3 St George’s Square, Primrose Hill, N.W.—Defends in detail ‘the noble efforts of Mrs. Bateman and Mr. Irving to give us a Shakspere theatre worthy of its name’.
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Transcript
SHAKSPERE AT THE LYCEUM.
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DAILY NEWS, MARCH 2, 1876.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY NEWS.
SIR,—As a student of Shakspere, as the Founder and Director of the New Shakspere Society, as one of whose life great part is now given to the promotion of the intelligent study of our great poet, I ask you for space for a few lines of remonstrance against the ungenerous treatment with which the noble efforts of Mrs. Bateman and Mr. Irving to give us a Shakspere theatre worthy of its name have lately been met. Heaven best knows to what a low ebb Shaksperian criticism and Shaksperian acting had fallen a few years ago, and how very few chances there were of seeing on the London boards a play of Shakspere’s acted anyhow. The old Shakespeare Society had died out amid the reproaches hurled at its leader for the abominable forgeries of the Bridgewater Library documents that he had made public. Mr. Phelps’s honourable and persevering endeavours to keep up at least one Shakspere theatre in London had failed; and though intermittent efforts were made by others to revive special plays, no permanent result was attained. Three years ago a change came. In criticism the doctrine, almost new to England, was preached, that the old Dryasdust and Woodenhead work at mere points of detail, must no longer represent the English school; that Shakspere must be studied as an organic whole, not as a conglomerate of isolated works; that the succession of his plays must be settled, so that the growth of his mind and art might be made plain, and Englishmen let into the secret of that wonderful progress from the comparative poverty and lightness of Shakspere’s youth, “to the magnificence, the splendour, the divine intuition” {1} which marked his ripest works. What success this doctrine has gained may be seen by contrasting the sections on Shakspere in Mr. Stopford Brooke’s admirable shilling Primer of English Literature (Macmillan), or Prof. Dowden’s revision of Shaw’s Manual (Murray), with any of the previous hand-books of English Literature.
Almost contemporaneously with this advance in English criticism, began the splendid stride-forward of Shaksperian acting by Mr. Henry Irving and Signor Salvini. Once again a worthy representer of Shakspere’s most subtle, most difficult, creation, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” walked the stage; and the quiet student of the poet could go and see his master’s mind fitly embodied in Mr. Irving’s magnificent performance, and feel grateful for the fresh light thrown by the great actor on the character which had so often seemed dark to him before. Many a time have I with pleasure heard from others, what I have felt strongly myself, that they had got from Mr. Irving a realisation of part of the character of Hamlet that would be a gain to them for ever.
Here was a new chance, then, for Shakspere on the stage. Was it possible to secure a permanent home for Shakspere’s plays in London, where one might at least have a chance of seeing them a third as often as one can in Berlin? There was not much use in asking an English manager. To a long succession of them the lesson had always been “Shakspere spells bankruptcy, so little do Englishmen care for him.” So a more enterprising American—a lady lately widowed—resolved to give the English actor and friend whom her late husband and she had always admired, the chance of continuing his impersonations of Shakspere’s greatest heroes, in the hope that in the world’s greatest poet’s own land, his plays might find an audience and a home. Mr. Irving acted Macbeth; and however much one’s conception of the King of Scotland differed from Mr. Irving’s—and I confess mine did—I am sure that every earnest student of Shakspere must have felt grateful to Mr. Irving for his fine and subtle impersonation of Duncan’s murderer, embodying, as it did, the view held by many of the best Shaksperian critics, of the utter palsy, through crime, not only of all the moral faculties of the man’s nature, but even of his physical bravery. It is a view that appeals so strongly to the moral sense, that I think it likely to prevail hereafter in England; and, if it does, Mr. Irving’s conception and performance of Macbeth will be held not to have pleased his contemporaries as it should have done, only because they were so far behind him in sympathy with Shakspere’s mind.
Macbeth was naturally followed by Othello. To any great actor of Hamlet, “who is doubt,” the desire must be great to act his opposite, Othello:
No; to be once in doubt,
Is once to be resolv’d.—III., iii.
And once resolved, he sweeps to his revenge. No doubt after the splendid realisation of the Moor’s fierce wrath and dire resolution by Signor Salvini—a creation new to English art—any later attempt at it was perilous. But is that the reason why an Englishman shouldn’t try it? I trow not. Are there to be no more Othellos for us Victorians, because an Italian has once played him to us? Did Signor Salvini exhaust Shakspere? The great Italian would be the first to hurl “fool” at the head of him who said he did. Can all of us so carry in our minds every change of expression in the actor’s face that we need no revival of them by another man? Can any of us who care for Salvini, but care for Shakspere more, sit at Mr. Irving’s feet, and see his wonderfully subtle, pathetic, and powerful performance of Othello, without feeling that he, too, has worthily embodied Shakspere’s hero, and added to our power of realising the poet’s terrible conception? Recollect Salvini, or whom you will, it is impossible for any one with true love for Shakspere, to watch Mr. Irving as he justifies himself before the Senate, as his face lights up with gleams of love when he meets his bride, and when he yields, so tenderly and sweetly, to her first entreaties for Cassio; as, with the drops of Iago’s gall, that light of love leaves his face never again to return; as his frame stands heaving, his lip quivering, when he’s “not much” toucht; as the full fire of his wrath blazes out against Iago; as that demon’s talk of Cassio frenzies him; as he bursts out against Desdemona; and as at last he sees what [a] {2} dolt and fool he’s been; I say it is impossible but that men who see thus realised in act, the passions that their Master paints with words, must feel gratitude to Mr. Irving for his noble performance. Blemishes it has, no doubt. Who is perfect? But that the performance is one that everybody who honours Shakspere can see with great pleasure and profit, I strongly affirm.
But how have our critics received their fellow-countryman’s performances? Assuredly, Signor Salvini’s Hamlet was, as compared with his Othello, a very far more unsatisfactory embodiment than any one can pretend Mr. Irving’s Othello is than his Hamlet. And yet let the critics contrast their generous treatment of the foreigner with their ungenerousness to their countryman! But surely the effort now making by Mr. Irving and Mrs. Bateman is one that should appeal to every lover of his country’s literature and art. Here is an American widow lady who knows that if she seeks profit first, her best plan is to bring out silly comedies and burlesque. But, with the wish to benefit art, she adheres to the highest—Shakspere’s.—Mr. Irving, besides acting, takes on himself the duty of personally superintending the production of every play. The Master’s works are admirably mounted; the casts are unusually strong; a chance is given for people to learn what real tragedy is; for a school of Shaksperian actors to be trained: and yet, what do the critics, in effect, say? “It’s all a failure: keep away from the place.” A more unfair verdict never was given, I protest. And I do appeal from it to the wider circle of Shakspere-lovers and playgoers, and say—“Do go and judge for yourselves.” Instead of wasting the evening that so many playgoers do in seeing mere frivolous nonsense, I say, “Do go and get to know better in act, on the stage, this great dramatist and poet, Shakspere, who is the glory of your literature. Go again and again till you have got the embodiments of his greatest works into your heart. Support those who are trying to hold up a high standard of art, above so much petty, paltry stuff around them. Judge actors generously. If, in all points, they don’t realise your ideal—as, of course, they can’t—yet look at their strong points before their weak ones. An actor like Mr. Irving is a great Shaksperian teacher. His efforts and Mrs. Bateman’s deserve the sympathy and support of every Shakspere-lover in the land.”
FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, M.A., Cambr.,
Founder and Director of the New Shakspere Society.
3, St,† George’s-square, Primrose-hill, N.W.,
February 28, 1876.
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{1} The quotation is from Furnivall’s Prospectus for the New Shakspere Society, dated 28 March 1874.
{2} Omitted by mistake.
† Sic.
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