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

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Tree also admired Wagner, whose "dramatic genius" had made
"the nearest approach to Shakespeare": in this he was at one
with Shaw, who claimed in 1889 that "the actual *agner theatre"
at Bayreuth was also "the ideal Shakespeare Theatre" 2^« The
gist of Shaw's notices of the productions by Tree is that the
actor's exuberant imagination needs the control of a good
director - Shaw § for example - but there is no quarrel with
the theoretical foundation of the acting or staging. Tree
gave the question of illusion in the theatre careful thought, as
his published writings testify, and in 1885 - two years before
he became a manager - he contributed to The Dramatic Review
an essay arguing against the moral indepencence of Restoration
drama, and ihe suggestion that Joseph Surface should be played in
a sympathetic manner ("Shakespeare and Macaulay vs.Lamb", 18
April 1885)* R.< . Lowe replied in the next issue, citing a
number of undeniably sympathetic anti-heroes, including Tony
Lumpkin: the actor's point was old-fashioned, but it was considered
and well-argued*
The new production of The Merry Wives of Windsor was
first presented at the Crystel Palace Theatre on 13 September
1888, at a benefit performance for Edward Hastings, but it
appeared on the Haymarket bill on 2 January 1889. At first
the comedy was played rt matinees, vdth Captain Swift in the
evenings - on 9 February it v;ts transferred to the evening
bill, where it remained until 20 July, the end of the seeson.
The least notable revival of the play had been one of
Samuel r-helps's farevell performances at the Gaiety in 1£?8,
and the last elaborate staging that by Phelps at Sadler's ..ells
in 1856 - in 1851 Charles Kean had put it on at the Princess's
Theatre. Tree's venture was weloomed. The £ra remarked that
it had been put upon the stage "with a degree of refined taste
ano scrupulous solicitude for detail that has in all probability
never been accorded to It before?!, and praised the "fine, solid
'set 1 of Page's House" 'ith its porch ana half-timbered wall in
the foreground and Windsor castle "towering at the back". In
the last act there was "a lovely effect of moonlit boughs and