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Shakespeare in Tottenham-Street: An “Aesthetic” Merchant of Venice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

William E. Kleb
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Extract

The 1860s and 1870s are generally considered a hiatus in the history of Shakespearean production on the London stage. Accounts of the period usually move quickly from Charles Kean's retirement in 1859 (or the end of Samuel Phelps' management of suburban Sadler's Wells in 1862) to the beginning of Henry Irving's regime at the Lyceum in 1879—acknowledging the Phelps-Chatterton collaboration at Drury Lane as worthy, but hardly remarkable, and mentioning in passing such isolated events as Fechter's new Hamlet in 1861. Nevertheless, while no management comparable to Kean's or Phelps's, devoted principally to poetic drama, appeared during this time, there were occasional Shakespearean productions of exceptional interest. One such was the Bancrofts' version of The Merchant of Venice, which opened at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in out-of-the-way Tottenham-street on 17 April 1875. It ran for only thirty-six performances and lost the famous actormanager team £3,000. Despite its financial failure, however, the production attracted considerable critical attention at the time, much of it favorable, and it has since gained an honorable place in stage history. Beerbohm-Tree, for example, in an address to the Oxford Union Debating Society in 1900, called it “the first production in which the modern spirit of stage management asserted itself.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , November 1975 , pp. 97 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1975

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References

1 Odell, George C. D., Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving (New York, 1920), II, 364Google Scholar.

2 Squire, and Bancroft, Marie, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft On and Off the Stage (London, 1888), 11, 27.Google Scholar

3 Reprinted in Beerbohm-Tree, Herbert, Thoughts and After-Thoughts (London, 1913), pp. 44–45Google Scholar.

4 On and Off, I, 342–343.

5 Ibid., 369, 425.

6 Ibid., 424.

7 Archer, Frank, An Actor's Notebooks (London, [1912]), p. 160. See also The Figaro, 28 October 1847 and 17 April 1875Google Scholar.

8 The Era, 25 April 1875.

9 On and Off, II, 15, Squire and Bancroft, Marie, The Bancrofts: Recollections of Sixty Years (London, 1909), p. 201Google Scholar.

10 On and Off, I, 424. Bancroft himself decided to play only the minor part of the Prince of Morocco. Most reviewers ignored his performance or only acknowledged it briefly; The Era, 25 April 1875, expressed the consensus when it noted that he had played the part in a “princely fashion.”

11 Bancrofts, Recollections, p. 209.

12 Odell, II, 417.

13 On and Off, I, 425–428. The Bancrofts were also the first to actually put a carved and gilded picture frame around their stage; this was not done, however, until 1880 when they took over the Haymarket (“Theatre Royal, Haymarket,” descriptive pamphlet, Harvard Theatre Collection, p. [2]).

14 Lorenzen, Richard, “The Old Prince of Wales Theatre: A View of the Physical Structure,” Theatre Notebook, XXV, No. 4 (Summer 1971), 140–142. Bancroft also tells us that the little theatre's backstage resources were tried to the utmost by the “increased company” required by the piece. This included a choir of men and boys as well as “soldiers engaged to represent the Prince of Morocco's suite and the Doge's body-guards” (On and Off, II, 17)Google Scholar.

15 Robertson, T. W., The Principal Dramatic Works of Thomas William Robertson, with Memoir by His Son (London, 1889), II, 455Google Scholar.

16 Joseph Knight, in an article published just four months prior to the Bancrofts' opening, argued that this new, smaller scale might revive interest in Shakespeare's comedies (Theatrical Works [London, 1893], p. 9)Google Scholar.

17 On and Off, II, 15–17Google Scholar. Bancroft's account is not complete. Further details contributing to this reconstruction of his acting version come from The Era, 25 April 1875, and from Fraser's Magazine (July-December 1875). Act III, Scene 3, is not mentioned in any accounts of the production, but if Bancroft's contention that the entire text was represented can be believed, we may assume that it was played at this point. Further, the programme states that Scene III took place in the “morning,” while Scene IV was in the “evening”; according to the best accounts available this is an error, the actual times of day being opposite to the order given here.

18 On and Off, II, 17–18Google Scholar.

19 Ibid. According to Bancroft, “some charming music was especially composed [for their production] by Mr. Meredith Ball, the voice portions being rendered by a choir of men and boys specially trained. …”

20 Odell, II, 296: Hughes, Alan, “Henry Irving's Tragedy of Shylock,” Educational Theatre Journal, XXIV (10 1972), 248–264CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 On and Off, II, 18Google Scholar. The Bancrofts' scenic achievements here should be examined in the light of Charles Kean's work with the same play two decades earlier. As Cole points out, it was Kean who first “made a feature of ‘solidity’” in the scenic effects of this play, “having a complete reconstruction of a Venetian carnival with actual bridges and gondolas” (Cole, J. W., The Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean [London, 1859], II, 264–265)Google Scholar.

22 Scott, Clement, The Drama of Yesterday and Today, London 1899, I, 581–589. Scott's review appeared originally in the Daily TelegraphGoogle Scholar.

23 Recollections, p. 204.

24 On and Off, II, 16Google Scholar.

25 The Building News, 23 April 1875, pp. 471–472; Scott, I, 584.

26 On and Off, I, 427Google Scholar; Recollections, p. 202.

27 Scott, I, 584.

28 On and Off, II, 17Google Scholar.

29 Reynolds, Ernest, Early Victorian Drama (1830–1870), (Cambridge, 1936), p. 35Google Scholar; Odell, II, 331. Smith also was responsible for the historically accurate costumes for Macready's King John and As You Like It, while J. R. Planche's work as designer and supervisor of the costumes for Charles Kemble's King John should also be mentioned in this connection (Shattuck, Charles, ed. William Charles Macready's “King John” [Urbana, 1962]Google Scholar; Shattuck, Charles H., ed. Mr. Macready Produces “As You Like It”: A Prompt-book Study [Urbana, 1962]; Odell, II, 169–171, 174–175).Google Scholar

30 Merchant, W. Moelwyn, Shakespeare and the Artist (Oxford, 1959), pp. 128–135Google Scholar; Harbron, Dudley, The Conscious Stone: The Life of Edward William Godwin (London, [1949]), pp. 104–115Google Scholar. Merchant repeats his argument in “On Looking at The Merchant of Venice” in Richards, Kenneth and Thomson, Peter, Essays on Nineteenth Century British Theatre (London, 1971)Google Scholar. See also Manvell, Roger, Ellen Terry (New York, 1968), pp. 88–89Google Scholar, and Stokes, John, Resistible Theatres: Enterprise and Experiment in the Late Nineteenth Century (London, 1972), pp, 38–40Google Scholar.

31 On and Off, II, 21Google Scholar. The misconception seems to have begun with the reprint of Godwin's articles by Gordon Craig, Godwin's illegitimate son by Terry, Ellen, in The Mask (May-June 1908)Google Scholar. Introducing these reprints, the editor states that Godwin “produced” the Bancrofts' Merchant of Venice and refers to Tree's remarks quoted above. While the impulse to revive Godwin's reputation is praiseworthy, Tree's statement remains problematic as stage history and the attribution by The Mask, in light of available evidence, extremely doubtful.

32 Recollections, pp. 205–206. This version of the Bancrofts' memoirs was published in 1909, a year after the edition of The Mask referred to above in which Godwin is claimed to have “produced” this revival. It is not unreasonable to conjecture that this remark refers directly to Craig's “error” in The Mask; the comment does not appear in earlier editions of the Bancrofts' memoirs.

33 Aslin, Elizabeth, The Aesthetic Movement: Prelude to Art Nouveau (New York, 1969), p. 175Google Scholar. See also Gaunt, William, The Aesthetic Adventure (London, 1945)Google Scholar and Hamilton, Walter, The Aesthetic Movement in England (London, 1882)Google Scholar.

34 Stokes, p. 36. The phrase is Max Beerbohm's.

35 Cook, Dutton, Nights at the Play (London, 1883), II, 72Google Scholar.

36 Recollections, p. 202; Terry, Ellen, The Story of My Life (London, 1908)Google Scholar; Harrison, Martin and Watres, Bill, Burne-Jones (New York, 1973), pp. 78–124Google Scholar.

37 Scott, I, 583–584.

38 Recollections, p. 206.

39 Aslin, p. 175.

40 Hamilton, p. vii; see also Aslin, pp. 14–15.

41 Recollections, p. 206.

42 Terry, p. 108. Bancroft also notes George Augustus Sala, the great Italian actor Tommaso Salvini and the Prince of Wales as among the luminaries who attended (Recollections, p. 212).

43 See also Recollections, p. 206. The Bancrofts based their costumes on Vecellio's Book of Costume and the review in The Building News details the “petty incongruities” that marred their efforts at strict historical accuracy in this sphere.

44 Scott, I, 583.

45 Fraser's (July-December 1875), 65–71.

46 Terry, p. 106.

47 Recollections, p. 205.

48 The World, (21 April 1875).

49 Recollections, p. 207. According to Bancroft, he supported Coghlan throughout “and was dumb to the remarkable applications from many a decayed tragedian, who vowed that if the part were but given over to him the fortune of the production would still be assured.” On the other hand, Ellen Terry, who played Portia, asserted that Coghlan showed “the fatal quality of indecision” in his work that night: “You could hardly hear a word he said,” she reports. “He spoke as though he had a sponge in his mouth.” “It was,” she concluded, “a case of moral cowardice rather than incompetency” (Craig, Edith and John, Christopher St., eds., Ellen Terry's Memoirs [New York, 1932], p. 87)Google Scholar.

50 Cook, II, 71.

51 Scott, I, 586.

52 Ibid. The cast was as follows: Duke of Venice—Mr. Collette; Prince of Morocco—Mr. Bancroft: Prince of Arragon—Mr. Vaughan; Antonio—Mr. Archer; Bassanio—Mr. E. H. Brooke; Solanio—Mr. Denison; Salarino—Mr. Teesdale; Gratiano—Mr. Lin Rayne; Lorenzo—Mr. Standing; Shylock—Mr. Coghlan; Tubal—Mr. Newton; Old Gobbo—Mr. F. Glover: Launcelot Gobbo—Mr. Arthur Wood; Leonardo—Mr. Robinson; Balthazar—Mr. Franks: Grand Captain—Mr. Stewart; Crier—Mr. Noel; Gaoler—Mr. Bella; Portia—Miss Ellen Terry: Nerissa—Miss Carlotta Addison; Jessica—Miss Augusta Wilton.

53 Archer, , Notebooks, pp. 179–180.Google Scholar

54 Cook, II, 71.

55 Pemberton, T. Edgar, Ellen Terry and Her Sisters (London, 1902), p. 142; Terry, p.100.Google Scholar

56 Hiatt, Charles, Ellen Terry and Her Impersonations (London, 1899), p. 72Google Scholar.

57 Terry, pp. 96–97. Bancroft tells us that at this point Terry was “content with the modest sum of twenty pounds—which ranks as a high salary in those days” (Recollections, p. 211).

58 John, Christopher St., ed., Four Lectures on Shakespeare (London, [1932]), p. 116Google Scholar.

59 St. John, p. 87.

60 Ibid., p. 96.

61 The Architect, 3 April 1875, p. 196.

62 Stokes, p. 39.

63 Adams, Eve, ed., Mrs. J. Comyns-Carr's Reminiscences (London, 1926), p. 31Google Scholar.

64 Scott, I, 587.

65 Wilde, Oscar, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (New York, 1923), II, 183Google Scholar.

66 The World, 21 April 1875, p. 10; Cook, II, 70.

67 Terry, p. 105.

68 St. John. p. 121.

69 Cook, II, 70.

70 Scott, I, 587.

71 Ibid.

72 On and Off, II, 26–27. Shortly before the closing the Bancrofts advertised in the newspapers that “the performance of The Merchant of Venice, having failed to attract large audiences, the play will be withdrawn.” The honesty of this public admission of defeat seems to have come as something of a surprise. The Bancrofts had rejected the usual “owing to prior arrangements” as a “ridiculous evasion” and The Figaro, 22 May 1875, for one, was impressed with their candor. As a result of their frankness, the Bancrofts assert, their future successes were “believed in.”Google Scholar

73 On and Off, II. 27–28Google Scholar. Ellen Terry says that Spedding, Sir Frederick and Lady Pollock, Edwin Arnold, and Sir Frederick Leighton, among others, offered to “keep the performance going by subscription.” The Bancrofts do not mention this (Terry, p. 107).

74 Recollections, p. 206.