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

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were produced, twelve of them revivals; of twenty-one pieces
by W.S.Gilbert in repertoire, eleven were revivals, and ten
out of the total number were collaborations with Sullivan;
Robert Buchanan, remarkable for industry and pretension if
not for genius* had twenty-four new plays produced, and George
R.Sims, whose income has been cited above, saw the production
of sixteen new playa in which he had at least a mato. finger.
These figures are not conclusive, for The limes was selective
in its reviewing policy, and did not always print notices
of new or revived curtain-raisers, or revived main pieces*
Gilbert is performed only as librettist to Sullivan, Sims is
remembered mainly for his melodramatic monologues, Buchanan
is known to literary historians mainly on account of his
attack on Roasetti and Swinburne, The Fleshly School of Poetry,
in 1870, and Burnand'a adaptation of Madison Morton's Box and
Cox (Cox and Boy* with music by Sullivan) is the only relic of
his work that is performed today. Byron*s pantomimes have
received some attention from The Pantomime Society of Great
Britain, and an adaptation of one of his Cinderella scripts
was performed in 1970 by the Oxford University Dramatic Society,
under the direction of Gyles Brandreth.
Harley Granville-Barker described the "drama of the early
»eighties" as "a rather childish affair"*
A fancy dress bazaar in the Vicarage garden,
with everyone enjoying it very innocently;
suddenly the wind veers to the east! Such
was Ibsen's advent. ,Q
There is a good deal of justice in the remark, but it seems
clear that some dramatists were attempting, with a measure
of success, to enlarge the scope of the theatre - which often
meant conferring upon it the dignity of literature. In 1892
Pinero wrote to Archer:
A few years ago the native authors were working
with a distinct and sound aim and with every
prospect of popularising a rational, observant,
home-grown play. Then came the Scandinavian
drama, held up by the New Critics as the Perfect
drama and used by them as a means of discrediting
native produce. Just for the present everything
is knocked askew; the English, dramatist has little
influence, and the public urged to witness A Poll's
House, patronises the Empire Theatre of Varieties J