838
6
FO
Н36
...:
В 1,385,996
.
32.17
2:
:::*
ar!!
.

GENERAL LIBRARY
VERSITY OF MICHIGA
MC W
ARTES
VERTIES
SCIENTIA
UNIVERS
838
G6
F20
Н366
39.4.de
from Dr. L.G. foane
838
Gle.
Fao
ها ها 3 -
SOUVENIR OF THE LYCEUM “FAUST.”

key!
IR
ORG
AN
.
Niephistopheles introducing Fuust to the Witch's Kitchen,
Drawn by IV. II. Jurgetsuri.
31203
THE LYCEUM "FAUST.



BY
JOSEPH HATTON.
(AUTHOR OF “CLYTIE,”
THREE RECRUITS,'
THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA,"
JOURNALISTIC LONDON,” &c.)
With Illustrations from Drawings
BY
W. TELBIN
W. H. MARGETSON
HAWES CRAVEN
J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE
AND
HELEN H. HATTON.
Forty-fourth Thousand.—Reprinted from the Art Journal.
LONDON: J. S. VIRTUE & CO., LIMITED, IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW.
ke

دسته و صرع عنه
sell nese
hati see where anh
pi

Hinang
hazilang, heter
Here
899
G
emas
H3
***
Heldim

THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
E
tus
A
lilli
ادوا
dTES
UZAN.
PS
NEW adaptation of Goethe's Faust for the Eng-
lish stage is an event of artistic interest, more
especially when the author is a poet, and its dramatic
representation is undertaken by Mr. Henry Irving.
There will always be a controversy in respect of the
effectiveness of Faust for stage purposes. Many wise
persons contend that although Hamlet was written
by an actor for the theatre, it should be confined to
the closet. How much more then may we expect to
find scholars contending for the exclusion of Faust
from the stage, seeing that it is a question of reason-
able doubt whether Goethe intended his work to be
acted or not. Without entering into the controversy
we are ready to admit the doubt, though Goethe
pre-
pared certain scenes for the stage, took a deep interest
in their production, and lent ready help to theatrical
managers who undertook to give representations of
the entire story. Professor Creizenach, in his mono-
graph Die Bühren geschichte des Goethe'schen Faust,
demonstrates how in the earlier scenes of the poetic
drama Goethe contemplated his work as in progress
of performance, imagining himself the audience at
his own play; and there are critics who think he
meant what they call the tragedy for acting, and the
second part, which redeems the story out of tragedy,
5
w
تندي او
Mr. Irving as Mephistopheles. By W. H. Margetson.
THE LYCEUN "FAUST."
for contemplative thought and study. According to
others, the poem is a thing of shreds and patches,
without design either for stage or closet, the form
of it a medium for expressing certain views of life
and philosophy; while the opposites of all this take
the entire work as a model of form and construction,
and many of them regard the second part as more
dramatic than the first.
Whether Goethe was writing for the stage, or only
for the closet, when he was composing his dramatic
poem, the chief legend upon which he founded it
could not fail at any time to have attracted dramatic
authors, and must always have appealed to the
instincts of actors and stage-managers.
Calderon
had already dealt with a similar legend in Spain,
Marlowe had written “ The Tragical History of
Doctor Faustus” in England, and Germany had
founded a “puppet play" on Marlowe's tragedy, long
before Goethe was born. In his biography the great
master himself acknowledges the inspiration of the
stage as a factor in his immortal work. “The old
puppet play,” he says, “echoed many-toned in my
memory." There are in these days a set of aggres-
sively cultured people who affect an office of dra-
matic censorship. They are always wiser than the
directors of the theatre, or at least would have us
believe so. In regard to Goethe they know exactly
what he thought and desired; and, without his per-
mission, living or dead, have delivered themselves
accordingly. With this class of critical patrons the
stage is still a
is still a mere puppet show, actors rogues
and vagabonds; but thoughtful students of literature
and Art will always be anxious to reckon with the
theatre as a classic agent in the world's intellectual
progress.
The great painters of our day have shown a prac-
tical and active sympathy with the earnest efforts of
the stage-manager to realise the scenes he endeavours
to represent, and it will be interesting in The Art
Journal to glance at the nature and character of
these efforts à propos of the new production of Faust
on the English stage. Mr. Henry Irving has shown
an exceptional appreciation of the lighting and
management of scenic effect for stage purposes, and
he has had the command of masterly exponents of
his views in Mr. Hawes Craven, Mr. W. Telbin, and
other remarkable painters, worthy successors of
Clarkson Stanfield, David Roberts, and De Louther-
bourg.
Let us illustrate a phase of Mr. Irving's methods
by the engravings which accompany this text. We
are enabled to do so from a long experience of
Lyceum work. The drawing of Nuremberg is the
second study which Mr. Craven, in company with
Mr. Irving, recently made of that picturesque city.
The first was a bright, realistic drawing of the subject
--simple, direct, truthful. The second, which we en-
grave, is an idealisation of the first, from the mana-
gerial point of view, under the poetic influence of the
dramatic scene for which it was designed. It is notice-
6

Will
W
HU
Billy
im
F
LIIW
10:1)
Trees and Mountains. From the Original Drawing by W. Telbin.
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
able that throughout this new representation of Faust
there is hardly a scene in full light. The periods of
action are generally at evening, night, or dawn, and
in one view of Nuremberg the city is flooded with the
glowing colour of the setting sun, emphasized by the
red presence of Mephistopheles himself. Doré lights
his picture of “ Christ leaving the Prætorium” from
its central figure. In the stage picture of Nuremberg,
in front of the cloth (for which our engraving is the
original drawing), there is built a rampart or balcony.
It is a picturesque flight of fancy, the suggestion that
the Devil standing there might deepen the fiery light
of the sun on the red roofs, and give a weird glow of
colour and movement to the scene, as if his presence
had suddenly fired it.
“ How he doth cast a liellish light
On what a moment since seemed sweet as flowers!
not only the faculty of a poetic appreciation of high
dramatic themes, but he has a painstaking capacity
for beginning at the beginning of things. He has
had Mr. Wills's version of Faust in his possession for
several years. He has thought of it and talked of it,
getting at the root of the matter in the intervals of
his work and travels during that time; and he spent
his vacation this year in the Goethe country. It is
an interesting fact that he did not see Faust played
during his visit to Germany, nor has he seen it on the
London stage.
Mr. Wills, in sympathy with Mr.
Irving's dramatic views and the exigencies of the
theatre, has from time to time revised his book and
brought it nearer and nearer to the Goethe idea; at
the same time remembering how different are the
audiences before whom the tragedy is produced in
England from those who go to see the German Faust
in the German theatres. A poet himself, Mr. Wills
is also a German scholar. Pursuing his task with the
sarne integrity of intention as Mr. Irving, the result is
a dramatic version of the first part of Faust, in which
the necessities of the theatre do not destroy the
flavour of the original.
To return to the illustrations which accompany
this paper :
we engrave another of the original
sketches which have been made for the purposes of
the new stage Faust. Mr. William Telbin has
painted two of the most striking scenes in the
Lyceum gallery of pictures, illustrating the Hartz
country. Ruskin, in “The Ethics of the Dust,"
Mr. Hawes Craven's work is as worthy of a place
on the walls of the Academy as its expansion upon
the Lyceum stage is worthy of the Art-reputation of
Mr. Irving's theatre.
It has been suggested by some critics that there
is danger of over-elaboration in the modern system
of mounting plays; but so long as a
so long as a manager
approaches a great dramatic theme with a reverent
regard for the author, and with well-balanced ideas
of the purpose of scenic decoration, he cannot go far
wrong in availing himself of all the artistic and
mechanical appliances of the day to enhance the
truthfulness and reality of his work. Mr. Irving has
8

THE LYCEUM "FAUST.”
the closet, it possesses all the essential elements of a
fascinating stage story. We remember Mr. Irving
explaining to an American journalist what he
considered to be one of the secrets of the success
says he never means to go to the Hartz Mountains,
because he wants to retain the romantic feeling
about the name; "and I have done myself some
harm already by seeing the monotonous and heavy
form of the Brocken from the suburbs of
Brunswick.” The harm is not recognisable,
however, in the master's fairy story of the
Hartz dust, its crystal caprices, its trans-
formations, and its weird suggestions of
the mysteries that belong to the Brocken's
surrounding caves and valleys. So deep
down in the heart of imagination lies the
impression of the romance of the Hartz
Mountains and the spectres of the Brocken,
that a painter might appeal to the highest
fancy in a sketch of natural possibilities of
rock and glen, without penetrating the
secrets of the Hartz or soaring to the sum-
mit of the Brocken. Whether Mr. Telbin
made his first sketch of Trees and Moun-
tains' within the shadow of its vast rock,
or from the picturesque memories of pre-
vious out-of-door studies, it is an impres-
sive picture, and belongs to the magic
circle of the Goethe influence.
When the principals are harmoniously at
work, we can hardly imagine a more pleasant occu-
pation than that of trying to interpret and realise
the picturesque dreams of the dramatic poet; and
whether Goethe's Faust was written for the theatre or
Faust's Studio. Drawn by W. H. Margetson.
of his Lyceum scenery, and it must be said for the
Lyceum manager that he is never chary of exhibit-
ing his methods. He has no secrets to guard.
No man is more free in passing on the torch of
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
knowledge ; no man has better reason to feel
proud of the influence he has exercised on the pic-
turesque in stage art. “One reason," he said, “why
the Lyceum scenes appear so natural and true, as
you say, is that in the foregrounds everything is
life-size. Is it a tree, a wall, a house, or what not,
it is life-size, so that the figures in front of it may
retain their proper proportions to the scene, and the
middle and far distance of the picture have their
proper relationship to the whole.”
These examples of how Mr. Irving approaches the
work of preparing the setting of a play are but two
out of many. His rooms for months prior to the
production of Faust had been crowded with sketches
by Telbin, Craven, Burgkmair, Cranach, and others;
with relics of Nuremberg and the Goethe country;
with textiles, ancient and modern; with studies
by Albert Dürer; with folios of costumes; and with
many editions of Goethe's dramatic poem. The
scoffer at stage work is always anxious to declare
that the actor is not in the region of true Art, because
he is not technically a producer, because his work
dies with him ; but in these days the actor, who is
also in the best sense a stage-manager, may leave
behind him more than a memory. He may impress an
influence for good on the varied arts of his time, and,
as a collaborator at least, contribute to the world's
permanent Art records pictorial suggestions and
realisations of poetic and historic scenes that shall
live as long as the subjects they illustrate and adorn.
It has been said that theatrical scenes have an
unnatural appearance. As the art of painting and
managing a scene with a view to the artificial light-
ing of it progresses, this feeling of unreality will
disappear. A recent exhibition in London of a
nude figure, artificially lighted, and with a darkened
auditorium, produced the effect of reality. It might
not have been a painted figure the audience saw, but
a beautiful woman, so deftly had the subject been
painted for the effect of artificial or theatrical light-
ing. Mr. Irving and his scene-painters had already
achieved this kind of success by an artistic apprecia-
tion of the conditions under which to exhibit their
work.
The engraving here, for instance, has quite an
atmosphere of reality, though it has been drawn
only from a design of the scene, lighted arti-
ficially. This is indeed the stage set, but modelled
in little, not much larger than the scale of our en-
graving. It is the result of many original sketches
idealised in the final arrangement. It represents a
lonely street by the church in the fourth act, and the
moment of the picture is that where Mephistopheles
is seen stealing away.
The Lyceum Faust is closer to the original than
anything produced outside Germany, although several
scenes are excluded which are favourites with Ger-
man playgoers. At the same time, the last scene
may by some be regarded as a concession to those
who cannot think of Faust without the second part. In
o

THE LYCEUNI “FAUST.”
ma
the German theatre it is common to begin
the play with the prologue in heaven,
ending it with the salvation of both Faust
and Margaret.
But even if this repre-
sentation were allowed on the English
stage, time would not permit of it, nor
would it be a paying entertainment. Faust
does not rank among the profitable plays
of Germany.
English managers must
make their theatres pay; they are
not
helped by national subsidies. The advance.
ment of Art and the ennobling influence
of poetic and romantic plays have there-
fore to be considered in company with
the question of finance. Faust with its
long speeches and pessimistic philosophy,
with its witches' kitchen, its students'
cellar, and the other features of the Ger-
man play, would have no chance of success
in England. The tragedy, with the spirit
of its philosophy and the feeling of its
humanity, is all that our stage can hope
to show. If this is done sufficiently clearly
to tell the story, and point the moral that
lies in the conclusion of the first part of the
original, it should command the sympathy
of students and the applause of the public.
Mr. Wills in his adaptation and Mr. Irving
in his stage setting and acting have
achieved this most difficult task. They
XXX)
UTIN
II
A Lonely Street. Drawn from Mr. Craven's Stage Model by Helen H. Hatton.
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
sence.
is so skilfully dealt with that you can feel its pre-
Mr. Wills's masterly translation of the
text may here be sampled. Faust, during his
apostrophe to the “hollow-sounding hills" that
proclaim the Easter Festival, hears a stir of life
without. He rises, unlocks the door, and peers into
the darkness.
" What art thou ?
Why, 'tis the hound which followed me last night :
Poor beast-low lean and desolate you look!
Gambolling round my melancholy steps
Upon the mountain path, you gladdened me,
Take in return my hospitality.
have also given the spectator a hint of the finality
of the story in the apotheosis of Margaret. It would
be more satisfactory of course if the ultimate salva-
tion of the man by the woman could be shown;
but this would be impracticable on the English
stage; and the tragic scenes find a very natural
and dramatic dénouement in the punishment of the
man, and in the escape of the woman from the
clutches of the fiend. The reverent student of
Faust can no more complain of the dramatic treat-
ment of a portion of the complete story than can
the student of history when the playwright selects an
episode from a reign or an incident in a life for
dramatic illustration. Faust's bond with Satan, his
sacrifice of Margaret to an inordinate passion, the
struggle of his better nature to retrieve the past, the
sorrows of the woman, which appeal trumpet-tongued
at the Mercy-Seat, and the fall of Faust, a victim
to rebellion against God, represent a complete and
engrossing story, sufficient for the playgoer, sufficient,
so far, for the moralist; while the imagination, full of
the entire subject, can take up the second part and
dream out the scene in heaven, where, tried and
purified, Faust eventually joins his earthly love in
the glorified choruses of Paradise.
Among the differences between the latest repre-
sentation of Faust and previous productions on the
English stage, the introduction of the dog, which
is so important an incident of the original, is not-
able. Not that the dog is really seen, but the idea
Then comes the scene in which Faust exorcises the
evil spirit, and Mephistopheles makes his appearance,
through a misty cloud which has gathered about the
stove, whither the hound had retired. In Gounod's
opera and in the Drury Lane version by Mr. Bayle
Bernard, Faust first sees Margaret in a vision, sitting
at her spinning wheel, but in Goethe a great effect is
Faust's sudden meeting with Margaret in the street;
and this is followed in the Lyceum version. Faust,
fresh from foretastes of the world he has entered
upon with Mephistopheles, encounters Margaret :-
Enter NIARGARET, dogged by MEPHISTOPHELES.
Faust [aside). What angel walks the street!
[Aloud] Pretty lady, pray accept my escort;
I lain would guard thee home.
Alar. Sir, I'm not pretty, nor yet a lady ;
I have no need of any escort home.
[Exits quickly.
I 2

政
​去
​國​4K 杜
​月​国​公
​NE
Nuremberg (Evening). From the original Drawing by Hawes Craven.
THE LYCEUM "FAUST."
It is the tendency of criticism and annotation to
provide great authors with many intentions they
never intended, with many designs they never de-
signed. Goethe is credited with subtleties of meta-
physical teaching, and with an amount of allegorical
invention which he probably never dreamed of. The
character of Margaret is the subject of numerous
volumes of learned comment, and she is held up
by most literary interpreters of Goethe's poem as
saving herself at the last moment by resisting the
severest temptation of Faust. The newest English
writer upon the subject, Mr. Chatterton Coupland,
says, “ Margaret had one moment of deliberate choice,
but only one, that tremendous, one great temptation
which she successfully passed through the tempta-
tion to leave her prison, obliterate her early past,
and resume her old life with her lover." But she
resisted and saved herself and her lover. This is the
view of commentators generally, who have their own
theories to establish. But surely Margaret was in no
condition to think the situation out; she was mad
and dying, and her experience," the old life with her
lover," was not one that could offer her much tempta-
tion. Her pleasure was of the briefest; her sorrow
was all-absorbing. She welcomed the pang of death
as a “delivering angel," and if she prayed that God
might save them both, “because of our great love
and all my sorrow,” it was surely not a question of
deliberation whether she would forego “the old life
with her lover” or seek the better world.
We have said that Mr. Wills's adaptation of
Goethe's Faust is of unequal merit.
Its defects are
more apparent in action than in the book; but, re-
garded as a basis for the taste and fancy of a
daring stage-manager, it is possibly as useful a
translation as could be desired. A playwright, un-
trammelled by Goethe's immortal treatment of the
original legend, might be expected to do better
than is possible when the object is an English
presentment of Goethe's own work. Mr. Gilbert
however, does not appear to have succeeded in the
task of writing an independent play on the original
lines of the legend, though his book of “Gretchen"
has many excellences and much poetic strength
and beauty. The story certainly lends itself to the
requirements of the theatre. It has all the variety
necessary for a stirring romance : its heroine, a
village maiden, whose innocence and beauty are
her ruin, and whose misery melts the hearts of
angelic hosts. The leading incidents are set forth
on a dark background of magic and superstition, and
in the atmosphere through which the action moves
there is the sunshine of summer landscapes, the per-
fume of town gardens, the bustle of old cities, the
chimes of cathedral bells, and the distant echoes of
stormy war. If with these materials a modern play-
wright could work out a better acting play than one
who is tied to a close adaptation of Goethe, he would
not appeal to the motive which is the raison-d'être of
the latest of Mr. Irving's achievements—a represen-
14
THE LYCEUM "FAUST."
BI
FIL
tation, upon the stage, of the
Goethe tragedy constructed as
nearly as possible on Goethe's
lines, and written, so far as
our language will permit, in
Goethe's own words.
It is not only the humanity
of the story that has attracted
Mr. Irving, but the witchery
and magic of it; the challenge
it seems to offer for carrying
the imagination captive right
through the gamut of human
life, and with a suggestion of
the life hereafter ; its weird
glimpses of the supernatural,
its traffic with demonology,
and its witches and spectres of
the Brocken. It would not have
been sufficient for the manager
of the Lyceum Theatre that
Mephistopheles offered him a
fine acting part, or that he had
in his company an ideal Mar-
garet; he is an artist as well
as an actor, and he has more
than once, in the past history
of his management, sacrificed
himself as an actor for the ar-
tistic delight of mounting and

RE
Holen Sie
量
​Margaret's Garden. Drawn by Helen H. Hatton.
15
THE LYCEUM "FAUST."
adorning dramatic themes which have given him no
special opportunities of histrionic distinction. It is
in respect of this devotion to the pictorial branch
of his theatrical work that he commends himself more
particularly to the conductors of The Art Journal.
Mr. Irving has opened up new ground in the broad
field of Art. He has given a reality to stage illusion
and a new pleasure to the artistic perception that
finds a sensuous delight in the beauties of composi-
tion and colour, in the harmonies of dyes, in well-
balanced contrasts of light and shade, and in the
lines of perfect architecture. Those who are ac-
quainted with the actor-manager of the Lyceum
Theatre know that his work in this direction is not
only the outcome of a taste for Art, backed by much
study and experience of the exigencies of stage-effect,
but it has its spring in that absolute unselfishness of
the true artist who is above private interests, who
does not count the cost of things, nor value his
reward in money. Every argument that could be
used in favour of a national subsidy for the theatre
in England might be found in the history of the
Lyceum; and if Mr. Irving is to have successors in
the work he has established, many a manager must
be consumed in his own artistic fervour unless bene-
ficent municipalities come to his aid, as they do in
the other great cities of Europe.
It is surprising in how brief a space the Lyceum
story may be told. An old man laments his lost
youth. The devil in return for his body and soul gives
him rejuvenescence. To encompass, with the ruin
of Faust, the destruction of Margaret, he brings about
the girl's ruin. At the last moment, when both
appear to be in his power, Heaven interposes, and
the soul of Margaret is wafted by angels' wings to
Paradise; while Faust is the prey of the devil. But
we touch here the entire range of human hope,
happiness, misery, and despair, and offer to the
painter a lifetime of absorbing work. Mr. Irving
has said that he will consider himself well rewarded
if, in his attempt to illustrate this great theme, he
draws fresh attention to the beauties of Goethe's
poem, and stimulates a more general study of its
beauties and its lessons. That he has done so is
already very apparent in the newspaper and perio-
dical press, and in the new editions that are promised
of the great German's work. But he would have
accomplished very little in this way had he not made
his new production a financial as well as an artistic
success. His managerial instincts have served him
here. The day may come when the dramatic poem
can be given in its integrity. Meanwhile popular
sentiment and feeling, and the exigencies of the stage
as it is, must be considered. Even Shakespeare can-
not be acted from the original books. The Hamlet
of the stage is a modification of the Hamlet of the
book; so also is Othello, and that in a remarkable
degree; but their representation on the stage, while
promoting the study of Shakespeare, has popularised
his works among the people, and assisted the general
16

9:""***!!.htitate****
Yuragimni Win.cdrow.codederit ry
11.
演
​Margaret at the Spinning Wheel. from a Photograph by Windsor & Grove.
B
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
understanding of them. The acting of Faust in
Germany has had a similar influence upon our neigh-
bours, and the Lyceum tragedy will open up a new
world of poetry to thousands of English people who
had never heard of Goethe, though they were in a
vague way acquainted with Mephistopheles and the
man who sold himself to the devil.
The first scene of the Lyceum play strikes the key-
note of the Albert Düreresque and Early German
feeling with which Mr. Irving has inspired his artists.
If occasionally they fall away from it, they always at
least catch the higher spirit of the Dutch school,
deftly avoiding that want of realism which “smites
the imagination in the mouth and bids it be silent."
'Faust's Study' and 'The St. Lorenz-Platz, Nürem-
berg,' by Mr. Telbin, are pictures that fulfil all
the master's requirements. The study is essentially
painted and arranged on the lines of Albert Dürer.
The details of books and hour-glass, of skull and
phials, the implements of magic and its weird
symbols, are admirably put in; and the old man as
he sits in their midst revives in one's memory many
a half-forgotten picture, illustrating ancient books of
alchemy, witchcraft, and demonology. Here are all
the well-known tokens of the magician, and yonder,
with a glow about it, is the potent phial from which
we might expect a second diable boiteux to be released.
The red figure of Mephistopheles, which is presently
posed at the philosopher's elbow, brings into the
situation, however, its highest dramatic significance,
and at the same time completes the composition and
colour of the picture. Our pen-and-ink sketch was
drawn from this opening scene.
In his costume
Mr. Irving adheres to stage tradition; in his inter-
pretation of the part he is Goethe's devil, “anti-
sentimentalist, cynic, Philistine, humorist." His
physical limp is reflected in his mind. He is a
fiend, a mocking fiend, but there is at times a
spiritual dignity in face and figure which lifts the
character into the front rank of intellectuality.
There is one scene in which Irving looks like a
fallen Dante, and there is no moment in the play
when he is not equal to the supreme demands of the
character.
Although the scene
the scene of Faust's meeting with
Margaret is not indicated by Goethe, the St. Lorenz-
Platz at Nüremberg is just the sixteenth-century
street and place one can well imagine to have been
in his mind's eye. It is well understood that in his
description of his encounter with the hound he
suggested his native city of Frankfort; while the
students' cellar, Auerbach's Vault, was no doubt at
Leipzig. The witch's kitchen may have been there
too, or at Nüremberg. Wherever it was, in the same
city Faust met Margaret, and it is fair dramatic
license, and in perfect harmony with the poem, to lay
the scene in the interesting city of Nüremberg, which
even to-day is famous for its remains of mediæval
architecture, its picturesque gabled houses, its forti-
fied walls, its Gothic churches, and its quiet old-
18

THE LYCEUM "FAUST.”
world manners and customs. The Platz is a typical
example of the sincerity of the Lyceum work. It is
a most pleasing and characteristic picture. On the
right the noble front of a Gothic church. On the left
an old inn with men drinking and waited upon by a
woman you have seen over and over again in pictures
of the Early German school. The church gates are
opened, the citizens come in groups to worship.
They are broken up into a series of pictures, all
indicating design and intention of composition, the
local colour of the dresses being arranged with
artistic thoughtfulness. The stage-manager has this
great advantage over the painter : his figures are
alive, they breathe and move. In this Lorenz-Platz
we are transported to the veritable Nüremberg of
Albert Dürer and Gabriel Weyher. We see the
people as they lived, hear them talk of the wars, and
we see Goethe's Margaret coming from confession to
meet her desperate fate at the hands of her lover.
We know that the pensive girl is Ellen Terry, but we
can take her right into our fancy as the Gretchen of
old; for in her interpretation we find all the grace
and sweet naturalness of the original. She will
go down to posterity the inimitable Margaret, in
artistic companionship with Irving's matchless
Mephistopheles. Ellen Terry never looked less the
Ellen Terry of the stage than she does in Margaret,
never more the semblance of a poet's ideal. Her
dresses are more than becoming, they fit the time
and character, the air and manner of the part; and
Melegen
Margaret at the Shrine. Drawn by Helen H. Hatton.
19
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
an
for this generation at least, when it reads Faust (and
Goethe is to have his society of English students
now) it will have for its mental ideals the Faust of
the Lyceum prologue, and the Mephistopheles and
Margaret of the entire tragedy.
We engrave drawings of two of the lightest and
most fascinating of the scenes by Hawes Craven-
Martha's Garden and Margaret's. The latter was
drawn from the painter's model before the scene was
set. That it is at all a successful realisation of the
stage-picture says much for the definite character of
the lines upon which the pictorial features of the play
have been carried out. Martha's Garden is an illus-
tration from the stage itself, and with the play in
action. The incident is immediately consequent upon
Margaret's declaration :-
are admirable, pictorial in effect, realistic in colour :
quiet red-brick garden walls with climbing roses ;
old moss-grown apple-tree with an ancient
bench; a rustic cottage porch; a background of city
towers; the whole a characteristic town garden. As
to the placing of the figures, if they pause, during
the action of the story, they pause near the tree,
forming a foreground group, Margaret in a dress of
pale yellow and white brightened by a slight touch
of black; then Faust in a costume of rich brown, a
connecting link of colour, leading up to Mephisto-
pheles, the antithesis of Margaret; forming as it
were a second focus of colour in the picture, the
splendour of it relieved by the sombre tones of the
gateway against which it is massed. Over all there
is a rich glow of summer evening colour deepening
towards twilight. In itself here is a stage picture
that might be successfully transferred to canvas. It
is earnest and interesting in composition, pleasing
in colour, tells its story, has good lines in it, is well
grouped, and might be criticised from the standpoint
of a cabinet painting. Viewed in the cold light of
day, or in the harsh rays of ill-regulated gas-burners,
this beautiful garden would appear but a poor daub;
it is painted for appropriate illumination. The Lyceum
footlights and borders are artfully supplied with arti-
ficial sunshine, as well as with cool shadows, with
yellows and browns and greys. These are supple-
mented with silk-cased lights in the flies, and with
lime-light lamps in the most unlikely places; so that
Oh, thou King of all the World ! I love thee!
After the embrace that follows on these words,
Mephistopheles, who is in hiding, indicates his
presence with a mocking cough. Faust starts, and
asks “Who's there ?" “ A friend !” says the devil.
“ A friend!” repeats Faust, which brings the cynical
rejoinder-
" Thou King of all the World, 'tis time to go ;
upon which the curtain falls.
The composition and arrangement of this scene
20

11:11!!
1110V
Will
WHMARGET SOV. I
In Martha's Garden. Drawn by W. H. Margetson.
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
the crudest colours or the daintiest effects of the
painter can be regulated and toned with lights which,
in combination with the artist's brush, mimic nature
so well that even in close proximity to the scene the
illusion is maintained, while at a distance it is perfect,
as in the one under notice. At the same time, if you
look deeper into the art and intention of painter and
stage-manager, you will find that the artist has painted
for the particular effect of light which the scene is to
bear, and that the costumes have been selected to
harmonize with both; that all the proper gradations of
colour have been observed in every object; and that
the general harmony of tone is as keenly regarded as
the most fastidious critic could desire. What strikes
one also as so deliciously suggested in these town
gardens is the lovely atmosphere of Nüremberg, “the
formal sweetness of domestic peace" they convey to
the spectator, and which is borne out by the clean
white diapered chamber a harmony in white and
grey, as Mr. Whistler might call it) of Margaret later
on in the play.
No more remarkable example of the possibilities of
stage grouping and lighting has probably ever been
seen than the Rembrandtish effect with which the
incident of the death of Valentine is illustrated. The
fight, with its interposition of the devil's flashing
blade, wielded with Satanic joy, is over ; Valentine
is stretched upon the ground in the dark street; the
alarmed citizens and soldiers come on one after the
other, group after group, with torches and without.
They gather round the dying youth; Margaret is
there, and Martha. The focus of light is on the half-
prostrate soldier; the eye is naturally led to the
kneeling figure of Margaret ; the well-placed torch-
light adds intensity to the dark background of the
street, and falls in ruddy flickerings upon the eager
faces of the crowd. But the new Faust is full of
pictures; they abound, not only in the matter of
painted scenery, but in artistic incidents and in the
grouping of figures. The Goethe country affords
plenty of opportunity for the painter who has a true
feeling for the happy combinations of Art-he could
not well go wrong in selecting subjects from Nürem-
berg and the Hartz. At the same time there is
always a temptation to exaggerate in stage scenery.
But the Lyceum artists have gone straight to nature.
They have sought to interpret and exhibit, working
on the principles laid down by the great Art-
critic, in a humble and self-forgetful desire to record
facts, to show what they have seen and felt. This
is the secret of the Lyceum successes, and it is the
secret of all that is lasting in every branch of the
arts.
«The Summit of the Brocken,' which we engrave
from an original sketch by the painter himself, depicts
the scene when it is first exhibited to the audience.
A simple broad effect of rock and tree and cloud, it
might have been expected to pass for what it is the
mere foundation of the great sensation act of the
play. But the audience, affected by its calm true
22
>>
THE LYCEUM "FAUST."
***
I!!
!
1
spirit, welcomed it with applause. Illuminated with
a cold effect of stormy moonlight, the scene is singu-
larly impressive. It is a study in black and white
and grey. A mass of time-worn rock on one hand,
two weather-beaten pines on the other, between them
a snowy valley, the distance a mystery of vaporous
cloud. But how deftly laid in for the purposes of the
stage-manager! No effects of form or colour to com-
pete with the supernatural incidents of which it is the
scene; no straining of the landscape painter to be
in strong evidence with the figure artist; it is only
the summit of the Brocken, cold, weird, desolate, with
a couple of ragged pines that had staggered before
tempestuous winds, barely keeping their roots in the
rocky soil and snow. Presently the luminous shadow
of the red Mephistopheles shows a cleft in the moun-
tain, whence he appears leading Faust to the summit.
The devil is accompanied by thunder and lightning.
There is a big hazy moon with a watery halo. A
sudden flight of witches on broomsticks crosses its
yellow disc. A flock of owls flap their solemn wings
through the stormy night. Strange nameless beings
and goblin spectres, half men, half beasts, chatter-
ing imps, old bearded men and ghost-like women,
hooded things, and winged fiends swarm out of the
mountain sides with unearthly shrieks and cries and
deep grave chaunts and songs. Mephistopheles joins
their infernal revels and leads the mocking laughs
that greet the complaining wails of those who suffer ;
for it is a weird mixture of hellish joy and fiendish

The Duel. Drawn by IV. H. Margetson."
torment. Strange calls from the rocky clefts below
are heard and answered.
Oh, take me! I'mn full of aches and fears,
I'm climbing now three hundred years ;
I cannot go on and I cannot stop,
And I think I'll never reach the top,”
23
!
THE LYCEUM "FAUST."
no trees, no sky, only darkness made visible by the
cloaked figure with its pale frowning visage and its
flashing eyes, a veritable prince of darkness. All
suddenly, with a curse upon his lips at the departed
vision, he invites his ghastly subjects to a renewal
of the revels :-
܀
cries a bleached uncanny creature, at which the
entire crew yell their delight, and Mephistopheles
seizes the climber and thrusts it (or him or she)
aside : but it staggers on and complains again,
amidst renewed scoffs and mocking jeers.
Faust is lured away for a moment by three weird
women, while Mephistopheles encourages the wild
dance and joins in the ghost-like revels, the flashing
lightning and the rolling thunder giving occasional
accompaniment to the orgie. The devilish arrivals
continue until rock and valley are crowded with the
ungodly company.
Then there is a momentary pause, the throng settles
down into a surging mass, Mephistopheles calls to
Faust, way is made for him, and across the distant
mountain is seen a vision of Margaret.
" The curse of hell upon it !
Swell your throats now with music wild!
Hellish! infernal ! and then mad!"
'tis-
“ Faust. A moment ! seest thou—lo, yonder, yonder
Alone and far a girl most pale and fair,
With slow and trailing feet she comes to us,
Methinks-
Margaret !
Mephis. Illusion! Heed it not-born of a dream.
It is a frenzy_lifeless phantasy.
Avoid its stare—'twill work upon thy blood,
Thy brain, 'twill make thee mad.
The command is obeyed. The Brocken is crowded
once more, but the orgie goes on staccato, swelling in
ferocity of shout and motion. Mephistopheles, with
laughing approval, reclines upon a rock which
gives forth flashes of electric light, a pair of apes
fondling him, until once again he leaps into the
centre of the throng, and the world of the Hartz
is ablaze. Earth and air are enveloped in a burning
mass. The rocks seem to melt like lava. A furnace
of molten metal has broken loose. The clouds shower
down fiery rain, the thunder rolls away into the
distant valleys. The ghost-like crew of fiends and
witches and beings of nameless shape cower beneath
the fiery hail and raise their writhing arms in
shivering protest.
It is a
scene from Dante's
“Inferno," and there is Dante in the midst, if the
actor only put into his mobile features an expression
of pity instead of a
of fiendish delight.
Although the orthodox critic who knows his Goethe
through and through will of course dwell upon the
“Vanish!” cries Mephistopheles, rising to his full
height, in the centre of the scene. Amidst a peal of
thunder the stage is cleared as by magic. Mephis-
topheles is alone, a red, solemn, spirit-like figure;
a dark mystery all around him, no moon, no rocks,
sense
24

V
WIN
服
​The Summit of the Brocken.' From a Drawing by W. Telbin.
THE LYCEUM "FAUST."
“Walpurgis Revels" as a mere intermezzo, the intro-
duction of them at the Lyceum emphasises the
supernatural character of Mephistopheles, helping
unsophisticated audiences to realise its full signifi-
cance, and to understand the secret of the fiend's
power over Faust and his evil capacity for destruc-
tion.
The closing pictures are two short scenes in the
last act, the dungeon and the apotheosis of the dead
Margaret. The struggle between the powers of good
and evil suggested in the chants of unseen spirits, is
realised in the acting of Margaret, Faust, and Mephis-
topheles. The Margaret of Miss Terry in this last
scene furnishes a worthy companion to her mad
scene in Hamlet. As she falls dead at the foot of
the cross, in the last glance of the red light of the
fiend, a flight of angels hovers over the prostrate
form ; the white wings and angelic faces, a heavenly
throng, half shut in among the groinings of the
prison's Gothic roof, yet suggesting the calm spirit-
world beyond.
Mr. Irving has kept as closely to the original
work as stage requirements will permit. In a brief
speech on the first night he told his audience that
the time might come when he could venture to ex-
tend the production with a representation of the
students' cellar and the witch's kitchen. We note
that he hinted to a correspondent in a Berlin journal
that it might be possible a century hence to give
Goethe's Faust in all its integrity, including the
scene in heaven. Meanwhile we are in the nine-
teenth century, without a subsidised theatre, and
with limited views of the theatre's position in Art
and its mission as an interpreter and a teacher.
He is the best and wisest manager who, while gaug-
ing the intellectuality of his time, does not overlook
its prejudices, but fits his work as far as he may to
the one and keeps touch of the other, endeavouring
all the while to stimulate the public taste for noble
themes by the exhibition of what is true and good
and earnest in the art which he has mastered. The
present generation is fortunate in having at the head
of his profession an actor-manager who has exactly
measured the weakness and the strength of the artis-
tic instincts and desires of the playgoers of his time.
Let us hope the next will find an equally earnest
and accomplished artist to carry on the work and
make the succession worthy of the man who, in our
day, has revolutionised the art of the stage, and
given it a new purpose and a nobler life than that
which it has hitherto possessed, even in the land of
Shakespeare.
THE WITCH'S KITCHEN.
FAUST was produced on the 19th of December, 1885.
In a speech which closed the proceedings of that
interesting night, Mr. Irving expressed a hope that
the time might come when he could venture to extend
26

THE LYCEUM "FAUST.”
the production with a representation of the Students' rature before attempting to realise the Goethe dream
Cellar and the Witch's Kitchen. On Monday, Novem- —or nightmare-of the Witch's Kitchen. Among
ber 15th, 1886, the two hundred and forty-fourth night the curious volumes which he unearthed during his
of the tragedy, he fulfilled as much of this vague sug- investigations of the strange accumulations of rare
gestion as it seems possible for him to ac-
complish. The moment he was convinced
that Faust was a financial as well as an
artistic success—and without the former
the latter is of no avail. in theatrical man-
agement—he commenced a careful study of
witchcraft, its rituals, its traditions, its
mysteries, and its mummeries, Much as
students of the subject and philosophers
have written about witchcraft, the cere-
monies and “hocus-pocus” of the craft
are not described in anything like the
detail that one might have expected.
Goethe indicates with a strong hand the
thick and slab atmosphere of the gruesome
scene which Mr. Irving has delineated, but
there are no instructions as to the "pro-
perties” and “business" of the witch's
incantation. It is here that the art of the
stage-manager comes in. The ritual of
The Apotheosis of Margaret. From a Drawing by W. H. Margetson.
the mystic ceremonial, as played at the
Lyceum, is a poetic invention, an inspiration of the books in London, is one which belonged to a mur-
theme, but inspiration backed with knowledge. Just derer who was hanged at Newgate. Acting upon
as Mr. Irving went to Nuremburg to study the ancient recipes for tormenting and destroying those
Goethe country before the production of Faust, so did whom he hated or feared, the criminal had, with
he delve into the unhallowed depths of wizard lite- pins and needles, stabbed the vital parts of certain
27
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
ces
M
figures in this witch’s book; and there it is to this
day, pictures, pins, and all, grim and horrible evi-
dence of the superstition which for years afflicted
this country, and harassed New England in the
United States.
While the new scene at the Lyceum is almost a
literal translation of Goethe, in word and action, the
details of the witch's incantation are the invention
of the manager. It may well be that Mr. Irving may
have caught a suggestion for the burning wand from
Mr. Waterhouse's picture, “The Magic Circle,” in
last year's Academy. The notion of the lighted
candles is taken from an old engraving in the
actor-manager's library. As for the rest, the curi-
ously grim things that form the witch's ring, the clos-
ing of the circle, the opening of the magic book, the
assumption of the ritualistic collar, the assistance of
the apes in the impressive formula, and the rest of the
mystic business, all this is the creation of the actor;
and it must be said that in the character of Mephisto-
pheles Mr. Irving dominates the scene with a singular
masterfulness and power. While in some of his sati-
rical speeches he may be regarded as the mouthpiece
of such as are inclined to cynicism in his audience,
he is at the same time speaking the words of Goethe,
who, through the medium of Mephistopheles, scoffed
at his own inspiration of “senseless witchcraft”
and “loathsome madness." The incident of the
Witch's Kitchen is valuable however to the play, not
simply as a concession to the severe disciples of

The Magic Potion. Drawn by W. H. Margetson.
28

WIRE
nu
M
IMATE PRO
Alephistopheles on the Brocken. From “ The Illustrated London News, " by
7. Berneri Partridge.
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
Goethe, but as an example of the influences at work
to subdue Faust, by the temptation of love, in the
vision of the beautiful woman (not Margaret, it
should be remembered) and in further elucidation of
the mysticism of the ancient legend. The artistic
aspects of the scene are manifold; the tone of the
picture is in remarkable contrast with the Brocken.
While the superstitious action of the scene gives a
foretaste of the wild frolics of the Walpurgis night,
the key of colour is entirely different. The Brocken
pictures begin with cold blue-greys, and though the
tone is hot enough in the closing scenes you never
lose the sense of that pearly-grey which distinguishes
both landscape and costumes. The Witch's Kitchen,
on the other hand, is dark and sombre, and red is
the prevailing colour. The dress of the witch is
eminently characteristic; the feeling of age is con-
veyed not only in the blue mould that seems
to have attacked the clinging garments, but in the
worn and ragged folds of the texture. The artistic
impressiveness of the scene as a picture lies in its
truthfulness. One knows that the thing is an attempt
to realise a purely imaginary and impossible inci-
dent; but the work has been attacked with so much
earnestness, and with such an assumption of belief
in its truth, that we have a real witch's kitchen, a
house in some gloomy cavern, just as natural in its
unnaturalness as Margaret's garden is sweet and
lovely in its restful reality. One feels that there
might be such a place as the witch's kitchen, such
creatures as the cat-ape and his family, such a victim
as Faust, strengthened for the moment in one's belief
by Hamlet's pregnant remark that “There are
more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt
of in your philosophy.'
Stage art, its difficulties, its triumphs, and its
failures is a subject hardly less provocative of con-
troversy than the dramatic aspects and possibilities
of Faust itself; but it is not open to question that
the change from the Witch's Kitchen, which occu-
pies the full depth of the stage, to the Lorenz Plaz,
which includes in its architectural design the mo-
delled front of a cathedral, with service beginning,
organ pealing, congregation trooping into the sacred
edifice, and all the indications of a busy city in
full animation, is one of the completest things
in modern stagecraft. The transformation is effected
behind a series of gauzes which give a remarkable
semblance of skyey vapours that come down and pass
away right through the stage. We are for the time
being in cloudland, a natural sequence of the kitchen,
which one soon comes to regard as an intangible
something that has melted away and disappeared
in fulfilment of the Shakesperian axiom that the earth
hath bubbles as the water has. By this time one is
in a proper frame of mind to appreciate the beauties
of the following scene of Telbin's, which since the first
night has been repainted, the backcloth especially
giving a broader effect to the composition, and adding
to the dreamy distance of the perspective.
30

THE LYCEUM “FAUST.”
It is a notable characteristic of Mr. Irving's
stage work that nothing in his hands is ever
finished. This may be the secret of its vitality.
With him every night is a first night. He is
ever polishing and improving. There has lat-
terly been some discussion as to the effect of
long runs on the actor and his art.
One can
imagine that an artist doing exactly the same
thing every night for a year or two, his per-
formance would become more or less perfunc-
tory; but the actor playing a great part for
a long time has many opportunities of develop-
ing his study of it; and moreover it should
not be forgotten that he has every night the
stimulus of a fresh audience. Mr. Irving, for
instance, has taken advantage of his long run
of Faust to add to its effects and to develope
the character of Mephistopheles, which has
become a worthy addition to his varied and
remarkably contrasted studies of Hamlet, Dori-
court, Richard, Jingle, Macbeth, Digby Grant,
Louis, Benedict, Malvolio, Matthias, Shylock,
Iago, the Vicar of Wakefield, and many others. .
It will be noted by the playgoer that in order
to compress the added scene within the com-
pass of the "three hours' traffic of the stage,"
Mr. Irving has had to curtail the opening pas-
sages of the story; but if we lose the cruel
humour of the student episode, we gain the
Goethe comedy of the kitchen.
WAM
The Witch's Incantation. Drawn by W. H. Margetson.
THE LYCEUM “FAUST."
Since the first night there have been some altera-
tions in the cast. Mrs. Chippendale now plays
Martha ; Mr. Alexander, Faust; Mr. Forbes, Valen-
tine; Mr. Tyars succeeds Mr. Mead as one of the
witches of the Brocken; while Mr. Mead plays the
witch in the Kitchen scene, and Mr. Archer the cat-
ape.
The illustrations which accompany these brief notes
exhibit some of the novel incidents of characteristic
impersonation which have rewarded Mr. Irying's con-
scientious efforts, not only to satisfy the general play-
goer, but to content those students of Goethe who
regard the Witch's Kitchen as one of the essentials
to a proper understanding of the first part of Faust,
the character of Mephistopheles, and the general
scheme of the tragic story.
2
PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON.

BOUND
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 01218 1791
MAY 31 1948
UNIV. UF MICH.
LIBRARY