George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager [1st ed.] 9783030409340, 9783030409357

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii
Introduction (Lucie Sutherland)....Pages 1-16
George Alexander and the St. James’s ‘Brand’ (Lucie Sutherland)....Pages 17-66
The Actor-Manager System: Autonomy and Collaboration (Lucie Sutherland)....Pages 67-125
The Actor-Manager System: The Role of the Playwright (Lucie Sutherland)....Pages 127-171
Managing Risk: Cross-sector Adaptation (Lucie Sutherland)....Pages 173-231
The Legacy of Alexander at the St. James’s Theatre (Lucie Sutherland)....Pages 233-260
Back Matter ....Pages 261-297

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE HISTORY

George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager Lucie Sutherland

Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History Series Editor Don B. Wilmeth Emeritus Professor Brown University Providence, RI, USA

Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History is a series devoted to the best of theatre/performance scholarship currently available, accessible and free of jargon. It strives to include a wide range of topics, from the more traditional to those performance forms that in recent years have helped broaden the understanding of what theatre as a category might include (from variety forms as diverse as the circus and burlesque to street buskers, stage magic, and musical theatre, among many others). Although historical, critical, or analytical studies are of special interest, more theoretical projects, if not the dominant thrust of a study but utilized as important underpinning or as an historiographical or analytical method of exploration, are also of interest. Textual studies of drama or other types of less traditional performance texts are also germane to the series if placed in their cultural, historical, social, or political and economic context. There is no geographical focus for this series and works of excellence of a diverse and international nature, including comparative studies, are sought. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14575

Lucie Sutherland

George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager

Lucie Sutherland University of Nottingham Nottingham, UK

Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History ISBN 978-3-030-40934-0    ISBN 978-3-030-40935-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For my mother, Rozelle Sutherland, MBE

Acknowledgements

Deepest thanks must go first and foremost to John Stokes who has provided unstinting help and support for a long, long time now. This book began life as a PhD at King’s College, London, and I am indebted to so many people I met and worked with there, including Leonée Ormond, Max Saunders, Max Fincher, Lucy Munro, Ralph Parfect, Peter Shaw, Alison Stenton, and of course, Fiona Ritchie, who continues to influence and support my work in so many ways. Beyond King’s, thank you to Jonathan Taylor who provided a huge amount of help and guidance, and also to my examiners, Jim Davis and Christine Dymkowski, for suggestions that have helped me to translate a thesis into a book. Funding from the States of Jersey Education Committee, King’s School of Humanities, the Society for Theatre Research, University of Nottingham, and Harvard University—where I benefitted from a Joan Nordell Fellowship at the Houghton Library—has allowed me to pursue and complete my work. Much appreciated, also, is the assistance provided by staff at the British Library, Garrick Club, London Library, V & A Theatre and Performance Department, and University of London Library. I would also like to acknowledge librarians at the University of Rochester, Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation and the New  York Public Library, who helped me to survey a large amount of material in a short time. If I were to go on to acknowledge everyone who has supported me throughout this project I would need an extra volume, but special thanks to Faith Evans for essential encouragement and friendship. A heartfelt thank you to my family for every kind of help always, and to Dorothy Noël vii

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Pearce, who really made the years spent with George Alexander possible. To others who have listened, advised, and kept me smiling, particularly Charlotte Brambilla, Michael Caines, Kath Grimshaw, Becky Kennedy, Shelley Talton, Jen Vereker and Jemma Yates, my thanks always. Also to colleagues and friends at the University of Nottingham, who have patiently supported me in so many ways. In particular, thank you to Helen Brooks, Chris Collins, Sarah Davison, Janette Dillon, Sarah Grandage, Jo Guy, Peter Kirwan, Bram Mertens, James Moran, Lynda Pratt, Gordon Ramsay, Jo Robinson, Nicola Royan and Julie Sanders. I am truly thankful to peers at TaPRA for inspiration and guidance; too many to list in full but special thanks to Hayley Bradley, Jacky Bratton, Gilli Bush-Bailey, Claire Cochrane, Kate Dorney, Maggie B. Gale, Catherine Hindson, Kate Newey, David Mayer, Caroline Radcliffe and Pat Smyth. I am so grateful to everyone at Palgrave Macmillan for your help and support with this publication in recent years, most particularly Vicky Bates, Jack Heeney, and Tomas René; I am delighted to have completed this book, because now I get to dedicate it to a truly inspirational person, Rozelle Sutherland, MBE.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 George Alexander and the St. James’s ‘Brand’ 17 3 The Actor-Manager System: Autonomy and Collaboration 67 4 The Actor-Manager System: The Role of the Playwright127 5 Managing Risk: Cross-sector Adaptation173 6 The Legacy of Alexander at the St. James’s Theatre233 Appendix: Productions at the St. James’s Theatre, 1891–1918261 Index283

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2

George Alexander as Caleb Deecie, The Two Roses, December 1881. Courtesy of the Garrick Club, London ‘Waiting to see The Prisoner of Zenda, at the St. James’s Theatre’ from The Sketch, 26 March 1896. ©Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans ‘George Alexander in The Prisoner of Zenda’, Robert Brough, 1901. Courtesy of the Garrick Club, London Alexander at work. Photograph, C.W. Faulkener & Co., n.d. Author’s own image Lilian Braithwaite in The Tatler, 11 June 1902. ©Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

21 182 183 239 251

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 4.2

Income derived from evening and matinée performances for Liberty Hall45 Returning leading actresses in the St. James’s company (alphabetical order) 97 Revenue recorded within the St. James’s Theatre Treasury Book 132 Weekly box office takings for The Importance of Being Earnest133

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

A St. James’s Theatre opened in 2012; the first newly constructed theatre in central London for more than thirty years, the building was funded entirely by private investment. With both a main house and a studio space, as well as a preference for new work or short-running revivals, the theatre aimed to set itself apart from the long-running and spectacular repertoire most often found within the West End. This St. James’s was overwritten in 2017 when the venue was acquired by the Really Useful Group and renamed The Other Palace, providing an arena for the entertainment corporation and its figurehead, Andrew Lloyd Webber, to trial new material. Although the space is situated beyond the arena marked out on Westminster City Council street signs as ‘Theatreland’, this is now one of many sites contributing to the West End, an urban environment associated with fashionable and commercially viable entertainment, which, although never precisely defined as a location, is commonly understood to be a district bounded by the Strand, Kingsway, Oxford Street and New Bond Street.1 Private investment and rapid assimilation as a West End venue echoes the trajectory of an earlier St. James’s Theatre that existed from 1835 until 1957 on King Street to the south of Piccadilly Circus. That new theatre was financed by tenor John Braham, who in 1835 secured a licence for a venue promising musical entertainment, but resistance to a permanent theatre space on King Street—barely within the West End arena described earlier, but on the border of the prestigious Mayfair—was pronounced. © The Author(s) 2020 L. Sutherland, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7_1

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Petitions were sent to the Lord Chamberlain from local residents and, significantly, from managers at the nearby Haymarket, and the older London patent theatres of Drury Lane and Covent Garden. That resistance signalled that the St. James’s was a competitor and also a disruptive presence, bringing a cross-class pleasure-seeking audience into proximity with the residents of Mayfair. Unease was subsumed over time though, as the St. James’s was rapidly accommodated within a growing body of venues offering theatrical entertainment. An equal proximity to both the West End and to Mayfair provided the potential for exclusivity to become a defining marker of the theatre, for example during the tenure of impresario John Mitchell, from 1842 until 1854, when it frequently housed French theatre or opera companies and leading performers from Paris, including Rachel and Regnier. However, the actor-manager who held the lease to the venue for the longest period of time also consolidated the exclusive St. James’s brand in the most extreme and explicit fashion. George Alexander leased the theatre from 1891 until his death in 1918; he produced a repertoire of new English drama aimed at sustaining and promoting management, work that was at home on the borders of Mayfair, abiding by the strictures of the censor. During this time fourteen new theatres were licensed by the Lord Chamberlain and built within the West End.2 As the number of competing venues rose, managers including Alexander had to revise their commercial practices and capitalise upon their specific appeal; their theatres effectively became brands encouraging audience, or customer, loyalty. George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager will establish how he worked at the St. James’s to both survive within and to mould the West End theatre industry, influencing this prominent entertainment district beyond the end of his career and lifetime. When that St. James’s Theatre was demolished in 1957, Laurence Olivier, who with Vivien Leigh campaigned to save the building, continued to link the venue to Alexander and his work; Olivier noted that in the theatre he was ‘struck by a feeling, most likely bred and inculcated by Sir George Alexander—the renowned actor-manager who brought fame to the St. James’s—that this was a theatre for gentle folk’.3 Even during the post-war development of Mayfair and the West End, the residual traces of a theatre maker who came to prominence at the end of the nineteenth century continued to haunt repertoire, with references by eminent actors and the influence of Alexander upon the work of prominent twentieth-­ century theatre makers like Nigel Playfair and May Whitty—who worked

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within the St. James’s company—extending his influence and continuing to shape mainstream theatre. This is one example of ‘ghosting’ as defined by Marvin Carlson, of ‘something coming back in the theatre, and so the relationships between theatre and cultural memory are deep and complex’.4 Alexander was one of the final generation of actor-managers— whose origins lay in the newly commercial early modern stage which premiered work by Shakespeare, Marlowe and their contemporaries—and ‘something coming back’ is an apt definition. As commercial production companies came to dominate West End theatre in the early decades of the twentieth century, there was no direct continuation of practice, but the frequent re-emergence of characteristics found within the actor-manager system. So, for example, prominent actors including Olivier and Kenneth Branagh have taken up residency in West End theatres for a significant period of time, presenting work in which they have starred, playing on an assumed ‘cultural memory’ of the actor-manager tradition on the part of West End audiences. Within the subsidised sector, the coordination of repertoire and funding by an artistic director is also comparable to some of the work undertaken by the actor-manager.

Defining the Actor-manager The actor-manager figure developed from the practice, in the early modern period, of actors leasing or building sites for performance, a notable example being the Burbage brothers, both actors, and major shareholders in the Globe Theatre from 1599, with Richard Burbage as the prominent actor and manager at this venue where many Shakespeare plays premiered. The role was recuperated in the Restoration period, when under the patent system—in theatres licensed to stage spoken drama—it was common practice to combine a primary creative role at a venue with management of that venue. Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant, the two men given a royal patent to present public theatre performances after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, were dramatists, but actors took on a managerial role with increasing frequency throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The tenure of David Garrick as actor and manager at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from 1747 until 1776 was a key marker in his work to consolidate theatre as reputable environment and profession.5 The esteem afforded to this industry professional was endorsed through the establishment of the Garrick Club in 1831, a forum that worked to consolidate acting as a respected line of work, providing a space

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where ‘actors and men of refinement and education might meet on equal terms’.6 Acceptance into this Club was a marker of prestige, and Alexander was admitted on 2 January 1886, proposed by John Hare, and seconded by Henry Irving. The model demonstrated by Garrick, conjoining prominence as an actor not only with management, but with management of a single London venue over a long period of time, became the ideal for industry leaders. While reflected in regional and touring theatre, here the focus remains with a prominent actor-manager within the West End, as the hub for the English theatre industry since the origins of the actor-­ manager system. Funding of managerial enterprises often occurred through discreet networks of fraternal investment and support, facilitated by institutions like the Garrick Club, which explains, to a significant extent, the difficulty experienced by women in entering management. While there are some notable examples of actress-managers in London theatre during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Eliza Vestris at the Olympic (1830), Marie Wilton at the Prince of Wales (1865), and Lena Ashwell at the Savoy (1906) and then the Kingsway (1907), actor-managers dominated in the West End sphere. Alexander is a representative of the last generation of this type of actor-manager, and a representative who first staged what is now the most frequently revived play of that era, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). The first decade of the twentieth century saw the dissolution of the actor-manager system, but the term continued to be employed; for example, Olivier himself was often referred to as actor-manager during his time as director of Chichester Festival Theatre (1962–1965), and as first artistic directed for the National Theatre (1962–1973). However, while the phenomenon of a renowned figurehead at a venue survives, the actor-manager system did not progress beyond the first decades of the twentieth century. Looking at the tributes paid to the final generation of this older actor-manager type, it is apparent that altering production practices and an acute rise in the expense of leasing London venues prohibited their kind of work. So much so, that the obituary for Arthur Bourchier in 1927 actually began with reference to his exceptional position in London theatre by that time: The death of Mr. Arthur Bourchier, which we record on another page, removes from the stage one of the last of the old school of actor-managers. He was proud to claim that he was the only London actor-manager having his own theatre (The Strand) and working without a syndicate or a financial partner.7

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The Example of George Alexander The following study of Alexander therefore aims to examine key practices of one actor-manager, establishing how particular facets of his career exemplified conventional West End practice by the end of the nineteenth century. Scrutiny of his career will show that while the actormanager role represented by Alexander’s career was to disappear, that did not mean the erasure of all practice associated with the figure. The role of Alexander in modelling practice, for example in funding new work and collaborating with the publishing industry to stage adaptation, shows responsiveness to a developing theatre industry. The following chapters contribute to a body of research into the economic and sociological conditions influencing theatre management and audience composition in the nineteenth century which interrogates the formation of and the working practices within the West End. In her 2011 study The Making of the West End Stage, Jacky Bratton examines the variety of culture and leisure which characterised a rapidly expanding mid-nineteenthcentury London, a city ‘in a state of transformation, of rapid and all-engulfing change, and therefore of unprecedented complexity and differentiation’.8 Bratton goes on to note how this contributed to the formation of the West End—a site for leisure—and the suburbs, made up of the multiple socio-economic groups who were at the service of an expanding and diversifying entertainment industry that encouraged a form of branding by theatre managers. In the early years of the nineteenth century, legislation provided an initial marker of status and repertoire via the patent theatre system, yet by the latter half of the nineteenth century, in a larger entertainment marketplace, the need to distinguish an individual venue and to encourage a returning audience had become more acute. Scrutiny of the methods used by Alexander to create and sustain management at the St. James’s Theatre will challenge the mythology of a kind of genteel progress in repertoire and audience so often found in mid-­ twentieth-­century hagiographies for the select group of actor-managers who dominated West End theatre. In Actresses as Working Women, Tracy C.  Davis details the casual assumptions around progress that have been applied to analyses of the actor-manager figure, singling out Michael Baker’s The Rise of the Victorian Actor, published in 1978, as evidence of how that reading survived without interrogation into the later decades of the twentieth century.9 Although work has been done to combat such

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general readings, and I refer to that work within this book, the names of Alexander and other managers of the era are still often used as a kind of shorthand for a type of authoritarian, male industry leader. Similarity of approach by these industry leaders does not mean uniformity of practice, however; there was variety evident in repertoire and business management, and the impact of precise managerial strategy has been acknowledged in some recent publications.10 Extending this incisive work through the examination of one management it will be feasible to assess, rather than merely to assume, the influence of an industry leader within the theatrical marketplace. If male theatre entrepreneurs in the nineteenth century ‘make the greatest mark on the historical record’ as Davis notes,11 and the results of their practice are still evident in our contemporary West End, close work to chart the operations and results of particular working lives is still required. In examining the professional life of an actor-manager, actual profit and the relationship of profit to repertoire are a direct concern. Box office receipts would be valuable evidence, but when discussing the actor-­manager system such records are scarce. In the case of George Alexander, there are two useful resources that will allow me to draw on financial detail associated with his managerial career. The first is a Treasury Book for the St. James’s Theatre held in the V & A Theatre and Performance Department.12 Income and expenses listed for the period from 11 June 1892 until 13 September 1895 include box office takings, rent and rates paid on the theatre building, advertising and printing costs, payments to musicians, salaries for permanent staff, payments for utilities, petty cash and sundry expenses. Percentage payments to authors are also listed; it is the calculation of these percentages that necessitated the entry of box office takings, providing a specific record of income per production. There are limits to the specificity of this material; most notably, individuals are not listed under salary categories, and so it is not possible to confirm the amount paid to individual actors. However, the Treasury Book does reveal some detail of the percentage agreements reached with dramatists during the 1890s, and can help to establish the actions of Alexander in response to the level of income achieved by a production. The second resource that has been helpful in examining the economic sustainability of this St. James’s management are the details of income and actual profit included by A.E.W.  Mason in the only book-length

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biography of the actor-manager, Sir George Alexander and the St. James’s Theatre, written in 1935, where one chapter is dedicated to details of profit achieved by Alexander.13 Indeed the figures of profit and loss on individual productions throughout the book suggest that Mason had access to business records that are now lost. While data included in this biography is of some help, it is important to note it is a hagiography, Mason unequivocally insisting that the manager ran ‘a theatre of high prestige and financial success upon the foundation of British authorship’.14 By making highly selective use of Alexander’s business records, he avoids any close analysis of how profits were sustained in a profession characterised by speculative risk, and subsequent assessments have used Mason’s biography as a main source of reference. Two further volumes summarise the career of Alexander: W.  Macqueen-Pope, St. James’s: Theatre of Distinction and Barry Duncan, The St. James’s Theatre: Its Strange and Complete History 1835–1957.15 These focus upon Alexander’s twenty-seven years at the St. James’s as one manifestation of a former West End, an arena communicating ideas of refinement and exclusivity to the point where audiences might, in Joel H. Kaplan’s words, be made to feel they were involved in ‘a round of commercial at-homes’ with the actor-manager.16 This imagined past provided an effective contrast to the post–Second World War redevelopment of the area, including the demolition of the St. James’s Theatre in 1957 which prompted the latter two publications. However, using these laudatory accounts with care, alongside archival resources, each chapter of this book will examine a particular facet of Alexander’s work at the St. James’s Theatre to identify specific techniques employed there which influenced the development of the West End sphere. As a significant preface, Chap. 2 charts the early years of Alexander and his formative career as an actor before entry into management. The social and economic class he was born into was highly influential upon later, sustained commercial success as an actor-manager. Like a number of his contemporaries he trained for an established profession (medicine) before choosing to work as an actor. Alexander’s work in touring companies during the 1870s and then as juvenile lead in Irving’s Lyceum company in the 1880s is also a focus, as a point of comparison to the repertoire developed after his own entry into management. The younger manager concentrated upon new English-language drama, an offering that was not directly or consistently competing with prominent peers, for example Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who often staged canonical work alongside new

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drama. Although risk-averse, Alexander made new writing the defining characteristic of his management. Chapter 3 acknowledges that, while attention to new drama was fundamental, Alexander also needed to attend to theatre as a creative practice that is, as the critic Ivor Brown succinctly identified, ‘essentially the co-­ operative art’.17 Although the title of actor-manager insinuated work as a controlling figurehead, the role actually required collaboration with the range of industry professionals needed to bring work to the stage. This chapter will assess the role of St. James’s personnel, and the actual collaboration within the actor-manager system which maintained repertoire. Alexander did have ultimate control over recruitment and administration of the company, and a complex of personal and professional affiliations guided his decisions, as he was operating before external regulation, or unionisation, had any significant influence upon managerial policies. Providing examples of why he employed some prominent and also some supporting company members will contribute to understanding how West End managers operated in practice, and in collaboration, in order to stage work. Having examined the defining characteristics of theatre, repertoire and personnel, focus in Chap. 4 turns to the relationship fostered with writers and pays particular attention to one playwright who collaborated frequently with Alexander: Arthur Wing Pinero. Pinero was one of the most prominent and commercially successful playwrights at the time, profoundly influential upon the development of English realist drama at the turn of the century. Precise analysis of his particular role in the form of West End repertoire is long overdue; by the 1890s he achieved acclaim for producing work that was deemed suitable for the West End stage—that would be approved for presentation by the Lord Chamberlain’s office, the arm of the Royal Household responsible for theatre censorship until 1968—but work that was also heavily influenced by European naturalism, most particularly the drama of Ibsen. In 1893, Alexander staged Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray, a play that quite blatantly translated some of the themes and debates found in Ibsen’s drama, notably around the social pressures and limitations imposed upon women, for the West End stage. That production helped to consolidate Alexander’s brand; he was a manager interested in staging new English-language drama dealing with contemporary themes. The collaborations between Alexander and Pinero provide key evidence of how the actor-manager sustained a commitment to new drama and managed the risk associated with new work. Importantly,

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some attention is also paid to periods when risk management could not secure long-running and profitable productions, and reference in this chapter to two authors who remain very well known—Henry James and Oscar Wilde—provides evidence of how Alexander did struggle to maintain a distinct artistic policy of staging new plays while ensuring the profit that was required in order to retain a West End venue. My aim is to assess not only how the actor-manager worked by the beginning of the twentieth century, but also how this work has been influential in the continuing development of commercial, theatrical entertainment in the West End since that time. Therefore, in Chap. 5 I examine how Alexander responded to commercially challenging periods by looking beyond the theatre industry to source new work, demonstrating how cross-sector engagement with the publishing industry provided material for production that had experienced some success in textual form. Two case studies are presented: the staging of the romantic drama The Prisoner of Zenda (1896) and the poetic drama Paolo and Francesca (1902). Both were adaptations from previous literary publications, and demonstrate developing approaches to repertoire to consolidate the St. James’s brand. While the success of Zenda as a published novel arguably made it an unsurprising choice for adaptation to the stage, the poetic drama of Stephen Phillips was more uncharacteristic repertoire for the time, directly linked to the sudden but ultimately short-term popularity experienced by the poet. I will assess the extent to which this production endorsed the actor-­ manager’s stated interest in new work, and how much it was an attempt to profit from a finite period of success and popularity, to capitalise upon a publishing phenomenon. By conjoining theatre history and attention to cultural industries structures, this book advances the understanding of how strategies developed by Alexander and his contemporaries can still be identified in the West End today. Although work with celebrated texts and authors was not a new practice at the end of the nineteenth century, the cross-sector integration shown in the legitimate adaptation of prominent literary work to the stage, with close collaborative links between publisher and producer in a drive to sustain the cultural prevalence of and profit to be derived from new work, promoted a strategy that has now become commonplace across the cultural industries. However, while this study acknowledges the importance of looking to the work of actor-managers at the beginning of the twentieth century as an early model for more contemporary practice, attention is also paid to the limits Alexander imposed upon the material he

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presented on stage. Chapter 6 will conclude this assessment of a managerial career by examining how, while some of his work can be perceived as an early model for cultural industries practice, there were limits to the progressive strategies deployed by Alexander and his contemporaries. Surprising and influential connections between Alexander and more progressive actors, producers and playwrights will be identified, but the treatment of dramatist Netta Syrett by both Alexander and his professional peer Beerbohm Tree is examined to show that the essential conservatism of these industry leaders must be acknowledged, and considered alongside the more innovative practice evident in their work. To conclude, this chapter also assesses why the term actor-manager is still employed to describe theatre professionals, acknowledging that, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is used most often to refer to the work of white male industry leaders. Yet there are indications that in the first decades of the twenty-first century ‘actor-manager’ is being used more extensively, and constructively. Attention to one particular figure provides an opportunity to assess characteristics of the role, and this is timely work because evidence is emerging that what must seem, to many, to be a residual and almost redundant model for a theatre industry professional may in fact be a valuable reference point for new entrants to the profession in the first decades of the twenty-first century.

A Note on Sources and Resources Recent work on nineteenth-century professional theatre acknowledges that, for scholars, London theatre of the period is well represented in archive collections; the amount of documentary evidence available is far in excess of that which survives for earlier periods in English theatre history. Some administrative records for particular managements, a range of theatre industry trade papers, private journals and government records all provide a more extensive picture of how professional theatre operated than is available to scholars working on more historically distant eras. However, the scope and thoroughness of archive material is erratic and in the case of Alexander, neither he nor his executors displayed any inclination to preserve business or personal records for posterity. While some financial information does survive, most papers and correspondence have been lost, making it difficult to scrutinise his work comprehensively, and it has been necessary to assess his career as thoroughly as is possible using other forms of evidence.

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A range of sources have been studied, including rehearsal notes and prompt books, critical as well as laudatory reviews, and journalistic articles. Reliance upon such material does not exclude the usefulness of highly subjective sources, and this study is also informed by secondary texts including memoirs and autobiographies (some of these already foregrounded within this introduction) which provide a plethora of anecdotes. The value of these lies not so much in their accuracy, which cannot finally be judged, but rather in what is conveyed by the ideological bias of the authors, by what Jim Davis and Victor Emeljanow called the ‘recurring descriptive patterns and rhetorical formulas’ that remain suggestive as to the commercial and artistic environment in which Alexander was operating.18 Anecdotal accounts do not only depict, they also construct a past theatre industry. They claim experience of the theatrical past, although there is rarely evidence to back up the claim. So it is the aim of an anecdote, the version of theatre it is working to convey, that is of most interest to the historian. As Bratton notes, ‘the recounting of anecdotes, which are the building blocks of theatrical memoir and biography, may be understood not simply as the vehicle of more or less dubious or provable facts, but as a process of identity-formation that extends beyond individuals to the group or community to which they belong’.19 Certainly, trying to confirm the fine details found within an anecdote may not be a productive use of time, but analysis of what an anecdote or multiple similar anecdotes are trying to do can be a constructive process; therefore, anecdotal material is employed here. The anecdote is a kind of ‘intentional evidence’, a term coined by historian Marc Bloch to distinguish material created with a clear aim to inform an audience from ‘unintentional evidence’, such as financial accounts or government records, that had an alternative purpose at the point of creation.20 Working on theatre and performance history, ‘intentional evidence’ most often outweighs the unintentional, and must be handled as a key resource; it is, though, an explicitly creative type of material possessing, as Joel Fineman has written, a ‘peculiar and eventful narrative force’.21 The disruptive potential of this ‘force’, its ability to complicate dominant and complacent historical surveys, is important when examining a professional life; an anecdotal account will simultaneously present and query the dominant perspective on the figure, or event, under scrutiny. Anecdote not only conveys some sense of the immediate experience that

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has become history; the anecdote also acts as a reminder of the inherently creative process involved in documenting experience. Creators of ‘intentional evidence’ will have carefully constructed their material with a distinct purpose in mind, and yet their accounts make space in which to think about one version of events in relation to other available evidence. If the anecdote is ‘intentional evidence’, the intent of each author is clear, and can be assessed in relation to other available material that bears a relationship to the subject under discussion. Initial work here with one anecdotal account of Alexander as West End manager can illustrate how this becomes instructive as to actual practice, a way of reading anecdote that informs the present study. In 1958, W. Macqueen-Pope provided the following account; a concerted attempt on his part to demonstrate how Alexander’s concern with organisation, control and propriety made him an exemplary theatre professional of his time: The dignity and decorum that pervaded the St. James’s is again highlighted by a young couple’s adventure in Bond Street. They had taken a snack in a tea-shop and were returning arm-in-arm along London’s most fashionable street, laughing and talking. The young man wore a Norfolk jacket (what would now be called a sports coat), tweed trousers and brogue shoes. His arty tie was large and floppy and much the same applied to his hat. The girl wore a costume neat and becoming, but of tweed. As they approached a corner they suddenly became aware of The Chief standing there watching them. He was perfectly dressed. On his head was a shining topper, and his collar and shirt were spotlessly white. He had a quiet grey tie in which twinkled a small diamond pin. He wore a perfectly cut morning coat and vest and you could have cut your finger on the crease of his grey trousers. From the V of his black vest peeped just the right amount—one-eighth of an inch—of white piqué. His boots were patent leather, his hands covered in skin-fitting gloves, and he carried a gold-knobbed cane. The young couple stopped. Alexander raised his hat and bowed. ‘I am pleased,’ he said, ‘to see two of my young people out together enjoying each other’s company. It is what I like, it is what I encourage. It makes for good feeling, for “esprit de corps”. But I would remind them that this is Bond Street and at the fashionable hour, and that they are members of the St. James’s theatre company. Membership of that company entails certain sartorial obligations. I need say no more.’ He bowed again, and with a quiet, grave smile passed on. Neither of those young people ever forgot that adjuration to the dignity of their profession. They were Henry Ainley and Lilian Braithwaite.

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All that may suggest to the modern something stiff and formal, precious even and pompous. But Alexander was no poseur: he was perfectly sincere in his attitude. Manners such as his were the social currency of the day.22

While this proves how important context can be to anecdotal material— the punchline is clearly that the two actors were Ainley and Braithwaite, revered members of the profession in 1958—it remains clear that Macqueen-Pope’s key aim is to present Alexander’s managerial technique as astute and correct within the context of its time. There is anxiety here that ‘moderns’ will misunderstand Alexander’s attitude, that theatre-savvy readers who have just experienced the appearance of Brecht, Beckett and Osborne on the London stages of the mid-1950s will find this attitude without merit and patently, Macqueen-Pope wants to vitalise and consolidate the reputation of a historical manager and his form of management. The elaborate detail of wardrobe that Macqueen-Pope appends to his account of events from half a century earlier suggests that it is apocryphal or at least exaggerated, working to represent how rigorously Alexander enforced the St. James’s brand, and how he did this—at least in part—by regulating the behaviour of his employees. It would therefore be possible to work with this anecdote solely as evidence of the regulation and the branding enforced by Alexander. However, charting the presence of this anecdote and how its use alters over time in relation to other evidence demonstrates how this kind of material can function in a more complex way. The account was taken up again by Dennis Kennedy, in his contribution to the 1996 edited collection The Edwardian Theatre, as a kind of shorthand to describe Alexander and how his venue was perceived at the time: Once early in the century he caught Henry Ainley and Lilian Braithwaite walking together in Bond Street on their day off. Ainley wore a Norfolk jacket and a floppy hat, while his friend had on a tweed outfit. Alexander spoke magisterially, addressing them in the third person: ‘I would remind them that this is Bond Street in the fashionable hour, and that they are members of the St. James’s theatre company. Membership of that company entails certain sartorial obligations. I need say no more.’ Alexander kept up his standards even during the war. In 1917 he sent for Godfrey Tearle over the same issue.23

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If we turn to Kennedy’s footnote acknowledging his source, the following appears: ‘Macqueen-Pope’s work is not always reliable and must be treated with caution, but his gossipy anecdotes are too good to ignore.’24 For Kennedy, the anecdote is ‘too good to ignore’ because it helps with his particular project to establish that the St. James’s Theatre in the first decades of the twentieth century was a surprising venue for the ‘New Drama’; the socially contentious, post-Ibsen realism produced in England and characterised by the early drama of George Bernard Shaw. But the theatre, with Alexander’s name as lessee on programmes and posters, did indeed house such drama. Kennedy goes on to examine how, during the second decade of the twentieth century, in the final years of Alexander’s management, he sublet the theatre on several occasions to practitioners including Lillah McCarthy and Harley Granville-Barker, who staged this kind work. In the end, while Macqueen-Pope explicitly combats the ‘moderns’ who might want to interpret Alexander’s control of his company differently, he cannot foresee all outcomes, such as his narrative being used as part of an exploration of Alexander’s tentative but evident engagement with the ‘New Drama’. The anecdote, in its very insistence on Alexander being a consistent, rigorous, proper West End figure, preserving rather than modifying West End practices, calls attention to a disparity between this impression and the fine detail of his theatre’s repertoire; the creation and perseverance of the narrative becomes evocative of actual theatre practice. Consequently, here I will use this kind of evidence to interrogate specific elements of a career that has been characterised rather than scrutinised up to this point, establishing how one prominent theatre maker represented professional practice by the early twentieth century, and also shaped the West End arena for successors.

Notes 1. This definition of the geographical location and boundaries of the West End has been formulated from descriptions of the area in a number of sources: Bratton (2011), Colby (1966), Davis and Emeljanow (2001) and Rappaport (2000). 2. Aldwych, Strand, opened 23 December 1905, capacity 1100; Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue, opened 21 February 1901, capacity 893; Daly’s, Leicester Square, opened 27 June 1893, capacity 554; Duke of York’s, St. Martin’s Lane, opened 19 September 1892, capacity 900; Gaiety, Aldwych,

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opened 26 October 1903, capacity 1267; Globe, Shaftesbury Avenue, opened 27 December 1906, capacity 970; Her Majesty’s, Haymarket, opened 28 April 1897, capacity 1319; Little, Adelphi, opened 11 October 1910, capacity 309; New, St. Martin’s Lane, opened 12 March 1903, capacity (c.) 938; Palace, Cambridge Circus, opened 31 January 1891, capacity 1697; Prince’s, Shaftesbury Avenue, opened 26 December 1911, capacity 1726; Queen’s, Shaftesbury Avenue, opened 8 October 1908, capacity 1160; Strand, Aldwych, opened 22 May 1905, capacity 1193; Wyndham’s, Charing Cross Road, opened 16 November 1899, capacity 1200. Statistics are taken from Howard (1970). 3. Olivier (1957). 4. Carlson (2003, 2). 5. For recent work on David Garrick and altering industry practice, see Ritchie (2019). 6. Founding statement of the Garrick Club, quoted at https://www.garrickclub.co.uk/about/. 7. Anon. (1927), The Times. 8. Bratton (2011, 19). 9. Davis (1991, 4), Baker (1978). 10. Davis (2000), Cochrane (2011). 11. Davis (2000, 166–167). 12. Treasury Book (1892–1895). 13. Mason (1935). 14. Mason (1935, 7). 15. Macqueen-Pope (1958), Duncan (1964). 16. Kaplan (1996, 1). 17. Brown (1928, 11). 18. Davis and Emeljanow (2001, 99). 19. Bratton (2003, 102). 20. Bloch (1954). 21. Fineman (1989, 57). 22. Macqueen-Pope (1958, 168). 23. Kennedy (1996, 144). 24. Ibid. 147.

References Anon. 1927. The Times, 15 September. Baker, Michael. 1978. The Rise of the Victorian Actor. London: Croom Helm. Bloch, Marc. 1954 (repr. 2004). The Historian’s Craft. Trans. Peter Putnam. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

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Bratton, Jacky. 2003. New Readings in Theatre History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2011. The Making of the West End Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Ivor. 1928. Parties of the Play. London: Ernest Benn. Carlson, Marvin. 2003. The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Cochrane, Claire. 2011. Twentieth-Century British Theatre: Industry, Art and Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Colby, Reginald. 1966. Mayfair: A Town Within London. London: Country Life Limited. Davis, Tracy C. 1991. Actresses as Working Women. London: Routledge. ———. 2000. The Economics of the British Stage, 1800–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, Jim, and Victor Emeljanow. 2001. Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840–1880. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. Duncan, Barry. 1964. The St. James’s Theatre: Its Strange and Complete History. London: Barrie & Rockliff. Fineman, Joel. 1989. A History of the Anecdote: Fiction and Fiction. In The New Historicism, ed. H. Aram Veeser, 49–76. New York: Routledge. Garrick Club. https://www.garrickclub.co.uk/about/. Accessed 8 March 2019. Howard, Diana. 1970. London Theatres and Music Halls: 1850–1950. London: The Library Association. Kaplan, Joel H. 1996. Introduction. In The Edwardian Theatre: Essays on Performance and the Stage, ed. Michael R.  Booth and Joel H.  Kaplan, 1–9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, Dennis. 1996. The New Drama and the New Audience. In The Edwardian Theatre: Essays on Performance and the Stage, ed. by Michael R. Booth and Joel H. Kaplan, 130–147. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Macqueen-Pope, W. 1958. St. James’s: Theatre of Distinction. London: W.H. Allen. Mason, A.E.W. 1935. Sir George Alexander and the St. James’s Theatre. London: Macmillan. Olivier, Laurence. 1957. My Memories of the St. James’s. Illustrated London News, 16 November. Rappaport, Erika. 2000. Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ritchie, Leslie. 2019. David Garrick and the Mediation of Celebrity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Treasury Book, St. James’s Theatre. 1892–1895. Uncatalogued. V&A Theatre and Performance Department.

CHAPTER 2

George Alexander and the St. James’s ‘Brand’

The Formative Career of an Actor-manager George Alexander Gibb Samson was born in Reading on 19 June 1858, his education and early career initially determined by his father’s professional status. In a short account of his life and career, Parts I Have Played, Alexander describes William Samson as a ‘Scottish manufacturer’; A.E.W. Mason describes his business as ‘an agency in the dry-goods trade’. Occupation is listed as Commercial Traveller on Alexander’s birth certificate, and all descriptions suggest a more or less established career in commerce.1 Biographical accounts assert that Samson was determined his son would progress from Dr. Benham’s School in Clifton to the High School in Stirling, and then on to a career in medicine. However, in 1874, after two terms studying in Edinburgh to become a doctor, Alexander moved to a City of London firm, apparently in accord with his father’s wishes. In an interview for The Ludgate in 1896, he emphasised the extent of his father’s control over his early career choices: Frankly, I didn’t like it the least little bit in the world, and I said so. Without direct intervention of my own, however, my father altered his mind about my career, and after a couple of terms in the Scottish capital I proceeded to London and entered the office of a silk mercer, a friend of my father’s.2

© The Author(s) 2020 L. Sutherland, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7_2

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He remained at the City firm—Leaf, Son and Company—until the age of twenty-one, at which point he resigned to begin his career as a professional actor. By 1875, less than a year after arriving in London, Alexander had gained experience in amateur theatricals. In that same year, he appeared at the King’s Cross Theatre, an exclusively amateur venue, in Tom Taylor’s Plot and Passion. This was his first experience of public performance, with the exception of a role in a classical burlesque at Stirling in 1872, which Alexander claimed ‘served to kindle in me a burning desire for histrionic distinction’.3 In addition to performances at the King’s Cross Theatre, he took part in an amateur matinée at the St. James’s Theatre on behalf of the Royal Hospital for Consumption, and acted with a company from The Thames Rowing Club, who received instruction from actors Henry Neville and Horace Wigan. Involvement with prominent amateur companies provided a direct route into professional theatre and access to an aristocratic social circle that directly influenced Alexander’s managerial career: [T]hrough the kindness of Major Knox-Holmes, at that time a well-known figure in London society, he entered into the swim of amateur theatricals, and after playing at the St. James’s Theatre the part of one of the guests at the ball in Cinderella, he acted ‘Charles Courtly’ in London Assurance, and ‘Jack Wyatt’ in The Two Roses at the Charing Cross, subsequently Toole’s Theatre, and now incorporated in Charing Cross Hospital. At Cromwell House, where Lady Freake was giving a notable series of amateur performances, he played the ‘Second Sentinel’ in The Critic, and a number of other parts of more importance, ultimately leading ones, in various plays. Among his colleagues at that time were Lady Monckton, Sir Francis Burnand, the late Sir Charles Young, the late Samuel Brandram, and the late William Yardley.4

This summary account of his colleagues in amateur theatre work, published in 1909, shows Alexander’s sustained belief in a link between personal social status and professional success. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the presence of privileged audience members was helping to re-enforce the aura of exclusivity associated with the St. James’s Theatre in the face of increased competition from entrepreneurial managements and music hall impresarios, for example George Edwardes’s Gaiety Theatre Company, founded in 1888 and promoting a middle-­ ground between ‘legitimate’ drama and music hall.5

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These contacts from amateur theatre were also influential because, although actor-managers formulated an image of autonomy and dominance within commercial theatre, they required investment to initiate managerial careers.6 The insistence upon autonomy complemented the impression of an actor-manager as a controlling force both creatively and administratively. Alexander told William Archer in 1904: What I maintained and maintain is that legitimate management, if I may call it so, is a game of skill, into which chance enters very little. […] I can’t speak for others, but for myself I can say without hesitation that what success I have attained has been due to my being entirely my own master in my theatre. I know what I want, and I do it, with no one to say me nay.7

Alexander here insists on his independent control of venue and repertoire, although in reality he was dependent upon private and unregulated investment that epitomised what is most often termed ‘gentlemanly capitalism’, that is, professional relationships which emerged from ‘formal mechanisms of belonging’.8 Gentlemanly capitalism, a term coined by economic historians P.J.  Cain and A.G.  Hopkins, was ‘composed of an intricate set of inter-locking sub-groups’, and these networks provided financial aid and social status to male entrepreneurs throughout the British Empire (British Imperialism being the key focus of work in this area by Cain and Hopkins).9 In relation to West End theatre, the gentlemen’s clubs located within and proximate to the area were the most obvious evidence of how business was facilitated by organised, ostensibly social environments, and the Garrick in particular was by the final decades of the nineteenth century a site where theatre industry professionals and City financiers would come into direct contact. However, long before he had the professional status to gain access to the Garrick, Alexander’s early work in the City and his time in amateur theatre were examples of social networking that would provide support for management, allowing him to avoid the fiscal and administrative restrictions inherent to public companies. More specifically, in an era when most commercial managers still operated as independent entrepreneurs (unlike the burgeoning entertainment corporations by the end of the nineteenth century, who took advantage of the Limited Liability (1855) and Joint Stock Companies (1856) Acts to spread the risk of their ventures), there was no need to make financial statements available to individual investors. While this unregulated practice diminished with the actor-manager system, the tradition of pronounced anonymity and

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informal networks providing financial support for theatre production survives today in the ‘angels’ that fund commercial production. Although there is regulation around theatre and financing, the ‘angel’ tradition is still an integral part of West End production practice. In 2015 Caro Newling, a producer and President of the Society of London Theatre from 2014 to 2107, stated: ‘Without them, the commercial theatre is not a commercial prospect.’10 Certainly, for the duration of Alexander’s managerial career, private and informal investment continued alongside new business structures; details of who provided such investment are scarce, but there is some evidence that Nathan Rothschild backed Alexander in his work, during the 1890s.11 During the decade of employment as a professional actor that preceded his entry into management, there is also evidence that Alexander cultivated the sort of connections that could result in funding. Most of the period was spent as a member of Henry Irving’s company, and the effort taken to develop constructive social relationships is conveyed in his personal Log Book for an overseas tour in 1884, where frequent reference is made to the process of leaving cards where Alexander had an introduction. A process of correct social interaction with prominent citizens in Canadian and North American cities often seems to carry equal weight with theatre work; for example, this entry during time in Montreal, on Wednesday 1 October 1884: ‘Rehearsed Louis XI at the theatre which is a delightful one and then took a drive and left cards on the people to whom I had introduction.’12 The move from amateur theatre to work for Irving, the most renowned actor and manager of the era, was rapid and Alexander, like William Terriss and Johnston Forbes-Robertson, attained professional and social status during time at the Lyceum Theatre which then facilitated a career in management.13 Leaving Leaf, Son & Company in 1879 he was employed, via a theatrical agent, by Ada Swanborough and W.H. Vernon’s touring company. Alexander’s first professional appearance was on 10 September 1879, as Harry Prendergras in The Snowball. Experience in touring theatre continued with Tom Robertson’s Caste Company, work which defined Alexander’s status as juvenile lead.14 In 1881, the manager of a Glasgow theatre where this company was performing recommended Alexander to Irving, suggesting that he appear in a revival of The Two Roses.15 He was to play Caleb Deecie (a part originally taken by Thomas Thorne, the actor who also played Freddie Butterscotch in The Guv’nor before Alexander took over that role in Robertson’s company). A reviewer in The Times

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Fig. 2.1  George Alexander as Caleb Deecie, The Two Roses, December 1881. Courtesy of the Garrick Club, London

commented that in this production he played ‘Caleb Deecie with much refinement and elegance’, qualities which epitomised not only his subsequent supporting roles at the Lyceum, but later performances at the St. James’s Theatre (Fig. 2.1).16 This sequence of employment reveals Alexander’s steady advance from touring companies towards a London engagement. Once recruited by Irving, he made his first appearance at the Lyceum on 26 December 1881. As well as taking the part of Deecie, he played the juvenile role of Paris in Romeo and Juliet during that season, but was yet to become a permanent member of the Lyceum Company. During the next two years he also appeared at the Court Theatre, with the Hare and Kendal management at the St. James’s, and also with Mary Anderson’s company in an afterpiece at the Lyceum.17 The Hare and Kendal management at the St. James’s had

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a considerable influence upon Alexander’s managerial practice, and he had an enduring professional relationship with the Kendals, who appeared for long seasons as sub-lessees to Alexander.18 In a speech to the Social Science Congress in Birmingham in September 1884 Madge Kendal explained that ‘a theatre such as the Lyceum or the St. James’s, or two or three others which might be named, is immeasurably superior to the old type of playhouse. There never was any artistic virtue in darkness and dirt, in an atmosphere foul from pit to gallery.’ The report of this speech in The Times also quotes Kendal’s opinion that it ‘was the manager of the London Prince of Wales’s Theatre that some seventeen years ago first paid attention to the comfort of the artists it engaged’.19 Kendal, the younger sister of dramatist T.W. Robertson, was committed to a form of theatre administration which emphasised the prestige of a venue; this form was promoted by the Bancrofts when they premièred Robertson’s work at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, and it was also evident in Alexander’s approach to management. In the early part of 1882 he was sharing a house in Hampstead with Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Both actors having achieved a level of income which allowed them to pursue additional training, they received private tuition from Hermann Vezin.20 Later that year, on 8 August 1882, Alexander married Florence Théleur. Although she may have walked on at the Lyceum, there is no firm evidence of this and on her marriage certificate, no occupation is listed. She did, however, accompany her husband on Irving’s American tour in 1884 as a wardrobe assistant, a prelude to considerable influence upon costume at the St. James’s.21 Alexander’s income increased steadily throughout the first decade of his professional career. When he left Robertson’s company in the summer of 1881 he was earning £6 a week; in June 1883 he was paid 10 guineas a week by Kendal, and this was increased to 12 guineas in September. On accepting a permanent position in Irving’s company in July 1884, his was paid £20 a week.22 In the early part of 1884, Alexander returned to the provinces with Miss Wallis’s company as leading actor, playing Romeo, Orlando, Benedick, Posthumus, and Maurice de Saxe in Scribe and Legouvé’s Adrienne Lecouvreur. By taking this engagement, he was extending his experience by playing a range of roles in a touring company. Subsequently, Alexander returned to Irving’s company, where he replaced William Terriss for the tour of Canada and North America. Alexander struggled initially in his work for Irving, describing, in the Log Book he wrote up during the tour, how he experienced nervousness and was intimidated by Irving on stage:

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Saturday [8 November 1884] My performance of Twelfth Night […] in the evening. Was very nervous and dried up in the second act. Irving looked at me through my speech and I got quite upset. Tuesday [November 18th 1884] Rehearsal of Twelfth Night until late in the afternoon.[…] Did not do well in Twelfth Night. Stumbled over some of my words. I must conquer this nervousness: Miss Terry tells me Mr Kean used to tell her it was only consciousness—very like—very like—and that if one thought more of one[’]s part and less of one[’]s self it could be cured. There is a deal of truth in this.23

The descriptions of rehearsal and performance practice contained within this Log Book foreground the support given by Ellen Terry, while precise guidance from Irving is not evident. However, ultimately the work of Alexander on this tour was deemed acceptable, since he then remained with Irving as juvenile lead until 1889.24 Alexander was one of a series of young actors employed by Irving, whose age and performance style in a repertoire consisting of romantic and historical melodramas, and a dozen of Shakespeare’s plays, provided an effective contrast to his manager’s emotive style of performance.25 Irving outlined his own acting technique in a number of public speeches, including one to the Philosophical Institute, Edinburgh, in 1891: Life, with all its pains and sorrows, is a beautiful and precious gift; and the actor’s Art is to reproduce this beautiful thing, giving due emphasis to those royal virtues and those stormy passions which sway the destinies of men. Thus the lesson given by long experience—by the certain punishment of ill-doing—and by the rewards that follow on bravery, forbearance, and self-­ sacrifice, are on the mimic stage conveyed to men.26

The ‘actor’s Art’ as conceived by Irving was enhanced by the archaeological realism evident in the set design at the Lyceum that framed the actions of Irving’s romantic heroes (or anti-heroes). The rest of the Lyceum Company functioned as an extension of this framing effect, with the actor-­ manager remaining the primary attraction for the theatre’s audience. Irving recognised the value of hiring actors to fill specific types of roles, and he developed a rigorous rehearsal process which focused upon the choreography of junior members of his company and the insistence upon precise blocking to produce effective stage pictures. As an actor-manager,

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Alexander did not employ Irving’s style of performance, but continued to display the measured delivery which made him a successful juvenile lead in the older manager’s company. Despite differing acting techniques, however, there were evident parallels in managerial policy. Alexander consistently aimed to reproduce verisimilitude in stage settings and also conducted intensive rehearsals, strategies employed by Irving in order to create a well-ordered background to his performances. Indeed, at the St. James’s both scenic realism and intricate stage choreography emphasised Alexander’s authority as both leading actor and manager of the theatre. Moving from juvenile lead in Irving’s company to leading performer and manager, Alexander capitalised upon his experience at the Lyceum by incorporating some of Irving’s production methods into his later work. Furthermore, the social prestige associated with the Lyceum through exceptional events, such as special invitations to first nights and dinners in private rooms or on stage after performances, was also later cultivated by Alexander, who attracted a first-night audience that effectively consolidated the reputation of the St. James’s Theatre as a socially exclusive venue. Irving, a member of the Beefsteak Club and co-founder of the Savage Club Freemasons’ Lodge, was also a fellow of the Reform Club, where he socialised with Liberal financiers, to whom he could appeal for funds to maintain his work at the Lyceum.27 Both actor-managers were committed to enhancing the prestige of theatre as a profession, and they achieved this by combining informal business strategies with increasing precision in administrative organisation. Irving recruited and maintained a business manager and stage manager who remained with him throughout his time at the Lyceum. Alexander also established a permanent managerial team, including a business manager who was employed to undertake clerical tasks including the payment of salaries and calculation of box office receipts.28 The presence of these permanent administrators advertised a form of stability for a management. Alexander concurred with Irving’s belief that ‘the drama must succeed as a business, if it is not to fail as an art’,29 describing his own management as ‘legitimate enterprise’,30 but had more conspicuous success in putting this aim into practice. Audience figures for Lyceum performances fell throughout the final decade of the nineteenth century, Irving’s repertoire and style of performance maintaining a loyal audience but failing to attract new consumers. Irving employed some commercially astute policies, such as the use of existing costumes and scenery for revivals.

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However, his desire to maintain a wide repertoire, and his ambitious ‘production account’ (Bram Stoker’s description of investment in research and development of new plays),31 resulted in reduced profits, and culminated in financial crisis after the 1896 fire which destroyed existing costumes and scenery and increased the level of investment needed for future productions. After twenty-one years as lease-holder at the Lyceum, Irving accumulated a net loss of approximately £20,000, and from 1896 onwards Lyceum seasons lost money, forcing him into an extensive touring programme and leading to the introduction of a syndicate, the Lyceum Theatre Company, to finance his final London seasons from 1899 to 1902.32 In contrast, by the end of the 1890s, instead of touring regularly with successful new productions, Alexander sent out ‘planet’ companies: touring companies that would replicate popular London productions.33 The policy focused attention upon the St. James’s ‘brand’ of drama, and Alexander’s net profit over the course of his career at the venue amounted to £269,000; the losses accrued on failed plays during the same period came to only one-sixth of that amount, the manager building upon Irving’s approach but developing financial strategies more suited to the increasingly competitive marketplace of West End commercial entertainment.34 Alexander was competing for audience members not only with his neighbours, but with suburban theatres and music halls (totalling 550 places of entertainment throughout London by 1892);35 the St. James’s repertoire was selected and produced within an entertainment district operating on laissez-faire principles, and the selection of texts and actors, their commercial and critical success, was influenced by this environment.

The St. James’s Theatre Brand and Repertoire Alexander’s association with a single theatre over three decades provides evidence that a prolonged relationship with one venue—as lessee and entrepreneur—helped to sustain a managerial career. Renovations to the St. James’s Theatre in 1899 are representative of his desire to maintain a unique appeal. The average audience capacity of new theatres built to stage legitimate drama between 1891 and 1918 was 1087, with half of these venues accommodating fewer than 1000 audience members.36 Alexander surely intended to associate himself with this trend for smaller venues, paradoxically appealing to broad suburban and provincial audiences by generating a reputation of exclusivity. His theatre was remodelled

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at the end of a decade when Tree who, until 1896, leased the theatre geographically closest to the St. James’s, and Charles Wyndham, whose repertoire most closely resembled Alexander’s, had become actor-­ proprietors in two of these new theatres, designed to their specifications.37 When Alexander leased the St. James’s Theatre in January 1891, the auditorium had an audience capacity of 1200. A. Blomfield Jackson’s renovations for Alexander included the removal of six out of eight boxes and one-third of the seats in the pit, reducing this capacity to 1099. Minutes from a Report of the Theatre and Music Hall Committee to the London County Council at the end of January 1900 record the amount spent on the St. James’s alterations as more than £7000.38 The redesign of the St. James’s Theatre to comply with the demands of a middle-class audience is apparent in these structural changes. The stalls were one of only two areas of the auditorium where seating was increased (from 222 to 242): Having come to the conclusion […] that there is no longer the demand for boxes which once existed, he has swept away all, save two, and there now remain only the Royal box and its companion on the other side of the proscenium. […] The same careful attention has been bestowed upon the upper circle, at the back of which runs a convenient promenade. Stalls and dress circle have also been extended and greatly improved, while the pit, which, with its added slope, should constitute one of the best points from which to witness the performance, has been considerably enlarged.39

The Era, in 1900, despite inaccurately stating that the pit had been enlarged, suggested the consideration shown by Alexander towards audience members in the stalls and dress circle. The promenade and other extensions to the most expensive parts of the house allowed for greater freedom of movement for a section of the audience who attended the theatre in formal dress. Further details regarding front-of-house facilities establish that Alexander was concerned to maintain a distinction between this section of his audience and the cheaper tiers, the article explaining that ‘separate cloak-room and bar accommodation is provided for every part of the theatre’.40 Economic and social segregation served a number of functions. While continuing to attract affluent audience members with the social formality on display, it also encouraged a growing suburban audience without diminishing the spectacle of West End legitimate theatre; as Mario Borsa

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noted in 1908, ‘[t]he special organization of the theatre reflects that special and aristocratic conception of its status which is the point of view of its patrons’.41 Overt signifiers of wealth and social prestige were present in the contemporary settings and fashions presented on stage, and in a remodelled auditorium which displayed the most socially exclusive patrons to the rest of the audience. Extensions made to the stalls and dress circle were accompanied by increased capacity in the gallery, the only section of the house apart from the stalls where seats were added.42 This extension indicates that Alexander achieved significant profit from this section of the house during his first decade in management and was eager to attract an audience to witness the entire ‘luxurious spectacle’ evident on stage and in the auditorium.43 By leasing the St. James’s, Alexander significantly chose a venue treated as part of the West End but actually situated just beyond the acknowledged boundaries of the area. The exclusive reputation he courted was endorsed by this location, and exclusivity was further emphasised by his preference for staging plays that reflected the most privileged members of society. A St. James’s play was distinguished, in George Bernard Shaw’s words, by a ‘style of elegant unruffled naturalism’.44 In practice, this meant a combination of archaeological realism in staging with roles for the actor-­ manager as society gentleman or romantic adventurer, conveying social and moral authority. Alexander played seventy-seven leading roles at the St. James’s, his technique influenced by what Joseph Donohue has termed the ‘cultural predicament of the actor’: the improving social status afforded to the West End star throughout the period of Alexander’s managerial career.45 His moderate, behavioural approach to acting was part of a gradual evolution, away from the use of universal gestures and evocative movement on stage. Alexander repeatedly appeared in roles that embodied male power, as this anecdote provided by the fashion journalist Eliza Aria conveys: He obtained more uninterrupted success than most managers, and I have heard a lady enthusiastically declare that: ‘So long as any act in any comedy shows me Alexander with a broad red ribbon across his evening waistcoat I shall go and hear him once a week.’46

Frequently presenting this persona on stage, Alexander communicated a particular version of stable authority to spectators attending the St. James’s Theatre. The performance techniques employed will be further

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scrutinised when particular productions are analysed in this study, but here it is worth noting that by representing himself in this way at a prominent West End venue he attracted a diverse audience to the St. James’s for twenty-­seven years. Maximum profit was achieved by a ‘full house’, spectators drawn from disparate social and economic categories to fill every section of a theatre auditorium. Theatre managers marketed the exclusive appeal of a theatre and maintained profit by attracting suburban, provincial and overseas patrons—‘theatric tourists’ entering this entertainment district.47 Alexander managed simultaneously to appeal to this range of spectators, and maintain the illusion of a select venue; this was achieved through a repertoire made up overwhelmingly of new, but not radical drama. His decision to stage new drama in fact capitalised upon the efforts of professional peers who had recently entered management, as this excerpt from an article in The Times ‘The Theatres in 1888’ makes apparent: Young managers like Mr. Beerbohm Tree and Mr. Rutland Barrington (the latter of whom has succeeded Messrs. Hare and Kendal at the St. James’s) make it their business to seek out and produce plays of English vision.48

These managers, and other contemporaries including Hare and Wyndham, had managerial repertoires that displayed similar specialisations, yet the particular emphasis placed on new, English-language drama by Alexander constructed an impression of an ambitious programme of new texts at the St. James’s Theatre. Emphasis on novelty rather than revivals in the repertoire advertised a distinct creative aim on the part of the actor-manager, a strategy that could act as a response to critics of the actor-manager system. One example of such criticism was an article entitled ‘The London Stage’ which appeared in the Fortnightly Review in April 1890, three months after Alexander began his managerial career.49 Written by author and diplomat Oswald Crawfurd,50 the piece blamed the poor quality of new drama staged in West End legitimate theatres upon both composition of audiences and the administration of many venues. Describing the ideal audience member as an ‘auditor’ rather than a spectator, Crawfurd was arguing for the return of some form of poetic drama to the stage, to be seen by an audience made up of ‘London men of the best kind’.51 Crawfurd was critiquing provincial audience members, who, he believed, had little critical discrimination, and therefore should be discouraged from attending. The occupants of the

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cheaper seats he wanted redirected to ‘entertainments more after their own hearts’—specifically, music hall.52 These suggestions were followed by a vehement attack upon faults in the selection of dramatic material, apparently determined in many West End venues by the personal vanity of the actor-manager, and resulting, according to Crawfurd, in a profusion of melodrama and farce: ‘farce at the present day sometimes extends itself to two or three acts and calls itself a comedy’.53 This was, however, preferable to the ‘travesties’ of life seen in melodramas which lacked the ‘truth and probability’ found in classical tragedy.54 As a solution to the poor standard of new drama being produced on the West End stage, Crawfurd suggested that actor-managers be replaced by joint stock companies administered by boards of governors, as well as continued state involvement through censorship. Crawfurd’s article was by no means an exceptional protest against how West End venues were managed. Rather, it was part of an ongoing debate in theatrical trade papers and the wider press about the influence of the actor-manager upon English drama. Preference for a particular type of drama was one response to this debate and was advertised by managements marketing the unique appeal of their venue and company, which would result in dramatists being urged to produce a specific type of play.55 Henry Arthur Jones, who responded to Crawfurd’s piece in the July issue of the Fortnightly Review, refuted the critique of audience composition, but, as a dramatic author who considered himself constrained by the demands of commercial managers, repeated Crawfurd’s accusation that the dual roles held by the actor-manager as performer and administrator were to the detriment of repertoire. Jones outlined the manner in which the performer-impresario formulated audience demand and, in turn, influenced dramatic texts: The actor-manager by virtue of his direct personal appeal to the public, by large capital letter on every bill and placard, by having his name repeated on the programme, first as manager, then as leading actor, then as having the play produced under his direction, and occasionally as part author, attains a renown equal to that of the proprietor of Horniman’s tea, or Beecham’s pills, and the author scarcely counts. The whole force and volume of public attention is directed away from the literary aspect of the piece to the person and the achievements of the actor, and the general playgoing public, who cannot be expected to spend the whole of their leisure in the examination and analysis of the precise points of attraction in the entertainment that is

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offered to them, naturally see what they are directed to see, fix their criticism upon what is presented to them as the vital part of the entertainment, and judge a play not so much as the literary work of the author, but according to its failure or success in giving their favourite actor a means of distinguishing himself.56

The actor-manager was a self-fashioned commodity presented to ‘the public’—a large and dynamic West End audience—and he selected material that would distinguish his brand within a distinct section of the entertainment industry. ‘The London Stage’ and the reactions it provoked are suggestive of the artistic and commercial environment negotiated by Alexander as an actor-­ manager. Elite consumers such as Crawfurd would have a particular idea of who should attend West End venues and what they should view, while playwrights argued the significance of their contribution to productions. Because actor-managers were, by 1890, the most obvious manifestation of the relationship between economics and artistic presentation, they were vulnerable to attack from a number of cultural commentators. The most effective response was to construct a definite artistic policy, and Alexander’s was to stage new British drama: Although I commenced with adaptations of French plays, it was from the outset—as it has always been—my desire and my very great interest to produce new plays by new men, and especially new Englishmen.57

Alexander’s managerial career was dependent upon producing plays that complied with this aim. A supporter of the opportunities and restrictions experienced by West End managers, who had their repertoire simultaneously curtailed and endorsed by the Lord Chamberlain, his desire to produce new material was not determined by an interest in extending the thematic or aesthetic possibilities of British drama. Unlike Irving and Tree, Alexander never published memoirs or monographs describing his approach to acting or management, and in interviews he distanced himself absolutely from the most prevalent ongoing debates about literary drama and theatrical reform. He insisted that his desire was to fulfil audience demand: People may not definitely know what they want—may not be able to put it into words. But a demand must exist vaguely, inarticulately. […] All I know

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is that the British public is firmly convinced that the drama has got to pay its own way, and that I don’t see who is going to relieve it of that necessity.58

The claim that he was fulfilling, rather than determining, some need present in his audience was an attempt to convey the simultaneous impressions of sensitive artist and astute businessman, and distanced him from theatrical movements beyond his commercial environment. As a manager, he was committed not to new forms of drama, but to producing new texts that could be defined by established genres and would comply with the demands of the censor, attracting a rapidly expanding potential audience to a venue associated with premières. Eighty-six per cent of the new plays he staged were written by English authors, a statistic that confirms precise artistic aims and also Alexander’s ability to realise those aims.59 This aspect of his management was consolidated after becoming lessee and manager of the St. James’s Theatre. Prior to this move, his first two productions as actor-manager, at the Avenue Theatre, were both adaptations from the French. When he failed to be cast in Irving’s 1889 production of Alfred Calmour’s The Amber Heart, he left the Lyceum Company, and was contracted by the Gatti brothers for the Adelphi melodrama London Day by Day. In January 1890, while still appearing in this production, he leased the Avenue Theatre in order to stage Hamilton Aïdé’s Dr. Bill, a farcical comedy adapted from the French play Le Docteur Jojo. Alexander’s choice of this play to open his season at the Avenue displays eagerness to establish himself as a modern comedian, to provide a contrast with the romantic heroes he had been playing at the Lyceum for eight years. While still appearing at the Adelphi, he employed comic actor Fred Terry to play the title role in the farce, taking over six weeks later and initiating his career as actor-manager. The Times reviewer admits surprise at Alexander’s change in role and records an assumption that he will revert to type: The new manager’s policy is so far an entirely successful one, although from Mr. Irving’s dashing and valorous lieutenant the public will by and bye expect a better class of work than Dr. Bill.60

Aïdé’s adaptation immediately distinguished Alexander’s management from his Lyceum work. Two years touring as juvenile lead with the Robertson Company had provided experience in comedy, and despite the muted critical reaction, Dr. Bill was commercially successful, running at

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the Avenue Theatre for nine months. The play was replaced by an adaptation of Alphonse Daudet’s La Lutte Pour la Vie (The Struggle for Life), which ran for only one month. The first review of Dr. Bill in The Times records that Alexander was intending to stage The Struggle for Life early in 1890, and that it was this text above all which encouraged his progression into management: At present Mr. Alexander is precluded from appearing on his own stage by his Adelphi engagement; but, once that is fulfilled, he proposes to address himself to M. Alphonse Daudet’s recent play, La Lutte Pour la Vie, which in its English form is timed for production in the latter part of next month.61

The play is singled out by the author of ‘The London Stage’ as a ‘fine comedy’, deemed literary although not provocative, and so acceptable to Crawfurd’s ideal theatregoer.62 However, Alexander’s primary aim was surely to establish the precise appeal of his management for a consistently diverse urban audience. The adaptations produced at the Avenue Theatre, modern plays that had enjoyed a measure of success in Paris, show an actor-manager pursuing an artistic policy defined by economic considerations. The survival of his management in 1890 despite the theft of a portion of the takings for Dr. Bill by the box office manager and the limited run of The Struggle for Life confirms that the staging of adaptations was a commercially astute policy. In the absence of business records, the continuation of Alexander’s managerial career beyond this period and the move to the St. James’s Theatre in 1891 also indicate that there was significant and consistent private investment in his management. The Struggle for Life was replaced in November 1890 by the first new play produced by Alexander, R.C. Carton’s romance Sunlight and Shadow, which transferred to the St. James’s in January 1891. His next ten productions were also premières,63 firmly establishing the policy of staging new plays more often than revivals or adaptations, a policy that was sustained for the rest of his career. Alexander undertook eighty-one productions of full-length plays in the evening repertoire, and fifty-nine of these were premières (with only six adaptations from existing European plays).64 Also, with the exception of the only two productions of Shakespeare he mounted, As You Like It (1896) and Much Ado About Nothing (1898), none of these texts was written before the 1890s. These features of repertoire had implications for the actor-manager and his company. Forty-six of the new plays had contemporary settings, and the most frequent cast size

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for a St. James’s production was eleven. Although Alexander staged period dramas with spectacular scenery, most notably romantic dramas in the mid-1890s and Paolo and Francesca in 1902, he rarely employed a large number of supers. Large numbers were recruited for the crowd scenes in The Prisoner of Zenda (first production 1896), and exceptional measures were taken in 1898 for his production of Much Ado About Nothing, when a house in Pall Mall was leased to provide dressing rooms for extras. This is noted in a letter from A. Blomfield Jackson, requesting permission to alter 57 Pall Mall to provide convenient access to and from the theatre for cast members.65 The request was denied and alterations were not made, but it indicates that Alexander recognised the need for a larger venue, certainly backstage, if he were to regularly employ a large number of supers. Such large casts were never usual practice, and once established at the St. James’s, Alexander chose to employ actors that were suitable for each new production, rather than maintaining a permanent company. Of the seven actors employed for Sunlight and Shadow, four were retained for the following four productions—most notably Marion Terry as leading actress66—yet by the mid-1890s Alexander showed a preference for employing a company of actors who best suited the play to be staged. The decisive move from adaptations at the Avenue Theatre to premières at the St. James’s was confirmed by two consecutive commercial successes in 1892, Lady Windermere’s Fan and Liberty Hall, followed by the collaboration with Pinero which cemented the association of Alexander with new work, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893). The play had been rejected by John Hare, and was subsequently offered to the younger manager. This indicates that early repertoire had already established Alexander as a successful producer of new drama suited to a West End venue, acceptable to the censor and with high production costs. Hare rejected the play as ‘too daring’, even ‘too radical’ in comparison with other problem plays staged in the West End, but Alexander accepted the opportunity to establish a professional relationship with an already successful English playwright, staging a play that was licensed by the censor.67 Critical and commercial triumph was followed by Alexander’s most successful collaboration with Henry Arthur Jones, The Masqueraders. Here Alexander capitalised upon the success and notoriety of Tanqueray by casting the same leading actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, in the Jones play. The Masqueraders ran to the end of December 1894, and was followed by five failed productions during 1895, beginning with Henry James’s Guy Domville. The play ran for only thirty-two performances, this short

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run attributed to the hostile reaction James received from a significant portion of the first-night audience, a reaction described in detail to potential audiences by reviewers. Yet close attention to these reviews makes apparent a less sensational explanation for failure: the limited dramatic possibilities of James’s text. His motivation in writing for the stage is neatly summarised by Christopher Greenwood: James took the stage very seriously indeed. He wasn’t at all interested in the plots or the plays staged there. Rather it was the human capacity for beautifully ordered existence, for wonderfully controlled, intellectually grounded behaviour, for the delight of delicately mannered performance. The Comédie Française showed him that people, through a combination of their own best efforts and with a respect for a long tradition of finely controlled activity, could live beautifully. Living on the French stage, actual living, as if one was on such a stage, was a real possibility for him, and the world of beauty and manners found in his fiction came to resemble that same possibility.68

Unfortunately, work to reproduce such material was not well received, and the play differed from the St. James’s repertoire up to this point, not only in its historical setting, but by the manner in which James manipulated the structure of the well-made play found in the work of Wilde and Pinero and already staged by Alexander. The author placed emphasis upon the observation of human relationships, rather than points of crisis and denouement. Alexander later defended his decision to produce Guy Domville: With my great wish to unite literature with the stage, I then produced a play by Mr. Henry James. Guy Domville was received very unfavourably on the first night, but it was a production of which I was, and always shall be, proud, in spite of that particular audience’s adverse verdict. It had a fair run, which satisfied me, for it attracted to the St. James’s the whole of the intellectual London audiences available for any theatre.69

He excused the production as part of his investment in new work, insisting upon its literary merit and identifying a specific audience that was attracted to his theatre, emphasising the unique repertoire and ambience of the St. James’s. Implicit in this statement on the production, however, is the actual belief that he needed to target large audiences with quite a different form of play: if, that is, the whole of ‘the intellectual London audiences’ could be accommodated across only thirty-two performances.

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Twelve productions had a shorter run than Guy Domville, four in 1895, yet this period indicates how Alexander sustained the prestige of his management by representing poorly received productions as the result of his determination to promote new ‘literary’ work. He focused upon a policy that was successful, rather than an individual production that was not. Domville was replaced in February by The Importance of Being Earnest, the run of this well-received play curtailed because of Wilde’s arrest and trial. Three new plays followed, each running for less than five weeks. A series of failed premières was only halted by a distinct change in the type of drama Alexander selected. In this initial review of repertoire, it is worth considering what constituted a failed production for Alexander, and it is helpful to use the statistics of profit and loss for the years 1891–1914 included by A.E.W. Mason in his biography. He notes that during this period the actor-manager ‘produced twenty-seven plays which ended in loss’, repeating this figure a few lines later in the telling sentence: ‘But there were twenty-seven plays which failed.’70 The idea of a ‘failed’ production, for Mason, is a short-running piece which, because of the cost of staging plays in the West End, was also unprofitable. Such pieces were replaced by material that would compensate, such as the revivals which became increasingly prevalent throughout the last twelve years of Alexander’s managerial career. In a letter to playwright Pearl Craigie, about her first full-length play for the St. James’s, The Ambassador, the focus for the actor-manager is upon profit, and the benefits to the playwright of a long run: Two splendid houses again today: I do believe we should be wise to leave it alone for a little while. I am thinking as much for you as for myself—it can be such a wonderful feather in your branch if your first play saw the year round.71

The conviction revealed here, that seeing ‘the year round’ would be advantageous not only to the manager, but also to the playwright, indicates that Alexander was intent upon defending his aim to achieve the maximum income from a piece. He worked towards long runs, which produced profit, but also argued that this resulted in improved prestige for the dramatist, and for new English drama. His artistic aims were therefore consistently influenced by the continual investment required to sustain a West End theatre.

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With The Prisoner of Zenda in January 1896, Alexander was able both to sustain this investment and to distance his management from the disastrous repertoire of 1895. This play began the association of the St. James’s Theatre with spectacular romantic pieces as well as society comedy and drama. In these overtly extravagant productions, Alexander found the opportunity to advertise the success of his management through opulent costumes and settings, and by the prominence of a heroic leading role that reinforced his authority as actor and manager. Zenda was followed in December 1896 by a series of plays for which Alexander employed established West End actress Julia Neilson in leading roles. He also retained Neilson to play opposite him in a rare production of Shakespeare, As You Like It, and that was followed by Pinero’s The Princess and the Butterfly, R.C. Carton’s The Tree of Knowledge and then by Alexander’s second and final attempt at Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Pinero’s comedy and Carton’s modest romantic drama received little critical praise. Written, however, by playwrights who had provided Alexander with two of his three most profitable productions to this point, and following the success of Zenda and Alexander’s first Shakespearean production, it is notable that both ran for more than three months, followed by Much Ado About Nothing, which ran for only fifty-three performances and concluded Neilson’s work with the St. James’s company. Between this period and Alexander’s next extremely commercially successful production, His House in Order in 1906, the manager premièred eighteen new plays, twelve running for fewer than 100 performances. The exceptions to this were, in 1899, one of only nine plays by a female dramatist, Pearl Craigie’s The Ambassador,72 two successful comedies,73 Stephen Phillips’s Paolo and Francesca in 1902, and following the success of this poetic drama, two romantic plays with large casts and spectacular staging.74 In the final twelve years of Alexander’s management, there were three notable productions running for more than six months and then in revivals—His House in Order, The Thief and Bella Donna. These were, commercially, the most successful parts of a repertoire comprised of romantic dramas, society comedies and problem plays, with increasingly frequent revivals compensating for poorly received new work. The long run of His House in Order in 1906, accompanied by a positive reception for Alfred Sutro’s comedies Mollentrave on Women (1905) and John Glayde’s Honour (1907) during the same period, sustained Alexander’s position as the pre-­ eminent producer of established English dramatists.

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This policy became problematical for the manager and his preferred dramatic authors towards the end of the decade, however, as they began to respond to the innovative material associated with the New Drama and New Theatre movements. Pinero’s The Thunderbolt (1908) and Mid-­ Channel (1909) were attempts to represent middle-class domestic environments rather than aristocratic settings. They were described by Alexander as ‘tragedies of modern life’,75 his insistence on their contemporary relevance perhaps intended to defend the absence, in these productions, of the exquisite, upper-class settings expected from a St. James’s play. Each ran for only fifty-eight performances, and Pinero’s penultimate collaboration with Alexander, the one-act satire Playgoers (1913), received a poor critical reception when it was staged with a revival of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. The unenthusiastic reception of Pinero’s new work for Alexander after 1906 reflected the disappointment of audiences who had precise expectations of the social arenas that would be represented in an Alexander–Pinero collaboration. Significantly, a revival of His House in Order in 1914 ran for longer than any of the later plays by the dramatist. Indeed, during the final decade of Alexander’s managerial career, revivals frequently replaced unsuccessful premières. For example, the third and final play written for Alexander by Henry Arthur Jones, The Ogre, was staged in 1911, but replaced after thirty-seven performances by a revival of Lady Windermere’s Fan. Jones’s play is a satirical response to the Suffragette movement, and was poorly received during a period of increasingly militant protests by Suffragettes, so the production was removed for a six-week run of Wilde’s comedy while the next play, Bella Donna, was in rehearsal. Of Alexander’s eighty-one main evening productions at the St. James’s, seventeen were revivals of work he had premièred, and nine of these were staged between 1908 and 1918. Increasingly, unsuccessful new plays were replaced by confirmed successes. The number of revivals suggests that, increasingly, audiences attending the St. James’s Theatre were taking part in a nostalgic exercise, of which Alexander’s two most successful premières after His House in Order were also a part. The Thief (1907), an adaptation of Henri Bernstein’s Le Vôleur, provided long scenes between the main characters, a husband and wife played by George Alexander and Irene Vanbrugh, who were extending the success of their pairing in His House in Order. Bella Donna, an adaptation of Robert Hichens’s crime thriller, indicated that Alexander was anxious to profit from the recent success of this genre on the West End stage,76 and for this

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play he once again reverted to a previously successful stage partnership, employing Mrs. Patrick Campbell to play the female lead. A greater dependence upon plot devices or cast members from earlier productions shows that Alexander was also becoming reliant upon past collaborations to attract audiences to a new text. Pinero’s final play for the manager, The Big Drum (1915), repeated the casting of Alexander and Vanbrugh in leading roles. Further examples include two of Alexander’s last three premières, society comedy The Basker (1916) and romantic drama The Aristocrat (1917), which, populated by privileged characters, resembled earlier St. James’s productions. Each play ran for more than three months despite Alexander’s failing health and his frequent absences from the cast. Yet, although Alexander had patently become committed to a limited circle of leading actors and dramatists, he was willing to lease the theatre during the absence of the St. James’s company to a range of theatre makers. Many of these sub-lessees were actors with whom he had worked in the past, including Fred Terry, the Kendals and Johnston Forbes-­ Robertson, and the plays staged during these seasons fitted well with the characteristic St. James’s programme.77 However, in 1913, Alexander leased the theatre to Harley Granville-Barker and Lillah McCarthy for three months. Their repertoire season included works by Shaw, John Galsworthy and John Masefield, British dramatists who were absent from Alexander’s own programme (with the exception of the one act Shaw play How He Lied to Her Husband, produced for twenty-four performances in 1905). Alexander was able to judge the reception of this material at his venue without associating himself directly with the New Drama movement. There is, however, some evidence that Alexander considered producing work by these authors, particularly Shaw. For example, in a letter to William Archer dated 27 January 1900, the dramatist remarks that Alexander had expressed interest in Candida, but only on condition that the poet Eugene Marchbanks be made blind, to gain the sympathy of the audience.78 More definitive proof of Alexander’s interest is found in an undated letter the manager sent to Shaw regarding John Bull’s Other Island: If you want an enemy home for John Bull and would like me to play Larry Doyle I’m your man.79

This letter and further correspondence between Shaw and Alexander held in the British Library Manuscripts Collection show the actor-manager’s

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tentative interest in the playwright’s work.80 The clear intention to produce Shaw in an ‘enemy home’ after his work had experienced considerable success with the Barker and Vedrenne Court seasons of 1904–1907 is evidence of Alexander’s interest in these new texts only after he had some evidence of the reception they received. Staging How He Lied to Her Husband after the piece had been tested in New York and at the Court further reflects this policy. His continuing commitment to the censor’s role in regulating West End repertoire was intimately connected with the cautious approach to repertoire evident here. Willingness to associate his theatre, at least peripherally, with the New Drama movement also reveals altering priorities for Alexander, as engagement with politics and then declining health shifted focus from work at the St. James’s. Although a clear brand was integral to a sustained managerial career, it is apparent that a burgeoning commitment to politics was at this point taking up more of his time; Alexander was elected to the London County Council in March 1907. Interviewed three months before the election, he told the London correspondent for the Pittsburgh Gazette: I have no political ax to grind. My politics are my own affairs. I go on the council, if elected, to serve London municipally, not politically. […] I merely want to represent the stage on the council. It is this body which controls the theaters of London and it is time that the theatrical interests involving capital of a million or so of dollars should be looked after by a practical man of the council.81

Most significant was his desire to ‘serve London municipally’. As a Moderate councillor he opposed the work of the Progressive party which had dominated the Council prior to the 1907 election. He was concerned with municipal reform which embodied, in Susan Pennybacker’s words, ‘principled opposition to state ownership and its own vested business interests’.82 By endorsing private enterprise and resisting state regulation he was working to sustain the informal networks of investment that supported his managerial career. During his second term as a councillor he was also a Justice of the peace and, in 1911, received knighthood.83 This work was complementary to his management, but it also provided space at the St. James’s that was filled by a range of companies, subsequently diluting the established brand.

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Alexander remained on the London County Council until 1913, and despite his insistence that he wanted to represent a particular branch of the entertainment industry, he chaired the Parks and Open Spaces Committee after being returned to office in March 1910, suggesting that he was, in fact, considering a move into politics. Indeed the period from Alexander’s election to the Council until his death in March 1918 was a period of overwork that caused a decline in his health. He did not seek re-election to the Council in 1913, having developed diabetes. Until his death in March 1918, he focused exclusively upon a managerial career at the St. James’s, and his final appearance was in The Aristocrat on 2 June 1917. Although lessee and manager of the theatre until his death, the St. James’s was after this point effectively run by the general manager, Charles Hunt Helmsley. With the exception of Githa Sowerby’s Sheila, the theatre was sublet after this date, and the lease passed to Gilbert Miller on 1 January 1919.

The St. James’s Theatre Brand: The Matinée Performance Within the repertoire outlined here, Alexander used the daytime performance with the clear aim of extending the profit that could be amassed from staging new drama, and this strategy illustrated the extent to which the matinée was becoming a consistent feature of West End repertoire at the time. Information in the surviving St. James’s Theatre Treasury Book shows every production included a Saturday matinée, with a mid-week performance added for a number of long-running productions, and on two occasions, three matinées within a week. The additional, or ‘special’ matinée—Liberty Hall during the seventh week of its run, Tanqueray during the twenty-sixth week of its run—was linked to charity fundraising and, therefore, not intrinsic to profit derived from the production, but certainly to the prestige of that production and, by extension, the theatre management.84 Flexibility around daytime performances demonstrates the actor-manager responding to the audience numbers for an evening run. The additional income accrued from these performances, for which authors were regularly paid a lower percentage than for the six evenings per week, confirms their role for commercial managers, and with increasing regularity by this time. For example, Pinero was paid ten per cent for evening box office performance income, and seven and a half percent on

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matinées during the first run of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. However, the practice within the Treasury Book to list matinées separately points to the continued evolution of the daytime performance towards the conventional aspect of West End repertoire it has now become. The increasing regularity of the matinée performance was one result of what Tracy C. Davis defines as the ‘relationship of economics to aesthetic representation’ in nineteenth-century theatre.85 Managers increased profit by adding daytime performances to their repertoire. By the turn of the century, the matinée was acknowledged as an integral and profitable part of legitimate theatre in the capital, attracting affluent and leisured audiences to venues. The weekly or biweekly afternoon performance became a consistent feature of the long run accounting for, on average, more than one-fifth of all West End productions annually for the years 1891–1918.86 The inclusion of regular matinée performances was one indication that West End audiences were increasingly diverse. The afternoon performance was one response of theatre entrepreneurs to a growing middle-class audience, and during the 1870s and 1880s it grew in popularity.87 John Hollingshead’s introduction of the matinée at the Gaiety Theatre in 1871 to trial new dramatic material and performers made it a familiar part of West End repertoire, and in the same decade Charles Wyndham and the Bancrofts also gave matinées.88 These managements recognised how to maximise the profit to be obtained from long-­ running productions, encouraging attendance at regular daytime performances. A sophisticated rivalry was developing for the urban audience that was dispersed throughout London’s West End and suburban theatres, providing economic motivation for the regular addition of matinées to West End repertoire during the period of Alexander’s management. In addition to the legitimate theatres and music halls that came under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain there were, by 1901, twenty-seven theatres in the London suburbs.89 The West End matinée provided a formal brand of leisure which emerged as a by-product of industry. The working week, and structured leisure time, was an incidental result of middle-class economic prosperity. The population of London grew consistently: in 1850 two-and-a-half million people lived within ten miles of Westminster; by 1900 the figure was six-and-a-half million— twenty per cent of the population of England and Wales. Owner-occupied houses were being built rapidly to the north and south of the city, and were purchased by families with an income of between £150 and £200 per  annum. With increased prosperity came smaller family units and

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domestic staff, freeing home-owners to display their economic prosperity via an increasingly leisured lifestyle. The development of a cheap public transport system that expanded alongside urban housing assisted in this process. Structured working patterns were in place by the end of the 1870s, with a fifty-four hour week being typical for office workers during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This meant that West End managers structured their productions around a system of priorities that distinguished ‘working’ and ‘leisured’ audiences.90 Matinées were a significant response of West End managers to increased competition within the entertainment industry, during a period when the relationship between audience numbers and profit for a management was being openly debated. The 1892 Select Committee on Theatres and Places of Entertainment heard a great deal of conflicting evidence as to which social classes attended the theatre, and whether there was any overlap in audiences at specific venues. William Archer, who gave evidence to the Committee in 1892, examined the relationship between audience attendance and dramatic material, writing in 1898: It would of course be idle to suppose that the comparative popularity of two plays is exactly indicated by the length of their respective runs. For one thing, theatres differ greatly in size, and Drury Lane, for example, will seat about three times as many people as the Haymarket or the St. James’s. It might have been possible, no doubt, to allow for differences of size and reckon one week at Drury Lane as equivalent to three weeks at the Haymarket. But even this would not give anything like an exact and conclusive result, since the audience in a theatre (and especially the paying audience) is not always, or even generally, commensurate with its capacity. At a theatre of moderate rent, worked by an inexpensive company, plays can be acted for months and years to audiences that at another theatre would mean speedy bankruptcy. Moreover, many plays are run for weeks and months either at a constant loss, or at so small a profit that two or three weeks of bad ‘business’ will swallow it all up, and leave a deficit on the whole enterprise.91

Archer recognised that by the 1890s, the profits achieved by commercial managements were dependent upon an awareness and manipulation of the relationship between audiences and a specific theatrical venue. This attempt to assess audience composition in West End theatres acknowledges the level of uncertainty experienced by entrepreneurs when selecting material that would prove attractive to audience members who would purchase stall seats and generate profit. The same volume of The Theatrical

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World that contains his thoughts on audience attendance at specific theatres also includes an ‘Epilogue Statistical’, an analysis of the number of weeks for which every West End play ran between 1893 and 1897.92 Here, Archer estimates that of the 235 productions mounted between 1 January 1893 and 31 December 1897 at West End theatres only sixty-five could be termed successful. From these sixty-five, the only category with a majority of profit-making productions was ‘Musical Farce’. In ‘Musical Farces’ Archer counted fourteen successes, six failures and nine ‘doubtful’ productions (those with no clear profit or positive critical reception). In every other category (Modern Plays, Melodramas, Farces, American Plays and Adaptations from the French), failures were in the majority. The risk inherent to premièring work was exacerbated by the growing cost of acquiring new material, a process that was regulated by increased legislation, making the text an expensive commodity for the theatre manager. Auguste Filon, writing in 1896, recognised that in the 1830s authors would sell their work for a standard rate, with a possible bonus for provincial rights from established managers, yet by the end of the century, production and profitability were increasingly complex: In 1884, a successful play […] brought its author £10,000 within a few months, of which £3000 came from the provinces, and to which America and Australia had also contributed […] £10,000 to an author must prove as effectual an incentive to the modern English author, as did a coup d’œil de Louis to the French dramatist in the reign of the Grand Monarque. Such profits should serve to encourage talent, if it be beyond them to generate genius.93

The possible impact upon creativity of increased commercial sophistication and legislation is suggested by the latter part of Filon’s statement, where he identifies the desire of managers to maximise profit after initial investment in a text. One result of this growing attention to investment and return was the inclusion of regular matinée performances for long-­ running productions. The increasingly sophisticated marketing of products and entertainment to attract an affluent audience is one example of the ‘conspicuous consumption’ defined by Theodore Veblen at the end of the nineteenth century.94 Veblen’s observations led him to argue that once individuals had achieved prosperity—this idea of active social and commercial achievement reflecting the middle class rather than their aristocratic

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contemporaries—they displayed their success via public ventures into leisure. This leisure, securely located in policed and regulated urban areas, and also exclusivity, identified with West End venues, were combined with a culture of consumption. The social and economic forces which stimulated the boom in theatre building in London during the mid-nineteenth century were subsumed in an image of theatre as civic amenity, a commercial venture which was advertised as an exclusive social forum attracting aristocratic consumers to a dramatic product endorsed by the Lord Chamberlain. While allowing for this conspicuous deployment of leisure time and money on the part of the audience, the matinée showed the theatre producer working to increase income for longer-running productions. In the case of Alexander the most frequent practice, shown in the Treasury Book, of paying a lower percentage on these daytime performances indicates that this was a policy that could increase profit for a production. So for Lady Windermere’s Fan, Oscar Wilde received seven and a half per cent on box office takings for evening performances, then five per cent for all matinée performances. There are also examples of established dramatic authors receiving the same percentage for every performance, daytime and evening, with R.C. Carton paid seven per cent for Liberty Hall and Henry Arthur Jones fifteen per cent for each performance of The Masqueraders (after the first week of evening performances, for which he received ten per cent).95 However, there is evidence within the Treasury Book that if Alexander could not consistently make savings on these daytime performances through the amount paid to the author, he was able to employ a fiscally astute policy towards the manner in which marketing for these matinées was integrated within weekly advertising. Expenditure on newspaper advertisements and bill posting was taken from the weekly income for evening performances, with no evidence within the Treasury Book of separate marketing for daytime performances. While some cost would be accrued for additional space to detail weekly matinée performances within marketing materials, this was subsumed within advertising costs and exemplifies the manner in which Alexander sought to increase profit on productions, adding additional matinées to the weekly Saturday performance in line with attendance for the seven performances regularly scheduled for each production. To examine the role of the matinée performance further, the following graph illustrates the pattern of weekly matinées for one production listed in the Treasury Book, Liberty Hall. The inclusion of two matinées for the

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majority of this production run, after a pronounced increase in revenue during the second week of the production, consolidates the impression of a piece experiencing high demand at the box office. While the income derived from two matinées does decline throughout the run, there are no extreme shifts in weekly income experienced with evening performances, designating the versatile second matinée performance as a modest but evident feature of a production that accrued a high level of income during the first weeks, sustaining that production and fostering the long run (Table 2.1). The inclusion of matinée performances was a tactic that allowed for fewer price rises at the box office: ticket prices did not rise at the St. James’s from the point at which Alexander took the lease in January 1891 until the theatre reopened after renovations on 1 February 1900.96 The renovations encouraged a new, leisured audience to attend the St. James’s Theatre, focusing attention upon the small stage and the best seats in the stalls and circle. Because of the sightlines of the theatre, any audience member seated outside these areas would only see the central two-thirds of the stage and the most privileged audience members. The St. James’s was redesigned to emphasise the affluent display taking place on and off stage, as well as the needs of the entire audience. The spectator’s gaze was focused upon performers on stage and the theatre’s most socially exclusive patrons, providing for an expanding middle-class audience a spectacle of exclusivity. Whereas Herbert Beerbohm Tree had achieved a similar effect Table 2.1  Income derived from evening and matinée performances for Liberty Hall

LIBERTY HALL, ST. JAMES'S THEATRE 5 DECEMBER 1892-20 MAY 1893

Liberty Hall weekly evening income

191 197 197 155

86 132 113

Liberty Hall weekly matinée income

1 matinée

496

747

0

No matinée

1 matinée

114 88

433

563

651

1 matinée

631 367

1 matinée

2 matinées

2 matinées

2 matinées

306 269 256 227 195

1 matinée

2 matinées

306 309

797

714

1 matinée

664

2 matinées

794

2 matinées

855

2 matinées

874

469

2 matinées

2 matinées

2 matinées

385 327 353

2 matinées

2 matinées

1 matinée

1 matinée

211 206 235

987 992 996

743

3 matinées

793 809

916

2 matinées

1096

1024

2 matinées

1150 1000

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by incorporating Louis XIV and XV designs into the interior of his newly constructed Her Majesty’s Theatre ‘in a style that signified abundance and wealth in order to reinforce the trademark style’ as David Schulz notes,97 Alexander achieved the same effect by attention to utility and restraint. The Era highlighted practical features that revealed Alexander’s awareness of his audience: Another feature of the front of the house is that separate cloak-room and bar accommodation is provided for every part of the theatre. Mr. Alexander has had a brilliant idea. He is fitting up a room with every convenience for gentlemen to don evening dress. This should prove a very great convenience to City men, who cannot get home to change, and who will now be able to bring a portmanteau to town and dress at the theatre. […] Along the entire frontage of the house a new glass awning will be erected for the protection of those waiting outside in wet weather.98

Male and female cloakrooms, and on separate floors, indicate that Alexander was prepared to manipulate his theatre space to accommodate different events and audiences: those queuing for the gallery and pit were considered, as were ‘city men’. Although a daytime audience would not need all these specific features, the stalls and dress circle matinée audience would have their own bar and cloakroom. Alexander’s attention to the comfort of his audience was pronounced. F.W.  Gladwell recalled this astute consideration for audience comfort in every part of the auditorium: I was one of a foursome, loyal fans of the late Sir George Alexander, and at the St. James’s after dashing from work we would spend long periods on a dingy staircase, eating our sandwiches, trying to read in the gloom and playing cat’s-cradle with a piece of string. Greatly daring, we wrote Sir George suggesting he should put a light in the gallery staircase for the great convenience of his modest patrons. We had a very polite reply from Sir George and the light was fixed within days.99

Work front of house was complemented by backstage alterations which aided Alexander in his managerial role. Unlike Tree’s Her Majesty’s Theatre, with the actor-manager’s office located at the top of the building front of house—part of an architectural semiotic whereby the quasi-seventeenth-century, aristocratic interior of the theatre positioned the manager as a ‘lordly host’,100 whose persona was to dominate the building and productions taking place on its stage—Alexander had his office and a

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second, small Green Room constructed on stage level, backstage. With immediate access both front of house and backstage, Alexander subtly marked his authority over staff and consumers and produced a variety of new drama, as Tree became increasingly dependent upon large-scale, opulent productions that chimed with the appearance of Her Majesty’s as a venue. In addition to the Wednesday and Saturday matinées which consistently accompanied long runs after renovation of the theatre, Alexander also acknowledged his recognition of an audience for the afternoon performance by developing a policy of sustaining failing productions with popular matinées, thereby reiterating the successful body of work with which he was identified after one decade in management. The most striking example of this was the run of Rupert of Hentzau with which the theatre reopened;101 because of poor attendance, after three weeks this sequel was supported by twice-weekly matinées of The Prisoner of Zenda.102 The returns for the run of that play were published by Mason, and reveal that profits from a revival, in matinée performances, of a popular St. James’s play provided significant income.103 Even with houses slightly less than half full Alexander was guaranteed some profit on a production, and by this point in his managerial career he could risk trying out new material because, in the event of new work failing, he had plays in reserve that guaranteed a full house. Regular matinées were produced to enhance profit, but a significant number of afternoon performances were staged to raise funds for charitable organisations: You can depend upon it that when any recognised manager undertakes the labour and responsibility of giving a performance in aid of a charity the fund will benefit.104

Speaking in 1908, Alexander emphasised the guaranteed profit achieved by charity matinées staged in West End theatres, but the personal benefit to a manager undertaking such work was also considerable. These productions occurred with increasing regularity during Alexander’s career, as managers donated resources—the theatre building, properties and personnel—enhancing personal prestige by association with charity work. Alexander was specifically acknowledged as a ‘pageant organiser’ and ‘fundraiser’, 105 the former a reference to his role as producer of a Shakespeare Pageant comprising scenes from eight plays during the Tercentenary celebrations of 1916.106 As late as 1958, an article in The Times marking the

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centenary of this actor-manager’s birth describes him as ‘public spirited’.107 Colin Jones, reviewing approaches to the history of charity, sees Foucault’s concept of a ‘decentred’ approach to the operations of power as particularly useful in understanding how both the suppliers and recipients of charity benefited, fulfilling contingent roles to endorse social status: The approach makes it an arena in which involvement, agency and intersubjectivity can be mapped more convincingly. […] Élites—or, better, elite groupings—driven by a variety of motives, may choose from an array of alternative control strategies, which themselves may conflict or mesh with the survival strategies of the poor. In these terms, charity becomes, first, contextualised within a much broader and more dynamic range of purposive social activity and, secondly, it constitutes very much a two-way street, involving advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the charitable equation.108

This concept is helpful in understanding the potential of charity matinées for actor-managers. By moving from profession-specific benefits to performances for other causes, these entrepreneurs were emphasising the stability of their working environment; as Catherine Hindson notes in her examination of the West End actress and charity, these events were, by the end of the nineteenth century, ‘a key part of the West End’s identity’.109 Also, by donating resources to raise money not only for colleagues, but also for alternative causes, managers were associating themselves with the established professions. Indirect philanthropy by those donating their theatres and performances was supported by the attendance of a leisured audience, part of a process by which successful actors and managers advertised social allegiance with affluent audience members.110 For example, the matinée in aid of the Mansion House Fund for the Unemployed which took place on 24 March 1905 at the St. James’s Theatre reflects the manner in which charity performances were valued events for both fundraisers and producers by the turn of the century, a period when the introduction of state benefits for the unemployed and those living in poverty was becoming an immediate concern. This type of benevolent fund allowed the commercial transactions at the heart of charity to become a form of indirect philanthropy. Such funds collected and distributed voluntary contributions, with regular events and a grants system controlled by administrators. Such a level of regulation endorsed both

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the cause and the donor, and by 1890, benevolent funds in Britain were raising five million pounds annually.111 This particular charitable fund to assist the urban unemployed aimed to combat poverty in the capital, but also displayed an ongoing unwillingness, amongst theatre managers, to encourage state intervention: By the early years of the twentieth century a declining birth rate, mounting international economic competition and military tension, and evidence of physical debility amongst working-class recruits for the Boer War had led most Conservatives to recognise the interdependence of individual welfare and national wellbeing. However Conservative response to the problem of poverty was constrained by economic orthodoxy, complemented by a preference for indirect over direct taxation for all but such truly national expenditure as defence.112

The matinée in aid of the Mansion House Fund for the Relief of the London Unemployed was an example of what Adrian Vinson (quoted above) terms ‘indiscriminate charity’,113 exceptional fundraising to provide financial support for the unemployed in a single area, providing no regular assistance and deferring formalised state benefit as demanded by renowned reformers including Joseph Rowntree and the Webbs. This event exemplifies the range of causes supported by charity matinées during Alexander’s career, as well as the opportunity it presented for actor-­managers to convey professional status through their ability to contribute resources and labour.114 Although the commercial exchange that was part of West End theatre was explicit at such events, because profits were declared on stage at the end of the matinée and also in reviews of these performances (£400 on this occasion), the artistic product was sold for charitable donations, mediating between the cause and the donor, facilitating indirect philanthropy by actor and audience member. The review of this matinée in the Daily Telegraph describes this process: In a gracious little speech Lady Bancroft went on to express her thanks to all concerned in the performance and its inception for the generous manner in which they had responded to the call made upon them. So far as the audience was concerned but little need of such an expression of gratitude could be found, inasmuch as the long and varied programme prepared for their delectation offered ample recompense for any outlay on their part.115

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The participation of the audience in fundraising was acknowledged yet mediated by the ‘long and varied’ entertainment they received in return. This production included eight one-act plays or scenes from full-length dramas then in production, as well as eight musical interludes. Despite Bancroft’s speech, the event was considered too lengthy by most reviewers, and the Daily Mail labelled it ‘A Monster Matinée’.116 The Morning Post reviewer suggested, in summarising the production, the maximum duration expected of afternoon performances: At a matinée every minute after half-past five is, to use Cassio’s phrase, unblessed.117

Lasting from one until after six, the matinée was exceptionally lengthy, and Alexander appeared in the final piece of the afternoon. A Scrupulous Man was a one-act comedy, translated by Max Hecht from Octave Mirabeau’s 1902 play Scrupules.118 The première of Hecht’s translation suffered from being the last item on the programme, but positioning does suggest that although a number of prominent artists appeared in the event, the venue dictated that Alexander’s performance should conclude the matinée. The comment of one reviewer that the effect of A Scrupulous Man was diminished as it ‘came a little too late in the afternoon to have the effect which it might otherwise have done’ provides further proof that charity matinées were poorly structured and erratic in length.119 Restlessness in the auditorium is conveyed by reference to the duration of the event, yet the manner in which separate pieces were rehearsed and then fitted to various programmes would suggest that this was a consistent feature of the charity matinée. Alexander played the role of ‘The Burglar’ in A Scrupulous Man, a one-­ act comedy in which this interloper, when interrupted by ‘The Burgled’, convinces his victim that burglary is the most honest profession. He played in the piece on four occasions during 1905,120 capitalising upon his successful productions during the previous decade, as both the romantic hero and the Society gentleman were gently satirised by the character of a ‘gentleman thief’ questioning codes of behaviour. This effect becomes more apparent when the work of fiction which influenced Mirabeau’s original piece is considered—E.W.  Hornung’s ‘Raffles’ stories, first published in 1899 but not dramatised until 1906. The parallels between Hornung’s stories, Mirabeau’s drama, Hecht’s translation and the stage adaptation of Raffles in 1906 are evident, and although A Scrupulous Man had no direct

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effect upon the composition of the Hornung–Presbury stage adaptation, Mirabeau’s comedy echoed Hornung’s fiction, and English reviewers immediately related the one-act play to the short stories. The Times acknowledges the familiarity of the plot: The argument, so far as there is one, is simple homo homini lupus; and the instrument of its proof is the familiar gentleman burglar.121

The review in the Daily News is more emphatic in drawing parallels between the texts: The man with scruples is a burglar of the type which Mr. Hornung is making so popular with his ‘Raffles’.122

Clearly, by 1905 Hornung’s fictional character was a familiar point of reference, as The Times does not even mention the ‘familiar’ character by name. The emphasis in the Raffles story upon what George Orwell termed a turn-of-the-century ‘tendency to value “form” or “style” more highly than success’123 is also evident in Alexander’s ‘habitual courtesy and suavity’124 on stage, used to such effect in this matinée performance, where the ‘charm of conversation and manner’125 of the Burglar so impresses his victim. A Scrupulous Man reflected the gentlemanly form of acting that Alexander employed on stage, but in a more limited capacity than the most celebrated proponent of the form, Gerald du Maurier, the Raffles of the 1906 stage adaptation. For Alexander, the comic debate present in A Scrupulous Man regarding the professional and the gentleman was sustained by the authority already intrinsically associated with his presence on stage: The thesis gives occasion for paradox and some sound satire, and the only part was played to perfection by Mr. George Alexander.126

The Times reviewer notes that the Mirabeau–Hecht material was endorsed by Alexander’s presence, whereas conversely du Maurier’s later career was propelled by the opportunity the Raffles material provided for this actor to advertise his stage technique. A comparison of Raffles’ words in Act 1 of Raffles the Amateur Cracksman with the Burglar’s in A Scrupulous Man emphasises not only how similar the material is, but also how well this material suited its actors:

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RAFFLES: I was only suggesting that what was really wanted was an Incorporated Society of Thieves,—with some public spirited old forger to run it on business principles. […] Then we should have a clearing house for the exchange of plunder—where the rightful owners might recover their property at a preferential tariff.127 THE BURGLAR: Well, if I have taken to that calling, it was only after mature reflection and after coming to the conclusion that at the present time it is the most straightforward and honest profession of all. […] You will see in a moment. Burglary, and I speak of it just as I would say Commerce, the Bar, Literature, Art, Finance, Medicine; Burglary has been a despised career, because all those who took to it were vagabonds, odious brutes, without education or judgement, people whom one could really not receive. […] I intend to give it the position to which it is entitled and make it a regular and honourable mode of living.128

The triumphing of ‘form’ and ‘style’ present in Hornung’s construction of the gentleman thief reflects the brand of naturalism practised on stage by Alexander and du Maurier. Whereas du Maurier had a public image developed partly through the success of his performance in the long-running play, instigating a celebrated form of performance and his own entrance into management, Alexander’s reputation attracted an audience to Hecht’s untried one-act comedy. A Scrupulous Man proves the importance of an actor’s body of work being inscribed upon a charity matinée performance, to encourage audience attendance, endorsing Alexander’s statement that ‘when any recognised manager undertakes the labour and responsibility of giving a performance in aid of a charity the fund will benefit’.129 By the turn of the century, the matinée was acknowledged as an integral and profitable feature of commercial theatre in the capital, as the weekly or biweekly afternoon performance became a consistent feature of the long run, and charity matinées were regularly produced in West End theatres. Other matinées were also staged, resembling Hollingshead’s use of the timeslot to maximise profit during the 1870s and 1880s: I instituted matinées on a novel principle. The Saturday morning performance of pantomimes was no novelty, but matinées in which rival pieces and companies were tempted to show their attractions in the afternoon (called ‘morning’) at the Gaiety was free-trade policy that made many people think I was a lunatic. The matinées became popular and were looked for. If a new

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piece or new actor or actress wanted to be tried, the Gaiety was the house selected.130

This manager capitalised upon a venue that was open during the daytime. Single afternoon performances that introduced new work and new performers were produced throughout the West End during the final decades of the nineteenth century with managers motivated, like Hollingshead, by overt economic concerns. However, some theatres such as the Court specialised in matinées of material by new playwrights: their aim to produce ‘performances of new plays and then short evening runs of those pieces that had proved their worth’.131 In each case, both rehearsal period and publicity were limited, but colleagues and a wider audience were drawn to events involving both established actors and new entrants to the profession. Most West End venues hosted such exceptional matinées infrequently, and for limited periods. For example, during 1909 Tree produced the ‘Afternoon Theatre’ performances at Her Majesty’s. He intended to stage new translations of European drama, resembling to some extent the Court seasons.132 The sixteen ‘Afternoon Theatre’ matinées enabled Tree to present European drama and to advertise his commitment to this material, without jeopardising long-running evening programmes. The initiative reveals his ‘notion of feeding the popular drama with ideas and gradually educating the public by classical matinées, financed by the spoils of the popular plays in the evening bill’.133 It is apparent from the following notice, however, that Tree remained committed to the West End model and to producing long-running profitable productions: We have been asked, by the way, to state that the Afternoon Theatre, which produced the play at a matinée yesterday, is not a private society with subscribers, but a management which invites the public to come, in the ordinary way, and pay for their seats.134

The note, added to the end of a review for the third ‘Afternoon Theatre’ matinée, Seymour Obermer’s The House of Bondage, does imply that the material produced at these events was more often performed by private or amateur companies away from the West End, and from West End box office prices. During this matinée season, Tree produced plays by Gerhart Hauptmann, Henry James, Seymour Obermer, Henrik Ibsen and Arthur

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Schnitzler in new translations or premières, in April appearing in William Archer’s translation of An Enemy of the People. In June, the opera The Wreckers by Ethel Smyth received an enthusiastic reception: ‘[A]t last The Wreckers has been staged in this country and Miss Smyth given a better chance than she has ever had before of being judged in this country on her merits as an operatic composer and not merely as a writer of chamber music.’135 Yet after a summer hiatus, the programme did not resume until November, and Tree’s commitment to the project diminished abruptly. A performance of Synge’s The Tinker’s Wedding was followed by a series of matinées by Lydia Yavorskaïa and her company from the Nouveau Théâtre, St. Petersburg—the final ‘Afternoon Theatre’ productions. Tree’s limited use of the matinée to trial new material shows his desire to stage work rarely seen on the West End stage, but the failure of any of these pieces to transfer to the evening programme, and the termination of the ‘Afternoon Theatre’ enterprise, proves its limited commercial viability. Although programmes were produced at the St. James’s Theatre to coincide with two ‘Afternoon Theatre’ performances, on 18 March and 4 June 1909, these were charity matinées on behalf of the Messina Earthquake Fund and the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. The theatre was lent by Alexander but he did not appear on stage, and this does not represent direct competition with Tree’s programme, but exemplifies the number and variety of exceptional matinées taking place within the West End. At the St. James’s, Alexander did produce new pieces in matinées but he never attempted a distinct programme similar to Tree’s project. Afternoon performances were staged using St. James’s properties and company members, and required only limited financial investment, and this was part of a process described by Tracy C. Davis by which the manager endeavoured to ‘squeeze more value out of the potential for revitalization and thereby extend the profit that could be extracted from labour and capital investment’.136 For West End actor-managers the matinée remained, primarily, a way to achieve greater profit from long-running productions, and to enhance personal prestige through the donation of professional resources for fundraising events. The growing popularity of the matinée performance in the West End during Alexander’s career was a means by which theatre managers extended the profitability of popular productions with additional afternoon performances. With few exceptions, over twenty-seven years in management Alexander only staged matinées to capitalise upon the success of long-running productions, or exceptional matinées for charitable causes, donating his theatre to the benefit of his personal prestige, which, in turn, added to the appeal of his venue.

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Notes 1. Anon. (1909a), Parts I Have Played, 2, Mason (1935, 9). Also details from Alexander’s birth certificate, obtained from The National Archives. 2. Anon. (1896), My First Appearance, 205. 3. Ibid. The burlesque, Jupiter Æger, was performed at the house of Davenport Adams, whose son, a dramatic critic, wrote the play. 4. Anon. (1909a), Parts I Have Played, 3–4. 5. Whereas the renowned Oswald Stoll built up a chain of provincial (London suburban and English regional) halls, Edwardes was concerned with promoting urban halls with a reputation for exclusivity, including the Palace in Manchester and the Empire, Leicester Square. 6. The source of this investment usually remained anonymous. One exception to this was the case of Marie Wilton. She openly admitted borrowing the capital from her brother-in-law to open the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, an arrangement recorded in Bancroft (1888, Vol. 1, 171–173). 7. Archer (1904, 202–203). The twelve interviews in this edition, including the one with Alexander, originally appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine, between January 1901 and July 1903. However, Heinemann’s 1904 edition has been used throughout this book. 8. Davis (2000, 297). For further details on gentlemanly capitalism, see Davis (2000, 294–296), and also Cain and Hopkins (1987). 9. Cain and Hopkins (1999, 201). 10. Quoted in Trueman (2015). 11. Dolan (2010, 56). In this memoir, initially handwritten for private circulation in 1949, Dolan notes that this funding from Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild (1840–1915), was for a production by Alexander at another West End venue, the Royalty Theatre. The unusual step to run another production alongside St. James’s repertoire was prompted by the contractual obligation Alexander had to provide a leading role for the actor Fred Terry, while his wife Julia Neilson appeared at the St. James’s Theatre opposite Alexander. 12. Alexander (1945). 13. William Terriss (20 February 1847 to 16 December 1897). Terriss was born William Charles James Lewin. His first London appearance was with the Bancrofts, playing Lord Cloudwrays in Society, in 1868. He joined Irving’s company in September 1880, and moved to the Adelphi Theatre in 1885, returning to the Lyceum between January 1891 and September 1894. Johnston Forbes-Robertson (16 January 1853 to 6 November 1937). Robertson’s acting career began in March 1874, at the Princess’s Theatre in W.G. Wills’ Mary Stuart. He was employed by Samuel Phelps at the Gaiety Theatre later that same year. He was first employed by Irving at the Lyceum in October 1882 to play Claudio in Much Ado

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About Nothing. He rejoined the Lyceum Company in January 1892 and January 1895. He entered management in September 1895 with a season at the Lyceum. 14. Mason writes: ‘In October of the same year [1880] he was engaged by William Foulis for a company touring in the Caste comedies through the smaller towns of England at a salary of £2 10s a week, to play juvenile lead’ (1935, 12). He was promoted to the main touring company in April 1880. This was the touring company run by Tom Robertson’s son, which had its origins with the Caste tour established by Robertson senior in 1868. 15. A James Albery comedy, first performed at the Vaudeville Theatre on 4 June 1870. 16. Anon. (1881), The Times. 17. He appeared at the Court Theatre in 1882 in The Parvenu. By 14 June 1883 Alexander had been recruited to play second parts to W.H. Kendal at the St. James’s. Early in 1884 he appeared at the Lyceum, to play an afterpiece with Mary Anderson’s company, by permission of the Hare and Kendal Management. The Hare and Kendal management was at the St. James’s from 1879 to 1888. 18. The Kendals’ later seasons at the St. James’s Theatre as sub-lessees to Alexander took place in 1898, 1901 and 1905. For further information, see Appendix. 19. Anon. (1884), The Times. 20. Hermann Vezin (2 March 1829 to 12 June 1910) was born in Philadelphia. Vezin’s first London appearance was in April 1852 at the Princess’s under Charles Kean, as the Earl of Pembroke in King John. By the 1880s he was a notable teacher of elocution, although in January 1889, when Irving was ill, he played Macbeth at the Lyceum. On 7 April 1909 he made his final stage appearance as Rowley in a performance of School for Scandal at Her Majesty’s for Tree. 21. Florence Alexander’s presence on this tour is noted in her ‘Postscript’ to Mason (1935, 228). In Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 9 & 12), Joel Kaplan and Sheila Stowell describe Florence Alexander’s influence on wardrobe at the St. James’s during the 1890s. 22. These figures are taken from Mason (1935, 12–13). 23. Alexander (1945). 24. Prior to returning to Irving’s company on 19 July 1884, Alexander appeared in In Bondage at the Opera Comique, at the Imperial as Armand Duval in La Dame aux Camélias, and in matinée performances at various theatres: as Don Caesar de Bazan in a one-act play of that name, and as Lord Woodstock in Clancarty and Cecil Cassillis in Rank and Riches, both at the Adelphi. With Irving, he played Adrian de Mauprat in

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Richelieu on the last night of the 1884 Lyceum season. On the American tour of 1884–1885 he played Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing, Squire Thornhill in Olivia, Laertes in Hamlet, Duc de Nemours in Louis XI, Earl of Morayin Charles I, Christian in The Bells, Bassiano in The Merchant of Venice and Courriol in Lyon’s Mail. He was also Irving’s understudy, playing Benedick in Boston. In the Lyceum season commencing 19 December 1885 he played Valentine in Faust, but when H.B.  Conway was sacked by Irving after the first night because of his poor performance, he took over the role of Faust. Other roles at the Lyceum included Ulric in Werner, Laertes in Hamlet, Duc de Nemours in Louis XI, Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice, Christian in The Bells, Silvio in The Amber Heart, Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, Squire Thornhill in Olivia and Macduff in Macbeth. 25. In twenty-one years as actor-manager at the Lyceum (1878–1899), Irving produced thirty-seven plays. Twelve were by Shakespeare, and the majority of the remaining plays were classed as melodramas with historical settings. For a detailed description of his repertoire, see Richards (2006), Hughes (1981) and Stoker (1906). 26. Henry Irving, ‘The Art of Acting’, was an address to the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, on 9 November 1891, quoted in Irving (1951, 683–684). For a comprehensive collection of Irving’s speeches on acting, see Section One of Richards (1994). 27. Although Stoker insists that Irving operated within an overdraft of £12,000, granted him by the London and County Bank, he also reveals that Irving received a loan of £1500 from Hannah Brown, a friend of Baroness Burdett-Coutts, at the beginning of his managerial career in 1878. Later, referring to such informal loans, he explains: ‘It was only through the shocks of misfortune and the stress of coming age he was unable to put by the large sums necessary for further developments, that he had to forestall the future temporarily. Bankers are of necessity stern folk and unless one can give quid pro quo in some shape they are pretty obdurate as to advances. Therefore it was that now and again, despite the enormous sums that he earned, he had occasionally to get an advance. Fortunately, there were friends who were proud and happy to aid him. […] It would be invidious to mention who those friends were’ Stoker (1906, vol. 2, 314). 28. Irving’s business manager while he held the Lyceum lease (1878–1899) was Bram Stoker, and his stage manager was H.J. Loveday. Alexander’s business managers were Robert Shone (January 1890 to December 1899), then C. Aubrey Smith (to December 1901) and Charles Hunt Helmsley (December 1901 to December 1918). Alexander’s stage managers were Alwyn Lewis (1890–1891) at the Avenue, H.H.  Vincent (1891–1901) and E. Vivian Reynolds (1901–1918).

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29. Irving quoted in Richards (2006, 10–11). 30. George Alexander in Archer (1904, 201). 31. Davis (2000, 221). 32. Tracy C.  Davis has calculated profit and loss for these Lyceum seasons from receipts held in the Theatre Museum, London. See Davis (2000, 219–220) including footnotes, for an explanation of why Davis’s statistics supersede previous assessments of Irving’s profit and loss. 33. Manager John East used the word ‘planet’ to describe this form of touring, and is quoted in Davis (2000, 341). 34. Mason (1935, 210–216). Alexander’s personal wealth, as recorded at time of death, was £90,672 10s 3d, so this record of net profit is conceivable. (This latter figure is taken from Alexander’s will, held at the National Archives). 35. This statistic is taken from the ‘Report from the 1892 Select Committee on Theatres and Places of Entertainment’, quoted in Booth (1991, 11). 36. These calculations are made from data in Howard (1970). 37. C.J. Phipps and A. Blomfield Jackson drew up initial plans for alterations in November 1896, but work only started after Edward Rose’s In Days of Old closed in the summer of 1899. This information is provided in London County Council (1900). Mason records the total cost of these renovations as £7057 14s 6d (1935, 138). 38. London Metropolitan Archives (1887–1909). 39. Anon. (1900), Era. 40. Ibid. 41. Borsa (1908, 279). 42. Increased from 311 to 334. Statistics taken from London Metropolitan Archives (1900). 43. Davis and Emeljanow (2001, 173). 44. Shaw (1907, vol. 2, 336). 45. Donohue (2004, 17). 46. Aria (1922, 201). Aria (11 August 1866 to 3 September 1931) was a fashion journalist who reviewed West End costume for a number of periodicals during the 1890s and in the first decade of the twentieth century. 47. James Winston, quoted in Davis and Emeljanow (2001, 170). Davis and Emeljanow (171–173) and Pick (1983, 28–34) chart the way in which managements marketed their venues after the success of the Great Exhibition, which proved that a distinct identity within the entertainment industry and ease of access for a wide customer base resulted in profit. 48. Anon. (1889), The Times. 49. Crawfurd (1890). 50. Oswald Crawfurd (1834–1909). Crawfurd was the son of diplomat John Crawfurd and Horatia Perry, daughter of Morning Chronicle editor James

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Perry. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he moved from a clerkship at the Foreign Office to the position of Consul in Oporto (1867–1891). Crawfurd also edited the New Quarterly Magazine in 1873, Chapman’s Magazine of Fiction in 1895 and was an original director of Black and White at its inception in 1891. Through his friendship with Frederic Chapman he became director and then managing director of Chapman & Hall, Ltd. This article was clearly part of a concerted attempt by Crawfurd to involve himself in professional theatre. He also wrote two unperformed verse dramas: Two Masques in 1902 and The Sin of Prince Eladane in 1903, and was a member of the Athenæum and Garrick Clubs. 51. Crawfurd (1890, 503). 52. Ibid. 502. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 500. 55. The growing number of terms employed to describe new plays is the most obvious example of this process. A number of these are listed in William Archer’s ‘Epilogue Statistical’ in Archer (1898, 351–377). 56. Jones (1890, 12). 57. Anon. (1909a), Parts I Have Played, 5. 58. George Alexander quoted in Archer (1904, 207–208). 59. Calculated from details of Alexander’s repertoire in Wearing (1976, 1981, 1982) and Mason (1935, 235–242). 60. Anon. (1890), The Times. 61. Ibid. 62. Crawfurd (1890, 501). 63. The Idler, Lord Anerley, Forgiveness, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Liberty Hall, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The Masqueraders, Guy Domville, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Triumph of the Philistines. 64. The adaptations were Old Heidelberg (1903), Love’s Carnival (1904), The Man of the Moment (1905), The Thief (1907), The Turning Point (1913), The Attack (1914). 65. London Metropolitan Archives (1887–1909). 66. Also Nutcombe Gould, Ben Webster and Alfred Holles. Gould, like Terry, appeared in Sunlight and Shadow, The Idler, Lord Anerley, Forgiveness and Lady Windermere’s Fan; Ben Webster in Sunlight and Shadow, Molière (the one-act play accompanying The Idler), Lord Anerley and Lady Windermere’s Fan. Alfred Holles played minor roles in Sunlight and Shadow, The Idler, Molière, Lord Anerley and Lady Windermere’s Fan. 67. Pinero wrote the play for John Hare and Olga Nethersole, but it was rejected by the manager of the Garrick as unsuitable for his audience. Mason suggests that Hare found the play ‘daring’ (1935, 45); Peter Raby that the established manager found it ‘radical’ (2004, 186).

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68. Greenwood (2000, 10). 69. Anon (1909a), Parts I Have Played, 6. 70. Mason (1935, 215). In chapter 12, using business records that were made available to him, Mason provides examples of profit and loss for a selection of productions from Alexander’s first year in management, until the beginning of the First World War, which he considers changed conditions of production in the West End: ‘it may be of interest now to take a wider view and compare in slightly greater detail the continuous ­management possible for an actor in those days before the war with the in-and-out system which later conditions entail’ (210). 71. Letter from George Alexander to Pearl Craigie, January or February 1899, held at University of Rochester. Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation. Craigie Papers. 72. Three of the remaining eight plays by women were one-act curtain-­ raisers: A Repentance, also by Craigie (1899), The Plot of His Story by Mrs. Oscar Beringer (1901) and A Patched-Up Affair by Florence Warden (1902). The remaining five plays were The Wisdom of the Wise by Pearl Craigie (1901), The Attack (an adaptation) by Mrs Golding Bright (1912), Those Who Sit in Judgement by Alix Grein (1914), The Basker by Mrs Clifford Mills (1916) and Sheila by Githa Sowerby (1917). 73. Walter Frith’s The Man of Forty (1900); The Wilderness by H.V. Esmond (1901). 74. If I Were King by Justin Huntly McCarthy (1902) and Old Heidelberg by Rudolph Bleichmann (1903). 75. Anon. (1909a), Parts I Have Played, 6. 76. Initiated by Gerald du Maurier’s success in Raffles (1906). 77. For a complete list of sub-lessees, see Appendix. 78. Shaw’s correspondence in Laurence (1972, 142). 79. British Library Manuscripts Collection: George Bernard Shaw Papers. 80. In the following decade, Alexander requested a play from Shaw, but although the part of Higgins was written for him, he had to turn down Pygmalion because at that time he could not countenance another collaboration with Mrs. Patrick Campbell. 81. Interview with Alexander in the Pittsburgh Gazette, 16 December 1906 (New York Public Library. The Billy Rose Theatre Division: Anonymous scrapbooks containing clippings about George Alexander). 82. Pennybacker (1989, 146–147). 83. Alexander also positioned himself as a dominant and affluent member of the profession by commissioning Edward Lutyens to build him a second home in Chorleywood in 1907. 84. For recent work on the charity matinée during this era, see Hindson (2014). 85. Davis (2000, 7).

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86. Agate (1926, 30–32). Agate attempted a statistical analysis for the years 1900–1925 (of plays with a run of six months and over), and he considered eight performances a week to be standard throughout that period. 87. The other notable response was the abolition of half-price admission and the introduction of advanced booking during the 1860s and 1870s. 88. After Hollingshead introduced matinées at the Gaiety, regular Saturday matinées were introduced when Diplomacy was produced at the Prince of Wales’ in 1878. In 1877 Wyndham produced infrequent matinées during the 555 performance run of Pink Dominoes. However, these afternoon performances were poorly attended. 89. Booth (1991, 4). 90. These details of population growth are taken from Booth (1991, 3) and Rappaport (2000, 16–47). 91. Archer (1898, 356–357). 92. Ibid. 351–377. 93. Filon (1896, 33). 94. Veblen (1994 [1899]). 95. For the purposes of calculating royalties, six performances a week was the standard for contracts at this time, with arrangements sometimes, but not consistently, made for additional performances. Collections of contracts between managers and authors confirm this practice: for example, the contracts drawn up by Herbert Beerbohm Tree, held in the Herbert Beerbohm Tree Archive, Bristol Theatre Collection. 96. When Alexander entered management at the St. James’s, he charged Boxes £1 1s, Stalls 10s 6d, Dress Circle 7s and 5s, Upper Boxes 3s, Pit 2s, Gallery 1s. After renovations in 1900 prices were as follows: Boxes £4 4s, Stalls 10s 6d, Dress Circle 7s, Upper Boxes front row 5s, rest 4s, Pit 2s 6d, Gallery 1s. 97. Schulz (1999, 234). The theatre was built in 1896 and opened in April 1897, at a cost of £55,000. 98. Anon. (1900), Era. 99. Macqueen-Pope (1958, 156). Pope notes that this account was sent to him as private correspondence, and that Gladwell was himself a theatre manager. 100. Schulz (1999, 238). 101. A sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda, the production ran from 1 February to 28 March 1900. 102. The 51 performances of Rupert of Hentzau made £7701, while 11 matinées of The Prisoner of Zenda made £1727. 103. Alexander made an average of £151 for each performance of Rupert of Hentzau, and £157 for each matinée of The Prisoner of Zenda, and a total profit for the entire run of £1,808. When compared with a provincial tour

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of the two plays during August 1900, with a net profit of £473, the success of matinée performances rather than more traditional methods of capitalising upon West End popularity is indicated. Figures taken from Mason (1935, 145–150). 104. Anon. (1908), Era. 105. Anon. (1918), Daily Telegraph. 106. Held at Drury Lane on 2 May 1916, the Tercentenary matinée included a performance of Julius Caesar and the Shakespeare Pageant. Beerbohm Tree, absent in America, was Honorary President of the event, with Alexander as Honorary Chairman and Organiser. 107. Anon. (1958), The Times. 108. Jones (1996, 55). 109. Hindson (2016, 44). 110. This was also displayed through leisure activities. Alexander’s entry in Who’s Who in the Theatre (London: Pitman & Sons, 1916) lists riding, golfing, motoring, shooting and fencing under ‘Recreation’. 111. Waddington (1996, 187). 112. Vinson (1982, 79). 113. Ibid., 78. 114. Forty-two charity matinées took place at the St. James’s Theatre during Alexander’s management. 115. Anon. (1905c), Daily Telegraph. 116. Anon. (1905a), Daily Mail. 117. Anon. (1905e), Morning Post. 118. Octave Mirabeau (16 February 1848 to 16 February 1917) had nine plays produced in Paris between 1894 and 1908, including Scrupules at the Théâtre du Grand Guignol on 2 June 1902. 119. Anon. (1905c), Daily Telegraph. 120. The play was also performed on 18 May in a matinée at the Haymarket, on 15 June at Her Majesty’s and on 26 June at the St. James’s Theatre once more. The cast remained the same throughout: Burgled—Eric Lewis (who was also playing Mollentrave in Mollentrave on Women at this point), Valet—E.  Vivian Reynolds, Police Sergeant—Robert Horton, Policeman—Stanley Gordon, Burglar—George Alexander. 121. Anon. (1905f), The Times. 122. Anon. (1905b), Daily News. 123. Orwell (1984, 26). 124. Pearson (1950, 32). 125. Anon. (1905d), ‘Dramatic and Musical Notes’. 126. Anon. (1905f), The Times. 127. Hornung and Presbury (1906, Act 1, 21). 128. Hecht (1905, 8).

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129. Anon. (1908). 130. Hollingshead (1895, vol. 2, 19). 131. Morgan (2000, x). 132. The initial production was Gerhart Hauptmann’s Hannele, translated by William Archer and first produced by the Play-Actors’ Society in April 1909. 133. George Bernard Shaw quoted in Bingham (1978, 185). 134. Anon. (1909b), The Times, 17 March. 135. Anon. (1909c), The Times, 23 June. 136. Davis (2000, 334).

References Agate, James. 1926. A Short View of the English Stage. London: Herbert Jenkins. Alexander, George. 1945. Log Book from the 1884 Lyceum Tour. From the Library of Frank Eugene Chase, Houghton Library, Harvard Theatre Collection, TS 10094.1. Anon. 1881. The Times, 27 December. ———.1884. The Times, 24 September. ———.1889. The Times, 10 January. ———.1890. The Times, 3 February. ———.1896. My First Appearance. Ludgate, June: 205–207. ———.1900. Era, 13 January. ———.1905a. Daily Mail, 24 March. ———. 1905b. Daily News, 24 March. ———.1905c. Daily Telegraph, 24 March. ———.1905d. Dramatic and Musical Notes. Modern Society, 1 April. ———. 1905e. Morning Post, 24 March. ———. 1905f. The Times, 24 March. ———.1908. Era, 28 November. ———. 1909a. Parts I have Played: A Photographic and Descriptive Biography of Mr. George Alexander. London: The Abbey Press. ———.1909b. The Times,17 March. ———.1909c.The Times, 23 June. ———.1918. Daily Telegraph, 19 March. ———.1958. The Times, 19 July. Archer, William. 1898. The Theatrical World of 1897. London: Walter Scott. ———. 1904. Real Conversations. London: William Heinemann. Aria, Eliza. 1922. My Sentimental Self. London: Chapman & Hall. Bancroft, Squire, and MarieBancroft. 1888. Mr and Mrs Bancroft On and Off the Stage, 2 Vols. London: Richard Bentley.

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Bingham, Madeleine. 1978. ‘The Great Lover’: The Life and Art of Herbert Beerbohm Tree. London: Hamish Hamilton. Booth, Michael. 1991. Theatre in the Victorian Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Borsa, Mario. 1908. The English Stage of To-Day. Trans. Selwyn Brinton. London: John Lane. British Library Manuscripts Collection. George Bernard Shaw Papers, Add Mss 50528 f. 15. Cain, P.J., and A.G. Hopkins. 1987. Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas II: New Imperialism, 1850–1945. Economic History Review 40: 1–26. ———. 1999. Afterword: The Theory and Practice of Gentlemanly Capitalism. In Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The New Debate on Empire, ed. Raymond Dumett, 201–212. London: Longman. Crawfurd, Oswald. 1890. The London Stage. Fortnightly Review 53: 499–516. Davis, Tracy C. 2000. The Economics of the British Stage, 1800–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, Jim, and Victor Emeljanow. 2001. Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840–1880. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. Dolan, Winifred. 2010. In A Chronicle of Small Beer, ed. Andy Moreton. London: The Society for Theatre Research. Donohue, Joseph. 2004. Actors and Acting. In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, ed. Kerry Powell, 17–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Filon, Auguste. 1896. The English Stage. London and New York: John Milne. Greenwood, Christopher. 2000. Adapting to the Stage: Theatre and the Work of Henry James. Abingdon: Routledge. Hecht, Max. 1905. A Scrupulous Man. British Library Manuscripts Collection: Lord Chamberlain’s Plays, LC1905/14. Hindson, Catherine. 2014. ‘Gratuitous Assistance’? The West End Theatre Industry, Late Victorian Charity and Patterns of Theatrical Fundraising. New Theatre Quarterly 30 (1): 17–28. ———. 2016. London’s West End Actresses and the Origins of Celebrity Charity, 1880–1920. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Hollingshead, John. 1895. My Lifetime. 2 vols. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Hornung, E.W., and Eugene Presbury. 1906. Raffles The Amateur Cracksman: A Play in Four Acts. London: Samuel French Ltd. Howard, Diana. 1970. London Theatres and Music Halls: 1850–1950. London: The Library Association. Hughes, Alan. 1981. Henry Irving, Shakespearean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Irving, Laurence. 1951. Sir Henry Irving: The Actor and His World. London: Faber and Faber.

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Jones, Henry Arthur. 1890. The Actor Manager. Fortnightly Review 54: 1–16. Jones, Colin. 1996. Some Recent Trends in the History of Charity. In Charity, Self-interest and Welfare in the English Past, ed. Martin Daunton, 51–63. London: UCL Press. Kaplan, Joel H., and Sheila Stowell. 1994. Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laurence, Dan H., ed. 1972. Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters 1898–1910. London: Max Reinhardt. London Metropolitan Archives. 1887–1909. London County Council Committee Papers, St. James’s Theatre, LCC/MIN/10901. ———.1900. London County Council, Theatres and Music Hall Committee, LCC/PT/ENT/2, 30 January. Macqueen-Pope, W. 1958. St. James’s: Theatre of Distinction. London: W.H. Allen. Mason, A.E.W. 1935. Sir George Alexander and the St. James’s Theatre. London: Macmillan. Morgan, Margery. 2000. Introduction. In Major Barbara, ed. George Bernard Shaw, x. London: Penguin. New York Public Library. The Billy Rose Theatre Division: Anonymous Scrapbooks Containing Clippings about George Alexander. T: Mss. MWEZ. Orwell, George. 1984. Raffles and Miss Blandish. In The Complete Short Stories of Raffles, ed. E.W. Hornung, 25–38. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Pearson, Hesketh. 1950. The Last Actor-Managers. London: Methuen. Pennybacker, Susan. 1989. The Millennium by Return of Post’: Reconsidering London Progressivism, 1889–1907. In Metropolis London: Histories and Representations Since 1800, ed. David Feldman and Gareth Stedman Jones, 129–162. London: Routledge. Pick, John. 1983. The West End: Mismanagement and Snobbery. Eastbourne: John Offord. Raby, Peter. 2004. Theatre of the 1890s. In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, ed. Kerry Powell, 183–206. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rappaport, Erika. 2000. Shopping For Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Richards, Jeffrey, ed. 1994. Sir Henry Irving: Essays, Addresses and Lectures. Keele: Keele University Press. ———. 2006. Sir Henry Irving: A Victorian Actor and His World. London: Bloomsbury. Schulz, David. 1999. The Architecture of Conspicuous Consumption: Property, Class and Display at Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s Her Majesty’s Theatre. Theatre Journal 51: 231–250. Shaw, George Bernard. 1907. Dramatic Opinions and Essays. 2 vols. New York: Brentano’s.

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Stoker, Bram. 1906.  Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving. 2 vols. London: Macmillan. Trueman, Matt. 2015. Investing in Theatre: On the Wings of Angels. Financial Times, November 20. University of Rochester. Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation. Craigie Papers. D12. Veblen, Thorstein. 1994 [1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. New York: Dover. Vinson, Adrian. 1982. The Edwardians and Poverty: Towards a Minimum Wage? In Edwardian England, ed. Donald Reed, 75–92. London: Croom Helm. Waddington, Keir. 1996. ‘Grasping Gratitude’: Charity and Hospital Finance in Late-Victorian London. In Charity, Self-interest and Welfare in the English Past, ed. Martin Daunton, 181–202. London: UCL Press. Wearing, J.P. 1976. The London Stage 1890–1899: A Calendar of Plays and Players 1890–1899. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. ———. 1981. The London Stage 1900–1909: A Calendar of Plays and Players 1900–1909. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. ———. 1982. The London Stage 1910–1919: A Calendar of Plays and Players 1910–1919. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

CHAPTER 3

The Actor-Manager System: Autonomy and Collaboration

Managerial Control and Professional Regulation Having established the nature of the St. James’s repertoire, this chapter will examine how Alexander operated as an administrator and responded to demands imposed by the wider profession, through working with staff and performers at the venue. The development of companies linked to individual West End theatres, with managements aiming to stage long-­ running productions rather than revivals, as exemplified by Alexander, should be seen as part of a process of ‘specialisation’ and regulation in the late-Victorian city. As George Taylor explains, [m]any aspects of society at this time were marked by specialisation. Across London, as it continued its sprawling growth, different localities took on a particular class complexion; in trade, retailers and manufacturers developed sophisticated specialities; in the professions restrictive associations were introduced with formal qualifications; and in the theatre different companies developed special house-styles and repertoires, while variety acts were banished to the music-halls.1

Specialisation resulted in urban locations that were associated with distinct aspects of the leisure industry, providing a particular form of entertainment that a varied urban audience could choose to attend. West End actor-managers operated within prescribed areas and formulated the unique identity of each theatre through the construction of a specific © The Author(s) 2020 L. Sutherland, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7_3

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repertoire performed by a distinctive company of actors, and after establishing the status afforded to the acting profession and working actors and actresses by the end of the nineteenth century, this chapter examines how Alexander constructed and maintained a company that would complement the exclusive appeal of his venue and the productions he staged. While characteristics of a theatre and its management could signify professionalism, formal ‘qualifications’ and ‘associations’ were still absent for theatre workers by the final decade of the nineteenth century. At this time, the composition of a West End company was influenced primarily by informal networks of access and belonging as actor-managers displayed forms of gentlemanly capitalism and attempted to combine ‘a market philosophy’ with ‘assumed primacy of relations […] based upon personal loyalties’.2 Published theatrical memoirs by actors and actresses who worked in the St. James’s company reveal that performers used the word ‘professional’ to communicate their status,3 and yet it seems impossible to define acting during this period as a profession—that is, a job with specific training and qualification, or administration by a centralised governing body.4 Acting was a career without professional regulation or union representation, and individual managements could alter wages and working hours per production. Increasing ‘specialisation’ within the entertainment industry did result in the foundation of professional governing bodies that would define actors employed in legitimate theatre as a distinctive group,5 but industry leaders administered these organisations. Therefore, a managerial elite controlled the financial aid available to actors, and regulated working conditions for theatrical employees, before union representation was implemented in 1918.6 Certainly recruitment and administration of the St. James’s company were determined by Alexander, and a complex of personal and professional affiliations guided the hiring of performers. Writing in 1912, Cecil Ferard Armstrong recognises the subservient position held by most actors during the period of Alexander’s management, and the associated anxiety about how that position could be addressed: Everybody who is on the stage knows that as a profession it is in sad need of reformation, and attempts have been made from time to time to form various unions, protective societies, etc., on the lines of trade unions, a comparison which the average actor detests. For some reason or other he hates to hear the profession he so dearly loves dubbed as a trade. At least, that is what he says. The truth of the matter is, probably, that the individual whom he

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loves more dearly still becomes a tradesman; probably one of the very things he has gone on the stage to avoid! […] The long and short of it is that if the actor wishes to see his profession raised to a higher level, he must be prepared to pay the price.7

A significant number of those entering the profession at this time aimed to enhance personal prestige by working for, or attaining the position of, actor-manager, and increased regulation would have diminished the privilege experienced by these men. Leading actors and managers of legitimate London theatres worked within an exclusive professional sphere, and union representation was rejected until the second decade of the twentieth century in favour of charitable bodies administered by theatre managers, the earliest example being the Royal General Theatrical Fund. Established in 1839 and incorporated by royal charter in 1853, the Fund granted pensions to performers and was presided over by a board of industry leaders. This charity provides evidence of actors beginning to acknowledge a need for the structure and control of working practices, a process that was extended in the final decade of the nineteenth century with the emergence of the Actors’ Association. Founded in Manchester on 1 February 1891, the Association aimed to improve working conditions and to make employment agreements between actors and managers more equitable. The main aim of the Association was an improvement in the economic status of the actor, and the initial objectives included payment for rehearsals and daytime performances. Ten articles of aims regarding salaries and conditions were drawn up by founders Robert Courtneidge and Frank Benson. These aims were not achieved until the Association became a union in 1918, but the demand for change from within the profession indicates growing attention to the employment conditions experienced by actors. After the Variety Artists’ Federation, with the assistance of the General Federation of Trade Unions, managed to secure a standard contract for choristers containing payment for a designated run—including rehearsals and every performance—the National Organiser of the Federation and Actors’ Association chairman Sydney Valentine successfully petitioned for the Actors’ Association to become a trade union. ‘So at last, and suddenly, the A.A. took the only step that could free it from its pathetic ineffectuality. That step itself was enough to trouble the managers. For now in any dispute stage staff and musicians and company would all be in touch with each other and with their like all over the country’, as

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Joseph MacLeod notes in his history of professional representation for the acting profession.8 However, as with the Royal General Theatrical Fund, London managers accepted senior positions within the Actors’ Association (Henry Irving became the first President on 5 March 1891). Their presence undermined efforts to regulate pay and environment, and although the status of these individuals endorsed the Association, desire to avoid any regulation of singular managerial enterprise limited its influence upon employment conditions. Incorporated by royal charter in 1891 and run by a council, the Association aimed to act as a disciplinary body for actors and managers. It was later reconstituted as a trade union and eventually replaced by Actors’ Equity in 1929. Yet before unionisation in 1918, the Association was administered by managers. Benson, a touring manager and the first elected chairman, immediately endeavoured to promote the Association to Irving and his response suggests the opposition of London actor-managers to formal regulation: Irving had denounced the new association as ‘revolutionary’, ‘a trade union’, ‘subversive of managerial authority’ and ‘destructive to our best traditions of comradeship and understanding’.9

Such a reaction reflects the determination at this time to maintain absolute authority. Until the Actors’ Association became a trade union, regulation within the profession was still subordinated to the aims of individual managements. London managers most particularly remained cautious regarding any external administrative body, and they continued to focus on public pronouncements upon theatre as art rather than a profession requiring external regulation of employment. A move to evict actor-managers from the Actor’s Association in 1907 was an acknowledgement of how unsatisfactory the position of these managers had become. Clarence Derwent notes: A party had arisen, headed by Granville Barker, which, without perhaps intending it, was introducing a policy of trade unionism. Their main contention was that being an Actors’ Association, it should not contain employers of labour in the form of actor-managers.10

However, the new council experienced difficulties in voicing the Association’s concerns to employers—managers who had been forced to

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resign, and also an increasing number of production syndicates—and actor-managers were invited back to the Association and its council in 1910.11 In the wake of syndicated production companies, as their dominance of commercial theatre diminished, actor-managers accepted this opportunity to maintain a level of control within the profession, and the Association returned to its role as ‘a self-chosen legislative assembly, electing from its own ranks a benevolent oligarchy for the better government of the histrionic realm’.12 Herbert Beerbohm Tree immediately accepted the presidency, and in the same year became President of the Theatrical Managers’ Association and Vice-President of the Society of West End Managers, organisations which defended the continued authority of actor-­ managers within the West End. Most significantly, the very existence of the Actors’ Association does suggest that there was a demand for a governing body that would attend to workers’ rights. Derwent, himself a member, details the origins of the Association and the process of transformation it underwent: The Actors’ Association, as its name implies, is a protective society which exists primarily for the purpose of regularising and, wherever possible, ameliorating the conditions under which actors and actresses carry out their work […] it supplies a real need to the profession.13

The definition of acting as a ‘profession’ by Derwent, and his understated insistence that the Association aimed to regulate working conditions, is evidence that by the second decade of the twentieth century, an appeal for a universal bureaucratic structure was challenging the personal control of individual actor-managers. The stage could not claim the same professional status as the law, medicine or the church, yet there was an increasing call for self-regulation that would at least associate those working in the theatre with those employed in the ‘liberal’ professions.14 Although actor-managers welcomed the personal prestige attendant upon the definition of theatre as profession, they continued to display anxiety at the prospect of any professional organisation that might diminish personal authority. In 1912 Arthur Bourchier, one manager who was expelled and then invited back to the council of the Actors’ Association, wrote a cautious introduction to Cecil Ferard Armstrong’s guide, The Actor’s Companion. In this piece he supported a book of instruction for new and aspiring actors, but was clearly concerned at Armstrong’s emphasis on theatre as business rather than craft:

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I am not, by any means, endorsing all the statements and opinions that may appear therein; but I am most heartily in agreement with the author’s main contention, that there are many things, things which are within everybody’s reach, however much or little of the actual talent for acting they may possess, which should be acquired by those anxious to adopt the stage as a profession.15

Happy to support the establishment of drama schools in his introduction—specifically the Academy of Dramatic Art—he is less enthusiastic regarding increased bureaucracy to protect the actor from the individual employment practices of actor-managers. The willingness of Bourchier to endorse training, but his general anxiety regarding any regulation that could restrict the autonomy of theatre managers, reflects a need felt by such managers to maintain their authority in a rapidly expanding field. Bourchier’s introduction places emphasis on the value of a book that will assist the actor in evaluating his/her level of skill and ability, but it avoids any reference to Armstrong’s criticism of acting as a profession ‘in sad need of reformation’.16 This is indicative of some anxiety on the part of actor-managers regarding proposed scrutiny of their managerial policies. Certainly, despite theatre managers being present on the council, the Actors’ Association criticised the unchecked authority of a theatrical élite. The move towards unionisation initiated by the expulsion of actor-managers from the Association in 1907 represented a desire, from within the increasing body of low-earning, frequently unemployed actors, for employment rights and regulation within the profession. Census returns for the period 1841–1911 show that the number of actors working in Britain rose rapidly and consistently, and a form of official representation for employees was increasingly necessary17; a union was eventually established, and it proceeded to regulate employment practices. Charles Carson, editor of the Stage, wrote in July 1893 that ‘what is wanted is not an Association in the professions, but the profession in an Association’, and in 1918 this need was directly acknowledged.18 Yet from the foundation of the Royal General Theatrical Fund to this point, the authority of London managers continued to dominate, and the need to support performers by means of fund-raising and charitable organisations detracted from perceptions of the stage as an established profession. Also, the especially privileged position of those employed in the West End was pronounced. Contracts for a single run replaced seasonal

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engagements, providing regulation and order for successful urban performers, but little support for the unemployed or those in smaller, touring companies. By the final decade of the nineteenth century, the dissolution of the stock system and the preference of West End managements for the long run imposed limits on the amount of work available to an increasing number of performers. The long-running production in particular affected the number of actors required for legitimate drama, and also from where managers recruited those actors.

Training and Recruitment: Moving from Amateur to Professional Work By the final decades of the nineteenth century, within the West End, actors who employed styles of performance developed to suit a broad and frequently changing repertoire—staples of the stock system—were increasingly replaced by leading actors familiar with the environments recreated on stage, who, like Alexander, gained initial experience in amateur theatricals. The appearance of periodicals devoted to amateur theatre as early as 1867 confirms the popularity and prevalence of this leisure activity, and its role as a viable foundation for entrants to the profession, notably middleclass entrants.19 As Mary Jean Corbett writes, [a]s members of an occupation actively attempting to professionalize itself, actors and actresses needed to obtain the sanction of the middle-class public; in order to achieve professional legitimacy in the economic realm, they had to win over consumers to what they had to sell. The professionalizers of the theatre ultimately accomplished their goal by segregating audiences and players according to class differentials, by redefining acting as a specialized art form, and, most importantly, by representing the stage as a viable career for the middle-classes.20

In her analysis of autobiographies written by actresses working in the Victorian theatre, Corbett summarises how industry leaders, eager to establish acting as a recognised profession, employed performers who would reproduce, rather than imitate, the ‘middle-class public’. The intention was to make new texts attractive to audiences who could witness displays of personal expression in the public realm, in William Worthen’s words a ‘behavioural rhetoric’ that was controlled by the stage management of the actor-manager.21

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Actors drawn from the amateur movement employed a range of performance techniques particularly suited to new dramatic texts, with the actor’s social and professional status directly complementary to the contemporary roles they interpreted. George Taylor describes prominent styles that emerged from the amateur movement: The late nineteenth century saw the traditional art of acting wither in the hands of ‘amateurs’ like Beerbohm Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell. Their inventive originality and ‘animal magnetism’ certainly made technique seem dull, but they could teach their fellow actors little. Combine the personality playing of these glorious amateurs with the undemonstrative elegance of the casual amateurs—such as Charles Wyndham, Gerald du Maurier and Lily Langtry—and the experimental approaches of the earnest amateurs—Craig, Shaw, Poel and Barker—and it is easy to see how the old Victorian professional technique of ‘performing the passions’ not only became unfashionable in the Edwardian theatre, but was to be ridiculed as the mark of a clichéd, dead and absurd theatricality.22

Charles Wyndham and Gerald du Maurier are cited here as examples of the ‘casual’ actor who moved from amateur to professional theatre, but Alexander also fits into this category. The limitations this imposed upon repertoire is emphasised by William Archer, who in Masks or Faces? acknowledges that the actor who does not engage with rigorous training is really only importing behaviour to the stage as we ‘are all actors in rudiment, the tendency to such imitation being part of the mechanism of animated nature. That is why the stage is besieged by incompetent aspirants, the general tendency being easily mistaken for special aptitude.’23 Anxiety over this charge of ‘imitation’ is evident in theories of acting published by one middle-class entrant to the profession who was a frequent member of the St. James’s company, actress Irene Vanbrugh, who in her biography To Tell My Story undermines ‘imitation’ and attempts to distance her work from the concept. Speaking of her habit of imitating the expressions of adults as a child, she insists that this habit ‘sowed a seed […] which in later years made me dislike so much any kind of imitation in acting.’24 Although Vanbrugh is eager to emphasise the absence of this characteristic from her technique, by the end of the nineteenth century an actress’s off-stage persona had become integral to her work, allowing the audience, in Richard Sennett’s words, to ‘invest the public performer with a personality’, their art perceived to be an extension of themselves.25 There

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was a discernible process at work, by which West End performers constructed an impression of their off-stage character in order to maintain a successful career. One example of this was use of the Sketch’s regular ‘At Home’ feature in the 1890s, where prominent actors and actresses were photographed in their homes and described in their domestic lives, or at least in the impression of their domestic lives they wished to convey to a readership and potential audience. Leading players employed for new productions would advertise a middle-class lifestyle in keeping with an audience’s expectations, and as profit derived from the stalls and dress circle seats, a West End manager would recruit actors and produce a repertoire to attract affluent consumers. Actors were treated as a valuable resource by managers, as employees who were expected to consolidate the reputation of a venue and its repertoire. Alert to the fact that his professional career began ‘in the cradle of Robertsonian comedy’,26 Alexander recruited actors and actresses representative of the characters and environments present in the new English drama he staged. Bram Stoker, a highly experienced theatre business manager (most notably for Irving at the Lyceum), wrote in the Nineteenth Century that ‘the actor-manager attains and maintains his position by appropriating the ostensibly inalienable capital of his fellow actors (not to mention stagehands, dressers, and ticket-sellers) as part of his “stock-in-­ trade”’.27 Stoker’s words assert that the successful performer-impresario not only recognised his/her entire company as valuable capital, but also habitually defined them as a resource, using terminology more usually employed in commerce. In the case of the ‘casual’ actor, this capital resided to a significant extent in the particular habitus they imported from lived experience onto the stage, often via a start in amateur theatre. Alexander’s ability to engage middle-class spectators increased as company and repertoire came to reflect his middle-class audience members. The appeal of company members could, as noted earlier, then be advertised through interviews conducted with these West End performers in popular periodicals. The familiarity of an audience with a performer on the West End stage, through attendance by spectators at a particular venue in which an actor or actress would appear, and complimentary publicity in the periodical press, helped to sustain a management. Actors from middle-­ class backgrounds were a calculated investment by managers, who as Jim Davis and Victor Emeljanow have recognised found it ‘more cost-effective to adapt the program to meet the habits of those who would be likely to take a box or stalls seat, than to take a gallery audience into

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consideration’.28 While imposing restrictions upon repertoire, the free trade in legitimate drama made possible by the Theatre Regulation Act (1843) resulted in increased employment opportunities for middle-class entrants to the profession in West End theatre. Entry for these performers was in no way systematic, although training for aspirants with some experience in amateur theatre was provided by regional and touring managements renowned for recruiting middle-class performers. For example, in 1901, Benson founded a drama school that travelled with his company, and was comprised of both fee-paying students and actors already appearing for him whom he considered needed more training. Benson’s belief that formal training was necessary informed the nature of the instruction he provided: Acquirement of stage-technique has always been a difficult and complex task: the more so because of its seeming simplicity. From Irving right through the list, I gathered that the best school—that is, the stock company, and a season of repertoire alongside trained artists—had well-nigh ceased to exist. Miss Sarah Thorne’s repertory theatre, open all year round at Margate, for modern, classic and romantic drama, and pantomime, was still turning out most promising recruits for the stage, but as far as good advice from the profession went I received little, if any, help, beyond the advice to join a stock company, qualified by the assertion that there were none.29

Organised classes differed from the instruction he gave the company during rehearsals, and Benson provided guidance for entrants to the acting profession in the period when a decline of the stock company and the absence of drama schools resulted in the provision of little formal tuition. It is significant that a professional relationship was established between Benson and Alexander in 1882, when Alexander left the Lyceum to join Hare and Kendal at the St. James’s Theatre, and Benson was recruited to replace him as Paris in Romeo and Juliet. The actors worked together at the Lyceum for a short time prior to Alexander’s departure, and this became a significant professional alliance according to the ‘Dedication’ in Benson’s biography which communicated ‘grateful thoughts of Ellen Terry and George Alexander—who were in a sense my godparents when I started at the Lyceum’.30 The sustained relationship between Benson and Alexander is proven by the number of actors recruited by Alexander from the touring company,31 suggesting that Benson was providing a recognised route into the profession in the absence of formal drama schools.

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The other training programme supplying a significant number of actors to West End managements was Sarah Thorne’s at the Theatre Royal, Margate, founded in 1885. Evelyn Millard and Irene Vanbrugh, two of the three leading actresses to appear most frequently opposite Alexander at the St. James’s, made their first appearances on the professional stage under Thorne’s tutelage.32 Performers from middle-class backgrounds with some previous experience in amateur theatre enrolled in the Margate programme, and Sarah Thorne’s training provided necessary experience of performing in a wide repertoire. Asked in the Sketch about this experience, Evelyn Millard equated her time at Margate with experience under the ‘stock’ system: I consider it the actress’s best method of training, and I think it a pity that, in a modified form, the old ‘stock’ days cannot be revived. It is almost impossible for the beginner to get a thorough insight into the art without it, and it has the immense advantage that it enables one to discover the ‘line’ for which one is best suited.33

Millard was recruited from a training programme dedicated to preparing for the professional stage amateurs who needed to develop skills previously attained by performing in a stock company. Six of Alexander’s leading actors and actresses trained at Margate,34 and four of these had begun their professional careers by proceeding directly from Thorne’s company to work with a West End management. As national tours of commercially successful London productions replaced the regional stock system, diminishing opportunities for training in the regions encouraged managers to recruit from individual projects like Thorne’s and Benson’s, or directly from amateur clubs. No formal training was available in London, although actors including Hermann Vezin, Henry Neville and Geneviève Ward offered courses of instruction in the capital during the final decade of the nineteenth century.35 The Academy of Dramatic Art was founded by Tree in 1904, but initially prioritised skills including dancing, fencing and voice production, still deeming the quality of ‘acting’ to be an inherent talent that could not be taught or developed formally. Alexander required that his company should have a degree of experience in stage technique and character development, but did not believe the actor-manager had a direct role in this process. As well as recruiting

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from the schools established by Thorne and Benson, he encouraged actors to train at Tree’s Academy: The stock company is a thing of the past, but if the young men who intend to go on the stage will enter the school, they will learn more there in six months than they can hope to learn in any theatre, in these days of long runs, in a year.36

This endorsement of the newly established London school reveals Alexander’s desire to recruit actors and actresses (although he focuses upon actors here) with some training or substantial experience. However, at the St. James’s, the responsibility lay with the actor to develop their character while complying with the direction given by the actor-manager and a stage manager in rehearsal.

Working in the St. James’s Company: The Stage Manager Alexander began in amateur theatre and paid for additional training from Vezin in 1882; he was not concerned with alternative training for members of his own company, or with providing detailed guidance for individual actors and actresses at the St. James’s, focusing instead upon the choreography of his cast in relation to the scenery that was being constructed during rehearsal periods. Members of the company were required to take responsibility for training and to develop precise details of character and action for each production with the support and guidance of a stage manager. As Michael Booth has described, by the 1890s one individual had become responsible for directing a West End production, as ‘actor-­ managers like Irving, Tree, and Alexander assumed complete responsibility for the artistic unity of all aspects of production’,37 and this ‘artistic unity’ was achieved by a manager’s control of staging rather than attention to the nuances of performance. Alexander directed the movement of performers on stage in brief and well-regulated rehearsals for three hours per day over a period of no more than two weeks before the production opened: The rehearsals began at 11. The old-fashioned ten minutes’ grace was not conceded at the St James’s; they began punctually at 11 and ended at 2, for it was Alexander’s belief that after three hours of attentive rehearsal you had

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got all the good you were going to get out of your company for that session.38

This system provided little time for intricate character work between the manager and company members, resulting in a preference for actors with some previous experience, and also the presence of a stage manager for some additional work. The actor-manager’s overall control remained, but delegation was a usual feature of rehearsals in late-Victorian and Edwardian theatre, and as Taylor notes, ‘the essential ordering of the moves was made by the stage-­ manager’.39 When Alexander began his managerial career, the term ‘stage management’ was understood to describe the organisation of actors and properties for a production, and the actor, manager or playwright primarily responsible for rehearsals was often assigned the title ‘stage manager’. The distinct roles of producer, director and stage manager were not clearly established at this time, and stage managers would assist an actor-manager or theatre manager in directing a production, as well as frequently acting minor roles in that production. Confusion in terminology continued until the concept of the director became prominent, and the emergence of the term producer further complicated roles by the first decade of the twentieth century. Tree credited himself as ‘Producer’ in programmes from 1901, Alexander from 1915, reiterating their control. In The Producer and the Play, Norman Marshall suggests that only in the late 1950s was there an attempt formally to distinguish the producer from the director. The Society of West End Managers then requested that programmes listed the Producer, defined as ‘the actual responsible management which provides the money and exercises complete control’ and the individual ‘physically responsible for the correct and appropriate interpretation of the playwright’s intentions. It can then be stated that “The production is directed by Mr.—”’.40 Earlier, in the nineteenth century, Tom Robertson had supplemented the stage directions included in his scripts by guidance given to actors which he called ‘stage management’. He emphasised the importance of the stage manager in preparing a new production: The Stage Manager is the man who should direct everything behind the scenes. He should be at one and the same time a poet, an antiquarian, and a costumier; and possess sufficient authority, from ability as well as office, to advise with a tragedian as to a disputed reading, to argue with an armourer

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as to the shape of a shield, or to direct a wardrobe-keeper as to the cut of a mantle. He should […] be capable of handling crowds and moving masses as a major-general. He should possess universal sympathies, should feel with the sublime, and have a quick perception of the ludicrous. Though unable to act himself, he should be able to teach others, and be the finger-post, guide, philosopher and friend of every soul in the theatre. […] Above all, he should be endowed with a perfect command of his own temper, and the power of conciliating the temper of others. The art of stage-management consists chiefly in a trick of manner that reconciles the collision of opposing personal vanities.41

This definition of stage management as the direction of a piece is upheld in Edward Gordon Craig’s radical work On The Art of the Theatre in 1905, so the continued importance of this figure, while the concept of the director remained absent from the English theatre, is clear.42 Although actors were provided with complete scripts by the 1890s, and the practice of play publication allowed every member of the company to read an entire script and some stage directions, the stage manager worked in conjunction with the actor-manager during rehearsals to co-ordinate performances. Madge Kendal’s description of a play in production, written in 1890, reiterates that ‘stage management’ remained an ambiguous term: A writer brings a play into a theatre, and, as it were, leaves his child in that unknown region. It is in the manager’s discretion to cast that play as he thinks best, and for the stage director to bring out all the author’s points. It is, to a very great extent, to the stage management that the success of the play is due. Then comes the exposition by the actors.43

In a talk to the Leeds Amateur Dramatic Society in 1895, reported in the Era, Alexander uses the term ‘stage manager’ to apply to the individual who assists actors in rehearsal: One of the first pieces of advice he would give to any amateur dramatic club was that the best available professional coach should be called in as stage manager. From the old theatrical hand more can be learnt in a couple of hours than would come in weeks spent in the difficult task of finding things out for one’s self. In the course of time the pupil might outstrip his master, but he would ever be thankful for a good grounding in the rudiments of his education.44

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Alexander’s concept of a stage manager was of a man who could direct rehearsals and individual actors, an experienced ‘old theatrical hand’ who would assist less experienced actors in details of stage business and characterisation. The stage manager was also, therefore, required to be a highly experienced actor, and Alexander’s stage manager was indeed a permanent member of the theatre staff who assisted the manager in preparation of a play and supervision of the company, and was frequently also an actor in that company. By the 1930s, instances of the stage manager acting in productions were rare beyond touring theatre. Peter Bax, author of the first comprehensive guide to stage management as a career, outlined the responsibilities of a stage manager by the middle of the twentieth century, when union representation for every part of the theatrical profession had resulted in a more precise job description:45 The company of actors and others appearing on the stage, together with the technical staff, acknowledge the stage manager as their chief. They turn to him for everything but their actual salary, which is nearly always paid direct by the manager. During the production the voice of the producer is naturally paramount, but it is the stage manager who sees that the voice is heard and understood.46

However, Alexander’s permanent stage manager performed these duties as well as playing character roles in productions at the St. James’s Theatre and on tour.47 An integral member of the company, the work of a West End stage manager is also suggestive of how actor-managers relied upon permanent staff members but did not consistently distinguish the integral role of these individuals, thereby maintaining the impression of absolute authority. The stage manager at the St. James’s was the most consistent member of the company after Alexander, an actor who received a permanent position at the theatre and a stable income. H.H.  Vincent and E.  Vivian Reynolds both held the position at the St. James’s, and Vincent, Alexander’s stage manager until 1900, was the ‘old theatrical hand’ described in the Leeds talk.48 In an obituary from the Era, he is described as a ‘recognised London actor’, proving established status within the profession.49 Full-­ column obituaries for both Vincent and Reynolds were published in trade publications the Era and the Stage, but not in the daily press, reflecting their careers as professional, supporting actors, who achieved consistent

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employment by also working as stage managers. After first retiring in 1886, Vincent returned to the London stage in 1887, becoming ‘stage and confidential manager’50 to Alexander at the Avenue Theatre in 1890, a position that guaranteed a sustained income and ongoing employment.51 Alexander’s stage manager worked in conjunction with the actor-­ manager, rather than being affiliated within the theatre with technical staff. In September 1905, Arthur Collins employed Alexander at Drury Lane to play the leading role in Hall Caine’s drama The Prodigal Son. A planned regional tour by the St. James’s company was replaced by a Drury Lane company, and both Alexander and Reynolds, his stage manager at this time, were employed by Collins for three months;52 Reynolds was the only member of the St. James’s company to appear at Drury Lane with Alexander. In the final four years of Alexander’s management, Reynolds continued to play supporting roles, once playing the lead, when Alexander had to retire from a run due to illness for the production of Rudolf Besier’s Kings and Queens that ran from 16 January 1915 until 27 March 1915. Alexander was suffering from diabetes by this point, and it is likely that Reynolds, rather than a more prestigious actor, was chosen due to the limited success of the piece. No reviews of Reynolds’s performance have been found. The Era and the Stage habitually returned to review productions on their hundredth performance, but this play ran for eighty. The Stage refers to Reynolds during this period as a ‘versatile stage manager’ and ‘Sir George’s indefatigable and ever-ready stage manager’,53 indicating that in the final years of Alexander’s career, his continued and increasing reliance upon this employee was becoming explicit. The performances of Vincent and Reynolds were most often mentioned only briefly by reviewers as they played ‘character’ roles—reliant upon costume, make-up and stock behaviour. Unlike the middle-class actors and actresses who came to characterise the St. James’s company, these older professionals had come through the stock acting tradition. The prominence and type of role Alexander expected his stage manager to play is exemplified by the fact that Vincent, and later Reynolds, played Chasuble in Alexander’s productions of The Importance of Being Earnest. Creating the role in 1895, Vincent was ‘unimpeachable as the smooth and dignified rector’, and the same paper produces a review noting ‘an unctuous bit of character on the part of Mr. E. Vivian Reynolds’ in the same role fourteen years later.54 Both actors played professional men and comic cameos and it is likely that Alexander relied upon their consistent interpretation of

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character parts. In 1913, Reynolds’ Chasuble remained dependent upon stage convention: Mr. Vivian Reynolds, though he gives us the clergyman of the stage and not of real life, was also good.55

The Era’s obituary for Vincent describes him as a ‘character actor’, listing the most renowned successes at the St. James’s Theatre during the 1890s among his notable ‘character’ parts: He was a great character actor, and had taken leading characters in Oscar Wilde’s comedy, Lady Windermere’s Fan, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The Prisoner of Zenda, Liberty Hall, Faust, The School for Scandal, The Harbour Lights, Lyons Mail and a number of Shakespearean plays.56

In 1920, the Times reviewer acknowledges that ‘there are few better character actors on the stage today than Mr. Reynolds’.57 A.E.W. Mason recalls that he fulfilled ‘the most complete little character parts which his other duties allowed him to undertake’.58 The acting techniques described in these reviews provide evidence that both stage managers, Alexander’s assistants in directing his company on stage, perpetuated stock company acting techniques to fill roles competently, and could by extension instruct less experienced members of the company in technique. This close collaboration between this actor-manager and his stage managers is evidence of the hierarchy operating within the St. James’s company. Alexander maintained overall artistic control and played the leading role in seventy-seven plays at the St. James’s, but he worked in conjunction with the demands of playwrights in the preparation of plays, as well as relying upon Vincent, then later Reynolds, to master their roles and undertake detailed character work with individual members of the company. This level of artistic collaboration was necessary, as the actor-­manager had numerous and diverse responsibilities that had to be shared. The public perception of an actor-manager as autonomous administrator as well as leading performer was a marketing tool which advertised the authority of a management to potential audiences; it could not be an accurate description of actual practice.

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The Actor in the St. James’s Company Ostensibly, it remained the actor-manager who was associated in the mind of the audience with a particular theatre or a particular genre of work. The repeated appearance of a renowned actor at the same venue resulted in ‘a remembering public’,59 an audience who responded not only to the performance on stage, but to their previous experience of an actor, the ‘ghosting’ determined by Marvin Carlson to be ‘a recognition not of similarity, as in genre, but of identity’.60 There is a commercial element implicit to this ‘ghosting’ process which explains its value within the actor-manager system, as audience members who returned repeatedly to a venue were attending to a particular ‘identity’. Importantly however, the enduring presence of the actor-manager was the primary, but not the only part of this process. Actors employed by Alexander were expected to reflect and enforce the ‘identity’ of both manager and venue. Company members were required to act—both on and off stage—as an extension of the St. James’s brand. As has already been asserted, anecdotal accounts often reiterate how Alexander enforced this expectation. Indeed, alongside narratives like that by Macqueen-Pope, discussed in my introduction, Mason devotes the second chapter of his biography to administrative practices, including a section called ‘Alexander’s consideration for his company’, detailing provisions made for performers at the theatre, but also noting the emphasis placed upon the appearance of the company on and off stage.61 As late as 1938, the actress Hilda Trevelyan continued to reiterate the precise kind of control Alexander exercised over the company to sustain the St. James’s brand, in her recollection of working for Alexander in 1904: Back-stage at the St. James’s was not pervaded by a jolly party atmosphere, nor on the other hand could it be called dreary. It was like a business house run by serious-minded artists who knew the value and charm of good manners, and respected cast iron discipline. There were two long corridors. The actors’ dressing-rooms led off one, and the actresses’ off the other. I remember being severely called over the coals on one occasion for permitting an actor to walk with me along the actresses’ corridor, and chat outside my door, despite the fact that we were discussing some ‘business’ we had together on the stage. Such was the discipline at the St. James’s which enabled Alexander to build up so magnificent a tradition.62

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Written three years after Mason’s biography, this is a further repetition of the prevailing impression of the St. James’s as a disciplined and prestigious social arena; once again it recalls the Macqueen-Pope Bond Street anecdote, emphasising the stringent demands Alexander made of his company beyond the stage itself. As late as 1958 The Times, acknowledging the centenary of Alexander’s birth, demonstrated that the pervasive St. James’s brand had been consolidated as a defining facet of his management: An eminent actor-manager was expected to play the part off as well as on the stage, and Alexander’s appearances in the right streets at the right hour were all that his admirers hoped for as the representative of the most fashionable playhouse in London.63

These examples show how details of the complex of business and art that were present at the theatre have been subsumed in an account that emphasises company discipline as an essential component of this theatre’s prestige, and this eclipses precise details of the work of individual performers. Close analysis of the work undertaken by actors and actresses for Alexander will, however, establish how individual practice was integral to the St. James’s ‘identity’. Addison Bright, profiling Alexander’s first year in management in an article for Theatre, remarked that ‘already there has been established at the St. James’s a representative company of English actors’.64 The implication is that the same company performed in all of the plays staged, whereas in fact, cast size ranged from nine to sixteen for the five full-length plays that had been produced to this point. From his opening night at the St. James’s on 31 January 1891 to the final performance of Lady Windermere’s Fan on 30 November 1892, Alexander employed thirty-two actors in total. In other words, the composition of the company altered for each production, and although no business records survive detailing precise contractual arrangements, it is evident from an examination of cast lists that Alexander employed actors to appear per run. Cast sizes ranged from seven to forty-eight, and no two productions used an identical company of actors; continued employment remained at the discretion of the actormanager. Publications from the period, notably Who’s Who in the Theatre and The Green Room Book, both edited by John Parker, include career summaries which frequently refer to actors spending a number of years in various West End companies, giving the year an actor joined, but no specific term of employment.65 Although actors would return to the St.

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James’s regularly over long periods, they were only cast in subsequent productions if an appropriate role was available. It is clear, therefore, that repertoire remained Alexander’s primary concern, and in the absence of professional regulation and union representation, performers could be immediately dismissed as required. The process of forming a company remained dependent upon informal networks that provided regular employment for West End performers. For example, the actors Ben Webster and Herbert Waring, who both appeared in the initial five productions assessed by Bright, had an established professional relationship with Alexander. Waring and Alexander had both been members of the touring Caste company during the 1880s, and they were both recruited into the Hare and Kendal company at the St. James’s Theatre in 1883. Webster made his professional debut with Hare and Kendal at the St. James’s in 1887, moving to the Lyceum in December 1888 to play Malcolm alongside Alexander’s Macduff in Macbeth, before leaving Irving’s company with Alexander to appear in the latter’s Avenue Theatre programme. These pre-existing associations within an exclusive West End professional community illustrate how dependent casting was upon relationships developed while working for a select group of managements. Although members of the St. James’s company would inevitably have diverse views on drama and repertoire, being associated with a West End venue reflected a role in maintaining the dominant attitudes and practices of that entertainment district. For example, Waring was a regular company member but also directly involved in early English language productions of Ibsen, notably the first Solness (The Master Builder) for London audiences, in 1893.66 Yet, as Bright notes, these actors made the St. James’s ‘representative’—not of all ‘English actors’, but of the precise section of the entertainment industry in which Alexander was operating. The limited rehearsal periods and lack of detailed direction provided have been noted; in their place, the actor-manager relied upon the technical proficiency of experienced West End performers and former colleagues who could in turn support less experienced members of the company. The success of this policy was dependent upon the experience gained by actors beyond the St. James’s, and how they could then employ that experience to populate repertoire at the venue. Alexander’s recruitment of Allan Aynesworth for the first production of The Importance of Being Earnest is one example of how successful this approach to casting could be.67 Throughout his career, Aynesworth relied

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upon the image he constructed of himself in the final two decades of the nineteenth century as the ideal West End player. The youngest son in an upper-middle-class family, he had an income that allowed him to pursue what limited training was available for aspiring actors in the 1880s. In an interview in 1930, he describes this training: I was educated in Paris […] and came under the influence of the Comédie Française. This led to my afterwards playing in various stock companies. To me the stage has a great tradition behind it and I hope I do my best to show that I realise this.68

Aynesworth spent only a brief period studying with the Comédie Française, adopting techniques in ‘clarity of diction and intimate timing’69 that prepared him for contemporary roles, before joining Thorne’s company for a further period of study (this presumably being the work in ‘stock’ theatre referred to earlier). This training illustrates that while Aynesworth, like Alexander, complied with the category of ‘casual’ actor, he also employed a rigorous attention to technique that allowed him to specialise in ‘clubbable’ roles: Always a zestful man, Aynesworth gave his recreations as ‘shooting, riding, motoring, gardening, golfing, fishing.’ In an 1892 copy of The Dramatic Peerage he is recommended for parts like those of ‘a fatuous swell’ and the publication comments on his ‘clever impersonations of modern “masherdom”.’70

By 1892, Aynesworth was recognised for depictions of contemporary middle- and upper-class gentlemen. In common with Waring and Webster, he had been employed in Hare and Kendal’s company in 1888. In work for these managers, as well as for Rutland Barrington and Charles Wyndham, he embodied what Regenia Gagnier has described as the ‘poses and fetishes’ of affluent audience members, holding a comic mirror up to spectators.71 Specialisation was maintained throughout his career, as noted in this obituary from The Times: He acted in twenty-five London theatres, most frequently at the Haymarket and the St. James’s; and he took part in plays written by over fifty contemporary dramatists. He never appeared in anything by Shaw (though for a while he rehearsed a part in You Never Can Tell for Granville Barker), for his

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interest was centred in the comedy of character and he was not sympathetic to the drama of ideas.72

The continuation, at least to some extent, of lines of business after the dissolution of the stock company was evident in Aynesworth’s work in legitimate drama. Employed to reproduce his ‘masher’ in The Importance of Being Earnest, both he and Alexander, confronted with spectators resembling the characters they were portraying, employed a ‘grave extravagance’73 in delivering the wordplay and inversion of Oscar Wilde’s text, producing a comic effect that mediated the satire of the piece. Both actors were appropriately earnest in the delivery of Wilde’s lines, but Aynesworth, the light comedian and younger actor, conveyed ‘insouciance’ and ‘irresponsibility’ as Algernon, allowing Alexander to remain the more imposing figure as Jack Worthing.74 The value of Aynesworth as an effective foil to his own performance was recognised by Alexander, who retained the actor for a series of revivals he mounted after being forced to withdraw Earnest in 1895. Opposite the actor-manager’s responsible and authoritarian Mr. Owen in Liberty Hall, Aynesworth appeared as an irresponsible young aristocrat and ‘looked the part of Gerald Harringay very happily, and acted it with excellent tact and balance, judiciously refraining from making the vacillating youth too sympathetic’.75 Three months later, in H.V. Esmond’s The Divided Way, his impersonation of a naive young husband again provided an effective contrast to the strength of Alexander’s performance: Mr. Allan Aynesworth plays the despised husband with the French fatuity befitting the theme of le mari, la femme, et l’amant. Perhaps the real centre of gravity in the piece, however, is the character of the semi-guilty brother-­ in-­law, in which Mr. Alexander touches with a skill all his own the note of duty and renunciation.76

His final role for Alexander during the 1890s was as Bertram Bertrand, the aristocratic young travelling companion to Alexander’s Rudolf Rassendyll in the first act of The Prisoner of Zenda (1896). This small role was peripheral to the main plot of the romantic play, yet Aynesworth’s character was again set up in opposition to the character played by Alexander, repeating the dynamic at work on stage in the production of Earnest. However, this role was so unnecessary to the romantic adventure at the heart of the story that the performance only served to remind reviewers of the profound

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change in dramatic material Alexander had undertaken after a series of commercial disasters in 1895. Aynesworth left the company after the long run of Zenda when Alexander staged As You Like It. His departure at this point, and his subsequent return to the theatre and to the role of Algernon Moncrieff in the following decade, is further proof that Alexander cast per production, employing actors who would complement a text and the manager’s performance. Although contracted at the Haymarket when the 1902 revival of Earnest was staged, his presence for the successful 1909 production contributed to the long run of the piece. His Algernon was a performance in ‘the lightest possible vein’, and displayed ‘unabashed coolness and suave diplomacy’ to the Era’s reviewer.77 Alexander was able to reproduce the dynamic between the two leading actors which had contributed to the success of the farce before its run was ended in 1895, whilst avoiding the inherent risk that playing opposite a younger actor he might seem less assured in the part of Worthing. Although Aynesworth exemplified the experienced middle-class actor favoured by Alexander, the manager was also dependent upon the standing and expertise of older theatre professionals. One such was W.H. Vernon, a former theatrical manager who with Ada Swanborough had employed Alexander in 1879; Vernon was an essential member of the St. James’s company for a number of productions during the 1890s.78 He began his career in a provincial stock company, joining the Adelphi Theatre, Liverpool, in 1860,79 and with a London debut in 1868 playing the title role in H.J. Byron’s comedy Cyril’s Success. Vernon returned to provincial repertory in the 1870s, managing the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, also with Swanborough, and their company employed a number of actors eager for experience in repertory, including Kate and Ellen Terry, Madge Kendal, Marie Bancroft, Arthur Stirling and, in 1879, Alexander, in his first professional role. During the following decade Vernon became leading actor in Geneviève Ward’s touring company, and their professional relationship was extended when in 1890 he began teaching at her training school for aspiring actresses in London.80 While pursuing this work, Vernon returned to the West End stage, joining the St. James’s company in 1895 and appearing in six productions between then and November 1901. His competence and technical proficiency are remarked upon in reviews of his work for Alexander, which emphasise his position as a ‘ripe and finished artist’, ‘experienced’ and ‘sound’.81 Trade publications acknowledge his

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experience, age and status, but, beyond the theatrical press, his authority on stage is also acknowledged: Ass as Jaques is, Mr W.  H. Vernon made him more tolerable than I can remember him. Every successive production at the St. James’s leaves one with a greater admiration than before for Mr Vernon’s talent.82

The idea is promoted of consistency in his work, and an authority on stage was reiterated by frequent military roles: Mr Vernon was, of course, quite good as General Humeden. Mr W.  H. Vernon’s many virtues of style and elocution were valuably employed in the character of General von Brandenburg. A more effective representation could not have been desired.83

Vernon played military officers and elderly aristocrats with the company and, in three of his six roles, the older actor played Alexander’s father or tutor.84 The authoritarian demeanour he adopted for these parts was a consistent feature of his stage work; indeed, according to The Times ‘a military emphasis’ was even perceptible in his interpretation of Jaques: Mr. W.  H. Vernon has shrewdly thought out the philosophy of Jaques, which he delivers with point and meaning, though here and there a military emphasis, an accent of precision, occurs in his deliverances, which would be better absent from the purely abstract and speculative utterances of the character.85

Colonel Sapt, Rudolf Rassendyll’s guide as he assumes the King’s identity in The Prisoner of Zenda, was Vernon’s most prominent role with the St. James’s company, and his performance was integral to the success of the romantic drama. The Daily Telegraph noted the strength of this performance: He [Vernon] held the play together at very important moments, and when he left the stage for a few minutes the fear was as much for the blanc-mange-­ like, shaking play as for the sham king, to whom he stood as a most useful guide and prompter.86

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Vernon’s contribution was even more significant when he reprised the role of Sapt in 1900: [I]n fact, the second act flags woefully until Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim arrive to stiffen it. Here we see how much depends upon good acting—how the most improbable story must be written and acted with sincerity if it is to grip an audience.87

This review concerns Rupert of Hentzau, the unsuccessful sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda, and reiterates the value of the older actor at the St. James’s. The suggestion is that his performance validated the ludicrous fantasy of adventure played out on stage, and endorsed this production by Vernon’s former employee, now manager. His technically sound performances in authoritarian roles complemented the romantic heroes played by Alexander during his first decade in management. As established professional actors, Aynesworth and Vernon bolstered Alexander’s productions, increasing the appeal of new texts for returning West End audiences who would recognise them. Their employment constituted a form of ‘type’ casting, and despite the demise of stock companies, these actors were expected to repeat styles of performance and types of behaviour developed earlier in their careers. This resulted in a company headed by experienced actors who were able to comply with the actor-­ manager’s demands in performance and, despite the lack of formal support for younger actors in the company, Alexander nevertheless perceived this policy as providing a kind of training ground: My ambition as a manager was from the very beginning not only to do what I could in the way of producing the best original plays but to surround myself with the best talent my means would allow me to engage. It is, therefore, with no inconsiderable pleasure that I look around and see that nearly all the actors holding fine positions in the West End of London have been through what is sometimes called the ‘St. James’s School’.88

However, there is some evidence that this ‘St. James’s School’ educated young actors in the level of discipline expected by this manager both on and off stage, rather than in techniques of performance. The work of Charles Aubrey Smith and Henry Ainley as young actors in Alexander’s company demonstrates the difficulties experienced by new entrants to the profession.

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Although by 1904, when Smith returned to the St. James’s to play Lord Darlington in a revival of Lady Windermere’s Fan, he was a recognised leading actor, Alexander resisted promoting him within the St. James’s company throughout the period 1896–1902.89 Smith began his professional career with A.B. Tapping’s touring company in 1892, appearing in a number of plays that Alexander had premièred at the St. James’s Theatre, including The Idler and The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.90 This is suggestive of a particular route into a West End company, since Tapping had acquired the rights from Alexander, who with some relationship to the touring version could monitor the work of actors and actresses at an early stage of their careers who were working in the productions. Smith’s final role for Tapping was as Aubrey Tanqueray in an 1894 tour, and this performance gained him a place in Hare’s company, to play the Reverend Amos Winterfield in the première of Pinero’s The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith in March 1895. Work for Hare further enforces the idea that London managements looked to touring versions of material originating in the West End when recruiting new members of their companies. Smith was working in the St. James’s company by July 1896, where Alexander cast him in a series of supporting roles, playing militaristic characters that relied primarily upon the actor’s athleticism. Reviewers noted the physical suitability of this celebrated cricketer for such roles, the Era commenting that he appeared ‘well bred and easy’ as Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Eave in The Princess and the Butterfly. In a subsequent revival of The Prisoner of Zenda in July 1897, he was an ‘imposing and truculent Michael, his fine, tall, figure greatly adding to the effect of his embodiment’.91 Smith was not cast in Alexander’s subsequent production, The Tree of Knowledge, and his next West End role was in Charles Frohman’s production of The Happy Life at the Duke of York’s Theatre. He replaced Frederick Kerr in the leading role but the play ran for only six weeks. At this point, he returned to the St. James’s Theatre not as an actor but as business manager, a position he held until the summer of 1901. London County Council records contain correspondence from Smith in this capacity dated from November 1899 to May 1901 regarding renovations to the theatre, and entries in Who’s Who and The Green Room Book both state he held the position from 1898 until 1901.92 Although Smith also acted in four productions during this time, it is apparent that Alexander valued his administrative abilities and remained reluctant to promote the actor to leading roles within the company. He replaced Fred Terry as Major Hugh Lascelles in Pearl Craigie’s The Ambassador, but then reverted to smaller

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comic parts in three productions over the next two years, his final role that of Colonel Dixon in the one-act play preceding The Importance of Being Earnest for its unsuccessful 1902 revival. This was Smith’s last supporting role at the St. James’s, after which he played a series of roles opposite prominent performers including Lily Langtry and Johnston Forbes-Robertson. In the absence of the rigid structure imposed by working consistently for one actor-manager, he graduated to male lead in a West End company headed by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, playing Aubrey in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray during her 1903 season at the New Theatre.93 Employment with Hare and Alexander had focused his range as a performer, but Smith could only establish his position as a leading actor in the West End after terminating any permanent affiliation with an actor-manager. After establishing his professional status, Smith returned to the St. James’s to play Lord Darlington in the 1904 revival of Lady Windermere’s Fan and, by this point, Alexander clearly viewed Smith, like Aynesworth, as having a level of prestige that would confirm the prestige of the company. By contrast, in 1902 Alexander made an exceptional casting decision, placing Henry Ainley in a leading role for Stephen Phillips’ poetic drama Paolo and Francesca. Alexander’s desire to find an actor with the appropriate physical appearance for the title role of Paolo resulted in Ainley playing a part for which he was unprepared, illustrating the insufficient training and direction available to younger and less experienced actors in a West End company. The actor made his professional stage debut with Frank Benson’s company after a walk-on part in Alexander’s touring production of The Masqueraders in Leeds in the summer of 1899.94 Mason posits that Ainley intended ‘to gain experience and flexibility of voice in the wide repertoire of Frank Benson’,95 but he played only minor roles, for example his parts in Benson’s 1900 and 1901 London seasons.96 However, Alexander went to see both Ainley and Matheson Lang in Benson’s production of The Merchant of Venice in Croydon late in 1901, and hired the former to play Paolo, an abrupt graduation to employment in the West End for an actor who had never played a leading role. Alexander’s decision to cast Ainley was due to his overt suitability for a specific role, as he wanted the young man to provide a striking contrast to his own performance as the tyrant Giovanni Malatesta in Phillips’s poetic drama. It is likely that Alexander chose Ainley, rather than the more imposing Lang, to provide the most extreme contrast to his performance as Giovanni, but Ainley’s fragile physical appearance, when combined with

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lack of assurance on stage, only distanced the audience from forming a sympathetic bond with any of the characters in the poetic drama. The reviewer for the Sketch noted: Curiosity centred on Mr. Ainley, the almost unknown player cast for the leading part; all were charmed by his presence, since in appearance and bearing he is quite an ideal Paolo—a name not pronounced very prettily by some of the cast, who came very near to ‘Pow-lo.’ Unfortunately, the new actor seems to have an agreeable rather than a striking voice, and was the chief sinner against the verse, which in his mouth lost almost all rhythm, and he was wrongly violent in the last Act.97

The World, while more complimentary, provided a similar assessment of Ainley’s lack of experience: Mr. Aynley [sic] has no vices either of bearing or of delivery to mar his extraordinary physical fitness for the part. He is at once boyish and manly; sensitive and yet unaffected. He has a good voice, not quite steady as yet in its upper notes, and he uses it easily and naturally. Instead of trying to ‘do’ anything with the part, he simply makes himself an instrument for its poetry and passion, and so lets it play itself.98

There is no evidence that Alexander provided any exceptional training for this actor when he entered the company, and critical reaction to the young man’s performance emphasises that although Ainley was physically suited to the part of Paolo, his acting style lacked authority and technical proficiency. After the hundredth performance, the Stage’s reviewer considered that Ainley’s appearance, ‘picturesquely effeminate’, was still the strongest feature of his portrayal.99 The assessments of his performance in Paolo and Francesca by Alexander’s biographers compare it unfavourably with his subsequent work, further emphasising that it was his appearance that had appealed to Alexander. Mason suggests that it is not even feasible to chart a relationship between this first West End role and the success experienced by Ainley later in the twentieth century, noting that of ‘the power and command which were afterwards again and again to throw open to him the throne-room of the actors’ kingdom there was at present no real sign. There was a want of fire. He looked to be too spiritual. He was too tame.’100 In a subsequent role with the St. James’s company, Ainley was acknowledged for the ‘bright and boyish’ physical characteristics that had determined initial casting.101 It was in his work in repertory

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with touring companies later in the decade that Ainley was able to develop greater vitality in his acting, indicating that the range and experience available in a broader repertory beyond the West End enhanced his stage technique. Returning to the St. James’s Theatre in 1905 for the William Mollison–Lilian Braithwaite season, the Era noted that he still ‘looked “a picture perfect”; and throughout he acted with an effective amount of nervous tension and fine sensitiveness’, his stage technique enhanced by experience playing the range of roles he had initially sought in Benson’s company.102

The Actress in the St. James’s Company Examples provided so far represent how actors in the company were recruited to bolster or to reflect Alexander’s own practice, although this did not always work as anticipated. Another characteristic feature of his management was consistent reluctance to give any one actress a sustained, senior role within the company or the theatre. However, an actress could gain promotion and sustain a significant term of employment with this manager if she devised a means by which to combine subjective technique with the restrictions Alexander imposed in his choice of repertoire. As Kerry Powell has detailed, the West End actress was ‘supplying a masculinist public with what it demanded—a representation of itself, its prejudices and ideals’, and had to impose a form of ‘self-censorship’,103 and it is apparent that this censoring process was also helpful in complying with the dictates of the actor-manager. Of course this was not a viable or desirable course of action for all actresses, and the frustration felt by some women employed in Alexander’s company is well documented, with prominent figures, in their autobiographical writing, explicitly criticising the control exercised by this manager.104 Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who had a notoriously confrontational working relationship with Alexander, asserts that when she was initially hired for the title role in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, both he and playwright Arthur Wing Pinero ‘treated me as a child that must be taught its ABC. I was given no free rein.’105 A different form of frustration, not with repertoire and rehearsal technique, but with limitations imposed purely on the grounds of gender, is also evident in the memoir written by Winifred Dolan, who worked regularly at the St. James’s Theatre as an actress and administrator between 1891 until 1904. She left professional theatre and spent much of her working life as a teacher, and in 1949 she wrote a

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memoir of her time in the West End, for private circulation within the girls’ school where she had been employed for almost three decades.106 Dolan did not progress beyond minor supporting roles on stage, for example as the maid Rosalie in the première of Lady Windermere’s Fan (1891), one source of her frustration with West End work. She did, however, take on a range of tasks as an administrator at the St. James’s, many of which were ostensibly part of the actor-manager’s role. Work included the reading of submitted plays (passing on promising drafts to Alexander), covering the role of private secretary at the St. James’s when the permanent incumbent of the role, R.G. Legge, became temporary acting manager at another West End venue, and attending as Alexander’s representative at rehearsals for the national tour of a play when it was optioned by a touring manager (His Little Dodge, optioned by Ben Greet in 1896). Yet professional development at the St. James’s was limited for Dolan, exemplified in this correspondence from Alexander: My dear Winifred, Candidly my thoughts about the secretary work in the autumn only spring from my wish to put you well on your feet—I am delighted to hear you are on a firmer footing. If you had been a man I should have given you the push this way ages ago with a view to you becoming my acting manager later on, but you see that wouldn’t be possible.107

This reveals what sociologist Anne Witz has termed the ‘demarcationary closure’ influencing opportunities afforded to women in white-collar professional spheres, which would include theatre administration, by the final decades of the nineteenth century.108 Dolan could operate but not progress within the West End environment, and as an actress who did not obtain starring roles, she did not achieve authority within the company that could result in extended or regular work for Alexander. There is some evidence though that particular actresses did accrue such authority; notably Irene Vanbrugh, who most frequently appeared as female lead for the actor-manager. Twenty-seven actresses were employed for leading roles between 1890 and 1918, thirteen appearing in this capacity for more than a single production. A number of women were promoted within the company, but actresses with an established career in West End and touring theatre were also employed, according to their suitability for specific parts. The thirteen who appeared in a leading role for more than one production are listed in Table 3.1, and what this depiction

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Table 3.1  Returning leading actresses in the St. James’s company (alphabetical order) Actress

Supporting Role

Lilian Braithwaite

Amy in a revival of Liberty Hall (1901) Cecily in a revival of The Importance of Being Earnest (1902) Nita in Paolo and Francesca (1902) Isabel Leyton in The Thief (1907)

Mrs. Patrick Campbell

Stella Patrick Campbell

Fay Davis

Margaret Halstan

Leading Role

Käthie in Old Heidelberg (1903) Else Reimann in Love’s Carnival (1904) Mrs. Wendover in Saturday to Monday (1904) Princess Elinor of Novodnia in The Garden of Lies (1904) Lady Windermere in a revival of Lady Windermere’s Fan (1905) Mme Chantraine in The Man of the Moment (1905) Lady Windermere in a revival of Lady Windermere’s Fan (1911) Paula in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893) Dulcie Larondie in The Masqueraders (1894) Mrs. Chepstow in Bella Donna (1912) Paula in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1913) Mrs. Chepstow in Bella Donna (1916) Helen Thornhill in The Thunderbolt (1908) Flavia in a revival of The Prisoner of Zenda (1909) Gwendolyn in a revival of The Importance of Being Earnest (1909) Mona Cresfield in The Day Before the Day (1915) Sybil Carden in Sheila (1917) Celia in As You Like It Flavia in a revival of The Prisoner of Zenda (1897) (1896) Fay Zuliani in The Princess and the Butterfly Monica Blayne in The (1897) Tree of Knowledge Babiole de Grandpré in The Conquerors (1898) (1897) Juliet Gainsborough in The Ambassador (1898) Hero in Much Ado Lilian Beddart in In Days of Old (1899) About Nothing (1898) Queen Flavia in Rupert of Hentzau (1900) Elsie Lee Fanshawe in The Man of Forty (1900) Gipsy Floyd in A Debt of Honour (1900) Duchess of St. Asaph in The Wisdom of the Wise (1900) Olive Lawrence in The Awakening (1901) Mrs. Tommie Bistern Blanche Chilworth in a revival of Liberty Hall in The Wisdom of the (1901) Wise (1901) Gwendolyn in a revival of The Importance of Being Earnest (1902) (continued)

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Table 3.1  (continued) Actress

Supporting Role

Ethel Irving

Evelyn Millard

Eva Moore

Julia Neilson

Marion Terry

Mary Brasier in Guy Domville (1895) Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Leading Role Stella Ballantyne in The Witness for the Defence (1911) Monique Felt in The Turning Point (1913) Paula in a revival of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1895) Lady Harding in The Idler (1895) Blanche Chilworth in Liberty Hall (1895) Lois in The Divided Way (1895) Flavia in The Prisoner of Zenda (1895) Francesca in Paolo and Francesca (1902) Mabel Vaughan in The Wilderness (1901) Käthie in Old Heidelberg (1903) Muriel Glayde in John Glayde’s Honour (1907) Käthie in a revival of Old Heidelberg (1909) Rosalind in As You Like It (1896) Princess Pannonia in The Princess and the Butterfly (1897) Belle in The Tree of Knowledge (1897) Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing (1898) Yvonne de Grandpre in The Conquerors (1898) Helen in Sunlight and Shadow (1890) Lady Harding in The Idler (1891) Armande Molière in Molière (1891) Evelyn Carew in Lord Anerley (1891) Nina Ferrars in Forgiveness (1891) Mrs. Erlynne in Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) Mrs. Peveral in Guy Domville (1895) Mrs. Erlynne in a revival of Lady Windermere’s Fan (1905) Lady Claude Derenham in Mollentrave on Women (1905) Lady Astrupp in John Chilcote, M.P. (1905) Mrs. Erlynne in a revival of Lady Windermere’s Fan (1911) (continued)

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Table 3.1  (continued) Actress

Supporting Role

Leading Role

Irene Vanbrugh

Charley Wishanger in The Masqueraders (1894) Fanny in Guy Domville (1895) Ellean in a revival of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1895)

Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) Kate Merryweather in The Idler (1895) Nina in His House in Order (1906) Marise in The Thief (1907) Dorothy Faringay in The Builder of Bridges (1908) Celia Faraday in Colonel Smith (1909) Marise in The Thief (1909) Zoe Blundell in Mid-Channel (1909) Cynthia Herrick in Open Windows (1913) Nina in a revival of His House in Order (1914) Ottoline in The Big Drum (1915) Duchess of Cheviot in The Basker (1916) Duchess of Auteville in The Aristocrat (1917) Margaret Mears in Those Who Sit in Judgement (1914)

Geneviève Ward Henrietta Watson

Lady Markby in a revival of An Ideal Husband (1914) Geraldine in a revival of His House in Order (1914)

of their work makes apparent is how Alexander used diverse policies in recruiting a leading female performer for the company. Some actresses, for example Campbell and Julia Neilson, were hired to play prominent roles without undertaking prior work for the manager, and by looking at their recruitment alongside further evidence of each individual career, it becomes apparent why this choice was made. In multiple accounts of the career of Campbell, her suitability for the role as Paula Tanqueray based upon previous stage work and physical demeanour is emphasised; in the case of Neilson, her level of celebrity by the mid-­1890s could bolster a brief and uncharacteristic engagement with the Shakespearean canon by Alexander. In comparison, some women including Lilian Braithwaite and Fay Davis were clearly promoted over time from within the company. Closer scrutiny of these casting procedures will further clarify how professional status and public profile were integral to the work each actress secured at the St. James’s Theatre. Marion Terry was Alexander’s leading actress at the Avenue Theatre, and in the first five productions at the St.

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James’s. She had worked with him on Irving’s autumn tour of Faust in 1888, and she also had considerable experience appearing in Robertson’s plays with the Bancrofts. She was, therefore, an understandable choice for the sentimental comedies initially produced by Alexander. Addison Bright credits the manager with ‘the restoration to the stage of Miss Marion Terry’,109 for although the actress had experienced consistent employment in London and in touring theatre since July 1873, there was a tendency to measure her career in relation to her sister Ellen Terry’s prominent position at the Lyceum. Despite this prejudice, however, Marion Terry held a professional status that was dependent upon longevity of career as well as her status as part of a prominent theatrical family. These factors contributed to her ongoing presence at the Avenue and then the St. James’s during the early 1890s, as an advertisement of the young manager’s discrimination in establishing a company. Terry’s role in the St. James’s company until September 1892 is the most prominent example of Alexander employing performers from theatre families. Other examples are H.B. Irving and George Bancroft, and in the final years of his career both Dennis and Phyllis Neilson-Terry and Ethel Irving. These members of established theatrical dynasties worked alongside middle-class entrants to the profession to consolidate West End practice, as Tracy C. Davis explains: The legitimate and illegitimate theatre became split by repertoire as well as class, not only in the auditorium but also on the stage. […] The cup-and-saucer drama introduced at the Prince of Wales’s was based on the domestic lives of the middle-class, and attracted a new audience of well-to-do playgoers who preferred to see their lives portrayed by their own caste, rather than by servants dressed and coached in imitation of their caste. By the 1860s, of course, the prominent theatrical families had been prosperous long enough to be accepted as middle-class, and to impart the appropriate niceties to actress-daughters.110

Alexander worked with Marion Terry to endorse his own professional status, but Terry left the company when the run of Liberty Hall, the sentimental comedy staged after Lady Windermere’s Fan, concluded. She subsequently returned to the theatre to appear in Guy Domville, and after the failure of that piece only infrequently, for revivals of Lady Windermere’s Fan.

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The production after Liberty Hall, Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, most clearly defined what was to be Alexander’s preferred policy when choosing a leading actress throughout the rest of his managerial career. His choice of performers was motivated primarily by the play selected, and only then by factors including professional profile and former work in the St. James’s company. Previous analyses of this production have acknowledged the lengthy correspondence between Alexander and Pinero regarding the selection of a leading actress.111 Mrs Patrick Campbell was chosen to play Paula Tanqueray, and Alexander then attempted to capitalise upon her success in the role by casting her in his next production, Henry Arthur Jones’s The Masqueraders. This decision reflects the desire to sustain a link between Campbell’s unique artistic presence and the theatre. However, the tense working relationship between Alexander and Campbell led to her departure from the company before the summer tour of 1894, at which point she was replaced in the role of Dulcie Larondie in Jones’s play by Evelyn Millard. Millard, and also Vanbrugh, had been recruited into the St. James’s company for the run of The Masqueraders, and each appeared in five subsequent productions for Alexander. At this point, Millard was defined as leading actress by taking Campbell’s role on tour. The policy of first trialling a new leading actress on tour was regularly implemented by Alexander and again signals the importance of regional touring to subsequent West End practice. Millard continued in the same role at the St. James’s in November 1894 but the short-running productions of 1895 resulted in both Millard and Vanbrugh taking both supporting and leading roles. Terry returned to the company to play Mrs. Peveral in Guy Domville, with Millard taking the ingénue role in the play. Subsequently, Vanbrugh was awarded the role of Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest, after playing comic cameos in the previous two productions. The casting of these two younger actresses in the mid-1890s demonstrates that while Alexander recruited leading performers per production, he was willing to employ supporting company members over a period of time. Both appeared once again in revivals of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray and The Idler, Millard playing the leading role in each play, after which Vanbrugh left the company to star in The Chili Widow with her brother-­ in-­law Arthur Bourchier’s company at the Royalty Theatre.112 Millard remained with the company to take the role of Princess Flavia in The Prisoner of Zenda, but on her departure in July 1896, Alexander employed an established leading actress—Julia Neilson—over a number of

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productions as he worked to combine a characteristic repertoire of new work with Shakespeare productions. Neilson was employed for the summer tour of The Prisoner of Zenda, then appeared at the St. James’s until May 1898, although in a move which further establishes Alexander’s resistance to a single leading actress being associated with the St. James’s company, from March 1897, this was a position she shared with Fay Davis.113 Neilson had been employed by Tree, Hare and Wyndham before moving to the St. James’s company, and although her professional career began in 1888, she was an established actress in the West End, her success complemented by marriage into the Terry family in 1891.114 Alexander made a particular kind of investment in securing Neilson for the company, leasing the Royalty Theatre in 1896 and staging a farce there, His Little Dodge, with Neilson’s husband Fred Terry in the leading role. Dolan notes that this was a stipulation for Neilson to appear opposite Alexander at the St. James’s: ‘he couldn’t get her without Fred Terry, her husband. There was no role for Fred, of course, so as part of the £100 a week deal for the two of them, he would take the Royalty Theatre and put on a farcical comedy with Fred in the lead.’115 However, after The Prisoner of Zenda, with the exception of the two productions of Shakespeare in which Alexander and Neilson played opposite one another, Alexander began to reintroduce society comedy into his repertoire, and the partnership with Neilson was terminated. The disastrous productions of 1895 had been replaced by the long-running romantic drama which sustained Alexander’s management. Yet by 1897 he displayed a cautious return to new work with a contemporary, London setting. Fay Davis became prominent in the company at this time; known for her spoken-word recitals in London during the mid-1890s, she had little acting experience, but joined the company on Pinero’s recommendation in October 1896.116 Although ostensibly an ingénue player, with Neilson as leading actress in the company, she often had the more prominent role. The first instance of this was in Pinero’s The Princess and the Butterfly, where she played opposite Alexander’s raisonneur as the young ward his character marries at the end of the play. Neilson played the ‘Princess’ of the title, who ended the play married to H.B. Irving’s young civil servant Edward Oriel. This conclusion toyed with the expectations of audiences and critics who had seen Alexander and Neilson appear opposite one another in As You Like It, and expected her character, the mature Princess of the play’s title, to end the play with Alexander’s middle-aged bachelor Sir George Lamorant.

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Davis was the least experienced woman to be made leading actress of the St. James’s company, and it was her suitability for very specific roles that sustained the position. She was particularly useful for Alexander in dealing with the ‘man of forty’ theme that characterised his repertoire at this point, plays relating the relationship between a middle-aged man and a young woman, and she appeared in a further two pieces that dealt with the subject between June 1898 and April 1901.117 After Davis’s departure from the company, to play the leading role in Iris—written for her by Pinero and produced by Tree—Alexander initiated a policy of hiring leading actresses for a single production, and this continued for the rest of his career. There were only three exceptions to this policy between April 1901 and June 1917. Lilian Braithwaite replaced Eva Moore in Old Heidelberg in July 1903, and played the leading role in three subsequent productions. Braithwaite then took a supporting role when Marion Terry returned to the company for a revival of Lady Windermere’s Fan, and Terry then remained with the company for the subsequent two productions.118 Finally, in 1909 Vanbrugh appeared in Mason’s comedy Colonel Smith, a play that was withdrawn after only fifteen performances. She then remained at the St. James’s for a successful revival of The Thief. Between Davis’s departure and the final production by Alexander at the theatre, twenty-three actresses were employed in leading roles, for fifty productions. All of these actresses had played supporting roles in the company before being given a leading part, or had formerly played opposite Alexander. The only exception to this was Geneviève Ward, an established actress who appeared in two late productions: The Basker (1916) and The Aristocrat (1917).119 Ward began her career as an opera singer working throughout Europe, but when her voice failed she began appearing as an actress on the London stage, working consistently with successful managements in London, Paris and New York. Coming not from a theatrical family, but from a prominent upper-middle-class New York background, she initially trained in Italy. Bram Stoker explains her style of acting, comparing her to Ristori, having seen both actresses on tour in Dublin in 1873: Her speech was a series of cadences; the voice rose and fell in waves—sometimes ripples sometimes billows—but always modified with such exquisite precision as not to attract special attention to the rhythmic quality. […] Years afterwards Miss Ward showed me one of Ristori’s prompt books; and

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I could not but be struck with the accentuation. Indeed the marking above the syllables ran in such unbroken lines as to look like musical scoring.120

As a close friend of the Italian actress, Ward combined this focus upon tone with her own operatic training, which produced a grand style that conveyed a great deal of authority. Her move directly into leading tragic roles seems to confirm the efficacy of this approach, and her ‘faultless diction and her dignity of movement brought an invaluable distinction to the patrician characters she mostly played’.121 Ward also supported training for the stage and the professional recognition this could bring. After working as an actress for fifteen years she studied in Paris under Regnier, before establishing her own training school in London in 1890.122 Her description of the training methods employed suggests a form of finishing school, producing actors who had sufficient skills in deportment and interpreting a text: I always sent them to a singing teacher, not to learn how to sing but to learn how to breathe. […] Another point was sending them to learn deportment. For this they went to Madame Cavalezzi, who taught them dancing as well, with the result of graceful carriage and no awkwardness of hands or feet.123

This school, like Hermann Vezin’s, and also Sarah Thorne’s at Margate, prepared actresses to comply with the demands of managers. Ward’s position in the company during the final two years of Alexander’s career demonstrates how the theatrical and social prestige of actors contributed to the selection of company members. To some extent, her presence paralleled the employment of Marion Terry in his first year at the St. James’s, to emphasise the status and legitimacy of his management within a competitive marketplace.

Irene Vanbrugh at the St. James’s Theatre The actress who most obviously advertised the enduring prestige of the St. James’s management was Irene Vanbrugh. She was both promoted within the company during the 1894 and 1895 seasons, and recruited as leading actress for nine productions between February 1906 and December 1915. Her position as the most frequent and predominant leading actress of Alexander’s company was confirmed when she appeared as Nina Jesson in the 1906 première of Pinero’s His House in Order, the foremost commercial success of his managerial career. In the next chapter her integral

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contribution to the success of that production is assessed, but here the methods she employed to operate successfully within Alexander’s company will be scrutinised. Vanbrugh’s autobiography, To Tell My Story, provides some insight into this actress’s approach to her work, and also charts her professional development. The accuracy of autobiographical narrative is, of course, suspect,124 and Vanbrugh’s memoir is a selective account which emphasises the smooth progress of her career and places her work with pre-eminent actors and dramatists in an overwhelmingly positive light, with few references to the critical and commercial failures in which she appeared; her interpretation of work for Alexander is, nevertheless, instructive. When she does acknowledge poorly received productions, there are always extenuating factors that merit their inclusion in the autobiography. For example, when referring to Pinero’s Mid-Channel, which ran for only eight weeks at the St. James’s in 1909 (slightly longer than Vanbrugh recollects here), she focuses upon the play’s popularity with her peers: When I returned to the St. James’s for another play by Pinero, Mid-Channel in September 1909, the fact that there was no part for Alexander rather militated against it. The public at that time was so accustomed to connect the actor-manager with his theatre that anything produced there without him lost prestige. […] The most flattering thing that happened in that short season was that so many members of my own profession came several times to see the play and their expressions of appreciation to me added a lustre to those six weeks which make them stand out vividly in my memory.125

The precise reasons for Alexander’s absence from the cast are unknown, although his political career was under way at this point. Certainly the character Peter Mottram, the raisonneur of the piece, was written for him, and that Vanbrugh should star in a St. James’s production on a rare occasion when he was absent from the cast is indicative of her value for the manager. Conscious of her key role at the venue, every production she appeared in at the theatre is referred to in the autobiography as work that was integral to a marked period of success for Vanbrugh, who took the leading role in a new play in the West End every year between 1902 and 1909.126 In Tracy C.  Davis’s words, Vanbrugh ‘fits the stereotype more than anyone’ of the middle-class, educated actress who achieved sustained employment in the West End.127 Vanbrugh admits that early employment was directly related to her friendship with Ellen Terry, who assisted both

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Vanbrugh and her sister Violet in finding employment.128 Nina Auerbach neatly summarises Terry’s role in placing a new type of female performer on stage: At the height of her fame, Ellen Terry encouraged a generation of well-bred girls to become actresses: her simple, smilingly seditious welcome toppled the barrier that segregated nice women from stage children.129

Vanbrugh not only took advantage of a personal friendship with Terry, but extended the influence of the older actress in her own professional development by adopting her technique of self-presentation. She openly admits the profound influence: The immense value of charm (which I put almost first as an asset) was revealed to me by Ellen Terry. […] Never, in all the years that I knew her, did she lose for me that atmosphere of real illusion, charming all who came near her on the stage—this charm enveloped every being in the audience. It is a bloom, but the bloom has to have a rare foundation to hold it; a foundation of generosity, of giving out to your audience, a quality of crystal clarity which lets your audience see into your soul and understand your feelings without ever yourself parading those feelings. It means teaching your audience to ask and to want to know, and then letting that feeling reveal itself to them so simply that each individual might think it was to them alone you had shown it.130

Vanbrugh assumed Terry’s method of controlling her audience, which included those in the auditorium for any given performance, and also the authors and actor-managers employing these actresses, employing what Gail Marshall has called a ‘rhetoric of charm’131 that presented spectators with a manifest oxymoron, the ‘real illusion’ that the actress was presenting one, coherent self. Both women transferred the carefully constructed self they had developed as a professional persona into their autobiographical writing: Terry’s The Story of My Life and Vanbrugh’s To Tell My Story. The self-effacing references to ‘storytelling’ sustain the ‘rhetoric of charm’ by emphasising that these texts will not provide any rigorous analysis of professional relationships they formed as predominant West End actresses. Memoirs are selective, presenting the particular version of their careers they wish an audience to perceive. References to Alexander in To Tell My Story exemplify this process of selection. A substantial amount of Vanbrugh’s

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working life was spent in the St. James’s company, yet she does not elaborate upon her relationship with the actor-manager, and although she does refer to a disagreement shortly before his death over his refusal to release Dennis Neilson-Terry to appear in the film Masks and Faces, Vanbrugh also reproduces a letter from Alexander endorsing, in her words, their ‘very happy association’.132 Also reproduced is a prologue written by Alfred Noyes for her jubilee matinée in June 1938 which makes reference to ‘[g]reat days when Alexander reigned in power’.133 Alexander is portrayed as an efficient manager, and their long professional association is acknowledged; yet there is a reluctance, evident throughout the book, to detail personal impressions regarding actors and managers. In contrast, Vanbrugh includes generous descriptions of the dramatic authors who wrote parts for her. Three of Vanbrugh’s eight leading roles at the St. James’s were in plays by Pinero,134 and her graduation from supporting parts to leading roles was intrinsically tied to her relationships with authors rather than managers. By the first decade of the twentieth century, she had been employed in four West End companies, appearing in plays written for her by J.M. Barrie and Pinero.135 She became indispensable to authors and by extension the managements they collaborated with, ostensibly subservient to their demands yet with a consistent supply of new material which she could interpret. The Clarion, reviewing His House in Order, acknowledges this phenomenon, recognising that ‘Mr. Pinero has a special aptitude for “fitting” Miss Vanbrugh’.136 The first role over which she had this measure of control was Thea Tesman in Barrie’s burlesque Ibsen’s Ghost. Vanbrugh’s appreciation of this part indicates the importance she placed upon the relationship between actress and dramatist: Up to now I had never ‘created’ a part. I had been various young ladies but the characters had all passed through other hands before I had the fingering of them. […] Creation! It is the conceited (but darling) term we of the stage apply to the absolutely first performance of any part; conceited because, after all, the author has been rolling his creature into shape before he had the happy thought of entrusting her to us; the darling, because we so love to deck her out in all our frills.137

Vanbrugh’s artistic enterprise is mediated by an acknowledgement of the importance of the dramatic author. Five decades after initial success in

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Barrie’s burlesque, she still appeals to this dramatist for approval and guidance in her autobiography, quoting in full, in the third chapter, a letter received from Barrie. The manner in which she adopts the author’s advice in writing her own book displays an enduring commitment to recognising and working with the demands of dramatists. Her reasons for emphasising the relationship with Barrie were several. Most obviously, he was a recognisable figure for readers in the 1940s. Also, his jovial advice suggests a camaraderie, situating her as an equal, subtly reminding the reader of her pre-eminent position on the late nineteenth and twentieth-century stage. To achieve this end, she is willing to allow the impression that this playwright has to some extent directed composition of To Tell My Story, as Vanbrugh quotes his extensive correspondence on the subject of the book: I suggest a quiet chapter somewhere about what you think of it all—the world you love when playing a part and the world outside it in which you are a different person. How to break out of the one into the other, and which of those two you are when you are truly awake.138

Subsequently, Vanbrugh ‘acts’ upon the advice of the playwright. Barrie’s entreaty that the actress should reflect upon when she is ‘truly awake’ is answered, as she describes her experience when at work: A sort of double life must be led. You are nobody, yet inside you there is a second self who has a way of suddenly appearing and obliterates you completely, a second self that you can look at and criticize with a detachment that is almost physical. She is vividly brought alive by a letter from a manager to go and see him. […] These lapses in your theatrical life become less acute as your stage personality develops and is more part of you.139

Vanbrugh wishes to endorse her recollections with Barrie’s approval, a form of deference to the dramatist that was also apparent in her relationship with Pinero. However, this attitude actually produced the enduring professional relationships with these authors which resulted in them writing pieces for her. She worked hard to consolidate her independent position as a leading actress, insisting in To Tell My Story that she delayed marriage until her career was established, while complying with the overt dominance of a masculine hierarchy to maintain this position. Vanbrugh achieved a measure of control over her career by accepting the

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predominant male presence in management and dramatic authorship, making herself indispensable to the two pre-eminent dramatic authors operating in the West End by the first decade of the twentieth century, and consequently to the actor-managers who staged their work. Enduring relationships with Barrie and Pinero determined Vanbrugh’s employment, and her close professional association with Pinero was the main incentive for her frequent return to the St. James’s. The Gay Lord Quex (1899), produced not by Alexander, but by John Hare, introduced the material signifiers of transgression to be associated with Pinero– Vanbrugh heroines: The curtain fell upon the first act to whole-hearted applause. Rather nervous laughter had greeted the action of Sophy’s putting her feet in turn upon a chair and hitching up her stockings, a piece of business that was then considered daring and suggested to the audience some of the obviously modern lines on which Pinero had written this play.140

The ‘modern lines’ perceived in this play are features present in the plays Vanbrugh appeared in at the St. James’s after the success of Quex. She notes in her memoir that by the first decade of the twentieth century a confrontational duologue in the third act between raisonneur and female protagonist was perceived to be a ‘necessary attribute’141 of a West End production, and her performance in the third act of His House in Order opposite Alexander is seen, by the Sketch’s reviewer, as ‘counterpart, in a sense, to the Quex bed-room scene’.142 The pronounced success of the play resulted in her remaining with the St. James’s company for The Thief, which again provided a third act confrontation between Marise Chelford, played by Vanbrugh, and her husband, the role taken by Alexander. She mastered such scenes of confrontation, and acknowledged their power to attract an audience. Vanbrugh always insisted upon the subjectivity and rigour of her acting.143 In a talk to students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the 1940s, she described her dislike of the dependence upon stock acting techniques and imitation of other actors taught to her by Sarah Thorne during the 1880s: Her method of teaching was to show you how to do a thing but not to explain why you did it, which is not really the best method because of all things in acting the least wise is to imitate. Suppose we take this as another

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point to think about today. The art of acting is not imitation, and however much we may admire the movements, or voice, or even method of a certain actor or actress, it would be definitely a mistake to copy it.144

Although Thorne’s company was a recognised route into the profession, Vanbrugh decisively critiques any stock techniques learned there, refusing to endorse any prescribed ‘behaviour’ on stage. Although she would comply with the stage management of both dramatic authors and managers to ensure sustained employment, she insisted upon the responsibility of an individual actor or actress: You must know why you do a thing if you are to make your meaning clear to the audience, even if it is to convey to them that you are completely unaware of what you are doing. The simple rules are all you can be taught; after that you must build up your own technique. This can be done by watching good acting if you are not fortunate enough to get sufficient practical experience. The danger of technique is that you make use of it and then give performances that are the exposition of feelings and not the feeling of them.145

Whilst acknowledging influence and collaboration, the importance of developing an acting technique is prioritised, and the isolation and responsibility required of a performer is central to Vanbrugh’s concept of the professional actress, who ‘must be capable of making up her own mind. She will have to make rapid decisions—decisions which may alter her whole career. […] The decision rests with her; she must make it, and having made it, abide by it.’146 Vanbrugh developed a rigorous approach to performance which is recorded in a series of published lectures.147 She combined this approach to acting with adherence to the demands of authors and managers, convinced that the strength and very presence of her performances was proof of her position as a pre-eminent professional actress, providing her with, in her own words, a form of ‘market value’ in the West End sphere.148 Vanbrugh’s work in the St. James’s company is an obvious example of how Alexander built upon the reputation of company members, here advertising the prestige of his theatre through work with an actress who influenced the material produced by two leading playwrights of the era. He employed prominent West End performers, granting them a degree of control over their own performance, and embedding them within a company characterised by a form of discipline administered by Alexander, and integral to the St. James’s brand.

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Notes 1. Taylor (1989, 100). 2. Cain and Hopkins (1986, 504). 3. See Campbell (1922), Maude (1927), Neilson (1940), Robins (1940), Vanbrugh (1948), Ward (1918). 4. These are emphasised as essential components of a professional occupation by Reader (1966, 43 & 163–166); and also Leicht and Fennell (2001, 8). The traditional professions were divinity, medicine and the law, and as other occupations gained professional status, they were similarly defined by their dependence upon a liberal education, and protected from competition by association with the state, church or university. The apotheosis of professional status in the nineteenth century was sanctioned in the form of ‘Royal Societies’. These acted as governing bodies and were presided over by the leaders of a given profession who controlled entrance to that profession, training and certification. These societies included The Royal Society (1660), Royal Academy (1768), Royal Irish Academy (1785), Royal Society of Medicine (1805), Royal Society of Literature (1820), Royal Geographical Society (1830) and Royal Academy of Music (1830). 5. In The Green Room Book 1906, Hunt (1906, 428–437), twelve organisations are listed as representing specific groups within the entertainment industry: The Actors’ Association, The Actors’ Benevolent Fund, The Actors’ Orphanage, Entertainments Protection Association, Music Hall Artistes’ Railway Association, Music Hall Benevolent Fund, The Music Hall Home, Music Hall Sick Fund, Royal General Theatrical Fund; the final three represent theatre staff: Heads of Departments Association, National Association of Theatrical Employees, Scenic Artists’ Association. 6. Both the Lord Chamberlain and the London County Council had some control over dramatic material produced and theatre infrastructure, but not over employment conditions. 7. Armstrong (1912, 90–91). In 1910, Armstrong was a theatrical reader, and also published The Dramatic Author’s Companion, with an introduction by Arthur Bourchier. 8. Macleod (1981, 123). 9. Irving’s initial reaction to the Actors’ Association as summarised by Macleod (1981, 71–72). 10. Clarence Derwent, ‘The Actors’ Association’ in Armstrong (1912, 155–157). 11. Macleod (1981, 100–104). 12. Ibid. 71.

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13. Clarence Derwent, ‘The Actors’ Association’ in Armstrong (1912, 155–157). 14. In his examination of professional men in nineteenth-century England, Reader (1966) defines the concept of the liberal professions thus: ‘For the generality of those who had a claim to be considered gentlemen the occupations conventionally considered most suitable, apart from government and the armed services, were the “liberal professions”, and of these there were only three: divinity, physic, and law. […] The force of much that later came to be absorbed into the word “profession” was carried in the adjective “liberal”, which meant that the essential qualification for entry into any of these three occupations, which were sometimes also called the “learned” professions, was a liberal education: that is, the education of a gentleman, not of a trader or an artisan’ (9–10). 15. Arthur Bourchier, ‘Introduction’, in Armstrong (1912, 9). 16. Armstrong (1912, 90–91). 17. Numbers rose from 1463 in 1841 to 18,247 in 1911. Figures taken from Tracy C. Davis’s reproduction of census statistics (Davis 1991, 10). 18. The editor of the Stage, Charles L. Carson, speaking in 1893 and quoted in Macleod (1981, 86). 19. There were numerous periodicals for amateur actors between 1867 and 1918, including the Amateur’s Guide (1867), Amateur Actor (1886), Amateur’s Handbook and Entertainment Guide (1897) and Amateur Stage (1906). Taken from Stratman (1972). 20. Corbett (1992, 116). Chapters 4 and 5 focus upon the autobiographical writing of Fanny Kemble, Madge Kendal, Marie Bancroft, Ellen Terry, Stella Campbell and Irene Vanbrugh to assess ‘how they reveal middleclass womanhood to be a matter of learned behaviour rather than a natural orientation, for they insist that bourgeois respectability is a goal that can be achieved through the practices of theatrical and autobiographical self-­representation’ (13). 21. Worthen (1992, 2). 22. Taylor (1989, 172). 23. Archer (1888, 196–197). 24. Vanbrugh (1948, 10). 25. Sennett (2002, 212). 26. Anon. (1915). Tribute to Sir George Alexander: Twenty-Five Years of Management. 27. Stoker (1890, 1044). 28. Davis and Emeljanow (2001, 211). 29. Benson (1930, 159). With the benefit of a private income, Benson had been able to study boxing, fencing and wrestling with Angelo’s school in St. James’s Street, elocution with a number of tutors including Elwin,

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Lacey, Creswick, Vezin, Behncke and Mills, and stage-dancing with the Lyceum ballet master, before he achieved a professional engagement in the 1880s. 30. Benson (1930, v). 31. Twenty-two members of the St. James’s company trained with Benson: Eleanor Aickin, Henry Ainley, Lilian Braithwaite, Hutin Britton, W. Graham Browne, Alfred Brydone, Leslie Faber, Ada Ferrar, Dorothy Green, Margaret Halstan, Alfred Harris, H.R. Hignett, Matheson Lang, Madge McIntosh, Dennis Neilson-Terry, Henry Oscar, Nigel Playfair, E.  Lyall Swete, Henry Vibart, Alfred Wareing, Montague Wigan, E.  Harcourt Williams. A further three leading artists were members of Benson’s company: Elizabeth Robins, Marion Terry, Geneviève Ward. 32. Marion Terry (13 October 1853 to 21 August 1930) began her career at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, in July 1873, but Irene Vanbrugh (2 December 1872 to 30 November 1949) became a pupil at Thorne’s Margate school in September 1888, and was engaged at the Olympic Theatre in December. Evelyn Millard (18 September 1869 to 9 March 1941) joined Thorne in July 1891, progressing to Thomas Thorne’s touring company in July 1891 and then to the Gattis Adelphi Company. Further information on the careers of these actresses will be provided throughout this volume. 33. Anon. (1894). ‘A Chat with Miss Evelyn Millard’. 34. Allan Aynesworth (1886), Evelyn Millard (1891), E. Lyall Swete (1888), Norman Trevor (1894), Irene Vanbrugh (1888), and Violet Vanbrugh (1886). 35. Geneviève Ward notes in her autobiography that she began ‘coaching for the stage’ in 1890 (1918, 140). An article entitled ‘The Neville Dramatic Studio’ in the Era (Anon. 1895d) describes a ‘studio theatre near the Marble Arch, which is under the direction of Mr Henry Neville and Mr Fred Gartside’. The writer goes on to acknowledge that ‘continual practice in a miniature theatre, with its necessary discipline, must be very advantageous to the intelligent novice, whose every gesture is watched by a stern and clever coach’. 36. Pelican, Christmas 1906. (New York Public Library. The Billy Rose Theatre Division: Anonymous scrapbooks containing clippings about George Alexander). Tree’s Academy of Dramatic Art is ‘the school’ referred to here. 37. Booth (1980, 33). 38. Mason (1935, 24–25). 39. Taylor (1989, 1). 40. Marshall (1957, 280). 41. T.W. Robertson quoted in Cairns (1996, 55–56).

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42. J. Michael Walton has described how the term ‘director’ was not available to Craig, who described the work now done by that figure using the terms ‘stage manager’ and ‘stage director’. Craig (1983, 32). 43. Kendal (1890, 26). 44. Anon. (1895c). ‘Mr. Alexander on Amateurs’. 45. By the first decade of the twentieth century, organisations were in existence that represented technical staff, although these organisations focused upon pay and conditions rather than formulating specific job descriptions. These were Heads of Departments Association, National Association of Theatrical Employees, Scenic Artists’ Association. See The Green Room Book 1906 (Hunt 1906, 428–437). 46. Bax (1936, 20). 47. H.H.  Vincent was stage manager from November 1890 to July 1901, and E.V. Reynolds from August 1902 until May 1918. There is no reference made in programmes to another stage manager for the intervening months. 48. H.H.  Vincent (1848–1913) was described in an obituary as an ‘actor manager’ (Era, 22 October 1913, 16). During the 1870s Vincent was the leading man in Northern theatres including Bolton, Newcastle and Glasgow. His London debut was in Boucicault’s After Dark in 1877. For seventeen years, he was general manager in charge of theatres in Melbourne and Sydney for Williamson, Garner and Musgrave, but lost savings accrued during this period because of bad investments during the first year of his retirement. Leaving the St. James’s Theatre in 1900 he worked in touring companies, before retiring permanently in 1906. E. Vivian Reynolds (1866–1952). Reynolds’s first professional roles were at the Theatre Royal, Bath, in September 1890, and he then spent three years with the Calvert and Helmsley company and five years with John Hare, after which he became Alexander’s stage manager. He is categorised in Who Was Who in The Theatre as ‘actor and stage manager’, and spent sixteen years as stage manager at the St. James’s Theatre from 1902 to 1918. An early review of Reynolds at the St. James’s Theatre, in the minor role of Kellerman in Old Heidelberg (19 March 1903), emphasises his potential as an actor: ‘The quiet comedy of the impersonation deserves warm promise of even greater things in Mr. Reynolds’s career.’ (Era, 21 March 1903, 19). After Alexander’s death he left the St. James’s, and from 1918 to 1920 he was stage manager with the Prinsep-Löhr company in London, before touring with that company in Canada and North America. After his return to London in March 1922, he was employed as a character actor in West End productions and radio drama, until his retirement from the stage in 1937. 49. Anon. (1913a), Era.

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50. Ibid. 51. Vincent appeared in twenty-three plays staged during his time as stage manager; Reynolds in thirty-four. 52. Alexander played Oscar Stephensson, and Reynolds ‘Director of the Casino’. The Kendals were appearing at the St. James’s Theatre during this period. 53. Anon. (1912), Stage, (1914), Stage. 54. Anon. (1895a), Era, 16 February, (1909b), Era, 12 December. 55. Anon. (1913b), The Times. 56. Anon. (1913a), Era. 57. Anon. (1920), ‘The Film World’. 58. Mason (1935, 157). 59. Carlson (2003, 48–49). 60. Ibid. 7. 61. Mason (1935, 17–30). 62. Hilda Trevelyan quoted in Johns (1938). 63. Anon. (1958), ‘George Alexander’. 64. Bright (1892, 240). Alexander’s repertoire to this point was Sunlight and Shadow (1891), The Idler (1891), Lord Anerley (1891), Forgiveness (1891) and Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892). 65. Parker (1909, 1916). Parker edited Who’s Who until 1956, as well as the 1908 and 1909 editions of The Green Room Book, and therefore during the period of Alexander’s managerial career was responsible for compiling the most widely circulated career summaries of the actors mentioned in this book. 66. Waring’s work in Ibsen for the London stage is further scrutinised in Cima (1983). 67. Allan Aynesworth (E.  Abbot-Anderson 14 April 1865 to 23 August 1959) was educated at Chatham House, and in France and Germany, including at the Comédie Française, before entering Thorne’s company where he stayed for three years in the late 1880s. Subsequently, he was employed by prominent West End managements before he entered Alexander’s company. His first London appearance was at the St. James’s in The Witch, April 1887, for Mrs. Marsham Rae. In September 1887 he appeared at the Haymarket in The Red Lamp, and then in 1888 joined Hare and Kendal at the St. James’s. In October 1888 he was with Rutland Barrington’s company, at the same theatre, in The Dean’s Daughter. Between 1888 and 1895 he was at the Court in The Weaker Sex and Aunt Jack (1889), and at the same theatre he was in The Cabinet Minister (1890). In 1891 he appeared at the Avenue in The Volcano and The Late Lamented, in 1892 at the Criterion in The Crusaders and then The Bauble Shop. During 1893–1895 he was engaged with Augustin Daly. Also, in

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May 1894 he appeared at the Garrick as Sir Frederick Blount in Money. Aynesworth transferred to the St. James’s, for The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). 68. Grey (1930). 69. Aynesworth’s obituary in Anon. (1959b), The Times. Aynesworth remained circumspect about the length of time he spent with the Comédie Française and what this training consisted of, as the phrase ‘came under the influence’ attests to. The obituary in The Times is slightly more specific: ‘Aynesworth, fortunately for him, was sent to complete his education in France, where as Sociétaire of the Comédie Française provided an opportunity for him to study the technique of French acting.’ I can find no more precise details regarding this training, however. 70. Anon. (1959a), Daily Telegraph. 71. Gagnier (1986, 114). 72. Anon. (1959b), The Times. 73. This description of Aynesworth’s performance is from Anon. (1895b), The Times. A comprehensive summary of reviews for The Importance of Being Earnest is provided in Donohue (1995, 55–56). 74. Daily News, 15 February 1895, and Illustrated London News, 23 February 1895, quoted in Donohue (1995, 56). 75. Anon. (1895e), Era. 76. Anon. (1895f), The Times. 77. Anon. (1909a), Era. 78. Vernon joined Alexander’s company in 1895, appearing as General Humeden in The Divided Way (1895), Colonel Sapt in The Prisoner of Zenda (1896, 1897 and 1900 productions), Jaques in As You Like It (1896), Sir Mostyn Hollingworth in The Tree of Knowledge (1897), Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing (1898), General von Brandenburg in The Conquerors (1898), Sapt in Rupert of Hentzau (1900) and finally Sir Jacob Holroyd, M.P. in A Debt of Honour (1900). 79. W.H. Vernon (c. 1834 to 4 December 1905) was apprenticed under the stock company system at the Adelphi Theatre, Liverpool, in 1860, afterwards appearing in James Chute’s company in Bristol and Bath, and for John Newcombe in Plymouth. He graduated to leading roles in plays including The Man in the Iron Mask, Medea, The Hunchback and Masks and Faces. His London debut was in 1868, in H.J. Byron’s Cyril’s Success at the Olympic. He subsequently appeared there in Mary Warner and Clancarty (1869–1870). Vernon later appeared under Ada Swanborough’s management at the Strand in Byron’s comedies Old Soldiers and Old Sailors in 1873 and 1874 respectively. He then entered management with Swanborough at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham. During the 1880s he was with Williamson, Garner and Musgrove in India and Australia,

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appearing in repertory with Geneviève Ward in her signature production Forget-Me-Not, as well as The Queen’s Favourite, Mammon and Macbeth. He began working in London theatre again in 1890. 80. Geneviève Ward describes her association with Vernon, in chapters 7, 8 and 9 of Both Sides of the Curtain (1918). They began acting together in 1881, when he became the leading man on her tour of the United States, Canada and India. They worked together frequently throughout the following decade, most notably in Ward’s signature production, Forget-MeNot, by Herman Merivale and F.C. Grove. 81. Anon. (1896b), Era (1896c), Stage (1897b), Era. 82. Shaw (1896, 586). 83. Anon. (1895g), Stage (1898), Era. 84. In The Divided Way he played General Humeden and Alexander his son, Gaunt; in both The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau Vernon played Colonel Sapt, tutor to the impostor Rudolf Rassendyll, played by Alexander. 85. Anon. (1896d), The Times. 86. Anon. (1896a), Daily Telegraph. 87. Anon. (1900), The Times. 88. Anon. (1909c), Parts I Have Played, 7–8. 89. Charles Aubrey Smith (21 July 1863 to 20 December 1948). Smith was educated at Charterhouse and St. John’s College, Cambridge. After leaving university he played cricket for Sussex and was Captain of the M.C.C. for tours of Australia and South Africa. He worked briefly as a stockbroker in South Africa before returning to England and finding employment as an actor with A.B. Tapping’s company between 1892 and 1895. Smith’s first London appearance was on 13 March 1895 as Reverend Amos Winterfield in John Hare’s production of The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith at the Garrick, followed by a tour with Fred Terry in The Home Secretary, and a place in John Hare’s company for a tour of Britain and the United States. He then appeared for Alexander as Michael in The Prisoner of Zenda (1896), Frederick in As You Like It (1896), Arthur Eave in The Princess and the Butterfly (1897) and Michael in a revival of The Prisoner of Zenda (1897). While he was business manager at the St. James’s he also appeared as Hugh Lascelles in The Ambassador (1898), Algie Portman in The Man of Forty (1900), Hugh Graeme in The Wilderness (1901) and Colonel Dixon in A Patched-Up Affair (1902). 90. A.B. Tapping began his career as a child actor at the Princess’s Theatre on 1 August 1864 in The Streets of London. He was actor and stage manager there until 1874, then appeared in regional stock companies before becoming Tree’s stage manager at the Haymarket. During 1890–1891 he toured Australia in partnership with Charles Cartwright, before touring

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the provinces with his own company between 1891 and 1901. He maintained a career as touring manager and actor until 1918. 91. Anon. (1897a), Era (1897c), The Times. 92. London Metropolitan Archives (1887–1909). 93. Smith initially played the Duke of Orme in an unsuccessful production of Grundy’s The Degenerates at the Imperial Theatre with Langtry, between 17 April 1902 and 3 May 1902; and also appeared in 1902 as the Honourable Henry Challace in Secret and Confidential at the Comedy, and as Sidney Cortlion in Captain Kettle at the Adelphi. In 1903, he played Torpenhow in The Light That Failed with Forbes-Robertson at the Lyric and New Theatre and Aubrey Tanqueray in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray at the New Theatre. 94. Henry Ainley (21 August 1879 to 31 October 1945). Ainley worked as a clerk in Sheffield before joining Benson. After leaving the St. James’s company he went to New York and appeared opposite Maude Adams, but returned to the St. James’s for William Mollison and Lilian Braithwaite’s season (1905). In 1906 he appeared in the Vedrenne–Barker season at the Court in leading roles: Neanias in Pan and the Young Shepherd, Orestes in Electra, title role in Hippolytus. From that point he worked consistently in the West End, notably in Tree’s 1910 Shakespeare Festival and for Granville–Barker at the Savoy during September–December 1912, playing Leontes and Malvolio. In 1919 Ainley went into management with Gilbert Miller at St. James’s Theatre, and played Fedya in Reparation and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar (1919–1920) before the partnership dissolved. He continued to work in the West End until 1928 and appeared in radio drama and on film. Roles included Rudolf Rassendyll in the first film version of The Prisoner of Zenda in 1915. 95. Mason (1935, 158). 96. In Benson’s Lyceum season in 1900 Ainley played the Duke of Gloucester in Henry V, the English Ambassador in Hamlet, Sir Stephen Scroop in Richard II, Curio in Twelfth Night, Agrippa in Antony and Cleopatra. At the Comedy in 1901 he was Servant in The Taming of the Shrew, Captain of the Volscians in Coriolanus, Jaques in As You Like It, Bushey in Richard II and Rosencrantz in Hamlet. The year 1901 suggests some progress within the profession for Ainley, but J.C.  Trewin insists that Benson remained reluctant to cast him: ‘He reached Benson, very young, sweetnatured, and retiring, ready to do anything to help. Nearly everyone, even Asche recognised what he might be, except Benson himself and one or two juniors. So Henry Ainley became secretary, prompter, assistant stage manager: Apollo in the wings. He was also Keeper of the Purse, prepared when he was asked for a sovereign to tender a shilling which Benson would accept quite happily’ Trewin (1960, 102).

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97. Anon. (1902a), Sketch. 98. Archer (1902). 99. Anon. (1902b), Stage. 100. Mason (1935, 158–159). 101. Review of Old Heidelberg in Anon. (1903). 102. Anon. (1905). 103. Powell (1997, 57). 104. Most particularly Campbell and Elizabeth Robins, who in autobiographical publications describe their impatience with Alexander’s control of their behaviour on and off stage, while they were members of his company. Campbell (1922, 63–70), Robins (1940, 267–280). 105. Campbell (1922, 66). 106. Dolan (2010). 107. Alexander (c. 1896). 108. Witz (1992, 47). 109. Bright (1892, 240). 110. Davis (1991, 76–77). 111. Excerpts from these letters are reproduced in Mason (1935, 45–55). 112. The play was an adaptation by Bourchier and Alfred Sutro of Bisson and Carré’s comedy M.  Le Directeur. Vanbrugh played Dulcie Martindale, and the play ran for 223 performances from 7 September 1895 to 21 March 1896. 113. Fay Davis (15 December 1873 to 27 February 1945). Born in Boston, by 1895 she was giving recitals in London, and appeared in The Squire of Dames for Charles Wyndham in November 1895. Davis was subsequently employed by Alexander for the tour of The Prisoner of Zenda, July to October 1896. Davis left the company to play the title role in Iris at the Garrick Theatre on 21 September 1901. 114. Julia Neilson (12 June 1868 to 27 May 1957) began performing in amateur theatricals while a student at the Royal Academy of Music (between 1884 and 1887), and late in 1887 she appeared in a production at Ascot, where Marie Bancroft was also appearing who, according to Neilson, provided her with some direction (Neilson, This for Remembrance, 31). Joseph Barnby at the Royal Academy introduced Neilson to W.S. Gilbert, and she was cast in his comedy Pygmalion and Galatea for a charity matinée at the Lyceum on 21 March 1888, her first professional appearance. She married Fred Terry on 2 October 1891. 115. Dolan (2010, 55). 116. Pinero wrote to Alexander, prior to the production of The Princess and the Butterfly (1897): ‘I am wondering whether it would be worth your while to see Miss Fay Davis, who is not engaged for next season, and, without pledging yourself to her in any way, interest her by telling her that there

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might be a part for her in my play at your theatre.’ Arthur Wing Pinero to George Alexander, 9 March 1896 Wearing (1974, 172). 117. The Wisdom of the Wise (1900), The Man of Forty (1900). 118. Mrs Erlynne in Lady Windermere’s Fan (1904), Lady Claude Derenham in Mollentrave on Women (1905), Lady Astrupp in John Chilcote, M.P. (1905). 119. Geneviève Ward (27 March 1838 to 18 August 1922) trained in opera with Mlle Persiani in Paris, then San Giovanni and Lambeti in Bergamo, and made her debut at La Scala, Milan, in 1857. She made her first appearance as an actress at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, as Lady Macbeth on 1 October 1873. Her first London appearance was at the Adelphi on 28 March 1874, as Unarita in The Prayer of the Storm. In 1876 she trained with Regnier in Paris, appearing in a French-language Macbeth for Paul Lecroix at the Porte St. Martin on 11 February 1877. Her first managerial enterprise was Forget-­Me-­Not at the Lyceum on 21 August 1879. She appeared with Irving as Queen Eleanor in Becket on 6 February 1883, as Morgan le Fay in King Arthur on 12 January 1895, as the Queen in Cymbeline on 22 September 1896 and as Margaret in Richard III on 19 December 1896. Ward also appeared in early productions of Ibsen in London: as Lona Hassel in The Pillars of Society at the Opera Comique on 17 June 1889, then as Mrs. Borkman in John Gabriel Borkman at the Strand on 3 May 1897. 120. Stoker (1906, vol. 2, 169–170). 121. Quote taken from Morley (n.d.). 122. François-Joseph-Philoclès Regnier de La Brière (1807–1885) was an eminent actor and playwright who was both dean of the ComédieFrançaise (from 1865 until 1871) and from 1884 a professor at the Paris Conservatory. These roles help to explain why training with Regnier was deemed an exceptional marker of expertise and professional development. 123. Ward (1918, 140–141). 124. Gusdorf (1980, 41). Further analysis of the autobiography pertinent to the use of theatrical memoir as a research aid found in Corbett (1992, 2004), Gilmore (1994), Gale and Gardner (2004). 125. Vanbrugh (1948, 78). 126. Lady Mary Lasenby in The Admirable Crichton (1902), Letty in Letty (1903), Stella in His Excellency the Governor (1904), Amy Grey in Alice Sit-­by-­the-Fire (1905), Nina Jesson in His House in Order (1906), Marise Chelford in The Thief (1907), Dorothy Faringay in The Builder of Bridges (1908), Zoe Blundell in Mid-Channel (1909). 127. Davis (1991, 14). 128. Vanbrugh’s maternal grandfather, a barrister, was a patron of Edmund Kean. Baroness Burdett-Coutts was godmother to Vanbrugh’s sister

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Angela. In 1884, Violet Vanbrugh moved to London and was introduced to Terry, probably by Burdett Coutts, and the older actress suggested she take the name Vanbrugh (the family name was Barnes). Terry had been reading a novel entitled Miss Vanbrugh, by Pen Derwas (Bristol: J.W. Arrowsmith, 1885). Shortly after, the rest of the family moved to London and Irene went to a school recommended by Terry. ‘Ellen Terry now lived across the road in Barkston Gardens, and life was never dull when there was a chance of catching sight of her driving in her comfortable landau and of being greeted with a wave of her hand. Then there was the added thrill of being offered her box at the Lyceum. I often contrived to push myself in on this with the result that I saw Faust about twenty times and would willingly have seen it another twenty.’ Vanbrugh (1948, 20). 129. Auerbach (1987, 178). This is an instance of female social and professional networks replacing genealogical relationships as a way into the profession for women. For more on this, see Bratton (2003, 171–199). 130. Vanbrugh (1948, 93). 131. Marshall (1998, 179). 132. Vanbrugh (1948, 199). 133. Ibid. 151. 134. Nina in His House in Order (1906); Zoe in Mid-Channel (1909); Ottoline in The Big Drum (1915). During her career Vanbrugh also appeared as Rose Trelawny in Trelawny of the Wells (1898); Sophy in The Gay Lord Quex (1899); Letty in Letty (1903). 135. Barrie wrote Ibsen’s Ghost and Walker, London (1891) in which Vanbrugh appeared under Toole’s management. Later in the decade Vanbrugh appeared in Pinero’s Trelawny of the Wells (1898) at the Court Theatre for Dion Boucicault and Arthur Chudleigh’s company, then in The Gay Lord Quex (1899) in John Hare’s company; also Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton (1902) in Charles Frohman’s company. 136. Anon. (1906a), Clarion. 137. Vanbrugh (1948, 24). 138. Barrie’s correspondence, quoted in Vanbrugh (1948, 28). 139. Vanbrugh (1948, 102–103). 140. Ibid. 56. 141. Ibid. 185. Vanbrugh reflects upon the similarities between her performance in The Gay Lord Quex and that of Lena Ashwell in Mrs Dane’s Defence in the same year. By 1907, Lena Ashwell had become habitually cast in the role of the errant woman, writing in her autobiography: ‘I am the great criminal of the stage, I have broken all the commandments, I have committed all the crimes in the calendar’ Ashwell (1936, 122). Both actresses achieved considerable success by allowing dramatists and man-

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agers to cast them in roles that capitalised upon previously successful productions. 142. Anon. (1906b), Sketch. 143. Early in her autobiography Vanbrugh emphasises her ‘dislike’ for imitation (Vanbrugh 1948, 10), and notes her frustration with Henry Arthur Jones, who, after Ashwell’s success in Mrs Dane’s Defence, defined the work of both actresses as ‘sensational’ (i.e. the strength of their performances derived from ‘sensation’ in the plot). Describing the first night of Jones’s play, and the response after the third act, she recalls: ‘After the curtain fell for the last time on this act the author turned to me and said: “You are not the only one to make a sensational success. Here is another young actress who has made her name in a fine part.”’ Vanbrugh writes that this comment ‘marred’ the evening for her. (185). 144. Vanbrugh trained with Thorne at Margate in 1888. This training is described in Vanbrugh (1948, 16–18, 1951, 43–44). 145. Vanbrugh (1948, 93). 146. Ibid. 91 & 93. 147. These are reproduced in Vanbrugh (1951). Vanbrugh’s close ties with RADA explain her desire to record the technique which she developed. Her brother, Kenneth Barnes, was principal from 1909 until 1955. Vanbrugh became the first woman to sit on the Academy’s Council, from December 1912. 148. Vanbrugh (1951, 98–99).

References Alexander, George. c. 1896. Letter from George Alexander to Winifred Dolan. V & A Theatre and Performance Department, The Winifred Dolan Collection, THM/394/7/3. Anon. 1894. A Chat with Miss Evelyn Millard. Sketch, 7 November. ———. 1895a. Era, 16 February ———. 1895b. The Times, 16 February. ———. 1895c. ‘Mr. Alexander on Amateurs’. Era, 5 October. ———. 1895d. The Neville Dramatic Studio. Era, 19 October. ———. 1895e. Era, 9 November. ———. 1895f. The Times, 25 November. ———. 1895g. Stage, 28 November. ———. 1896a. Daily Telegraph, 8 January. ———. 1896b. Era, 11 January. ———. 1896c. Stage, 9 January. ———. 1896d. The Times, 3 December. ———. 1897a. Era, 3 April.

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———. 1897b. Era, 30 October. ———. 1897c. The Times, 3 July. ———. 1898. Era, 16 April. ———. 1900. The Times, 2 February. ———. 1902a. Sketch, 12 March. ———. 1902b. Stage, 6 March. ———. 1903. Stage, 26 March. ———. 1905. Era, 30 December. ———. 1906a. Clarion, 9 February. ———. 1906b. Sketch, 7 February. ———. 1909a. Era, 4 December. ———. 1909b. Era, 12 December. ———. 1909c. Parts I have Played: A Photographic and Descriptive Biography of Mr. George Alexander. London: The Abbey Press. ———. 1912. Stage, 14 March. ———. 1913a. Era, 22 October. ———. 1913b. The Times, 17 February. ———. 1914. Stage, 8 January. ———. 1915. Tribute to Sir George Alexander: Twenty-Five Years of Management. The Times, 5 February. ———. 1920. The Film World: Bleak House on the Screen. The Times, 1 March. ———. 1958. George Alexander: The Last Great Actor-Manager. The Times, 18 June. ———. 1959a. Daily Telegraph, 24 August. ———. 1959b. The Times, 25 August. Archer, William. 1888. Masks or Faces? London: Longmans, Green and Co. ———. 1902. World, 12 May. Armstrong, Cecil Ferard. 1912. The Actor’s Companion. London: Mills and Boon. Ashwell, Lena. 1936. Myself a Player. London: Michael Joseph. Auerbach, Nina. 1987. Ellen Terry: Player in Her Time. New York: W. W. Norton. Bax, Peter. 1936. Stage Management. London: Lovat Dickson. Benson, Frank. 1930. My Memoirs. London: Ernest Benn. Booth, Michael. 1980. Prefaces to English Nineteenth-Century Theatre. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bratton, Jacky. 2003. New Readings in Theatre History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bright, Addison. 1892. George Alexander: Actor and Manager. The Theatre, 239–244. Cain, P.J., and A.G. Hopkins. 1986. Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas I: The Old Colonial System, 1688–1850. Economic History Review 39: 501–525. Cairns, Adrian. 1996. The Making of the Professional Actor. London: Peter Owen.

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Campbell, Mrs. Patrick. 1922. My Life and Some Letters. London: Hutchinson. Carlson, Marvin. 2003. The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Cima, Gay Gibson. 1983. Discovering Signs: The Emergence of the Critical Actor in Ibsen. Theatre Journal 35 (1): 5–22. Corbett, Mary Jean. 1992. Representing Femininity: Middle-Class Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Women’s Autobiographies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2004. Performing Identities: Actresses and Autobiography. In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, ed. Kerry Powell, 109–128. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Craig, Edward Gordon. 1983. In Craig on Theatre, ed. J.  Michael Walton. London: Methuen. Davis, Tracy C. 1991. Actresses as Working Women. London: Routledge. Davis, Jim, and Victor Emeljanow. 2001. Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840–1880. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. Dolan, Winifred. 2010. In A Chronicle of Small Beer, ed. Andy Moreton. London: The Society for Theatre Research. Donohue, Joseph. 1995. Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’: A Reconstructive Critical Edition of the Text of the First Production. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe. Gagnier, Regenia. 1986. Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gale, Maggie B., and Viv Gardner, eds. 2004. Auto/Biography and Identity: Women, Theatre and Performance. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Gilmore, Leigh. 1994. Autobiographics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Grey, Madeleine. 1930. Our Interview. In Magazine Programme, V & A Theatre and Performance Department Personal File, AYNESWORTH, Allan. Gusdorf, Georges. 1980. Conditions and Limits of Autobiography. In Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. James Olney, 28–48. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hunt, Bamforth, ed. 1906. The Green Room Book 1906. London: T. Sealey Clark. Johns, Eric. 1938. Idols of the Past: George Alexander. Theatre World, May. Kendal, Madge. 1890. Dramatic Opinions. London: Privately Printed. Leicht, Kevin T., and Mary L.  Fennell. 2001. Professional Work: A Sociological Approach. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. London Metropolitan Archives. 1887–1909. London County Council Committee Papers, St. James’s Theatre, LCC/MIN/10901. Macleod, Joseph. 1981. The Actor’s Right to Act. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Marshall, Norman. 1957. The Producer and the Play. London: Macdonald. Marshall, Gail. 1998. Actresses on the Victorian Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Mason, A.E.W. 1935. Sir George Alexander and the St. James’s Theatre. London: Macmillan. Maude, Cyril. 1927. Behind the Scenes With Cyril Maude. London: John Murray. Morley, M., Trans. n.d. Encicolpedia dello Spettacolo entry for Geneviève Ward, in V & A Theatre and Performance Department Personal File, WARD, Geneviève. Neilson, Julia. 1940. This For Remembrance. London: Hurst and Blackett. New York Public Library. The Billy Rose Theatre Division: Anonymous Scrapbooks Containing Clippings about George Alexander. T: Mss. MWEZ. Parker, John, ed. 1909. The Green Room Book: Or, Who’s Who on the Stage. London: T. Sealey Clark and Co. ———, ed. 1916. Who’s Who in the Theatre. London: Pitman and Sons. Powell, Kerry. 1997. Women and Victorian Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reader, W.J. 1966. Professional Men: The Rise of the Professional Classes in Nineteenth-Century England. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Robins, Elizabeth. 1940. Both Sides of the Curtain. London: William Heinemann. Sennett, Richard. 2002. The Fall of Public Man. London: Penguin Books. Shaw, George Bernard. 1896. Toujours Shakespeare. Saturday Review, 5 December, 584–586. Stoker, Bram. 1890. The Actor-Manager. Nineteenth Century 27: 1040–1058. ———. 1906. Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving. 2 vols. London: Macmillan. Stratman, Carl J. 1972. Britain’s Theatrical Periodicals 1720–1967. New  York: New York Public Library. Taylor, George. 1989. Players and Performance in the Victorian Theatre. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Trewin, J.C. 1960. Benson and the Bensonians. London: Barrie & Rockliff. Vanbrugh, Irene. 1948. To Tell My Story. London: Hutchinson. ———. 1951. Hints on the Art of Acting. London: Hutchinson. Ward, Geneviève. 1918. Both Sides of the Curtain. London: Cassell. Wearing, J.P., ed. 1974. The Collected Letters of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Witz, Anne. 1992. Professions and Patriarchy. London: Routledge. Worthen, William. 1992. Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Theater. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

CHAPTER 4

The Actor-Manager System: The Role of the Playwright

The achievement of authority by actresses within the St. James’s company, seen in its most pronounced form in the body of work by Irene Vanbrugh, is an explicit demonstration of the need for an actor-manager to collaborate to sustain a repertoire. However, this form of collaboration was subsumed within the staffing of the St. James’s Theatre as it was ultimately determined by Alexander. In comparison, the work of the dramatic author was integral to, but not consistently administered by, West End managers. The ongoing negotiation between the promotion of new writing (and by extension the authors of that writing) and the need for profit is apparent in surviving evidence pertaining to Alexander’s managerial career. For example, in a letter to the playwright Pearl Craigie,1 he acknowledges the economic realities of income from a production—of A Debt of Honour by Sydney Grundy—but also the need to maintain a constructive working relationship with dramatic authors: ‘A Debt’ is doing steady business (£1,100 a week) but this does not support going on long. Of course I am conscious that no-one should imagine it is coming off at present, it would be unfair to Grundy, and he is quite one of the best fellows.2

A balance struck between the drive for profit and a rather more fraternal impetus for maintaining the production is conveyed, establishing that Alexander worked hard to maintain his position at the St. James’s by © The Author(s) 2020 L. Sutherland, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7_4

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attending to interpersonal professional networks as well as box office returns. He employed the strategy of keeping work on stage to cultivate the eminence of the dramatic author. The approach worked to create what has been labelled by theatre producer Julius Green the ‘“perceived” hit’, the commercial production sustained at a loss over a number of weeks or even months to maintain the prestige of all prominent participants in that production.3 This could endorse the St. James’s brand and such attention to the status, and indeed the professional welfare, of the playwright often resulted in further collaborations between Alexander and his authors. This chapter will therefore focus upon how Alexander worked with dramatists. After examining the way he balanced the demand for income with a need to support writers who might sustain management through the creation of new work in the longer term, particular attention will be paid to his enduring relationship with Arthur Wing Pinero.

The Dramatist and the ‘Power of Attraction’ For Alexander, integral to a sustained relationship with a dramatist was what the critic William Archer termed the ‘power of attraction’ of any individual play.4 In his article ‘Epilogue Statistical’ for the Theatrical World of 1897, Archer notes that this can be established most accurately through scrutiny of box office records; while the length of a run and audience figures may be indicative, accurate business records detailing the income generated by ticket sales will be the only way to ascertain the ‘power of attraction’ exercised by a production. Certainly, within the St. James’s Theatre Treasury Book covering the period June 1892 to September 1895, there is evidence that helps to identify how Alexander balanced commercial demands with the need for long-running plays. The Treasury Book relates to many productions that endorsed his status, notably of Lady Windermere’s Fan, his first collaboration with Oscar Wilde, and Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray, the play which consolidated Alexander’s commitment to staging new English drama. The record of income within the volume, when combined with knowledge of how long each ran for, becomes indicative of the pace and nature of his response to the reception of and income for each production. Percentage payments to authors are listed, providing instructive evidence of the type of agreements reached between writer and manager, and of how Alexander responded to the level of income achieved, week to week.5

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For example, what is evident from comparing the income week to week for Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Second Mrs. Tanqueray is the negative impact of a break within the run of each play during the summer; the inability for either production to achieve income levels after the hiatus that paralleled box office takings before the break. The first entry in the Treasury Book is for the seventeenth week in the first run of Lady Windermere’s Fan, week ending 17 June 1892, when box office income for evening performances was £1048 5s. 9d. From that week until the ‘Vacation’ period commenced (week ending 5 August), income remained above £700 per week.6 However, when Alexander returned to the venue for the week ending 4 November, income for evening performances was £371 11s., and throughout the final four weeks for this initial run of the play at the St. James’s, the highest weekly income was £525 2s. Despite this impact upon takings, the practice of observing the ‘Vacation’ was sustained consistently between 1892 and 1895, allowing Alexander to foster the St. James’s as a distinctive West End venue, sustaining the practice of a summer hiatus, while also linking the theatre, situated as it was within the Society arena of Mayfair, with the aristocratic practice of returning to London for the ‘season’ in November.7 Still absence from the St. James’s between August and early November interrupted the commercially successful first run of both Lady Windermere and Tanqueray, with audience attendance decreasing consistently once the plays returned to the St. James’s later in the year. Although the sustained practice of the ‘Vacation’ was clearly a factor in how long a piece would remain on stage, the longevity of these productions despite a declining box office consolidated not only the feasibility of management for Alexander but also his status as a young manager establishing the characteristic nature of his career; he appeared astute in selecting and producing new drama by English language authors. These productions were maintained by the actor-manager until receipts went below £400 for Lady Windermere and, for Tanqueray, the longer running play at 223 performances, below £600. Financial records indicate that while these productions inevitably had finite profitable status, there was no requirement at this stage for the actor-manager to foster the impression of a ‘“perceived” hit’, although this became a necessity subsequently, most notably in the case of the historical drama Guy Domville by Henry James, which was staged in 1895 and in the wake of poor critical reaction, ran for only five weeks.

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Certainly a run of productions in 1895, also covered by the Treasury Book, presented a challenge to the sustainability and to the reputation of the Alexander management. The Masqueraders by Henry Arthur Jones had a fair run from the week ending 4 May 1894 to the week ending 22 December 1894; this included a 15-week ‘Vacation’ period so the play was in the West End for nineteen weeks, with box office income dropping severely from £1279 9s. week ending 28 July, to only £726 8s. for the first week back at the St. James’s in November. This was followed by two plays that, for quite different reasons, experienced short runs: Guy Domville and The Importance of Being Earnest. Domville ran for a short time after hostile reactions from many in the first-night audience. Attracted by the prestige of the author, Alexander selected this type of play over two alternatives suggested by James—a contemporary comedy or drama.8 He later defended his decision to produce Guy Domville by making reference to his definitive policy as actor-manager, to ‘unite literature with the stage’.9 In 1909, the actor-manager explained this production as part of his investment in new literary drama, but evidence within the Treasury Book undermines the claim of a ‘fair run’ in economic terms. The entries for Guy Domville are unusual in comparison to other productions recorded in the volume, as they do not include a record of box office income: this is not necessary to calculate payments to each author, since both James and the author of the one-act play which preceded Guy Domville, Julian Field, each received a set amount per performance: £6 for James, £1 for Field. This exceptional procedure suggests that even though the production was maintained for five weeks, income prompted a regular, modest payment to each author, and at a lower amount than was expected when earning a percentage from each performance of a commercially successful piece. In comparison, even the lowest return listed in the Treasury Book—of £35.16.6 for a matinée performance of The Triumph of the Philistines by Henry Arthur Jones, on 8 June 1895—earned its author £2.18.3 at seven per cent of box office takings for a single performance. Domville was replaced in February by The Importance of Being Earnest, the run of the latter play ending after thirteen weeks because of the scandal engulfing Oscar Wilde at precisely the time of the première. In the aftermath of this production, Alexander then mounted comic drama The Triumph of the Philistines, and when that piece ran for only five weeks, he filled the remaining two weeks, until the ‘Vacation’, with revivals of The

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Idler and The Second Mrs Tanqueray. This is where the Treasury Book concludes, the week-long revivals a response to the short-lived productions mounted by Alexander during 1895. Although these revivals were a necessary response to failed productions, they were also a rapid response, indicating the flexibility of this manager in bringing past productions back to the stage to keep the theatre open. Such flexibility was made possible by a consistent policy of developing constructive working relationships with writers, that increased the likelihood of further work being written for Alexander, in turn providing a richer collection of material viable for revival, and of new work likely to do well in the aftermath of a short-­ running production. Financial records indicate how Alexander responded to income, and they are also instructive as to the working relationship between authors and this actor-manager, certainly in the case of the best-known contributor to the St. James’s repertoire: Wilde. Before examining records for the première of The Importance of Being Earnest in more detail, it is possible to use the Treasury Book to examine the professional relationship between Wilde and Alexander over a longer period of time, and before the tumultuous thirteen weeks of that 1895 production. The percentages paid to each author serve to identify their status as writers for commercial theatre and how that influenced the agreement they reached with Alexander. In the case of the first play by Wilde to be staged by this manager, Lady Windermere’s Fan, the author received six per cent for regular weekly performances, and five per cent for matinées, falling to five per cent for every performance after the summer hiatus.10 In contrast, R.  C. Carton, the author of Liberty Hall which was staged next at the St. James’s, received seven per cent for all performances, Pinero received ten per cent for each weekday performance of The Second Mrs Tanqueray (seven per cent for matinées), and Jones received fifteen per cent for each performance of The Masqueraders. Established reputations within the sphere of West End production—where Carton, Pinero and Jones had been operating much longer than Wilde—rather than the status of the author beyond that professional sphere is seen to drive the agreement put in place between author and manager. This is consolidated by the higher percentage Wilde was awarded for The Importance of Being Earnest, his fourth play for a West End management: ten per cent for both evening and matinée performances. The increase may be explained by his increased status as a dramatic author by this time, but also by the circumstances under which

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Alexander mounted the production of Earnest: he arranged with Charles Wyndham to take over the rights to the play, to replace the poorly received and failing production of Guy Domville. Records are not available for the first weeks of income from Lady Windermere’s Fan; however, by examining income levels for all the premières staged at the St James’s Theatre during the period covered by the Treasury Book, it is possible to see that although Wilde was the only writer to have two plays staged by Alexander during the period, they did not provide the greatest revenue (Table 4.1). These details also indicate that it was possible for Alexander to make in excess of £1400 per week on productions at the St. James’s Theatre at this time, from the six evening performances staged. The figures establish that collaborations between Alexander and Wilde produced material that performed well in terms of income, but while Lady Windermere’s Fan was amongst the most commercially profitable productions for Alexander during the first years of his managerial career, the two Wilde plays were not pre-eminent in economic terms.

Table 4.1  Revenue recorded within the St. James’s Theatre Treasury Book Production

Length of run

First week takings (evening performances)

Highest gross and Lowest gross and week in which it week in which it was achieved was achieved

Lady Windermere’s Fan Liberty Hall The Second Mrs Tanqueray The Masqueraders Guy Domville The Importance of Being Earnest

27 [records Not available begin at week 17] 24 £1000.15.6 31 £1254.17

£1101.19 [18]

£418.6.6 [29]

£1150.13.6 [2] £1441.2.6 [5]

£367.14 [17] £500.9.6 [15]

19

£1408.5.6

£1509.7 [3]

£500.4.6 [19]

5 13

N/A £908.14 [2]

N/A £388.16 [13]

The Triumph of the Philistines

5

N/A £908.14 for first full week [only two performances in Week 1] £771.8

£983.7.6 [2]

£550.4.6 [5]

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Table 4.2  Weekly box office takings for The Importance of Being Earnest

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST 908

885

767

667

610

661

718 408

247

531 366

535 388

This precise record of income for the two premières is useful, not only for the evidence presented as to Wilde’s commercial value for the West End actor-manager, but also, because the Treasury Book provides evidence as to the particular appeal of Earnest in line with the notoriety experienced by its author off-stage at the time. Taking weekly income for evening performances, the pattern of box offices takings can be assessed (Table 4.2). The production never achieved the level of income and profit derived from Lady Windermere’s Fan; examining the box office returns, it is apparent that by mid-June 1892, week seventeen of its first run, that production was making over £1000 per week in evening performances alone, dropping to £418; Earnest never reached the £1000 mark. It is possible to link income to the very public events overtaking Wilde’s professional life at the time of the first run of Earnest; most notably, there is an increase in income during week eight, when the libel trial against the Marquess of Queensberry opened, and it was at the end of that week that Wilde’s name was taken off all marketing for the production. However, it is clear that the production drew a substantial audience for its first, full week, but after that, income was already in decline. There is though no evidence that this resulted in any changes to the percentage

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paid to Wilde. Statistics within the Treasury Book suggest that Alexander did draw up contracts with some authors, including Pinero and Jones, where royalties were paid at a lower percentage with a decrease in box office takings, but the consistent amount paid to Wilde throughout the thirteen-week run indicates that if such conditions were present in the contract between Alexander and Wilde, no action was taken to alter the agreement before termination of the production. The steady decline from the second week of the production is distinctive, when compared to the variation experienced by other premières that preceded Earnest (excluding Guy Domville, as box office income is not recorded for that production). There is some fluctuation in income for those other productions, relating to a variety of factors. For example, there are sudden increases in income, in line with the approaching absence of Alexander’s company for the ‘Vacation’ period, or press announcements of the termination to a run. In comparison to the patterns demonstrated for other productions, the steady decline in a paying audience for Earnest is uncharacteristic of the earnings experienced by Alexander. Therefore, when examining weekly income alongside that for the other productions, what is most striking is that, while there were peaks in attendance around both trials, there was not the fluctuation in income experienced with other plays. Rather, this was a première that achieved modest income in comparison to prior successes; there was strong interest during the first full week, but not in line with the income of £1000 and over experienced by Carton, Pinero and Jones. There was a consistent decline in takings with the exception of the two trial weeks, and this differs from the increase in income during the first weeks found in the earlier, long-­r unning work. In the context of other St. James’s productions in the first half of the 1890s, Earnest experienced modest success with paying audiences. While the trials did necessitate the removal of the production, the income achieved from the very start of the run marked this out to be a less profitable collaboration between Wilde and Alexander than Lady Windermere’s Fan. Treasury Book records bring further specificity and rigour to the dominant narrative around Earnest and its performance history, of an exceptionally promising run curtailed by extra-theatrical events. Prior to the trials, the income derived from Earnest was at a modest level for productions staged by Alexander between 1892 and 1895, but takings declined at a steady rate which did

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not merit an end to the run after little more than one month, as had occurred with Guy Domville, and was to happen with The Triumph of the Philistines. It is also important to note that, as with all productions at this time, Alexander mounted matinée performances to increase profit. For Earnest, there were two matinées per week initially, dropping to one in week seven. The alteration to matinée performances, alongside the decision by Alexander to remove Wilde’s name from all advertising and display materials, confirms a correlation between the arrest and trials and the longevity of this première. The conclusions drawn from this close attention to the Treasury Book show how Alexander worked to balance creative and economic imperatives; how this kind of quantitative data allows for greater rigour in the analysis of these facets to his career, how they were influenced or compromised by the need to respond to actual box office income each week. The disparity between the maximum amount recorded for a week of evening performances during the period—£1408—and other weekly income, establishes that it was possible for Alexander to maintain a production that was earning well below the maximum potential profit available, and that he would do so to sustain a première, to further consolidate the St. James’s brand, as intrinsically linked to new work.

Pinero at the St. James’s Theatre: The Second Mrs. Tanqueray and After Within this period the two consecutive commercial successes of 1892, premières of Lady Windermere’s Fan and Liberty Hall, were followed by the collaboration with Pinero which cemented the association of Alexander with new work, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. This Pinero play also suggested the willingness, on the part of Alexander, to draw into West End repertoire work that was perceived to be progressive. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray is a problem play which attempted to bring Ibsen’s style of naturalism to the censored English stage. It had been rejected by John Hare and was subsequently offered to Alexander; Hare noting in correspondence with Pinero: ‘I now regret that I had not the good judgement and the courage that Alexander has shown but I do not grudge him the success he so well deserves’.11 The comment by Hare, albeit a politic one coming from an actor-manager seeking to sustain a relationship with a dramatic author whose work he had been willing to let go, is revealing.

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Alexander is represented as a sympathetic figure for Hare, embedded within the fraternal network of West End production practice. This is further endorsed by the fact that Hare had long been a supporter of Alexander’s professional development, proposing him for the Garrick Club. Praise for the acumen displayed by a younger manager indicates how successful Alexander was in establishing his reputation as a producer of drama suited to the West End, but deemed progressive. Hare rejected the play as ‘too daring’, but Alexander welcomed the opportunity to establish a professional relationship with an already successful English playwright.12 The older manager, who had persuaded Pinero to alter the final act of The Profligate when it was staged in 1889, showed a cautious approach to the dramatist’s new plays. He accepted the comedy Lady Bountiful in 1891 but rejected Tanqueray, only commissioning The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith after Alexander’s success in 1893.13 Yet the play was not such a risk as Hare’s caution might indicate, as before production it had been endorsed by the censor’s approval, and no amendments were required.14 Alexander supported the Lord Chamberlain’s role as a legislative tool which differentiated the ‘legitimate’ stage from other branches of the entertainment industry.15 Pinero, however, was opposed to the censor, although this had little to do with a desire to extend the subjects represented in his drama. Where Alexander recognised an institution which defined the parameters of legitimate theatre, Pinero perceived a slur upon his professional status, although his dramatic output was consistently licensed.16 Difference of opinion between playwright and manager is significant, in examining the value of their long-term relationship; although Alexander appreciated the modern sensibility found in Pinero’s drama, there were evident limits imposed upon the kind of material accepted for the stage of the St. James’s Theatre. William Archer noted how intimately Tanqueray was tied to Alexander’s sustained managerial career, remarking: ‘Pinero and you wanted to do a fine thing—the demand was in your artistic instinct and nowhere else. You did it—you did a fine thing finely—and the supply created the demand’.17 Archer here dwells on the material result of this first collaboration between actor-manager and writer, the ‘thing’ placed on stage, and it is certainly the case that while Alexander and Pinero could potentially disagree on the subjects that should be tackled in the West End, they had a shared approach to stage management that can be traced to a common origin. In a letter to

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Hamilton Fyfe in 1930, Pinero said of his time in Irving’s Lyceum company: The theatre was strictly conducted and its rules reverently obeyed. In that respect I may have been influenced by my association with Irving; in no other way, I think.18

Alexander’s strictly regulated rehearsals and Pinero’s close stage management of his own texts were both examples of former members of the Lyceum company witnessing Irving’s production methods, then implementing similar methods later in their careers. Their presence in that company also confirms the fraternal networks supporting professional development, surely encouraging Alexander to see Pinero, like Sydney Grundy, as one of the ‘best fellows’.19 In his study of the role of collaboration in twentieth-century fiction, Michael Farrell provides a useful definition of the term: A collaborative circle is a primary group consisting of peers who share similar occupational goals and who, through long periods of dialogue and collaboration, negotiate a common vision that guides their work. The vision consists of a shared set of assumptions about their discipline, including what constitutes good work, how to work, what subjects are worth working on, and how to think about them. For a group of artists, the shared vision might be a new style. For a group of scientists, it might be a new theoretical paradigm. Each member comes to play an informal role in the circle, and each role may have a history as the group develops over time. Even while working alone, the individual members are affected by the group and the roles they play in it.20

Farrell’s explanation is pertinent to collaborative enterprise within the late-Victorian and Edwardian commercial theatre, where ‘peers’, a largely male élite, had broad shared artistic and economic goals, which in turn led to new ‘styles’ of drama. The collaborative relationship between Alexander and Pinero resulted in a particular type of serious drama, the problem play, with a contemporary setting which drew audiences and achieved substantial profit. This was not, of course, an exclusive relationship for either dramatist or actor-manager, but The Second Mrs. Tanqueray did establish the reputation of each man for serious drama. It was a defining production for Alexander as a commercial manager, and thus his collaborative

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relationship with Pinero was intrinsically linked to the profit he achieved. Indeed, box office income (gross profit) for the first run of this play was £33,915.21 This was also a defining, if not an early production for Pinero of his work; William Archer had begun a public and consistent endorsement of his drama in 1882.22 His description of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray as ‘the one play of what may be called European merit which the modern English stage can as yet boast’ encouraged the perception of its author as England’s leading playwright throughout the 1890s and 1900s.23 Pinero’s ‘social dramas’ display conventions from the mid-nineteenthcentury well-made play as well as an awareness of the increasing presence of Ibsen’s later plays in translation on the English stage.24 American critic Clayton Hamilton, like Archer a consistent and vociferous advocate of Pinero, also perceived the broad European influences apparent in his serious drama: The mighty influence of Ibsen was first impressed upon the current English theatre in 1891, when Ghosts was exhibited in London under the auspices of the Independent Theatre Society. By the overpowering incentive of this brooding giant of the north, Pinero was persuaded to undertake a thorough study of the works of many other recent European dramatists,—particularly, Alexandre Dumas fils. He taught himself the new technique, and absorbed the ‘high seriousness’ of his continental mentors.25

The presence of elements from the French well-made play, and of Ibsen’s drama in translation, were emphasised by Pinero’s most prominent supporters. Indeed, Archer continued to insist, three decades after the success of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, that the play had been an ‘immediate result’ of Ibsen’s influence,26 although it is difficult to ascertain the extent of that influence. Unlike his peer Henry Arthur Jones, Pinero did not publish his opinions on dramatic writing and the English theatre, with the exception of the introduction to an edition of two plays in 1930.27 He did, however, engage in lengthy correspondence with Archer explaining his reservations regarding Ibsen’s realism.28 As a member of the Independent Theatre Society, the dramatist did attend their 1891 production of Ghosts before writing Tanqueray.29 Pinero’s female characters in his social dramas from this date are women whose sexual and social behaviour is in conflict with an overarching bourgeois morality, and to this extent, Ibsen’s treatment of

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self-determining women in a society controlled by a distinctly masculine authority was influential. However, while supporters including Archer and Hamilton prioritised Ibsen’s influence and then acknowledged the features of the well-made play in Pinero’s work, the latter form is actually far more apparent. The structure of the pièce bien faite, the pattern of exposition, complication, scène à faire and denouement, is apparent in all of the plays by Pinero that were produced by Alexander, with the exception of the one-­ act curtain raiser Playgoers (a comic sketch with a young couple trying to reward their household staff with a trip to the theatre and being reprimanded for it; a piece that preceded A. E. W. Mason’s Open Windows in March 1913).30 Tanqueray complies with the structure and this can be traced from the opening act, in which Aubrey’s dinner with male friends provides an excuse to relate the history of his first marriage and recent engagement to Paula, to the confrontation between Hugh Ardale and Paula at the end of Act Three, a scène à faire which leads to the revelation of their past together, and ultimately to Paula’s suicide. The combined elements of the well-made play and Ibsen’s treatment of female subjectivity resulted in a distinct commercial product—the ‘problem play’. This type of drama held an essential value for West End managements, as it foregrounded an affirming view of privileged society that would encourage affluent audience members to return to a venue. But the form also focused upon sexual transgression, using the censor’s restrictions upon dramatic material in the West End as an ‘aid to dramatic tension’.31 This further endorses initial work with Pinero as a measured risk for Alexander, who initially intended to take Tanqueray for trial matinées, although the play was finally placed cautiously in the evening programme, late in the season and after Lady Windermere’s Fan and Liberty Hall had asserted the strength of the St. James’s management. In this social drama, Pinero displayed and then subverted social transgression. Adept handling of the well-made play form resulted in what Shaw labelled ‘Pineroticism’, a ‘sensuous materiality’ that foregrounded couture costume and exquisite stage settings.32 The appeal of the play was representative of Guy Debord’s concept of ‘commodity fetishism’, a depiction of social status and wealth that subsumed the subjective experience of the characters and was ‘at once here and elsewhere […] the world of the commodity ruling over all lived experience.’33 By framing characters

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and their actions in such an environment, Alexander and Pinero were instating the ‘spatial, generic and moral horizons’ of the play; the suicide of Paula then fundamentally endorsed social restrictions upon female behaviour.34 The well-made structure dominated, as Pinero dramatised the subjective experience of his female heroines within society without attempting any broader critique of that society: ‘commodity ruling over all lived experience’ far more than Ibsen-inspired English drama. In an early assessment of Pinero’s work, Frederick Boas summarised the limitations Pinero imposed upon his drama by this framing: He was profoundly interested in the personal problem of a Paula Tanqueray, an Agnes Ebbsmith or an Iris Bellamy, but he never questioned the fundamental basis of sexual morality.35

Although Pinero developed a specific version of the well-made play to examine social hypocrisy, it is unlikely he intended his play to provoke the profound critical reaction that occurred after the first night. As Rachel Fensham and Austin Quigley have argued convincingly, Tanqueray was a manipulation of the well-made formula that forced audiences to question the unflinching social and moral structures built into the form and the society represented on stage.36 However, they go on to contend that the play succeeded beyond the expectations of Pinero and Alexander because of Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s resistance to the text. This reading of the production acknowledges that Alexander and Pinero collaborated to present a theatrical product that thrilled but ultimately placated the audience, and it was Campbell’s performance that disrupted any complacency in that audience. The actress superimposed her will upon Pinero’s text and the intensive stage management of both Alexander and the playwright, for example adding complexity to the character through her expert playing of the piano. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, therefore, is an example of actor-manager and playwright working within the rehearsal process to formulate a production that established both men as producers of what Archer described as the ‘serious social play’ on the West End stage.37 This was a defining professional collaboration, against which their future work, in collaboration or with other artists, would be judged. For example, in the otherwise poorly received The Thunderbolt (1908), the Illustrated London News praised the performance by ‘Miss Stella Campbell, who seems to inherit her mother’s talents.’38 Her presence recalled the earlier success

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experienced by Alexander, Pinero and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Similarly, Mid-Channel (1909) was judged in relation to the first Alexander-Pinero collaboration. The opinion of the Stage’s reviewer was: It is not a pleasant play, neither was the same author’s The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, of which, to a certain extent, it reminds us. In both plays the woman puts for herself the knot for which she is responsible by death.39

Between 1893 and 1915 Pinero wrote seven plays for the St. James’s. Alexander’s decision to stage Tanqueray established a professional relationship that lasted for more than two decades, and although he had enduring collaborations with other playwrights, he staged more premières and revivals of Pinero’s work than of any other author.40 These plays continued to display elements of the well-made form including ‘[t]he single room with multiple entrances, offering the opportunity for sudden coincidences, chance discoveries and hairsbreadth misses’.41 This is apparent in Pinero’s final two full-length plays for Alexander, Mid-Channel and The Big Drum, staged in 1909 and 1915 respectively. The tragic conclusion to Mid-Channel rests upon a climactic confrontation in Act Three where Theo Blundell informs his wife Zoe that he cannot forgive her adultery. The tragic denouement follows in Act Four when Zoe overhears a conversation between her husband and the play’s raisonneur, Peter Mottram, in which he confirms that they must divorce; the eavesdropping scene prompts her to commit suicide. In The Big Drum, the author Philip Mackworth breaks off his engagement with his fiancée when he discovers, at the end of the third act, that she has purchased nearly all the copies of his new novel, and confronts her with his evidence in a characteristic scène à faire. In each case, facts discovered by accident prompt a tragic conclusion, revealing an ongoing dedication to the well-­ made form which placed structure above innovation in content. Yet it is His House in Order that serves as the most explicit example of the influence of this form upon Pinero’s dramaturgy. Reviewing the play, the Star’s critic called its author ‘the Master-builder of our stage’,42 and Hamilton, in his otherwise flattering and effusive edition of Pinero’s ‘social plays’, criticised His House in Order because of the too obvious dominance of form over content: This play achieved a notable success in the theatre, not only in England, but also in the United States; it was acclaimed so far away from London as

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Milan, where an Italian version, called Sua Casa in Ordine, was acted before enthusiastic audiences; yet I have always felt that its popularity was founded on its technical efficiency instead of being based on any richness in that more important factor which may be described as ‘human interest.’43

The plot of His House in Order repeats a well-made structure which complies with Hamilton’s description of its ‘technical efficiency’. Filmer Jesson (Herbert Waring), politician and country squire, marries for a second time. As the play opens, in a conversation between a journalist and Jesson’s private secretary, we learn that Filmer’s first wife, Annabel, ran his home perfectly, and that since her death he has become dominated by her overbearing and prudish family, the Ridgeleys. His new wife, Nina (Irene Vanbrugh), once his son’s governess, is undermined by Filmer, his young son Derek, and this extended family. Hilary Jesson (George Alexander), Filmer’s ambassador brother, finds Nina broken down by her treatment, and attempts to defend her. After she finds letters proving Annabel committed adultery and that Derek is not Filmer’s son, there is a scene of confrontation between the heroine and her brother-in-law, and Hilary persuades her to keep the information to herself. He finally tells his brother, who expels the Ridgeleys from his house so that he can begin a new life with his second wife. Pinero employs the well-made structure, but with a positive conclusion to the events of the play, perhaps explaining its appeal.

His House in Order: Definitive St. James’s Production The fiscal rationale of the long run—that the greatest profit could be achieved from a single production housed in a single venue—was an evident priority throughout Alexander’s managerial career, and was epitomised by Pinero’s His House in Order. With a first run of 428 performances, this was the most profitable production at the St. James’s for the manager. After opening on 1 February 1906, the play ran for fifty-seven weeks in London, until 27 February 1907, with a net profit of £23,443. Similar commercial success was achieved by the first run productions and revivals of Wilde’s comedies, the spectacular romance The Prisoner of Zenda, and the thriller Bella Donna, but even without the benefit of Treasury Book entries for the period, it is evident that His House in Order remained Alexander’s most lucrative production.44

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The collaboration was almost prevented, however, by a lengthy hiatus in an otherwise regular working relationship between Alexander and Pinero. The structured and rigorous working patterns imposed by these men, inculcated during their time in the Lyceum company, has been recorded by a number of contemporaries. Yet the very fact that they each required a similar level of control over a new production resulted in a professional breach for nine years before His House in Order was produced. After the romantic comedy The Princess and the Butterfly was staged in 1897, Pinero refused Alexander’s request for another play, writing: Frankly, dear Alec, I don’t think that you and I go well in harness; or, rather, I do not feel happy in running tandem with you, myself as wheeler to your lead. I know you take a pride in being an autocrat in your theatre; it is a natural pride in a position which you have worthily won for yourself. But I have also won—or chosen to usurp—a similarly autocratic position in all that relates to my work […] To put the case shortly, there is not room for two autocrats in one small kingdom; and in every detail, however slight, that pertains to my work—though I avail myself gratefully of any assistance that is afforded me—I take to myself the right of dictation and veto.45

An autocratic approach to the preparation of a production, and particularly stage management, was integral to the professional persona of each man. However, from His House in Order onwards, Alexander showed greater deference to the playwright’s demands. This was uncharacteristic, for example Alexander was insistent when making substantial cuts to The Importance of Being Earnest for the first production in 1895 and Wilde, with what Josephine M. Guy and Ian Small have termed a ‘willing pragmatism’ in his collaborations with theatre industry professionals, acceded to these requirements.46 The unusual level of control afforded to Pinero during rehearsals from the early years of the twentieth century is a strong indication of the commercial and reputational value Alexander believed Pinero’s plays held for his management. Their 1906 collaboration was directly related to the short-lived production of the latter’s farcical comedy, A Wife Without a Smile, produced by Charles Frohman and Arthur Chudleigh at Wyndham’s Theatre in 1904. The play included the device of a dancing doll hung from the ceiling, rigged to move when a couple were having sex in the room above. This device was labelled an ‘erotometer’ by A. B. Walkley, as if this farce was the seedy outcome of the ‘Pinerotic’ elements Shaw had recognised in the

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dramatist’s earlier problem plays.47 Mason recalls that Alexander was concerned at the critical response to this work: He was convinced now that if Pinero lost his high position amongst the dramatists, the status of the stage would be inevitably lowered.48

Critical reaction to the piece was not as overwhelmingly negative as Mason’s account suggests, one reviewer noting the ‘ingenuity, the humour, the tricksy spirit which turned everything into ridicule, the brilliant lines which convulsed the house—or ought to have convulsed it, for at times the audience were strangely slow to catch the jokes—all these should have their full meed of praise. But it was the dancing doll that won the trick.’49 So, responses were mixed, but a comment from the reviewer of the Illustrated London News does record a discernible adverse reaction to the farce: Some of our playgoing purists have really taken too seriously the antics of Mr. Pinero’s ‘erotometer’, as a witty critic has christened the dancing doll which our premier dramatist uses so effectively in his new farce.50

What this review also hints at is the disparity between this play and the serious work now expected from a ‘premier dramatist’. Although earlier in his career Pinero had written a number of farcical comedies, Alexander’s concern at the quality of the piece was perhaps combined with anxiety that the playwright who had provided him with the defining production of his management was writing farce for sub-lessees of a West End venue, and that this was somehow a regressive step. The continued association of Pinero with serious drama benefited Alexander, and at a time of poorly received St. James’s repertoire, a social drama could re-instate the authority of both author and manager within the commercial arena of the West End. Prior to the opening of His House in Order, Alexander had produced E. Temple Thurston’s John Chilcote, M. P., in May 1905. The play experienced a poor run as, subsequently, did The Man of the Moment (forty-five and thirty-two performances respectively). At this point, Alexander sub-­ let the St. James’s to the Kendals from September to December 1905,51 and was himself employed by Arthur Collins at Drury Lane. This was one of only three occasions when Alexander appeared for another manager, and speculation in the press regarding the salary he received from Collins

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associated this move with the failed St. James’s productions of 1905. The Prodigal Son, an adaptation by Hall Caine of his own novel, ran until the pantomime season commenced. This is significant because the pantomime was a consistent feature of the Drury Lane repertoire, and therefore Caine’s play was a finite project for Alexander.52 The play was criticised, as its extreme archaeological realism (including a flock of sheep on stage) and the large, spectacular scenic devices expected at Drury Lane, shown to their greatest effect in the tableaux that concluded every act, overwhelmed the performances of individual actors: A Drury Lane drama is supposed to demand, as essential to its success, crowd and show, both of which, in this present instance, seem to be brought in only by way of concession to tradition, as they could be entirely dispensed with, without injury to, nay, rather to the advantage of, Mr. Hall Caine’s play.53

Both this exceptional move to another company and the prolonged presence of the Kendals at the St. James’s were responses to a series of short-­ running productions, and the subsequent collaboration with Pinero became a significant way of endorsing Alexander’s management. The Pall Mall Gazette acknowledged: [T]he St. James’s is itself again […] the booking already shows that not only Mr. Filmer Jesson’s but Mr. George Alexander’s ‘House’ will be in ‘Order’ in every respect for some months to come.54

Further evidence of the degree to which Alexander was relying upon this new production to revitalise his repertoire is the particular marketing tool introduced to emphasise the significance of the new Alexander–Pinero collaboration. A ‘final rehearsal’ on 31 January, effectively a separate press night for critics and peers, advertised the première as an exceptional theatrical event. In her biography, Irene Vanbrugh called this performance an ‘innovation’, although Collins regularly undertook the practice at Drury Lane, where Alexander presumably noted the merits of the system.55 A St. James’s first night, already a significant social occasion, became even more exclusive. The Evening Standard’s critic noted: A delightful social affair was the final rehearsal of Mr. Pinero’s new play, His House in Order at the St. James’s Theatre last night. Mrs. George Alexander

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had sent out the invitations, and the theatre was crowded with well-known people, a great many of whom had dined in Jermyn Street, at the Maison Jules, which is the restaurant of the moment. The Duchess of Sutherland came with a large party. Baron de Meyer was in the front row of the stalls […] Lady Bancroft, Mrs. Kendal, and Miss Lena Ashwell were among the leading actresses.56

Alexander continued this policy for a further two productions, sending out invitations to critics, theatre professionals and prominent first-nighters as an exclusive form of papering the house. This sustained emphasis upon the St. James’s as a select social venue distinguished the theatre and its repertoire from alternative forms of entertainment. Alexander was operating in an atmosphere of intense competition by the first decade of the twentieth century, within an increasingly complex entertainment industry. The final rehearsal was a marketing tool that reminded a wide audience of the St. James’s particular appeal, not only attracting a select audience for that night, but, as the Evening Standard review shows, advertising a new production as a significant and desirable product for a wide readership and potential future audience. Although it is not possible to ascertain with any certainty the precise audience makeup for any single theatre, it is apparent that, although Alexander cultivated the appearance of exclusivity, he acknowledged the need to fill every part of the house. Attendance at a West End venue was a choice, and consumers from a variety of economic backgrounds would select a St. James’s production. However, the Star’s review of His House in Order records that the production was particularly successful with audiences in the cheapest seats: A quarter of an hour after the stalls were empty last night and the author had bowed his recognition of the public’s clamorous approval, the pit and gallery were still acclaiming Mr. Pinero’s success.57

Two notorious examples of adverse reactions from this part of the house and the subsequent failure of these productions—Guy Domville in 1895, and Pearl Craigie’s The Wisdom of the Wise in 1901—prove the importance of continuing to attract audience members who would fill the cheaper seats. Although the attendance of these patrons would not guarantee profit, their overt condemnation of a production was publicised and directly detrimental to the run of a play.

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Indeed, the long run of His House in Order may have profited from the increased attendance of these audience members in the West End. This was the first of only two productions to run throughout the summer, which further marked the commercial success of the play. His House in Order, like the second revival of The Importance of Being Earnest—which had an unbroken run from 30 November 1909 to 23 September 1910— was a production that attracted a sustained audience. No extensive records detailing tours undertaken by the St. James’s company are available, yet from production dates and advertisements of forthcoming tours contained in programmes, it is apparent that Alexander took the company to cities in England and Scotland consistently during the summer months until 1905. But during the final decade of his managerial career, he was increasingly likely to send out planet companies with successful productions. The change preceded the start of his political career, election to the London County Council in March 1907 requiring that he remain in London for most of the year, so the knowledge that audiences would sustain a production in the capital over the summer months was useful at this point. However, there were broader economic incentives for finally discontinuing the West End tradition of a summer hiatus. The closure or sub-letting of theatres over the summer months had been prompted by the ‘Season’ and the absence of the aristocracy and other affluent sections of the audience, including the politicians whose attendance at first nights was always noted by reviewers. Eventually an expanding leisure industry, based not around élite social structures but rather around a broad audience base throughout Greater London, encouraged West End entrepreneurs to mount scenically spectacular productions that distinguished their managements. This process required considerable investment and consequently long runs without interruption to maximise profit. Audiences in what Peter Bailey calls an ‘objective economic position’—that is, regulated clerical employment—could sustain West End productions.58 Bailey quotes Mario Borsa, who described an audience at a West End venue in 1906, the year His House in Order premièred: There are shopmen, clerks and spinsters in pince-nez; but more numerous still are the shop girls, milliners, dress makers, typists, stenographers, cashiers of large and small houses of business, telegraph and telephone girls, and thousands of other girls […] spending all their money gadding about, on sixpenny novels, on magazines, and above all, on the theatre.59

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A brief rupture in the progressive establishment of syndicated entertainment venues, with the Music Hall Strike,60 not only deprived consumers of a number of halls and consequently assisted long runs in the West End but also distinguished the more usual, active competition for audiences between West End managements and these alternative venues. On 7 February 1907, in the same column of theatrical gossip in the Stage that contained news of the four hundredth performance of His House in Order, the following passage appeared: One result of the present music hall strike which should be noted is that business has improved at most of the theatres. Much of the business of the music halls has been diverted to the theatres.61

The trade paper was encouraging music hall artists to return to work, by stating without any firm evidence that audiences were migrating to West End theatres, and that their long-term career prospects were jeopardised. However, the comment is most significant here because it highlights that His House in Order, which experienced a significantly longer run than any other production throughout Alexander’s career, took place when the strike was running, and that theatres staging legitimate drama did benefit from this period of industrial action. When His House in Order was produced, the popularity of variety and musical entertainment was increasing consistently. In London, the number of halls listed by the Era Almanac rose from forty in 1900 to sixty-six in 1914. Music hall syndicates were able to provide a range of entertainment to satisfy consumers, employing a policy of ‘accommodation as well as competition’.62 By 1906, Moss Empires Ltd., an amalgamation of ten companies concerned with the management of thirty-five places of entertainment, reflected the pressure of competition placed upon individual managements in single venues. Tracy C. Davis has examined this rupture between types of theatrical entertainment during the first decades of the twentieth century: [T]he Edwardian music hall appears to fit the model modern corporation, more so than theatres which, though packaged out of London, toured on the name of the play, author, or star rather than the collective identity of the manufacturer whose functions combine agent and entrepreneur.63

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This growth was matched by forms of musical entertainment that were produced in the West End. Interviewed by William Archer in 1902, Alexander clearly felt this precise commercial pressure: When I spoke of the competition of the music-halls, I was not weighing my words, or insisting on the purely technical distinction between a variety-­ show where they smoke and a variety-show where they don’t. George Edwardes is a master organiser of both classes of entertainment; and both classes of entertainment have, I assure you, taken a hold on the public which adds seriously to the difficulties of the situation, so far as the non-musical and non-spectacular drama is concerned.64

As discussed by Archer and Alexander in Real Conversations, George Edwardes’s Gaiety Theatre Company, founded in 1888 and promoting a middle-ground between ‘legitimate’ drama and music hall, was overwhelmingly successful. By the first decade of the twentieth century, therefore, West End managers had to operate in direct competition with variety and musical entertainments. They pursued a policy that portrayed a tacit acknowledgement of the increasing power of syndicated management companies and significant, formal investment structures that were different to the informal gentlemanly capitalist structures utilised by individual actor-managers. During the final decades of Alexander’s career, the increasing dominance of these structures became even more apparent. Alexander was one of a number of prominent West End artists who performed in variety theatre, acknowledging the competition from, but escalating prevalence of, alternative branches to the entertainment industry.65 As syndicated halls increased in number, managers of West End theatres were forced to pursue policies that enforced their regulated and staid repertoire of legitimate drama as an alternative and equally desirable product. Alexander maintained box office prices from 1900 to 1917, using marketing tools such as the ‘final rehearsal’ to advertise the significance of a new Alexander-Pinero collaboration.

Alexander and the Pinero raisonneur His House in Order provided the long-running, commercial success that Alexander needed at this point, and, although market conditions exacerbated that success, the essential appeal of the production was the effect

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created on stage by the performances of Alexander as raisonneur Hilary Jesson and Vanbrugh as Nina (as shown on the front cover of this book). After the hundredth performance, the critic of the Illustrated London News reviewed the play and wrote: The urbanity and rhetorical fervour of Mr. Alexander in the role of the raisonneur, Hilary Jesson […] and the startlingly varied intonations and neurotic outbursts of Miss Irene Vanbrugh as the heroine, once more provide acting that is worthy of the art of the playwright.66

The character of Nina Jesson engaged the attention and sympathy of the viewer, but the raisonneur character dominated, curbing her behaviour. This embodiment of male authority, prevalent in West End problem plays throughout the 1890s, had been shown at its most extreme in the interrogation scene between Charles Wyndham’s judge Sir Daniel Carteret and Lena Ashwell’s Felicia Hindemarsh in Henry Arthur Jones’s Mrs. Dane’s Defence.67 The particular success of Alexander with the role was dependent upon merging the characteristics of the raisonneur with the authority of the actor-manager. Hilary Jesson was an idealised male figure propelling the drama, and communicating his particular moral argument to both characters and audience: A really admirable interpretation by Mr. Alexander of a whirl of impassioned argument carries all before it, and just avoids that didactic preaching which constitutes Hilary’s chief risk…the actor brings to it a force of conviction which carries all before it on both sides of the footlights.68

Indeed, the figure epitomised the distinct appeal of the actor-manager, idolised as autonomous theatre professional. Alexander had played authoritarian roles in his previous two collaborations with Pinero, although in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, a play not written for him, he took the role of Aubrey. Rather than play raisonneur Cayley Drummle, he appeared as the male character with most stage time, acknowledging his responsibility for and control over the production. However, in the 1897 production of The Princess and the Butterfly, the raisonneur character was written for him and his performance manifested unequivocal control. The sentimental comedy was an examination of middle-age and desire, and showed Alexander’s Sir George Lamorant attempting to curtail the behaviour of his ward, Fay Zuliani. The immaculately presented Alexander who,

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according to George Bernard Shaw, ‘carried to an extraordinary degree the art of doing without his knees and elbows’69 and refined his performance to fit this presentation, was an ideal actor to communicate paternalistic authority: SIR GEORGE LAMORANT is seated at the writing-table writing a letter. He is wearing a frock-coat, and a cravat which covers his shirt-front. His shirt collar and cuffs are the only spots of white in his dress; otherwise he is entirely in black.70

Lamorant provided an image of stability and decorum, and in His House in Order, Pinero again provided a morally authoritarian role for Alexander that enhanced his off-stage managerial persona. Hilary Jesson conveyed to the audience a vision of stable authority that contributed to his success at the St. James’s. It was a personal magnetism and appeal that was promoted through the character of the raisonneur. Hilary Jesson was a ‘discreet tactician’71 throughout the play, and as brother-in-law to the heroine and a career diplomat, he combined a close relationship to the main characters in a play with a profession that implied objective judgement. The Star’s reviewer emphasised the functional role of the character in propelling the action of the well-made play: What a diplomatist, Hilary! For Annabel, dead, a conspiracy of silence; Maurewarde, living, is punished again […] What a moralist, Hilary! And because Filmer is still blind to his wife’s virtues, Hilary shows him the letters […] With the entry of Coincidence concealed in a satchel, Comedy is sacrificed and Melodrama—on the highest plane—rules in its stead.72

The raisonneur, who risked appearing as little more than a figurehead for ‘pedestrian, mediocre, bourgeois thinking’,73 was made a more urbane and appealing figure in His House in Order in contrast to the Ridgeley family. These characters, the family of Filmer Jesson’s first wife, are castigated by the playwright and also by Hilary Jesson for their provincial bigotry: Mr. Pinero has turned his attention to another class—that smug, snobbish, hypocritical, black-clothed, chilly-hearted, joy-killing class that loathes laughter, browbeats Nature, and stifles the aspirations of the lowly.74

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Hilary provides rational advice for Nina, but rages against the Ridgeleys as representatives of ‘a class that brings everything that’s good in the world— virtue, and charity, and religion—into odium and contempt. Its members, individually and collectively, are the pests of humanity’.75 While fitting the raisonneur type to Alexander was by this point well practiced by Pinero, His House in Order initiated the representation of provincial bourgeois characters—the Ridgeleys—a type seen in Pinero’s subsequent work for Alexander, to the detriment of his drama and its reception. The Thunderbolt, produced in May 1908, ran for only fiftyeight performances at the St. James’s. Pinero located his characters in a Northern industrial town, and the play showed the sons of a manufacturer, the Mortimores, arguing over their father’s estate. Tad Mortimore, the shy music teacher played by Alexander, conveyed none of the authority associated with the roles Pinero had previously provided for the actormanager. The most intriguing features of the play—the crime of Tad’s wife, and her repentance—is undermined by Pinero’s evident dislike for all of his characters, as summarised by one reviewer: Mr Pinero makes us feel how terrible is the contrast in these middle-class homes between the external respectability and decorum of more or less well-­ to-­do merchants and the shameless greed and cupidity which is the sole motive of their actions. More acutely, even, than in His House in Order, do we realise that Mr. Pinero’s pen is dipped in vitriol. Are these figures real, we ask ourselves, or are they caricatures?76

The short run of The Thunderbolt was followed by Mid-Channel, which also ran for fifty-eight performances. Pinero depicted a couple who have aspired to an affluent London life, to the detriment of their marriage. The heroine Zoe Blundell tells the raisonneur Peter Mottram: Sometimes, I own, I’m aggravating; but he forgets how useful I was to him in the old days, when we were climbing.77

Pinero conveyed a sense of personal ‘vitriol’ in relation to these characters, and consequently made them ‘caricatures’. Yet in 1906 the Ridgeley family seemed to provide some timely comic relief, despite their extreme hypocrisy and cruelty towards Nina, as curbed by the raisonneur. The play opened as the results of the 1906 General Election were confirmed, and reviews of His House in Order were

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published alongside articles examining the implications of a change in government. The Star printed their review next to an article on tariff reform, labelling the outgoing Conservative leader ‘Filmer’ Balfour. As Conservative and Unionist hegemony was replaced by a period of Liberal reform, Pinero depicted a conventional raisonneur figure as an emblem of social order. Hilary Jesson expressed the material implications of female characters resisting convention and embodied an idealised form of gentlemanly capitalism which negotiated the ‘problem of living in the world while also rising above its sordid realities […] by a process of delicate social diplomacy’.78 The hypocrisy of the Ridgeley family and their comic pretensions both provoked sympathy for Nina and provided an extreme contrast to the urbane personality and authority conveyed by Jesson. At the conclusion of the play, when Filmer and Nina are reunited with the raisonneur looking on, and the Ridgeleys are expelled from the house, the audience is presented with a particular view of social order. Pinero is here discriminating between more and less desirable ‘spheres of influence’ to employ Raymond Dumett’s term,79 manifestation of a commitment to the structures of gentlemanly capitalism—urban, masculine, exclusive institutions—which had assisted both the playwright and the actor-manager.

The Work of Irene Vanbrugh: A Counterpoint to the raisonneur The raisonneur foregrounds a particular view of social order. Yet Hilary Jesson’s primary role was as an audience and reformer of Nina’s potentially transgressive behaviour. The crisis confronting Nina—whether or not to make Annabel’s letters public—is immediately contained by Hilary, as Pinero provides a solution to Nina’s treatment in the house that is dependent upon masculine authority. What the Times reviewer called the heroine’s ‘febrile restlessness’80 is moderated by the intervention of Alexander’s raisonneur. Vanbrugh, as Nina Jesson, portrayed a second wife whose potentially self-destructive behaviour echoed elements from Pinero’s best-known work: There is no denying that in this work, which so curiously recalls in its scheme The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, Mr. Pinero has portrayed most happily and sympathetically a woman of the modern nervous type.81

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Reviewers were recalling not only the earlier play, but the reception of Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s performance in that play, when dwelling on the restless, nervy character presented by Vanbrugh. Both actresses were working to depict particular elements found within these Alexander– Pinero collaborations and indeed, other work by the playwright. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray employs the hysterical features of duality and repression in the character of Paula. Paula’s changeability was ultimately limited by her suicide, Pinero reflecting the restrictions imposed by society upon this character without critiquing that society. Indeed, all the heroines in Pinero’s social dramas attempt self-definition or fulfilment at the expense of various moral standards and consequently submit to familiar constraints or punishments, to death or renunciation. Agnes Ebbsmith (The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, 1895) repents, in the most literal sense, retiring to a rural rectory, and Letty Shell (Letty, 1904), Nina Jesson and Phyllis Mortimore in The Thunderbolt become submissive wives. His female characters who commit a form of sexual transgression (promiscuity or infidelity) are all punished with suicide. Paula Tanqueray, Iris Bellamy (Iris, 1901) and Zoe Blundell take their own lives, both literally and figuratively cornered, in an off-stage room, as the masculine, moral majority who have passed judgement remain centre-stage. Foucault’s description of Charcot’s interpretations of hysteria as ‘an immense apparatus for proclaiming truth, even if this truth was to be masked at the last moment’ is equally applicable to Pinero’s social drama.82 Pinero portrayed bourgeois domestic arenas and the moral absolutes imposed within them as permanent structures, ‘the eternal drawing room’, that framed his characters and their predicaments.83 Nina Jesson is placed in this environment and the audience is able to witness the factors that lead to her potential transgression. Pinero’s belief that Nina’s behaviour is caused by a social rather than sexual double-­ standard is revealed when it is the Ridgeleys who define Nina’s resistance to their cruelty as hysteria: PRYCE: Extraordinary exhibition! SIR DANIEL: Is your wife subject to these-ah-these fits of hysteria?84

Her identity is immediately indicated to be dual, constructed by her father (who instilled in her habits including smoking that the Ridgeleys find unacceptable) and constrained by her husband. The first description of her emphasises a duality in her character, imposed by her husband:

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FILMER: No, what I did was to persuade myself that I could engraft certain of Annabel’s qualities upon Nina; that I could create in Nina a second nature, as it were.85

Filmer, like Aubrey Tanqueray, had a first wife who is described in language which is suggestive of both frigidity and respectability, as ‘all marble arms and black velvet […] an iceberg’.86 The impression is reinforced when she is immortalised in a stone memorial. Yet with Annabel, the audience learns, these qualities were artificial, and again Pinero uses the conflicts within the personalities of his female characters to represent the restrictions imposed upon women in the bourgeois domestic sphere. It is made clear that such conflicts have disturbed the behaviour of two potentially ‘good’ wives. Herbert Waring reiterated this for the audience in a measured, pedantic performance as Filmer. A. E. W. Mason remarks on his performance style: There was in all the stage-work which Herbert Waring ever did, a curious touch of the pedantic—something in his voice, his walk, his very gestures— which made him more suitable to that character than any other living actor.87

Yet although Waring remained a supporting actor in a number of West End companies, his involvement in early productions of Ibsen, and a desire to mount a production of Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple all suggest a more sophisticated approach to his acting in practice.88 Reviews show that his portrayal was more subtle than Mason’s assessment suggests. The Stage’s reviewer praised his performance upon discovering Annabel’s infidelity, stating that ‘Mr. Waring, by his fine playing in the last act, artistically gives colour to what is hardly better than a mean and despicable character’.89 Filmer Jesson was a necessarily limited character, who had to be guilty of a degree of hypocrisy to explain his initial collusion with the Ridgeleys, and to further distinguish the raisonneur as the only objective voice in the play. However, Waring seems to have conveyed the conflict between outward propriety and genuine feeling to extend depiction of the restrictions imposed upon these characters by their social arena. Although there are hints that the play was imbued with a degree of complexity in performance, Pinero avoided explicit debate around the possibility of a woman reconstructing her own life and future, with Nina’s actions always monitored and curtailed by Hilary. Alexander’s raisonneur upholds Nina as wife, undermining the hysterical girl. He makes, in effect,

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the hysteria a symptom of a situation that can be reformed within four acts; Nina’s potential reactions to this situation are circumscribed. It is Hilary’s suggestion that she has the opportunity to act with maturity that decides her course of action at the end of the play and restores order, as they engage in a debate in the third act: Hilary’s appeal, no less eloquent than sincere, prevails, and in raising Nina’s character to its higher level it lifts the play also to a plane far above that in which the traffic of our stage is apt to move […] They are, indeed, so real in the emotional argument which leads to Nina’s renunciation, that the rest of their story […] seems almost perfunctory.90

The reviewer in the Pall Mall Gazette indicates the chemistry produced on stage by Vanbrugh and Alexander during the confrontation between Hilary and Nina in Act III of the play. Their success on stage together is confirmed by Vanbrugh’s frequent return to the St. James’s Theatre; she had appeared opposite Alexander in five productions since 1894, but her presence within the company increased after His House in Order. After this run of over 400 performances, the actress returned only eight months later to appear opposite Alexander in Cosmo Gordon Lennox’s The Thief. An assumption that Vanbrugh was repeating a familiar character ‘type’ is evident in critical reactions to her work at the St. James’s Theatre from 1906 onwards. Reviews of His House in Order and subsequent productions treat her work in summary, each heroine adding to a body of work already defined by her collaboration with both Pinero and Alexander. The ability of reviewers to detail strengths demonstrates an established form of character: That finely balanced combination of nervous and intellectual force which renders Miss Irene Vanbrugh so ideal an exponent of Mr Pinero’s heroines gives her another brilliant triumph in her exquisitely sensitive embodiment of the oppressed and slighted young wife.91 Though Miss Vanbrugh can be coaxingly or playfully amorous, voluptuous passion is hardly in her histrionic line. The hysterical outburst, however, of the bedroom scene, the haggard despair, the physical collapse, she can do wonderfully well—none better.92

Success appearing opposite Alexander’s ‘discreet tactician’93 in a number of productions was endorsed by previous work with Pinero, further

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establishing the degree of collaboration that occurred between theatre professionals operating in the West End. This summary approach to assessing individual performances suggests that Pinero’s writing and Vanbrugh’s performance combined to make the transgressive heroines she embodied ‘safe’ for the potential audiences that were reading these reviews, almost guaranteeing Alexander a level of success with any new play that contained a suitable role for Vanbrugh. Pinero’s ‘fitting’ of this actress was recognised in Chap. 3.94 The Clarion’s reviewer was not alone in discerning this; indeed the same phrase was used by critic George Arthur: Pinero is not supposed to have drawn his characters with any particular actress in view, but he certainly fitted as a glove […] Irene Vanbrugh; to her perhaps alone he imparted his innermost thoughts, and from her delicate work […] he sucked no small advantage.95

Correspondence between Pinero and Vanbrugh seems to confirm his control over her interpretation of roles. Before she began rehearsing the role of Ottoline in The Big Drum, Pinero wrote to her, arranging a meeting to discuss the character: I will tell you then the history of the girl up to the time of the opening of the story, so that you may live that part of her life in your imagination.96

In her biography, she describes Pinero as both mentor and director whose guidance she adhered to: He guided us both through that scene like a true master knowing every intonation, every movement, every feeling, every reaction to those feelings from both the characters.97

Pinero intended to instruct the actress on how to imagine her character, even before rehearsals of a performance commenced. This is one example of Pinero’s ‘fitting’ of an actress, incorporating aspects of a performer’s technique, while ensuring that his text remained the dominant feature of a production. The practice was also in evidence in the recruitment of Fay Davis, by Alexander, to appear in The Princess and the Butterfly. Pinero wrote to Alexander during composition of the romance:

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I am wondering whether it would be worth your while to see Miss Fay Davis, who is not engaged for next season, and, without pledging yourself to her in any way, interest her by telling her that there might be a part for her in my play at your theatre […] She is, as I dare say you know, a charming young lady, with a very sincere quality in her acting—as evinced, at any rate, in her recitals. She is a great deal like the part I am writing—a character which I think I could perhaps bend even more in her direction. Even the slight trace of Americanism in her pronunciation I fancy I could, in a way, account for and get over.98

This letter was written one year before the piece premièred, and it indicates that the play was structured and composed with Davis in mind. Fay Zuliani is ward to the play’s raisonneur, Sir George Lamorant, played by Alexander. Pinero made her an orphan raised by an itinerant Italian musician, allowing for the ‘trace’ of an accent. Alexander complied with Pinero’s recommendation, and Davis joined the company for the summer tour of The Prisoner of Zenda, playing small ingénue roles before The Princess and the Butterfly was staged. The play was a moderate success, but she stayed with the St. James’s company for a following ten productions, leaving to play the leading role in Pinero’s Iris. The dramatist chose to write these two leading roles for an actress who held a personal ‘charm’ for the author. He acknowledges Davis’s limited experience as an actress and ‘fits’ text to performer, both accommodating and directing her performance. This technique was directly related to collaborative productions, as the playwright had a definite actor-manager and a leading actress in mind while writing a new play. For Pinero the performer embodied, but had little control over his text. Yet importantly, Vanbrugh mastered the scenes of inquisition between a man and a woman which Pinero employed in his social dramas. The Era’s reviewer detailed her skill in creating palpable tension on stage as Nina Jesson, producing a tangible physical reaction in this critic: One almost shudders as Miss Vanbrugh gloats over the torture she will inflict, the triumph she will enjoy, when she is able to wield the weapon […] It is these great moments that will probably count most for the audience, and that will work them up as it worked up the first night’s audience, into the most profound sympathy and high excitement.99

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Although Vanbrugh adhered to Pinero’s stage management, she also provided Nina with a depth and complexity of character that was contingent upon her performance practice. By comparing the text, Vanbrugh’s recollection of the production, and photographic evidence, the confidence and complexity of her work becomes apparent. In Nina’s scene of confrontation with the Ridgeleys, and subsequent discovery of Annabel’s letters in Act III, Pinero dictates essential indicators of the character’s defiance: NINA is seen in the outer hall, coming from the left. She is gaily dressed, in a pretty gown of bright pink. Her face is pale, as from sleeplessness, but in her eyes and about her mouth there is a set look of determination. She pauses in the doorway.100

Recollecting this point in the play, Vanbrugh notes the isolation felt by the character as described in Pinero’s script, but also the power and autonomy she felt and conveyed at this point in her performance: When I make my entrance in that pink dress in the third act, I have a sensation of vastness, great distances and towering heights in which I stand alone.101

The obvious, conflicting feelings of fatigue and determination Pinero demands in his text are given a greater sense of authority in Vanbrugh’s description. Her isolation places her above her tormentors, ‘towering heights’ giving her a measure of control in the situation that Pinero did not explicitly request. There is further evidence that she was able to provide Nina with a greater independence of thought and action than the raisonneur’s presence might be presumed to allow. The publicity photograph from the production shown on the front cover of this book is characteristic of images used to showcase the production; while Alexander presents Hillary upstage and ostensibly controlling the space and by extension the action, the posture and look of defiance employed by Vanbrugh, who has rooted her place in the encounter through placing a hand on the desk, is suggestive of the authority she brought to the stage. Here, Nina has equal access to the incriminating evidence (the letters) presented in the play, and the demeanour shown suggests energy combined with intellectual and physical focus and control. Although hysterical symptoms are written in to the character, the actress projected underlying intelligent personality.

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Vanbrugh depicted women whose independence of thought and action were their most threatening characteristics, building on Pinero’s texts to produce valuable work at the St. James’s Theatre. She worked in accordance with the opinions of both Alexander and Pinero, appearing in two of the subsequent four collaborations between these men. However, Alexander was absent from the first of these, Mid-Channel, and it experienced a short run. In Mid-Channel, Alexander did not appear as the raisonneur figure, Peter Mottram, or as the husband, Theodore Blundell. A letter from Pinero to Alexander before the play was completed implies that the actor-manager had used overwork as a reason for his absence from this production: I think you are very wise to relax the tension somewhat for the moment. I only hope my work as a whole will justify your good opinion of it in part, and that its production may give you the little bit of rest which you have so well earned.102

But Alexander began a provincial tour in the same week that Mid-Channel opened; whatever the reason for his failure to appear opposite Vanbrugh’s Zoe Blundell, this decision confounded audience expectations of Pinero’s work at the St. James’s, and was to the detriment of the production, undermining the consistency of these collaborative relationships. This play was replaced after fifty-eight performances by R. C. Carton’s romance Lorrimer Sabiston, Dramatist. The reason for Alexander’s absence from Pinero’s play cannot be definitely ascertained, but the representation of the raisonneur in Mid-Channel was certainly less assured. When Mottram provides his friend with advice on how to save his marriage, this exchange follows: THEODORE: Good gracious, you’re not going to remark that lookers-on see most of the game! PETER: Words to that effect. THEODORE: Ho! Why is it that, the moment a man’s matrimonial affairs are in a tangle, every platitude in the language is chewed out at him?103

Hesketh Pearson twice claimed that, by the second decade of the twentieth century, West End managers felt compelled to accept Pinero’s plays although they doubted their commercial value.104 Yet it is apparent that Pinero’s drama was a characteristic feature of Alexander’s management,

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and it is likely that the manager wanted to ensure a sustained professional relationship even if unwilling or unable to appear in this particular production himself. The final collaborative enterprise to involve Alexander, Pinero and Vanbrugh was The Big Drum in 1915. Alexander played Philip Mackworth, an author who refuses to marry Vanbrugh’s Ottoline de Chaumié until he has become a successful author. Pinero was anxious about the piece, ostensibly because of the war: I can’t help feeling that the stroke of circumstance has thrown the piece thoroughly out of touch and tone with the times, and that I might as well fling the manuscript into a drawer and endeavour to forget about its existence and all the thought and labour it has given me […] Anyhow I must antedate the play and describe its period as ‘1913.’105

Programmes do emphasise that events take place in 1913, yet despite Pinero’s lack of confidence the play had a considerable run, especially when alterations to performance time prompted by the war are taken into consideration.106 However, Pinero altered the play after the first night, reuniting Philip and Ottoline; a response to poor reviews and consumer demand that indicated Pinero’s waning position in the West End. Victor Emeljanow has traced the reception of Henry Arthur Jones’s drama during this decade, noting how ‘the gap between Jones and his audience was widening’.107 A similar process was discernible for Pinero’s drama. The long-term relationship between Alexander and Pinero represents the importance of cultivated and sustained collaborative relationships for the actor-manager; the integral role of Vanbrugh for these collaborations further identifies how networks of sustained relationships underpinned the ostensible autonomy of actor-managers. This could not, though, entirely counteract the level of risk experienced by a manager dedicated to the production of new plays. While sustained work with prominent dramatists could manage risk to some extent, the insistence upon new material continued to demand readiness for a change in repertoire, arguably to a greater extent than was the case for managers combining premières and revivals of canonical drama. The particular examples of work with Wilde and James in the mid-1890s demonstrates levels of risk and how a range of factors might influence the ‘power of attraction’ a piece had.108 In the next chapter, attention turns to one further strategy employed by Alexander to increase the likelihood of long-running and profitable productions.

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That is, the presentation of work not only concerned with author status but also with publishing success; indeed, the response of Alexander to publishing sensations provides an early model of cross-sector adaptation that has become familiar within the cultural industries today.

Notes 1. Between 1898 and 1902, Alexander produced three plays by Craigie, and some correspondence regarding these productions, dated between 1 March 11899 and 27 January 27 1902, is held in the University of Rochester Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation. 2. Letter from George Alexander to Pearl Craigie, October or November 1900 (University of Rochester, D12: Craigie Papers). 3. Green (2012, 290). 4. Archer (1898, 356–357). 5. Some of the material included here about the Treasury Book and its role in evaluating Alexander’s strategies and responsiveness as an actor-manager has already appeared in Sutherland (2015). 6. ‘Vacation’ is the term used in the Treasury Book for the summer hiatus at the St. James’s Theatre. 7. The theatrical season had evolved in line with the social season for aristocratic society which, in turn, was linked to when Parliament sat. J.  P. Wearing describes how ‘the season began at the beginning of September each year and ran until the end of July the following year. August was a dead month theatrically; in any given year, only one out of seven West End theatres was open (and very rarely the fashionable ones)’ (1989, 234). Alexander returned to the London venue later than this in the Autumn, providing further evidence that he wanted to foreground parallels between his venue and the aristocratic society present within Mayfair, living in close proximity to the St. James’s Theatre. 8. These three options were outlined in a letter from James to Alexander, 2 July 1893 (Edel 1987, 263–264). 9. Anon. (1909a), Parts I Have Played, 6. 10. Although the Treasury Book has been a valuable source for assessing Alexander’s work with Wilde, an extensive account of the income achieved by Wilde from his playwriting may be found in Guy and Small (2000). 11. John Hare to Arthur Wing Pinero, 25 May 1893 (Harvard Theatre Collection MS Thr 65 [7]).

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12. Pinero wrote the play for John Hare and Olga Nethersole, but it was rejected by the manager of the Garrick as unsuitable for his audience. A. E. W. Mason suggests that Hare found the play ‘daring’ (1935, 45). 13. The Profligate was Hare’s inaugural production at the Garrick Theatre, 24 April 1889. While Tanqueray was running at the St. James’s, he staged Carton’s sentimental comedy Robin Goodfellow, followed by a revival of Diplomacy and then an adaptation of Sardou’s Dora. 14. The play was licensed for performance on 4 May 1893; licensed copy held in the British Library, Lord Chamberlain’s Collection. BL, Add. MSS. 53525, The Second Mr. Tanqueray. The copy sent to the Lord Chamberlain was privately printed (London: J. Miles, 1892) and had no amendments marked on it by the censor. In addition, there is no correspondence between the Lord Chamberlain’s office and Alexander regarding the play. 15. The argument that his approval of censorship was on professional rather than on moral or literary grounds is upheld by his work for the London County Council, where he voted against restrictions being imposed upon ‘living statuary’ exhibitions (London Metropolitan Archives, 1907. London County Council, LCC/MIN, 19 June 1907, 1372–1379). 16. Pinero believed a censor for dramatic literature set dramatists apart from other authors, and he signed the letter to The Times, 29 October 1907, which opposed the Lord Chamberlain’s supervision. He then met with Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone on 25 February 1908 and appeared before the joint committee considering censorship on 24 September 1909. Further evidence of this commitment to professional recognition is his involvement in the foundation of a sub-Committee of the Society of Authors—the Dramatists’ Club—with Pinero as the first president in March 1909. 17. Archer (1904, 207). 18. Letter dated 13 May 1930 in Wearing (1974, 285–286). 19. Letter from George Alexander to Pearl Craigie, October or November 1900 (University of Rochester, D12: Craigie Papers). 20. Farrell (2001, 11). 21. This statistic is based upon weekly evening and matinée income for the production at the St. James’s Theatre, during the first run, as recorded in the Treasury Book. Full ₤ income (excluding s. and d.) was used for this calculation. 22. In English Dramatists of To-day Archer began his promotion of Pinero, when only two of his plays had been staged in London: The Money Spinner at the St. James’s Theatre, 1881, and Daisy’s Escape at the Lyceum, 1879 (Archer 1882). Archer’s support of Pinero was epitomised by Max Beerbohm’s show at the Carfax Gallery, opening 17 December 1901.

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There the picture ‘A Touching Coronation Scene’ was exhibited, showing Archer crowning Pinero with a laurel wreath. 23. Archer (1894, 139). 24. This term, ‘social drama’, was used by Clayton Hamilton to describe the plays he selected for his edition of the dramatist’s work, The Social Plays of Arthur Wing Pinero, 4 vols (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1917–1922). The plays included were The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, The Gay Lord Quex, Iris, Letty, His House in Order, MidChannel, The Thunderbolt. He wished to ‘indicate a clear distinction between the eight or ten serious and weighty dramas of Pinero and his more than thirty essays in lighter types of entertainment.’ Hamilton (1918, 17). Hamilton first used the term in 1910: ‘Although the modern social drama is sometimes comic in its mood—The Gay Lord Quex, for instance—its main development has been upon the serious side […] the individual is displayed in conflict with his environment’ (Hamilton 1910, 76–78). 25. Hamilton (1917, 19–20). 26. Archer (1923, 310). 27. Although Pinero had published every play since The Times in 1891, he did not provide prefaces, until Two Plays (London: William Heinemann, 1930). 28. For example, on 16 August 1893, having read Archer’s translation, he wrote of The Master Builder: ‘Ibsen may be as symbolic as he pleases but he ought to make me feel the truth of his signs. How otherwise am I to be touched?’ (Wearing 1974, 148). Then, as late as 1932, he wrote in a letter to H. H. Küther ‘nor have I, I believe, been influenced in the smallest degree by his works. But it is the critical fashion here to ascribe any new movement in English art, no matter of what kind, to foreign influence.’ (Wearing 1974, 288). 29. Although Pinero had reservations about Ibsen’s drama, he was a member of the Independent Theatre Society and attended their performance of Ghosts at the Royalty, 13 March 1891. Pinero outlines the timetable for composition of Tanqueray in a letter to Archer on 24 August 1893: ‘The Second Mrs. Tanqueray was framed, in my head, in November 1891. I sat down to it in January ’92 and in February or March I read the first act to Hare’ (Wearing 1974, 149). 30. This was the first one-act play by Pinero staged to accompany a main production since 1880. John Dawick provides a performance history for Pinero’s plays (1995, 404–409). The last one-act curtain-raiser performed had been Bygones, at the Lyceum Theatre, 18 September 1880. 31. Dawick (1995, 312). 32. Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 3).

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33. Debord (1995, 37). 34. Quigley (1985, 90). 35. Boas (1936, 279). For similar, early assessments of Pinero’s work see (Pellizzi, 1935). 36. Fensham (2003), Quigley (1985, 69–90). 37. Archer (1904, 204). 38. Anon. (1908). 39. Anon. (1909b), Stage. 40. Alexander staged five plays by R. C. Carton between 1891 and 1911, and the same number by Alfred Sutro between 1905 and 1914, three by Henry Arthur Jones between 1894 and 1911 and three by Haddon Chambers between 1891 and 1901. Only two of these plays, Carton’s Liberty Hall and Chambers’ The Idler, were performed in revival. Also, of course, he staged two of Wilde’s four social comedies, but this professional collaboration between actor-manager and playwright took place over the limited period 1891–1895. 41. Arnott (1977, 62). 42. Anon. (1906c), Star. 43. Hamilton (1919, vol. 3, 243). 44. In the absence of many primary business records for the period, length of run must be taken as at least indicative of profitability. See Appendix for the number of performances achieved by each St. James’s production. Productions apart from His House in Order that ran for over two hundred performances were the first run of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893), the first run of The Prisoner of Zenda (1896), If I Were King (1902), the second revival of The Importance of Being Earnest (1909), the first run of Bella Donna (1911). 45. Wearing (1974, 181). 46. Guy and Small (2000, 221). A comprehensive account of the revisions made to the play by Alexander is provided in the ‘Historical Introduction’ and ‘Historical Editorial Introduction’ sections of Donohue (2019). 47. Walkley’s term is commented upon in a feature article on this production in Anon. (1904a), The Sketch. 48. Mason (1935, 173–174). 49. Unidentified cutting (V & A Theatre and Performance Department, A Wife Without a Smile). 50. Anon. (1904b), Illustrated London News. 51. John Chilcote, M.P. ran from 1 May to 9 June, The Man of the Moment, an adaptation of the French drama L’Adversaire by Capus and Arène, from 13 June to 14 July. The Kendals took over on 16 September with Dick Hope.

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52. He played the leading role of Oscar Stephensson, the dissolute younger brother of an Icelandic family who elopes with his sister-in-law to the South of France. Increasing guilt leads to an abortive suicide attempt, after which he takes a new identity and finds success as a poet, before returning home to seek the forgiveness of his family. Bram Stoker reports that this was possibly the last play Irving ever saw, and he told Stoker after the performance that Alexander ‘kept the play together’ (Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving, 2 vols, [London: Macmillan, 1906], II, 130). Alexander was paid a salary of £250 a week, and the play ran for 105 performances (7 September 1905 to 6 December 1905). According to Mason, his salary was in total ‘to be not less than £3,500, in lieu of a provincial tour’ (1935, 169). 53. ‘The Prodigy Son’ in Anon. (1905b), Punch. 54. Anon. (1905a), Pall Mall Gazette. 55. Vanbrugh (1948, 10). 56. Anon. (1906a), Evening Standard. 57. Anon. (1906c), Star. 58. Bailey (1999, 280). Bailey charts a ‘lateral mobility, social and geographical’ that allowed marriage to be more freely contracted than for any other class. This had an influence upon the entertainment industry, as both male and female clerical workers had the means to select from a number of leisure pursuits within Greater London. 59. Borsa quoted in Bailey (1999, 283–284). 60. Large-scale managements paid good wages (£5 was the Stoll minimum wage by 1900, compared with £2–3  in independent halls) and artists were contracted to particular managements, limiting the turns they could do and the venues where they could perform. Lois Rutherford explains that ‘[i]n broad terms, the dominant trend among managers was away from the bohemian informality of the music hall generation and towards a more business-­like, impersonal style of relationship based less upon familiarity than upon properly understood contracts’ (1986, 106). The Variety Artistes Federation was formed in 1906 to protect the interests of variety performers. However, managements refused to recognise the Federation and in December of that year its General Secretary, sketch actor Frank Gerald, called the V.A.F. out on strike. Although twenty-two London halls were affected by the strike, a board of conciliation was established by mid-February 1907 to mediate between the Variety Artistes Federation and the Entertainments Protection Association, and the strike petered out. 61. Anon. (1907a), Stage. 62. Russell (1996, 65). 63. Davis (2000, 183).

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64. George Alexander in Archer (1904, 205). 65. Alexander appeared in A Social Success at the Palace Theatre, 15 January 1913, and Howard and Son at the London Opera House, 27 November 1916. 66. Anon. (1906j), Illustrated London News. 67. At Wyndham’s, 9 October 1900 to 22 January 1901; 4 February to 11 May 1901. 68. Anon. (1906b), Pall Mall Gazette. 69. Shaw (1932, vol. 2, 43). 70. Pinero (1897, Act IV, 183). 71. Anon. (1906d), Era. 72. Anon. (1906c), Star. 73. E.  J. H.  Greene describes the characteristics of the raisonneur figure (1977, 65). 74. Anon. (1906i), The Times, 9 February. 75. His House in Order Act IV in Hamilton (1922, 434). 76. Review cutting, (V & A Theatre and Performance Department, Production File: The Thunderbolt). 77. Mid-Channel Act I in Hamilton (1922, 326). 78. Cain and Hopkins (2002, 39). 79. Dumett (1999, 4). 80. Anon. (1906e), The Times, 2 February. 81. Anon. (1908), Illustrated London News. 82. Michel Foucault (1981, 56). Foucault is referring to the celebrated Tuesday seminars and Friday spectacles that were staged regularly at the hospital of La Salpêtrière in Paris during the 1870s and 1880s by the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. Foucault’s description of Charcot’s séances is helpful here. He terms the Salpêtrière ‘an enormous apparatus for observation […] carefully staged’ with an ‘interplay of dialogue’ and a ‘hierarchy of personnel who watched, organised, provoked, monitored and reported.’ Foucault’s summary of Charcot’s treatment echoes the controlling stage management of both Alexander and Pinero, who closely monitored Vanbrugh’s performance of hysteria. 83. Pinero in Archer (1904, 21). 84. His House in Order Act II in Hamilton (1919, 341–342). 85. Ibid. Act 1, 272. 86. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray Act I in Pinero (1895, 22). 87. Mason (1935, 177). 88. Waring played Torvald in the 7 June 1889 production of A Doll’s House at the Novelty. In a letter to Charlotte Payne-Townshend, 23 March 1898, Shaw refers to Waring taking the Lyric Theatre for a week the following May to produce The Devil’s Disciple. But this production did not

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occur; Shaw claims in a letter to Sidney Webb, 11 April 1898 that this was due to the success of a production by Arthur Roberts that ran for May and June. Laurence (1972, 22 & 30). In a letter to Archer on 12 January 1903, however, he claimed that Waring could not finance it alone. Laurence (1972, 301). 89. Anon. (1906g), Stage. 90. Anon. (1906b), Pall Mall Gazette. 91. Anon. (1906f), World. 92. Anon. (1907b), The Times. 93. Anon. (1906d), Era. 94. Anon. (1906h), Clarion. 95. George Arthur quoted in Mullin (1983, 466). 96. Pinero to Vanbrugh, 18 June 1914 (Wearing 1974, 250–251). 97. Vanbrugh (1948, 74). 98. Arthur Wing Pinero to George Alexander, 9 March 1896 (Wearing 1974, 172). 99. Anon. (1906d), Era. 100. His House in Order Act III, in Hamilton (1919, 361–362). 101. Vanbrugh (1948, 72). 102. Pinero to Alexander, 15 July 1909 (Wearing 1974, 220). 103. Mid-Channel Act I in Hamilton (1922, 330). 104. Pearson wrote: ‘If he sent a play to a manager, it just had to be produced: no one had the courage to reject it: and even though a failure it had to be kept running for a certain number of weeks. Gerald du Maurier once said that his early years as a manager were clouded by the fact that every morning when he went to the theatre he was in fear and trembling lest a new play had arrived from Sir Arthur Pinero. Alexander must have suffered considerable discomfort when he received The Thunderbolt and Mid-Channel from Pinero. Though he admired them, he guessed they would fail, as indeed they did, but the possibility of being struck by the first and sunk in the second was less terrifying than the certainty of their author’s wrath had they been rejected’. Pearson (1965, 141); ‘So great was his prestige that managers dared not decline the honour of presenting his plays, even if convinced they would be flops’ Pearson (1950, 30). 105. Pinero to Alexander, 9 August 1914 (Wearing 1974, 252–253). 106. See Appendix for the exceptional performance times of this production. 107. Emeljanow (1987, 159). 108. Archer (1898, 356–357).

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References Anon. 1904a. The Sketch, 19 October. ———. 1904b. Illustrated London News, 22 October. ———. 1905a. Pall Mall Gazette, 5 February. ———. 1905b. Punch, 20 September. ———. 1906a. Evening Standard and St. James’s Gazette, 1 February. ———. 1906b. Pall Mall Gazette, 2 February. ———. 1906c. Star, 2 February. ———. 1906d. Era, 3 February. ———. 1906e. The Times, 2 February. ———. 1906f. World, 6 February. ———. 1906g. Stage, 8 February. ———. 1906h. Clarion, 9 February. ———. 1906i. The Times, 9 February. ———. 1906j. Illustrated London News, 12 May. ———. 1907a. Stage, 7 February. ———. 1907b. The Times, 13 November. ———. 1908. Illustrated London News, 16 May. ———. 1909a. Parts I have Played: A Photographic and Descriptive Biography of Mr. George Alexander. London: The Abbey Press. ———. 1909b. Stage, 9 September. Archer, William. 1882. English Dramatists of To-day. London: Sampson Low and Co. ———. 1894. The Theatrical World of 1893. London: Walter Scott. ———. 1898. Theatrical World of 1897. London: Walter Scott. ———. 1904. Real Conversations. London: William Heinemann. ———. 1923. The Old Drama and the New. London: William Heinemann. Arnott, Peter. 1977. An Introduction to French Theatre. London: Macmillan. Bailey, Peter. 1999. White Collars, Gray Lives? The Lower Middle-class Revisited. Journal of British Studies 38: 273–290. Boas, Frederick. 1936. Richardson to Pinero: Some Innovators and Idealists. London: John Murray. Cain, P.J., and A.G. Hopkins. 2002. British Imperialism. Harlow: Longman. Davis, Tracy C. 2000. The Economics of the British Stage, 1800–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dawick, John. 1995. Pinero: A Theatrical Life. Niwot: University Press of Colorado. Debord, Guy. 1995. The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books. Donohue, Joseph, ed. 2019. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, vols. IX and X. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Dumett, Raymond. 1999. Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The New Debate on Empire. London: Longman. Edel, Leon. 1987. Henry James: Selected Letters. Cambridge: MA. Belknap Press. Emeljanow, Victor. 1987. Victorian Popular Dramatists. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. Farrell, Michael P. 2001. Collaborative Circles: Friendship, Dynamics and Creative Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fensham, Rachel. 2003. Mrs Patrick Campbell as ‘Hell Cat’: Reading the Surface Histories of a Female Body. Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Film 30 (2): 33–54. Foucault, Michel. 1981. The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Green, Julius. 2012. How to Produce a West End Show. London: Oberon. Greene, E.J.H. 1977. Menander to Marivaux: The History of a Comic Structure. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Greenwood, Chris. 2000. Adapting to the Stage: Theatre and the Work of Henry James. Aldershot: Ashgate. Guy, Josephine M., and Ian Small. 2000. Oscar Wilde’s Profession: Writing and the Culture Industry in the Late Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hamilton, Clayton. 1910. The Theory of the Theatre. New York: Henry Holt. ———. 1917. The Social Plays of Arthur Wing Pinero. Vol. 1. New  York: E.P. Dutton. ———. 1918. The Social Plays of Arthur Wing Pinero. Vol. 2. New  York: E.P. Dutton. ———. 1919. The Social Plays of Arthur Wing Pinero. Vol. 3. New  York: E.P. Dutton. ———. 1922. The Social Plays of Arthur Wing Pinero. Vol. 4. New  York: E.P. Dutton. Harvard Theatre Collection. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero papers concerning The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 1892–1893. MS Thr 65 Houghton. Kaplan, Joel H., and Sheila Stowell. 1994. Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laurence, Dan H., ed. 1972. Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters 1898–1910. London: Max Reinhardt. Mason, A.E.W. 1935. Sir George Alexander and the St. James’s Theatre. London: Macmillan. Mullin, D. 1983. Victorian Actors and Actresses in Review. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Pearson, Hesketh. 1950. The Last Actor-Managers. London: White Lion Publishers. ———. 1965. Hesketh Pearson by Himself. London: Heinemann.

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Pellizzi, Camillo. 1935. English Drama: The Last Great Phase. Trans. Rowan Williams. London: Macmillan. Pinero, Arthur Wing. 1895. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. London: William Heinemann. ———. 1897. The Princess and the Butterfly. London: William Heinemann. Quigley, Austin. 1985. The Modern Stage and Other Worlds. New York: Methuen. Russell, Dave. 1996. Varieties of Life: The Making of the Edwardian Music Hall. In The Edwardian Theatre: Essays on Performance and the Stage, ed. Michael R. Booth and Joel H. Kaplan, 61–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rutherford, Lois. 1986. ‘Managers in a Small Way’: The Professionalisation of Variety Artistes, 1860–1914. In Music Hall: The Business of Pleasure, ed. Peter Bailey, 93–119. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Shaw, George Bernard. 1932. Our Theatres in the Nineties, 3 vols. London: Constable. Sutherland, Lucie. 2015. The ‘Power of Attraction’: The Staging of Wilde and his Contemporaries at the St. James’s Theatre, 1892–1895. New Theatre Quarterly 31 (1): 33–48. University of Rochester. Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation. D12: Craigie Papers. V & A Theatre and Performance Department Production File, A Wife Without a Smile. V & A Theatre and Performance Department Theatre File, Production File: The Thunderbolt. Vanbrugh, Irene. 1948. To Tell My Story. London: Hutchinson. Wearing, J.P., ed. 1974. The Collected Letters of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 1989. Edwardian London West End Christmas Entertainments, 1900–1914. In When They Weren’t Doing Shakespeare, ed. Judith Fisher, 229–240. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

CHAPTER 5

Managing Risk: Cross-sector Adaptation

Alexander’s efforts to translate commercially successful new publications to performance represented a desire to stage work that had, to some extent, already been tested. Adaptations of prose and poetry to the stage were not a new development and in the decade prior to Alexander’s entry in to management, accusations of playwrights and managements pilfering published work remained prominent, for example the suggestion levelled again Arthur Wing Pinero in 1881, that his play The Squire plagiarised Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd.1 Yet in comparison, West End managers in the final decade of the nineteenth century were optioning and producing permitted versions of recent publishing phenomena. Prominent examples included Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s production in October 1895 of Paul M. Potter’s Trilby (an adaptation of the novel by George du Maurier), and the first production examined in this chapter, an adaptation of Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda. Adding legitimate adaptations to repertoire provides evidence that while informal fraternal networks continued to underpin the actor-­ manager system, there was a growing concern on the part of theatre managers to be seen as theatre industry professionals working with legislation—including copyright legislation—to sustain management. This explicit handling of material from the publishing industry was an early step towards the kind of cross-sector adaptation that is now more frequently employed to enhance the reputation of both producer and product. Commenting upon literary adaptation at the beginning of the twenty-first © The Author(s) 2020 L. Sutherland, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7_5

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century, Simone Murray has outlined the reciprocal relationship benefitting both the creator of the initial product and the professional spheres producing and reproducing source and adaptation as ‘attributions of cultural esteem may trigger significant commercial dividends and, contrariwise, commercial success has flow-on effects for cultural prevalence and evaluation.’2 By the 1890s, staging theatrical adaptations of new literary outputs did not remove risk, but did provide a form of market testing otherwise unavailable to a West End management consistently staging new drama, and this chapter will examine how adapting publishing sensations for the West End stage sustained Alexander as actor and manager. Particular attention is paid to The Prisoner of Zenda and then Paolo and Francesca, a poetic drama that was one result of the ‘booming’, or insistent marketing, of its author Stephen Phillips by both the publishing and theatre industries.

Making Theatre from a Novel: The Prisoner of Zenda Published in April 1894, The Prisoner of Zenda was the apotheosis of the male romance genre, that became popular with a rapidly expanding readership in the 1890s. While the work of Henry (H.) Rider Haggard is arguably the best-known example of the form, Zenda experienced pronounced success. Seven thousand copies of the novel had been sold by June 1894 and in 1935, Hope’s biographer Charles Mallet estimated sales of the book to that date to be 300,000 in Britain alone, with the novel eventually adapted to the stage and screen over a dozen times. By the 1890s, England and Wales had a literacy rate of ninety-six per cent, and low-price editions of popular fiction were sold in large quantities. By 1896, two years after the publication of Hope’s novel, and the year of Alexander’s production, thirty per cent of these publications had a retail price of 1d. to 6d., another thirty per cent retailing in the lower mid-price category of 2s. 1d. to 3s. 6d., through the newsagent networks already employed by the periodical industry.3 Developments in printing machinery and paper production encouraged larger print runs and cheap reprints of popular novels. Alexis Weedon recognises that these developments in publishing, as well as greater regulation of literary and dramatic copyright, increased the potential profit to be gained from a text that was sold in multiple editions, serialised and by the 1920s, adapted for the screen:

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New pricing and promotional systems and serialization in newspapers and magazines began to put the novel within reach of the majority of the British public. In these 60 years (1870–1930) publishers expanded their production of cheaper editions and—as trade with colonial nations and the United States developed—became more conscious of the importance of co-­ ordinating their book publications with serialisations. The strategies which emerged during this period through the purchase and repurchase of book and subsidiary rights paved the way for the agreements which many publishers made with the film agencies and companies of the 1920 and 1930s.4

Increasing the likelihood of a successful collaboration between Hope’s brand of fiction and Alexander’s management was the fact that Hope’s career as a writer mirrored Alexander’s as actor-manager. The Prisoner of Zenda was an immediate success, and three months after its publication, Hope left the Bar and dedicated himself to authorship. The writing of fiction now offered itself as a viable career,5 and he had a ‘modest concern to be a “professional” seller of stories, always ready to disclaim the higher reaches of fiction, always ready to stoop to “tricks of the trade”’.6 The author became, in his own words, a ‘declared professional’, if not an innovative writer.7 He had already published three novels, but it was only The Prisoner of Zenda that allowed him to retire from the legal profession. After the success of Zenda, Hope was expected to reproduce versions of the novel, and this led to a stagnation of his literary abilities. He had been a satirist, writing the popular ‘Dolly Dialogues’ for the Westminster Gazette (1894), and his later work, including the novel Quisanté (1900), a fictional reworking of the life of the young Disraeli, provides some evidence of the variety of his literary output. Yet just as Alexander bred expectancy of a play ‘in the usual quiet St. James’s key’,8 so Anthony Hope limited the expectations of his readership with the values of chivalry and male romance that define The Prisoner of Zenda. Alexander had formulated audience expectation by his early repertoire, and when he did stage a piece set beyond the St. James’s arena, as with Zenda, its values were retained. ‘For what relationship is there between Ruritania and Burlesdon, between the palace at Strelsau or the Castle of Zenda and Number 305 Park Lane, W.?’9 asks Rassendyll at the beginning of the novel, and the relationship is wrought by his position as a saviour of Ruritania, drawn from London Society. Certainly, in an immediate sense, the adaptation of this novel for the stage benefited the commercial and professional status of both author and actor-manager. For example, advertisements for Hope’s newest

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publication appeared in programmes for any additional performances at the theatre during the run of the play.10 This both encouraged audiences to purchase this book and reminded those attending exceptional matinées of the extremely successful production still running at the St. James’s Theatre. Hope later associated his novel with a theatrical as well as a literary tradition: It is indeed astonishing how many stories, novels, and plays may be reduced on analysis to this ancient plot and this elementary situation […] in some shape, and in varying degrees, it pervades English comedy from Shakespeare’s day to our own. In itself it is no more than a starting-point for the characters, emotions, and incidents that it is the writer’s real business to develop, but it opens a fruitful field to an imagination that can see and work out its dramatic possibilities.11

Writing more than thirty years after his novel was first adapted for the stage, Hope compares his text with specifically theatrical ‘English comedy’, yet the reason for the play’s success in 1896 had little to do with the established dramatic canon. Edward Rose’s adaptation of Anthony Hope’s novel was received as an ‘effectively picturesque’ staging of an adventure narrative.12 The simplistic plot, by which an Englishman asserts his moral superiority and national pre-eminence by bringing order to the social fabric of a foreign country, evidently had a sedative effect upon Alexander’s audience, who were presented with an idealised hero who asserted an imperial, hierarchical value system. The plot concerns the identical appearance of Rudolf, the king of a mythical country, Ruritania, and an English aristocrat, Rudolf Rassendyll. Hearing rumours that his family is distantly related to this royal line, Rassendyll travels to Ruritania, and is embroiled in a plot to conceal the kidnap of King Rudolf, impersonating the monarch until his rescue is accomplished, so that the stability of the Ruritanian monarchy is maintained. Events are complicated as Rassendyll falls in love with Flavia, a princess engaged to the king, but he sacrifices this relationship and returns to England so that the monarch can resume his rightful place, with his rightful queen. Both king and aristocrat gain a sense of duty and honour from their experience, although they began the story with no concept of responsibility. An aristocrat and an Englishman, Rassendyll is not (legitimately) royal, and therefore leaves Ruritania for King Rudolf’s sake; this assertion of social order is unsubtle and absolute.

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Formulaic and stable attitudes to Victorian theatrical practice are implicit in many opinions voiced at the time, as shown in Frank Archer’s How to Write a Good Play (1892): ‘Play-making may not be one of the exact sciences, but it is more nearly allied to them than it appears at first sight. It can fairly be described as a sort of ‘symphony in mathematics.’13 The playwright, according to Archer, is an architect with analytical faculties, not necessarily informed by intellectual individuality or moral subjectivity. Certainly, Rose’s adaptation was an exercise in simplifying Hope’s fiction—altering the intricate plot to save the king for the sake of staging, but also reducing characters to their place in the story, with no attempt to define them as complex or troubling. Shaw, reviewing Rose’s subsequent adaptation of Under the Red Robe, acknowledged that he had pared down an already formulaic type of fiction: Since the New Public has been manufactured under the Education Act; and nowadays there is a fortune for the literary boy of fourteen; or even the literary adult who can remember vividly what a fool he was at that age […] Mr. Edward Rose, dramatizing such a novel, had to dramatize situation without character […] Worse than that, he had to dramatize a situation the boyishness of which must become so flagrantly obvious to the wise under the searching glare of the footlights, that his only hope of acceptance lay in the as yet unfathomed abysses of the literary infancy of the New Public.14

Shaw criticises an evident complacency among dramatists and actor-­ managers engaged in producing adaptations, which was creating an equally complacent attitude in the audience. The success of The Prisoner of Zenda derived from picturesque staging which framed a fantasy of adventure created by Hope and adapted by Rose. Even conservative critic Clement Scott, in his Daily Telegraph review, acknowledged the extent to which spectacle distracted the audience from scrutiny of the text: For two acts there was little but costume; for two more laboured actions. We were always longing to get at the play, anxious to be interested in the characters […] the eye became as dazzled as at a Savoy opera, a panorama, or a pantomime.15

The very fact that Edward Rose’s play presents the story in such a clear and linear fashion—from the revelation of Rassendyll’s relationship with the king to his departure from Ruritania after the King is reinstated—adds a verisimilitude to the fantasy of a constructive English chivalric code: ‘it is

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the primacy of action as opposed to the primacy of feelings, and moreover action which is frequently imperially-based as opposed to specifically England-based’.16 Hope and Rose created an ideal world of characters and situations, heroes and villains, where English chivalry was viable and the theatrical dynamic complemented the plot when adapted for the stage. The physical notion of mistaken identity produced a dramatic tension for an audience to enjoy. Rassendyll’s role as double to a king manifested an appropriate balance of escapism and idealised moral responsibility. After four acts of swordplay, Rassendyll handed the throne and the heroine back to the previously dissolute King Rudolf, providing, to use Margery Fisher’s description, ‘a conclusion of happy pessimism, an almost cherished melancholy, a sense of emotional growth coming from loss and failure’ which ‘helps us to forget the inevitable contrast between real and ideal’.17 This idea of romance as escape was supported by Scott who, despite acknowledging that acting had become secondary to spectacle in Alexander’s production, responded with enthusiasm to the reassuring effect of the piece: But what does it matter if people are pleased? There are plays, there must be plays, that disarm and defy criticism.18

Scott is happy to be complicit in the process of ‘disarming’ criticism and denying individual response, consequently promoting the masculine, imperial authority present in the play. In the Illustrated London News Scott repeated his positive reaction, eager to define the production as symptomatic of a revolt in audience taste against ‘the burden of Women with Pasts’,19 those attending the play somehow complicit in a process by which they were comforted, and therefore contained, by romantic drama. He praised the play as an interruption to an unwelcome trend in drama on the English stage, and his opinion was repeated by a critic writing in the Daily News: After the repulsive freaks of the latter-day heroine who lays claim to the title of ‘the new woman,’ it is a welcome change to be taken into the region of romantic adventure.20

Scott understood moral instruction and spectacle to be appropriate material for the stage, and felt that the ‘picturesque’ (using the word three times in his half-column Daily Telegraph review) overwhelmed problems of verisimilitude. This was, indeed, a period when romantic melodrama

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was welcomed by audiences, and imitations of The Prisoner of Zenda appeared throughout 1896.21 Reviewers emphasised the action, the humour, and the visual splendour of the play, and the extravagant spectacle of The Prisoner of Zenda was its significant and most successful feature, the spectacular an expected feature of the long run by this decade: From an economic standpoint, scenically spectacular theatre may be a practical development with a fiscal rationale permitting its emergence, rather than being a strictly aesthetic choice.22

The play was a marked departure from the brand of realism that had characterised the St. James’s during the early 1890s. Alexander’s most profitable production from his entry into management in 1890 until The Prisoner of Zenda was The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, Pinero’s attempt to transmute the intellectual attractions of Ibsen’s drama into what Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell have defined as the ‘sensuous materiality’ of West End repertoire.23 A distinct change in genre was also evident in the productions of other managements in the entertainment district, as of the 324 productions staged in 1896,24 only twenty-five achieved a run of over one hundred performances, of which eighteen were farcical comedies and musicals, and three were oneact plays accompanying other long runs. The remaining plays were the sentimental drama Rosemary produced by Wyndham at the Criterion, Wilson Barrett’s The Sign of the Cross, The Prisoner of Zenda and Edward Rose’s adaptation of Stanley Weyman’s novel Under the Red Robe, a historical romance produced by Frederick Harrison at the Haymarket Theatre. In 1895, Henry Arthur Jones had accepted in his Renascence of the English Drama that play-writing had to satisfy the public, that attempts to deal with progressive subjects had to be conservative, and ‘[t]he problem of uniting the demands of an audience insisting on amusement with the demands of an art looking beyond amusement therefore went unsolved’.25 In the same year, Henry Irving told a journalist for Theatre that ‘the London public won’t go to see the Ibsen plays, except, of course, at an occasional performance. The public still loves the romance of life.’26 During the mid-1890s drama portraying idealised characters and situations against a picturesque backdrop became profitable and prevalent,27 an artistic product judged in opposition to the form of dramatic realism evident in Alexander’s earlier repertoire, plays epitomised by The Second Mrs. Tanqueray that were ‘an attempt to implement the new dramatic rigorism and a wriggling out of the consequences of its consistent application.’28

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This difficult relationship with stage realism resulted in a period when ‘simple, unrestrained, extreme forms of melodramatic expression’29 became attractive to managers. The years surrounding the Diamond Jubilee saw a current of ‘romantic sentimental plays’30 in the theatre, as managers who habitually produced society comedies and dramas were forced to turn to alternative genres to achieve financial and critical success. Romantic drama (as well as increasingly successful musical theatre)31 reflected what J. T. Grein described in 1897 as ‘l’apothéose honteuse et dégradant du système commercial’.32

The Spectacle of The Prisoner of Zenda and Profit A move to staging spectacular drama in pursuit of profit was a response, by leading producers of new work in the West End, to a period of commercial failure. Jones’s The Triumph of the Philistines ran for only thirty-nine performances in May 1895, and Michael and His Lost Angel for ten nights in January 1896. Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, written for Mrs. Patrick Campbell to capitalise upon her success as Paula Tanqueray, received mixed reviews, and although John Hare maintained it at the Garrick Theatre for over eighty performances it did not have a run to resemble that of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. In comparison, the trend towards spectacle and sensation was reflected in Tree’s triumphant production of Trilby in the final months of 1895. Alexander failed with three new plays in that year—Guy Domville, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Triumph of the Philistines—challenging his intention to stage new drama by British authors, and to encourage pre-eminent writers to create work for the stage. The year concluded with one further unsuccessful production, H. V. Esmond’s drama The Divided Way which ran for twenty performances before being withdrawn. With losses of almost £1,900 for the year, Alexander contemplated a production of Hamlet.33 Wishing to build upon the publicity afforded by a royal command performance at Balmoral in September 1895, he hoped that a Shakespearean production would reinforce his professional status. However, after Edward Sothern’s success with The Prisoner of Zenda in New York in 1895, he reconsidered the potential of romantic drama. The Prisoner of Zenda is one example of Alexander countering a period of short-running productions, and poor returns, with a change in genre. The choice of a story that had not only proved its attraction in the form of a novel but also as a stage adaptation in the United States, suggests how

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urgently Alexander needed to present work that could feasibly be deemed new for the theatregoer in London, while also having been trialled before it reached the St. James’s stage. By selecting an adaptation of a popular novel and producing a scenically spectacular drama, which provided him with a heroic role, the actor-manager advertised the sustained authority of his management. During 1896, events in South Africa that acted as a prelude to the Boer War combined with preparations for Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, producing what William Archer called an ‘outburst of literary jingoism’34 that resulted in the foundation of numerous ‘national’ cultural institutions, and within the theatre in numerous productions of Shakespeare’s history plays as well as the prevalence of elaborate and often militaristic dramas in the West End.35 Although Rassendyll’s chivalry and Ruritanian adventure were utterly improbable, the combination of Alexander in the familiar role of aristocratic hero, and an imaginative, opulent setting was appreciated by his audience, as the play ran for 254 performances in 1896, achieving gross box office income of £40,530 6s. 7d. As these figures convey, the play attracted a broad audience, and a photograph was reproduced in the Sketch of those queuing along King Street to buy tickets for the production (Fig. 5.1). This image confirmed the popular appeal of the piece, and the production provided Alexander with full houses after a period of severe financial loss. It was revived three times by Alexander at the St. James’s, and he toured with the play in the summer of 1896, advertising his achievement nationally.36 The pictorial qualities of every scene were foregrounded, an effect that was immediately apparent in the stylised eighteenth-century prologue to explain Rassendyll’s link with Ruritania, which introduced the audience to the spectacle of the production rather than conveying necessary detail, and provided ‘a stage duel, eighteenth-century costumes, powder and patches.’37 Modern Society (after characteristically devoting one-third of their review to the fact that exit from the stalls was delayed after the second night’s performance to allow the Duchess of Fife to leave first of all) focused upon the enthusiastic reaction to the piece by the audience, specifically the socially influential audience. However, the periodical’s reviewer also acknowledged that the Prologue would have been unnecessary, had not spectacle overpowered substance as the most significant feature of this production:

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Fig. 5.1  ‘Waiting to see The Prisoner of Zenda, at the St. James’s Theatre’ from The Sketch, 26 March 1896. ©Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans The prologue is an elaboration of three pages of the tale, and might have been dispensed with, was it not for the picturesque beauty of its tableaux.38

This potentially redundant opening scene was captured in a full-length portrait of Alexander in costume by Robert Brough, now housed at the Garrick Club (Fig. 5.2). The choice by Alexander to memorialise this character, and this production (rather than, for example, the production deemed to characterise and consolidate his management, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray), indicates the importance of Zenda to the reputation of the actor-manager, while promoting the production as characterised by spectacle. Certainly, Rose’s unnecessary opening scene which attempted to explain the reason for the

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Fig. 5.2  ‘George Alexander in The Prisoner of Zenda’, Robert Brough, 1901. Courtesy of the Garrick Club, London

similarity in appearance between the king and Rassendyll encouraged an audience to focus upon the visual rather than the textual. The critic for the St. James’s Gazette was incisive, recognising the uneven development of character and action evident in Rose’s adaptation: At one moment the spectator seemed to be transported into a world of romance where everything is possible and defensible; at another the impression that he was the involuntary witness of a real-life drama proved almost irresistible. In a measure this feeling is to be explained by the manner in

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which the adapter has handled his theme, which alternately takes the form of deadly earnestness, farce, and genuine romance.39

However, the reviewer instantly undermined this criticism with the statement that ‘merely as a spectacle the piece deserves to be seen’, and the importance placed upon the visual by critics was an effect that Rose and Alexander had been complicit in producing with the sublimation of text to staging, and the presentation of idealised situations.

Alexander as Romantic Hero and Authoritarian Manager Alexander became the most obvious symbol of an appeal to the audience to immerse themselves in the romance, a form of undemanding theatrical encounter that promoted a sensual reaction: ‘Alexander himself at that time was superlatively fitted to play the dual rôle. He could be romantic in modern clothes, and romantic in costume, and in this play he had to be both.’40 Even the most flattering reviews refer to him as representing a character type rather than creating a character. He was ‘attractive and consistent’,41 and in a production where he was almost continually present on stage the Globe’s reviewer noted that ‘in one shape or other, Mr. Alexander is almost always before the audience’.42 The characters are immersed in a forest from the first scene after the prologue, and the foreign environment is given a degree of plausibility and relevance by Alexander’s embodiment of an English character, who rapidly becomes the centre of this stage world: He [Alexander] lifts the story from the plane of comic opera to that of serious drama; and though this somewhat detracts from the lightness of Mr Hope’s original conception, it enhances the value of the action from the dramatic point of view.43

Alexander successfully asserted his authority as actor and manager in the physically and morally idealised character of Rudolf Rassendyll, conveying to both peers and consumers his continued success as West End impresario, after a commercially and socially insecure year. The Prisoner of Zenda, novel and play, harboured an obsession with masculinity, and an underlying neurosis about the ways in which this was jeopardised in the final decade of the nineteenth century:

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Though it has often been read by later critics as unambiguously celebratory of late-Victorian masculinist ideals, the male romance is in fact deeply imbued with a sense of loss. Through this genre male middle-class writers responded, not always coherently, to their sense of disenfranchisement in the world.44

As noted by Stephen Arata, fear of female empowerment and the label of ‘decadent’ given to artistic and social movements that threatened the highVictorian social construct of masculinity are repressed, as acts motivated by duty and self-sacrifice portray an idealised heroism. Indeed, Rose stripped the story to little more than a series of scenes that allowed Alexander either to display his skill in stage combat, or ‘to reproduce on stage the brilliant surfaces of an opulent consumer society’, when the royal court of Ruritania was realised in performance.45 Princess Flavia’s position as a virtuous woman, renouncing love for duty, and the King as a flawed man saved by his chivalric double, both served to reiterate the authority of Alexander’s romantic hero. This version of masculinity was in direct opposition to the ‘purposeless men and women of naturalist fiction, whom we expect to degenerate or wither away’ as Englishmen were quite literally taken ‘to a new territory […] where a more vigorous identity can be created.’46 During this period the concept of the ‘double’ was frequently subversive, expressing in Karl Miller’s words ‘the dilemma, for males, of a choice between male and female roles, or of a possible union of such opposites’.47 Yet this play inverted the interest in duality found in literary texts during the 1880s and 1890s, as influenced by European romanticism.48 Rather than focus upon fragmentary identities and the essential tension between the individual and society produced by inflexible moral precepts, The Prisoner of Zenda endorsed acting correctly. In the novel, Rassendyll sees himself as an actor, but it is King Rudolf who states finally ‘you have shown me how to play the king’,49 with an emphasis on the right way to proceed having been displayed by the English hero. On stage, this idea of ‘showing’ had a literal manifestation which dominated the subtext, the dramatic quality becoming central to the dynamic by which the audience perceived an actor, playing a hero who acts a role to re-assert the monarchy, creating the illusion of secure social order, driven by respectability and English masculinity. The first run was ten months after the première of The Importance of Being Earnest, and it is possible that Alexander’s choice was a reaction against the wider social furore that emerged around Wilde, a dramatist strongly linked to the St. James’s Theatre at this time. The year

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has long been seen as a key period in British literary history; Wilde’s disgrace was only one aspect of its significance, but one that had a particular effect upon Alexander’s repertoire.50 Anxieties are displaced in the arena of romance, and a romantic, comedic concept of the double far removed from the ‘Bunburying’ of Earnest. Alexander became the voice of the Victorian, masculine moral majority, subtly debating but ultimately enforcing social norms. In the wake of fin-de-siècle perceptions of ‘an effeminised and decadent world’, he supported ‘the virtues associated with heroic masculinity’ in a manner that appealed to large audiences.51 The very simplicity of the story, coupled with the visual splendour attached to it by Alexander’s habitual emphasis on style and fashion, made the 1896 adaptation both a simple adventure and a defensive promotion of masculinity and empire. The late-Victorian male romance was part of a wider concern with national unity, and as a dramatic genre, ‘like late-­ Victorian imperialist ideology generally is centrally concerned with the possibility of renewal’.52 The 1890s saw a wider cultural movement that served to encourage the concept of national identity, and multiple advertisements of coherence and achievement were imprinting themselves physically upon the nation’s, and the empire’s capital, including the National Trust (1895), the National Portrait Gallery (1896), and the Tate Gallery (1897). Both Hope in his novel, and Alexander with the stage adaptation, optimistically suggest a constructive and regenerative point of view with empire and masculinity at its centre. The Prisoner of Zenda was a successful literary and theatrical product during this period because of the ease with which concerns over duality and the double could so easily represent wider social concerns with disunity. The literal likeness between Rassendyll and the King on stage was a material theatrical device that clearly communicated the orthodox heroic actions of self-sacrifice and renunciation found in the story. The interest it held for the audience—whether the same actor would play both roles, how this could be achieved, the range and capabilities of a single performer—was a practical one. The double was a theatrical device that allowed the actor-manager to display his ability as actor and, in costume and stage effect, as producer. It could also be used for comic effect and in a letter dated two days before the play’s opening, Rose was appealing to Alexander ‘comedy, comedy, comedy wherever possible!’53 However, Alexander, although attracted to social comedy, was possessed of a formality on stage that diminished the comic material written into Rose’s adaptation. It would seem that this aspect of the play was not entirely compatible

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with the actor-manager’s style of performance, and that he manifested a ponderous correctness which complemented the moral imperatives implicit in the role of Rassendyll. Shaw criticised the production for scenes unfolding predictably in ‘the usual quiet St. James’s key’,54 and the double did not emphasise the comedy of mistaken identity, but rather male empowerment, with Shaw commenting in his review: Rassendyll is really nothing but a pasteboard pattern of manly attitudes to be struck on the act of doing one’s duty under difficult circumstances, a figure motivated by conventionalities, without individual will, and therefore without reality or humanity.55

Both Arata and Elaine Showalter have described how the emergence of male romance in the 1880s was crucially a literary attack on effeminacy—the aggressive and accessible narratives are polar opposites to the reflective, domestic (feminine) realism of the Victorian novel.56 This orthodoxy was translated to the stage, and the long run of the production indicates that Alexander’s embodiment of authority was received enthusiastically. Incorporation of archaeological realism into sets, combined with marketable fashion, was a means of communicating the relevance and appeal of his venue, instructing the audience that plays there were significant and worth seeing. The critic of the Daily Chronicle confirms this outcome of Alexander’s hybridisation of the real and the spectacular, suggesting that material extravagance and the intricate detail this demands made Zenda a noteworthy production: The Georgian dining room of the prologue is as correct in its details as is the magnificent reception prior to the coronation […] Than this scene with its wealth of costume and stage accessories, together with the pomp and public enthusiasm incidental to such an occasion, nothing more realistic has been seen or heard in a London theatre.57

The act headings printed in the St. James’s programme also show the desire of both Rose and Alexander to produce spectacular, romantic drama: ‘Concerning the Colour of Men’s Hair’, ‘The Fair Cousin and A Dark Brother’, ‘The King Can Do No Wrong’ and ‘If Love Were All’. As a romantic drama filled with character types, and consequently with little of the tension between social position and sensual attire present in the

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‘Pineroticism’ previously so successful at Alexander’s theatre,58 the visual product undermined criticism and produced a long-running success, reviews emphasising the manner in which the audience were enthralled by ‘the general brightness and picturesqueness of the successive tableaux’.59 Alexander’s productions were invariably accompanied by a ‘painstakingly recreated social environment’,60 and The Prisoner of Zenda combined the pastoral of Stafford Hall, Walter Hann and William Telbin’s scenic design with the extravagant fashions characteristic of St. James’s society plays. By the late-Victorian period, certainly by 1890 when Alexander first became a lessee and manager, the material and intellectual property of theatre had combined with repertoire and reputation to enhance profit, in Tracy C. Davis’s words a ‘conflation of theatre as a good and service, enabling it to practically function in the marketplace as an intellectual product’.61 Instead of merely performing to an audience, Alexander was communicating with them, providing a product that every tier of the house could read. In combining escapism through fantasy of adventure with the more tangible allure of contemporary fashion, this production satisfied an audience who expected to witness material excess on the stage of the St. James’s Theatre. The most obvious effect of this process was for the actresses in this production to appear more like mannequins: not only were Princess Flavia and Antoinette de Mauban written to emphasise the strengths and flaws of the hero and villain respectively, but they were placed in front of sets representing forest glades and castle halls, accompanied by male, military escorts, as framed and externally determined versions of femininity. Oscar Wilde had discerned the manner in which the sombre attire of Society men in the audience and on stage in contemporary drama framed women’s fashion and emphasised it as a marketable commodity, and Alexander seemed to manipulate this phenomenon. The picturesque scenery incorporated into this drama located fashion in an idealised romantic environment, suggesting an aspirational desire that should be felt for next season’s fashions, as seen on stage in The Prisoner of Zenda. Its contemporary setting, allowing a fashion parade headed by Evelyn Millard’s wardrobe (the actress playing Flavia), heightened the invitation to purchase gowns, which advertised the possibility of transferring the excitement of the production into a distinct product, suggesting nothing so much as the origins of the catwalk, as introduced several years later.62 Rather than maintaining a balance, a ‘tension between the pressing real world and its own ritual’,63 the staging at the St. James’s Theatre communicated directly to the audience

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through consumer goods presented in relation to the leading actress’s presence on stage. The Prisoner of Zenda depended for its success upon elaborate sets, costumes and crowd scenes.64 There was no claim to realism in plotting and characterisation, and priority was given to displaying current fashion, with Florence Alexander spending over £3,000 on wardrobe for the production. Costumed by Nathans and Savage and Purdue, this was a supreme example of Alexander’s venue as Society arena. These couturiers never designed for other managements, defining their role ‘not as a theatre professional but a society dressmaker using the stage for promotional purposes’.65 It is important to note that there was as much, if not more, space given in the press to pictures and comments on wardrobe as there was written in critical response to the play, with analyses of costume characterised by the language of consumption: As you can see, Mr. Alexander has been mindful of the feminine portion of his audiences, and provided them with a perfect feast of gowns.66

Alexander’s decision to give a preview of the fashion present in the production reiterates his understanding of the commercial imperatives openly triumphed by the Sketch’s reviewer, fashion columnist ‘Florence’: For the realisation of the full beauty of these to which I have hurriedly introduced you, and a first view of those others which I have had to leave out in the cold, let me advise a personal visit to the St. James’s, with the rest of the world and his wife.67

This appeal to a female readership’s desire for social acceptability through entreaties regarding fashion and attendance, with its suggestion that husbands might arrange a visit to the St. James’s Theatre, indicates Alexander’s attention to a ‘fiscal rationale’;68 the invitation to the Sketch’s readers and potential audience members was directed towards their social and economic aspirations. Working with couturiers to mount The Prisoner of Zenda was, to adopt terminology employed by Roland Barthes, ‘pathological’: a self-conscious attempt to iterate the social exclusivity of the St. James’s Theatre and its productions.69 The extravagance of the fashion displayed on stage was determined by the verisimilitude expected of a production and there can be no doubt that costume during Alexander’s managerial career became ‘a

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means of dramatic discourse.’70 Not only did it signify the status of a character, but also, more significantly, the status of the performer, curbing the on-stage behaviour of actresses in the St. James’s company. Alexander was able to communicate the pre-eminence of his leading actresses by costuming them in next season’s fashions, a collusion with London couturiers that linked the stage and Society and extended the prestige of his management. Savage and Purdue, who designed costumes for thirteen productions between 1892 and 1897, both served and utilised Alexander’s management, and the increasingly apparent development of the fashion industry via the West End stage was epitomised in the ‘coronation scene’ in Act II. According to the reviewer for the Daily Chronicle: Than this scene with its wealth of costume and stage accessories, together with the pomp and public enthusiasm incidental to such an occasion, nothing more realistic has been seen or heard in a London theatre.71

It was not the coronation of Rassendyll posing as Rudolf that was represented on stage, but rather the procession that preceded and followed this ceremony for the impostor-hero. The ritual evident in this scene—the event subordinated to a reflection of its most commercial elements—paralleled the ritual observed in the segregation apparent off-stage: the auditorium, like presence at the coronation, although ostensibly determined by social standing, was practically determined by financial expenditure. Indeed, ‘the architectural semiotic of wealth’ present on and off stage contributed to the success of this production, and therefore to the commercial stability of Alexander’s management.72 The relationship between fashion and theatre at this time was the embodiment of what Mark Fortier defines as a ‘spectacularisation of consumer goods’,73 the spectacle of romantic drama forcing this effect to an extreme that was part of the impact of The Prisoner of Zenda, where the material overwhelmed the performative. The coronation scene focused upon by so many reviewers suggests, in the very attention it received, that Alexander had stage-managed a focal point in the play to display an affluence that would emphasise the status of his theatre. The result was that instead of ‘presenting a careful and precise idea of vestimentary privilege’,74 the fashion designed by Savage and Purdue and represented to excess here overwhelmed the individual sensuous qualities necessary for the reading of costume, the couture house clothes being hypertrophied, and the parade a too obvious subject, or

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more accurately advertisement, in its own right. This reached its ultimate expression in Millard’s gown for the scene: First and foremost, there is Princess Flavia of the wonderful hair—Miss Evelyn Millard, to wit—with a Court-train of glistening silver brocade, on which several gracefully grouped clusters of purest white ostrich feathers are caught together with loops and bows of satin ribbon, while underneath, at the sides, there are trails of white roses, of which you get an occasional glimpse. The corsage and petticoat, or white satin, are veiled with white lisse glittering with innumerable lines of silver sequins, and falling straight from the square décolletage to the hem, where it is cut in points, and bordered with crystal and silver fringe, a slight drapery of the same lovely fabric forming the sleeves. The effect is wonderfully beautiful, especially when you add a high crown of diamonds, from which depends the orthodox veil, while the Princess carries a bouquet of white roses.75

The wardrobe of Evelyn Millard, rather than the merit of her performance as Princess Flavia, received a significant amount of attention in the press. Millard was frequently employed by Alexander, largely because she was an ideal actress for an autocratic actor-manager or playwright. She would allow her performance to be subsumed into the entire production, to foreground the actor-manager. The Era’s description of Millard, ‘made-up pale’ and ‘bewitching’, ‘sensitive, fragile, affectionate’,76 emphasises the impressionistic effect of her performance; the actress became part of a spectacular whole. Although Millard’s costume for the scene was extravagant and clearly never directly marketed for purchase, it nevertheless provided a potential satisfaction for every section of the audience as the stage picture remained distanced, a fantasy to be indulged in by consumers. The costume consisted of multiple layers, not only suggesting the repressed sensuality of the virginal princess, but also, conversely, the ultimate expression of fashion and opulence, and an opportunity for Savage and Purdue to reveal the extent of their skill. The white satin dress worn by the actress between a body-length veil and a silver brocade train is of a type that would have been in place on the heroines of Jones, Wilde or Pinero, but the excess of the veil and train convey an impossible sumptuousness that went beyond the signification of princess and virgin, and declared the skill of the couture house, revealing competition in the fashion industry via the West End stage:

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Of course, the coronation scene provides an opportunity for the costumier, and full advantage has been taken of it; but how am I to be impressed with that when I have come reeking, if I may use that word, from the still more magnificent Court ‘function’ in the Drury Lane pantomime?77

A process by which costume was replaced by couture house advertisement is recognised here, and following ‘Spec’s’ review in the Star is a column by ‘Eva’, where the paper’s fashion reviewer discusses this trend: I lost, somehow, the first night of the new play at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Indeed, it was first at an at-home the other day, when a friend turned to me and said: ‘Of course, you have seen Mrs. Tree’s cloak?’ that I realised how neglectful I had been. This ‘of course’ hit me like a bullet in the face, and I promised myself that this remarkable cloak should not long be shrouded in mystery.78

Although admitting the extravagance of the cloak worn in the production of A Woman’s Reason at the Shaftesbury Theatre, ‘Eva’ is earnest in acknowledging the need for an awareness of stage costume, as an indicator of fashion available for purchase. This emphasises that the relationship between the West End stage and couture houses was at its peak during the years when romantic dramas enjoyed a period of success, the ‘vestimentary code’ expected of costumes worn by actresses undermined by commercial imperatives.79 Emphasis on marketing fashion as well as producing entertainment highlights altering economic imperatives that had to be considered and manipulated to ensure an actor-manager’s profit and survival. With both the fashion and publishing industries integral to the success of this production, Zenda demonstrated the cross-sector collaboration that was informing actor-manager practice by the end of the nineteenth century. However, ironically, the assertion of ‘Englishness’ and an idealised chivalric code displayed and enjoyed in The Prisoner of Zenda was a route to escape from developing professional and industrial environments. There was an inherent conflict at work while a fantasy of adventure and justice was played out, providing as Arata observes, ‘for the spectators certain pictures which their imagination craves’, this form of idealised representation a ‘supremely middle-class construct’.80 There was an appeal to both ‘Society’ and a growing middle-class audience: to those who perceived a reflection of their claim to superiority, and to those for whom ideal

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nobility was a fantasy that acted as relief from increasingly uncertain class and economic boundaries. In 1896 George Alexander’s management was sustained by the profits from this successful romantic drama. Undoubtedly, he was concerned with guaranteeing financial security with a production that would entertain ‘Society’ resident in and around the theatre, and the wider audience that could with increasing ease access the codes of that Society. The overwhelming ‘colour, movement and stirring quality’ of The Prisoner of Zenda was an important element in achieving this.81 The play is a forum where rejuvenated masculinity is paramount, but the obvious suppression of racial, class and gender issues implicit to this process makes it an uneasy empowerment. Hope’s Ruritania is positioned as an ‘other’ suffering disharmony that can only be redressed by the English, aristocratic male. Vesna Goldsworthy summarises this: ‘A particularly British orientalising rhetoric […] in which the British identity and, in particular, the “Englishness” which frequently defines it, is seen as different from and often symbolically superior to the European.’82 These seemingly problematic features of the text were welcomed by the audience throughout Alexander’s career as actor-manager, not only providing renewed economic prosperity in the mid-1890s, but also expanding the choice of material by which to maintain a healthy St. James’s house in the final two decades of his career. Even in the absence of precise records of profit, there is evidence of this. Alexander staged a second West End production, the farcical comedy His Little Dodge, while The Prisoner of Zenda ran at the St. James’s.83 Then, after the reconstruction of the St. James’s Theatre in 1899, the actor-manager chose to reopen with Hope’s adaptation of his sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda—Rupert of Hentzau. Although this play was less successful, the run, according to Mason, ‘cancelled out’, once paired with matinées of The Prisoner of Zenda.84 Although the appeal of romantic drama diminished, Alexander was able to revive Rose’s adaptation as a pronounced and lucrative asset to his management over the following two decades. The extra possibilities for profit provided by the success of The Prisoner of Zenda in 1896 made it a key production. A more varied range of material was confirmed as lucrative by the success of Zenda. The artistic policy of consistently producing new material also had financial implications and benefits, as investment in a range of texts provided the manager with a number of options when reacting to extended periods of commercial and critical failure. Another pronounced example of Alexander staging a piece that was apparently a striking

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departure from his usual repertoire was the production of Paolo and Francesca in 1902. However, this play was, like Zenda, a timely response to a period of poorly received repertoire. It was also an attempt to profit from the fleeting success experienced by the poet Stephen Phillips, to capitalise upon a publishing phenomenon.

The Stephen Phillips ‘Boom’ In January 1898, Stephen Phillips85 was awarded 100 guineas by the literary magazine Academy for ‘Christ in Hades’, a poem which editor C. Lewis Hind and his staff determined ‘of signal merit’.86 All of the authors who made the Academy’s shortlist for the award—Phillips, William Watson, Henry Newbolt and Francis Thompson—were published by John Lane, a friend of Hind, or in the ‘Shilling Garland’ series published by Lane’s former partner Elkin Mathews, and edited by Phillips’s cousin, the poet Laurence Binyon. The winning poem had been published by Mathews in April 1896 as part of his series, and by the time of the competition Phillips’s Poems were published by Lane. The Academy award was, therefore, confirmation of the poet’s established position within a specific literary and commercial field during the latter part of the 1890s, a field dominated by Lane and Matthews who specialised, in the words of Josephine M. Guy and Ian Small, in the ‘commodification of aesthetic value’.87 Lane was able to market expensive editions of poetry and dramatic texts as distinctive literary products which differed from the cheap fiction produced in large print runs, a level of ‘aesthetic distinction’ conferred by the ‘material rarity’ of his publications.88 During the same decade, there was a growing perception that critical acclaim for drama as literature would enhance the prestige of an author. In 1891, when the American Copyright Act reduced transatlantic copyright infringements, Heinemann published the text of Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Times, and by the turn of the century playwrights including Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones and George Bernard Shaw were publishing their plays prior to performance. The latter campaigned for publication as an endorsement of the quality of new English drama: Surely the best, perhaps the only, safeguard against the success of all kinds of bunkum and clap-trap on the English stage is the custom of publishing our plays. We may not as yet have written plays with a distinct literary ‘note’, but

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the knowledge that we shall be ‘read’ as well as ‘seen’ must tend towards the cultivation of a literary form.89

Publication came to represent inherent intellectual value, and there was a convergence between literary and economic concerns that resulted in the ‘booming’ of authors, including Phillips. The production of his plays in the West End was part of this ‘boom’.90 Arthur Symons, in his first extended analysis of Stephen Phillips’s popularity in an article for the Saturday Review in March 1902, described this process: [P]ublisher and press together can establish a reputation, and then society will catch on lionising, and everything else will follow […] the theatrical managers, observing that this person is written up in the papers, talked of in drawing-rooms, and generally seems to be ‘booming’ naturally think of his plays for their stage.91

There was, in the case of Phillips, a collusion between publisher, press, and by 1900 actor-manager, to promote this poet as the initiator of a new wave of poetic drama. The period after the award was granted, until July 1902, marked the height of his commercial and critical acclaim. Immediately after the Academy prize was awarded, Lane published a second edition of Phillips’s Poems, and followed this with the publication of Paolo and Francesca in 1899, the poetic drama commissioned by George Alexander after the Academy award.92 During six years as an actor in his cousin Frank Benson’s touring company, Phillips had written at least one poetic drama, Aylmer’s Secret, a short play based upon Frankenstein, finally produced by Benson in 1905.93 Phillips aimed to become a dramatist as well as a poet, and Alexander purchased the rights to Paolo and Francesca in 1898, although this was not staged until March 1902, by which time Herbert Beerbohm Tree had produced two of the dramatist’s plays, Herod and Ulysses.94 The reviewer of the Clarion concluded his review of Paolo and Francesca with this comment on Alexander’s performance as Giovanni Malatesta: ‘I am now looking forward to see him play Richard the Third when Tree attempts the Second.’95 The staging of Phillips’s plays between 1900 and 1902 was an overt example of competition between the two managers. The run of Paolo and Francesca exceeded that of either Herod or Ulysses, but the latter opened in the month before Alexander’s production, an example of direct

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competition. Although Alexander and Tree collaborated in the administration of professional organisations, there was ongoing rivalry which had some influence upon both the plays and the actors they selected.96 Elizabeth Robins, in her memoir Both Sides of the Curtain, refers to a personal animus between the actor-managers that originated early in their careers, when they shared lodgings. Alexander told Robins that Tree was ‘the only man in London who is unpleasant about my success’, and she suggests that this was more than professional competition because the characteristically reserved Alexander indulged in a verbal ‘onslaught’ against Tree.97 While appearing for Alexander in the farce Dr. Bill in 1890, Robins was encouraged, by Tree, to move to his company in the Haymarket, which she felt had little to do with casting her. ‘The point was that neither of those Actor-Managers had any real use for me in their companies.’98 Robins, writing in 1940, is using the antagonism between these men to illustrate the commodification of the supporting performer—more specifically the actress—in late-nineteenth century theatre, and the manner in which industry leaders sought to establish their pre-eminence by attaining assets, including performers and texts, that were of value to a professional rival. Tree’s desire to recruit Robins seems to parallel his commissioning of Phillips to provide a poetic drama, after the author had written Paolo and Francesca for Alexander. However, there can be no definite confirmation that personal competition dictated the professional decisions of these managers, and there were other reasons for Tree to be more decisive in staging the poetic dramas he commissioned from Phillips. Production of Paolo and Francesca would be a distinct change in repertoire for Alexander, who staged only two Shakespeare plays during his managerial career. In comparison, Tree had an ongoing interest in poetic work for the stage. Maeterlinck was first produced in London by Tree, who staged a matinée of L’Intruse in 1892.99 He then produced Henry Arthur Jones’s poetic drama The Tempter: A Tragedy in Verse in Four Acts, in September 1893. This ran for seventythree performances, its run cancelled because, even with a full house at the Haymarket Theatre, the production made little money and as soon as the house was no longer full, was running at a loss. This was because of the elaborate staging demanded by Jones’s text. In the first act of the play a ship was put on stage that was made to sink, and the prop was expensive and unreliable. Jones himself, in a preface to the printed version of the play, acknowledged that the ‘whole business of the ship only served to show the futility of realism carried beyond the point at which it is

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subservient to other ends’.100 The dramatist’s critique of his own play as an uneasy mixture of verse drama and archaeological realism was apparently not shared by Tree, who was willing to invest in elaborate and expensive staging for Phillips’s plays in the first decade of the twentieth century. Reviewing the first night of Herod, the critic for The Times recognised that this resulted in a spectacular theatrical event: Though it is ‘literature’ throughout, it is never the literature of the closet, but always the literature of the theatre, with the rapid action, the marked contrasts, the fierce beating passion, the broad effects proper to the theatre. In other words, Mr. Stephen Phillips is not only a poet, and a rare poet, but that still rarer thing, a dramatic poet […] as beautiful and sumptuous a spectacle as has been seen in our time, even at Mr. Tree’s theatre—a worthy setting to a fine play.101

The staging of Phillips’s work was more understandable for Tree, who had emulated Irving’s ‘style of romantic realist production’ throughout his managerial career.102 Edward Hale, describing in 1911 Tree’s commitment to staging Phillips’s plays during the previous decade,103 recalls ‘a very curious critical frame of mind […] a sort of disposition, as it were, a feeling that there is such a thing as “the poetic drama”, that its appearance has been earnestly looked and longed for, and that by one act of good-natured magic on the part of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, a great consummation is about to come to pass, and that an epoch-making moment is at hand’. Hale notes that the literary reputation of Phillips meant that Tree appeared to be responding to consumer demand for poetic drama. Rather than making a ‘good-­natured’ decision to stage Herod, Tree was capitalising upon the significant publicity afforded to Phillips’s literary output at the time, appearing in a commissioned piece that provided ‘an excellent part for himself ’.104 Tree was more confident in staging poetic dramas, but John Lane’s publication of Paolo and Francesca in 1899, with its dedication to Alexander, informed both the audience at the St. James’s Theatre and Phillips’s wider readership of Alexander’s original commission. This dedication also provides some evidence, in the absence of original contracts, that Alexander owned the production rights to Paolo and Francesca for three years before staging the play. He consistently pursued a policy of investment in dramatic texts, a significant number of which were produced

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only after a number of years, if at all. This gave him a choice of ‘new’ material by untried as well as established authors. In an interview for the New York Times in 1911, Alexander identified Paolo and Francesca as one example of this policy of investment: A few days ago Mr. George Alexander told me that he had invested the huge sum of $28,000 in plays that he had never been able to produce, but notwithstanding this fact he has no regrets and is optimistic over the outlook for the drama. ‘I don’t think I need to repent,’ said Mr. Alexander, ‘having commissioned Mr. Stephen Phillips to write Paolo and Francesca before he had a single play produced.’105

Alexander sustained the prestige of his management by associating moderate commercial successes such as Paolo and Francesca with his policy of encouraging new British dramatists. In the above interview, he advertises his commitment to new literature, emphasising his role in bringing Phillips’s drama to the stage. This promoted artistic enterprise rather than fiscal rationale, yet optioning multiple dramatic texts was, in fact, a policy of speculative investment, undertaken to provide material for a repertoire characterised by premières rather than revivals. It was not a unique policy in commercial theatre by the turn of the century; Davis has examined Tree’s surviving business records and traced how, after 1911, he treated unproduced plays to which he held the rights as business assets, representing ‘future potential earnings’.106 Although a considerable number of optioned plays were never performed, Paolo and Francesca is a striking example of a play put into production years after rights were obtained, at the point Alexander deemed most commercially advantageous. On the first night in March 1902, Phillips was acclaimed as the one playwright since Shakespeare to have two poetic plays running at once in London.107 In a letter to composer Percy Pitt after the play’s opening night, Alexander wrote: I must send you a word of thanks for your beautiful work and express my gratitude to you for the patience and kindly thought you showed throughout. You must be satisfied at the reception of your music by press and public and be proud, as I am, to have helped to illustrate so noble a work.108

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Alexander maintains the judgement, even in private correspondence, of Phillips’s poetic drama as ‘noble’. Successful marketing of this author had created the pervasive assumption that his output was of considerable literary merit, but although in this letter Alexander praises the quality of the work, he chose to produce the play when Phillips was a good commercial proposition. By the time the play had completed its theatrical run of 134 performances in July 1902, Lane had sold almost 25,000 copies of Paolo and Francesca, as well as more than 30,000 copies of the two poetic dramas staged by Tree, Herod and Ulysses. By choosing to produce the play in 1902, Alexander capitalised upon the final months of Phillips’s most commercially successful period. However, mounting the production as soon as the option was obtained would also have allowed the manager to benefit from the Phillips ‘boom’, and the delay in producing Paolo and Francesca was influenced by other economic factors. In The St. James’s Theatre, Barry Duncan suggests that the actor-­ manager intended to re-open the newly renovated St. James’s Theatre with the play in 1900, only months after the text was published by Lane, and that casting difficulties delayed production. Indeed, the copy in the Lord Chamberlain’s Collection proves that a license was granted in 1899.109 Yet it is unsurprising that Alexander decided against staging the poetic drama at this time. The expensive reconstruction demanded a production with greater likelihood of commercial success, and Pinero was asked to write a new play for the re-opening. The playwright declined, and instead the theatre re-opened with Rupert of Hentzau, the sequel to Alexander’s most commercially successful production to date, The Prisoner of Zenda. This production was relatively poorly received, arguably because of the death of the hero, played by Alexander, at the play’s conclusion, and the production initiated a prolonged period of financial insecurity. Alexander added matinées of The Prisoner of Zenda to the run, but the play was withdrawn after fifty-three performances, a profit of twenty-three pounds only secured by the afternoon presentations of Zenda. When Paolo and Francesca was staged, it followed upon two financially unsuccessful years, and this was recognised by ‘J. M. B.’ in the Tatler, who saw a change in repertoire after this period as necessary: The recent quality of his work has by no means been happy […] stereotyped by the sameness of those dreary drawing-room plays he has recently given us.110

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After the theatre’s re-opening there was little critical acclaim for any St. James’s première, and although in 1901 H. V. Esmond’s play The Wilderness ‘ran for fourteen weeks to houses of £170 a performance’,111 Alexander’s management had become characterised by familiar society dramas and revivals. In 1900, he only achieved profit by investment beyond the theatre and the recycling of assets: sending out an additional touring company, investing in Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s summer tour, leasing out scenery and selling costumes. During both 1900 and 1901 profit was dependent upon regional tours, and Alexander’s uncertainty regarding his London repertoire is reflected in the main summer tour of 1901. The plays selected were The Idler and Liberty Hall, both successful productions associated with the St. James’s management, as well as The Wilderness which had experienced a long run in the West End. Alexander also chose The Awakening, unsuccessfully staged the previous year, as well as mounting his first revival of The Importance of Being Earnest. By trying these two plays in regional theatres, Alexander was attempting to revitalise past productions to transfer back to London, rather than trialling new texts for the forthcoming St. James’s season. The Importance of being Earnest was staged after the tour, opening on 7 January 1902.112 Max Beerbohm criticised the tendency to ‘rattle through’ the dialogue with a lack of textual accuracy from the cast.113 This proved to be only a moderate commercial success; it ‘ran for fifty-five nights to average takings of £110 and, eked out with matinees of Liberty Hall, kept the balance-sheet in order.’114 It concluded a period, initiated by Rupert of Hentzau, of modest financial returns after Alexander had invested in the renovation of the theatre, which eventually encouraged him to rely upon revivals. However, his management had been characterised by a commitment to new material, making the eventual decision to stage Paolo and Francesca, in an attempt to end a series of critically and commercially unexceptional productions, an understandable choice. The period of short runs and revivals was influenced by more than Alexander’s selection of texts. Writing at the beginning of 1902, John Todhunter associated such patterns in West End repertoire with far wider events: The fickleness of the play-going public, and their demand for something new—they scarcely know what—is partly due to the unrest produced by the feeling that England is at present passing through a critical period in her national development. There are some signs that what is wanted is something that will appeal to the imagination and stir the deeper springs of emo-

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tion; an art which will be sanely and vigorously romantic, dealing with life in a broader and less cynically one-sided way.115

Todhunter’s article referred to the Boer War, which at the time of the Phillips ‘boom’ was having a direct influence upon productions, spectacular drama becoming militaristic and reflecting an atmosphere of jingoism, as the conflict not only tested Britain’s claim to military superiority in colonial nations but also raised questions about imperial identity. Reflections upon the conflict were overwhelming in the popular press in the first few years of the twentieth century, and had some impact on theatrical repertoire. As David Brooks states in his consideration of the social impact of the war years, ‘so long as the war had continued, a patriotic presumption […] operated’.116 Nearly a quarter of a million men joined the Volunteer force between 1899 and 1902, with one-seventh of the adult male population of military age becoming part of the armed forces, although only a small proportion served in South Africa. These recruits were overwhelmingly drawn from a section of society that held considerable power politically, and economically as well,117 and the effect of the conflict upon their lifestyle was reflected in the entertainment industry. In June 1900, Max Beerbohm had noted that modest programmes were already being undertaken by leading actor-managers: The war has kept a great fraction of the public away from the theatres. Plays, therefore, have shorter runs than usual, and two or three productions have been necessary in playhouses for which, in time of peace, one production would have been quite enough.118

Beerbohm’s recognition that shorter runs and revivals were increasingly evident in the West End seems valid. During the first months of 1900 a number of West End managers were staging revivals; for example the repertoires of Charles Wyndham and Frederick Harrison at the beginning of the year showed marked dependence upon previously successful productions.119 Certainly, in the West End, the war and the element of nostalgia occasioned by the turn of the century combined to produce patriotic drama in a variety of forms. Alexander’s decision to open the renovated St. James’s Theatre with the sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda is one example of this trend. Running at Drury Lane when Herod opened at Her Majesty’s was The Price of Peace: A Drama of Modern Life by Cecil Raleigh and

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matinées of Waterloo by Arthur Conan Doyle, while at the Haymarket The Second in Command, also a military drama, opened in November 1900. Revivals and romantic dramas were common, and this was also the period during which musical comedies began to experience lengthy runs, a trend that became increasingly apparent during the First World War.120 Yet in his article of 1900, Beerbohm was reviewing Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s revival of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Royalty, two years after the original production, which accompanied a five month run of Magda.121 The success of Hermann Sudermann’s drama in translation showed that, at this time, revivals of previously successful productions were subsidising some investment in new material. Alexander, who had a supply of unproduced texts, chose to respond to this period of financial insecurity with a distinct change in repertoire at the St. James’s, the same policy which had resulted in his production of The Prisoner of Zenda six years earlier. Although Paolo and Francesca was guaranteed some measure of success after the run of Herod, Alexander insisted that the choice of poetic drama was in line with his ongoing managerial strategy. The front page of the Pall Mall Gazette on 5 March 1902, the day before Paolo and Francesca opened at the St. James’s Theatre, carried ‘An Interview with Mr. George Alexander and Mr. Stephen Phillips’, in which Alexander stated: ‘My ideal, as I have often said, is the repertoire theatre, with constant—and as I believe, healthy—change.’122 This comment both defended the short-­ running revivals which preceded the production and recalled his interest in new dramatic works.

Paolo and Francesca: Poetic Drama in Production Paolo and Francesca opened at the St. James’s Theatre on 6 March 1902. The play was based upon Dante’s thirteenth-century tale, describing the affair between the wife of Giovanni Malatesta and his younger brother, Paolo. The story was also recounted by Boccaccio, and this source was used by Maeterlinck for his poetic drama Pelléas et Mélisande,123 first seen on the London stage, in French, in May 1893, with an English translation staged by Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Martin Harvey in June 1898 at the Prince of Wales Theatre.124 Whereas Maeterlinck’s drama required that action and setting remain minimal, even impressionistic, Phillips’s drama needed the spectacular aural and visual effects that Tree and Alexander were able to provide. Arthur Symons, in reviewing Paolo and Francesca, summarised this crucial difference:

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Maeterlinck’s visionary people live with a profound inner life; when they say beautiful things it is by a kind of happy accident. But Mr. Phillips’s people are always trying to say beautiful things, they pose at every moment, their motives are constantly decorative.125

In May 1902 there was a debate between Andrew Lang, Churton Collins and A. B. Walkley in the Times Literary Supplement as to the priority of action over character in tragedy, which arose from Paolo and Francesca’s transition to the stage. These critics upheld Phillips’s drama as a defence of the Aristotelean concept that ‘a tragedy is impossible without action, but there may be one without character’.126 Yet reviewers noted that the prioritisation of action over character undermined performances and forced the audience to focus upon staging. There were further limitations apparent in Phillips’s dramatic texts. Like his poetry, the plays reworked stories from a familiar literary canon. Although the use of stories and characters from classical and biblical literature made his drama immediately appealing to some audiences, this also emphasised his derivative dramatic and poetic style.127 Phillips, discussing critical reaction to Herod with William Archer for the Real Conversations series, argued that what reviewers deemed to be derivative was the result of audiences associating all poetic drama with early modern drama: [A] deliberate rebellion against the Elizabethan tradition is the best hope for English poetic drama. That, at any rate, has always been my view; and I have tried to act up to it and enfranchise myself from the Shakespearean ideal. But people can’t, or won’t, see that. They assume as a matter of course that I am imitating Shakespeare and imitating him badly. All they know about the poetic drama being gathered from Shakespeare, they think every drama that is written in verse must be judged by Shakespearean canons and no other.128

However, it is apparent in Paolo and Francesca that Phillips employed the technique of earlier poets and dramatists far more directly than he is willing to admit in this interview. To a theatre audience, Paolo and Francesca bore an obvious resemblance to Romeo and Juliet, and encouraged associations between his blank verse drama and the work of Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists. It was not only the theme of the play which echoed earlier verse drama: GIOVANNI: She takes away my strength. I did not know the dead could have such hair. Hide them. They look like children fast asleep!129

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Giovanni’s final lines in the play echo, indeed mimic, a line spoken by the remorseful Ferdinand in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi: ‘Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young’.130 Arthur Symons recognised this trait, and when assessing the merit of Phillips’s poetic drama in an introduction to the poet’s final play, Harold, he wrote: [H]e has yet written no passage which is not moulded upon Milton, upon Landor, upon Browning’s early work, upon some definite model. Perhaps moulded is too definite a word to use. Let us say rather that he plays his own variations, but always upon another’s air.131

Both poetry and poetic drama showed evidence that Phillips drew heavily on the work of other authors, and Symons focuses upon this tendency as a contributing factor in the transient popularity experienced by the poet. As Symons noted in his Saturday Review article of 1902, ‘booming’ by John Lane was also responsible,132 yet this is, perhaps unsurprisingly, overlooked in the 1927 introduction to Lane’s edition of Harold. This introduction also praises Phillips’s early potential as a poet, reverting to this as a reason for the 1927 publication of his late play, Harold, and for Symons’s engagement with the piece: [W]hat special sense did the Poems of Stephen Phillips in 1898, satisfy? It contained much grave, serious, admirable verse, certainly of extremely poetical quality. One or two poems in rhymed couplets, modern in subject, formal, a little old-fashioned in style, are interesting as experiments. They attempt a lukewarm treatment of sordid and distressing things, which can only be dealt with in verse, if the verse is to be poetry, at a far more fiery speed, with a far more passionate energy.133

In The Tragic Generation Yeats describes the personal melancholy and pessimism regarding the transient nature of experience that produced verse concerned with ‘the exclusive personal present’,134 evident in the work of poets based in London during the 1890s including Symons, Ernest Dowson and John Davidson.135 Phillips’s poetry resembled the work of these poets in the themes he treated, but his output was dominated by reliance upon a poetic style very directly influenced by an older poetic tradition, reworking familiar historical figures and events. In 1890, Oscar

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Wilde noted that ‘Milton, and the method of Greek tragedy, are Mr. Phillips’s influences’.136 William Poel’s consideration, in 1913, of Phillips’s short-lived success went further in defining his weakness as a poetic dramatist, concluding that he was dependent upon extravagant staging to enhance what otherwise was lyrical poetry, not drama: It is as if Mr Phillips had said to Sir George Alexander, ‘My dialogue has brought the story to a critical point in its development, and now, Sir George, you come and have your turn, and give us a tableau to relieve me of the trouble’ […] But to substitute a stage-picture for a word-picture takes reality out of the drama.137

Poel summarises the relationship which evolved between Phillips and the stage. His three most successful poetic dramas were dedicated to the actor-­ managers who purchased their performance rights, Tree and Alexander, emphasising how essential their investment in staging was to the efficacy of this poetic drama in performance. Alexander committed an uncharacteristically long period of time to preparing Paolo and Francesca for production, at least six months.138 There is some evidence that Henry Ainley had been cast as Paolo by 14 October 1901, and Alexander was corresponding with composer Percy Pitt regarding original music for the production during the same month.139 Correspondence from Alexander to Pitt makes it clear that the actor-­ manager consciously sought to provide unity between Phillips’s verse and performances on stage, with Pitt’s music: My dear Pitt Has the poet sent the words yet? I have written him to do so without fail—he keeps his work as long as he can, I know…Could you let me have the music—all of it—the orchestra’s at [word indecipherable] Hall, the same number and instruments we are to have at the St. James’s on Wednesday morning the 4th December. I shall be happy to pay for this […] I need to work the words and action to the music and see how it fits in.140

Alexander began the rehearsal period at least five months before the production opened, and he underlines the word ‘action’ in this letter, showing concern at the level of choreography required in staging Phillips’s play. The production of Paolo and Francesca was praised for visual luxuriance. It combined the specific appeal of the St. James’s Theatre with what

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was defined as serious poetic drama. Alexander’s scene-painter for the production, William Telbin, and stage manager E. Vivian Reynolds created precise thirteenth-century backgrounds to the action after Sidney Colvin insisted that they should be sent to study the frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto in the upper Church of Assisi. Colvin, Librarian at the British Museum, was enthusiastic about Phillips’s verse, and when Tree had taken his advice on authentic scenery for Herod, he wrote to Alexander frequently about casting and scenery for Paolo and Francesca. Alexander imitated Tree in accepting Colvin’s advice regarding staging, and this extravagant historical reconstruction was accompanied by elaborate and symbolic set design. The result was a dark, physically imposing representation of Giovanni’s medieval castle. The stage was only fully illuminated for brief scenes between the lovers, for example Paolo leading Francesca, on their first entrance, into the gloom of the castle from a shaft of light, and the meeting between Paolo and Francesca in an arbour. Telbin was adept at producing the ‘scenography of romantic realism’, subtle effects of light and shade which had proved most effective under gas lighting, but which were still employed when electricity was introduced.141 These scenic devices were accompanied by equally symbolic music, according to Todhunter’s description of the production: Each of these picturesque personages has a kind of explanatory Leit-motif, heard whenever he is on stage: Paolo, the love-and-duty Motif, crossed by the brotherly-love Motif when Giovanni encounters him; Lucrezia, the childless-widow Motif; while the childish-innocence Motif is always murmuring around Francesca.142

Alexander commissioned Pitt to write an original score that would provide a measure of unity between character, action and setting. This was not the melos more usually associated with turn-of-the-century drama; repeated musical phrases which identified a character type. Instead, as Todhunter’s adoption of language associated with Wagner’s operas in the final decades of the nineteenth-century makes apparent, Pitt attempted to unite music and dramatic action to provoke a sustained emotional response to the action on stage in the theatre’s audience.143 Original composition took the place of the usual practice of using incidental music selected by Alexander’s musical director William Robins, and the review in the Daily Telegraph called for Pitt to ‘give the more important passages of his score to the concert room in the form of a Suite’.144 Phillips’s text was supported, but

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risked being supplanted, by such elaborate attention to aural and visual effect. The literary quality of the play was advertised by the extravagant publications sold to audience members. A single sheet cast list was given away free, but advertised the ‘acting edition of the play’, on sale in the foyer of the theatre for one shilling. In addition to selling the text, Alexander followed Tree’s example of offering a booklet for sale, free of advertising and with the cast list on the back page.145 The Paolo and Francesca publication included a summary of the story, with both literary and historical background, then notes from the costume and set designers and the composer, as well as a sample of the score, and the cast list printed after all this information. The description of literary precedents and the suggestion that an audience should be familiar with the story before seeing the play presented the work as part of a sophisticated reworking of classical subjects. Addison Bright’s programme notes made bold claims, including the suggestion that Phillips’s text inspired D’Annunzio’s version of the story, produced by Eleanora Duse in Rome in 1901. This was an example of the commercial ‘booming’ critiqued by Symons, and it claimed for Phillips a profound influence that could not be proven. Literary and theatrical reputation was communicated to an audience before they witnessed the production—or rather, to the audience members who could afford these extravagant programmes. The inclusion of production details, as with the shilling edition of the text, allowed an audience to purchase a commodity directly associated with a specific literary ‘boom’, evidence of the essentially commercial aspect of Phillips’s success in the first years of the twentieth century and of the collaborative relationship between Alexander and Lane to sustain the Philips ‘boom’. With the production of Paolo and Francesca, the literary and theatrical ‘booming’ merged, as Lane produced a new edition of the play, as well as a biography of Phillips given away free with each volume sold. This was described by Symons in his article critiquing the Phillips phenomenon: It is true many publishers would shrink from Mr. John Lane’s generosity, which insists on giving everyone a copy of a biography of the man he happens to be booming at the moment, a biography written partly in original paragraphs of rancid flattery, flattery however outdone in selections from the reviews which make up the other part of the book.146

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The free edition had a cover representing the apotheosis of the Phillips ‘boom’, and Symons’ derogatory description of the cover illustration indicates how Lane was representing the poet’s literary ascendancy, since it showed Phillips ‘blowing his own trumpet […] squatting on a scroll in the air’.147 The biography, like the programmes, aimed to attract affluent consumers who wished to advertise exclusive literary consumption, as did another product advertising the desirability of Phillips’s poetic drama as commodity; a print of H. Jamyn Brooks’ picture of the first night of Herod sold by Henry Graves of Pall Mall.148 The picture commemorated the first night in 1900 and aimed to emphasise that poetic drama was still a desirable theatrical product as Tree prepared to stage Ulysses in February 1902. The Brooks painting shows the audience, and the caption accompanying a copy of the picture in the Tatler indicated that this was a ‘representative’ first night audience, rather than an accurate record of the stalls: In the background will be seen a number of representative men, and it is not difficult to discover their Majesties […] as well as Lord Rosebery, Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Edward Clarke, and the late Lord Russell of Killowen, who was one of the most regular of first-nighters.149

The figures depicted in the audience suggested to readers of the Tatler that attendance at a production of Phillips’s drama at Her Majesty’s Theatre denoted exclusivity, though this could of course be sampled to some degree by the less ‘representative’, who were depicted by shadow in the picture. Such exclusive merchandise, like the elaborate staging of Phillips’s plays, is evidence that both Alexander and Tree recognised profit could be increased by marketing commodities to supplement and endorse a text, expanding the cross-sector collaboration found in their initial collaboration with the publishing industry to extend the Phillips ‘boom’. Margaret D. Stetz and Mark Samuels Lasner discern John Lane’s intention to supply ‘literary artefacts’ to (wealthy) consumers ‘that would confirm them in their own sense of superior taste and cultivation’,150 and actor-managers pursued the same policy in relation to Phillips. What was overtly an artistic enterprise, bringing a new wave of poetic drama to the stage, was in reality a more commercial operation, capitalising upon the ‘booming’ of the author by his publisher. The productions of Phillips’s poetic drama in West End theatres provided a new form of spectacle. Audiences continually had their focus directed to visual aids; information and illustrations in programmes, staging and performances that were a series of tableaux,

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‘idealised by poetry rather than vitalised by dramatic individualisation.’151 As Stephen Gwynne wrote of Tree’s production, ‘Herod came to the audience from the outside’,152 and this emphasis upon the visual resulted in merchandising. Therefore, alongside cross-sector integration we see early examples of vertical integration, the control of multiple products sold as offshoots of a production, more commonly associated with the marketing of commercial musicals in the final decades of the twentieth century. Sublimation of text to presentation had an influence upon performance. In his review of Phillips’s poetic dramas twenty-five years later, Symons recalled the formal style employed by Alexander and Tree: I have always felt, when I read and when I saw these plays acted, that there is rhetoric, conscious of itself and of the audience on the other side of the footlights; and that the lines are the actors’ bow to the audience; they pause for applause, and so, perhaps, they too may be a stage effect, from the point of view of the actor. They emphasise, by their artifice, the fact that we are not to delude ourselves with fancying that real men and women are loving and suffering before us, letting us overhear the outcries which they cannot subdue; but rather that we are listening to a poetical play, written in measured blank verse, in which life and suffering have been described for our entertainment.153

Symons focuses upon the self-consciousness manifested by actors when delivering Phillips’s verse, performances conveying ‘artifice’ and disruptive practices including the ‘pause for applause’. The Clarion’s reviewer noted that the ‘enunciation of the company in general is too slow’.154 This made Phillips’s poetic drama not so much an environment for the realisation of character, as a spectacular event, artistic prestige resulting from the part played by these productions in the Phillips ‘boom’. Reviewers noted how the play forced the audience to focus on the physical, rather than textual, depiction of character: Mr. Phillips may be forgiven his unconscious borrowing from Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and particularly Pelléas and Mélisande; he may even take credit for originality in his conception of the barren child-hungering widow, Lucrezia, though this important character—rather stagily played by Miss Robins—reveals herself with momentous and inexcusable lack of reticence. But criticism may well complain when in a would-be story of Paolo and Francesca the heroine is given a merely passive role. Paolo is deprived of all

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strength and innocence of purpose, and Giovanni the avenger secures all the sympathy. The love story being subordinated to the story of the injured husband’s jealousy and revenge, it follows that the character of Giovanni is more carefully elaborated than that of Paolo or Francesca. Elaborated is the word; for development there is not.155

Certainly, the on-stage presentation of Paolo and Francesca demanded that the audience concentrate upon the visual; for example, a young Henry Ainley experienced, as A. E. W. Mason termed it, ‘the success of a pet’ in the role of Paolo.156 Although physically suited to the part, he had no experience in leading roles, and embodied rather than performed the character: Mr. Henry Ainley seemed born to play Paolo. Now the very counterpart of Beardsley’s Galahad, tightly cased in black steel armour; now, in flowing robes, suggesting Leighton’s famous Condottiere, his ascetic face reflected the varying phases of Paolo’s passion.157

The focus upon his physical suitability was matched by comments on his inexperience; the Referee recognised that ‘he has a good voice, but does not use it with discretion’.158 The role of Francesca was awarded to Evelyn Millard after Mrs. Patrick Campbell, acclaimed as Mélisande in 1898, turned down the part. Both actresses were older than the character described; Phillips was amenable to the earlier choice, his response in a letter to Alexander indicating that he understood the commercial benefits of further collaboration between Alexander and Campbell at the St. James’s: Dear Alexander, Mrs Campbell is of course ideal. Do make any effort in your power to get her. She would assure the success of the play from that peculiar glamour which is what the part wants. I should look forward to a long run if she will come.159

Despite the personal animosity recorded between Alexander and Campbell during the run of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, there is proof that they had a sustained professional relationship, yet Campbell turned down the role.160 Alexander’s biographers list a number of actresses who were then considered, including Margaret Halstan who had moved from Frank

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Benson’s company to the St. James’s company, and played leading roles in the short-running productions that preceded Paolo and Francesca; however, Millard returned to the St. James’s company to play the title role.161 In her first months with Alexander in 1894, Millard told the Sketch that ‘every thinking man and woman must be in sympathy with the movement towards greater truth and sincerity on the stage,’162 associating herself with the new dramatic texts produced by her employer. Yet in practice she played a series of conventional ingénue roles for Alexander, then Tree, and after her marriage in 1900 very publicly limited the range of roles she was willing to undertake. In September of that year she left a production of Henry Arthur Jones’s The Lackey’s Carnival during the rehearsal period, after refusing to speak dialogue that intimated her character might be pregnant with an illegitimate child.163 Millard was quoted in the Daily Mail after her departure: The publicity given to the fact that this would be my first appearance on the stage after my marriage rendered them [the lines], in my case, doubly objectionable; and it was absolutely impossible for me to speak them in the emphatic manner on which Mr. Jones insisted.164

By choosing a national newspaper rather than a theatrical trade paper to defend her decision, Millard emphasised that she wanted to maintain public image, at the expense of the roles she was offered, and although Charles Frohman cast her in the productions following The Lackey’s Carnival at the Duke of York’s Theatre, she played in romantic and historical dramas throughout her career from this point.165 In assessing her performance as Francesca, the Referee’s critic commented that ‘Miss Evelyn Millard, who never looked lovelier in her life, has not much of a part’, recognising her appeal to commercial managers as an actress who embodied rather than interpreted a role.166 The limitations of Millard’s role, and her inability to surmount them, contrasted with the performance of Elizabeth Robins, who played Lucrezia in Paolo and Francesca. Addison Bright claimed that Phillips’s original character, as confidante first to Giovanni and then to Francesca, is a bridge between the medieval story and its contemporary interpretation: [A]bove all, the introduction of the barren and bitter Lucrezia, as the unwilling instrument of Fate, in place of the legendary man-servant; each of

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these in turn, it may be suggested, serves to illustrate the modern attitude of mind—the modern spirit at work, handling a beautiful theme.167

Bright argued that the introduction of an original character, a female confessor, added an element of modernity to the production—her gender making the character somehow ‘modern’. Lucrezia warns Giovanni of his brother’s attraction to Francesca, but later tries to save the lovers when she comes to feel for Francesca as a daughter, determining much of the action in the play by this abrupt change in her attitude. Critics commented upon the ambiguity of the character’s intentions: The character of Lucrezia, interpolated into the story by Mr. Stephen Phillips, is an exceedingly complex one, and Miss Elizabeth Robins hardly contrives to elucidate it. There are many things about Lucrezia hard to understand—why the childless woman is so venomous and malignant, whether she is striving in her own strange way to comfort or to injure Giovanni, for what reasons her sentiments towards Francesca change so suddenly that she seeks to undo the deadly mischief she has set afoot. The figure stands out, but mainly because of its perplexity.168

The only coherent purpose this character served was as confessor to the tyrant and to the heroine, and whereas Giovanni, Paolo and Francesca were essential to the tragic culmination of the piece, Robins’s character was functional rather than integral. Robins had previously been employed by Alexander in his first production and her first professional engagement in England, Dr. Bill at the Avenue Theatre in 1890. Although she appeared in long-running commercial productions169 and had been, despite the previous dismissal from Alexander’s company, considered for the part of Paula Tanqueray, her only other work with the manager was in Paolo and Francesca. This was as unsuccessful as their initial collaboration, as Robins hints when describing her departure from Dr. Bill: He went on piling up my sins: ‘and I hope you’ll get another engagement when you leave here for I’ll never have you in my theatre again!’ (though he did years later—to my sorrow.)170

She left the 1890 production before it ended its run, and her career on the London stage between that play and Paolo and Francesca reflected a desire to act in material Alexander would never consider:

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Alexander was not so much annoyed as incredulous. He could hardly suppose, he said, that after reflection I should want to drop out of a successful run before the end and lose future opportunities any actress in London would snatch at.171

After the split in 1890, Robins was cast in Robert Buchanan’s romantic drama The Sixth Commandment at the Shaftesbury Theatre, yet by January 1891 she was working as actress and producer while rejecting long engagements with West End actor-managers. Robins, like Campbell, had a tense working relationship with Alexander because she questioned his directorial authority. Yet he clearly recognised both women as appropriate for powerful female roles and cast them accordingly. This contradicted with the performances given by Millard, who consistently returned to the St. James’s as a generic romantic ingénue, co-operative and subservient to Alexander’s stage management. The Era’s reviewer was dismissive of Robins’s work in the preceding decade and deemed her presence in an actor-manager’s company to be the best way that her acting ability might be fully expressed, praising the actress for her return to the commercial arena: Altogether Miss Robins may be congratulated on having at last had an opportunity of revealing the high talent of which her previous exploits had only suggested the possible existence.172

Although the Era implicitly assumes Alexander’s authority, providing the ‘opportunity’ for this actress to appear in a West End production, it was Robins who provided a degree of subjective motivation for a character created by Phillips as little more than a device for revealing Paolo and Francesca’s adultery to Giovanni. She was able to co-opt gesture to communicate the repressed emotions and instincts of character to the audience: In the latter part of the play she was not merely intelligent (she cannot help being intelligent), but spontaneous, and even restrained as well.173

Symons, reviewing the production for the Star, emphasised the extremes in her performance, and how she introduced a level of plausibility to the erratic character of Lucrezia. Assessments of Robins’s performance style, most particularly in the 1891 production of Hedda Gabler, establish that

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the characteristics evident in the depiction of Lucrezia were developed much earlier in the actress’s career. Joanna Townsend has traced ‘specifically “gestural” moments’ in Robins’s performances as Hedda Gabler, and also as Jean Creyke in Alan’s Wife. The actress incorporated planned gestures into her performances, ‘the power of the body, and its numerous betrayals’ which communicated the ‘speaking unconscious’.174 Robins was able to manifest the subjective experiences of these individuals through a form of bodily rhetoric, and this technique clearly had an influence upon later performances in West End productions. The actress attempted to elucidate the inner conflict felt by her character through marked physical gestures, most notably by directing her gaze: Miss Robins’s habit of gazing away from the person who may be speaking to her is surely unnatural.175

Gazing into space suggested psychological indecision, and the withholding of information, and it seems that Robins concentrated upon Lucrezia’s repression, what the character was withholding from others and from the audience: If some of the unspeakable things Lucrezia looks could be put into verse! If some of the verse Giovanni speaks could be put into looks!176

There is some evidence that in attempting to communicate that the character had complex and persistently hidden motivations, Robins was going against Alexander’s approach to the production. She told Florence Bell: ‘Of course I made a failure of it. I have never been stage-managed into a success.’177 He aimed to frame Phillips’s verse within a set which was characterised by archaeological realism, with painted designs and aural effects directing the audience’s reaction to the piece, and co-ordinated the movement and speech patterns of performers as just one aspect of this complex spectacle. Robins, however, combined a declamatory style with subtle yet evocative physical gestures, disrupting Alexander’s stage picture; attempts to construct a level of psychological complexity for the character of Lucrezia jarred with the choreographed technique Alexander employed in staging the play, and within his own performance. The part of Giovanni Malatesta was not written specifically for Alexander, as Herod had been for Tree. Clifford Bax, who published an account of Phillips’s career, asserts that the writer began composition of

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the play in 1892. So although Alexander commissioned a verse drama from Phillips in 1898 he accepted an existing work rather than discussing the sort of role he might require from the writer.178 In the event, he received a significant amount of praise for a type of performance not attempted since his work with Irving. On entering management, Alexander had distanced his repertoire from that of the Lyceum, consistently producing plays with contemporary settings. This pattern altered somewhat in 1896 with the production of The Prisoner of Zenda, yet it was the historical poetic drama Paolo and Francesca that required a marked change in acting style. Critics saw distinct similarities between the production and Irving’s engagement with verse, including Tennyson’s The Cup and Becket, and also W.  G. Wills’s dramas—particularly Faust, produced in 1885, which had provided Alexander with his first leading role.179 A number of critics noted that the interpretation of Giovanni owed a great deal to Alexander’s time with the Lyceum company, so that the production, like the text itself, manifested a derivative element that made it seem familiar to spectators: It will […] be news to you, and a compliment to the actor, when I say that I scarcely recognised George Alexander in Giovanni, so completely has he sunk his personality in the abandon of an ‘unfrock-coated’ part. Had not the programme reassured me as to his identity, I should have puzzled at the first glance to say whether he were Martin Harvey or Sir Henry Irving—for the aspect of his melancholy, hair-fringed countenance was like unto the countenance of Harvey, but, looking downward, the halting gait of his lower limbs was the gait of Sir Henry Irving.180

However, Alexander’s performance ultimately endorsed his abrupt change in repertoire. The Clarion’s reviewer, who saw Phillips’s lyrical verse as fundamentally unsuited for the stage—‘too smooth for the roughness of his theme, and too deft for inspiration’—nevertheless focused on Alexander’s performance as the particular strength of the production, praising the departure from what had become his habitual portrayal of Society men: Never in his career has he so lost his individuality in his impersonation. Never in his career has he shown such impetuosity and strength of passion […] It is certain that in all his long galaxy of pretty gentlemen Mr. Alexander has never shown to such advantage.181

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Alexander’s alteration of his own performance style to suit the play, and his close directorial control over his company,182 emphasised the significance of selecting Paolo and Francesca. After two years of poorly received, financially unsuccessful productions, he had decided upon a play that could potentially reinvigorate his status as an actor, and attract audiences. At the end of this run, Phillips’s popularity waned, and although Lane continued to publish his work, and Tree staged Nero then Faust later in the decade, the poet never again achieved the critical praise or popularity he experienced between the Academy award in 1897 and the close of Ulysses and Paolo and Francesca within a month of one another in 1902. The latter play was the last verse drama ever staged by Alexander183 and it is apparent that John Lane, Beerbohm Tree and he had marketed Stephen Phillips in a manner which could not be sustained. Phillips responded to the deterioration of his literary career by publishing numerous articles regarding the absence of poetic drama from the stage during editorship of the Poetry Review, between 1909 and 1915. The critic and aspiring dramatist Lascelles Abercrombie, in his 1912 essay ‘The Function of Poetry in Drama’, saw a potential for poetic drama as an opportunity to portray, on stage, ‘life intensified’, yet he emphasised the inherent difficulty of production in commercial theatre, where it was overwhelmed by the distraction of spectacular staging: The alleged desire to get as close to life as possible; the desire which prose plays satisfy, means a desire for that kind of credibility which keeps us familiar with the superficial.184

Abercrombie had, in fact, discerned the flaw in translating Phillips’s verse drama to the West End; commitment to spectacular realism had overwhelmed the verse. Significantly, Phillips’s drama achieved a final, conspicuous success when Paolo and Francesca was selected as the first complete radio play to be broadcast by the West Country radio station of the BBC in 1923. One of the actors involved in this production, A.  Corbett-Smith, writing in the Poetry Review in 1935, explained why the play was chosen: Apart from its sheer loveliness and dramatic content, it was perfectly adapted for radio. There were hardly any stage directions to be announced, not even the entry of characters. They all seemed to be included in the text of the dialogue.185

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This version was repeated three times because of its popularity, and its success as radio drama suggests that the derivative work of this poet provided familiar form, themes and subject-matter for an audience encountering drama through a new medium. Yet the author’s appeal for Alexander was as a commercially successful poet at the turn of the century. The Phillips ‘boom’ provided new material that was produced in an attempt to assert the quality of the St. James’s repertoire after two years of poorly received productions, artistic and commercial aims converging when Paolo and Francesca was staged in 1902. The link between timely changes in genre and profitability are further proved by the production, as one part of the short-lived vogue for Stephen Phillips’s poetry. The play ostensibly belonged with a concerted process of re-introducing literary drama to West End venues, but was in fact an instance of earning profit and prestige from a finite marketing phenomenon. The significance of this production as a distinctive artistic project should not be ignored, but the temporary nature of the Phillips ‘boom’ makes this an unusual play in Alexander’s repertoire. It shows, however, Alexander’s engagement with popular publishing phenomena to sustain his management. The practice was occasional for this actor-manager— another notable example being an adaptation of the successful Robert Hichens novel Bella Donna (1909)—but demonstrates the role of this final generation of actor-managers in exploring mechanisms for alleviating risk by working with outputs that had been trialled in other sectors, notably the publishing industry. This model of looking across creative sectors to adopt and rework material predates, of course, the kind of complex and habitual multi-sector integration now found in the cultural industries. However, practice by the end of the nineteenth century explicitly forged relationships between professional spheres that are now identified as linked sectors within a broad cultural industry landscape.186 West End actor-­ managers were acknowledging the need to embed legitimate adaptation of diverse texts within their repertoire, modelling a key strategy for the theatre makers who followed them in to the commercial realm.

Notes 1. Stephens (1992, 101). 2. Murray (2012, 6–7). 3. Weedon (2003, 106). The Book Production Cost Database, used by Weedon to make her calculations, incorporates archival material from publishers and printers.

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4. Ibid., 159. 5. Anthony Hope Hawkins (9 February 1863 to 8 July 1933) was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1887. 6. Gorley Putt (1956, 41). 7. Hope (1927, 124). 8. Shaw (1932 vol. 2, 11). 9. Hope (1994, 6). 10. The programme for a special matinée at the St. James’s Theatre on 9 March 1896  in aid of Siddons House contains an advertisement for Comedies of Courtship, published by A. D. Innes in January 1896. 11. Hope (1927, 120). 12. Anon. (1896f), Era. Edward Rose (7 August 1849 to 31 January 1904) gave up his career as a solicitor to work as a professional dramatist after the success of his comedietta Our Farm at the Queen’s Theatre in 1872, which ran for over 100 performances. He was also a critic for publications including the Sunday Times and the Illustrated London News. However, he was famous as an adapter of novels for the stage, including Vice Versa, Under The Red Robe, and The Prisoner of Zenda. 13. Powell (1998, 82–83). 14. Shaw (1932, vol. 2, 223). 15. Scott (1896a), Daily Telegraph. 16. Richards (1989, 21). 17. Fisher (1986, 63). 18. Scott (1896a), Daily Telegraph. 19. Scott (1896b). 20. Anon. (1896b), Daily News. 21. Most obviously Rose’s other adaptation, Under the Red Robe, at the Haymarket from 17 October 1896. Also For the Crown by John Davidson at the Lyceum, 27 February 1896 and The Star of India by George R. Sims and Arthur Shirley at the Princess’s, 4 April 1896. 22. Davis (2000, 212). 23. Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 3). 24. Statistics taken from Wearing (1976). 25. Hudson (1951, 94). 26. Quoted in Booth (1980, 49). 27. Reviewers reiterated the romance of the play. Shaw opened his Saturday Review article: ‘Mr. Anthony Hope’s Prisoner of Zenda was an amusing attempt to get a Scott-Dumas romance out of modern life’ (1932, vol. 2, 7). The critic of the Daily News (Anon. 1896b, Daily News), in a more enthusiastic review, begins: ‘After the repulsive freaks of the latter-day heroine who lays claim to the title of “the new woman,” it is a welcome change to be taken into the region of romantic adventure.’ The Daily

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Chronicle (Anon. 1896a, Daily Chronicle) echoes this opinion and reflects the positive critical reaction to the play: ‘The success of The Prisoner of Zenda last night was as decisive as all who appreciate the efficient interpretation, both histrionically and pictorially, of a cleverly constructed romantic drama could desire.’ The latter two articles use the word picturesque, whereas Shaw interprets this as artificial and elaborate staging in keeping with the play, a ‘hopeless absurdity’ (1932, vol. 2, 11). 28. Booth (1980, 49). 29. Ibid. 46. 30. Hudson (1951, 107). 31. The most successful production of 1896 was The Geisha: The Story of a Japanese Teahouse at Daly’s, an imitation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado which ran for 760 performances from 25 April 1896 until 28 May 1898. Interviewed by William Archer in 1902, Alexander called George Edwardes the ‘luckiest’ man in London, referring to his longrunning Gaiety productions. He does not undermine Edwardes with this reference to ‘luck’, but recognises that the manager is skilled in understanding his market, continuing: ‘Actors who have worked under him have told me again and again of his unerring instinct as a stage-manager; and you know how admirably, after its kind, he puts on the stage everything he undertakes. I assure you that management to George Edwardes is like croquet to the champion player I was telling you about—it is not merely a game of skill, but a science’ Archer (1904, 199). 32. Grein’s judgement is quoted in Hudson (1951, 95), and can be translated as ‘the apotheosis of a shameful, degrading commercial theatre system’. 33. Mason relates that T. Andros de la Rue offered to finance a production of Hamlet and he wanted Alexander to do a North American tour with it. He quotes from de la Rue’s correspondence ‘I am doubtful whether “St. James’s” holds money enough for it to be a financial success here. In America you will doubtless coin money over it. I shall be delighted to lend you three thousand pounds without interest to be repaid just when and how you like. Let me know when you are likely to want the money’ Mason (1935, 101). This informal loan is an example of the networks of financing available to West End managers. The offer also confirms that this was a period of financial instability for Alexander. 34. Archer (1897, 31). 35. For example, both Tree at the Haymarket and Louis Calvert in Manchester mounted productions of Henry IV, Part II. Other spectacular dramas in the West End focusing upon themes of empire and masculinity include For the Crown by John Davidson at the Lyceum in February 1896 and The Star of India by George R. Sims and Arthur Shirley at the Princess’s

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in April of that year. External events were a contributory factor to these productions. In South Africa, the defeat of Jameson’s raid, and Cecil Rhodes’s resignation as premier of the Cape Colony opened the year. Such events were in profound conflict with the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. 36. The Prisoner of Zenda was revived in 1897, 1900 and 1909. Details in Appendix. 37. ‘Spec.’ (1896). 38. Anon. (1896g), Dramatic and Musical Notes. 39. Anon. (1896d), St. James’s Gazette. 40. Mason (1935), 105. 41. Anon. (1896a), Daily Chronicle. 42. Anon. (1896c), Globe. 43. Anon. (1896e), The Times. 44. Arata (1996, 89). 45. Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 35). 46. Trotter (1993, 152). 47. Miller (1985, 216). 48. The idea of duality underwent a revival, most notably in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). In addition, Henry James’s short story The Death of the Lion (1894) describes an age when there are three genders, and identity becomes a fluid and uncertain concept. In the 1880s, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) highlighted a schism between the faces of gender, morality and sexuality that risked encouraging a rift between the individual and society. 49. Hope (1994, 160). 50. For a concise summary of the numerous events that have established this perception of 1895, including Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s decision to cease writing the three volume novel, Hardy’s decision to cease writing fiction, and Grant Allen’s The Woman Who Did being published, see Robbins (2003, 125–127). 51. Arata (1996, 88). 52. Ibid. 79–80. 53. Quoted in Mason (1935, 107). 54. Shaw (1932, vol. 2, 11). 55. Ibid. 6. 56. Arata (1996), Showalter (1991). 57. Anon. (1896a), Daily Chronicle. 58. Alexander’s most successful and profitable play before The Prisoner of Zenda was The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893), for which Savage and Purdue designed costumes that emphasised the ‘anorexic eroticism’ of Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 4).

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59. Anon. (1896b), Daily News. 60. Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 50). 61. Davis (2000, 335). 62. ‘In or about 1900 the couturière Lucile theatricalised fashion marketing by building a ramp and curtained recess at one end of her shop in Hanover Square. Here, to the accompaniment of music and flashes of limelight played from the wings, a succession of “glorious, goddess-like girls” paraded gowns for coteries of invited guests.’ Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 5). 63. States (1987, 42). 64. Alexander recruited a large number of extras to play courtiers and soldiers, so that the cast was over one hundred. All costumes were designed by Nathans and Savage and Purdue, with wigs by Clarkson. These details are recorded on the programme for The Prisoner of Zenda (V & A Theatre and Performance Department, The Prisoner of Zenda). 65. Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 10). 66. ‘Florence’ (1896). 67. Ibid. 68. Davis (2000, 212). 69. Roland Barthes, ‘The Diseases of Costume’, quoted in Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 2). 70. Kaplan and Stowell (1994, 2). 71. Anon. (1896a), Daily Chronicle. 72. Schulz (1999, 237). 73. Ibid. 232. 74. Fortier (1997: 24). 75. ‘Florence’. (1896). 76. Anon. (1896f), Era. 77. ‘Spec.’ (1896). 78. ‘Eva’ (1896). 79. Fortier (1997, 24). 80. Arata (1996, 87 & 89). 81. Anon. (1918). 82. Goldsworthy (1998, 9). 83. His Little Dodge, a farcical comedy produced at the Royalty from 24 October 1896 to 16 January 1897. This was a unique enterprise, as Alexander did not lease an alternative West End theatre to stage additional productions again during his managerial career. The play was Justin Huntly McCarthy’s adaptation of Georges Feydeau and Maurice Hennequin’s Le Système Rebardier, with Fred Terry in the leading role. 84. Mason (1935, 147).

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85. Stephen Phillips (28 July 1864 to 9 December 1915). Born in Somertown, Phillips was the son of Stephen Phillips, Precentor of Peterborough Cathedral. He initially read for the civil service in London with W. B. Scoones, where he met Scoones’s employee John Churton Collins, who encouraged Phillips to publish his poetry. In 1885 he joined the touring company of his cousin, Frank Benson, where he remained until 1892, when he married May Lidyard and left Benson to become a history lecturer at an army tutor’s. He left this job when his Poems became a successful and profitable published work in 1898. Publications: Orestes and Other Poems, privately printed, 1884; Primavera, privately printed, 1890; Eremus, privately printed, 1894; Christ in Hades (London: Elkin Mathews, 1897); Poems (London: John Lane, 1898); Paolo and Francesca (London: John Lane, 1900); Herod (London: John Lane, 1901); Ulysses (London: John Lane, 1902); The Sin of David (London: Macmillan, 1904); Aylmer’s Secret (Unpublished, produced by Benson in 1905); Nero (London: Macmillan, 1906); The Bride of Lammermoor (Unpublished play); New Poems (London: John Lane, 1908); Faust, with J.  Comyns Carr (London: Macmillan, 1908); Pietro of Siena (London: Macmillan, 1910); The New Inferno (London: John Lane, 1911); The King (London: Stephen Swift and Co., 1912); Lyrics and Dramas (London: John Lane, 1913); Panama and Other Poems (London: John Lane, 1915); Armageddon (London: John Lane, 1915); Harold (Poetry Review, January and March 1916, then London: John Lane, 1927). 86. ‘In accordance with our intention to crown two books of signal merit published in 1897, we have made the following awards: One Hundred Guineas to Mr. Stephen Phillips, for his volume of Poems. Fifty Guineas to Mr. William Ernest Henley, for his essay on the Life, Genius and Achievement of Burns, contained in the fourth volume of the Centenary Edition of the Poetry of Robert Burns.’ Anon. (1898, 47). 87. Guy and Small (2000, 177). 88. Ibid. 143. Guy and Small describe the importance of the limited editions of Wilde’s work published by John Lane in constructing that author’s literary reputation during the 1890s (135–177). 89. Quoted in Barrett (1999, 182). 90. Phrase used by Symons (1902c), Stephen Phillips, Poet to the Trade. 91. Ibid. 92. Although no documentation survives to prove this, the dedication to Alexander in the published edition of the play, and Phillips’s acknowledgement of Alexander’s encouragement support the idea. In 1901, Stephens told William Archer it was ‘George Alexander’s suggestion that I should write a play for him’. Archer (1904, 80).

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93. Produced by Benson before A Comedy of Errors at the Adelphi in July 1905. 94. Herod was produced at Her Majesty’s from 31 October 1900 to 22 January 1901, a total of 78 performances; Ulysses at Her Majesty’s from 1 February to 1 May 1902, for 132 performances; Paolo and Francesca at the St. James’s Theatre from 6 March to 5 July 1902, for 134 performances. 95. ‘AMT’ (1902). 96. When Alexander commissioned Phillips, he and Tree were on the committees of the Actors’ Association, Actors’ Benevolent Fund and Royal General Theatrical Fund. 97. Robins (1940, 271). 98. Ibid. 272. 99. One matinée performance was given in January 1892; the play was translated by Gérard Harry. 100. Jones (1898, vi). 101. Anon. (1900b), The Times. 102. Jackson (2004, 64). 103. Herod (1900), Ulysses (1902), Nero (1906) and Faust (1908), with Tree as Mephistopheles. 104. Hale (1911, 148). 105. New York Times, 2 February 1911 in (New York Public Library. The Billy Rose Theatre Division: Anonymous scrapbooks containing clippings about George Alexander). This probably modest estimate notes that in 1900 alone, Alexander spent £1249 optioning new work (Mason 1935, 150). 106. Davis (2000, 227). The emphasis is Davis’s. 107. Ulysses at Her Majesty’s from 1 February 1902 to 31 May 1902, and Paolo and Francesca at the St. James’ from 6 March 1902 to 5 July 1902. 108. Alexander (1901a, Ms. 3304 d 9). 109. Phillips (1899). 110. Anon. (1902g), Tatler 12 March. 111. Mason reproduced the financial accounts for the 1900 and 1901 seasons (1935, 145–150), as an example of levels of profit and loss experienced by Alexander. 112. The play was attributed to the ‘Author of Lady Windermere’s Fan’ and, after a positive reception on tour, culminating in a week at the Bayswater Coronet before Christmas, Alexander transferred the play to the St. James’s. 113. Beerbohm (1902). 114. Mason (1935, 151). 115. Todhunter (1902, 723).

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116. Brooks (1995, 42). 117. Early defeats, such as the three at Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso between 10 and 15 December 1899 resulting in 3,000 deaths, were of a type that had not been experienced since 1857 and seemed an immense number of casualties judged by pre-World War One standards. This sustained conflict needed a substantial Volunteer force because regular military personnel were spread throughout the Empire, and the Volunteers were predominantly middle-class, whereas in previous campaigns recruits had been drawn from the working class. See Brooks (1995). 118. Beerbohm (1900). 119. These included Wyndham’s production of Dandy Dick, 8 February to 11 April 1900, 67 performances; this was followed by an unsuccessful adaptation of Rostand’s 1897 Cyrano de Bergerac, 19 April to 1 June 1900, a total of 44 performances. Wyndham then tried another revival, The Liars, from 20 June to 20 July 1900, 30 performances. Frederick Harrison’s season of Sheridan’s plays at the Haymarket consisted of The Rivals, 27 March to 16 June 1900, 83 performances, and The School for Scandal, 19 June to 21 July, then 19 October to 24 November 1900, 79 performances. 120. For example, George Edwardes’ production The Toreador at the Gaiety from 17 June 1901 to 4 July 1903, for 676 performances; A Chinese Honeymoon produced by Frank Curzon at the Strand from 5 October 1901 to 23 May 1904 for 1071 performances; at Daly’s A Country Girl from 18 January 1902 to 30 January 1904, 728 performances. 121. Magda by Hermann Sudermann, translated by Louis N.  Parker, produced at the Royalty from 19 February to 14 July 1900, for 154 performances, by Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Kate Santley. Alexander had shares in the summer tour of Magda, and the tour achieved a net profit of £1,506 9s 9d. Unfortunately, the only evidence of this wider investment is Mason (1935, 150). 122. Anon. (1902a), Pall Mall Gazette. 123. Premièred in Paris 17 May 1893, directed by Lugné-Pöe, and this was the first production seen in London. An English translation by Laurence Alma Tadema was published in 1895. 124. Unlike the French production, with only two painted settings as well as minimal lighting and use of properties, Campbell incorporated more elaborate scenery and cast actors familiar to West End audience members. Reactions to the English translation suggest that Maeterlinck’s poetic drama, even in translation, had a communicative potential Phillips’s plays lacked: ‘We may enjoy the externals thoroughly, even though the essential continually haunts us with a vague sense of heightened significance.’ Hale (1911, 192).

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125. Symons (1902e), Star. 126. Archer (1912, 19). Phillips entered this debate when he told Archer in an interview: ‘But is there not such a thing as large and simple character? Must it always be subtle and complex? And is character the only element in drama? Do not action and passion count for something? The Greeks thought they did; Corneille thought so, and Racine. It is no new thing I am attempting. It is a thing familiar to every one who knows anything of dramatic literature beyond the beaten track of Shakespeare.’ Archer (1904, 78). 127. After Paolo and Francesca, Phillips’s output became less prolific: Nero (1906), Faust (with J. Comyns Carr, 1908) both produced by Tree; The Sin of David (1914) produced by H.B. Irving at the Savoy, which lasted only 25 performances; Armageddon (1915); and the unproduced Harold, first published in the Poetry Review (1916). 128. Stephen Phillips in Archer (1904, 77–78). 129. Phillips (1900, 121). 130. Webster (2001) Act IV, Sc. ii., l. 254. 131. Arthur Symons, Introduction to Harold: A Chronicle Play by Stephen Phillips (1927, vii). Although Symons wrote a number of articles on Phillips’s verse during the ‘boom’ at the turn of the century, this introduction was a new, posthumous assessment of the poet’s work. Review articles for the period 1898–1902, the height of the ‘boom’, are listed in the Reference section to this chapter. 132. Symons (1902c), Stephen Phillips, Poet to the Trade. 133. Ibid. 134. Stanford (1987, 22). 135. Yeats relates this to the influence of Walter Pater upon these poets, to his emphasis upon sensation and experience, as well as the solitariness of the individual, in both The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873), and Marius, the Epicurean: His Sensations and Ideas (1885). See Stanford (1987, 5–34). 136. This is from Wilde’s review of the collection Primavera. Poems by Four Authors in the Pall Mall Gazette, 24 May 1890 (Stokes and Turner 2013, 251). 137. Poel (1913, 706). 138. Casting decisions had been made by October 1901. By contrast, Mason recounts that when Alexander staged his play The Witness for the Defence, the decision to stage the play was made in November 1910, and the first night was 1 February 1911 (1935, 22–23). 139. Ainley had been awarded the part by 14 October 1901; the seventh edition of the work held at the British Library is signed and dated by the actor, with that date.

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140. Alexander (1901a, Ms. 3304 d 9). 141. Jackson (2004, 66). 142. Todhunter (1902, 720). 143. See Michael Pisani’s essay (2004, 70–92). Pisani outlines the range of nineteenth-century theatrical music—‘incidental’ compositions which accompanied productions in London and New  York. Pisani provides a useful introduction to one element of production that has often been overlooked. 144. Anon. (1902c), Daily Telegraph. 145. No reference has been found to the exact fee charged. 146. Symons (1902c), Stephen Phillips, Poet to the Trade. No copy of this free biography has been found. 147. Ibid. 148. Anon. (1902k), Tatler, 24 September. The full caption with the picture reads: ‘The First Night of Herod at Her Majesty’s Theatre. This picture, by Mr H. Jamyn Brooks, is reproduced from a large engraving about to be published by Henry Graves and Co., Ltd., 6, Pall Mall. In the background will be seen a number of representative men, and it is not difficult to discover their Majesties King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, as well as Lord Rosebery, Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Edward Clarke, and the late Lord Russell of Killowen, who was one of the most regular of first-nighters.’ 149. Ibid. 150. Stetz and Lasner (1990, viii). 151. Todhunter (1902, 720). 152. Gwynn (1902, 1053). 153. Phillips (1927, xxv). 154. Anon. (1902i), Clarion. 155. Anon. (1902j), Illustrated London News, (1902f), Referee. 156. Mason (1935, 158). 157. Anon. (1902b), Daily Express. 158. Anon. (1902f), Referee. 159. Letter from Phillips to Alexander, reproduced (without date) in Mason (1935, 153). 160. Alexander’s investment in the Magda tour is evidence of this sustained professional relationship. 161. Margaret Halstan appeared as Mrs. Tommie Bistern in The Wisdom of the Wise (1900), Blanche in a revival of Liberty Hall (1900), Gwendolen in the first revival of The Importance of Being Earnest (1902), and Tessa in Paolo and Francesca (1902). 162. Anon. (1894), Sketch.

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163. The Lackey’s Carnival was staged from 26 September to 2 November 1900. Millard objected to the following exchange from Act IV: VIOLET:

Ah! You doubt me! You doubt me! And after what I told you at Marseilles a month ago! STEPHEN: About—? VIOLET: Yes. And you doubt me! As surely as my unborn child is yours, as surely as I hope it will live and be good and happy, I have told you the whole truth about that man. I’ve done. I shall not try to defend myself! (GOING) STEPHEN: Violet (Going after her) Forgive me! Forgive me! No! I’ve been a beast to you! But forgive me! My wife, my true wife, I beg your pardon, with all my heart dear, I beg your pardon. (Jones c. 1894.) Jones clearly felt the need to ensure that there was no ambiguity regarding Violet’s fidelity; in this manuscript he crossed out ‘my unborn child will be’ and replaced it with ‘my unborn child is’, and most notably changed ‘strong and happy’ to ‘good and happy’, to reinforce the child’s legitimacy and Violet’s position as wronged wife. However, Millard consistently refused to speak the lines. 164. Anon. (1900a), Theatre Gossip. 165. Millard did appear in five other productions for Frohman at the Duke of York’s between October 1899 and April 1901: The Christian by Hall Caine, Madame Butterfly by David Belasco, Miss Hobbs by Jerome K. Jerome, The Swashbuckler by Louis N. Parker, and The Adventure of Lady Ursula by Anthony Hope. 166. Anon. (1902f), Referee. 167. Souvenir programme, Paolo and Francesca. 168. Anon. (1902d), Evening Standard. 169. The most striking example of this was her appearance in A Woman’s Revenge: A Drama of Real Life by Henry Pettit, produced by the Gattis at the Adelphi. It ran for 206 performances, from 1 July 1893 to 3 March 1894. 170. Robins (1940, 277). 171. Ibid. 303. 172. Anon. (1902e), Era. 173. Symons (1902b), Star. 174. Townsend (2000, 117). 175. Anon. (1902f), Referee. 176. Ibid.

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177. Quoted in John (1995, 72). 178. Bax (1951, 20). 179. Mason (1935, 15). 180. Anon. (1902h), Letters of a Candid Playgoer. 181. Anon. (1902i), Clarion. 182. Alexander had written to Percy Pitt that he had begun to ‘work the words and action’ by October 1901. Alexander (1901b, Ms. 3304 d 11). 183. Alexander staged As You Like It in December 1896 and Much Ado About Nothing in February 1898, but never produced Shakespeare or any other verse drama after Paolo and Francesca. 184. Reprinted in Jones (1933, 262). 185. Corbett-Smith (1935). 186. There is a range of scholarship that charts this landscape, and identifies links between sectors including publishing, the fashion industry and the theatre industry, see for example Throsby (2008).

References Alexander, George. 1901a. Letter from George Alexander to Percy Pitt, sent from the Theatre Royal, Manchester, 27 October. British Library Manuscripts Collection, MUSIC, Egerton Ms. 3304 d 9. ———. 1901b. Letter from George Alexander to Percy Pitt, sent from the Theatre Royal, Manchester, 27 October. British Library Manuscripts Collection, MUSIC, Egerton Ms. 3304 d 11. ‘AMT.’ 1902. Clarion, 14 March. Anon. 1894. Sketch, 7 November. ———. 1896a. Daily Chronicle, 8 January. ———. 1896b. Daily News, 8 January. ———. 1896c. Globe, 8 January. ———. 1896d. St. James’s Gazette, 8 January. ———. 1896e. The Times, 8 January. ———. 1896f. Era, 11 January. ———. 1896g. Dramatic and Musical Notes. Modern Society, 18 January. ———. 1898. Our Awards for 1897. Academy 15: 47. ———. 1900a. Theatre Gossip. Sketch, 26 September. ———. 1900b. The Times, 1 November. ———. 1902a. Pall Mall Gazette, 5 March. ———. 1902b. Daily Express, 7 March. ———. 1902c. Daily Telegraph, 7 March. ———. 1902d. Evening Standard, 7 March. ———. 1902e. Era, 8 March. ———. 1902f. Referee, 9 March.

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———. 1902g. Tatler, 12 March. ———. 1902h. Letters of a Candid Playgoer. To-Day, 13 March. ———. 1902i. Clarion, 14 March. ———. 1902j. Illustrated London News, 15 March. ———. 1902k. Tatler, 24 September. ———. 1918. ‘George Alexander: A Memoir’. Stage, 21 March. Arata, Stephen. 1996. Fictions of Loss in the Victorian Fin De Siècle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, William. 1897. The Theatrical World for 1896. London: Walter Scott. ———. 1904. Real Conversations. London: William Heinemann. ———. 1912. Playmaking. London: Chapman & Hall. Barrett, Daniel. 1999. Play Publication, Readers, and the ‘Decline’ of Victorian Drama. Book History 2 (1): 173–184. Bax, Clifford. 1951. Some I Knew Well. London: Phoenix House. Beerbohm, Max. 1900. Plays Repeated. Saturday Review, 30 June. ———. 1902. The Importance of Being Earnest. Saturday Review, 18 January. Booth, Michael. 1980. Prefaces to English Nineteenth-Century Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brooks, David. 1995. The Age of Upheaval. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Corbett-Smith, A. 1935. Correspondence. Poetry Review 66: 45. Davis, Tracy C. 2000. The Economics of the British Stage, 1800–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ‘Eva’. 1896. Star, 8 January. Fisher, Margery. 1986. The Bright Face of Danger. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ‘Florence’. 1896. Dresses in The Prisoner of Zenda at the St. James’s. The Sketch, 8 January. Fortier, Mark. 1997. Theory/Theatre. Abingdon: Routledge. Goldsworthy, Vesna. 1998. Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press. Gorley Putt, S. 1956. The Prisoner of The Prisoner of Zenda: Anthony Hope and the Novel of Society. Essays in Criticism 6: 38–59. Guy, Josephine M., and Ian Small. 2000. Oscar Wilde’s Profession: Writing and the Culture Industry in the Late Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gwynn, Stephen. 1902. An Uncommon Theatre. Fortnightly Review 78: 1044–1054. Hale, Edward. 1911. Dramatists of To-day. New York: Henry Holt. Hope, Anthony. 1927. Memories and Notes. London: Hutchinson. ———. 1994. The Prisoner of Zenda. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hudson, Lynton. 1951. The English Stage 1850–1950. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

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Jackson, Russell. 2004. Victorian and Edwardian Stagecraft: Techniques and Issues. In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, ed. Kerry Powell, 52–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. John, Angela V. 1995. Elizabeth Robins: Staging a Life, 1862–1952. London: Routledge. Jones, Henry Arthur. c. 1894. The Lackey’s Carnival. Manuscript. V & A Theatre and Performance Department, PLAYS-JON-prompt. ———. 1898. The Tempter. London: Macmillan. Jones, Phyllis, ed. 1933. English Critical Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaplan, Joel H., and Sheila Stowell. 1994. Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mason, A.E.W. 1935. Sir George Alexander and the St. James’s Theatre. London: Macmillan. Miller, Karl. 1985. Doubles: Studies in Literary History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murray, Simone. 2012. The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy of Contemporary Literary Adaptation. New York: Routledge. New York Public Library. The Billy Rose Theatre Division: Anonymous scrapbooks containing clippings about George Alexander. T: Mss. MWEZ. Phillips, Stephen. 1899. British Library Add. MSS. 53693, Paolo and Francesca, Lic. No. 114, November. ———. 1900. Paolo and Francesca. London: John Lane. ———. 1927. Harold: A Chronicle Play. London: John Lane. Pisani, Michael. 2004. Music for the Theatre: Style and Function in Incidental Music. In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, ed. Kerry Powell, 70–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Poel, William. 1913. Poetry in Drama. Contemporary Review 106: 699–707. Powell, Kerry. 1998. New Women, New Plays, and Shaw in the 1890s. In The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw, ed. Christopher Innes, 76–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, Jeffrey. 1989. Imperialism and Juvenile Literature. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Robbins, Ruth. 2003. Pater to Forster, 1873–1924. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Robins, Elizabeth. 1940. Both Sides of the Curtain. London: William Heinemann. Schulz, David. 1999. The Architecture of Conspicuous Consumption: Property, Class, and Display at Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s Her Majesty’s Theatre. Theatre Journal 51: 231–250. Scott, Clement. 1896a. Daily Telegraph, 8 January. ———. 1896b. Illustrated London News, 11 January. Shaw, George Bernard. 1932. Our Theatres In The Nineties., 3 vols. London: Constable.

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Showalter, Elaine. 1991. Sexual Anarchy. London: Bloomsbury. ‘Spec.’ 1896. Star, 8 January. Stanford, Derek. 1987. Introduction to the ‘Nineties’. Salzburg: University of Salzburg Press. States, Bert O. 1987. Great Reckonings in Little Rooms. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stephens, John Russell. 1992. The Profession of the Playwright: British Theatre 1800–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stetz, Margaret D., and Mark Samuels Lasner. 1990. England in the 1890s: Literary Publishing at the Bodley Head. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Stokes, John, and Mark Turner. 2013. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Vol. VII. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Symons, Arthur. 1898a. Mr. Stephen Phillips’s Poems. Saturday Review, 1 January. ———. 1898b. Stephen Phillips. Poems. Athenæum, 29 January. ———. 1900a. Stephen Phillips’s. Paolo and Francesca. Athenæum, 6 January. ———. 1900b. Herod. Star, 7 November. ———. 1900c. Herod off the Stage. Saturday Review, 15 December. ———. 1902a. Ulysses. Star, 3 February. ———. 1902b. Paolo and Francesca. Star, 7 March. ———. 1902c. Stephen Phillips, Poet to the Trade. Saturday Review, 15 March. ———. 1902d. Mr. Stephen Phillips. Quarterly Review 195: 486–500. ———. 1902e. Ulysses. Star, 1 April. Throsby, David. 2008. The Concentric Circles Model of the Cultural Industries. Cultural Trends 17 (3): 147–164. Todhunter, John. 1902. Poetic Drama and its Prospects on the Stage. Fortnightly Review 77: 713–725. Townsend, Joanna. 2000. Elizabeth Robins: Hysteria, Politics and Performance. In Women, Theatre and Performance, ed. Maggie B.  Gale and Viv Gardner, 102–120. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Trotter, David. 1993. The English Novel in History. London: Routledge. V & A Theatre and Performance Department Theatre File. St. James’s Theatre, Box 2093, Production File: The Prisoner of Zenda. Wearing, J.P. 1976. The London Stage 1890–1899: A Calendar of Plays and Players 1890–1899. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Webster, John. 2001. In The Duchess of Malfi, ed. Brian Gibbons. London: A & C Black. Weedon, Alexis. 2003. Victorian Publishing: The Economics of Book Production for a Mass Market, 1836–1916. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.

CHAPTER 6

The Legacy of Alexander at the St. James’s Theatre

While neither The Prisoner of Zenda nor Paolo and Francesca were in any sense radical productions, a developing interest in attending to the publishing industry on the part of Alexander does reveal responsiveness to cultural outputs beyond theatre. Attention to other spheres of cultural production in West End repertoire by the end of the nineteenth century has been recognised, specifically in the scrutiny by Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell of links to the fashion industry.1 Previous scholarship has identified theatre and fashion as related sectors of cultural production,2 and the preceding chapter extended the analysis of cross-sector integration, assessing how Alexander worked with material created beyond the theatre industry, notably with publishing phenomena. I have established that the impression of autonomy cultivated by the actor-manager was underpinned not only by necessary collaboration but by cross-sector engagement, providing one model for commercial theatre production later in the twentieth century, where this kind of engagement came to characterise the development of much West End repertoire. For Alexander, attention to other fields of cultural production allowed for opulent work that was new to the London stage, sustaining management for almost three decades. Apparent in the creative policy that united pieces as diverse as The Prisoner of Zenda, Paolo and Francesca and indeed His House in Order was Alexander’s commitment to the form of pictorial realism he had experienced at Irving’s Lyceum, which resulted in spectacular stagecraft and © The Author(s) 2020 L. Sutherland, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7_6

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extravagant costume design. Indeed, as H. A. Kennedy noted in an essay for the Nineteenth Century, published in 1891, ‘though it may be taken as demonstrated that no amount of expensive spectacle will float a performance of no merit, there is no doubt that a strong dramatic effect that coincides with an original or otherwise attractive mise-en-scène gives a play a great chance of achieving popular success’.3 What unified the various productions in Alexander’s repertoire was this use of spectacular scenery or the equally extravagant realistic depiction of privileged domestic settings and fashionable costumes and, consequently, the high investment required to achieve these effects. As a result of this policy, plays needed to run for a long period to recoup on initial expenditure. Therefore, for Alexander as a West End manager, artistic aims merged with the economic reality of their implementation, and a successful production was also a long-running one. This further explains the model of cautious innovation found in his repertoire, and which is the particular focus of this final chapter. The obvious relationship between repertoire and profit in the West End at this time turned actor-managers into theatre professionals with economic priorities that distinguished them from radical theatre practitioners, for whom the staging of innovative material came before the consideration of financial return. Alexander was, during his first decade in management, closely associated with Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones, dramatists who continued to produce work that was dependent upon the well-made play structure, displaying a fundamental moral conformity, providing analysis rather than criticism of conventional attitudes regarding class, gender and family. Even his collaborations with Oscar Wilde, whose plays satirised such complacency, were an acceptable part of the St. James’s repertoire because they allowed for the material trappings of commercial theatre—elaborate costumes and staging—that united all of Alexander’s productions.

Supporting Emergent Drama The aim of introducing new forms of drama into the West End was always balanced by the drive to sustain management. This did not, however, result in a repertoire that was entirely unrelated to the plays written by dramatists who had their work staged by more progressive theatremakers. The texts selected by Alexander combined continuity in dramatic form and performance style with an interest in new material, but the history of

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the West End regularly shows that new material does not equate with novelty, and the St. James’s repertoire was some way from the work carried out by, for example, the Independent Theatre Society, and then by the Stage Society during the 1890s.4 Very short runs of a number of new plays, European and English, in venues using scenery to hand were at variance with the approach of West End managers, who ‘preferred to know the boundaries of their market through much more conservative means of consumer testing’.5 Nevertheless, it is apparent that Alexander was alert to how these groups, which operated outside the commercial mainstream, were changing the perceptions of theatre audiences as to what was acceptable. Certainly, experimentation with texts and innovations in staging were integral features of non-commercial productions taking place from the early years of Alexander’s managerial career.6 For example, in his first year at the St. James’s, Hedda Gabler was staged by Marion Lea and Elizabeth Robins at the Vaudeville Theatre. Robins had formed the Joint Management venture with Lea to stage plays, including Hedda Gabler, that would be rejected by commercial managements, and that contained strong leading roles for actresses—of obvious concern to Robins, who had been frustrated by the roles she was offered by commercial managers, including Alexander.7 Hedda Gabler was one instance of the presence of such short-running, alternative productions at West End venues. These less commercially driven pieces were entering the geographical sphere inhabited by actor-managers, and served to highlight an essential conservatism on the part of these managements. The Joint Management venture at the Vaudeville also subtly contested the association of West End venues with material shaped by and concerned with the demands and prejudices of the censor. The production, seen by some of Alexander’s collaborators including Henry James, Pinero and Wilde, was also an artistic enterprise that highlighted the need for more precise rehearsal techniques, a precursor to modern methods and the attention paid to character development by the actor.8 In an extended rehearsal period, the Lea-Robins Hedda Gabler opposed the performance styles and methods of production most often employed by West End managements, including the limited rehearsal hours operated by Alexander at the St. James’s Theatre. It is misleading, however, to assume that actor-managers were working in complete opposition to such innovative work. As has already been established, Alexander did make some bold choices in repertoire. It is surely significant, for example, that The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, rejected by

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John Hare as ‘too radical’,9 was a play that displayed older, melodramatic and well-made conventions, while also indicating the influence of recent European drama in its inquisition of perceptible double standards within upper-middle class society. Pinero was a founding member of the Independent Theatre Society in 1891, a subscription society, and so distinguished from the commercial operations of the West End. He also attended the 1891 production of Hedda Gabler, and in his ensuing dramatic output, specifically Tanqueray, he was aiming to translate this material into a theatrical product that could appease the censor and would be staged by a West End manager. Nevertheless, looking at the St. James’s repertoire under Alexander, it is apparent that limits were imposed upon the kind of material that would be staged; and pleasing a broad audience base was the prominent concern. Alexander was sensitive to the immediate response of an audience, for example telling an interviewer at the very beginning of his managerial career of the ‘visible and audible enthusiasm’ he experienced in a heroic role at the Adelphi.10 This sensitivity was, in turn, influenced by his consistent awareness of the need for profit. In the aftermath of The Wisdom of the Wise (1900), Alexander encouraged playwright Pearl Craigie to adjust her material with this in mind, writing: I hope to hear of your strange play soon—you must not try ’em too high— they must have in England more ‘situation’ in a five act play. I am sure I am right in this.11

Alexander judges the taste of his audience to depend upon ‘situation’, implying a familiar plot with a recognisable physical manifestation, the ‘attractive mise-en-scène’, noted by H. A. Kennedy in 1891, that gave ‘a great chance of achieving popular success’.12 It is this attention to short-term response, and its influence upon profit, that resulted in West End drama during the period of Alexander’s managerial career very often being defined in opposition to the productions staged by the New Drama movement. Dennis Kennedy’s appreciation that an ‘avant-garde suspicion of popular success eventually split twentieth-­ century art into two parts: the larger part got the audiences but little lasting attention, the smaller part the critical and historical acclaim’ is extremely significant when assessing what constituted a successful production for Alexander.13 Those with an active interest in the ‘smaller part’ were partly responsible for emphasising such an opposition. For example,

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the critical responses of William Archer and J. T. Grein to St. James’s productions were strongly influenced by their own commitment to the work of European dramatists, most particularly their potential influence upon the English theatre. This is evident in Grein’s review of The Ambassador, produced at the St. James’s in 1899: It is the only dramatic work on our boards that evidences the possibility of bringing the English dialogue to nearly the same level as that of the French. Mrs. Craigie may yet have to learn a good deal from Laveden and Donnay as regards the mould of her repartee and the directness of her epigrammatic sallies, and more from the sober constructive powers of Brieux, Hervieu, and the younger men who have established their doctrines and their fame.14

Not only critics but also dramatists who were produced by new companies, endorsed the perception of West End managements as operating in a field distinct from their own. However, the evidence of direct engagement between Alexander and these dramatists exemplifies the actor-manager’s tentative interest in the innovation associated with the New Drama movement, alongside a dominant commitment to material that would maintain profit. Evidence also demonstrates the subtle mechanisms of support that could be provided by a West End management. For example, playwright St. John Ervine supplied an instructive anecdotal account of one interaction with Alexander, over the play John Ferguson; this was reproduced in 1925 by Nigel Playfair, and is clearly intended to emphasise divergence between the work of Playfair and Ervine and standard West End practice in the first decades of the twentieth century: I sent the play to George Alexander and suggested that he should produce it! Alexander read it, hesitated over it, and then sent it back with a very complimentary letter. Soon after I had taken the rejected play from the postman my telephone bell rang. George Alexander, making-up for the performance that evening, had telephoned me and wanted the play back again. Would I come and see him on the following afternoon in Pont Street? Would I hell? … I went—the day was cold and wet and full of snow—and Alexander told me all about the Greek drama in his study, which had glass-­ panelled doors so that everybody passing up and downstairs could see him studying. I left him in a stupefied state. Not only was he going to do the play, probably at matinee performances, but he himself was going to play John Ferguson! … I thought to myself, as I staggered into the snow again: ‘His followers will get something of a shock when they see him as a County

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Down farmer in corduroys!’ But I need not have worried myself so much, for Alexander thought about the play again and finally decided not to do it.15

The aim is to distance the professional identities of Ervine and Playfair from the theatrical realm inhabited by Alexander, this anecdote working hard to show Alexander as excessively concerned with style over substance. For in private he continues to perform the conscientious manager, concerned with public perception, being considerate enough to erect a kind of playing space—complete with near-invisible fourth wall—so he may be observed at work. There is even supporting evidence for this depiction of the actor-manager, in the dissemination of postcards showing Alexander at work, rather than on stage. Such postcards, so popular at the turn of the twentieth century, gave the purchaser the opportunity to possess a version of their chosen celebrity, and it is significant that Alexander provided this option for the consumer. For example, the controlled depiction of authority seen in Fig. 6.1, when examined in relation to the Ervine anecdote, clearly promotes the impression of Alexander as the dedicated professional, employed at a desk when not employed on stage. Adopting a posture suggestive of reflective thought, library at his back, book in his hand, the actor-manager promotes his concern with the textual authority for his managerial actions. Yet the existence of such merchandise was predicated upon Alexander the celebrated actor; multiple photographs within the image act as a reminder that dynamic performances were a necessary foundation for managerial enterprise. This postcard resists a single, simple reading of the kind of work undertaken by Alexander, and so does the Ervine anecdote. The account disrupts its own narrative in a sense as significantly, Ervine sent the play to Alexander, seeking to sustain his writing career by achieving an option on the play in the aftermath of his fractured relationship with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin (where he wanted the piece to be staged and it was indeed eventually staged, in April 1915). Ervine’s disdain for Alexander is apparent, but while seeking to establish the mainstream as ‘other’, Ervine and Playfair admit a strategy of using West End optioning practices to support their continued development of more radical work. The contrast here between tone and content is immediately evocative; Ervine works to position Alexander as other, but the rich depiction of the encounter, to recall the words of Joel Fineman also quoted in Chap. 1, the ‘peculiar and eventful narrative force’ of the anecdote, also explicitly admits a form of relationship between Alexander and emergent drama.16

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Fig. 6.1  Alexander at work. Photograph, C.W. Faulkener & Co., n.d. Author’s own image

This was, of course, only peripheral engagement with another type of work, as was sub-letting the St. James’s Theatre to other companies (for example to Harley Granville-Barker and Lillah McCarthy for three months in 1913),17 or adding the one-act George Bernard Shaw comedy How He Lied to Her Husband to the bill, preceding Alfred Sutro’s play Mollentrave on Women for a five-week run in 1905. Cumulatively, though, these choices do show that support of new drama by Alexander extended beyond work that could experience a long run on a West End stage. As was established in Chap. 2, some surviving correspondence further proves Alexander’s particular interest in Shaw’s output. In the months before

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John Bull’s Other Island was produced at the Court in October 1904, Alexander wrote to the dramatist: If you want an enemy home for John Bull and would like me to play Larry Doyle I am your man.18

Reference to an ‘enemy home’ is a wry acknowledgement of the differences between his management and others that had staged Shaw’s drama previously, including the Barker-Vedrenne management at the Court. Shaw certainly understood the value of star West End actors, for example praising Robert Loraine for acting ‘extremely well in the style of [Charles] Wyndham’, as John Tanner in the 1907 production of Man and Superman.19 Therefore, the playwright was willing to collaborate with commercial actor-managers, and this correspondence is an example of Shaw’s desire to challenge West End repertoire from within, as well as evidence of Alexander’s interest in writers identified with the New Drama movement. However, Shaw’s prominent public position at the Court from 1904 until 1907 is undisputed (701 of the 988 performances there during this period were of Shaw’s plays), and although Charles Frohman and Tree brought his work to the West End in 1910 and 1914 respectively, there was no collaboration with Alexander on a full-length play.20 Studies of the New Drama movement have established that a significant number of audience members were also attending commercial productions, most particularly the leisured women attending matinée performances, and managers were surely alert to the flexibility of audiences for legitimate drama in the capital.21 The fact that entrepreneurs operating in commercial theatre were aware of innovative stage companies in the 1890s did not translate into open enthusiasm for the drama produced, however, because greater recognition for such groups would encroach upon the market control over legitimate drama held by West End managers. The commercial failure of Barker and Vedrenne’s Savoy season in 1907, and of Frohman’s repertory season in 1910, attest to the difficulty of translating an interest in progressive work into viable West End fare.22 Significantly, Tree’s collaboration with Shaw on Pygmalion (1914) came at the same time as Pinero’s new plays, staged by Alexander at the St. James’s, had a waning popularity, and during the final stages in the careers of both actor-managers.

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Restricting West End Repertoire: The Example of The Finding of Nancy Alexander’s career was characterised by attending consistently and prominently to dominant theatrical and literary forms. His statement to William Archer, that ‘the British public is firmly convinced that the drama has got to pay its own way […] I don’t see who is going to relieve it of that necessity’,23 is indicative of why long-running productions remained essential to Alexander, and to the longevity of his management. He was constrained by his determination to uphold a pre-eminent position in commercial theatre, selecting material that would draw large audiences over a long period of time. His more than tentative staging of one new work, Netta Syrett’s The Finding of Nancy (1902), provides more substantial evidence of the limits he imposed upon support of progressive and clearly politically engaged work. This production is a valuable, final case study of a St. James’s production becauses Tree, who might potentially be perceived as a more progressive actor-manager figure given his stated interest in staging translations of European drama including the work of Ibsen,24 and his collaboration with Shaw, was also directly involved in mounting the production. This indicates that the treatment of radical work extended further in to the working practices of West End managements, beyond the individual policies of Alexander. The staging of Syrett’s work was characterised by resistance, even before the play itself was selected and presented at the St. James’s on 5 May 1902. In March of the previous year, the Era reported Alexander’s response to accusations from the Playgoers’ Club president, playwright and author B. W. Findon, that West End managers neglected the work of new playwrights: Would the Playgoers’ elect among themselves a grading committee? Let them select the best original modern play from those submitted to them, and he would undertake to produce it as a matinée at the St. James’s Theatre, under the direction of their president. To show there was no jealousy in the actor-manager, Mr. Tree had promised to play with him and ‘cast’ the play, and the profits from the performance would go to the Actors’ Benevolent Fund. A few years ago, as Mr. Findon had told them, there was a dramatic eruption of trial matinées. Might he ask this question—Did this prove that there was a wealth of material at the disposal of the regular manager? He ventured to say ‘No’. How many of these plays survived and found a permanent place in the evening bill of a theatre? On the other hand, these performances did give excellent opportunities to the untried actor and actress, and

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did prove that there was, at any rate, a wealth of material among the younger players.25

The Playgoers’ Club, founded in 1884, was a forum for aspiring writers and it ‘became a debating-ground for the profession’.26 It was one of a number of organisations which established a fixed relationship between theatre professionals and audience members, to further enhance the prestige of urban theatrical venues. At a 1901 dinner, with Alexander as guest of honour, ‘the president dwelt forcibly on the neglect of dramatists by London managers. He suggested, as a remedy, a system of trial matinées.’27 That this comment was made in Alexander’s presence was certainly an attempt, by the Playgoers’ committee, to encourage him in his publicly acknowledged aim to stage new English drama. In a history of the Playgoers’ Club, Findon recalls the press coverage attendant upon the competition: Leading articles and interviews appeared in the daily papers. It became the topic of the moment in theatrical circles. The noise of the challenge and its acceptance aroused curiosity in Paris and Berlin. M.  Antoine was interviewed on the subject in the one city, and Herr Pierson, the Director of the Royal Opera and Schauspielhaus, was asked for his opinion in the other by up-to-date journalists.28

Although this is an exaggerated description of the level of publicity the competition received, the account does emphasise that the event was intended to extend the range of material produced by West End managements in line with developments in European drama. However, the diminishing enthusiasm shown by Alexander and Tree in staging the winning play, Netta Syrett’s The Finding of Nancy,29 shows them to be cautious regarding the play’s subject-matter, and also concerned at the commercial implications of producing material by an inexperienced dramatist. Arthur Symons, reviewing The Finding of Nancy, compares it to The Gay Lord Quex, premièred by John Hare in the same week: Mr. Pinero is a playwright with a sharp sense of the stage, an eye for what is telling, a cynical intelligence which is much more interesting than the uncertain outlook of most of our playwrights. He has no breadth of view, but he has a clear view; he makes his choice out of human nature deliberately, and he deals in his own way with the materials that he selects. Before saying to himself: what would this particular person say or do in these circumstances?

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He says to himself: what would it be effective on the stage for this particular person to do or say? […] Miss Syrett has much to learn if she is to become a successful dramatist, and she has not as yet shown that she knows men, as well as women; but at least she has begun at the right end. She has begun with human nature and not with the artifices of the stage, she has thought of her characters as people before thinking of them as persons of the drama, she has something to say through them, they are not mere lines in a pattern.30

Symons outlines why Pinero’s drama was successfully staged by West End managements, comparing this to Syrett’s work, which focused upon one woman’s experience. Alexander’s reluctance to stage The Finding of Nancy is significant in revealing that he, like his regular collaborator, author of The Gay Lord Quex, aimed to ‘represent individuals and classes on the stage, not as they are, but as the bulk of his patrons believe them to be’— the implication being that established male playwrights reflected the values and concerns of their audience in drama staged by male impresarios.31 Alexander’s subservience to critical condemnation, which he almost certainly predicted once the subject-matter of the play was revealed, was related to a sustained conservatism in his choice of repertoire. The Finding of Nancy voiced a number of concerns that also resonate throughout Syrett’s prolific output of drama and fiction. Her novels written during the 1890s describe female characters resisting authority—the pressure placed upon them to comply with the demands of society. Her first novel, Nobody’s Fault, published by John Lane in 1896, concerns a woman who becomes a writer, gaining independence from unsympathetic parents and an unhappy marriage. Although Syrett denied any connection with identifiable groups and movements, her triumphing of female independence identifies her characters with the women’s movement of the time. Jill Tedford Jones has described how ‘Syrett’s female protagonists ultimately rebel against authority—parental, academic, or marital. Some rebel at an early age and make life difficult for family and teachers for years. Others conform to expectations and only as adults assert themselves as individuals who defy tradition and societal pressures. Their drive for individuality and desire for self-realisation characterises them as New Women.’32 Yet as Ann Ardis has argued, the writer resisted the caricatures of independent women prevalent in the 1890s. Rather, ‘she cherishes the vulgar reality of actual, prosaic facts of life’.33 Nancy’s practical approach to a relationship outside marriage at the conclusion of the play, with a self-­ determination undermining the stage convention of ‘fallen’ woman as

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susceptible to violent emotions (hysteria), emphasises Syrett’s advocacy of greater freedom of choice for women. The Finding of Nancy concerns Nancy Thistleton’s decision to live with Will Fielding, a married man separated from his wife, instead of living alone as a typist in London. Her closest friend Isabel Ferris attempts to dissuade Nancy from that course of action and chooses to maintain respectability first by working as a teacher, then by sacrificing her career to nurse her father, subsequently suffering a breakdown. Act Two takes place four years later when Nancy, after inheriting money, is staying without Fielding on the Riviera, and invites Isabel to convalesce at the Hotel Beau Séjour. Nancy meets and falls in love with fellow guest Captain Egerton, but Fielding arrives at the resort to inform Nancy of the death of his wife and his desire to marry her. She tells him about Egerton and he agrees to their separation, becoming engaged to his cousin, Violet Stuart, also staying at the hotel. The engagement is largely engineered by comic matriarch Mrs. Stuart, Violet’s mother, one of a group of middle-aged Society wives staying at the Beau Séjour. Nancy, despite her passionate feelings towards Egerton, hesitates in admitting her past to him, fearing it will jeopardise their relationship. However, confusion over a wrongly addressed telegram causes Nancy to believe that Fielding has committed suicide over the situation and she breaks down, publicly admitting their relationship and realising that she had a stronger relationship with him than with Egerton. Although the confusion is soon resolved, Nancy is ostracised by her social circle and returns, with Isabel, to her old rooms in London, intending to return to work. In the final act both Egerton and Fielding follow her back, and she rejects the former, returning to her work and life with Fielding. The second and third acts of The Finding of Nancy take place in the hall and on the terrace of the hotel, where the opulence and freedom Nancy experiences encourage her intense desire for the handsome, superior Egerton. However, the debate regarding Nancy’s lifestyle that takes place in acts one and four is located in her claustrophobic Bloomsbury ‘chambers’, emphasising the dramatist’s real interest: in the lack of opportunity afforded to single, professional women. Syrett made herself vulnerable to criticism because her main concern was not with stagecraft, but to instruct the ‘well-dressed’ audience for this matinée about a specific situation.34 Writing in 1939 about the extramarital relationship represented in the play, she claimed that her interest was in the actions of ‘a girl more lonely than in present-day conditions it is possible to be’, but that ‘gentlemen on and off stage affected to be so deeply

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shocked and outraged that one might have imagined chastity to be their outstanding virtue’.35 Syrett’s frustration that the situation of her heroine was neglected by critics—who emphasised the infidelity between Nancy and Fielding, as well as flaws in structure and characterisation—is further indication that her primary aim in writing the play was to reflect the lack of opportunities available to women such as Nancy. Two years before this play was produced, Emily Hobhouse published results of a survey of professional women in London in the Nineteenth Century.36 ‘Women Workers: How They Live, How They Wish to Live’, is an essay analysing the response by nearly six hundred women living and working in the capital to a questionnaire, produced by the Women’s Industrial Council, concerning income and housing: In fact, women are paying between the fourth and fifth part of their slender means for a room and a bit, or a bit of a room. Neither is very satisfactory. Perhaps it cannot be described as ‘over-crowding’; but things are relative, and these are women who for the most part have been nurtured in refined and ample homes.37

Incomes and rents of these women were analysed, and Syrett attempted to address these subjects in Nancy’s claustrophobia, material and psychological, in the first act of her play: NANCY: Think! Listen! Let me state the case. My case; your case: the case of most girls nowadays whom [scornfully] ‘it is so nice to see independent and leading their own lives.’ Oh! We who know what leading our own lives means! Doesn’t it make you laugh when you think of it? [She laughs bitterly] Take my existence. It will do. It is typical. Take any day—they are all alike. In the morning I walk to the office, I work till one. At one I go to the nearest A.B.C. for lunch. Back again at two. Click, click, till five. Then tea; then more work before the walk home. A meal of sorts, and then the evening before me. ISABEL: Yes, the evenings are bad. What do you do with them? NANCY: What is there to do? I work generally [pointing to the type-­ writer] to add to my income. Sometimes I go to the theatre, with one of the girls in the office. But waiting at the Pit door after a hard days’ work is not exhilarating, is it? Friends? Well! There are the other women at the office, poor and friendless like me. Some of them are pleasant, a few of them are ladies. None of them interest me. One or two of them come occasionally. But most evenings I am alone.38

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Syrett’s interpretation of a common situation was modified for the stage, and possibly mediated by the author’s privileged personal situation. Katharine Lyon Mix, detailing Syrett’s domestic life, reveals that she was in a relatively unusual position: With a freedom unusual for the nineties the five Syrett girls lived in a flat of their own in Ashley Gardens, one keeping house while Kate attended Bedford College, Mabel and Nell studied art (both had pictures in The Yellow Book), and Netta taught in the Polytechnic School for Girls.39

By having Nancy live in Granby Chambers on a salary of eighty pounds a year, Syrett places her character in a living environment beyond her means. Of the twenty-six typists who replied to Hobhouse’s survey, only four lived in a room in chambers, and Hobhouse suggests they almost certainly relied upon private income. ‘None of the sets of chambers (writes one who has long sampled them) are in real touch with the needs of the day, nor such as a woman of real education, experience, spirit and independent character can long endure.’40 Syrett presumably chose this location for her character as more suited to the stage than a smaller bed-sitting room or cubicle, yet still a setting which communicated to the audience the reasons for Nancy’s frustration. The treatment of this urban phenomenon by Syrett displays her interest in the quality of life experienced by a precise group of women, but in trying to fit this to the stage, she produced an awkward mixture of social commentary and society comedy. The Finding of Nancy was far milder than, for example, Diana of Dobson’s, the ‘practical piece of propaganda’ written by Cicely Hamilton in 1908, but nevertheless the themes apparent in Syrett’s play make it a distinct precursor to this work.41 Feminist issues are displaced, however, when a degree of romantic implausibility invades Nancy’s living environment in the opening and closing acts of the play. Her residence is apparently suitable first for Nancy alone, then Nancy and Fielding, then Nancy and Isabel. It is apparent that in attempting to combine an examination of how social intercourse was denied to single, professional women with writing for the stage, Syrett produced a flawed piece of drama. These weaknesses are most pronounced in the central two acts, which include characters familiar to West End audiences—Society matriarchs— and devices to propel action rather than enhance dialogue, technical attempts to make the subject-matter of Syrett’s novels into drama. In Act

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Three of the play, the use of the wrongly addressed telegram to provoke Nancy’s renewed feelings is as awkward as the heroine’s subsequent response: Bedroom door at back of set is flung open when MRS STUART begins to read the telegram. NANCY stands on threshold followed by ISABEL who tries to restrain her. When VIOLET takes telegram, NANCY springs forward and tries to seize it. VIOLET draws back. NANCY: [panting] Where is he? Where? Let me see! Let me go! ISABEL: [frantically] Nancy! Nancy! MRS STUART and VIOLET stand looking at her. At that moment gong sounds. People begin to come towards the house. MRS LLEWELLYN, KITTY, ISMAY, MRS. WINGFIELD and others. VIOLET: [coldly to Nancy] I don’t understand. What right have you? Unless—[she steps back and looks her up and down] NANCY: [wildly] Yes—yes—yes. It’s as you think. I admit it…anything!…Everything! [in supplicating tone] But you will give it to me now? You see I have a right…I must see him.42

In contrast to the measured dialogue of the first act, Syrett forces her character into the familiar, physical stage manifestation of hysteria expected of the disgraced woman, and the awkward juxtaposition of the Riviera acts with those set in London reiterated the structural inadequacies of the play. Critics focused upon faults in structure and characterisation, emphasising the inexperience of Syrett as a dramatist to undermine not only her writing but also her subject-matter. The Athenæum’s patronising dismissal of Syrett’s main character epitomised this process: We accord the heroine a measure of affection while withholding from her our consideration or respect.43

Nancy, as a self-determining female subject, places male characters in a subservient role throughout the play—it is Nancy’s decision to begin the relationship, to travel independently in Europe, to end the relationship and finally to return to her lover. Reviewers never addressed the dominance of the heroine directly, but undermined the verisimilitude of the character: Where Miss Syrett has erred is in sacrificing the dramatic effect of her piece to the study of an individual and peculiar temperament. Doubtless the

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­ riginal of Miss Thistleton did act as does the lady in the play; but fickleness o is a quality fatal to heroism, and a young lady who does not know her own mind, though a suitable enough object for the literary microscope, is ‘impossible’ as the central figure and living motive of a drama.44

The Era’s critic here reveals that his dissatisfaction is largely due to the fact that the key subjects considered in Syrett’s novels are being acted out on stage, the suggestion of an original Nancy—‘the original of Miss Thistleton’ presumably implicating Syrett—attacking both the author and her text. Significantly it was not any formal quality, but the extramarital relationship depicted that made Alexander and Tree reluctant to collaborate with Syrett, and resulted in their decision to play cameo roles, further undermining the subject-matter of the piece: I soon discovered that Alexander and Tree, no doubt regretting a rash offer, resented having to fulfil their promise of putting the chosen play on the stage and themselves acting in it. The latter part of the contract, indeed, was carried out in the letter but not in the spirit, for respectively they took the two smallest men’s parts.45

Syrett expected Alexander and Tree to play Fielding and Egerton respectively, and the choice of C. Aubrey Smith and H. R. Hignett, quite junior members of the St. James’s company, to take on the male leading roles for this single performance is evidence that they used the resources at their disposal to fulfil a professional obligation. By playing comic cameos, the actor-managers undermined Syrett’s text. The Era’s reviewer notes the additional comedy injected into the piece by their appearances: Much amusement was created by the shares in the performance taken by Mr George Alexander and Mr Beerbohm Tree, the former assuming a stutter and wearing a flaxen wig like that donned by the late—and ‘great’—Vance; and the other contenting himself with walking on and off, mysteriously moustached, and saying little.46

Syrett also recollects these disruptive performances: So far as I remember, Tree appeared as a waiter with two words to utter, and Alexander as a foolish young man to whom one sentence was allotted. It was not playing the game certainly, but as nearly all the critics dealt very ­faithfully

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with them on this score, I need not dwell upon behaviour well calculated to wreck the play by making it farcical.47

The author acknowledged their decision to take minor roles as a slight towards both her and the Playgoers’, who aimed to provide ‘a debating-­ ground’ through new dramatic material.48 She also suggested that Alexander was dissuaded from any future performance due to the play’s subject-matter: Months later I heard that he (Alexander) had intended to put the play on for a run of afternoon performances, but at the last moment […] he had been dissuaded, on the grounds that to do so would be to ‘sully the purity of the St. James’s Theatre!’49

However, there is no evidence to support this initial enthusiasm for the piece from Alexander, and the response of critics to the matinée performance had an immediate, detrimental effect upon Syrett’s career as a dramatist.50 As the Athenæum’s reviewer noted, the play was ‘not too successful an appeal to masculine sympathies’ but ‘commended itself warmly to the special audience which the occasion served to attract’.51 Well received by audience members sympathetic to the aims of the original competition, the play was rejected by the journalists and entrepreneurs who could secure it a longer run. Despite the failure of this particular matinée to influence the dramatic material selected by Alexander and Tree, their reluctance to associate themselves and prominent members of their companies too closely with The Finding of Nancy did allow less established actors in the St. James’s company to play leading parts. Lilian Braithwaite asked both Alexander and Syrett for the part of Nancy Thistleton, recognising this matinée as an opportunity to advertise her ability to play a leading role on the West End stage. The central two acts of the play allowed her to appear as an ‘icon of a female in distress’, and also to establish her capability as an actress.52 Braithwaite’s success lay in concentrating upon the heroine as a specific stage type, appeasing audience members otherwise likely to object: The performance was made memorable by the admirable acting of Miss Lilian Braithwaite as Nancy Thistleton. She looked extremely attractive, and endowed the character with just the right amount of nervous accusitiveness and impulsive foolishness. The part suited her exactly, and she made the

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most of it accordingly, her fascinating qualities winning pardon from the male portion of the audience for the irrationality of the personage.53

It can be concluded from reviews that Alexander encouraged Braithwaite to focus upon the growing tension—eventually hysteria—of the character in the central two acts of the play, to suggest that Nancy, gaining through inheritance the material comfort she craved, and using this wealth to live independently, was suffering the same mental anguish at her social transgression that was evident in the behaviour of problem play heroines during the 1890s.54 However, Braithwaite produced a sophisticated performance that also managed to satisfy Syrett. In the one available photograph of Braithwaite in costume, the Biograph Studios photograph published in the Tatler, the actress is shown in what is presumably her travelling outfit as designated for the return to ‘chambers’ in Act Four. This was the defining image of the character at the end of the play, and shows how the actress was able to communicate independence and defiance to the matinée audience, as at least part of her work in the role (Fig. 6.2). Braithwaite is shown in a plain, ankle-length coat and large yet unadorned hat, turned away from the camera and staring ahead, insinuating confidence and defiance, as well as a rejection of theatrical gesture, and certainly not the ‘nervous accusitiveness’ or ‘impulsive foolishness’ suggested by the Era.55 This communicates the independent actions of the character and also, in the anonymity of her wardrobe, Nancy is identified as one of a number of professional women, with none of the exclusivity or vulnerability communicated by couture costume. The Nancy Thistleton of Acts One and Four cannot be defined by changeability and hysterical outbursts, and Syrett’s desire to portray ‘actual, prosaic facts of life’ is made evident.56 The actress does not look beyond the frame of the picture, but turns away, making this an image of independence. Braithwaite’s performance was part of an attempt to position herself firmly within the West End professional sphere. At this point she had only a minor role in Paolo and Francesca, but Alexander then gave her the role of Käthie in Old Heidelberg. She then rejoined the St. James’s company for a further five productions during Alexander’s management.57 As well as bringing Syrett’s protagonist to the stage, Braithwaite succeeded in supplying both producer and audience with a familiar female character and, as interpreter rather than author of the role, she was able to benefit from the production. The Finding of Nancy did, therefore, support part of Alexander’s response to Findon in March 1901, as the actor-manager used

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Fig. 6.2  Lilian Braithwaite in The Tatler, 11 June 1902. ©Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

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the performance to trial a relatively inexperienced actress in a leading role. Predominantly in the case of this production, however, artistic aims were mediated by the drive for profit in what Peter Bailey has described as the ‘regulation of culture and the social environment’,58 a repertoire that would uphold an ordered perception of society in an opulent venue which was complementary to such a perception. While collaboration, cross-­ sector engagement, and attention to emergent drama all underpinned the aura of autonomy and fraternal networking most often associated with the last generation of actor-managers, the example of The Finding of Nancy represents the essential conservatism embedded in the acquisition and maintenance of the role. As a West End actor-manager Alexander promoted dominant cultural practices on and beyond the stage.

The Residual Functions of the Actor-manager System In 1901, Alexander provided an assessment of his first decade in management, telling Archer in Real Conversations: I have succeeded partly because I have been my own master but mainly because I have loved my art, not acting only but management, and have worked at it conscientiously, untiringly.59

Alexander’s words emphasise absolute authority and autonomy. Yet the realities of the theatrical marketplace were such that the diligent application of one individual could not guarantee successful commercial management. Theatrical speculation was, and is, a consistently uncertain field, relying as it must upon collaboration between investors and employees to produce and market a product, and the presence of consumers to achieve profit. However, there was an obvious advantage to Alexander in describing his career as one of consistent commercial and artistic success. When in 1909 he was interviewed for the most thorough professional biography compiled during his lifetime, Parts I Have Played, he was staging a long-­ running revival of The Importance of Being Earnest. At such a prosperous time, a review of his management united a diverse repertoire under the heading of new work: Although I commenced with adaptations of French plays, it was from the outset—as it has always been—my desire and my very great interest to pro-

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duce new plays by new men, and especially new Englishmen, at the St. James’s Theatre.60

The ‘Memoir’ published in the Stage at the time of his death maintained the same impression of an autonomous, stable, decisively masculine form of management which contributed to the progressive gentrification of the West End: George Alexander was one of that long and almost continuous line of actor-­ managers, from Garrick downwards, who have sought—and sought successfully—by personal worth and ability to make the stage stand well and honourably with the public.61

The idea promoted here is of conspicuous evolution, that Alexander had a socially respectable and commercially profitable career which added to the prestige of the theatre industry. Yet as this study has demonstrated, collaborative practice and responsiveness to a range of industry-specific and wider factors in fact informed and influenced the work of Alexander, although this reality was subsumed within the persona and prominence of one individual who promoted the idea of autonomy and longevity as characteristic of managerial practice. The term actor-manager is still applied to prominent, male actors who have some form of administrative role in relation to a production, or productions, in which they appear. Work as a season director or artistic director by figures including Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh have prompted the application of the term to their careers, but as business practices and altering professional standards made the actor-manager role impossible, authority was conferred not by taking on, but by recalling traits historically associated with the role. So, for example, when considering the season of plays staged by Branagh at the Garrick Theatre (2015–2016), Guardian critic Michael Billington writes under the title ‘Kenneth Branagh: can he succeed where Olivier failed?’ that ‘Branagh will know as well as anyone that, by setting up his own company to present a five-play West End season at the Garrick starting with The Winter’s Tale, he is inviting comparison with the great actor-managers of the past’.62 Comparing the potential of the Branagh season to the limited commercial success of Laurence Olivier Productions (established in 1947), Billington concludes that in fact neither of these theatre makers can truly be compared to the actor-manager and ‘that the only real hope for the survival of

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high-quality drama in the West End lies in seasons spearheaded by a big-­ name director or actor. There is an even greater truth behind that: that commercial theatre has to be run on the same lines as the subsidised sector. That means cheap tickets and the work being transmitted live to a mass audience’.63 Billington is keen to argue that spoken word drama will only survive in the West End through the influence of two resources unavailable to Alexander: subsidised theatre and broadcast technology. So why is the figure of the actor-manager introduced at all, to review the career of Branagh in the first decades of the twenty-first century? It is a characteristic deployment of the term, inspired by the perceived autonomy of historical industry leaders, and used to denote the exceptional prestige and prominence of the subject, even though in practice the Garrick season was quite different to the work of Alexander and his contemporaries, not least of all in its strictly limited duration in the West End. Drawing on assumed cultural memory of the actor-manager figure, the term is employed to promote the idea of exceptional authority, and simple parallels cannot be drawn: there is no actual return to the actor-­manager model. However, using the term in an era where production companies with a global reach own most West End venues, and the long-­running production is measured in decades, is significant. It has become one way to define and to market a specific kind of mainstream product—the limited season, spoken word drama—for the largely tourist audience entering the West End realm. Theatre heritage is evoked to present an initiative like the Branagh season as a distinct and attractive offering in an arena where, as Susan Bennett has summarised, ‘a consumer may be far away from home or relatively nearby, traveling for leisure or for business, motivated to travel primarily by the availability of cultural products or by something entirely different. Similarly, the range of commodities staged for tourist consumption must be understood as necessarily broad and multi form.’64 The term ‘actor-manager’ is seen to have residual traces of both professional authority and cultural capital ascribed to it, and these traces are employed to authorise theatre work still today; most often, the theatre work of white, male, celebrity actors. It is notable that as incoming artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe in 2018 Michelle Terry took the leading role in a production of Hamlet, and linked her new position to the historical role of actor-manager. Reporting on the appointment, Georgia Snow wrote in the Stage: ‘Terry has already confirmed that she will not direct as part of her position but will hold the role of an actor-manager.’65 However, it is significant that Terry’s adoption of the term, at a venue actively

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promoting the role of the first Globe in establishing a London-based theatre industry (and by extension the actor-manager system), has rarely been advertised, making this coverage by Snow unusual. Some press reports even work to undermine the authority of Terry in post, exemplified by a Guardian headline divorcing the artistic director from her own work: ‘Shakespeare’s Globe casts its own artistic director as Hamlet’.66 This is evidence of a sustained, reactionary attitude in the way the term actor-­ manager is most often understood and applied; to describe the work of prominent white male industry leaders. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that in the first decades of the twenty-first century the idea of the actor-manager is being reclaimed for new entrants to the profession. The actual practices found in the work of Alexander and examined here, notably a drive for autonomy alongside attention to the processes of collaboration, and awareness of resources found across the cultural industries that can be used to support the individual theatre professional, are prized in initiatives such as the course run by Kim Shively at Elon University, where the actor-manager model has been recuperated, to be employed by those training for a career in theatre, to combat a ‘fallacy of destiny, independence and discovery’.67 Early career actors are encouraged to attend to skills development beyond performance practice, in for example the fields of production, writing and editing, to generate and sustain work as theatre industry professionals. Shively promotes the usefulness of the actor-manager figure in conservatoire training, where practical technique is only part of what the student is asked to consider: ‘Ultimately the actor-manager has a parallel career that feeds his art and the art feeds the parallel career.’68 Attention to the idea of the actor-manager in some conservatoire training will not lead to the reinstatement of the actor-manager, of course. When the primary model in the commercial realm is the multi-sector production company, the measure of control experienced by an individual within the theatrical mainstream cannot resemble that experienced by George Alexander. However, if theatre makers at the beginning of their professional lives can use the actor-manager model as a starting point for the development of skills that can be translated into professional authority as well as creative output, that model might usefully contribute to theatre making in and beyond the West End realm, and far into the future.

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Notes 1. Kaplan and Stowell (1994). 2. Kaplan and Stowell (1994), Throsby (2008). 3. Kennedy (1891, 273). 4. The Independent Theatre Society was founded by J. T. Grein in 1891, and in 1899 this was re-formed as the Stage Society. 5. Davis (2004, 46). 6. For example, the new approaches to staging by William Poel and Edward Gordon Craig, and the subscription societies, such as the Stage Society, set up to perform works that would not be approved by the censor. 7. Robins’s professional relationships with West End managers are described in more detail in Chap. 5. She left Alexander’s production of Dr. Bill at the Avenue Theatre in 1890, and this experience is described, in detail, in Robins (1940, 270–272). 8. The significance of this production, and Robins’s approach to her role, has been assessed by Joanne E. Gates (1985) and Thomas Postlewait (1986). 9. Hare is quoted in Raby (2004, 186). 10. Anon. (1890). The New Manager at the ‘Avenue’. Alexander was under contract to the Gattis, so at this point he was producing Fred Terry in Dr. Bill at the Avenue. 11. Letter from George Alexander to Pearl Craigie, 27 January 1902 (University of Rochester, D12: Craigie Papers). 12. Kennedy (1891, 273). 13. Kennedy (1996, 146). 14. Grein (1902, 209). 15. Ervine to Nigel Playfair, 9 December 1924, reproduced in Playfair (1925, 58–59). The play was first produced at the Abbey, Dublin on 30 November 1915, and subsequently by Playfair at the Lyric on 20 February 1920. 16. Fineman (1989, 57). 17. See details in Appendix. 18. Letter from Alexander to George Bernard Shaw (Alexander n.d.). 19. Quoted in Donohue (2004, 18). 20. I am referring here to Frohman’s production of Misalliance in February 1910, in his Duke of York’s repertory season, and Tree’s production of Pygmalion at Her Majesty’s in April 1914. 21. See particularly Kennedy (1996). 22. The 1907 Savoy season was a commercial failure, as was Frohman’s attempt to stage a progressive repertory, including plays by dramatists including Shaw and Galsworthy. The season was cancelled, prematurely, when the Duke of York’s Theatre was closed at the death of Edward VII, in May 1910.

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23. Alexander in Archer (1904, 208). 24. The initial production was Gerhart Hauptmann’s Hannele, translated by William Archer and first produced by the Play-Actors’ Society in April 1909. 25. Anon. (1901a), Era. 26. Presidents and vice-presidents between 1884 and 1902 included Jerome K.  Jerome, J.T.  Grein, Edward Rose, Max Beerbohm and A.B.  Walkley. Quote is taken from Findon (1905, 3). 27. Findon (1905, 56). 28. Ibid. 57. 29. Netta Syrett (17 March 1865 to 15 December 1943). Syrett was born in Landsgate, Kent. She had four sisters and one brother. After gaining a teaching certificate she taught for two years in Swansea before moving to London with her sisters, to teach at London Polytechnic School for Girls, where she met Mabel Beardsley, and it was through Beardsley that her association with The Yellow Book developed. Her novels published before The Finding of Nancy was staged, Nobody’s Fault (John Lane, 1896) and The Tree of Life (John Lane, 1897), were successful enough to enable her to leave teaching to pursue a literary career. 30. Symons (1902). 31. Arthur Wing Pinero quoted in Anon. (1901b). Mr. Pinero on Playwriting. 32. Tedford Jones (1999). 33. Ardis (1999, 243). 34. Anon. (1902a), Era. 35. Syrett (1939, 120). 36. Emily Hobhouse (9 April 1860 to 8 June 1926). Hobhouse was born and raised in St. Ives, Cornwall. On the death of her father in 1895 she became involved in social work and political reform, as an active member of the Adult Suffrage Society. As a member of the radical wing of the Liberal Party she was opposed to the Boer War and campaigned to help women and children affected by the conflict, work which began shortly after publication of this article. 37. Hobhouse (1900, 474). 38. Syrett (1902, Act 1). 39. Quoted in Tedford Jones (1999). 40. Hobhouse (1900, 477). 41. Lena Ashwell quoted in Stowell (1992, 177). 42. Syrett (1902, Act III). 43. Anon. (1902b), Dramatic Gossip. 44. Anon. (1902a), Era. 45. Syrett (1939, 118). 46. Anon. (1902a), Era. 47. Syrett (1939, 118).

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48. Findon (1905, 3). 49. Syrett (1939, 125). 50. Syrett had three plays staged after The Finding of Nancy. White Magic, a Christmas matinée for children at the St. James’s Theatre on 10 January 1905; The Younger Generation, a one-act play performed before Henry Arthur Jones’s The Heroic Stubbs at Terry’s Theatre, 3–26 February 1906; and Might is Right, a one-act play performed before Rudolf Besier’s Don at the Haymarket, 13–27 November 1909. 51. Anon. (1902b), Dramatic Gossip. 52. Donohue (1992), 127. 53. Anon. (1902a), Era. 54. Although it was agreed that Findon would direct the play, Syrett suggests that Alexander became solely responsible for stage direction, presumably to maintain as much control as possible over the play enacted on his stage: ‘It was an experience, though not a pleasant one, to see the play rehearsed; and Alexander was such a good producer that I am glad to have watched him at work. He never lost his temper. There was no shouting, fussing, or fuming, for though his manner to me was far from encouraging, he was invariably quiet and courteous in his dealings with the actors and actresses.’ Syrett (1939, 120). 55. Anon. (1902a), Era. 56. Ardis (1999, 243). 57. As Princess Eleanor in The Garden of Lies (1904); Lady Windermere in Lady Windermere’s Fan (1904, 1911); Rosalind in As You Like It (1906); Isabel Leyton in The Thief (1907). 58. Bailey (1998, 6). 59. Alexander in Archer (1904, 215). 60. Anon. (1909), Parts I have Played. 61. Anon. (1918), George Alexander. 62. Billington (2015). 63. Ibid. 64. Bennett (2005, 411). 65. Snow (2018). 66. Brown (2018). 67. Shively (2018). 68. Ibid.

References Alexander, George. n.d. Letter to George Bernard Shaw. British Library, Mss Shaw Papers, Series 1, 50528.15. Anon. 1890. The New Manager at the ‘Avenue’. Pall Mall Gazette, 1 February.

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———. 1901a. Era, 16 March. ———. 1901b. Mr. Pinero on Playwriting. Era, 23 March. ———. 1902a. Era, 10 May. ———. 1902b. Dramatic Gossip. Athenæum, 17 May. ———. 1909. Parts I have Played: A Photographic and Descriptive Biography of Mr. George Alexander. London: The Abbey Press. ———. 1918. George Alexander: A Memoir. Stage, 21 March. Archer, William. 1904. Real Conversations. London: William Heinemann. Ardis, Ann. 1999. Netta Syrett’s Aestheticisation of Everyday Life. In Women and British Aestheticism, ed. T. Schaffer and K. Psomiades, 233–250. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Bailey, Peter. 1998. Theatres of Entertainment/Spaces of Modernity: Rethinking the British Popular Stage 1890–1914. Nineteenth Century Theatre 26: 5–24. Bennett, Susan. 2005. Theatre/Tourism. Theatre Journal 57 (3): 407–428. Billington, Michael. 2015. Kenneth Branagh: Can He Succeed Where Olivier Failed? Guardian, 8 October. Brown, Mark. 2018. Shakespeare’s Globe Casts its Own Artistic Director as Hamlet. Guardian, 11 April. Davis, Tracy C. 2004. The Show Business Economy, and its Discontents. In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, ed. Kerry Powell, 36–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Donohue, Joseph. 1992. Women in the Victorian Theatre: Images, Illusions, Realities. In Gender in Performance: The Presentation of Difference in the Performing Arts, ed. Laurence Senelick, 117–140. Hanover, NH: Tufts University. ———. 2004. Actors and Acting. In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, ed. Kerry Powell, 17–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Findon, B.W. 1905. The Playgoers’ Club 1884 to 1905: Its History and Memories. London: Playgoers’ Club. Fineman, Joel. 1989. A History of the Anecdote: Fiction and Fiction. In The New Historicism, ed. H. Aram Veeser, 49–76. New York: Routledge. Gates, Joanne E. 1985. Elizabeth Robins and the 1891 Production of Hedda Gabler. Modern Drama 28: 611–619. Grein, J.T. 1902. Dramatic Criticism, 1900–1901. London: Greening. Hobhouse, Emily. 1900. Women Workers: How They Live: How They Wish to Live. Nineteenth Century 47: 471–484. Kaplan, Joel H., and Sheila Stowell. 1994. Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, H.A. 1891. The Drama of the Moment. Nineteenth Century 30: 258–274.

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Kennedy, Dennis. 1996. The New Drama and the New Audience. In The Edwardian Theatre, ed. Michael R.  Booth and Joel H.  Kaplan, 130–147. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Playfair, Nigel. 1925. The Story of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. London: Chatto and Windus. Postlewait, Thomas. 1986. Prophet of the New Drama, William Archer and the Ibsen Campaign. Contributions to Drama and Theatre Studies 20: 64–81. Raby, Peter. 2004. Theatre of the 1890s. In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, ed. Kerry Powell, 183–206. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robins, Elizabeth. 1940. Both Sides of the Curtain. London: William Heinemann. Shively, Kim. 2018. Quotations are taken from materials disseminated at the session ‘Resurrecting and Revolutionizing the Actor-Manager’ at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Annual Conference, Boston MA, 1 August. Snow, Georgia. 2018. Michelle Terry to Play Hamlet in Gender-Blind Inaugural Season at Shakespeare’s Globe. The Stage, 11 April. Stowell, Sheila. 1992. Drama as Trade: Cicely Hamilton’s Diana of Dobson’s. In The New Woman and Her Sisters: Feminism and Theatre, 1850–1914, ed. Viv Gardner and Susan Rutherford, 177–188. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Symons, Arthur. 1902. Drama: Professional and Unprofessional. Academy, 17 May. Syrett, Netta. 1902. The Finding of Nancy. British Library, Lord Chamberlain’s Plays, LC1902/14. ———. 1939. The Sheltering Tree. London: Geoffrey Bles. Tedford Jones, Jill. 1999. Netta Syrett. In Dictionary of Literary Biography: Volume 197, Late-Victorian and Edwardian British Novelists, 2nd series, ed. G.M. Johnson, 277. Detroit: Gale Research. Throsby, David. 2008. The Concentric Circles Model of the Cultural Industries. Cultural Trends 17 (3): 147–164. University of Rochester. Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation. D12: Craigie Papers.

 Appendix: Productions at the St. James’s Theatre, 1891–1918

Productions staged by George Alexander at the St. James’s Theatre:1 Sunlight and Shadow Three Acts by R. C. Carton First production Opened at the Avenue 1 November 1890, transferred to the St. James’s Theatre, 29 January 1890 until 21 February 1891 111 performances, with Saturday matinées This play was accompanied by: The Gay Lothario One-Act Comedy by Alfred C. Calmour First production 31 January to 21 February 1891; 16 March to 15 May 1891 The Idler Four Acts by C. Haddon Chambers 26 February to 17 July 1891; 30 September to 4 November 1891 173 performances, with Saturday matinées Accompanied for part of the run by: The Gay Lothario 16 March to 15 May 1891 71 performances in total

© The Author(s) 2020 L. Sutherland, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7

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APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

The Gay Lothario was replaced by: Molière A Comic Drama in One Act by Walter Frith First production 17 July, then 30 September to 10 October 1891 11 performances Lord Anerley Four Acts by Mark Quinton & Henry Hamilton First production 11 November to 23 December 1891 45 performances with Saturday matinée Forgiveness A Comedy in Four Acts by J. Comyns Carr First production 30 December 1891 to 10 February 1892 41 performances with Saturday matinée Lady Windermere’s Fan Four Acts by Oscar Wilde First production 20 February to 29 July 1892; 31 October to 30 November 1892 197 performances with Saturday matinée This was accompanied by: Midsummer Day One Act by Walter Frith First production 30 March to 29 July 1892; 28 to 30 November 1892 116 performances Alternatively by: Kit Marlowe One Act by W. L. Courtney 31 October to 26 November 1892 26 performances Liberty Hall A Comedy in Four Acts by R. C. Carton First production

  APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918 

263

3 December 1892 to 20 May 1893 182 performances with Saturday matinée The Second Mrs Tanqueray Four Acts by Arthur Wing Pinero First production 27 May to 28 July 1893; 11 November 1893 to 21 April 1894 223 performances with Saturday matinée The Masqueraders Four Acts by Henry Arthur Jones First production 28 April to 30 July 1894; 10 November to 22 December 1894 139 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées for the first part of the run Guy Domville Three Acts by Henry James First production 5 January to 5 February 1895 32 performances with Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: Too Happy By Half A Comedy in One Act by Julian Field First production 5 January to 5 February 1895 The Importance of Being Earnest A Trivial Comedy for Serious People in Three Acts by Oscar Wilde First production 14 February to 8 May 1895 83 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: In The Season One Act by Langdon Elwyn Mitchell 14 February to 8 May 1895 68 performances

264 

APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

The Triumph of the Philistines A Comedy in Three Acts by Henry Arthur Jones First production 11 May to 19 June 1895 39 performances with Saturday matinée This was accompanied by: Too Happy By Half From 25 May to 19 June 1895 45 performances in total The Second Mrs Tanqueray 20 June to 3 July 1895 13 performances with a Saturday matinée The Idler Four Acts by C. Haddon Chambers 4 to 10 July 1895 6 performances Liberty Hall 7 to 21 November 1895 16 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Divided Way Three Acts by Henry V. Esmond First produced by Alexander on tour, 31 October 1895 Ran at the St. James’s from 23 November to 14 December 1895 20 performances with Saturday matinée This was accompanied by: The Misogynist One Act by George William Godfrey First produced by Alexander on tour as The Woman Hater at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, 25 October 1895 Ran at the St. James’s 23 November to 14 December 1895 20 performances with Saturday matinée The Prisoner of Zenda A Romantic Play in a Prologue and Four Acts by Edward Rose First production

  APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918 

7 January to 18 July 1896; 20 October to 18 November 1896 255 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées As You Like It A Comedy in Five Acts by William Shakespeare 2 December 1896 to 20 March 1897 115 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Princess and the Butterfly A Comedy in Five Acts by Arthur Wing Pinero First production 29 March to 30 June 1897 97 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Prisoner of Zenda 7 to 12 July 1897 9 performances with a Saturday matinée The Tree of Knowledge Five Acts by R. C. Carton First production 25 October 1897 to 9 February 1898 114 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Much Ado About Nothing A Comedy in Five Acts by William Shakespeare 16 February to 9 April 1898 52 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Conquerors A Drama in Four Acts by Paul M. Potter First production 14 April to 28 May 1898 48 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Ambassador A Comedy in Four Acts by John Oliver Hobbes (Pearl Craigie) First production 2 June to 22 July 1898 56 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées

265

266 

APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

The Ambassador 9 January to 21 April 1899 104 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: A Repentance A Drama in One Act by John Oliver Hobbes First performance 28 February to 15 April 1899 35 performances In Days of Old A Romantic Drama in Four Acts by Edward Rose First performance 26 April to 23 June 1899 60 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Rupert of Hentzau The Sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda in Four Acts by Anthony Hope First performed by Alexander on tour at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 5 October 1899 1 February to 4 April 1900 48 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Running concurrently with Rupert of Hentzau: The Prisoner of Zenda 7 February to 17 March 1900 11 Wednesday and Saturday matinée performances The Man of Forty A Modern Play in Four Acts by Walter Frith 28 March to 6 July 1900 (First performed at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, 27 October 1898) 102 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées A Debt of Honour Five Acts by Sydney Grundy First production 1 September to 17 November 1900 85 Performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées

  APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918 

267

The Wisdom of the Wise A Comedy in Three Acts by John Oliver Hobbes First production 22 November 1900 to 12 January 1901 52 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: The Plot of His Story One Act by Mrs. Oscar Beringer 22 November to 12 January 1901 (First performed at the Garrick, 15 December 1899) 41 performances The Awakening Four Acts by C. Haddon Chambers First production 6 February to 1 April 1901 59 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Wilderness A Comedy in Three Acts by H. V. Esmond First production 11 April to 11 July 1901 106 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées On the last night of this run also staged: Old Crimea or, The Fortune of War One Act by Cosmo Hamilton Liberty Hall 26 December 1901 to 29 January 1902 16 matinée performances These matinées ran concurrently with: The Wilderness 26 December 1901 to 4 January 1902 9 evening performances The Importance of Being Earnest 7 January to 20 February 1902 55 performances with irregular matinées

268 

APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

This was accompanied by: A Patched-Up Affair One Act by Florence Warden 46 performances between 7 January and 20 February 1902 Paolo and Francesca A Tragedy in Four Acts by Stephen Phillips First production 6 March to 5 July 1902 134 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées If I Were King A Romantic Play in Four Acts by Justin Huntly McCarthy (Dramatisation of his 1901 novel) First production 30 August 1902 to 13 March 1903 213 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Old Heidelberg A Comedy in Five Acts by Rudolf Bleichmann (an adaptation of Wilhelm MeyerForster’s Alt Heidelberg, 1898). First production 19 March to 17 July 1903; 25 January to 9 April 1904 203 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Love’s Carnival Five Acts by Rudolf Bleichmann (an adaptation of Otto Erich Hertleben’s play Rosenmontag, 1900) 17 to 21 March 1904 (first performed by Alexander’s company at the Lyceum, Edinburgh, 12 November 1903) 5 performances Saturday to Monday An Irresponsible Comedy in Three Acts by Frederick Fenn & Richard Pryce First performance 14 April to 15 July 1904 99 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: ‘Op-‘O-Me-Thumb One Act by Frederick Fenn & Richard Pryce

  APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918 

269

23 April to 15 July 1904 (first performed at the Court Theatre, 13 March 1904) 89 performances The Garden of Lies A Romance in Four Acts by Sydney Grundy (an adaptation of the novel by Justus Miles Forman) First production 3 September to 17 November 1904 85 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: The Decree Nisi One Act by Joshua Bates First production 18 October 1904 to 26 January 1905 Lady Windermere’s Fan 19 November 1904 to 11 February 1905 93 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by a continuation of: The Decree Nisi to 26 January 1905 100 performances in total This one-act play was then replaced by: A Maker of Men From 27 January 1905 One Act by Alfred Sutro First production Mollentrave on Women A Comedy in Three Acts by Alfred Sutro First production 13 February to 15 April 1905 65 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées, Saturday matinées only 11 March to 15 April. This was accompanied by A Maker of Men to 15 April 1905 84 performances in total

270 

APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

This one-act play was replaced by: How He Lied to Her Husband One Act by Bernard Shaw 21 March to 3 April 1905 (first performed at the Berkeley Lyceum, New York, 26 September 1904, opened at the Court Theatre, London 28 February 1905 then transferred to the St. James’s with the Court cast) 24 performances John Chilcote, M.P. Four Acts by E.  Temple Thurston (an adaptation of Katharine Cecil Thurston’s novel) First production 1 May to 9 June 1905 45 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Man of the Moment Four Acts by Harry Mevill (an adaptation of Alfred Capus & Emmanuel Arène’s play, L’Adversaire, 1903) First production 13 June to 14 July 1905 32 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées His House in Order A Comedy in Four Acts by Arthur Wing Pinero First production 1 February 1906 to 27 February 1907 428 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées John Glayde’s Honour Four Acts by Alfred Sutro First production 8 March to 12 July 1907 138 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Thief Three Acts by Cosmo Gordon Lennox (adaptation of Henry Bernstein’s, Le Voleur, 1906) First production 12 November 1907 to 5 May 1908 186 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées

  APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918 

271

The Thunderbolt An Episode in the History of a Provincial Family in Four Acts by Arthur Wing Pinero First production 9 May to 8 July 1908 58 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Builder of Bridges Four Acts by Alfred Sutro First production 11 November 1908 to 12 February 1909 96 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Prisoner of Zenda 18 February to 17 April 1909 59 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Colonel Smith A Light Comedy in Four Acts by A.E.W. Mason First production 23 April to 7 May 1909 15 performances with Wednesday matinées This was accompanied by: The Nursery Governess One Act by P.G. Duchesne (an adaptation of Michel Provins, La Gouvernante) 29 April to 7 May 1909 (first performed at the Theatre Royal, Kennington, 26 October 1908) 9 performances with a Wednesday matinée The Thief 8 to 21 May 1909 14 performances with Wednesday matinée Old Heidelberg 24 May to 9 July 1909 51 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Mid-Channel Four Acts by Arthur Wing Pinero First production 2 September to 29 October 1909 58 performances with Saturday matinées

272 

APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

Lorrimer Sabiston, Dramatist Three Acts by R.C. Carton First production 9 to 27 November 1909 20 performances with Saturday matinées The Importance of Being Earnest 30 November 1909 to 23 September 1910 316 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: The Nursery Governess 30 November to 22 December 1909 26 performances Then: A Maker of Men 23 December 1909 to 23 September 1910 291 performances D’Arcy of the Guards A Comedy in Four Acts by Louis Evan Shipman First production 27 September to 12 November 1910 48 performances with Saturday matinée Eccentric Lord Comberdene A Novelette in Three Chapters by R.C. Carton First production 19 November 1910 to 21 January 1911 60 performances with Saturday matinée The Witness for the Defence Four Acts by A. E. W. Mason First production 1 February to 24 June 1911 151 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Ogre Three Acts by Henry Arthur Jones First production 11 September to 13 October 1911 37 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées

  APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918 

273

This was accompanied by: The Miniature One Act by Walter Frith First production 22 September to 1 December 1911 79 performances in total Lady Windermere’s Fan 14 October to 1 December 1911 54 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: The Miniature One Act by Walter Frith 14 October to 1 December 1911 79 performances in total Bella Donna Five Acts by James Bernard Fagan (adaptation of Robert Hichens’ novel of the same name, published in 1909) First production 9 December 1911 to 1 August 1912 254 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Turning Point Three Acts by Peter le Marchant (adaptation of Henry Kistemaeckers’s Play La Flambée) First production 1 October 1912 to 10 January 1913 111 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Turandot, Princess of China A Chinoiserie in Prose and Verse in Three Acts by Karl Vollmoeller (English version by Jethro Bithell; music by Ferruccio Busoni) First production of this version 18 January to 14 February 1913 27 performances with Saturday matinées The Importance of Being Earnest 15 February to 17 March 1913 21 performances

274 

APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

Open Windows Three Acts by A. E. W. Mason First production 11 March to 31 May 1913 88 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: Playgoers A Dramatic Episode in One Act by Arthur Pinero First production 31 March to 31 May 1913 70 performances The Second Mrs Tanqueray 4 June to 8 August 1913 52 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Attack Three Acts by George Egerton (Mrs Golding Bright), (adapted from Henry Bernstein, L’Assaut, 1912) First production, first performed by Alexander’s company at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, 19 November 1913 1 January to 28 February 1914 64 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Two Virtues A Comedy in Three Acts by Alfred Sutro First production 5 March to 8 May 1914 67 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This was accompanied by: A Social Success One Act by Max Beerbohm (first performed at the Palace Theatre, 27 January 1913, with Alexander as Tommy Dixon) 18 March to 8 May 1914 53 performances An Ideal Husband Four Acts by Oscar Wilde (first produced by Tree at the Haymarket, 3 January 1895) 14 May to 24 July 1914 77 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées

  APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918 

275

Those Who Sit in Judgement Four Acts by Michael Orme (Alix Augusta Grein) First production 19 September to 10 October 1914 21 performances with 3 matinées during the run His House in Order 15 October to 19 December 1914 73 performances, Tuesday to Saturday evenings with Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinées Kings and Queens Three Acts by Rudolf Besier First production 16 January to 27 March 1915 80 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Panorama of Youth A Comedy of Age in Four Acts by J. Hartley Manners First production (first performed by Alexander’s company at the Theatre Royal, Bournemouth, 5 April 1915) 14 April to 8 May 1915 28 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Day Before the Day A Drama in Four Acts by Chester Bailey Fernald First production 19 May to 4 June 1915 18 performances The Big Drum A Comedy in Four Acts by Arthur Wing Pinero First production 1 September to 4 December 1915 111 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées from 8 September to 18 September, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinées from 22 September to 6 November; then weekday matinées with only one evening performance on Saturdays to the end of the run.

276 

APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

The Basker A Comedy in Four Acts by Mrs. Clifford Mills First production 6 January to 19 April 1916 112 performances with Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinées to 5 February, then weekdays matinées with Saturday evening performance for the rest of the run. Pen A Comedy in Three Acts by Horace Annesley Vachell (A dramatisation of Morley Roberts’s novel Lady Penelope, 1905) First production 3 May to 13 May 1916 16 performances weekday matinées with evening performances on Thursdays and Saturdays only Bella Donna 31 May to 15 July 1916 53 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Aristocrat Three Acts by Louis N. Parker First production 25 January to 2 June 1917 150 performances with Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinées to 12 May; Wednesday and Saturday matinées for the rest of the run. Sheila A Comedy in Three Acts by Katherine Githa Sowerby First production 7 to 23 June 1917 19 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées Productions by sub-lessees at the St. James’s Theatre: WILLIAM ELLIOTT’S SEASON Bogey 3 Acts by Henry V. Esmond First production 10 September to 21 September 1895 12 performances with a Saturday matinée

  APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918 

277

THE KENDALS’ SEASON The Elder Miss Blossom A Comedy in 3 Acts by Ernest Hendrie and Metcalfe Wood 22 September to 23 December 1898 (First performed at the Grand, Blackpool, 10 September 1897) 102 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées from 12 October THE KENDALS’ SEASON The Elder Miss Blossom 16 September to 26 October 1901 46 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées from 2 October The Likeness of the Night 4 Acts by Mrs. W. K. Clifford 28 October to 21 December 1901 (First performed at the Court Theatre, Liverpool, 18 October 1900) 63 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées E. S. WILLARD’S SEASON The Cardinal 4 Acts by Louis N. Parker 31 August to 5 December 1903 (first performed at the Theatre Royal, Montreal, 21 November 1901) 106 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées This ran concurrently with: Tom Pinch A Comic Drama in 3 acts by Joseph Dilley and Lewis Clifton (a dramatisation of Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit, this version first performed at the Vaudeville Theatre on 10 March 1881) 5 matinée performances between 5 and 23 September 1903 Willard followed the preceding two productions with: The Professor’s Love Story A Comedy in 3 acts by J. M. Barrie 7 December 1903 to 23 January 1904 (first performed at the Comedy Theatre, 25 June 1894) 51 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées

278 

APPENDIX: PRODUCTIONS AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE, 1891–1918

THE KENDALS’ SEASON Dick Hope 3 Acts by Ernest Hendrie 16 September to 11 November 1905 (first production at Theatre Royal, Manchester, 20 November 1903) 26 performances with Saturday matinées The Housekeeper A Farce in 3 acts by Metcalfe Wood and Beatrice Heron-Maxwell 12 October to 1 December 1905 (first performed at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, Birmingham, 29 November 1904) 51 performances with Saturday matinées WILLIAM MOLLISON AND LILIAN BRAITHWAITE’S SEASON Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush 4 acts, by Augustus Thomas and James MacArthur 27 December 1905 to 13 January 1906 (first performed at the Shakespeare Theatre, Liverpool, 3 April 1905) 22 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées As You Like It 5 acts, by William Shakespeare 15 to 27 January 1906 (with matinée performances on 9 and 11 January) 19 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées EDWARD COMPTON’S SEASON The Eighteenth Century A Fantastic Play in 3 Acts by Edward J. Malyon and C. James First production 29 July to 13 September 1907 47 performances with Wednesday matinées

The School For Scandal A Comedy in 5 Acts by Richard Brinsley Sheridan 11 September to 19 October 1907 36 performances with Wednesday matinées

  Appendix: Productions at the St. James’s Theatre, 1891–1918 

279

JOHNSTON FORBES-ROBERTSON’S SEASON The Passing of the Third Floor Back An Idle Fancy in a Prologue, a Play, and an Epilogue,   by Jerome K. Jerome 1 September to 7 November 1908 (first performed at the Opera House, Harrogate on 13 August 1908) 186 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées FRANK BENSON’S SEASON (SEASONAL MATINÉES) The Piper (of Hamelin) 4 Acts by Josephine Preston 21 December 1910 to 28 January 1911 33 matinée performances LILLAH McCARTHY AND HARLEY GRANVILLE-­BARKER’S SEASON Androcles and the Lion A Fable Play in a Prologue and 4 Acts by Bernard Shaw 1 September to 25 October 1913 First performance of this version 63 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Harlequinade 5 Acts by Dion Clayton Calthrop and Harley Granville-Barker, music by Morton Stephenson 1 September to 25 October 1913 First production 63 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées The Witch 4 Acts by H. Wiers-Jenssen (English version by John Masefield) 29 October to 23 December 1913, transferred to the Savoy on 3 January 1914 (first performed at the Royalty, Glasgow, 10 October 1910) 44 Performances, with Wednesday and Saturday matinées in November The Wild Duck 5 Acts, by Henrik Ibsen (translated by William Archer, first performed in this translation at the Royalty, 4 May 1894) 5 performances at the St. James’s between 1 and 27 December 1913, transferred to the Savoy 6 January 1914.

280 

Appendix: Productions at the St. James’s Theatre, 1891–1918

Le Mariage Forcé An adaptation from Molière 4 performances from 2 to 10 December 1913, transferred to the Savoy 31 December 1913 The Tragedy of Nan 3 Acts by John Masefield 4 performances from 2 to 10 December 1913, transferred to the Savoy 31 December 1913 (First performed at the Royalty, 24 May 1908) The Doctor’s Dilemma 4 Acts and an Epilogue by Bernard Shaw 9 performances from 6 to 27 December 1913, transferred to the Savoy 29 December 1913 (First performed at the Court, 20 November 1906) The Silver Box 3 Acts by John Galsworthy 4 performances from 17 to 22 December 1913, transferred to the Savoy 30 December 1913 (First performed Court, 25 September 1906) The Death of Tintageles 5 scenes by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Alfred Sutro 4 performances 17 to 22 December, transferred to the Savoy 30 December 1913 (First performed at the Globe, 29 April 1900) MATHESON LANG’S SEASON The Merchant of Venice 6 to 31 December 1915, then production transferred to the Strand, 1 January to 11 March 1916 9 performances Twice daily on Thursday, then Saturday evenings only EDWIN T. HEYS’ SEASON Lucky Jim A Farcical Comedy in 3 Acts by ‘Henry Seton’ (Vera Beringer) 19 October to 9 December 1916 60 performances with Saturday matinées Maudie White—Minnie Koski

  Appendix: Productions at the St. James’s Theatre, 1891–1918 

281

Charley’s Aunt A Farcical Comedy in 3 Acts by Brandon Thomas 14 December 1916 to 20 January 1917 64 performances, twice daily Monday to Saturday PERCY HUTCHINSON AND HERBERT JAY’S SEASON The Pacifists 3 acts by Henry Arthur Jones 4 to 15 September 1917 12 performances with a Wednesday and a Saturday matinée (first performed at the Opera House, Southport, 27 August 1917) The Liars A Comedy in 4 acts by Henry Arthur Jones 29 September to 27 October 1917 34 performances with Wednesday matinées Ghosts 3 Acts By Henrik Ibsen, in a translation by William Archer 6 to 17 November 1917 17 performances with Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinées THE VEDRENNE AND DENNIS EADIE SEASON Loyalty Play in 4 Acts by Harold Owen First production 21 November to 8 December 1917 21 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées to 1 December, then Wednesday to Saturday evenings only. EDWARD T. HEYS’ SEASON Charley’s Aunt 15 December 1917 to 19 January 1918 60 performances, twice daily

282 

Appendix: Productions at the St. James’s Theatre, 1891–1918

NAPOLEON LAMBELET’S SEASON Valentine A Romantic Comedy and Opera in 2 acts by Napoleon Lambelet (music) and Arthur Davenport (Book and Lyrics) and Charles Wibrow (Book, with acknowledgements to Arthur Sturgess) First production 24 January to 12 April 1918 89 performances Twice daily, Tuesday to Saturday Note: for the following productions, lessee was ‘the representatives of the late Sir George Alexander’. ALFRED BUTT’S SEASON Peg O’ My Heart Comedy of Youth in 3 Acts b.y J. Hartley Manners 24 April to 25 May 1918 43 performances Twice daily, Wednesday to Saturday GERTRUDE ELLIOTT’S SEASON Eyes of Youth Play in 3 Acts by Max Marcin and Charles Guernon 2 September 1918 to 9 August 1919 383 performances with Wednesday and Saturday matinées

Note 1. Information in this Appendix has been compiled from the following sources: Wearing, J.P. 1976. The London Stage 1890–1899: A Calendar of Plays and Players 1890–1899. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Wearing, J.P. 1981. The London Stage 1900–1909: A Calendar of Plays and Players 1900–1909. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Wearing, J.P. 1982. The London Stage 1910–1919: A Calendar of Plays and Players 1910–1919. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. V & A Theatre and Performance Department Production Files.

Index1

A Abbey Theatre (Dublin), 238 Abercrombie, Lascelles, 216 Academy, 194, 195, 216 Academy of Dramatic Art (from 1920 Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), 72, 77, 109 Actor-manager, 2, 253, 254 autonomy, 19, 72, 161, 233, 253 collaborative practice, 8, 9, 127, 161, 240, 253 continued influence, 6 control of the West End, 4, 6, 29, 68, 75, 136 cross-sector engagement, 9, 173, 195, 208, 217 decline of, 4, 19 enduring use of the term, 4, 253–255

evidence of practice, 6 ghosting, 3, 84 history of, 3–4 influence upon performance technique, 74, 85 influence upon West End repertoire, 29 resistance to professional regulation, 70 system, 3 See also Charity matinée Actor training Frank Benson’s drama school, 76, 78 Sarah Thorne’s school at Margate, 76, 77, 87, 104, 109, 110 Actors’ Association, 69–72 Actors’ Benevolent Fund, 241 Adelphi Theatre, Liverpool, 89

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 L. Sutherland, George Alexander and the Work of the Actor-Manager, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40935-7

283

284 

INDEX

Adelphi Theatre, London, 31, 32, 236 Aïde, Hamilton Dr. Bill, 31, 32, 196, 212 Ainley, Henry, 12, 13, 91, 118n94, 118n96 Paolo in Paolo and Francesca, 93–95, 205, 209, 210 training, 93, 94 William Mollison-Lilian Braithwaite season at the St. James’s Theatre, 95 Albery, James The Two Roses, 18, 20 Alexander, Florence, see Théleur, Florence Alexander, George (George Alexander Gibb Samson), 2, 17 acting technique, 51, 74, 83, 186, 215 amateur theatre work, 18, 19 career before entry into management, 7, 17, 20, 89; influence of Henry Irving, 23; leading actor in Miss Wallis’s company, 22; work for Henry Irving, 20, 22–23, 31, 215 characteristic roles, 27 education, 17 entry into management, 31; Avenue Theatre, 31–33, 82, 212 evidence in the archive, 10 failing health, 38, 40 Giovanni Malatesta in Paolo and Francesca, 93, 214–216 influence on subsequent theatre industry, 2, 5, 9, 14 investment in his management, 20 Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest, 88 knighthood, 39

managerial policies, 4, 6, 8, 13, 127; working with Arthur Wing Pinero, 137–141, 145, 149, 153; attitude to actor training, 77, 78; attitude to audience, 46, 47, 75; authority, 36, 47, 129, 151, 184, 185, 187, 252; casting, 32, 33, 99, 101; collaboration, 5, 67, 81, 127, 137, 160, 161, 255; control, 14, 19, 84, 95, 255; cross-sector engagement, 9, 162, 173, 175, 192, 208, 233, 252; engagement with the ‘New Drama’ movement, 236–240; observing the ‘Vacation’ period, 134, 147; prestige of venue and management, 7, 24, 35, 105, 190, 198; profit, 35, 133, 143, 195; promotion of new writing, 8, 31, 37, 127, 252; propriety, 12; rehearsal, 24, 78, 137, 205, 235; repertoire, 9, 25–40, 67, 86, 130, 131, 135, 179, 185, 196, 199, 202, 217, 234, 235, 243, 252; stage management, 79, 80, 83; stage management, dependence upon stage managers H.H. Vincent and E. Vivan Reynolds, 81–83; touring, 101, 147 member of The Garrick Club, 4, 19, 136 one of the final generation of actor-managers, 3, 4, 217 political career, 39 raisonneur, 102, 141; Hilary Jesson in His House in Order, 149–153, 155, 160 referred to as ‘The Chief,’ 12

 INDEX 

romantic drama, 33, 36, 50, 90, 102, 178, 180, 193; Rudolf Rassendyll in The Prisoner of Zenda, 184–187 work for charity and fundraising, 47 See also Actor training, Sarah Thorne’s school at Margate; Benson, Frank, professional relationship with George Alexander; Mason, A.E.W., description of Alexander’s early life and career before management; Matinée performances, Mansion House Fund for the Unemployed matinée, St. James’s Theatre; Matinée performances, performance of George Alexander; Matinée performances, and relationship to profit for George Alexander; Matinée performances, ‘special’ matinée at the St. James’s Theatre; Phillips, Stephen, Paolo and Francesca, commissioned by George Alexander; Pinero, Arthur Wing, professional relationship with George Alexander; Robins, Elizabeth, poor professional relationship with Alexander; Shaw, George Bernard, correspondence with George Alexander; Syrett, Netta, Finding of Nancy, The, George Alexander’s lack of support for the production; Tree, Herbert Beerbohm, personal and professional relationship with George Alexander; Wilde, Oscar, professional relationship with George Alexander

285

American Copyright Act, 194 Anderson, Mary, 21 Anecdote, 11–12, 85, 237–238 Arata, Stephen, 185, 187, 192 Archer, Frank, 177 Archer, William, 19, 38, 42, 54, 74, 128, 136, 140, 149, 181, 203, 237, 241, 252 ‘Epilogue Statistical,’ 43 promotion of Arthur Wing Pinero, 137–139 Ardis, Ann, 243 Aria, Eliza, 27 Armstrong, Cecil Ferard, 68, 71, 72 Arthur, George, 157 Ashwell, Lena, 4, 146, 150 Athenæum, 247, 249 Auerbach, Nina, 106 Aynesworth, Allan, 86–89, 91, 93, 115n67 Divided Way, The, 88 Importance of Being Earnest, The, 86, 88 Liberty Hall, 88 Prisoner of Zenda, The, 88 training, 87 B Bailey, Peter, 147, 252 Baker, Michael, 5 Balfour, Arthur, 153 Bancroft, George, 100 Barrett, Wilson The Sign of the Cross, 179 Barrie, J.M. Ibsen’s Ghost, 107 professional relationship with Irene Vanbrugh, 108–109 Barrington, Rutland, 28, 87 Barthes, Roland, 189 Bax, Clifford, 214

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INDEX

Bax, Peter, 81 Beckett, Samuel, 13 Beefsteak Club, 24 Beerbohm, Max, 200–202 Bell, Florence Alan’s Wife, 214 Bennett, Susan, 254 Benson, Frank, 69–70, 93, 195, 211 professional relationship with George Alexander, 76 See also Actor training, Frank Benson’s drama school Besier, Rudolf Kings and Queens, 82 Billington, Michael, 253, 254 Binyon, Laurence, 194 Biograph Studios, 250 Bleichmann, Rudolf Old Heidelberg, 103, 250 Bloch, Marc, 11 Boas, Frederick, 140 Booth, Michael, 78 Borsa, Mario, 26, 147 Boucicault, Dion London Assurance, 18 Louis XI, 20 Bourchier, Arthur, 4, 71, 72 and Alfred Sutro, The Chili Widow, 101 Braham, John, 1 Braithwaite, Lilian, 12, 13, 95, 99, 103 Finding of Nancy, 249–252 Branagh, Kenneth, 3, 253, 254 Bratton, Jacky, 5, 11 Brecht, Bertolt, 13 Bright, Addison, 85, 86, 100, 207, 211, 212 Brookfield, Charles H.E. A Woman’s Reason, 192 Brooks, David, 201 Brough, Robert, 182, 183 Brown, Ivor, 8

Buchanan, Robert The Sixth Commandment, 213 Burbage, Richard, 3 Byron, H.J. Cyril’s Success, 89 C Cain, P.J., 19 Caine, Hall The Prodigal Son, 82, 145 Calmour, Alfred The Amber Heart, 31 Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 33, 38, 74, 93, 180, 200, 202 as Paula Tanqueray, 99, 101, 140, 154 poor professional relationship with George Alexander, 95, 210, 213 Campbell, Stella, 140 Carlson, Marvin, 3, 84 Carson, Charles, 72 Carton, R.C., 131 Liberty Hall, 33, 40, 44, 83, 88, 100, 101, 131, 139, 200 Lorrimer Sabiston, Dramatist, 160 Sunlight and Shadow, 32, 33 Tree of Knowledge, The, 36, 92 Cavalezzi, Madame (Mrs. Charles Mapleson), 104 Censorship, 29, 31, 33, 39, 135, 136, 235, 236 See also Lord Chamberlain Chambers, C. Haddon Awakening, The, 200 Idler, The, 92, 101, 130, 200 Charcot, Jean-Martin, 154 Charing Cross Theatre (from 1882 Toole’s Theatre), 18 Chichester Festival Theatre, 4 Chudleigh, Arthur, 143 Clarion, 107, 157, 195, 209, 215

 INDEX 

Collins, Arthur, 82, 144 Collins, Churton, 203 Colvin, Sidney, 206 Comédie Française, 34, 87 Conan Doyle, Arthur Waterloo, 202 Corbett, Mary Jean, 73 Corbett-Smith, A., 216 Courtneidge, Robert, 69 Court Theatre, 21, 39, 53, 240 Craig, Edward Gordon, 74, 80 Craigie, Pearl, 127, 237 Ambassador, The, 35, 36, 92 Wisdom of the Wise, The, 146, 236 Crawfurd, Oswald, 28, 58n50 ‘The London Stage,’ 28–30, 32 Criterion Theatre, 179 D Daily Chronicle, 187, 190 Daily Mail, 50, 211 Daily News, 51, 178 Daily Telegraph, 49, 90, 177, 178, 206 D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 207 Daudet, Alphonse La Lutte Pour La Vie (The Struggle for Life), 32 Davenant, William, 3 Davidson, John, 204 Davis, Fay, 99, 102, 103, 119n113, 157, 158 Davis, Jim, 11, 75 Davis, Tracy C., 5, 6, 41, 54, 100, 105, 148, 188, 198 Debord, Guy, 139 Derwent, Clarence, 70, 71 Dolan, Winifred, 95, 96, 102 Donohue, Joseph, 27 Dowson, Ernest, 204 Du Maurier, George, 173 Du Maurier, Gerald, 51, 52, 74 Duke of York’s Theatre, 92, 211

287

Dumas fils, Alexandre, 138 Dumett, Raymond, 153 Duncan, Barry, 7, 199 Duse, Eleanora, 207 E Edwardes, George Gaiety Theatre Company, 18, 149 Elon University, 255 Emeljanow, Victor, 11, 75, 161 Era, 26, 46, 80–83, 89, 92, 95, 158, 191, 213, 241, 248, 250 Era Almanac, 148 Ervine, St. John John Ferguson, 237–238 Esmond, H.V. Divided Way, The, 88, 180 Wilderness, The, 200 Evening Standard, 145–146 F Fagan, James Bernard Bella Donna, 36, 37, 142; as an adaptation of Robert Hichens’s novel, 37, 217 Farrell, Michael, 137 Fensham, Rachel, 140 Field, Julian, 130 Filon, Auguste, 43 Findon, B.W, 241, 242, 250 Fineman, Joel, 11, 238 Fisher, Margery, 178 Forbes-Robertson, Johnston, 20, 38, 93 Fortier, Mark, 190 Fortnightly Review, 28, 29 Foucault, Michel, 48, 154 Frohman, Charles, 92, 143, 211, 240 Fyfe, Hamilton, 137

288 

INDEX

G Gagnier, Regenia, 87 Gaiety Theatre, 41, 52, 53 Galsworthy, John, 38 Garrick Club, 3, 4, 19, 21, 136, 182, 183 Garrick, David, 3, 4, 253 Garrick Theatre, 180, 253 General Election (1906), 152 General Federation of Theatrical Trade Unions, 69 Gentlemanly capitalism, 19, 68, 149, 153 Gladwell, F.W., 46 Globe, 184 Globe Theatre, 3, 254 Goldsworthy, Vesna, 193 Gordon Lennox, Cosmo The Thief, 36, 37, 103, 109, 156; as adaptation of Henri Bernstein’s Le Vôleur, 37 Granville-Barker, Harley, 14, 38, 70, 87, 239 seasons with J.E. Vedrenne, 39, 240 Green, Julius, 128 Greenwood, Christopher, 34 Greet, Ben, 96 Grein, J.T., 180, 237 Grundy, Sydney, 127, 137 A Debt of Honour, 127 The Snowball, 20 Guardian, 253, 254 Guv’nor, The, 20 Guy, Josephine M., 143, 194 Gwynne, Stephen, 209

Hamilton, Clayton, 138, 141, 142 Hann, Walter, 188 Hardy, Thomas Far From the Madding Crowd, 173 Hare, John, 4, 21, 28, 33, 76, 86, 87, 92, 93, 102, 109, 135, 136, 180, 236, 242 Harrison, Frederick, 179, 201 Hauptmann, Gerhart, 53 Hecht, Max A Scrupulous Man, 51, 52 translated from Octave Mirabeau, Scrupules, 50 Helmsley, Charles Hunt, 40 Her Majesty’s Theatre, 46, 53, 201, 208 Hignett, H.R., 248 Hind, C. Lewis, 194 Hindson, Catherine, 48 Hobhouse, Emily, 245–246, 257n36 Hollingshead, John, 41 influence in development of the regular matinée performance, 52–53 Hope, Anthony ‘Dolly Dialogues,’ 175 legal career, 175 Quisanté, 175 Rupert Of Hentzau, 47, 91, 193, 199, 200 Hopkins, A.G., 19 Hornung, E.W. and Eugene Presbury, Raffles the Amateur Cracksman, 51 Raffles character, 50–53

H Haggard, H. Rider, 174 Hale, Edward, 197 Hall, Stafford, 188 Halstan, Margaret, 210 Hamilton, Cicely Diana of Dobson’s, 246

I Ibsen, Henrik, 8, 14, 53, 135, 138, 139, 155, 179, 241 An Enemy of the People, 54 Ghosts, 138 Hedda Gabler, 213, 214, 235 Master Builder, The, 86

 INDEX 

Illustrated London News, 140, 144, 150, 178 Independent Theatre Society, 138, 235, 236 Irving, Ethel, 100 Irving, H.B., 100, 102 Irving, Henry, 4, 7, 31, 70, 75, 76, 179, 215 American tour (1884), 22, 56n24 club memberships, 24 managerial practice, 78 theories of acting, 23, 30 See also Lyceum Theatre, Irving’s company; Lyceum Theatre, set design under Henry Irving J Jackson, A. Blomfield, 26, 33 James, Henry, 9, 53, 161, 235 Guy Domville, 33, 34, 100, 101, 129–131, 134, 135, 146, 180 Jamyn Brooks, H., 208 Joint Stock Companies Act (1856), 19 Jones, Colin, 48 Jones, Henry Arthur, 29, 130, 134, 138, 161, 179, 191, 194, 234 Lackey’s Carnival, The, 211 Masqueraders, The, 33, 44, 93, 101, 130, 131 Michael and His Lost Angel, 180 Mrs. Dane’s Defence, 150 Ogre, The, 37 Tempter: A Tragedy in Verse in Four Acts, The, 196 Triumph of the Philistines, The, 130, 135, 180 K Kaplan, Joel H., 7, 179, 233 Kean, Charles, 23 Kendal, Madge, 21, 89, 146

289

as part of ‘the Kendals’ as a managerial team, with husband W.H. Kendal, 22, 38, 144 on stage management, 80 Kennedy, Dennis, 13, 14, 236 Kennedy, H.A., 234, 236 Killigrew, Thomas, 3 King’s Cross Theatre, 18 Kingsway Theatre, 4 L Lane, John, 194, 195, 197, 199, 204, 207, 208, 216, 243 Lang, Andrew, 203 Lang, Matheson, 93 Langtry, Lily, 74, 93 Lasner, Mark Samuels, 208 Lea, Marion, 235 See also Robins, Elizabeth, Joint Management venture with Marion Lea Leaf, Son and Company, 18, 20 Legge, R.G., 96 Legouvé, Ernest and Eugène Scribe Adrienne Lecouvreur, 22 Leigh, Vivien, 2 Limited Liability Act (1855), 19 Lloyd Webber, Andrew, 1 London County Council, 26, 39, 40, 92, 147 Loraine, Robert, 240 Lord Chamberlain, 2, 8, 30, 41, 44, 136, 199 Ludgate, 17 Lyceum Theatre, 20, 21, 31, 76 Irving’s company, 7, 20, 75, 86, 100, 137, 143, 215 Lyceum Theatre Company, 25 set design under Henry Irving, 23, 197, 233 Lyon Mix, Katharine, 246

290 

INDEX

M MacLeod, Joseph, 70 Macqueen-Pope, W., 7, 12–14, 84, 85 Maeterlinck, Maurice L’Intruse (The Intruder), 196 Pelléas et Mélisande, 202, 209 Mallet, Charles, 174 Marlowe, Christopher, 3 Marshall, Gail, 106 Marshall, Norman, 79 Marshall, Robert The Second in Command, 202 Martin Harvey, John, 202, 215 Masefield, John, 38 Masks and Faces (film, 1917), 107 Mason, A.E.W. Colonel Smith, 103 description of Alexander’s early life and career before management, 17 Open Windows, 139 Sir George Alexander and the St. James’s Theatre, 6, 7, 35, 47, 83, 84, 93–95, 144, 155, 193, 210 Mathews, Elkin, 194 Matinée performances audience composition, 240 charity matinée, 48, 49, 52, 107; how it benefitted the actor-­ manager, 50 First Aid Nursing Yeomanry matinée, St. James’s Theatre, 54 Mansion House Fund for the Unemployed matinée, St. James’s Theatre, 49, 50; performance of George Alexander, 51 Messina Earthquake Fund matinée, St. James’s Theatre, 54 as part of West End repertoire, 40, 41, 53, 54

percentage payments to dramatists for matinée performances, 41, 131 relationship to profit for George Alexander, 40, 54, 135 ‘special’ matinée at the St.James’s Theatre, 40 Tree’s ‘Afternoon Theatre,’ 53–54 McCarthy, Justin Huntley His Little Dodge (adaptation of Georges Feydeau, Le Système Ribadier), 96, 102, 193 McCarthy, Lillah, 14, 38, 239 Mevill, Henry Man of the Moment, 144 Millard, Evelyn, 101–102, 213 costume in Prisoner of Zenda, The, 188, 190–192 Francesca in Paolo and Francesca, 211 training, 77 Miller, Gilbert, 40 Miller, Karl, 185 Mills, Mrs. Clifford The Basker, 38, 103 Mitchell, John, 2 Modern Society, 181 Moore, Eva, 103 Moss Empires Ltd., 148 Murray, Simone, 174 Music Hall Strike, 148 N Nathan (fashion house), 189 National Portrait Gallery, 186 National Theatre, 4 National Trust, 186 Neilson, Julia, 36, 99, 101–102, 119n114 Neilson-Terry, Dennis, 100, 107 Neilson-Terry, Phyllis, 100 Neville, Henry, 18, 77

 INDEX 

Newbolt, Henry, 194 ‘New Drama’ movement, 14, 37, 236, 237, 240 Newling, Caro, 20 New Theatre, 93 New York Times, 198 Nineteenth Century, 75, 234, 245 Noyes, Alfred, 107 O Obermer, Seymour The House of Bondage, 53 Olivier, Laurence, 2, 4, 253 Laurence Olivier Productions, 253 Olympic Theatre, 4 Orwell, George, 51 Osborne, John, 13 P Pall Mall Gazette, 145, 156, 202 Parker, John, 85 Parker, Louis N. Aristocrat, The, 38, 40, 103 and Murray Carson, Rosemary, 179 Pearson, Hesketh, 160 Pennybacker, Susan, 39 Philips, F.C. A Woman’s Reason, 192 Phillips, Stephen, 222n85 Aylmer’s Secret, 195 ‘booming,’ 173–174, 194–195, 199, 201, 204, 207–209, 217 ‘Christ in Hades,’ 194 derivative elements in his drama, 202–205 editor of the Poetry Review, 216 Faust, 216 Harold, 204 Herod, 195–197, 199, 201–203, 206–209

291

influence of Milton, 204–205 Nero, 216 Paolo and Francesca, 9, 33, 36, 93–95, 174, 194, 233; commissioned by George Alexander, 195, 198, 200–201, 215; production at the time of the Boer War, 201; production merchandise, 208; publication, 197, 199; radio play, 216; St. James’s Theatre production, 202–217, 250 (see also Ainley, Henry, Paolo in Paolo and Francesca; Alexander, George (George Alexander Gibb Samson), Giovanni Malatesta in Paolo and Francesca; Robins, Elizabeth, Lucrezia in Paolo and Francesca) Poems, 194, 195, 204 Ulysses, 195, 199, 208, 216 See also Tree, Herbert Beerbohm, commitment to Stephen Phillips’s drama Pinero, Arthur Wing, 33, 138, 160, 191, 199, 234–236 Big Drum, The, 38, 141, 157, 161 declining appeal of his drama for audiences and managements, 161, 240 Gay Lord Quex, The, 109, 242, 243 His House in Order, 36, 37, 104, 107, 109, 140–162, 233; profit accrued from the production, 142, 147 Iris, 103, 154, 158 Lady Bountiful, 136 Letty, 154 Mid-Channel, 37, 105, 141, 152, 160 Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, 92, 136, 154, 180

292 

INDEX

Pinero, Arthur Wing  (cont.) opposition to censorship, 136 Playgoers, 37, 139 Princess and the Butterfly, The, 36, 92, 102, 143, 150, 151, 157, 158 professional relationship with George Alexander, 8, 40, 128, 131, 136, 141, 143–145, 152, 160 professional relationship with Irene Vanbrugh, 107–109, 156–162 Profligate, The, 136 role in development of West End repertoire, 8 Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The, 8, 33, 37, 41, 83, 92, 95, 101, 128–129, 131, 135–141, 150, 154, 179, 180, 182, 210, 235, 236; as a problem play, 135, 139; as a well-made play, 139 Squire, The, 173 Thunderbolt, The, 37, 140, 152–154 Times, The, 194 Wife Without a Smile, 143 See also Shaw, George Bernard, ‘Pineroticism’ Pitt, Percy, 198, 205, 206 Pittsburgh Gazette, 39 Playfair, Nigel, 2, 237–238 Playgoers’ Club, 241, 242, 249 support for trial matinées of new work, 241, 242 Poel, William, 74, 205 Potter, Paul M. Trilby (adaptation of George du Marurier’s novel), 173 Prince of Wales’s Theatre, 4, 22, 100, 202 managerial team of Squire and Marie Bancroft, 22, 41 Problem play, 33, 36, 135, 137, 139, 144, 150, 250

See also Pinero, Arthur Wing, Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The, as a problem play Q Queensberry, Marquess of (John Douglas), 133 Quigley, Austin, 140 R Rachel (Rachel Félix), 2 Raisonneur character, 102, 105, 109, 141, 149–153, 155, 158–160 See also Alexander, George, (George Alexander Gibb Samson), raisonneur Raleigh, Cecil The Price of Peace: A Drama of Modern Life, 201 Reade, Charles The Lyons Mail (The Courier of Lyons), 83 Really Useful Group, The, 1 Referee, 210, 211 Reform Club, 24 Regnier (François-Joseph Regnier), 2, 104 Reynolds, E. Vivian, 114n48 appearing in The Prodigal Son with George Alexander, 82 Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest, 82 as stage manager at the St. James’s Theatre, 81, 83, 206 Ristori, Adelaide, 103 Robertson, Thomas William, 22, 79, 100 Robertson, Tom manager of the Caste company, 20, 22, 31 Robins, Elizabeth, 196 as Hedda Gabler, 213, 214

 INDEX 

as Jean Creyke, 214 Joint Management venture with Marion Lea, 235 Lucrezia in Paolo and Francesca, 209, 211–214 poor professional relationship with George Alexander, 212 Robins, William, 206 Rose, Edward Prisoner of Zenda, The, 9, 33, 36, 47, 83, 88, 90–92, 101, 102, 142, 158, 173, 194, 201, 202, 215, 233; Anthony Hope’s novel, 174–178, 184, 185, 193; concept of the double, 186–187; costume, 188–194 (see also Millard, Evelyn, costume in Prisoner of Zenda, The); Edward Sothern (New York) production, 180; male romance, 174; matinée performances, 47, 176, 193, 199; staging, 178–179, 184, 185, 188, 189 Under the Red Robe (adaptation of Stanley Weyman’s novel), 177, 179 Rothschild, Nathan Mayer (1st Baron Lord Rothschild), 20 Rowntree, Joseph, 49 Royal General Theatrical Fund, 69, 70, 72 Royalty Theatre, 101, 102, 202 S St. James’s Gazette, 183 St. James’s Theatre, 1, 18, 42 audience, 27, 34, 37, 45 brand, 2, 8, 9, 13, 17, 25, 30, 39, 40, 84, 85, 110, 128, 135, 179 company, 3, 12, 13, 68, 74, 78–110, 190 demolition, 2, 7

293

Hare and Kendal management, 21, 28, 76, 86, 87 location, 1, 2, 27 renovations (1899), 25, 26, 33, 45, 47, 193, 199, 201; subsequent audience segregation, 26 reputation as an exclusive venue, 145, 189 ticket prices, 45 Treasury Book, St. James’s Theatre, 6, 40, 128–135, 142 venue for ‘New Drama,’ 14, 37, 38 St. James’s Theatre (The Other Palace), 1 Samson, William, 17 Saturday Review, 195, 204 Savage and Purdue, 189–191 Savage Club Freemasons’ Lodge, 24 Savoy Theatre, 4, 240 Schnitzler, Arthur, 53–54 Schulz, David, 46 Scott, Clement, 177–178 Select Committee on Theatres and Places of Entertainment (1892), 42 Sennett, Richard, 74 Shaftesbury Theatre, 192, 213 Shakespeare, William, 3, 23, 83, 99, 102, 176, 180, 181, 196, 198, 203 As You Like It, 32, 36, 89, 102 Hamlet, 180, 254 Macbeth, 86 Merchant of Venice, The, 93 Much Ado About Nothing, 32, 33, 36 Othello, 209 Romeo and Juliet, 21, 76, 203, 209 Tercentenary Pageant, 47 Twelfth Night, 23 Winter’s Tale, The, 253 Shakespeare’s Globe, 254, 255

294 

INDEX

Shaw, George Bernard, 14, 27, 38, 74, 87, 151, 177, 187, 194 Candida, 38 correspondence with George Alexander, 38, 39 correspondence with William Archer, 38 criticism of stage adaptation, 177 Devil’s Disciple, The, 155 How He Lied to Her Husband, 38, 239 John Bull’s Other Island, 38, 240 Man and Superman, 240 ‘Pineroticism,’ 139, 143, 188 productions at the Court Theatre, 239–240 Pygmalion, 240 You Never Can Tell, 87 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley The School for Scandal, 83 Shively, Kim, 255 Showalter, Elaine, 187 Sims, George R. The Harbour Lights, 83 and Henry Pettit, London Day by Day, 31 Sketch, 75, 77, 94, 109, 181, 182, 189, 211 Small, Ian, 143, 194 Smith, Charles Aubrey, 91–93, 117n89 Ambassador, The, 92 athlete, 92 business manager at the St. James’s Theatre, 92 Finding of Nancy, The, 248 Lady Windermere’s Fan, 92 in Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s company, 93 Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, The, 92 Princess and the Butterfly, The, 92 Prisoner of Zenda, The, 92 Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The, 92

Smyth, Ethel The Wreckers, 54 Snow, Georgia, 254, 255 Society of London Theatre, 20 Society of West End Managers, 71, 79 Sowerby, Githa Sheila, 40 Stage, 72, 81, 94, 148, 155, 253, 254 Stage management, 79 See also Alexander, George (George Alexander Gibb Samson), managerial policies, stage management; Madge Kendal, on stage management Stage Society, 235 Star, 141, 146, 151, 153, 192, 213 Stetz, Margaret D., 208 Stirling, Arthur, 89 Stock system, 73, 76, 77, 82, 87, 89, 91, 110 Stoker, Bram, 25, 75, 103 Stowell, Sheila, 179, 233 Strand Theatre, 4 Sudermann, Hermann Magda, 202 Sutro, Alfred John Glayde’s Honour, 36 Mollentrave on Women, 36, 239 Swanborough, Ada, 20, 89 Symons, Arthur, 195, 202, 204, 207–209, 213, 242, 243 Synge, John Millington The Tinker’s Wedding, 54 Syrett, Netta, 257n29 Finding of Nancy, The, 241–252; George Alexander’s lack of support for the production, 241, 242, 248, 249; Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s lack of support for the production, 240, 242, 248; response to

 INDEX 

critics to single matinée performance, 249 Nobody’s Fault, 243 professional relationship with actor-managers, 10 T Tapping, A.B., 92 Tate Gallery, 186 Tatler, 199, 208, 250, 251 Taylor, George, 67, 74, 79 Taylor, Tom Plot and Passion, 18 Tedford Jones, Jill, 243 Telbin, William, 188, 206 Tennyson, Alfred Becket, 215 Cup, The, 215 Terriss, William, 20, 22, 55n13 Terry, Ellen, 23, 76, 89, 100, 105, 106 Terry, Fred, 31, 38, 92, 102 Terry, Kate, 89 Terry, Marion, 33, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104 Terry, Michelle, 254, 255 Thames Rowing Club, 18 Theatre, 85, 179 Theatre Regulation Act (1843), 76 Theatre Royal Covent Garden, 2 Theatre Royal Drury Lane, 2, 3, 42, 82, 144, 145, 192 Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2, 42, 87, 89, 179, 196, 202 Theatre Royal Nottingham, 89 Theatrical Managers’ Association, 71 Théleur, Florence (from August 1882 Florence Alexander), 22, 189 Thompson, Francis, 194 Thorne, Sarah, 76–78, 87, 104, 109, 110

295

See also Actor training, Sarah Thorne’s school at Margate Thorne, Thomas, 20 Thurston, E. Temple John Chilcote, M. P., 144 Times, The, 20, 22, 28, 31, 32, 47, 51, 83, 85, 87, 90, 153, 197 Times Literary Supplement, 203 Todhunter, John, 200, 201, 206 Toole’s Theatre, 18 Townsend, Joanna, 214 Tree, Herbert Beerbohm, 26, 28, 71, 78, 79, 102, 211, 216, 241 acting technique, 74 commitment to Stephen Phillips’s drama, 195–199, 202, 205, 206–209, 214, 216 construction of Her Majesty’s Theatre, 45, 46 founder of the Academy of Dramatic Art, 77 personal and professional relationship with George Alexander, 22, 195–197, 209–211 professional relationship with Netta Syrett, 10, 242, 248, 249 repertoire, 7, 28, 47, 53, 103, 173, 180, 240, 241 See also Matinée performances, Tree’s ‘Afternoon Theatre’ Tree, Maud, 192 Trevelyan, Hilda, 84 V Valentine, Sydney, 69 Vanbrugh, Irene, 37, 38, 77, 96, 101, 103, 104–110, 127, 145, 156, 157 actor-manager system, 105

296 

INDEX

Vanbrugh, Irene  (cont.) dislike of imitation in acting, 74 leading actress at the St. James’s Theatre, 96, 103, 106 Nina Jesson in His House in Order, 142, 150, 153–162 role of Ellen Terry in her career, 105–106 See also Barrie, J.M., professional relationship with Irene Vanbrugh; Pinero, Arthur Wing, professional relationship with Irene Vanbrugh Vanbrugh, Violet, 106 Variety Artists’ Federation, 69 Vaudeville Theatre, 235 Veblen, Theodore, 43 Vernon, W.H., 20, 91, 116n79 cast in authoritarian roles, 89, 90 Vestris, Eliza, 4 Vezin, Hermann, 22, 56n20, 77, 78, 104 Vincent, H.H., 114n48 Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest, 82 as stage manager at the St. James’s Theatre, 81, 83 Vinson, Adrian, 49 W Walkley, A.B., 143, 203 Ward, Geneviève, 77, 89, 103–104, 120n119 Waring, Herbert, 86, 87 Filmer Jesson in His House in Order, 142, 155 Solness in The Master Builder, 86 Watson, William, 194

Webb, Beatrice and Sidney, 49 Webster, Ben, 86, 87 Webster, John The Duchess of Malfi, 204 Weedon, Alexis, 174 Well-made play, 138–140, 151, 234, 236 See also Pinero, Arthur Wing, Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The, as a well-made play West End theatre audience, 40, 41 commercial imperatives, 49, 144 conspicuous consumption, 43 formation, 5 location, 1 long-running productions, 67, 147, 254 optioning practices, 238 repertoire, 1, 28, 35, 40–41, 73, 75, 135, 149, 179, 200–201, 217, 233–235, 252 role of ‘angels,’ 20 theatre industry practice, 2, 5, 96, 241–242 Westminster City Council, 1 Westminster Gazette, 175 Whitty, May, 2 Wigan, Horace, 18 Wilde, Oscar, 9, 34, 35, 188, 191, 204–205, 235 Importance of Being Earnest, The, 4, 35, 82, 86, 88, 101, 130–135, 143, 157–160, 180, 185, 186; first revival, 89, 93, 200; second revival (1909), 147, 252 Lady Windermere’s Fan, 33, 37, 44, 83, 85, 92, 93, 96, 100, 103, 128–135, 139

 INDEX 

professional relationship with George Alexander, 131, 161, 234 William Heinemann Ltd., 194 Wills, W.G. Faust, 83, 100, 215 Wilton, Marie (from December 1867 Marie Bancroft), 4, 49, 89, 146 See also Prince of Wales’s Theatre Witz, Anne, 96 Women’s Industrial Council, 245

297

World, 94 Worthen, William, 73 Wyndham, Charles, 26, 28, 41, 74, 87, 102, 132, 150, 179, 201, 240 Wyndham’s Theatre, 143 Y Yavorskaïa, Lydia, 54 Yeats, W.B. The Tragic Generation, 204