard the music—of which the finale is the
_love motive_ in a triumphant burst—he seemed much struck by it. He said
nothing at the time, but the next morning the composer received a letter
thanking him for the hint and adding:
“And the moonlight on the sea I shall change to the rising sun.”
LXI
LUDWIG BARNAY
I
When in 1881 the Meiningen Company came to London to play in Drury Lane
Theatre at least one German player came with them who, though for
patriotic reasons he played with the Company, had not belonged to it.
This was Ludwig Barnay. By a happy chance I met him very soon after his
arrival and we became friends. He was then able to speak but very little
English. Like all Magyars, however, he was a good linguist, and before a
fortnight was over he spoke the language so well that only an occasional
word or phrase spoken to or by him brought out his ignorance.
At their first meeting Irving and he became friends; they “took” to each
other in a really remarkable way. Barnay had come to see the play then
running, _Hamlet_, and between the acts came round to Irving’s
dressing-room. By this time he spoke English quite well; when he lacked
a word he unconsciously showed his scholarship by trying it in the
Greek. Irving after a few minutes forgot that he was a foreigner and
began to use his words in the _argot_ of his own calling. For instance,
talking of the difficulty of getting some actors to study their parts
properly, he said:
“The worst of it is they won’t take the trouble even to learn their
words, and when the time comes they begin to “fluff.” To “fluff” means
in the language of the theatre to be uncertain, inexact, imperfect. This
was too much for the poor foreigner, who up to then had understood
everything perfectly. He raised his hands—palm outwards, the wrists
first and then the fingers straightening—as he said in quite a piteous
tone:
“Flof!—Fluoof—Fluff! Alas! I know him not!”
II
A very delightful gathering about that time—one which became remarkable
in its way—was a supper given by Toole at the Adelphi Hotel on 1st July.
Amongst the guests were Irving, Barnay, McCullough, Lawrence Barrett,
Wilson Barrett, Leopold Teller. After supper some one—I think it was
Irving—said something on the subject of State subsidy for theatres. It
was an interesting theme to such a company, and, as the gathering was by
its items really international, every one wanted to hear what every one
else said. So the conversational torch went round the table—like the
sun, or the wine. There were all sorts and varieties of opinion, for
each said what was in his heart. When it came to Barnay’s turn he
electrified us all. He did not say much, but it was all to the point and
spoken in a way which left no doubt as to his own sincerity. He finished
up:
“Yes, these are all good—to some. The subsidy in France; the system of
the Hof and the Stadt Theatres in Germany; the help and control in
Austria which brings the chosen actors into the State service. But”—and
here his eyes flashed, his nostrils quivered, and his face was lit with
enthusiasm—“your English freedom is worth them all!” Then, springing to
his feet, he raised his glass and cried in a voice that rang like a
trumpet:
“Freiheit!”
III
Before the production of _Faust_ in 1885 Irving took a party, including
Mr. and Mrs. Comyns Carr and Ellen Terry, to Nürnberg and Rothenburg to
study the ground. On the way home they went to Berlin. There Barnay gave
two special performances in his own theatre, the Berliner. The bill of
the play is in its way historical; the names of the honoured guests were
starred. The performances were of _Julius Cæsar_ and _The Merchant of
Venice_.
IV
The Grand Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, to whose theatre the Meiningen Company
belonged, sent to Irving an Order of his own Court. Later on, however,
when he had seen Irving play and had met him, he said that the Order
sent him was not good enough for so distinguished a man. He accordingly
bestowed on him—with the consent and co-operation of the Grand Duke of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh)—the Order
of the Komthur Cross of the Second Class of the Ducal Saxon Ernestine
House Order—a distinction, I believe, of high local dignity, carrying
with it something in the shape of knighthood. Irving wore the Collar of
the Order on the night of 25th May 1897 when the Grand Duke of
Saxe-Meiningen came to supper with him in the Beefsteak Room—the only
time I think when he wore the insignia of this special honour.
Irving’s first meeting with the Grand Duke was preceded by an odd
circumstance. This was on the evening of 28th May 1885.
I was passing across the stage between the acts when I saw a stranger—a
tall, distinguished-looking old gentleman. I bowed and told him that no
one was allowed on the stage without special permission. He bowed in
return, and said:
“I thought that permission would have been accorded to me!”
“The rule,” said I, “is inviolable. I fear I must ask you to come with
me to the auditorium. This will put us right; and then I can take any
message you wish to Mr. Irving.”
“May I tell you who I am?” he asked.
“I am sorry,” I said, “but I fear I cannot ask you till we are outside.
You see, I am the person responsible for carrying out the rules of the
theatre. And no matter who it may be I have to do the duty which I have
undertaken.”