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

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moderate pace, might be spoken in about five minutes. Landry
has some ten or fifteen lines to speak, few of them longer
than ten words. In production this became a long scone, as a
hostile account by George Moore suggests:
Iir Irving ia brought out, and, in such crazed
and dilapidated condition as seventeen years in
a dungeon would produce, he lies down in front
of the audience, moaning from time to time,
Inconceivable as it may seem, he elects to lie
there for several minutes, holding the attention
of the audience by the help of occasional moans
or grunts and furtive grimacing.,.
Irving lavished the attentions of the Lyceum technical staff,
a good deal of money and no little historical research on the
play, but it could not be denied that the te. t was of little
account, and was indeed incidental to the actor-manager's true
purposes.
Irving became pre-eminent as a stage-manager, being by
1895 "adaittedly the finest...in Europe", as The Theatre
claimed in its editorial on his knighthood (n.s.xxvi (1895)
1-4). It seemed to aome thnt Irving's acting directed
attention towards appearance and rosture, and away from his
voices
He is what is called a picturesque aetorj
that is, he depends for his effects upon the
art with \.hich. he presents a certain figure
to the eye, rather than upon the manner in
which he speaks his r r^*^5
Jenr.y" Janes continues with the reflection that Irving is
more accent: ble in modern drama than in Shake, pe..re, "because,
if v.