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

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The virtues of Irving*s stagecraft .ere not new ones - his
cultivation of ensemble in movement and grouping, and the idea
that one man should supervise the entire production were
affirmations of the qualities sought by Phelps, Charles Kean
and Macready* But unlike Ciiarle;, Kean, the moat lavish and
most recently comparable manager, Irving was himself a pictorially
effective actor. Lewes described Kean as unable "to let
the emotions play in his face", but it is evident that Irving's
genius lay in precisely this quarter - judging by Gordon
Craig's account of Mathias, he could let the emotions play in
the top of his head and his fingers as he bent to untie a
bootlace.-3 * Irving conducted meticulous rehearsals of each
•play on stage, but, according to Ellen Terry, r-aid little
attention to the interpretation of individual parts - he •37
covered his copies of the text with rroupincc and moves. '•
"ho conservatism of the Lyceum repretoire undoubtedly
owed much to Irving 1 s melodramatic training - H.Chance I lev/ton
attributed his pictorial style to this background - and the
appeal of the performance lay to a great extent in the combination
of textual simplicity and technical sophistication:
he contrived to achieve the breadth and romantic magncticm
mis sine i*1 the Robertsonian school, v.hilst avoiding the
vulgarity of Drury Lane dramas. The die lay of personality
on a grand scale accorananied by "psychologic; .1" c tail v;as
something oririni 1 and, in the thcc trc of the centiry's last
decades, unique. Lyceum nucriences were given the viuual appeal
of Charles Kean and Helen Pcueit» together with a dynamism -
a "common touch" - derived from i.icloc ram-. George Moore thought
that Irving substituted appeal to "the sensual instincts" for
a more legitimate ctizrnlus to the "ia c±n-tion", rait] olic.w,
writing to Archer in February 1901 complained:
Now the whole history of the Lyceum i:j the
history of Herodifying .Sliakccpecre - getting
the brains and realism out & the Lelsize Park
suburban Jewish glamour in.^g
But Irving had at loact nafio the theatre exciting afr.in,
however nucrocct the cciuce of the excitement ni,;:ht be. It v;r.s
Irint1. of excitenent tli;it appealed to the now r.ovc^icnt in Art -