Personal reminiscences of Henry Irving

I

Irving did not think of playing The Merchant of Venice until he had been to the Levant. The season of 1879–80 had been arranged before the end of the previous season. We were to commence with The Iron Chest; Irving had considerable faith in Coleman’s play and intended to give it a run. It was to be followed in due course, as announced in his farewell speech at the end of the second season, by The Gamester, The Stranger, Coriolanus, and Robert Emmett—a new play by Frank Marshall. It was rather a surprise, therefore, when on October 8, before the piece had run two weeks, he broached the subject of a new production. It had been apparent to us since his return from a yachting trip in the Mediterranean that he was not so much in love with the play as he usually was with anything which he had immediately in hand. Even if a play did not seem to possess him, I never saw him show the slightest sign of indifference to it in any other case.

On that particular evening he asked Loveday and me if we could stay and have a chop in the Beefsteak Room. He was evidently full of something of importance; it seemed a relief to him when supper was finished and the servant who waited had gone. When we had lit our cigars he said quietly:

“I am going to do The Merchant of Venice.” We both waited, for there was nothing to say until we should know a little more. He went on:

“I never contemplated doing the piece, which did not even appeal very much to me, until when we were down in Morocco and the Levant. You know the Walrus” (that was the fine steamer which the Baroness Burdett Coutts had chartered for her yachting party) “put into all sorts of places. When I saw the Jew in what seemed his own land and in his own dress, Shylock became a different creature. I began to understand him; and now I want to play the part—as soon as I can. I think I shall do it on the first of November! Can it be done?”

Loveday answered it would depend on what had to be done.

“That is all right,” said Irving. “I have it in my mind. I have been thinking it over and I see my way to it. Here is what I shall have in the ‘Casket’ scene.” He took a sheet of notepaper and made a rough drawing of the scene, tearing out an arch in the back and propping another piece of paper in it with a rough suggestion of a Venetian scene. “I will have an Eastern lamp with red glass—I know where is the exact thing. It is, or used to be two or three years ago, in that furniture shop in Oxford Street, near Tottenham Court Road.”

Then he went on to expound his idea of the whole play; and did it in such a way that he set both Loveday and myself afire with the idea. We talked it out till early morning. Indeed the Eastern sun was outlining the beauty of St. Mary’s-le-Strand as the time-roughened stone stood out like delicate tracery against the blush of the sunrise. Then and often since have I thought that Sir Christopher Wren must have got his inspiration regarding St. Mary’s on returning late—or early in the morning—from a supper in Westminster. The church is ugly enough at other times, but against sunrise it is a picturesque delight.

As we parted Irving smiled as he said:

“Craven had better get out that red handkerchief, I think.”

Therein lay a little joke amongst us. Hawes Craven who was—as happily he still is—a great scene painter, could work like a demon when time pressed. Ordinarily he wore when at work in those days a long coat once of a dark colour, and an old brown bowler hat, both splashed out of all recognition with paint. Scene-painting is essentially a splashy business, the drops of paint from the great brushes, of necessity vigorously used to cover the acres of canvas, “come not in single spies but in battalions.” But when matters got desperate, when the pressure of the time-gauge registered not in hours but in minutes, the head-gear was changed for a red handkerchief which twisted round the head made a sort of turban. This became in time a sort of oriflamme. We knew that there was to be no sleep, and precious little pause even for food, till the work was all done.

Of course no mortal man could do the whole of the scenery in the three weeks available. Scenes had to be talked over, entrances and exits fixed and models made. Four scene-painters bent their shoulders to the task. Craven did three scenes, Telbin three, Hann three, and Cuthbert one. The whole theatre became alive with labour. Each night had its own tally of work with the running play; but from the time the curtain went down at night till when the doors were opened the following night full pressure never ceased. Properties, dresses, and “appointments” came in completed perpetually. Rehearsals went on all day. On Saturday night, November 1—just over three weeks after he had broached the idea, and less than three from the time the work was actually begun—the curtain went up on The Merchant of Venice.

It had an unbroken run of two hundred and fifty nights, the longest run of the play ever known.

It is a noteworthy fact that one of the actors, Mr. Frank Tyars, who played the Prince of Morocco, after being perfect for two hundred and forty-nine nights, forgot some of his words on the two hundred and fiftieth.

For twenty-six years that play remained in the working répertoire of Henry Irving. He played Shylock over a thousand times.

II

The occasion of Irving’s producing Othello during his own management was due to his love and remembrance of Edwin Booth. In 1860, at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, Irving began a long engagement. In the bill his name is announced: “His first appearance.” In November of the following year Booth appeared as a star, playing Othello, Irving being the Cassio; Hamlet, Irving being the Laertes; A New Way to Pay Old Debts, he of course taking Sir Giles Overreach, and Irving Wellborn. For his benefit he gave on Friday night Romeo and Juliet, in which Irving played Benvolio to his Romeo. Often, when we talked of Booth some twenty years afterwards, he told me of the extraordinary alertness of the American actor; of his fierce concentration and tempestuous passion; of the blazing of his remarkable eyes. It will be seen from the comparison of their respective parts in the plays set out that the difference between them in the way of status as players was marked. The theatre had its own etiquette, and stars were supposed to have a stand-off manner of their own. These things have changed a good deal in the interval, but in the early sixties it was a real though an impalpable barrier, as hard to break through as though it were compact of hardier material than shadowy self-belief. Naturally the men did not have much opportunity for intimacy, but Irving never forgot the bright young actor who had won his heart as well as his esteem. Twenty years afterwards, when the younger man had won his place in the world and when his theatre was becoming celebrated as a national asset, Booth again visited England. Whoever had arranged his business did not choose the best theatre for him. For in those days the Princess’s in Oxford Street did not have a high dramatic cachet. He got a good reception of course; but the engagement was not a satisfactory one, and Booth was much chagrined. I was there myself on the night of his opening, November 6, 1880, on which he played Hamlet. I was much disappointed in the ensemble; for though Booth was fine, neither the production nor the support was worthy of his genius and powers. The management was a new one, and the manager a man who had been used to a different class of theatre. Also there were certain things which jarred on the senses of any one accustomed to a finer order. This was none of Booth’s doings; but he was the sufferer by it. Booth and Irving had met at once after the former had come to London, and had renewed their old acquaintance—on a more intimate basis. In those days there was a certain class of busybodies who tried always to make mischief between Americans and English; twenty-five years ago the entente cordiale was not so marked as became noticeable after the breaking out of the war between America and Spain. There were even some who did not hesitate to say that Booth had not been fairly received in London. Irving jumped to the difficulty, went at once to Booth and said to him:

“Why don’t you come and play with me at the Lyceum? I’ll put on anything you wish; or if there is any piece in which we can play together, let us do that.”

Booth was greatly delighted, and took the overture in the same good spirit in which it was meant. He at once told Irving that he would like to appear in Othello. Irving said:

“All right! You decide on the time; and I’ll get the play ready, if you will tell me how you would like it arranged.”

Booth said he would like to leave all that to his host, as he had not himself taken a part in the production of plays for years and did not even attend rehearsals. So Irving took all the task on himself. When he asked Booth whether he would like to play Othello or Iago—for he played both—he said he would like to begin with Othello and that it would, he thought, be well if they changed week about; and so it was arranged. The performance began on May 2, 1881.

By Booth’s wish Othello was only to be played three times a week, as he was averse from the strain of such a heavy part every night. The running bill—The Cup and The Belle’s Stratagem—kept its place on the other three. For the special performances some of the prices were altered, stalls nominally ten shillings becoming a guinea, the dress-circle seats being ten shillings instead of six. The prices for the off nights remained as usual.

The success of Othello was instantaneous and immense. During the seven weeks the arrangement lasted the houses were packed. And strange to say the takings of the off nights were not affected in any way.

III

The two months thus occupied made a happy time for Booth. He came down to rehearsal early in the week before the production, and was so pleased that he never missed a rehearsal during the remainder of the time. He said more than once that it had given him a new interest in his work. In social ways too the time went pleasantly. Several of his distinguished countrymen were then staying in London, and no matter how strenuous work might be, time was found for enjoyment though the days had to be stretched out in the manner suggested in Tommy Moore’s ballad:

On Sunday, June 12, John McCullough gave a party at Hampton Court, where we dined at the Greyhound. We drove down in four-in-hand drags and spent the late afternoon walking through the beautiful gardens of Hampton Court. June in that favoured spot is always delightful.

There was an amusing episode on our dilatory journeying among the flowers. One of the gardeners, a bright-faced old fellow for whom Nature had been unkind enough to use the mould wrought for the shaping of Richard III., on being asked some trivial question gave so smart an answer that we all laughed. Then began a hail of questions; the old man, smiling gleefully, answered them as quick as lightning. One by one nearly all the party joined in; but to one and all a cunning answer was given without slack of speed, till the whole crowd was worsted. One of the party asked the gardener if he would lend him his hat for a minute. The old man handed it, remarking in a manifestly intended stage aside:

“It’ll be no use to him. The brains don’t go with it!” The man who borrowed it, “Billy” Florence, put it on the grass, open side up, and said:

“Now boys!”

Instantly a rain of money—more of it gold than silver, and some folded notes—fell into the hat. Then with a handshake all round the clever old fellow toddled off. The names of that party will show most people of the great world, even twenty years afterwards, that there was no lack of “brains” in that crowd, even enough possibly to answer effectually to the sallies of one old man. Most of them may be seen on the dinner menu which they signed.

One night at supper in the Beefsteak Room, Irving told me an amusing occurrence which took place at Manchester when Booth played there. He said it was “about” 1863, so it may have been that time of which I have written—1861. Richard III. was put up, Charles Calvert, the manager, playing Richmond, and Booth Gloster. Calvert determined to make a brave show of his array against the usurper, and being manager was able to dress his own following to some measure of his wishes. Accordingly he drained the armoury of the theatre and had the armour furbished up to look smart. Richard’s army came on in the usual style. They were not much to look at though they were fairly comfortable for their work of fighting. But Richmond’s army enthralled the senses of the spectators, till those who knew the play began to wonder how such an army could be beaten by the starvelings opposed to them. They were not used to fight, or even to move in armour, however; and the moment they began to make an effort they one and all fell down and wriggled all over the stage in every phase of humiliating but unsuccessful effort to get up; and the curtain had to be lowered amidst the wild laughter of the audience.