Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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that managers did not force standards of taste upon the public,
but respond to its wishes - "Believe me, the right direction
is public criticism and public discrimination" . At the same
function ten years later he dissociated himself from some
aspects of the modern movement in art: "A morose and hopeless
dissatisfaction is not a part of a true national life. This
OK
io hopeful and earnest, and, if need be, militant" •
This double appeal - to aesthetic discrimination and to
a conservatively norrl theory of art - were reflected in the
theatre's policy. The liternry conservatism, and often mediocrity,
of the repertoire was compensated by the scenic effects.
William Archer's second book on Irving, Henry Irving, Actor
and Manager, was published in 1883, five years after the rector
had become hie own manager. Archer, like Walter Hamilton,
recognizes Irving's fashionable appeal:
The Lyceum drama came into existence along
with - I had almost said for the sake of -
the new art hues and fabrics./
But two reservations must be made about the qnolity of the
theatre's work. The nlaya cannot be said to represent any
advance in the error tic literature - "a dead droma skilfully
Galvanized 0 (p. 95) - and Irving's o'.vn acting is egocentric
and "singularly deficient in purely mime-tic technique" (p. 77).
The actor presents in cp.ch role "r, fresh development of his
own individuality" rather than, "r.o is the case with mimetic
actors", a study "from the life" or "a gcnoralisa. ion of many
studies from the life".
The conservatism of Irvin^'s rc-oertoire nc.y be aeen from
the list of "new" nieces produced in the eight een-oirjities:
out of ten :o,jor productions four were by contemporaries
( .ills' s I plant he and Olivia, Moriv; le's ^c'vensv/oocl, and The
Cup). The first three of those were in r,omc sense adaptations,
and Olivia had first been performed at the Court Theatre in
1878. To thene aay be ndiTied , ills' o veraion of Faust. The
remaining cix plays were revivals - re Centlivre's -lie Belle 'o
ta^ca, Albery's Two Roses, watte Phillips' The I cad I-Ioort
and, on special occasions, -I'lic im-iclilr.cl:, Robert . acaire, and
Byron's • .-rnor. 2 ^. The relationship betv;een Irvin^'s production
techniques and the texts he uncO can be aocn clearly in rovicv/c