THE REPERTORY THEATRE 
 
 A RECORD AND A CRITICISM 
 ,^<i^ BY P.P.HOWE -^^s^^
 
 THE 
 REPERTORY 
 THEATRE
 
 Thence I nfter dinner to the 
 
 Duke of fork's Playhouse 
 
 Pepys
 
 THE REPERTORY 
 
 THEATRE 
 
 A RECORD & A CRITICISM 
 BY P. P. HOWE 
 
 LONDON 
 MARTIN SECKER 
 
 NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET 
 
 ADELPHI 
 
 1910
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 BALLANTYNE <&» COMPANY LTD 
 
 TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN 
 LONDON
 
 TO 
 THE NEXT
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FORE WORD IX 
 
 CHAPTER ONE : THE REPERTORY IDEA 
 
 A Dispassionate Survey : The Irrelevance of the 
 Commercial Theatre : The Economic Basis : A Com- 
 parison with Literature : The Significance of the 
 Repertory Idea : The New Drama : Repertory 
 Defined : The Com^die Frangaise Pp. 11-41 
 
 CHAPTER TWO : EXPERIMENTS IN REPERTORY 
 
 Miss Horniman : The Abbey Theatre, Dublin : The 
 Court Theatre : Vedrenne-Barker : The Gaiety 
 Theatre, Manchester : The Stockport Garrick Society : 
 The Glasgow Repertory Theatre : The New Theatre, 
 New York : Mr. Trench and Mr. Frohman Pp. 42-80 
 
 CHAPTER THREE : THE RECORD OF THE 
 REPERTORY THEATRE (I) 
 
 Justice : Misalliance : Old Friends : The Twelve-Pound 
 Look : The Sentimentalists : The Madras House 
 
 Pp. 81-126 
 
 CHAPTER FOUR : THE RECORD OF THE 
 REPERTORY THEATRE (II) 
 
 Prunella : Trelawny of the " Wells " ; Helena's Path : 
 Chains Pp. 137-150 
 
 CHAPTER FIVE : FAILURE 
 
 Profit, Pecuniary and Artistic : Confusion of Aim : 
 The Question of Direction : Promises Unfulfilled : 
 Failure Defined Pp. 151-164 
 
 vii
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER SIX : SUCCESS 
 
 The Repertory Spirit : The Acting : The Rise of the 
 Producer : The Production : Artists in the Theatre : 
 The Question of the Curtain Pp. 165-193 
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN : ON LEAVING 
 ARISTOTLE OUT 
 
 "Not a Play" : The Critics and The Repertory 
 Theatre : The Dominance of the Newspaper Train : 
 The Reform of Dramatic Criticism, Pp. 193-201 
 
 CONCLUSION Pp. 202-206 
 
 APPENDIX ONE : THE DUKE OF YORK'S 
 
 Pp. 209-227 
 
 A . The Programmes 
 
 B. Seventeen Weeks' Repertory 
 
 C. Summary of Performances 
 
 D. The Acting : An Analysis 
 
 APPENDIX TWO : OTHER REPERTORY 
 THEATRES Pp. 231-242 
 
 A. Their Repertories 
 
 B. Specimen Weeks 
 
 vni
 
 The duration of the Abbey Theatre's Season in 
 Dublin is understated on p. 50. The seasons of 
 1908-09 and 1909-10 have been of twenty-four and 
 twenty-nine weeks respectively. 
 
 p. 177, line 6, delete as ; p. 193, line 7, delete comma. 
 
 p. 1 12, „ I, for that read than. 
 
 p. 205, „ 1 1, for These read There. 
 
 p. 238, for 1990 read 1909.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER SIX : SUCCESS 
 
 The Repertory Spirit : The Acting : The Rise of the 
 Producer : The Production : Artists in the Theatre : 
 The Question of the Curtain Pp. 165-193 
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN : ON LEAVING 
 ARISTOTLE OUT 
 
 "Not a Play" : The Critics and The Repertory 
 Theatre : The Dominance of the Newspaper Train : 
 The Reform of Dramatic Criticism. Pp. 193-201 
 
 CONCLUSION Pp. 202-206 
 
 APPENDIX ONE : THE DUKE OF YORK'S 
 
 Pp. 209-227 
 
 A . The Programmes 
 
 B. Seventeen Weeks' Repertory 
 
 C. Summary of Performances 
 
 D. The Acting : An Analysis 
 
 APPENDIX TWO : OTHER REPERTORY 
 
 THEATRES Pp. 231-242 
 
 A. Their Repertories 
 B' Sner.impn \A/p«iL-o 
 
 Vlll
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This small book sets out to do three things. One 
 purpose it bears on its face ^ that of providing a souvenif 
 of the most significant theatrical enterprise of recent 
 times, Mr. Frohman^s Repertory Theatre at the Duke 
 of York^s, for those who followed its season with 
 enjoyment. An attempt is also made to view that 
 season in relation to the parallel experiments in catering 
 for " the good playgoer " — the phrase is Mr. Frohman's 
 and there is no arrogance in it — at Dublin, at 
 Manchester, ai Glasgow, and at New York. The 
 third thing that this book sets out to do is to trace in 
 each of these experiments the impulse of what may be 
 called the repertory idea, and to point to the most active 
 and hopeful force at work in the theatre of to-day in 
 what may be called the repertory spirit. It is toi be 
 hoped that a book which in its course will have a good 
 deal to say about the unities, may be found to be not 
 altogether lacking in a unity of its own. 
 
 Like most forewords, this was written last. The 
 delay, however, has been unavailing, for up to the 
 moment of writing no more definite news is forthcoming 
 as to the future of Mr. Frohman's Repertory Theatre. 
 Reference has been made to its " season " ; if in the 
 light of subseque-nt events this shoidd require to be 
 amended to ^^ first season," neither the record nor the 
 criticism supplied under the first head need in any way 
 be robbed of whatever value it may possess. Some 
 
 ix
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 appearance of epheuierality is itnavoidable : it has 
 seemed inadvisable to attempt to reduce this^ and what 
 the criticisms of the plays lose in authority through 
 access not having been sought to manuscripts, they gain, 
 maybe, in frankly remaining the week-to-ivcek impres- 
 sions of one who attended the Duke of York's Theatre 
 with pertinacious sympathy. 
 
 This book, then^ is a deliberate blow on behalf oj the 
 repertory theatre. In the nature of things there 
 cannot be a great deal of force behind it; that must be 
 supplied by more influential critics, by kindly disposed 
 magnates, and above all, by the practical worker. 
 May it prove well placed. 
 
 P. P. H. 
 
 September 24, igio
 
 CHAPTER ONE : THE REPERTORY 
 
 IDEA 
 
 Th& theatre, when it is under any other 
 direction, is peopled by such characters 
 as were never seen, conversing in a 
 language which was never heard, upon 
 topicks which will never arise in the 
 commerce of mankind. Johnson 
 
 IN the queer nondescript world of the 
 theatre — neither art nor trade — to-day is a 
 time of unrest. It is even a time of 
 change. The old unhasting dynasties find them- 
 selves less secure, new and ever younger reputa- 
 tions are made, new managements are essayed 
 with a frequency which is equalled only by that 
 with which they are abandoned, and there is a 
 general disposition towards experiment in this 
 world where of all worlds experiment is attended 
 by most risk. Societies are formed by energetic 
 young professionals for the purpose of devoting 
 the evening of the seventh day to the same activity 
 as the other six — if in form rather more congenial. 
 New theatres spring up, each more palatial than 
 the last, as often as not into a world which has no 
 use for them, invaded as it is by the insistent 
 music-hall. There is even talk of a New drama 
 
 II
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 to put into them. Meanwhile in London the 
 theatrical centre topographically has curiously 
 shifted ; and — what is of greater significance — the 
 proud predominance of London itself as the 
 centre of the theatrical world has been rudely 
 shaken by a growing disposition on the part of 
 the provincial capitals to provide a drama for 
 themselves. You will find no one to deny the 
 unrest. The Censor summed up the situation 
 very well when he told the Committee of both 
 Houses of Parliament — itself a very pretty symbol 
 of the pass to which things have come — 
 summoned to sit upon himself, "Every year 
 almost, things crop up." 
 
 There is no smoke without a fire. You will 
 have less difficulty in finding someone to admit 
 the activity, however, than to tell you what it is 
 all about. The forces at work are chiefly two. 
 There is the force which treats the theatre as a 
 trade to be exploited to the greatest possible 
 profit, and there is the force which treats the 
 theatre as an art. It is the first force that is 
 erecting the new palatial theatres which line, for 
 example, Shaftesbury Avenue. It is the second 
 
 12
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 force that is animating the new societies and one 
 or two among the managements. Both are 
 disposed towards experiment. These are the 
 forces that are disturbing the theatre, which used 
 to combine in itself something of them both, so 
 long as it was secure in its half-world, untroubled 
 by any too intimate relationship with the world 
 of unrestrained commercial competition on the 
 one hand or the world of artistic endeavour on 
 the other. 
 
 Let us continue a little further a survey which 
 shall be as dispassionate as may be. One fact 
 presents itself at the outset, and that is that whilst 
 capital — and mainly American capital — is being 
 poured in ever increasing quantities into the 
 London theatre, nothing or next to nothing is 
 being done to render the theatre more attractive 
 to the large public which stands aside from its 
 activities — not because of any Puritanism (such 
 people do not fall within the scope of our 
 survey), nor because they are unwilling to be 
 interested in the theatre, but simply and solely 
 for the reason that they have grown tired of its 
 even unintelligence and have reluctantly decided 
 
 13
 
 THE REPERTORT THEJTRE 
 
 to take their pleasure elsewhere. What they have 
 come to feel is the irrelevance of the theatre, as 
 Solness and Hilda Wangel in the presence of 
 a more vivid interest came to feel the irrelevance of 
 books. It is not that the theatre fails entirely to 
 discharge any of its functions ; the majority of its 
 public are probably very well satisfied, as they 
 have always been very well satisfied, with what 
 is provided for them. It discharges on the 
 whole very well its function of providing, in 
 the words of Mr. George Edwardes, "harm- 
 less entertainment, brightness, gaiety and 
 amusement for the public" — all the more 
 efficiently for the influx of American capital. 
 But there is another public to whom Mr. 
 Edwardes again has applied words — " the 
 narrow-minded people who cannot admit that 
 this is the main object of the theatre." For 
 them the theatre provides nothing. Such of 
 them as insist upon finding their employment or 
 their pleasure in it, must cater for themselves and 
 manage, as they have always managed, to secure 
 just enough emotional and intellectual food to 
 keep themselves from starvation. It is they^who 
 
 14
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 form the societies. There is the large pubHc, 
 however, t?iat turns in despair from the theatre 
 to other interests ; and this is a public, mark you, 
 of potential playgoers. The one force at work in 
 the theatre, which we have termed the commercial 
 force, is doing little or nothing to tempt them 
 back. The other force, whose impulse is an 
 interest in the art of the theatre, is working in their 
 direction, and is gathering strength every day ; but 
 it finds so little of the field left to it and so many 
 difficulties in its way. If you ask why there 
 should be this antagonism between these two 
 forces which are working for a large part of the 
 distance along parallel lines, and why the com- 
 mercial and the artistic impulses should be 
 less reconcilable in the theatre than in any 
 other of the arts, the answer hes in the fact 
 of the different conditions governing the 
 theatre ; and the fact is not fully appreciated 
 until you appreciate the economic basis of the 
 theatre. 
 
 Every art is a trade ; and every artist, unless 
 he be himself a tradesman, must sell himself to 
 a tradesman. It is no part of the purpose of 
 
 15
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 this book to overlook the fact that playwriting 
 and theatrical management are businesses like 
 other businesses, depending for their support on 
 the patronage of great numbers of very ordinary 
 people — as Mr. Shaw has pointed out. The 
 artist, in the customary course of events, does 
 not find himself in possession of large quan- 
 tities of capital, and capital is necessary if 
 his products are to find their market. Now 
 the theatre is the most composite of the 
 arts, and in consequence the presentation of a 
 work in the theatre is a more expensive business 
 than in any other medium. In London, if you 
 wish to present anything in a theatre, the item 
 of ground-rent hangs like a mill-stone around 
 your neck. You may have, as a first charge 
 upon your enterprise, to pay a weekly rent of 
 two hundred pounds for your theatre. The 
 scenic setting of your play is an exceedingly 
 costly business, and, in deference to the taste 
 of the multitude depraved by a long orgy of 
 ostentation, you may well spend as much per week 
 upon shifting it and lighting it as you pay in 
 salaries to your company of actors — another 
 i6
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 not inconsiderable item, with the " star " at 
 his zenith. The conditions of the theatre, 
 then, are such as to make it the monopoly 
 of those possessed of considerable capital. It 
 is the tragic tale of the modern social system 
 that the artist has to deliver himself into the 
 hands of the entrepreneur before he can attain 
 self-expression ; but if anywhere the entrepreneur 
 finds himself absolute master, it is in the world 
 of the theatre. 
 
 Paying the piper, he calls the tune. The tune 
 he naturally proceeds to call is the one which 
 will bring him in the largest, most speedy, and 
 most sustained return upon his capital, and that 
 which is attended by a minimum of risk. Having 
 set going a good thing, it will be his natural 
 instinct to " work " it for all it is worth, and for 
 as long as it will continue to show a satisfactory 
 return upon his capital. In other words, the 
 commercial force in the theatre is definitely 
 and unreservedly in the direction of the " long 
 run." 
 
 Now the artistic force in the theatre is turning 
 in another equally definite direction. From the 
 
 B 17
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 point of view of the artists concerned — including 
 the author, if he set the preservation of the 
 quaUty of his work above royalties — and from 
 the point of view of the sympathetic public, it is 
 coming to be realised that there is one thing to 
 be opposed, and that is the running of a play to 
 death. There must be a definite limit to the 
 number of consecutive performances. 
 
 This idea of a theatre which shall make itself 
 the home of a number of plays, providing for 
 each the environment which shall enable it to 
 retain its freshness and be always at its best, as 
 an alternative to the system of devoting itself to 
 one play after another and giving each the 
 longest possible run that is consistent with 
 popular support — this idea has brought the two 
 forces in the theatre to a point of cleavage which 
 is sharp and distinct. That is the significance of 
 the repertory idea. 
 
 Before this significance is appreciated, it is 
 necessary to examine a little more fully the 
 conditions which govern the theatre and 
 differentiate it from each of the other arts. 
 Since it is also a trade, it must shape its policy 
 i8
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 in accordance with the general dictates of 
 
 supply and demand. Take the comparison 
 
 with literature, also a trade as well as an art. 
 
 The output of literature is governed by supply 
 
 and demand, and the supply of and the demand 
 
 for journeyman romances and volumes of memoirs 
 
 being alike unlimited, the market is occupied in 
 
 the main by works of this order. But there is a 
 
 demand, a steady and constant if limited demand, 
 
 for works of other orders, and — this is the point 
 
 to mark — the demand does get supplied. There is 
 
 no remark more frequently made by publishers 
 
 than that there is no money in poetry. The 
 
 strictly limited demand for poetry does, however, 
 
 get supplied. There is no reason to think that 
 
 any taste for poetry is in an average season left 
 
 starved or unsatisfied, and there is no sort of 
 
 doubt whatever that any poet who is worth his 
 
 salt sooner or later — it may take time — gets his 
 
 work published. The same thing holds good to 
 
 an even greater degree of prose fiction. The 
 
 author may have his manuscript returned to him 
 
 by nine publishers accompanied by a neat 
 
 personal note to the effect that their reader's 
 
 19
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 report " does not lead them to think the work 
 will make a sufficiently wide appeal to justify 
 them in embarking upon its publication " — but 
 the tenth publisher will so embark. The reason 
 is simple, and it is that the cost of producing a 
 novel or poem in book form is not high. The 
 publisher is not called upon to run the risk of 
 bankruptcy with every book that he places on the 
 market. If he were, if the cost of production 
 had been not fifty or one hundred pounds, 
 but two or three thousand, it is quite certain 
 that the world would never have heard of Thomas 
 Hardy or Henry James, and that Meredith would 
 have been driven to abandon fiction, just as he 
 was driven thirty years ago, after writing The 
 Sentitnentalists in delightful demonstration of the 
 principles of the " Essay on Comedy," to abandon 
 the stage. 
 
 Now to put a play on the market — partly owing 
 to excessive rent, as a first charge to be met, 
 partly owing to the depraved demand for lavish 
 ostentation which has been fostered by the 
 foolishness of managers, but largely by the nature 
 and conditions of the composite art of the 
 
 20
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 theatre — does cost two or three thousand pounds. 
 If it so happened that every dramatic demand 
 were satisfied by work corresponding, let us say, 
 with the Hterary level of the novels of Mr. Rider 
 Haggard, all would be well. At this level a public 
 is assured of sufficient dimensions to make the 
 venture financially possible, free from undue 
 risk, and liable at even chances to prove extremely 
 lucrative. The publisher, in all conscience, is 
 forced by his weight of financial risk into ways 
 that are straight and courses that are safe. But 
 the twenty or thirty-power pressure of financial 
 risk on the theatrical manager makes the gait of 
 the publisher appear gay and tortuous by com- 
 parison. The theatre has been no place for 
 initiative or for experiment, and of all the arts 
 its endeavour has been to keep an abjectly sub- 
 servient eye on " what the public wants " — a 
 foolish trade shibboleth without meaning or 
 efficacy, because the people who utter it are 
 always the people who know least of the 
 public, and who, as a result of their deductions 
 from precedent and their overweening timidity, 
 provide the public with what it " wants " in the 
 
 21
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 form of something very much lower than it would 
 enjoy if it were given it — as has been sufficiently 
 demonstrated by some of the popular magazines 
 of America. There is, however, no warrant what- 
 ever for believing that the dramatic demand is 
 any less varied than the literary demand, or any 
 more willing to accept work of one commercially 
 safe type. There is every reason to believe 
 that there are demands for types of dramatic fare 
 other than those the mass of the public " wants " 
 — or, in other words, than those the exigencies of 
 the theatrical system allow its entrepreneurs to 
 provide. And these demands under the system 
 which at present rules, unlike such demands in 
 the literary world, go largely unsatisfied. 
 
 It is just here that the repertory system comes 
 in. Here is a system which evades the financial 
 exigencies that rule the general theatre, which 
 tends to remove the points of difference between 
 the theatrical and literary worlds by enabling a 
 play to make its appeal to its particular public 
 over months instead of over weeks — taking it 
 down from the shelf, as it were, just as a book 
 is taken down— and which, by satisfying the 
 
 22
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 demands that at present go unsatisfied, promises 
 to reconcile to the theatre that large public which 
 has come in despair to stand aloof. 
 
 There are people, of course, who challenge 
 the need for any such new system. Look around 
 you, they will say : by the theatre of commerce 
 every sort of dramatic fare is provided, from King 
 Henry VIII to The Bad Girl of the Family. If any 
 public goes unsatisfied, it must be themselves who 
 are to blame — they are impossibilists. What could 
 a reasonable person wish for more than the variety 
 provided by the twenty-three theatres in the 
 west of London denominated first-class ? With 
 Lord Newton and Mr. Walkley, they "consider 
 the importance of the whole question has been 
 very much exaggerated." But what people who 
 talk in this way have failed to observe is that 
 exactly the same economic pressure is on every 
 one of the twenty-three theatres. Not one of them 
 is free from this insistent need to supply a safe 
 article for a large public. The ground for 
 complaint is that, because few people love 
 Shakespeare but a great many love circuses, one 
 is given a King Henry VIII in which Shakespeare's 
 
 23
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 admittedly small share is rendered invisible under 
 the expensive ostentation of the trappings ; and 
 one can positively get Shakespeare in no other 
 way. One is given — because Mr. Frederick 
 Melville is bent so intently upon getting home to 
 the "great" heart of the people — a Bad Girl so 
 very much worse than there is any need for even 
 a -melvillodrama to be. Everything tends to 
 filter down to the level of the readiest possible 
 popular acceptibility. In other words, in the 
 economics of the theatre it is the man in the 
 street who is the residual claimant. 
 
 It is always a heartening thing to observe how, 
 in the conflict between ideas, the truth goes under 
 to come up again and again until an opportunity 
 proves favourable for it to become an accepted 
 part of orthodoxy. You may be told that the 
 repertory idea is not a new one, with this degree 
 of justice, that few actors who have been through 
 the mill have not acted in repertory in a country 
 booth, and that every actor-manager at one time 
 or another alternates his favourite parts in the 
 course of a week by way of demonstrating his 
 versatility. It was the repertory idea which in 
 24
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 some degree animated the old stock company 
 that was thrown on the scrap-heap by the touring 
 system, and that now, in the whirHgig of Time's 
 revenges, is coming into its own again in the form 
 of the provincial repertory theatre. If the reper- 
 tory idea has succeeded in our own day in 
 bringing the commercial and artistic forces in 
 the theatre to a point of sharp and distinct 
 cleavage, it is because the opportunity has proved 
 favourable. The motive behind it is a new 
 motive. A critic of altogether exceptional insight 
 and sympathy, such as Hazlitt, may have perceived 
 a century ago that it was the long-run system 
 which ruined actors and plays and drove joy out 
 of the theatre, but speaking generally the motive 
 of securing a consecutive interest for intelligent 
 people is a new motive. And the favourable 
 opportunity has been provided by the advent of 
 what we may call — the name is as good as another 
 — the New Drama. 
 
 The " new " dramatic movement is the secession 
 from the conventional theatre of those dramatic 
 authors whose interest is in extending the scope 
 of their art, in trying experiments, and in satis- 
 
 25
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 fying their own sense of beauty and fitness — as 
 the artist in every other medium is free to do — 
 rather than in ensuring the highest commercial 
 return by subscribing to the conventional ideal of 
 the longest possible run for the safest possible 
 play. A secession movement to be clearly 
 apprehended and profitable wants to have some- 
 thing quite definite to secede from, and nothing 
 could be more definite than the characteristics 
 of the conventional theatre — it is marked by 
 the limitations of the commercial mind, the 
 system of long runs and star performers, and 
 the censorship of the box-office (not to mention 
 the censorship of the King's Reader of Plays. 
 But that is by the way). The New Drama is 
 marked by equally definite characteristics. Since 
 it is in revolt against the whole system of com- 
 mercial exigency which puts a demand on the 
 dramatist that he shall say or do nothing to offend 
 the tired mind of the average playgoer or to 
 upset any one of his sentimental preconceptions 
 regarding the theatre, it might be held that a play 
 would qualify as belonging to the new movement 
 by virtue of possessing any one of the character- 
 26
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 istics which unfit it for performance in the com- 
 mercial theatre. It is more useful, however, to 
 regard the New dramatists as marked by two 
 characteristics in particular : an increasing 
 concern with the method of realism, and the 
 possession of a literary sense. 
 
 These are just the two particulars in which 
 revolt was inevitable. Demonstration is unneces- 
 sary, when one has only to ask the first of one's 
 acquaintances the reason of his impatience with 
 the theatre, to be reminded of the monotonous 
 insistence with which the conventional drama of 
 commerce multiplies by five the income of its 
 protagonists before regarding them as fit to engage 
 the attention of its patrons, of its "happy and 
 undeniably matrimonial endings," of the distor- 
 tion consequent upon the leading actor and 
 actress leaping from the. picture at every oppor- 
 tunity into the limelight, and of a hundred and 
 one other absurdities that show all the artists 
 concerned to be living in a theatrical world of 
 their own and not in the natural world at all. 
 One need not accuse Mr. Grundy, Mr. Carton or 
 Mr. Haddon Chambers of being men of letters. 
 
 27
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 At the head of the craftsmen of the theatre is 
 Sir Arthur Pinero, from whose printed pages, 
 with all the technical mastery and the fecundity 
 of invention they display, one is still left to 
 conclude a world of psychological distinction 
 between a Ha, ha! and a Bo, ho! Not only 
 does Sir Arthur exercise the art of literary nota- 
 tion within extraordinarily rigid limitations, but 
 his characters are given to an indulgence in 
 rhetoric and to a habit of generalising out of 
 place, which pull one up constantly with the 
 involuntary reflexion, '' But people don't do these 
 things." It is true that Sir Arthur Pinero and 
 Mr. Jones for years, and Mr. H. H. Davies more 
 recently, have submitted their plays to the literary 
 test by issuing them in book form, but they have 
 been read by the initiated and not by the public 
 that had liked the plays in the theatre. If you 
 doubt this, ask their publishers. No, the quality 
 of being readable is a characteristic of the New 
 dramatists, which they share with Sheridan 
 and Goldsmith and Fielding and Congreve 
 and Vanbrugh and Shakespeare — each a New 
 dramatist in his day. The degree, however, in 
 28
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 which the New Drama attempts to go one better 
 than did these writers, just as in the matter of 
 dramatic reaHsm its endeavour may be said to be 
 to go one better than Ibsen, was clearly stated 
 by Mr. Shaw, in the first of his incomparable 
 prefaces, to be — " the institution of a new art ; 
 and I daresay " (said he) " that before these two 
 volumes are ten years old, the bald attempt 
 they make at it will be left far behind, and 
 that the customary brief and unreadable scene 
 specification at the head of an act will have 
 expanded into a chapter, or even a series of 
 chapters." He foresaw, as a result, the produc- 
 tion of works of a mixture of kinds, part narrative, 
 part homily, part description, part dialogue, and 
 (possibly) part drama. The question whether 
 Mr. Shaw himself and Mr. Barker have since pro- 
 duced such works, " possibly part drama " — as 
 some of the critics have suggested — may be left 
 for consideration in a later chapter. 
 
 It will be remembered that Mr. Shaw, when he 
 wrote of the New Drama of the early 'nineties, 
 claimed to have manufactured the evidence. In 
 writing of the New Drama of to-day one cannot 
 
 29
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 allow Mr. Shaw the pleasantry, for only part of 
 the evidence is of his manufacture. In those 
 early days also there were others, such as Dr. Tod- 
 hunter, with The Black Cat and A Comedy of Sighs, 
 and Mr. W. B. Yeats ; but Mr. Shaw, challenging 
 conventional standards with Widowers' Houses 
 and Mrs. Warren's Profession, and with Arms and 
 the Man trying his own hand at the long run, 
 was (as has been elegantly said) the symbol of 
 the whole shindy. Neither Mr. Grein's Indepen- 
 dent Theatre nor the New Century Theatre was 
 successful in producing a crop of New drama- 
 tists. It was Ibsen, indeed, who was in reality the 
 hero of the new departure, and it was during 
 these years that he received the first devoted 
 attentions of Miss Florence Farr, Miss Elizabeth 
 Robins, Miss Janet Achurch, and Mr. Charles 
 Charrington. 
 
 The Stage Society was formed to carry on 
 the movement, but it is with the little body of 
 dramatists who came into prominence at the 
 Court Theatre during its three years' season 
 that the New dramatic movement may most 
 usefully be regarded as beginning. In the van are 
 30
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 Mr. Granville Barker, the late St. John Hankin, 
 Mr. Galsworthy, and Mr. Masefield. The work 
 of each of these authors has the characteristics 
 of which mention has been made. It is Mr. 
 Barker and Mr. Galsworthy who have done most 
 at Mr. Shaw's new art of literary explication 
 (excepting only Mr. Shaw himself); using their 
 literary skill, be it noted, not only to convey 
 more definite conceptions of the motives and 
 conditions under which the characters act than 
 could be made explicit in the dialogue, but also in 
 general to impart by the literary accompaniment 
 everything that in the theatre would be imparted 
 by other means than speech — by the art, the 
 personality, and even the make-up of the actor, 
 by the skill of the producer, and so on. This 
 is an accomplishment which has rendered it 
 an extraordinarily simple matter to reproduce 
 the emotions experienced in the theatre — not, 
 of course, to produce them, for the printed 
 page will never be capable of doing that. 
 Of the writers who make only a limited 
 use of this method, Mr. Hankin achieves 
 dramatic realism in a very remarkable degree, 
 
 31
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 and Mr. Masefield, while unswerving in his 
 adherence to the method of reaHsm, puts very 
 little more than the French windows and the 
 grey beard of the heroine's father into his 
 stage directions, but gets an astonishing intrinsic 
 literary quality into his plays. 
 
 Other workers in the New field are Mr. Arnold 
 Bennett, Mr. Charles McEvoy, Mr. S. L. Robinson 
 and Mr. Padraic Colum — each of whom aims at 
 dramatic realism in an increasing degree and 
 has submitted his plays to the literary ordeal. 
 There is also Miss Elizabeth Baker with Chains, 
 carrying the method of realism so far that one 
 doubts whether the dialogue, having undergone 
 only the bare minimum of heightening and 
 selection necessary to become dramatic, would 
 successfully undergo the test of reproduction in 
 black and white. 
 
 As for Mr. Shaw, he is still the symbol of 
 much of the spirit of the revolt, the literary 
 sense in his plays is superb and unflagging, 
 but he is not a realist. He is of the New Drama 
 — or, if you prefer, the New Drama is in a 
 certain sense of him — but he is not in it. Mr. 
 32
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 Shaw is a whole school in himself, and a bad 
 master. 
 
 As a result, then, of this digression, we are in a 
 position to perceive in what respect the New 
 Drama provided the repertory idea with its oppor- 
 tunity, enabling it to divide those concerned in 
 the theatre into men of business and men of 
 letters with the same unerring certainty as did 
 the Censorship issue. What drove into revolt 
 the dramatists who were concerned to get life into 
 the theatre was simply the fact that the long run 
 and the " star " system between them made any 
 further advance towards dramatic realism impos- 
 sible. Added to this there was the fact that a play 
 of which the word " literary " could be breathed 
 was, ipso facto, suspect. This, as we have seen, 
 did not in the same degree rob them of their 
 audience, for their literary skill enabled them to 
 present their plays through the second-best 
 medium of the printed page. But as the way 
 out of the first dilemma they were driven to adopt 
 the system of the " short run," and this is what 
 was done at the Court. The Court Theatre 
 under Messrs. Vedrenne and Barker was not, 
 
 c 33
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 in the strict sense of the term, a repertory 
 theatre. The essence of its significance is that 
 it was an exceedingly adroit and happily timed 
 attempt, under the direction of a business man 
 and an artist in partnership, at such a modi- 
 fication of the commercial system as would pro- 
 vide a home for the new drama of realistic 
 and literary tendency which was being written. 
 It succeeded in presenting these plays with such 
 new and striking success as in the course of its 
 season to establish a handful of dramatic reputa- 
 tions. It served as a revelation of what English 
 acting could achieve when freed from the incubus 
 of the star, and, most important of all, it succeeded 
 in supplying that demand which the ordinary 
 theatre failed to supply. The Court Theatre drew 
 back to the theatre a public which hadn't been for 
 years, and — a fact which is to be marked — it satis- 
 fied their demand in the regular market and in com- 
 petition with the ordinary theatre of commerce. 
 
 It was not possible within the limits of the Court 
 Theatre enterprise to give the repertory idea full 
 play. Its principle was to present a play for a 
 strictly limited number of performances. By 
 
 34
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 giving in combination with these performances 
 bi-weekly matinees of another play, however, it did 
 in practice ensure that few weeks passed without 
 more than one item in the bill. Neither were the 
 actors strictly drawn from a repertory company, 
 but there was a spirit animating the whole of the 
 work of the theatre, plays and players alike, which 
 we shall not go far wrong in regarding as the 
 repertory spirit. A repertory of plays was steadily 
 acquired and a number of them were the subject 
 of periodic revival. It was on Mr. Barker's 
 experience at the Court Theatre that he was able 
 to base his subsequent advocacy of the repertory 
 idea ; and it was, without doubt, the example 
 and inspiration of the Court Theatre which set 
 going four of the five experiments in repertory 
 which it is the purpose of the next chapter to 
 examine. 
 
 What has been claimed in this chapter for the 
 repertory idea is that in the queer world of the 
 theatre it helps to solve a particular economic 
 problem and a particular artistic problem; and 
 that the most significant thing in the drama of 
 to-day — the movement which aims at getting life 
 
 35
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 into the theatre — provides it at once with its 
 justification and its opportunity. 
 
 It will be as well before passing on to turn our 
 attention for a moment to the theatre of the 
 Continent, in which the repertory idea to a 
 considerable extent already rules ; and it will also 
 be as well if in doing so we are enabled to define 
 a little more closely than has been done already 
 what we mean by the repertory idea. 
 
 It will have been appreciated that it is the 
 intention of this book to confine its prelimin- 
 ary survey to dramatic conditions in this country 
 and to experiments in the establishment of an 
 English-speaking repertory theatre. What Matthew 
 Arnold urged as the organisation of the theatre is 
 one of those matters they order better abroad ; 
 and, having once admitted this and recognised 
 that the new dramatic movement is of necessity 
 in great part an attempt to catch up with the 
 Continent, it is better that we should keep our 
 eye on our own problems. In the matter of the 
 repertory idea, however, we may get valuable 
 guidance from any one of the theatres — the 
 36
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 Com^die-Fran9aise, the Burgtheater in Vienna, 
 the National Theatre in Christiania, the Berlin 
 Schauspielhaus — where it has been put into 
 familiar operation. It will be sufficient for our 
 purpose to glance at the method and record of 
 the Com^die-Franfaise. 
 
 Mr. William Archer, writing before the repertory 
 movement in this country had really begun, and 
 with his eye chiefly on the subventioned theatres 
 of the Continent, stated the essentials of such a 
 theatre as follows : 
 
 When we speak of a repertory, we mean a number of 
 plays always ready for performance, with nothing more 
 than a " run through " rehearsal, which, therefore, can be, 
 and are, acted in such alternation that three, four or five 
 different plays may be given in the course of a week. New 
 plays are from time to time added to the repertory, and 
 those of them which succeed may be performed fifty, 
 seventy, a hundred times, or even more, in the course of 
 one season ; but no play is ever performed more than two 
 or three times in uninterrupted succession. 
 
 The Comedie-Fran9aise is run in all these 
 respects upon the repertory system. It will be of 
 interest to summarise the plays given during the 
 year 1909. They were one hundred and fifteen 
 in number ; eighteen of these were presented for 
 
 37
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 the first time, and the remainder were of the 
 permanent body of plays, or repertoire conrant.* 
 The new plays were given for a number of per- 
 formances ranging from sixty-one (M. Hervieu's 
 Connais-toi) and thirty-three (M. Berton's La Ren- 
 contre) to one, according to demand. No revival 
 was given for more than thirty-two performances. 
 In all four hundred and sixty-five performances 
 were given, for the theatre was closed for only four 
 days in the year ; as a rule there are nine perform- 
 ances in the week, including Thursday and Sunday 
 matinees. Since 190 1 there have been no fewer 
 than two hundred and eighty-two plays added to 
 the repertory, of which one hundred and twenty- 
 four have been produced for the first time. 
 
 This varied body of plays is presented by the 
 permanent company, soci^taires and pension- 
 naires, numbering last year sixty-five — thirty-six 
 actors and twenty-nine actresses. Some members 
 of the company play as many as twenty and thirty 
 parts in the year, but these are the smaller 
 performers. Six or eight would be nearer the 
 
 * For specimen week's repertory of the Comedie-Fran- 
 ^aise, see Appendix Two. 
 
 38
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 average for the principals. The uniform ex- 
 cellence of the acting does not require record 
 here ; no one habituated to the ordinary theatre 
 of commerce, who has paid even a single visit to 
 the Com6die-Fran9aise, can have failed to appre- 
 ciate its different spirit. 
 
 The repertory theatres of the Continent, then, 
 conform to Mr. Archer's definition of the repertory 
 idea, and in accordance with it they allow a play 
 to " run " — that is to say, to take advantage of the 
 initial impetus given to it by a successful pro- 
 duction — but not to run uninterruptedly. It 
 must not be played eight times a week, but at 
 most, say, five times. Perhaps the definition of 
 most general application is Mr. Archer's — "that 
 no piece must be acted more than two nights 
 consecutively. Thus the success of the moment 
 may be given on (say) Monday and Tuesday and 
 on Thursday and Friday evenings, and, perhaps, 
 at a Saturday matinee ; but other pieces of the 
 repertory will be given on Wednesday and 
 Saturday evenings, and at the Wednesday 
 matinee. The actual days, of course, matter 
 nothing : the essential point is the principle of 
 
 39
 
 THE REPERTORT THEJTRE 
 
 alternation. It has, among other advantages, 
 three very great ones : it keeps the actors fresh ; 
 it keeps their faculties supple by giving them 
 variety of employment ; and it keeps what may 
 be called the literature of that particular theatre 
 alive. At the long-run theatres, a play is 
 exhausted and thrown away like a squeezed 
 orange ; at repertory theatres many plays enjoy 
 years, decades, one might even say centuries, of 
 life, seldom disappearing entirely from the bills 
 for any length of time." A glance at the reper- 
 tory of the Com^die-Franpaise will confirm 
 this.* 
 
 So much for the subventioned or endowed 
 repertory theatre of the Continent. With this 
 passing glance at an actual and established out- 
 come of the repertory idea — which it would have 
 been invidious to have given in a chapter devoted 
 to experiments — we may proceed to consider the 
 attempts, for the most part unendowed, at a 
 solution of the economic and artistic problems of 
 
 * A. Joannid^s: "La Com6die-Fran9aise de 1680 i 
 1900 " (Dictionnaire general des pieces et des auteurs). 
 A. Joannid^s : " La Coin^die-Fran9aise, 1909." 
 
 40
 
 THE REPERTORT IDEA 
 
 the theatre inspired by the idea in this country ; as 
 a preliminary to our consideration of the degree in 
 which a solution is provided in the record of Mr. 
 Frohman's Repertory Theatre at the Duke of 
 York's. 
 
 41
 
 CHAPTER TWO : EXPERIMENTS IN 
 REPERTORY 
 
 We wish to throw the fault of most of our objec- 
 tions on the managers . . They have spun him 
 tediously out in every character, and have forced 
 him to display the variety of his talents in the 
 same instead of different characters . . Why 
 not bring him out at once in a variety of 
 characters, as the Dublin managers have done ? 
 It does not appear that either they or he suffered 
 by it. It seems, by all we can find, that versa- 
 tility is, perhaps, Mr. Kean^s greatest excellence. 
 Why, then, not give him his range? Why 
 tantalize the public ? Why extort from them 
 their last shilling for the twentieth repetition 
 of the same part instead of letting them make 
 their election for themselves of xvhat they like 
 best? It is really very pitiful. Hazlitt 
 
 REPERTORY in this country spells the 
 name of Miss A. E. F. Horniman. The 
 h. great point about Miss Horniman is that 
 while other people have talked about doing 
 things, she has done them. It was she who 
 provided the necessary capital for Miss Florence 
 Farr's memorable season at the Avenue Theatre, 
 when Arms and the Man "passed for a success," 
 and the first step in the New dramatic movement 
 was taken. It was Miss Horniman who, when 
 people had talked for twenty-five years about a 
 42
 
 DUBLIN 
 
 repertory theatre, did something at DubUn in 1903. 
 That was the first repertory theatre in the EngHsh- 
 speaking world. In 1907 Miss Horniman again 
 did something at Manchester, and it is with the 
 Gaiety Theatre enterprise that her name has 
 come to be particularly associated. Her general 
 idea there has been to establish a repertory theatre 
 on the same plan as is in other countries carried 
 out by the aid of the state or the municipality. 
 
 In the express desire for " something better than 
 the ordinary play of commerce," the Irish Literary 
 Theatre was founded in 1898 under the auspices 
 of the National Literary Society, which Mr. W. B. 
 Yeats had founded seven years before. Its 
 avowed attempt was to do in Dublin something 
 of what had been done in London by the Inde- 
 pendent Theatre and in Paris by M. Antoine's 
 Theatre Libre, and it had as little of a commercial 
 ambition. Its concern was with " plays that are 
 literature." In the beginning English actors were 
 brought over to play in them, and at the first pro- 
 duction, Mr. Yeats' Countess Caihleen, Miss May 
 Whitty, Miss Florence Farr and Mr. Trevor Lowe 
 
 43
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 were in the cast, with Miss Farr as general manager 
 and Mr. Ben Webster as stage manager. In 1901 
 performances were given by Mr. W. G. Fay's little 
 company of Irish amateurs, calling themselves 
 the Irish National Dramatic Company and then 
 the Irish National Theatre Society. It was this 
 company which brought to the St. George's Hall, 
 London, in May 1903, The Hour-Glass and 
 Kathleen Ni Houlihan of Mr. Yeats, and Lady 
 Gregory's Twenty-Five. The refreshing quality of 
 their simple and sincere art came as something of 
 a revelation of what might be done in the theatre 
 with a limited expenditure by a company intent 
 upon doing good work. Miss Horniman acquired 
 the lease of the Abbey Theatre, rebuilt it, and 
 gave the Irish National Theatre Society its 
 free use. From 1904 to the present year Miss 
 Horniman has in addition given the society a 
 small annual subsidy. 
 
 Thus has come into being the Abbey Theatre, 
 the repertory theatre of Ireland, and the only 
 theatre in any English-speaking country — as Mr. 
 Yeats was able to write in 1908 — " that is free for 
 a certain number of years to play what it thinks 
 44
 
 DUBLIN 
 
 worth playing, and to whistle at the timid." The 
 directors claim that they " have already created a 
 taste for sincere and original drama, and for sincere, 
 quiet, simple acting." 
 
 One has only to pay a visit to the Abbey 
 Theatre to see that this claim is made with justice, 
 and it would not be possible to commend any 
 experience more full of instruction in the repertory 
 idea. Started, as we have seen, with the primary 
 intention of furthering the Irish literary movement, 
 the Abbey Theatre has in six years achieved an 
 even higher general level of technical accomplish- 
 ment in its acting than in its drama. 
 
 Varied as have been the plays added to its 
 repertory from the time when Mr. George Moore 
 and Mr. George Russell were writing for it to the 
 day when it was enabled to step in and save Mr. 
 Shaw from the Censor, the first concern of the 
 Irish National Theatre has been with the creation 
 of a folk-drama.* These plays are such as 
 spin themselves out of the everyday contact 
 of ordinary folk ; it is a considering of the 
 fplk in relation to the hayfork which, maybe, 
 * Appendix Two. 
 
 45
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 gets them together and sets them talking, letting 
 the imagination play softly upon them — just as 
 does a child's — that makes the drama, and not at all 
 a devising of situations and of conflicts. That is, in 
 part, how the acting is enabled to be so naturalistic. 
 One is refreshed by feeling that here are none 
 of the theatrical conventions. It is the talk that 
 matters ; the wonderful rippling talk that this 
 company knows so beautifully how to give. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that there is not 
 in the Irish dramatic movement that care for line 
 construction without which, as Mr. Yeats himself 
 has laid down, one has not drama. In the late 
 J. M. Synge the Abbey Theatre produced a 
 dramatist of the very highest achievement and 
 significance. It is to his work that one goes for 
 that wonderful blending of poetry and realism 
 which is the Irish Theatre's peculiar achievement. 
 The extraordinary fascination of the mingled 
 beauty and ugliness of The Playboy of the Western 
 World is intensified by the excellence of its stage- 
 craft. Mr. George Moore has called this play 
 the most significant of the last two hundred years, 
 and his judgment finds increasing acceptance. 
 46
 
 DUBLIN 
 
 Riders to the Sea is as simply moving a little tragedy 
 as any in existence, and in translation it has already 
 passed into the European repertory. In the 
 Shadow of the Glen and The Well of the Saints are 
 full of the bitter-sweet beauty that Synge found 
 in life, and have all his characteristic perfection 
 of form and richness of language — " every word 
 as fully flavoured as a nut or apple." The com- 
 mercial theatre could have — indeed, did have — 
 no use for J. M. Synge. Yet in the repertory of 
 the Abbey Theatre he is steadily finding his way 
 to popularity. 
 
 Synge is the genius of the Irish Theatre. Lady 
 Gregory has written more plays for it than any 
 other one dramatist, and may be called its comic 
 genius. There are no bounds to her observation 
 of the comicalities of Irish low-life character, nor 
 to her expedient for setting and keeping her people 
 talking. In addition, she has been successful in 
 putting very simply and sincerely upon the stage 
 something of the tragedy of Irish life — notably in 
 The Gaol Gate. Of the comedies. The Image, in 
 three acts, shows Lady Gregory at her best. The 
 Rising of the Moon is a perfect little sentimental 
 
 47
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 comedy : sometimes in her one-act plays the 
 effect of compression is to turn comedy into 
 farce. Mr. Boyle is of the school of Lady 
 Gregory, without so much technical accomplish- 
 ment. There is a younger school of dramatists who 
 are concerning themselves more directly with the 
 method of realism. Mr. Padraic Colum is one of 
 these ; and there is sufBcient suggestion of vivid 
 truthfulness in Mr. S. L. Robinson's Harvest to 
 make this a play of considerable promise. 
 
 There is always Mr. W. B. Yeats, whose en- 
 thusiasm never deserts the Abbey Theatre, and 
 whose work makes it the one home in these 
 islands of the poetic drama. 
 
 So much for the drama of the Abbey Theatre. 
 The spirit in which the theatre has been adminis- 
 tered has had the great virtue of attracting to it the 
 work of many young and promising writers and 
 that of one dramatist of supreme ability ; but what 
 must be regarded as its most characteristic plays 
 and those in which the national character is most 
 marked — pre-eminently those of Lady Gregory — 
 have a quality of simple artlessness which has 
 done something to conceal the very high level of 
 48
 
 DUBLIN 
 
 technical accomplishment achieved in the acting 
 under the inspiration of the repertory idea. To 
 regard this as artless is to do it injustice. For its 
 uniformity and perfect ensemble it owes some- 
 thing to the early influence of Mr. Frank Fay. 
 But its characteristic charm is that within these 
 qualities there is a resolute individualism, and 
 that suggestion of personality which is always 
 present in the finest acting and scarcely ever in 
 the acting stereotyped by the commercial theatre. 
 
 The Abbey Theatre is served by a remarkable 
 little company of actors, with an art of their own 
 of which they are complete masters, and they are 
 informed with an altogether admirable spirit. The 
 Irish National drama is indeed fortunate in the 
 _possession of such actors as Miss Sara Allgood, 
 Mr. Arthur Sinclair, Mr. Fred O'Donovan, Mr. 
 J. M. Kerrigan, and Miss Maire O'Neill. 
 
 They are the most accomplished and exemplary 
 of repertory companies. Since 1903 they have 
 had three short seasons in London (in addition 
 to two special performances of The Shewing-Up 
 of Blanco Posnet before the Stage Society). During 
 their four weeks' season at the Court Theatre 
 
 D .49
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 last June, they presented twenty plays by seven 
 authors * — six in three acts, two in two acts, and 
 twelve one-act plays — in every instance the acting 
 being in the hands of the same little company. 
 
 The company performs in Dublin for four 
 months in the year, tours Ireland north and south 
 and west, and pays regular visits to Oxford, 
 Cambridge, Manchester, Glasgow, and Leeds, as 
 well as to London. The prices at the Abbey 
 Theatre range from three-shilling stalls to six- 
 penny seats in the pit ; these latter are now 
 regularly filled, the stalls not so regularly. 
 Special subscription tickets are issued for a series 
 of productions. It will be noted that the theatre 
 is a subsidised theatre. Miss Horniman's lease is 
 running out this year ; the directors are purchas- 
 ing the theatre from Miss Horniman and they 
 have issued an appeal for five thousand pounds, 
 with which amount in hand against contingencies, 
 they hope for another period of six years to be 
 enabled to whistle at the timid.f 
 
 • Appendix Two. 
 
 •f- If a footnote can lend any additional emphasis to this 
 appeal, it may well be suffered here. Enough money 
 (jfigoo) has been saved to take over the Abbey Theatre 
 
 50
 
 THE COURT 
 
 The Abbey Theatre has already inspired similar 
 attempts at Belfast and at Cork, which may be 
 regarded as in the stage of development reached 
 by the Dublin Theatre six years ago. The Ulster 
 Literary Theatre has in seven years produced 
 twelve plays, and in Mr. Lewis Purcell and Mr. 
 Rutherford Mayne possesses considerable drama- 
 tists. 
 
 Mention may next conveniently be made of the 
 Court Theatre experiment, which cannot be held 
 to have in any way inspired the Irish movement 
 — although initiated some three months before 
 the opening of the Abbey Theatre — but whose 
 influence over the experiments at Manchester and 
 Glasgow is beyond question. In 1904 the Court 
 Theatre was in the possession of Mr. J. H. Leigh, 
 who was giving a series of very intelligent 
 Shakespearian revivals, and his manager was 
 
 and to pay for a new Patent. Of the further five thousand 
 pounds asked for — a sum which, while it would hardly 
 support a London theatre of commerce for a season, will 
 suffice for half a dozen years to endow the how different 
 art of the Abbey Theatre — half has been forthcoming. 
 Lady Tennant, 34 Queen Anne's Gate, London, S.W., is 
 Treasurer to the fund. 
 
 51
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Mr. J. H. Vedrenne. In February Mr. Granville 
 Barker — already a young man marked by the 
 discerning for good work in the commercial 
 theatre under Mrs. Patrick Campbell and other 
 managements, for a brilliant impersonation of 
 Richard II at an Elizabethan Stage Society 
 performance at Burlington House, and for his 
 record in the Stage Society, producing his own 
 Marrying of Ann Leele and other plays, and 
 creating the part of the poet in Mr. Shaw's 
 Candida — was invited to produce The Two Gentle- 
 man of Verona. He did so, himself playing 
 Launce. Out of his association with Mr. 
 Vedrenne came a series of six matinee perform- 
 ances of Candida in May of that year, and out of 
 these performances came the Vedrenne-Barker 
 management of the Court Theatre. This was 
 initiated in October with Mr. Gilbert Murray's 
 translation of the Hippolytiis of Euripides, in 
 which Mr. Barker succeeded in electrifying the 
 house by a wonderful piece of pure declamation in 
 the small part of the henchman — for Mr. Barker 
 already had the root of the repertory spirit in him. 
 The Court Theatre, however, cannot usefully 
 52
 
 THE COURT 
 
 be regarded at any period of its three years 
 season as a repertory theatre. It gave 988 
 performances of thirty-two plays by seventeen 
 authors ; but 701 of these performances were of 
 eleven plays by one author, Mr. Shaw. It cannot 
 be said that this record comes wholly within the 
 definition of a repertory theatre — that its selection 
 of plays shall be wide and the revival of each of 
 them frequent and regular. The Court was, if 
 you like, a Shaw Repertory Theatre, in forecast 
 of the Shakespeare National Theatre which is to 
 come. But neither was it run with a stock 
 company of actors, as, for example, we shall see 
 later on was the case at the Duke of York's. 
 What the Court Theatre was, in the fullest sense, 
 was an experimental theatre. With perfect 
 justification — since here was the one British 
 dramatist of European and American reputation 
 with a sheaf of plays for which no single British 
 theatre had any use — it tried the great experiment 
 of presenting Mr. Bernard Shaw for a run, and 
 with brilliant success. In addition it succeeded 
 in giving encouragement to a little school of 
 writers — Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. Hankin, Mr. Mase- 
 
 53
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 field, Miss Elizabeth Robins, and Mr. Barker 
 himself — whose work constitutes to-day the most 
 significant movement in the British drama. Its 
 runs never degenerated into long runs, as in one or 
 two instances there was every temptation for them 
 to do ; never even in the instances of You Nevet 
 Can Tell and Man and Superman — which might 
 have outrun His House in Order — exceeding six 
 weeks. In Mr. Barker's own words, when he 
 came to sum up the record : 
 
 " The first thing we did was to struggle against 
 the long-run system, partly because we wanted to 
 produce a lot of plays, and partly because we 
 disagreed with it. It is bad for plays and bad for 
 acting." 
 
 The Court Theatre never lost sight of its oppo- 
 sition to the ordinary theatre of commerce — its 
 duty to be different, its function of supplying the 
 demand that the commercial theatre left un- 
 satisfied. Incidentally — and this is a fact of 
 enormous significance — Messrs. Vedrenne and 
 Barker paid their way. Their experiment proved 
 the commercial feasibility of an artistic theatre j and 
 54
 
 THE COURT 
 
 it bridged the gulf between commerce and art in 
 the difficult world of the theatre, which people 
 said could never be done, and which it is one 
 of the purposes of this book to show in process of 
 being done. 
 
 It was this very degree of financial success 
 which prompted the removal of the Vedrenne- 
 Barker management to the larger and more cen- 
 tral sphere of the Savoy Theatre, where more direct 
 battle might be given. Here from September i6, 
 1907, to March 14, 1908, admirable work was 
 done on the same lines as at the Court. The plays 
 presented were Man and Superman, The Devil's 
 Disciple, Ccesar and Cleopatra, You Never Can Tell, 
 and Arms and the Man, by Mr. Shaw ; the Medea 
 of Euripides, translated by Gilbert Murray ; and 
 Mr. Galsworthy's Joy. A licence was refused by 
 the Censor to Mr. Barker's Waste, and the conse- 
 quent disappointment seemed to be instrumental 
 in breaking up the rather specialised matinee 
 audiences. Indeed the compact, convinced ad- 
 herents of the Court were a little lost in the larger 
 Savoy and in the atmosphere of the adjacent 
 Strand. The curtain fell, however, on the last 
 
 55
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 performance of the season to the accom- 
 paniment of extraordinary and determined 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 A side issue of this enterprise was the simul- 
 taneous Vedrenne-Barker tenancy for some weeks 
 of the Queen's Theatre with The Devil's Disciple 
 (where Mr. Barker played Dick Dudgeon instead 
 of General Burgoyne). In May and June 1908, a 
 series of Vedrenne-Barker matinees was given at 
 the Haymarket Theatre in conjunction with Mr. 
 Frederick Harrison. The plays presented were 
 Mr. Shaw's Getting Married, Mr. Masefield's 
 Tragedy of Nan, and The Chinese Lantern by 
 Laurence Housman and Joseph Moorat. As 
 Mr. Shaw has remarked, one's final impression 
 of Messrs. Vedrenne and Barker was that they 
 had conquered the greater part of the West 
 End. In addition they sent out admirable 
 touring companies in You Never Can Tell and 
 Arms and the Man (Mr. Barker for a time playing 
 Bluntschli in the latter). But the conquest of 
 the West End was not to be just yet.* 
 
 * The Vedrenne-Barker management to the end of the 
 Court tenancy has its historian in Mr. Desmond MacCarthy, 
 
 56
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 The significance of the Court Theatre and its 
 related activities is in the immense impetus they 
 gave to the whole movement in this country 
 towards an intelligent^theatre. We have seen how 
 the Court was informed throughout with the reper- 
 tory spirit, although not qualifying in the letter. 
 Its achievement in establishing a school of new 
 writers whose concern is with the method of 
 realism, and in demonstrating that there was 
 a public for the New Drama, was the direct 
 encouragement of Miss Horniman's establish- 
 ment in Manchester in 1907 of " the first repertory 
 theatre in Great Britain." 
 
 Miss Horniman opened her campaign in 
 September at the Midland Theatre with a per- 
 formance of David Ballard, by Charles McEvoy 
 — a play of lower-middle-class life with the right, 
 
 "The Court Theatre, 1904-1907." The production by Mr. 
 Barker for a series of matinees in March igog at the Duke 
 of York's Theatre of Mr. Galsworthy's Strife (subsequently 
 transferred for evening and matinee performances to the 
 Haymarket and the Adelphi) may be noted here as the 
 link between Mr. Barker's association with Mr. Vedrenne 
 and with Mr. Charles Frohmau. 
 
 57
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 perhaps, to the name of the first " reahstic play " 
 to be attempted in this country, which had been 
 produced by the Stage Society in the spring of 
 that year. During the five weeks' season which 
 followed, eight plays were performed, each for 
 the first time in Manchester. At the outset, 
 it was stated that the new movement was aim- 
 ing at the establishment of the following 
 things : 
 
 (a) A repertory theatre with a regular change 
 of programme, not wedded to any one 
 school of dramatists but thoroughly 
 catholic, embracing the finest writing of 
 the best authors of all ages and with an 
 especially widely open door to present- 
 day British writers, who will not now 
 need to sigh in vain for a hearing, provided 
 only that they have something to say 
 worth listening to, and say it in an in- 
 teresting and original manner. 
 (6) A permanent Manchester stock company 
 of picked front-rank actors. 
 
 (c) Efficient production. 
 
 (d) Popular prices. 
 58
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 In the spring of 1908, Miss Horniman purchased 
 the Gaiety Theatre, and after a short spring 
 season there, practically rebuilt it to fit it for its 
 new purpose. The enterprise in its full form may 
 be regarded as beginning with the reopening in 
 September. 
 
 In a period of little over two years the Gaiety 
 Theatre has built up a repertory of plays which, 
 in whatever other respect we may find the theatre 
 fail in the strict letter of the term, must earn for it 
 first place amongst repertory theatres.* Without 
 the aid of state or municipality, Miss Horniman 
 has succeeded in making her theatre the home of a 
 varied and representative company of plays — the 
 primary purpose of a repertory theatre. Fifty-five 
 plays have been produced — twenty-eight new, 
 seventeen revivals of modern English plays, five 
 modern translations, and five classics. Not the 
 Comedie Fran9aise can show a repertory more 
 admirable in balance. 
 
 A taste of this ''thoroughly catholic" repertory 
 of plays and of the quality of their interpretation 
 was provided by the visit of Miss Horniman's 
 * Appendix Two. 
 
 59
 
 THE REFERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Company to London in June 1909. Eight full- 
 length plays were given, together with six new 
 plays in one act, during three weeks' season at 
 the Coronet Theatre.* Occasional visits are paid 
 to other centres, such as Oxford, Dublin, Glasgow, 
 Birmingham, &c., where a similar repertory of 
 plays is presented. 
 
 It is to be noted, however, that the system of 
 the Gaiety Theatre is to present each play for a 
 run of one week. The theatre is, therefore, in this 
 respect a short run theatre like the Court, and 
 not in the fullest sense of the term a repertory 
 theatre. The runs are shorter than those at the 
 Court, exceeding the week only in one or two 
 specific instances, such as Mr. Galsworthy's Strife 
 and 'justice — elaborate productions which have 
 metwith great popularity — andat special Christmas 
 seasons. It is Miss Horniman's experience that 
 there is a special audience for each night in the 
 week, and that, accustomed as the provincial 
 public is to the system of a week's run of a play, 
 the nightly variation of bill would lead to con- 
 fusion. With a strict adherence to this short run, 
 
 * Appendix Two, 
 60
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 and the production of a new play or the repro- 
 duction of one in the repertory each week, the 
 claim is made that the evils of the long run 
 system and of the star system are being quite as 
 effectively combatted ; the habits of the Manchester 
 public are better suited and consequently the 
 receipts are more steady ; the system is more 
 economical in the working ; and the full repertory 
 of plays is drawn upon quite as quickly. 
 
 In the matter of acting, the repertory idea is 
 allowed full play. There is a permanent stock 
 company, from which each play is cast, but there 
 is no rule against adding to the company for the 
 requirements of a particular play — as, for example, 
 when Miss Sara Allgood came from the Abbey 
 company to play Isabella in Measure for Measure. 
 The repertory spirit is plainly in evidence in the 
 willingness of each member of the company to 
 make a good thing of the smallest part, and their 
 excellent ensemble. Mr. Lewis Casson, Miss 
 Sybil Thorndike, and Miss Penelope Wheeler 
 were members of Miss Horniman's Company, 
 and we shall find them playing their parts in the 
 repertory company at the Duke of York's. Mr. 
 
 6i
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Jules Shaw, Miss Clare Greet, Miss Mona 
 Limerick and Mr. Charles Bibby have done 
 good work. The plays are produced by Mr. 
 Iden Payne, who is Art Director to the theatre. 
 
 The theatre, having been constructed with an 
 eye to perfectly fulfilling its purpose, is notably 
 satisfactory in its arrangements before and behind 
 the stage. The prices, in view of the imminent 
 general reform, are interesting : Boxes, two 
 guineas, one guinea, and twelve and sixpence ; 
 stalls, three shillings ; dress circle, five, four and 
 three shillings ; pit stalls, half-a-crown ; upper circle, 
 two shillings and one-and-sixpence ; pit, one- 
 and-sixpence and one shilling ; gallery, sixpence. 
 The claim is made that this is the only theatre in 
 this country where every seat in the house from 
 dress circle to gallery may be booked in advance ; 
 and seats may be specially retained for all plays. 
 
 At the outset Miss Horniman said : " I want 
 the scheme to be a financial success. I want to 
 see plays produced that will be worth paying to 
 see." The real test of an enterprise such as this 
 lies in the first two years. The Gaiety is now 
 entering upon its fourth year with a prestige that is 
 63
 
 STOCKPORT 
 
 steadily growing, and it may be said confidently 
 that any possibility of disaster has been passed. 
 
 No account of the repertory theatre movement 
 as it affects Manchester would be complete with- 
 out some mention of the activities of that surpris- 
 ing company of amateurs, the Stockport Garrick 
 Society, which in the course of its nine seasons 
 has given twenty-nine plays — nine Shakespeare, 
 four Ibsen, four Shaw, two Sheridan, a Haupt- 
 mann, and amongst others Monna Vanna and 
 The Playboy of the Western World. Although as 
 an amateur society, giving occasional perform- 
 ances, it does not fall strictly within the scope of 
 this book, it is impossible not to see in this record 
 evidence of the same spirit which is at work in 
 the professional theatre, and the Stockport Garrick 
 Society is as clearly differentiated from the 
 ordinary amateur society as is the repertory 
 theatre from the ordinary theatre of commerce. 
 Moreover, it has to some extent put the repertory 
 idea into practice, since it keeps its plays available 
 for further presentation, and during its annual 
 tenancy of the Stockport Theatre Royal will play 
 An Enemy of the People and Othello, for example, 
 
 63
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 on the same day. Indirectly the Society's cham- 
 pionship of the repertory idea is persistent, and 
 its members — who number as many as three 
 hundred and fifty — form an invaluable nucleus 
 of the Gaiety Theatre audience. Mr. Edwin T. 
 Heys, manager to Miss Horniman, was the first 
 secretary of the Society when — surprising from 
 its outset — it broke away from a Unitarian Sun- 
 day School "for the purpose of studying and 
 giving performances in dramatic literature." Its 
 achievement and its promise are of the greatest 
 significance to the repertory theatre and to the 
 future of the drama, for without first you have 
 ihe good playgoer — such as they are cultivating 
 in Stockport — the good play and the good theatre 
 may be whistled for in vain. 
 
 In writing of some wild, queer farce of the 
 period, which presented the customary stage 
 types of both nationalities, Hazlitt drops the 
 remark that the Irish character is much more 
 adapted for the stage than is the Scotch. The 
 Scotch character depends, says he, on a calcula. 
 tion of consequences, even as in the brogue 
 64
 
 GLASGOW 
 
 " every syllable is held fast between the teeth, 
 and kept in a sort of undulating suspense, lest 
 circumstances should require a retraction before 
 the end of the sentence." This was hardly, he 
 suggested, the temperament or the speech for the 
 theatre. Times have changed, however, if they 
 have done nothing to soften certain native dis- 
 sonancies of the Scottish tongue. The Scotch 
 people to-day, it is said, are a nation of playgoers ; 
 and when a movement in Glasgow to become 
 independent of the London touring company 
 resulted in the formation of the Scottish Play- 
 goers Company, Limited, and the adoption of 
 the repertory idea, it was with a very happy 
 " calculation of consequences." 
 
 For the Scottish Repertory Theatre, opened at 
 the Royalty in April, 1909 — of which Mr. Alfred 
 Wareing is the moving spirit and Director — has 
 achieved a remarkable success. 
 
 The objects of the Scottish Playgoers' Company 
 were stated in the Prospectus to be : 
 
 (i) To establish in Glasgow a Repertory Theatre 
 which will afford playgoers and those in- 
 terested in the drama an opportunity of 
 
 E 65
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 witnessing such plays as are rarely pre- 
 sented under the present Touring Company 
 system. 
 
 (2) To organise a Stock Company of first-class 
 
 actors and actresses for the adequate repre- 
 sentation of such plays. 
 
 (3) To conduct the business of Theatrical 
 
 Managers and play producers in Glasgow 
 and other places, so as to stimulate a 
 popular interest in the more cultured, im- 
 portant and permanent forms of dramatic 
 art, 
 
 (4) To encourage the initiation and develop- 
 
 ment of a purely Scottish Drama by 
 
 providing a stage and an acting company 
 
 which will be peculiarly adapted for the 
 
 production of plays national in character, 
 
 written by Scottish men and women of 
 
 letters. 
 
 The aim of the Company was also excellently 
 
 and suggestively stated to be to render to the 
 
 drama the same kind of service as the Scottish 
 
 Orchestra Concerts have rendered to music ; and 
 
 for the designing of scenery and costumes the 
 
 66
 
 GLASGOW 
 
 theatre had from the outset the co-operation of 
 the Glasgow School of Art. The aims, indeed, 
 were from the outset conspicuous for their 
 clearness ; prominent amongst them was the 
 fostering of local and national interest in the 
 drama, so that Glasgow should be independent 
 of the touring drama London might please to 
 send it. Conspicuous, also, was the intention of 
 the enterprising Director to give the repertory 
 idea as complete and spirited a trial as the avail- 
 able means would allow. 
 
 The financial record of this " Citizens' Theatre " 
 is full of instruction. The Company proceeded 
 to allotment with a little over one thousand 
 pounds subscribed, and at the end of the first 
 season of seven weeks this capital was all but 
 exhausted. Nine plays had been given, three 
 entirely new, and others by Ibsen, Mr. Shaw, Mr. 
 Galsworthy and Mr. Bennett ; and so undoubted 
 had been the artistic success achieved that the 
 enthusiastic shareholders more than doubled their 
 holding, and a further season of twelve weeks was 
 entered upon in the autumn. From this point 
 the theatre has never looked back ; the money 
 
 67
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 lost over the second and even the third season 
 was speedily subscribed afresh, and, at the opening 
 of its fifth season, the financial corner may now 
 be regarded as turned. The Scottish Repertory 
 Theatre, if in certain respects following the path 
 made plain by its Dublin and Manchester fore- 
 runners, is, of all the experiments in repertory, 
 the most shining instance of how the economic 
 problem may be solved by the enthusiasm of the 
 good playgoer, and by clear-sighted direction. 
 
 A characteristic feature of the financial side of 
 the enterprise has been the issue of subscription 
 tickets for the whole season of plays — a method 
 which Mr. Frohman's Repertory Theatre tried 
 without much success, but which would seem 
 to be an essential part of any vigorous ex- 
 periment in repertory, providing as it does the 
 best of all tests of the steady existence of public 
 demand, and of the strength of its conviction. 
 The prices, which have been the subject of some 
 experimental alteration, are as remarkable for 
 their reasonableness as are those of Miss Horni- 
 man's theatre, and may now be taken to have 
 settled as follows : Set of ten coupon tickets for 
 68
 
 GLASGOW 
 
 orchestra stalls, forty shillings ; for dress circle, 
 thirty-two-and-six ; for family circle, twenty-two- 
 and-six ; for pit, eight-and-sixpence ; for amphi- 
 theatre, six-and-sixpence ; and for gallery, three- 
 and-sixpence. The plays are ordinarily presented 
 at the rate of one per week ; the same reservation, 
 therefore, must be made as in the case of the 
 Gaiety Theatre in applying to the Royalty the 
 term repertory theatre. 
 
 During its four seasons the Scottish Repertory 
 Theatre has produced forty»seven plays — sixteen 
 new, twenty-eight revivals, and three translations 
 and classics.* With Barbara Grows Up, by 
 George J. Hamlen, the theatre turned its atten- 
 tion to the creation of a national drama ; and 
 Macpherson, by Neil Munro, and Oh/ Christina! 
 by J. J. Bell, have carried further, pace Hazlitt, 
 the movement towards racial self-expression, 
 which is one of the surest justifications of the 
 repertory theatre. 
 
 Under the stimulus of the repertory idea several 
 acting reputations have been made. Miss Mary 
 Jerrold was conspicuous for her good work until 
 * Appendix Two. 
 
 69
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 she was secured for the Duke of York's Theatre, 
 in whose season we shall find her playing a 
 valuable part. Miss Penelope Wheeler and 
 Mr. Harben also served the repertory idea for a 
 period in Glasgow before graduating to London. 
 Mr. M. R. Morand and Miss Irene Rooke have 
 done very well. The production of the plays has 
 been in the excellent hands of Mr. Norman Page 
 and Miss Madge Mcintosh — each carrying into 
 the repertory movement something of the new 
 traditions of the Stage Society and of the Court. 
 
 The future is remarkable for its promise and 
 for its ambition. Miss Baker's Chains is to enjoy 
 its third production, this time at the hands of Mr. 
 Page. The Witch, in a new translation by Mr. 
 Masefield, will link the theatre with the repertory 
 of The New Theatre in New York. Most note- 
 worthy of all, Mr. Granville Barker, fresh from the 
 considerable achievements to which the major 
 part of this book is devoted, is to produce the 
 play ; and he will be further associated with the 
 theatre, in Man and Superman, in the capacity of 
 actor. Truly the Scottish Repertory Theatre is 
 the home of a very eager life. 
 70
 
 NEW rORK 
 
 The fourth English-speaking repertory theatre 
 is The New Theatre in New York. This is an 
 endowed theatre, thirty wealthy gentlemen having 
 each subscribed thirty-five thousand dollars to set 
 it going. It is to be presumed that their motive 
 was the same, that they could not get their demand 
 supplied by the ordinary theatre of commerce — 
 not for all their dollars. 
 
 In America the conventional drama of com- 
 merce is as we know it in this country — only 
 more so. It is noteworthy for the longest of 
 runs, the most insistent and expensive of stars, 
 and the most extravagantly ostentatious of 
 musical comedies. In a land where the late 
 Richard Mansfield during the last years of his life 
 made never less than one hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars a year and sometimes over two 
 hundred thousand dollars ; where Mr. David 
 Warfield, " the most profitable star in the world," 
 has been allowed by an admiring public to play 
 only three parts in eleven years ; and where so 
 much money is spent on licking creation with a 
 musical comedy that it may run for three years 
 and still show a loss — the repertory idea is, as 
 
 71
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 they say, " up against " something. America has 
 not been without its experiments towards some- 
 thing better, however. After successive efforts had 
 failed to induce Congress to grant an appropria- 
 tion for the endowment of a theatre, there was an 
 attempt made so early as 1891 with the Theatre 
 of Arts and Letters, with which Mr. Brander 
 Matthews and the late Clyde Fitch were associated. 
 There has been intermittent talk of a National Art 
 Theatre ; a New Theatre was in actual but short- 
 lived existence in Chicago in 1906; and in New 
 York there was already a valuable object-lesson in 
 the German Theatre — run successfully on the 
 lines of the Continental repertory theatre — when 
 in 1908 the promoters of The New Theatre set 
 their enterprise on foot. 
 
 They knew at any rate what sort of theatre 
 they had in mind, for one of their first steps was 
 in 1908 to summon to America Mr. Granville 
 Barker, fresh from the Court and the Savoy. 
 But they had allowed their architect, full of 
 opera-house traditions, to design an auditorium 
 that for purposes of modern drama was almost 
 hopeless, and Mr. Barker did not take long to 
 72
 
 NEW rORK 
 
 make up his mind. The post of producer of the 
 
 classical plays went to Mr. Louis Calvert, one of 
 
 the most distinguished of Mr. Barker's associates 
 
 throughout the season of the Court Theatre. 
 
 The New Theatre opened on November 8, 
 
 1909. " Specifically," its directors wrote, " what 
 
 it intends is to establish a resident stock 
 
 company and to operate it on a repertory basis. 
 
 ... It will give no play, however popular, more 
 
 than four performances a week, and it will give at 
 
 least three different plays each week." During 
 
 its first season this has been its repertory, the 
 
 plays having been added at regular intervals of a 
 
 fortnight : 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 The Cottage in the Air, by Edward Knoblauch.* 
 
 Strife, by John Galsworthy. 
 
 The Nigger, by Edward Sheldon. 
 
 The School for Scandal. 
 
 (Liz, the Mother 
 
 [Don, by Rudolf Besier. 
 
 Twelfth Night. 
 
 * A comedy adapted from the Countess von Arnim's novel, 
 ' * Princess Priscilla's Fortnight. " The Countess von Arnim's 
 own adaptation under the title of Priscilla Runs Away has 
 been produced in this country by Mr. Trench at the 
 Haymarketi 
 
 73
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 The Witch, from the Scandinavian of H. Wiers- 
 
 Jenssen. 
 (Brand, Act IV (condensed) 
 \Sister Beatrice, by Maeterlinck. 
 The Winter's Tale. 
 Beethoven, by Ren6 Fauchois. 
 
 Thus thirteen plays were given in the first 
 season of twenty-four weeks, of which four were 
 classics, three original works by American authors 
 (one in one act), and two by contemporary 
 English dramatists. There would appear to be 
 ground for disappointment at the supply of 
 native American plays forthcoming, and the fact 
 is attributed to The New Theatre not being able, 
 notwithstanding its endowment, to offer dramatists 
 sufficiently high royalties to tempt them away 
 from the commercial theatre and the long run. 
 In face of the fact that Mr. Clyde Fitch 
 received well over seven hundred thousand 
 dollars in royalties on his forty-five plays, a 
 repertory theatre — even if it be a millionaires' 
 repertory theatre — has some difficulty in tempting 
 the native dramatist with its paltry one hundred 
 and fifty dollars a performance and a limited run. 
 The point of cleavage between the commercialist 
 
 74
 
 NEW rORK 
 
 and the artist arrived at with the repertory theatre 
 is very clearly marked, as was seen in the last 
 chapter. 
 
 The merits of the stock company playing in 
 repertory seem to have been demonstrated beyond 
 question.* In the spring the company goes on 
 tour, when a point is made of presenting no play 
 more than once in the week. The permanent 
 company numbers thirty-eight, twenty-two actors 
 and sixteen actresses. Miss Wynne Matthison 
 did very well in Shakespeare and Maeterlinck, 
 and Mr. Calvert himself was very impressive in 
 Mr. McKinnel's part of John Anthony in Strife. 
 There has been some confusion of aim when the 
 company has been added to on occasion — Mr. 
 Sothern and Miss Marlowe, for example, being too 
 irredeemably identified with the star system to have 
 been the most discriminating choice for the open- 
 ing production of A ntony and Cleopatra. We shall 
 find in a moment evidence of some confusion of 
 aim in Mr. Frohman's Repertory Theatre ; but, to 
 equal this, he must have engaged Mr. Lewis 
 Waller to open as Falder in Justice, 
 * Appendix Two. 
 
 75
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 If the theatre had been arranged for greater 
 
 intimacy, to seat, say, eleven hundred instead of 
 
 twenty-three hundred, the task of the actors in 
 
 modern plays would have been more thankful. 
 
 For naturalistic acting such as is demanded, for 
 
 instance, by Strife, a theatreilarger than the Duke 
 
 of York's is of no use whatever.* The National 
 
 Theatre, when it comes, if it is to house modern 
 
 drama as well as the classics, must be designed 
 
 with an eye to the former. The emotions arising 
 
 from spectacle and poetry may very well suffer 
 
 compression, but the intimacies of the realistic 
 
 method go for nothing in a house that is too large. 
 
 Your repertory theatre proper, bearing in mind 
 
 that one of the demands upon it is to house the 
 
 New Drama, will see to this ; but one is afraid 
 
 the millionaire promoters had minds confused by 
 
 a liking for opera and for social diversion, and in 
 
 consequence the New Theatre is not the most 
 
 significant of the repertory experiments. 
 
 * Comparative accommodation of the theatres con- 
 sidered in this book : Duke of York's, 1094 ; Court, 670 ; 
 Savoy, 1070 ; Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 562 ; Gaiety Theatre, 
 Manchester, 1250; Royalty Theatre, Glasgow, 1314; 
 Comedie-Frangaise, 1200. 
 
 76
 
 EXPERIMENTS 
 
 These, then, were the experiments in actual 
 being when, in April 1909, the air was suddenly 
 filled with repertory theatres and the rumour 
 of repertory theatres. On one and the same day 
 Mr. Herbert Trench and Mr. Charles Frohman 
 took the Times into their confidence. London, it 
 appeared, was to have two temples of the repertory 
 idea. Now the old sad demand for "something 
 better" was to be supplied indeed, by two artistic 
 theatres not merely in open competition with the 
 ordinary theatres of commerce but with one 
 another. 
 
 Mr. Trench — new to management— was full of 
 his idea. The essential of his very interesting 
 scheme was that it would combine the principle 
 of repertory with the principle of the long run. 
 Here was promise of a great reconciliation'; the 
 lion and the lamb should lie down together. The 
 week's performance would be divided into two 
 portions — (a) a repertory half, and (6) a long run 
 half. The repertory half would always comprise 
 three plays — a new play, a revived modern play 
 of signal merit, and a classical play. Each of the 
 repertory plays would be performed always on its 
 
 77
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 regular night ; that is to say, the day of the week 
 — Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday — would 
 indicate whether the play in the repertory 
 programme would be new, or a revived modern 
 play, or a classic. In the second half of the 
 week there would be produced new plays by 
 modern authors, to run as long as the public 
 interest in them continued. There would be one 
 matinee in the repertory portion of the week, and 
 two in the long run portion. 
 
 Before Mr. Trench came to open the Haymarket 
 Theatre in September he had gone back upon all 
 this. Whether Mr. Harrison's sound business 
 judgment had prevailed, or whether Mr. Trench 
 had drawn up his interesting scheme of recon- 
 ciliation in the expectation of assistance which 
 failed him, or whether closer application to 
 details led him to the revised opinions he has 
 subsequently expressed, the Haymarket has in 
 practice done no service to the repertory idea. 
 The lion devoured the lamb before ever they 
 came to the pasture. Mr. Trench has provided 
 the spectacle of an undoubtedly superior manage- 
 ment making considerable commercial profit out 
 78
 
 EXPERIMENTS 
 
 of four productions, three of them admirable. 
 He has induced artists into the theatre, and 
 surrounded himself with the most excellent 
 actors available, many of whom graduated at 
 the Court Theatre. But the runs of his plays have 
 been noticeably long. He has not even followed 
 Sir Herbert Tree's disinterested practice of taking 
 off a play in his zest for the next one. It is 
 impossible to grant that Mr. Trench's admirable 
 management (for which one is profoundly 
 grateful) has given the lie to all the arguments 
 of this book, for his plays have not succeeded in 
 avoiding deterioration, nor have they been free 
 from the deleterious presence of the star. 
 
 Mr. Trench's subsequent expression of opinion 
 has been to excuse himself thus : " The practical 
 difficulties of the repertory plan are great : 
 extreme costliness through the need for additional 
 advertising, to explain the change of bill to the 
 public, and for cartage of scenery ; complexity 
 and laboriousness for the theatrical staff ; and 
 unattractiveness for authors, who lose the profits 
 of long-run royalties." 
 
 Now the promise of Mr. Frohman — not new to 
 
 79
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 management, but always open to add a world to 
 the three or four he has already conquered 
 — was, in the following February, with the co- 
 operation of Mr. J. M. Barrie, Mr. John 
 Galsworthy, Mr. Granville Barker, and Mr. 
 Bernard Shaw, to turn the Duke of York's into 
 a repertory theatre. Mr. Frohman kept his 
 promise. The manner in which he did it, the 
 achievement and significance of London's first 
 repertory theatre, is what this book is really about. 
 So much as has gone before may be regarded as 
 by way of introduction. 
 
 80
 
 CHAPTER THREE: THE RECORD 
 OF THE REPERTORY THEATRE I 
 
 On the stage one must have reality, and 
 one must have joy. J. M, Synge, 
 
 HAVING announced its intentions as we 
 saw in the last chapter, the Duke of 
 York's Repertory Theatre opened its 
 doors on February 21, 1910, on a season that was 
 to prove of seventeen weeks' duration. During that 
 period it gave one hundred and twenty-eight per- 
 formances of ten plays — two examples of modern 
 tragedy, Justice, by John Galsworthy, and Old 
 Friends, by J. M. Barrie ; one example of modern 
 high comedy (or symbolist farce), Misalliance, 
 by Bernard Shaw ; one comedy of manners in an 
 early Victorian setting, The Sentimentalists, by 
 George Meredith ; one mid- Victorian historical 
 comedy (revival), Trelawny of the " Wells," by 
 Arthur Pinero ; one modern comedy of ideas. 
 The Madras House, by Granville Barker ; one 
 fantasy (revival) Prunella, by Laurence Hous- 
 man, Granville Barker, and Joseph Moorat ; one 
 modern realistic play. Chains, by Elizabeth 
 
 F 81
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Baker ; one modern farcical comedy, The 
 Twelve-Pound Look, by J. M. Barrie ; and one 
 modern conventional comedy, Helena's Path, by 
 Anthony Hope and Cosmo Gordon Lennox. 
 
 The record may be set out in tabular form, 
 thus* : 
 
 Performances 
 
 Trelawny of the "Wells" . 
 
 42 
 
 Justice .... 
 
 26 
 
 The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 25 
 
 Prunella .... 
 
 17 
 
 Chains .... 
 
 ■ 15 
 
 Misalliance 
 
 . II 
 
 The Madras House 
 
 10 
 
 The Sentiment alisis 
 
 6 
 
 Old Friends 
 
 6 
 
 Helena's Path . 
 
 2 
 
 There is in weeping a certain pleasure ; but the 
 tragedy with which it was ordained that The 
 Repertory Theatre should open was not of the 
 kind that disposed one to be emotionally demon- 
 strative even in that fashion. Perhaps the idea 
 was that it would be well to start with a cathartic. 
 
 * For full record and summary of the season, see 
 Appendix One. 
 
 82
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 By so doing, the New drama would be shewing at 
 the outset a nice deference to Aristotle ; but a jollier 
 start would have been possible. There was not 
 much in Mr. Galsworthy's tragedy to rouse the 
 soul by passion nor to charm it by eloquence, 
 so that it should feel on the whole a strong move- 
 ment which — as Hume observed — " is altogether 
 delightful." The didactic play is, as a rule, not 
 the most satisfying sort of play, for the dramatist 
 has all the time to keep one eye upon us, and but 
 one is left for his characters. However, if 
 Justice was too impersonal a tragedy to move 
 very strongly to pity or terror, it was in 
 many respects a work of admirably conceived 
 drama, and just such a one as would by its 
 nature fail to get produced at the ordinary theatre 
 of commerce. 
 
 Mr. Galsworthy's purge is prepared for the 
 judicial system, and so for the social conscience, 
 of which we each have a part in our keeping. 
 The protagonists of the tragedy are Justice and 
 William Falder. The tragedy is in reality, as the 
 Judge recognises the speech of the Counsel for 
 the Defence to be, an indictment of the march of 
 
 83
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Justice. Falder occupies the position of the 
 insect under foot. Twenty-three, not very well 
 paid, not very well educated, he is clerk to the 
 highly-respected firm of James and Walter How, 
 well known in the law. Father and son are 
 tallying the cheques one morning, as their custom 
 is, when it appears that one cheque has been 
 drawn for nine pounds and cashed for ninety. 
 Cokeson, managing clerk, ancient servitor of the 
 firm, is called in, and by a series of circumstances 
 connected in his excellent old brain with the 
 warmth of his lunch, the responsibility is brought 
 home to William Falder. Young Walter has 
 done a careless thing, and left a space after the 
 nine ; Falder has done a criminal thing, and 
 ticked in -ty. As the result, we see him next as 
 prisoner at the bar on his trial for forgery. He 
 is not by nature a criminal, Mr. Galsworthy 
 would have us understand. He is weak and over- 
 sensitive, and is goaded into moments of madness 
 by the treatment Ruth Honeywill receives at the 
 hands of the brute of a husband from whom the 
 Law grants her no protection. It was to get money 
 to take her and her children out of the country
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 that Falder committed the forgery. His Counsel, 
 indeed, bases his whole case for the defence upon 
 the irresponsibility of the prisoner at the moment 
 of the crime. This is the crisis of the drama, this 
 struggle for Falder's soul. We follow it as it 
 sways this way and that ; Cokeson with his well- 
 intentioned evidence ; Ruth giving evidence for 
 her lover at the risk of subsequent bodily harm 
 to herself ; the indifferent, mannered Judge, with 
 his sharp interjected queries — " Lovers ? In what 
 sense do you use that word ? " The eloquent 
 Counsel for the Defence and the plausible Counsel 
 for the Crown, w^orking in turn visible effect upon 
 the jury ; the whole movement and paraphernalia 
 of the court ; and then the verdict — " Guilty." The 
 Judge addresses the prisoner, and the "immoral 
 relations" are the determining factor in his mind. 
 Penal servitude for three years for Falder. Then 
 we see him in slow process of being broken. 
 Mr. Galsworthy spares us nothing ; the greenish 
 distemper of the prison walls ; the unimaginative 
 Governor, doing his honest best with Falder ; the 
 thoughtless young Chaplain ; the Doctor, sticking 
 to physical facts and certifying Falder not to be 
 
 85
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 losing weight. What Falder is losing we are 
 shown, for there is a scene of the interior of his 
 cell ; and he walks, and walks, and walks, rests 
 his head against the cold stone, and then hearing 
 others beating upon their doors, beats with his 
 clenched fists upon the door . . . When he 
 comes out, he puts his hand to his head and to 
 his heart, and tells the good Cokeson it is there 
 he has lost. Justice has not ceased to break him. 
 Situations are made impossible to him, and he is 
 only one tenth as good a man as even his old 
 poor self. But Cokeson and Walter are prevail- 
 ing upon the elder How to take him back and 
 give him another trial. There is a moment of 
 poignant drama as Falder stands beckoning at 
 the window for Ruth to come up, whilst Coke- 
 son's conscience is forcing him to divulge that 
 she has not been quite what she ought to have 
 been while the young man has been away 
 (having had to keep her children alive). Even so 
 they shall have their chance. Then there enters 
 by the same door as two and a half years ago the 
 same officer from Scotland Yard. Justice has 
 not done with Falder. He is on ticket-of-leave, 
 86
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 and has failed to report himself ; added to which 
 there is a little business of a forged reference. 
 He is seized and resists, then cries madly 
 "Good!"; and when the door closes we know 
 the tragedy is to culminate behind it. He leaps 
 from his captor over the balustrade ; and his 
 body brought back into the room, with Ruth 
 crying upon it, is the end on which the curtain 
 falls. 
 
 There have been those who have called Justice 
 a squalid anecdote, and with this amount of 
 justification, that in tragedy the catastrophe must 
 overwhelm someone of value in order that we 
 may be moved to pity by a sense of loss. It is so 
 in all the tragedies whose purging influence sweeps 
 through the theatre ; the fine womanhood of the 
 Trojan women, the nobility of Othello, the simple 
 beauty of Mr. Masefield's Nan, the strong youth 
 of the six fine sons in Riders to the Sea, the signifi- 
 cance to the State of Mr. Barker's Trebell ; it is 
 the value of these qualities that we feel, and to 
 the end we fiercely resist the tide of circumstance 
 which threatens their submersion. Now Falder — 
 one says it with regret — is of no value to anyone. 
 
 87
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 He is the insect under the impending foot. At 
 the end he is no more to us than that Booley, " (he 
 next case," for whom the judge announces his 
 intention of sitting rather late to-day. Falder is 
 to us nothing but a case, a case in sociology, and 
 — whatever we may be outside — in the theatre 
 few of us are sociologists, for the theatre is by 
 its nature a place where the emotions are upper- 
 most. 
 
 To Mr. Galsworthy, of course, Falder is a 
 nervous human creature, with that vein of 
 sensitiveness to beauty which runs through all 
 his creations. But he has chosen to show us very 
 little of this. In the above account, rather 
 scrupulous justice is done to the course of what 
 may be called the personal drama. Falder has 
 often thought, he says, the being fond of Ruth was 
 the best thing about him — " it's sacred, somehow 
 — and yet it did for me. That's queer, isn't it ? " 
 But such touches are very few. Mr. Galsworthy 
 has chosen to make the overshadowing drama 
 impersonal, with Justice for its protagonist ; and 
 if he has gained in propagandist directness by 
 making Falder the mere Average Weakling who
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 (in our semi-civilisation) gets trodden underfoot, 
 he must be content to be told what he has lost. 
 In all the play there is a queer bloodlessness. 
 One may question whether Mr. Galsworthy's 
 dramatic progress from The Silver Box and Joy to 
 Strife and Justice is from every point of view a 
 progress. It has entailed a loss of characterising 
 power, it has meant a change from a drama of 
 human beings to a drama of impersonal forces, 
 or at least of the conflict between impersonal 
 forces on the one side and human beings on the 
 other. In a certain degree it may be that Mr. 
 Galsworthy in this subjection of the personal has 
 achieved that subjection of characters to drama 
 which in Ibsen amounted to masterliness ; and, 
 however this may be, there is pleasure to be had in 
 regarding his admirable technique. But because 
 we have outgrown a taste for the tragedy of blood 
 it does not of necessity follow that we are prepared 
 to welcome the tragedy of bloodlessness. It is 
 excusable to hope that one day Mr. Galsworthy 
 may again write a play overshadowed by some- 
 thing that belittles or sucks out the drama no 
 more than did the huge old beech of Joy, in the 
 
 89
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 darkness of whose hollow many things were 
 hidden. 
 
 As to whether Justice succeeded in the theatre 
 in getting its effect or no, there is a story told of 
 a gentleman in the stalls who, as the jury re- 
 appeared to file back into their box, turned 
 excitedly to those behind him, and (as with a 
 sense of deep grievance) exclaimed that they had 
 made up their minds. The court scene was 
 indeed put on with a masterly hand by Mr. 
 Barker. It was so good as to raise the whole 
 question of dramatic realism. One might just as 
 well have been in a court of law ; and, some will 
 say, when we go out after dinner for pleasure we 
 had sooner go elsewhere. Just so in the prison 
 scene, with that greenish distemper on the walls. 
 It even turned one a little sick. That, maybe, was 
 what Mr. Galsworthy the propagandist wanted, 
 although Mr. Galsworthy the tragic poet might 
 purge us more nobly. However, it is not given 
 to every dramatist to draw Judges of the High 
 Court to his theatre, nor to turn Home Secretaries 
 sick. Such effect, seemingly, had Justice, since 
 it is already announced that the Falders of the 
 90
 
 MISALLIANCE 
 
 future are to be condemned to a maximum of one 
 month of solitary confinement, and that no longer 
 are they to be pursued and broken by the in- 
 quisitorial system of ticket-of-leave. A play of 
 so much effect (although not necessarily dramatic 
 effect) can hardly be regarded as other than an 
 opening of distinction for The Repertory Theatre. 
 
 The Repertory Theatre having made a dis- 
 tinguished but somewhat gloomy beginning, the 
 hope was widely expressed that in its second pro- 
 duction, Mr. Shaw's Misalliance, some merriment 
 would be provided. It was — especially for Mr. 
 Shaw. The trouble this time was that what he 
 had written was not a play. The Censor had 
 failed to recognise it as a play, and let it through. 
 A great many of the critics solemnly applied to it 
 the word " incomprehensible," as though that re- 
 flected more upon Mr.Shawthan upon themselves. 
 Others expressed with touching solicitude their 
 regret that a man of Mr. Shaw's undoubted 
 ability should descend to work such as this. 
 
 It is, of course, open to quite sensible people to 
 object to the recent tendency of Mr. Shaw's 
 
 91
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 dramatic work. Arms and the Man and Candida, 
 amongst the earliest of his plays, are almost perfect 
 in form. Of his last four plays of full-length, three 
 have been respectively a discussion, a conversa- 
 tion, and, now, " a debate in one sitting." It is 
 possible to hold that since a debate in one sitting 
 does not conform to what Aristotle said on the 
 subject — it plainly cannot subordinate character 
 and diction to incident — it therefore lies outside 
 the confines of drama. There was not a single 
 critic of eminence who took any other course. 
 Not one of them asked why it should not be 
 admirable and enjoyable to push out the dramatic 
 art in new directions, or pointed out the alterna- 
 tive definition of drama as any work of art which 
 gets its effect in the theatre. Not one of them 
 appeared to realise that if they persisted in saying 
 that Misalliance was not a play, they might have 
 Mr. Shaw pointing out the fact that he never 
 said it was, but four times over on the programme 
 called it a debate. 
 
 Misalliance was as enjoyable as was the dis- 
 comfort of the critics in face of it. It is a debate 
 and a farce. It is chiefly concerned with the 
 92
 
 MISALLIANCE 
 
 relationship between parents and children, and 
 treats with intimacy the notorious inability of 
 parents to give any guidance to their children in 
 what are known as the dangers of life. The mis- 
 alliance of the title is generally that between 
 Youth and Age, and particularly that between 
 parent and child — the most unnatural of all 
 relations, as somebody in the play says. 
 
 The debaters are nine in number. One may 
 regard as their chairman John Tarleton, the great 
 John Tarleton (of Tarleton's Underwear), at 
 whose house on Hindhead, Surrey, the debate 
 takes place, in what would be called the garden- 
 room if this were an Ibsen play. John Tarleton 
 has beneath the underwear which has brought 
 him riches a soul which has grown large upon 
 ideas. With his hand upon his heart he gives 
 the world to understand that the circumstances 
 which have kept him to the shop constitute the 
 greatest tragedy of modern times. Many books 
 have been ransacked to form his collection of 
 ideas, and in the largeness of his soul he has pro- 
 vided — out of the largeness of his wealth — free 
 libraries, that all may do as he has done. " I 
 
 93
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 believe in ideas," says Tarleton. " Read Whats- 
 his-name." Then there is Johnny Tarleton, Junior, 
 plain business man, with his claim that "it's we 
 who run the country," and his belief that he 
 could run literature and the fine arts into the 
 bargain if he cared to waste his time on them. 
 There is Lord Summerhays, ex-Indian governor^ 
 old and disillusioned, who has given up trying to 
 govern his son Bunny. There is Bunny, the 
 after-thought — that is to say, his parents were well 
 over forty and had forgotten how they had 
 brought up their previous children before he 
 arrived. He is under-sized and nervous, a second 
 edition of Eugene Marchbanks ; when things go 
 against him his habit is to lie down and yell. 
 Bunny has been put, as a last despairing effort to 
 make something of him, into Tarleton's Under- 
 wear. And he has engaged himself to Miss Tar- 
 leton. That brings us to Hypatia. As for Mrs. 
 Tarleton, she is a dear old lady who once heard 
 duchesses talking about drainage and was so 
 ashamed she didn't know which way to look. 
 
 Hypatia is a young lady in the mid-twenties. 
 When Lord Summerhays, who had the mis- 
 
 94
 
 MISALLIANCE 
 
 fortune to propose to her before he reaHsed 
 that she was being nice to him on account 
 of his son Bunny, calls her for her cruelty 
 a glorious young beast, Hypatia says : " A 
 glorious young beast ! That's just what I'd like 
 to be." She is. She is something between Ann 
 Whitefield and Ann Veronica. Her home and 
 her parents and their circle bore her to ex- 
 tinction with their ceaseless talk, talk, talk. She 
 wants to be an active verb, to be, and do, and suffer. 
 It is old people who are content to talk about 
 things, for their time of action is behind them. 
 " I like young people ! " cries Hypatia. Perhaps 
 it will be helpful to group the people in the play 
 according to Hypatia's preference. We shall 
 then have John Tarleton and Mrs. Tarleton and 
 Lord Summerhays on the one hand, Johnny 
 in the middle (as an old-young man, and a 
 confirmed talker) and, it will be plainly seen, 
 Hypatia and Bunny on the other. Bunny affects 
 to regard this as something of a misalliance 
 between the aristocracy and the middle classes. 
 As for Hypatia, she confides to her mother that 
 Bunny is a little squit, but she must marry some 
 
 95
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 day, she supposes. This process of sorting out 
 and taking sides may be taken as a fair account 
 of the action of the first part. Then three new 
 debaters arrive. Two arrive in an aeroplane, to 
 the detriment of the Tarleton glass-houses, but 
 to the enrichment of the debate. One is a 
 forceful young man of the upper-classes who 
 risks his strenuous life daily in the cause of 
 aeronautical progress. His companion proves 
 on second inspection to be a lady acrobat in knee 
 breeches. Her name is Lina Szczepanowska, 
 and it has been a point of faith with her and 
 her ancestors to risk their lives daily for two 
 hundred years. So things begin to look brighter 
 for Hypatia. The lady acrobat is soon engaged 
 in taking the gentlemen off to the gymnasium 
 and teaching them to be men, and this leaves 
 the stage clear for Hypatia to be and do with 
 Percival, the forceful young man, and to make 
 him suffer. She makes up to him violently (in 
 a scene that will stand very well by the side of 
 the delightful one between Valentine and Gloria), 
 and eventually induces the at first reluctant 
 Percival to chase her through the heather. But 
 q6
 
 MISALLIANCE 
 
 there has been a silent witness of the whole 
 scene. 
 
 There now emerges from a portable Turkish 
 bath the last of the debaters. Tarleton, return- 
 ing from brooding upon his destiny and the 
 soreness of his muscles, walks straight into the 
 weedy youth's pistol. Julius Baker has come 
 to avenge the dishonour — as he puts it, after a 
 course of reading supplied by the Tarleton free 
 libraries — of his mother, who in early shop-girl 
 days was one of many who enjoyed the favour 
 of their large-hearted employer. *' I came here 
 to kill you, and then myself," he says. "Start 
 with yourself, please," says Tarleton. His 
 expansive self-assurance bears down at once 
 the half-nourished little clerk with the pistol, 
 who has regretfully to admit that he can't even 
 make a decent job of this. Julius Baker may 
 be taken as on the whole a recruit to the side of 
 youth, but Hypatia finds him a pretty poor one. 
 He talks like a very ill-advised Trafalgar Square 
 orator. Underlying the stuff he talks is a great 
 deal of pathetic truth. Of all the damnable 
 waste of human life, clerking is the worst, he 
 
 G 97
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 cries. This shocks Mrs. Tarleton, who has 
 taken to mothering him directly she hears of 
 his antecedents. " It isn't bad language, chick- 
 a-biddy," says John, " its only Socialism." Then 
 Julius, under the influence of sloe-gin, proceeds 
 to the awful revelation of what he has seen of 
 the carryings on of Hypatia. " I went into that 
 Turkish bath a boy, I came out a man," he 
 declaims with appropriate gestures. Percival 
 bullies him to within an inch of his life, and 
 makes him withdraw the foul calumnies. 
 Hypatia is appealed to to deny the last vestige 
 of truth. Whereupon Hypatia says : " Mr. 
 Percival chased me through the heather and 
 kissed me." This necessitates sitting down and 
 having the matter really out. Percival has 
 scientific ambitions and expensive tastes. " Papa, 
 buy the brute for me," is Hypatia's final word. 
 Somewhere about here the debate enters its 
 final round, with all our debaters present, and 
 the question at issue frankly and finally. Youth 
 versus Age. " Do you think young people don't 
 know ? " asks Hypatia. " They don't feel," says 
 Lord Summerhays. As for Tarleton, he gets 
 98
 
 MISALLIANCE 
 
 seriously wounded in his paternal sentiments. 
 "Aren't we a little cross?" suggests Percival 
 gently. "Read Marcus Aurelius." Meanwhile 
 Johnny has made the mistake of his safe career 
 by proposing to Lina what she calls the dis- 
 honour of marriage. She goes off with Bunny 
 to make a man of him by an aeroplane ascent, 
 in the face of the opposition of his elders ; but 
 there, he'll lie down and yell if they don't let 
 him go. The debate is at an end. Hypatia, 
 with the prospect before her of doing and 
 suffering a considerable deal, Hypatia says : 
 "Thank Goodness !" 
 
 People who chose not to enjoy what Mr. Shaw 
 had provided for them made a great show of 
 echoing Hypatia. And yet it was possible to 
 enjoy oneself very heartily, and to have no quarrel 
 with Misalliance. Of course this trick of quoting 
 Mr. Shaw against himself is a very simple one. 
 Any student of his works will tell you that these 
 things in the mouths of his characters which 
 seem to bear quotation against himself are a genial 
 characteristic of Mr. Shaw, allied to his habit of 
 making the audience a third party to the conver- 
 
 99
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 sation on the stage — of course, a quite wrong 
 habit, leading his people constantly to say things 
 for the benefit of the audience which it is not in 
 their character to say. See from this very play 
 how readily one may quote Mr. Shaw against 
 himself. "You will excuse me rambling on like 
 this," says Summerhays. Mr. Shaw rambles on. 
 With all its sustained verbal brilliance, Misalliance 
 might with advantage spare three or four 
 sentences, a thing that could not be said of 
 Candida or J^ohn Bnll's Other Island. And 
 Percival says to Hypatia, " What sort of a 
 girl are you, what sort of a house is this ? " 
 which jumps with one's acute realisation at 
 the moment that Mr. Shaw is not a realist. 
 Again, someone or other says, " Don't pro- 
 fane what you don't understand." Whereupon 
 the gentlemen of the press make pencil notes 
 upon their programmes, for this may be nicely 
 quoted as expressing what is the general con- 
 ception of the public (industriously fostered 
 by themselves) about Mr. Shaw — of course, a 
 misconception. 
 
 It may at once be granted that Misalliance was 
 
 100
 
 OLD FRIENDS 
 
 a diversion. But what would you ? It was at 
 least as diverting (for anyone not suffering from 
 hopeless rigidity of mind) to listen to as it had 
 been for Mr. Shaw to write. Mr. Shaw has claimed 
 for it that it is a singularly perfect specimen of high 
 comedy. That is only his fun. There is nothing 
 high about it except its spirits, and they are 
 splendid. Misalliance is Mr. Shaw's assertion of 
 his belief in youth — in preference to age. Youth 
 is callous and rather cruel, but it holds the future 
 in its hands. It is in revolt against the stagna- 
 tion which age loves. So is Mr. Shaw, in his 
 own splendidly retained youthfulness. Now 
 he has written a very high-spirited play all 
 about it. Shall we call Misalliance a symbolist 
 farce ? 
 
 It would in every way have been undesirable 
 had The Repertory Theatre at this early stage in 
 its career been so conducted as to earn the 
 reputation of producing nothing but plays which 
 the ordinary theatre-goer might safely allow to 
 pass over his head. By its nature a repertory 
 theatre is chiefly concerned with the plays whose 
 
 lOT
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 appeal is limited or which win their way slowly ; 
 but that is no reason why the repertory should 
 not be so assorted as, without any lowering of 
 artistic standard or confusion of aim, to make the 
 widest possible appeal. For this reason the 
 Triple Bill was in many ways the most representa- 
 tive of the productions of The Repertory Theatre. 
 Included in it were two pieces by one of the 
 conventionalists among its dramatists — which 
 should have drawn as wide a public as was in any 
 way to be drawn — and one thing of rare and 
 delicate quality which could not conceivably 
 have been produced at any other theatre. This 
 last was the Meredithian fragment. The Sentimen- 
 talists. Of the Barrie plays, one was in the com- 
 paratively unpopular vein of The Wedding Guest, 
 and seemed therefore quite in place ; the other 
 was so certain of popularity under whatever 
 conditions it was produced that, save for experi- 
 mental purposes, its inclusion in the bill lacked 
 justification. From the critical viewpoint now 
 possible, one may see in the inclusion of The 
 Twelve-Pound Look first evidence of that indecision 
 of aim about which a good deal more will have 
 
 I02
 
 OLD FRIENDS 
 
 to be said ; and on this account the bill is not the 
 less representative. 
 
 If Mr. Barrie's Old Friends had been a better 
 play, it might with the Meredith have carried 
 through the Triple Bill to a greater success. It 
 fails, however, quite to convince because its 
 sombreness strikes one as a little gratuitous, and as 
 arising out of an attitude towards heredity which 
 is more than a little old-fashioned. The play 
 might have been written in the first flush of 
 Mr. Barrie's admiration for Ibsen. It is a 
 simplified, sentimentalised Ghosts, with the 
 highly respectable drink-craving substituted for 
 the "something inherited, something one wasn't 
 responsible for" which the Censor will not allow 
 to be mentioned. The circumstances of the 
 inheriting of the craving, with the general 
 doctrine that habits of the sort are not to be 
 given up but give yoit up when they choose in 
 order to attach themselves to a more attractive 
 subject in the person of your child, are, one 
 thinks, of remoter date than Ibsen. Stephen 
 Brand has conquered the craving in himself, and 
 hugs a sort of pride that he did it alone. He is 
 
 103
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 very happy, until a moment comes when he realises 
 fhat he has given the craving to his seventeen- 
 year-old daughter, and it is then his wife turns on 
 him with her unpleasant doctrine. It may be 
 that Mrs. Brand, who is, even as was Mrs. Alving, 
 fighting her battle with these ghosts, is intended 
 by Mr. Barrie to be in a state of unscientific super- 
 stitiousness, which would add, perhaps, to the 
 pitifulness of the tragedy. However that may be, 
 it is certain that Carry's youthful figure creeping 
 in her night-dress down the darkened stairs, and 
 her sad, hopeless cry when her father finds her 
 fumbling at the spirit cupboard, " What are you 
 going to do with me ? " — are moments of very 
 moving tragedy. Outside, we are told, it is a 
 clear night of stars, and the sky was never more 
 serene. . . This note of cosmic irony on which 
 the little play ends is also not without its Ibsen 
 reminiscence. 
 
 A more characteristic Barrie note is struck in Tlic 
 Tivelve-Pound Look — a highly successful trifle. It 
 is a conversation into which the newly honoured 
 Sir Harry Sims is plunged, at a moment's notice, 
 with the wife who left him fourteen years before, 
 104
 
 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 
 
 and who, by an unfortunate mischance for Sir 
 Harry, comes in.response to his order for a typist 
 to deal with the congratulatory correspondence. 
 It is a situation of which Mr. Barrie's ingenious 
 talent may be expected to make the most. Perhaps 
 at moments the handling is a little more cruel 
 than we are accustomed to from him. " He's 
 about to be knighted for his services to — er, for 
 his services," says the second Lady Sims of her 
 hopelessly wealthy, " successful " little under-bred 
 husband, with his profound misunderstanding of 
 women and of everything else enjoyable in life. 
 It has been left for Kate to rub it into him. As 
 she is here, he will ask her the one question, who 
 was the man ? Under pressure she tells him 
 what she knows will be the cruellest thing of all : 
 "There wasn't anyone, Harry, no one at all." 
 All his blustering that he is worth a quarter of a 
 million fails to make her sorry for what she has 
 lost. "You are worth exactly twelve pounds," 
 she says, for that is the sum for which she 
 obtained what she prefers to him, a typewriter 
 and her liberty. It is her advice to all husbands 
 to watch for the twelve-pound look coming into 
 
 105
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 their wives' eyes. Sir Harry, impenetrated to the 
 end by a glimmering of understanding, dismisses 
 her after ensuring that she shall hear his promises 
 of some ropes of pearls for the subjugated 
 neck of the second Lady Sims. And no sooner 
 has the door closed than the curtain falls on Lady 
 Sims and a most indubitable example of the 
 twelve-pound look. 
 
 The success of the trifle lies in its amusing 
 qualities. There is excellent entertainment in 
 listening to Kate telling Sir Harry that he was a 
 good husband according to his lights, and a 
 moral man, and chatty. The play's weakness, of 
 course, is the way in which Sir Harry at intervals 
 says "Stop it," and "Will you please to leave 
 my house ? " without taking any steps that she 
 shall do either one or the other until we have 
 had our forty minutes' entertainment. In reality 
 he would have said so at once, and would have 
 enforced it, but that would not have been so 
 amusing as Miss Ashwell standing with her back 
 to the fireplace and her thumbs in her waistcoat, 
 giving imitations of his fat friends from whom 
 she had fled ; whilst Sir Harry sits in impotence 
 io6
 
 THE TWELVE-POVND LOOK 
 
 until the applause has died away. Indeed, The 
 Twelve-Pound Look should go on the music-halls. 
 The masterliness of its retrospective narrative 
 and its sustained high spirits and fun satisfy 
 every requirement of that difficult art-form, the 
 sketch. 
 
 There is no need to conclude that it was abso- 
 lutely out of place at The Repertory Theatre. 
 The disarming thing in Mr. Barrie is that he is 
 the one dramatist of artistic significance who has 
 found popular acceptance for the work he himself 
 wants to write. The Twelve-Pound Look is no 
 more true to life than is — in a different way — 
 Old Friends. But Mr. Barrie is more himself in 
 it, and that was its justification. Mr. Barrie's 
 workmanship is never anything but neat and 
 delightful. And for the undoubtedly moving 
 moments of tragedy in Old Friends it was not 
 entirely the admirable acting of Miss Dorothy 
 Minto, Miss Ashwell, and Mr. Valentine that was 
 responsible. As for the interpretation of The 
 Twelve-Pound Look, the play might have been 
 written to display Miss Ashwell's insouciant ease; 
 while Mr. Edmund Gwenn took advantage of the 
 
 107
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 opportunity to build up, in his own especial 
 manner, as convincingly humorous a study of 
 the Sir Harry Sims type as the exigencies of Mr. 
 Barrie's trifle would allow him. 
 
 If a death-blow were wanted for Aristotle and 
 his "eternal verities," The Sentimentalists supplied 
 it. Here is a composition for the theatre which 
 not only does not subordinate diction and char- 
 acter to action, but which proceeds to flout 
 another of that excellent critic's canons by 
 making the diction brilliant. Over-brilliance of 
 diction, we know, can merely serve to obscure 
 action. Meredith, misguided man, in his sole 
 work for the theatre, has wrought upon his 
 diction until its brilliance is sparkling, and has 
 troubled to put into his play positively no action 
 at all ! By all the rules he should have achieved 
 nothing, and he has achieved a thing of pure 
 delight. Drama is by its nature kinetic, and he — 
 the denizens of his old-world garden are possessed 
 of too much wealth and leisure to find hurry 
 requisite — has made it static. What he has 
 written is, in a word, '' not a play." But Meredith 
 io8
 
 THE SENTIMENTALISTS 
 
 also knew something of the theatre, although he 
 chose not to work in that medium for the delecta- 
 tion of " our wilful English of the hazy region 
 and the ideal that is not to be disturbed." Wise 
 man that he was. He wrote of it, however, in an 
 essay on dramatic theory which may stand with 
 those of Dryden and of Aristotle. Meredith had his 
 own view of the theatre, and it was that there is 
 a benefit to men in taking the lessons of Comedy 
 in congregations, for it enlivens the wits. " The 
 true test of Comedy," says he — Aristotle may 
 lord it over Tragedy — "is that it shall awaken 
 thoughtful laughter." And Comedy he held to 
 be the fountain of sound sense ; not the less 
 perfectly sound on account of the sparkle. 
 By his own test, assuredly, The Sentimentalists was 
 sound. 
 
 The diction of The Sentimentalists is the diction 
 of Meredith's novels with the speakers come to 
 life in a setting of fitting harmony of line. 
 Clipped yew-hedges and trim lawns are the 
 background to the clean, tripping prose. What 
 prose it is ! One sat and let the winged words go 
 over one's head, and though the feeling was 
 
 109
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 that one could catch them by throwing out an 
 arm, one never did, because, just as it was, the 
 sensation was too pleasurable. And they followed 
 so quickly one upon another. To deny after this 
 the added charm given to dialogue by presentation 
 in the theatre, to cease from railing at the hazy 
 wilful English who would confine Meredith to 
 the study, is to betray sheer insensibility to the 
 art of the theatre. 
 
 A few of these bright things, caught by the 
 heels as it were, will appear in what follows. 
 Through the garden, quite at their leisure, 
 listening a little to Professor Spiral with his 
 rounded periods, making a little love, move the 
 charming people talking their literary talk with a 
 wonderful air of detachment and of having 
 nothing else to do. There is Homeware, the old 
 philosopher, full of wise saws. Excess of merit, 
 says he, is a capital offence in morals ; it disgusts 
 us with virtue. Two charming ladies swear 
 together in the garden, and spend their time 
 devising cleverish objurgations — " sweet garden 
 oaths, Carnation ! Begonia ! " One of these 
 is the little philosopher Lyra (the rogue in 
 no
 
 THE SENTIMENTALISTS 
 
 porcelain come to life in the dainty playing of 
 Miss Mary Jerrold). The other is the dedicated 
 Astraea, wife for two months and widow for two 
 years. How it is her fate never to be free of 
 men ! " Let me have one day of liberty ! " is her 
 plea ; and this the moral she would draw from her 
 alliance with the excellent deceased : " Let no 
 woman marry a husband twenty years older than 
 herself — she marries a limpet. Old husbands are 
 too voraciously constant." As for young hus- 
 bands, there is young Arden, flitting after her 
 about the garden. " I like him, I like him," cries 
 Astraea, " but I want to breathe ! " His idea of 
 marriage, says Lyra, is taking a woman into 
 custody. They mingle their sighs over the lot of 
 the husband-haunted wife. As for Astrrea, since 
 she is feminine she must needs be a victim to the 
 horrible constrictor love. The action (but there 
 is none) concerns Arden's pursuit of her, and it 
 does not matter, nor its inconclusion ; it suffices 
 that the end as we have it indicates that for the 
 sake of peace she will consent to take him, 
 " descending from her ideal to the gross reality 
 of man." No one could have embodied more 
 
 III
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 nicely her intellectual piquancy that did Miss Fay 
 
 Davis. 
 
 . . . inconstant as a butterfly 
 
 And shallow as a brook with little fish. 
 
 Mr. Dennis Eadie made a crisply sententious old 
 boy of Homeware, perfectly in the picture. Mr. 
 William Rothenstein designed the dresses, and 
 Mr. Norman Wilkinson the scene ; two artists 
 whom one willingly saw let loose in the theatre. 
 
 The Sentimentalists is an altogether delightful 
 piece of work, and to have kept it from the stage 
 because it was not completed would have been 
 the greatest of pities. The only alternative one 
 can consider for a moment is that Mr. Granville 
 Barker should have completed it. The rising of 
 the curtain on the trim early- Victorian garden is 
 comparable with the rising of the curtain on the 
 Georgian garden in Tlic Marrying of Ann Leete. 
 The same charming people in beautiful dresses 
 talk the same literary talk with the same air of 
 detachment and of having nothing else to do. 
 True, Ann ends by doing things, just like any Shaw 
 young lady, and her marriage with the gardener is 
 a very much more heroic thing than is Astrsea's 
 112
 
 THE MADRAS HOUSE 
 
 with her Arden. But no one who reads Waste 
 can be in doubt as to how influenced Mr. Barker 
 has been by the dialogue of Meredith. If 
 Meredith had chosen to write plays of modern 
 life, he would have written them very like Waste 
 and The Madras House. That The Sentimentalists 
 was left uncompleted really does not matter. A 
 piece which in every moment of its length was a 
 joy to eye and ear will not have remembered 
 against it any deficiencies of curtain ; and, having 
 no action, it cannot be of great account that the 
 action was brought to no conclusion. 
 
 Heartfree, it may be remembered, in The Pro- 
 voked Wife of Vanbrugh, lays claim to an exhaus- 
 tive and satisfying method of studying Woman. 
 I consider her, says he, turned inside out. Mr. 
 Barker also is concerned to study Woman, and 
 his method is somewhat the same. His women 
 excel at self-revelation. That charmingly frank 
 young lady, Ann Leete, in revolt against an age 
 which demanded self-repression in its femininity 
 more sternly than does our own, will not have it 
 for a moment that she has trod on a toad in the 
 
 H 113
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 dark garden, but is out at once with her confession 
 that it is Lord John has kissed her. And " I'm 
 lawless by birthright, being a woman," says Alice, 
 the more modern young woman of The Voysey 
 Inheritance. Mrs. O'Connell in Waste is made 
 very mercilessly by her creator to expose her little 
 butterfly soul. In these last two plays there is a 
 wonderful gallery of portraits of middle-class 
 women. From a glance at them one may be 
 very certain that Mr. Barker has made Woman 
 his study, and that (in this going beyond Heart- 
 free) he stands for her emancipation and equal 
 citizenship. But they have heretofore been por- 
 traits more or less incidental to the middle-class 
 epic of The Voysey Inheritance or to the social 
 tragedy of Waste. Now Mr. Barker has written 
 a thesis play, and his thesis is Woman. As her 
 symbol he has taken The Madras House, which 
 exists in her service. 
 
 That Mr. Barker should write a thesis play and 
 give it as the fourth of the productions of The 
 Repertory Theatre on top of Justice and Misalliance 
 and The Sentimentalists, gave rise to a terrible out- 
 cry. Here indeed was a something that was 
 114
 
 THE MADRAS HOUSE 
 
 " not a play " ! There were twenty-five people 
 down on the playbill, and the four acts were, it 
 was demonstrated, quite separable from one 
 another, only one person persevering through all 
 four, and he at the end not having undergone 
 any particular change. This Mr. Barker called a 
 comedy ! And, despite the gentlemen who 
 write post haste for the morning press, so it was. 
 If there is anything in the " true test " of Meredith, 
 that comedy shall awaken thoughtful laughter, 
 this was one of the comedies of our day. To the 
 gentlemen of the press, perhaps, having by hard 
 fate to assimilate it with many stimulants and 
 cigarettes between eleven-fifteen and twelve-thirty, 
 it had been better had the laughter been a trifle 
 less thoughtful. In saying that the play was not 
 dramatic because there was no progression in it, 
 they overlooked that the thesis progressed. 
 Writing post haste, they did not see that what 
 gave it all unity was The Madras House in the 
 background. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the most admirable quality 
 in Mr. Barker's play is the almost consummate 
 skill with which the elements of the drama are 
 
 "5
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 combined. Of the four acts, the first and last are 
 devoted to showing the domestic estabhshments 
 of two of the partners in The Madras House, the 
 second to its commercial south-of-the-river sister- 
 emporium, and the third to The Madras House 
 itself in Bond Street. Each has its display of 
 womanhood, and each its own sort of woman- 
 hood. At Henry Huxtable's chaste little fortress 
 on Denmark Hill, there are the six unmarried 
 Huxtable girls — so many of them that their father 
 cannot be expected to tell them apart. Living to- 
 gether, eating together, going away together, they 
 do get a bit irritable, as is explained by Emma (as 
 old Henry would say, by Jane-I-mean-Emma), 
 one of the youngest and least disappointed. It 
 is all perfectly usual, perfectly respectable, and 
 amazingly purposeless and wasteful. Henry and 
 Catherine Huxtable, having acquired a large and 
 rather irksome family of daughters in some 
 fashion of which they are not very clear, are 
 merely engaged, according to Hugh Voysey's 
 advice to parents, in keeping their children 
 ignorant of all that they don't themselves know. 
 The horizon of the little fortress is bounded by a 
 ii6
 
 THE MADRAS HOUSE 
 
 good view of the Crystal Palace, and its social 
 accomplishments — save of course a little harmless 
 gardening and music — limited to a needless 
 elaboration of the art of saying How d'you do 
 and Good-bye. " How much better," says 
 Constantine Madras, " if you had found some man 
 willing for a consideration to marry the lot." 
 
 However, the private indulgence of an un- 
 limited family of daughters is permitted to 
 Henry, and the profits of The Madras House 
 and of Roberts and Huxtable's make it possible. 
 When we see Roberts and Huxtable's at Peckham 
 in the second act, one of the inevitable little com- 
 plications is disturbing that harem of industry (as 
 Constantine unpleasantly calls it). First-hand 
 in our customers' department has been got hold 
 of by some fellow. Miss Yates, the young lady 
 in question, instead of submitting quietly to be 
 made an example of according to Henry's admir- 
 able principle of punishing the guilty as well as the 
 innocent (I am all for that, says Henry), insists 
 instead that she is proud as any married duchess. 
 This is too much for old Henry, and Philip 
 Madras takes the affair in hand. Miss Chancellor, 
 
 117
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 who is fifty-eight and never sees any difference in 
 men, suspects Brigstock. Brigstock's poor young 
 wife, whom the Hving-in system condemns to lie 
 awake at night thinking of him — "for thirty 
 pounds is not sufficient to Hve out on, sir, and it's 
 no use pretending that it is," says Brigstock — 
 flies at everybody in turn with her demand for 
 compensation for the slander. Philip, who defines 
 himself as a young man who says unconventional 
 things but who does not do unconventional 
 things, has his hands full. 
 
 It is, we learn, a year at The Madras House 
 in Bond Street (which she refuses to regret) that 
 has led to Miss Yates' complication. In the 
 third act we are made intimate with The Madras 
 House, the shrine and symbol of femininity. We 
 assist at the deliberations of the directors around 
 the " art " table, under the " art " ceiling, and 
 between the "art" green walls. We are initiated 
 into the mysteries of the genesis of fashion ; in 
 this instance, the sudden spirited adaptation one 
 windy Paris afternoon of a fish basket to cover 
 the fair head of La Belle H616ne — a credit to her 
 profession and, as far as her exterior goes, to The 
 ii8
 
 THE MADRAS HOUSE 
 
 Madras House. The lish-basket hat — improvised 
 by Helene in the interests of her own cocotterie 
 (as Mr. Windlesham puts it) — is to be the rage, 
 and will shade the chaste brow of many a virgin 
 or matron of Denmark Hill. We watch three 
 mannequins promenade, also from Paris, whilst 
 Mr. Windlesham handles them, and talks to them 
 in Cockney French, and sticks pins into and 
 arranges inflammatory portions of their lovely 
 attire, all without turning a hair of his well-oiled 
 little head. In the intervals of granting their dis- 
 crete consideration to the latest models, the 
 directors discuss the terms of the sale of The 
 Madras House, which is passing into American 
 ownership. Mr. Eustace Perrin State is paying 
 for it far more even than it is worth, so highly 
 does he appreciate its symbolic qualities. He 
 holds that for any man who is so intimately con- 
 cerned with women as to manufacture the bones 
 of their corsets to be outside the Woman's Move- 
 ment is to be outside history. In his stores, the 
 gentlemen's departments are served by ladies, the 
 ladies' by gentlemen, always within the bounds of 
 delicacy (and with great profit). When the dis- 
 
 119
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 cussion passes, as it speedily does, to the subject 
 of Woman, Mr. State is for taking high ground ; 
 for to him the highest instinct of the race is to 
 perpetuate. He is not, however, married. " My 
 dear sentimental sir," says Constantine, " I might 
 have known it." Nor is Constantine averse from 
 giving his views on Woman, for his experience of 
 the sex has been long and varied, and he has 
 eventually consummated his affection for the 
 ways of the East by settling down there and be- 
 coming a Mahometan. Women have no morals 
 and no intellect as we understand them, says 
 Constantine. The recognition of polygamy is 
 what he demands ; not compulsory, not State 
 polygamy — just polygamy for those who like it. 
 Henry to him is a monster of good-natured 
 wickedness, with his chaste fortress on Denmark 
 Hill and his industrial seraglio (Constantine will 
 persist in these unpleasantries) at Peckham. Alas 
 for poor old Henry, whose sister Amelia Constan- 
 tine married and deserted thirty years ago ; and 
 yet Henry can't bring himself to think he looks, 
 with his beautiful calm brown beard, as though he 
 will be damned for it. Old Henry, who, like the 
 
 120
 
 THE MADRAS HOUSE 
 
 Christian old Vicar in The Voysey Inheritance (who 
 would have given Constantine a hell of a time), 
 tries to keep himself free from the disturbing 
 influences of modern thought ; old Henry it is 
 who is bald with the cares of six unmarried 
 daughters, and corpulent with the business profits 
 he hasn't sufficient imagination to enjoy. It 
 isn't fair ; and in the discussion he comes to a 
 point where he doesn't care who hears him say 
 so. Then there is Major Hippisley Thomas, the 
 "mean, sensual" man, who finds this a damned 
 subtle world, and enquires with anxious interest 
 whether polygamy is practical. Men, he finds, are 
 all either soft-hearted fools or hard-hearted devils, 
 and for the soft-hearted fools (of whom he is one) 
 monogamy, relieved by the attentions of the 
 provocative ladies of La Belle H^lene's profes- 
 sion, is no sort of system. And so while the men 
 turn inside out their views upon Woman — all 
 save Philip, who sits rather aloof from the discus- 
 sion, as he does from this farmyard world of 
 sex — The Madras House passes into the posses- 
 sion of a sentimentalist who may be trusted to 
 realise to the full its symbolical possibilities. 
 
 121
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Mr, State descends suddenly from high ground 
 regarding Woman to a consciousness that 
 one of them is in the room (with the latest 
 creations displayed upon her lovely person), 
 and he remarks, " You clean forget they're 
 there ! " 
 
 It is in the aloof sanctity of Phillimore Gardens, 
 in the after-dinner society of that civilised woman 
 Jessica his wife, that Philip contributes to the dis- 
 cussion. He is so made, he says, that he can't 
 talk about what can't be helped. Sex cannot be 
 helped. It is establishing right relations that 
 matters. Neither art nor science nor good 
 manners have made of the world a place which 
 he cares to live in. Jessica with her civilisation 
 may be costing the world too much ; if it is her 
 culture which keeps her from kissing the Major, 
 she had far better kiss him. But, queerly enough, 
 when she comes to the point, it is Philip she 
 wants to kiss. Their conclusion over the dying 
 embers of the drawing-room fire is that things 
 have been so arranged as to make companionship 
 between men and women a very artificial thing. 
 Companionship, that is what is wanted, an equal 
 
 122
 
 THE MADRAS HOUSE 
 
 companionship. " It's not easy, but it's got to 
 be done." 
 
 That is the conclusion to which Mr. Barker's 
 thesis advances, with extraordinary and delightful 
 brilliance of characterisation and of diction by 
 the way. In the course of the play we are 
 provided with a conspectus of the sex relation- 
 ships, and a symposium of views on Woman. 
 Since these things are commonly held to be 
 interesting, the play might well have drawn all 
 London. It succeeded astonishingly in holding the 
 mirror up to Nature, and there are few who might 
 not have seen something of themselves in it. 
 The Rousseauite, distracted horribly between his 
 admiration for Woman pour maitresse and pour 
 confidente ; the young lady of the pit who is keen 
 on Waller, like Julia Huxtable aged thirty-four; 
 all six Miss Huxtables, indeed, fair flowers that 
 were not gathered in their prime ; the young 
 shop lady who moves and has her being, like 
 Miss Yates, among two-hundred-and-thirty-five 
 gentlemen, and asks the desolating question, 
 " Suppose I don't like any of them " ; the more 
 elderly lady who, with Miss Chancellor, supposes 
 
 123
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 that men are all God's creatures, but for her 
 part doesn't look at them. The constant 
 reader of the Daily Telegraph, with his belief that 
 some women may be polyandrous but that all men 
 are polygamous, and that in matrimony it is the 
 letter which kills and the spirit which gives life ; 
 he would have found he had much in common 
 with Constantine. Those whose embarrassing 
 experience it is to find themselves falling in 
 love all over the place ; they would have found 
 Major Thomas sympathetic. Those elders who 
 desire, like old Henry, to take things as they find 
 them — or as they used to find them. Those who do 
 with Virtue as Constant did, " We recommend it to 
 our wives, madam." Women who, to pass the time 
 have taken up with kissing or with politics (the 
 principle, Mr. Barker says, is the same). All men 
 and women who indulge in " mixed bathing in the 
 world's pleasures." And married couples in need 
 of realising as Philip and Jessica came to do — and 
 as Asta and Borgheim did before them — that it 
 takes two to be glad. A very full play this of 
 Mr. Barker's ; a play with a wonderful suggestion, 
 too, of depth. If all these people had been to it 
 124
 
 THE MADRAS HOUSE 
 
 instead of being put off by the hasty verdict of 
 the critics, they would have come away saying 
 with Mr. State (and, too, one is confident, with 
 Mr. Pepys), "as stimulating a conversation as I 
 remember." 
 
 But it is a conversation, be it observed, of 
 people who turn themselves inside out — as people 
 do not quite do in real life. This method of 
 studying his characters turned inside out Mr. 
 Barker has, in common not only with Heartfree, 
 but with Mr. Shaw. It is just this that they have 
 in common. So much foundation is there for 
 that discipleship of Mr. Barker to Mr. Shaw of 
 which the foolish amongst the critics gabble. 
 But Mr. Barker succeeds in making his love for 
 discussion drama, just as he makes his love for 
 literary distinction in his language square with a 
 general adherence to the method of realism. 
 Whereas Mr. Shaw never was a realist, and he 
 grows less of a realist with every play he writes. 
 
 What is chiefly remarkable in Mr. Barker, in 
 addition to his dramatic sense, is his faculty for 
 rounding in a territory of life or of ideas. He 
 has rounded in the family life of the upper middle 
 
 125
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 classes. He has rounded in British politics. In 
 The Madras House he rounds in the trade of 
 woman's clothes, and incidentally he rounds in 
 Woman ; of the twenty-five characters in the 
 comedy, seventeen are women. Mr. Barker has 
 threatened to round in the Majority and Minority 
 Reports of the Royal Commission on the Poor 
 Laws and Relief of Distress. What his critics — 
 desirous, poor men, only to be merry and bright — 
 will be reduced to saying then, one trembles to 
 imagine. 
 
 126
 
 CHAPTER FOUR : THE RECORD OF 
 THE REPERTORY THEATRE (11) 
 
 ASTR^A, the dedicated widow, and her 
 faithful Arden vanished from the 
 Dutch Garden (having ceased to 
 attract), and their places were taken by Pierrot 
 and Prunella. One might be sorry so few play- 
 goers were interested in the sole and unfinished 
 comedy of Meredith, and yet well satisfied at this 
 opportunity for a revival of Laurence Housman 
 and Granville Barker's delightful fantasy. 
 Prunella is no mere Christmas piece, and this 
 revival set the fact on record. It was fallen back 
 upon, one thinks, as a safe sort of stop-gap ; 
 before many weeks it had made a host of new 
 friends and was firmer set than ever in the 
 affections of those who already loved it ; and by 
 the time it came to an end amid splendid 
 enthusiasm, it meant more of the repertory 
 spirit to a wide circle than any other of the 
 productions, perhaps, of the season. 
 
 Prunella came into the bill at a moment when 
 the statement was being assiduously put about 
 
 127
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 that the repertory spirit was one of gloom. The 
 start with Justice had given it rise. Misalliafice, 
 The Sentimentalists,a.nd The Madras House had been 
 full of the keenest pleasure, but it was intellectual 
 pleasure that each gave, and not a great deal for 
 the emotions. There had perhaps been insuffi- 
 cient regard for the fact that the theatre is a place 
 where the emotions are uppermost. It remained 
 to strike the note of joy as the keynote of the 
 theatre. There was no joy in Justice — only 
 observation which by its fidelity aroused our 
 interest, and technical skill which left, perhaps, all 
 save the initiated cold. Mr. Galsworthy chose to 
 raise his curtain on the honest pug-dog Cokeson 
 adding up figures in a pass-book : " And five's 
 twelve, and three — fifteen ; nineteen, twenty-three, 
 thirty-two, forty-one — and carry four." When the 
 curtain rises on Prunella it is to a different refrain : 
 
 O you naughty, naughty birds, now will you 
 Come into my garden, and I'll kill you 1 
 
 The comparison is an impossible one. But it 
 has this amount of suggestion : the theatre in its 
 movement towards realism must not lose sight of 
 its function of giving joy. 
 128
 
 PRUNELLA 
 
 When the theatres are given up to plays 
 showing slices of a life which is demonstrably not 
 worth living and to thesis plays showing how it 
 might in one respect or another be made a little 
 less intolerable, when the ultra-commercial theatre 
 comes to be ruled by the cinematograph and the 
 ultra-artistic theatre by marionettes, the spirit of 
 joy in the theatre will not be dead if Pierrot is 
 still alive in it. One does not know where Pierrot 
 came from — from France, maybe, like the 
 "gardener-architeck " who caused all the trouble 
 in the Dutch Garden. Like him, he is against 
 regularity and ways that are straight ; he is for 
 chopping and changing and doing things on his 
 own. His delight is to assist Nature in kicking 
 over the traces. Not for him are the gentle paths 
 of rectitude. He is actuated too purely by whim 
 to make the altogether ideal gardener, or, indeed, 
 to shine at any of the professions. His profession 
 is happiness. He may on occasion set his hand 
 to improving what he'd better have left alone, 
 but in no other sense is he one of your reformers. 
 Pierrot's playground is the world, and he finds it 
 a very good playground. Life to him is but a 
 
 I 129
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 moment, and for choice he would Hve it in a 
 summer garden in the cool hours before dawn, 
 where over morals the moon throws a shade. 
 His hand is against lessons and regular hours and 
 regular meals and the insistent routine of house- 
 life and the philosophy of maiden aunts and all 
 unimaginativeness. He never reads books, but 
 all that's worth knowing he knows, or thinks he 
 knows (which is the same thing). He is half doll, 
 only half human — an inestimable advantage to 
 the hedonist. 
 
 Into Prunella's world, then, one day comes 
 Pierrot. Hers is a world bounded by a prim 
 house and by high hedges cut square. But she 
 is young. Not for ever will her world be the 
 Dutch Garden into which no bird may enter save 
 under terrible threats from the Gardener's Boy, 
 and in which butterflies are suffered only by 
 reason of the valuable lesson of minding one's 
 own business which they teach. Not for ever will 
 it be peopled only by her Aunts — Privac}', Prim, 
 and Prude — who are in league with the Gardeners 
 to keep Nature in her place. Prunella is to 
 learn to laugh, to dance, to sing. But at present 
 130
 
 PRUNELLA 
 
 her learning is from " The Gentle Reader," and 
 to deport herself, and to retreat the sash ; and 
 romance is to read about the moon, whose 
 further side no one has ever seen, and which it 
 is nice to think may have a man in it. She reads 
 aloud about its " constitutents,"andthe aunts one 
 by one yawn and doze, and nearer and nearer 
 comes the music of the mummers, and Prunella's 
 monotonous little reading voice is soon dancing 
 to its measure. Then over the hedge is thrown a 
 shower of confetti, and coloured streamers fall 
 twisting all about the sleeping Aunts. They awake 
 in consternation and hasten into the house, 
 enjoining Prunella to follow them. But Prunella, 
 in her high-waisted frock of green flowered 
 muslin and her white stockings and shoes, stands 
 straining on tip-toe on her stool to see over the 
 hedge, anticipation in every pretty line of her. 
 Through a hole in the hedge, on hands and knees, 
 creeps Pierrot, chief of the mummers. She looks 
 down and their eyes meet. . . She will fulfil her 
 little destiny. 
 
 She has kissed Pierrot, and they have all danced 
 about her — Pierrot's rollicking, racketty band, 
 
 131
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Kennel and Callow, Mouth and Hawk, Doll, 
 whose heart is of sawdust. Tawdry and Coquette, 
 and Romp the jolly girl. Scaramel, ever at 
 his master's elbow lest in his absence he 
 should omit to yield to temptation, has secured 
 the key of the garden gate ; what might it not 
 unlock for her ! Now the moon is rising, and 
 Pierrot has come back to carry off the little bird 
 from her nest. Pierrot sings, and she comes 
 to her window. Pierrot whispers deep love in 
 the shadow of the porch (it is his fancy to put 
 himself about to win her), and Prunella hears 
 the world talking to her in her sleep. It says to 
 her all the things she has ever said to herself and 
 wished to be true. The world is Pierrot's play- 
 ground ; come down and it shall be hers — where 
 the gardens have no hedges, and the roses no 
 thorns, and where all birds fly free ! She comes 
 down the ladder, borne in Pierrot's arms. He 
 leads her to the fountain, where stands the statue 
 of Love put up by the Frenchman-architect, 
 and there, while the mummers wrap themselves 
 in long blue cloaks and attend grouped in the 
 moonlight about them, they learn Love's oracle. 
 132
 
 PRUNELLA 
 
 Prunella's cloak is taken from her, and lo I she 
 is Pierrette. Pierrot catches her up in his arms 
 and carries her away. . . 
 
 When we next see the garden it is autumn, and 
 the light of the setting sun is over the house, thick 
 grown with creepers, and the neglected hedges, 
 and the brown leaves upon the paths. Pierrot 
 returns, in black, without Prunella. For two 
 years he has been with her — well, practically 
 always. Then he lost her. And — new experience 
 for Pierrot ! — he has loved more than he meant to, 
 and come back again, and found himself alone. 
 He cannot forget ; he who before — like any 
 one of his careless baggages, now so sadly down 
 at heel — could only just remember yesterday and 
 never the day before. Pierrot has to suffer, and 
 Love has some straight words to say to him. But 
 Prunella, albeit in rags and with other lessons 
 learnt than to laugh and dance and sing, finds 
 her way back to the garden ; and here in the 
 charming dull spot of Pierrot's recollection they 
 are re-united. It is moonlight again, and all the 
 garden has grown loud with song. . . 
 
 133
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 One would not care to say to what extent the 
 charm of Prunella rests upon its new dialogue 
 form, with its inconsequence and its diversity. 
 The queer lilt of it, part verse, part prose, gets 
 into the head, and its extraordinary ease and 
 readiness in fitting all the moods and emotions 
 of the play serve to entwine it in the memory. 
 One finds one's recollections moving to its 
 measure, as Prunella's reading voice moved to 
 the measure of the mummers' approaching music. 
 Its quaint irregularity comes most happily from 
 the mouths of the quaint people in the play. It 
 serves at once to suggest the lumbering un- 
 imaginativeness of the Gardeners and the ecstasy 
 of Pierrot. Without its aid it would have puzzled 
 the authors to give character to Pierrot's rollick- 
 ing, racketty band (with its aid they have not 
 quite succeeded). Prim, Privacy, and Prude, of 
 course, " regulate themselves " in accordance 
 with the injunction they never cease to urge 
 upon their niece Prunella. As for Prunella, the 
 lines she speaks are simple and straightforward, 
 not because she obeys any injunction of her 
 Aunts (only see the play if you are in any fear of 
 134
 
 PRUNELLA 
 
 that !), but because she is a dear natural child. 
 Even the Boy can canter in the verse like a 
 young colt when his tongue is loosened by what he 
 has seen of the " moommers." The new dialogue 
 form is admirably dramatic ; shall we ever get 
 these authors to push it any farther ? 
 
 As to the ideas and motive of Prunella^ one is 
 more than disposed to think they share the 
 inconsequence of the dialogue. In the first Act 
 we revolt with Prunella against the Aunts, who 
 are in league with the Gardeners to keep Nature 
 in her place. But we know Pierrot, from his first 
 entry through the hole in the hedge, for a com- 
 pletely non-moral young man with a pretty turn 
 of speech. We enjoy Act Two, with the moon- 
 light, the ladder to the window, and the abduction 
 of the little bird from her nest, very well on these 
 terms. It seems, however, that Prunella has to 
 suffer (as the Aunts said) for kicking, like Nature, 
 over the traces. And Pierrot, before the happy 
 end is reached, is made to point a moral against 
 selfishness. But what are we doing — seeking for 
 consequence in a pierrot play ! It is all fan- 
 tasy, and the love-making is exquisite fantasy. 
 
 135
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 The love was made by Mr. Charles Maude and 
 Miss Dorothy Minto. Mr. Maude was Pierrot ; 
 light, volatile, moving in his love-making without 
 — until the end — a suspicion of being sincere. 
 He was (most cleverly) half doll, half human, and 
 entirely right. His voice was as flexible as though 
 it had expanded to deal adequately with the verse. 
 Miss Minto also, as Prunella, was beautifully right. 
 It was merely undiscerning to regret, as some of 
 the critics did, that she did not play more in Mr. 
 Maude's vein. Miss Minto plays Prunella in her 
 own vein of charming naturalness — of conven- 
 tionality if you will (since there is still a fashion, 
 thank the Lord, in young girls who are natural). 
 She fulfils her little destiny. It is in this 
 Prunella and this Pierrot that the beauty of the 
 play lies. 
 
 It's a very pretty play. It isn't a children's 
 play nor a Christmas play. (There I did you 
 hear that ? That was beginning to move to the 
 measure.) It is a play in three acts for grown-up 
 children. That was what Prunella was stated to be 
 on the first play-bills at the Court Theatre. Now, 
 however, its authors call it simply "a pierrot 
 136
 
 PRUNELLA 
 
 play," and the truth is that it is both. And it is 
 more than a very pretty play. Prunella is a thing 
 of the purest beauty. One despairs of having been 
 able to suggest or to recall one half the joy the play 
 gives in the theatre. It eludes analysis, because 
 of the compositeness of its effect ; that is why it 
 is and will remain an admirable example of the 
 art of the theatre, most composite of the arts. 
 The setting, the poetry, the acting, the music — 
 they cannot be separated. Of Mr. Joseph Moorat's 
 music, it may be said that one hears it once and 
 thinks its sympathetic unobtrusiveness its highest 
 virtue ; one goes on to think it invaluable. Scene 
 after delicate scene in one's recollection is inter- 
 penetrated by it. However, it will suffice to say 
 that the play was in every way so rendered at The 
 Repertory Theatre that to go to it again and again 
 was not to exhaust it. One heard of the Prunella 
 habit. As has been said, it came to mean more 
 of the repertory spirit than any other of the 
 plays, so clearly had it the qualities of fresh- 
 ness, of delicacy, of remoteness from the com- 
 mercial. 
 
 ^37
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 " The old cry I " says Tom Wrench. Arthur 
 Gower, it will be remembered, had temporarily 
 been given some of the business of young Mr. 
 Kirby, the Walking Gentleman, and though the 
 Lady Teazle complimented him, the management 
 said he " lacked vigour." The old cry — for that 
 is what the adverse critics say of the New 
 Drama and of The Repertory Theatre ; it lacks 
 vigour. In reality, Arthur Gower, like Rose 
 Trelawny after her return from Cavendish 
 Square, was reserved, subdued ; he was too much 
 in love with life to be able to parody it, to tear it 
 to tatters, in the only style of acting the Telfers 
 understood. Rose had no longer any heart to 
 spout and to ladle, and so she failed to satisfy in 
 her old part in the Pedlar of Malta, and had her 
 salary cut down. Tom Wrench is the "new" 
 force in this transition period of the 'sixties, and 
 if only one can forget that he is intended for Tom 
 Robertson (fancy Robertson a " new " force !) it 
 is all very like the transition period of to-day. 
 " Life, a Comedy, by Thomas Wrench," contained 
 such short speeches, it will be remembered, with 
 such ordinary words in them; no doors stuck 
 138
 
 TRELAWNT OF THE ''WELLS'' 
 
 here, there and everywhere for him, no, nor 
 windows in all sorts of impossible places. One 
 thinks of Mr. Shaw's mid-'ninety campaign against 
 French windows. What we are witnessing now 
 is another movement towards realism. And there 
 are still people who would rather have our actors 
 spout and our dramatists ladle. 
 
 Trelawny of the " Wells," then, was a very suit- 
 able and interesting choice for the first of The 
 Repertory Theatre's revivals. Although there is 
 nothing " new " about the play — indeed there is 
 much in its technique akin to that of Robertson — 
 it was in the spirit of The Repertory Theatre. It 
 was twelve years since it had been seen, and its 
 reference to the mood of the present moment is 
 more direct, perhaps, than it was to the mood of 
 the Court Theatre in 1898. At the same time, at 
 any ordinary theatre it would have stood less 
 chance of revival than many other plays. Of all 
 the Pinero plays, not one could have been found 
 more suited to the acting of The Repertory Theatre 
 company, nor to its painstaking and sympathetic 
 method of production. It was given with perfect 
 balance and discretion, and a nice understanding 
 
 139
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 of the real points of interest in the play — its 
 historic interest to students of the theatre, and its 
 wider interest in the test that it gives to the 
 continuity of the sense of beauty. In a note of 
 direction to the stage-manager which he prefixed 
 to the original edition of the play, Sir Arthur 
 Pinero expressed a fear lest Trelawny of the" Wells " 
 might point the chastening moral that beauty 
 may appear to a succeeding generation not to be 
 beauty at all. But he was willing to run the risk. 
 The stage-manager was to be strictly faithful in 
 his representation of the period, " somewhere in 
 the early 'sixties," — to the last inch of the crino- 
 lines, one supposes, and to the ultimate curve of 
 the peg-top trousers, to the furniture in horse-hair 
 and mahogany and walnut-and-rep, and to the 
 heavy whiskers of the swell De Foenix. There 
 were now twelve more years between us and the 
 'sixties. The stage-manager had given way to the 
 producer. Another generation came to this 
 revival with yet other standards of taste in dress 
 and furniture and personal beauty. One may 
 take it that The Repertory Theatre producer was 
 more faithful in his reconstruction of the 'sixties 
 140
 
 TRELAWNT OF THE ''WELLS'' 
 
 than any mere stage-manager. Yet Rose 
 Trelawny, decked uncompromisingly, succeeded 
 in striking us as a delightful young person — just 
 as her creator indicated twelve years ago that he 
 rather thought she would do. 
 
 Trelawny herself was, of course, again played 
 by Miss Irene Vanbrugh — with a perfect under- 
 standing of what is expected from a " star " 
 when playing in a repertory company. In the 
 group round the table at the farewell feast in 
 her honour when she is leaving the "Wells" in 
 the amusing first act, were a number of figures 
 that are memorable ; the fading but reverberant 
 Telfer of Mr. Valentine, with his " Have a little 
 'am" ; the faded Mrs. Telfer, who has played 
 fourteen or fifteen queens in her time ; the 
 magnificently tragic Ferdy Gadd of Mr. Gerald 
 Lawrence ; Mr. Edmund Gwenn making a very 
 low and characteristic comedian of Augustus 
 Colpoys. Miss Hilda Trevelyan was vulgar, 
 good-hearted little Avonia Bunn to the life, and 
 Miss Fay Davis could billow and drawl and 
 languish to her heart's content as the kindly 
 Imogen Parrott. When Rose went to Cavendish 
 
 141
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Square to qualify for marriage into the Gower 
 family, the situation was made as convincing as 
 might be by the beautifully Thackerayan butler 
 of Mr. Aubrey Fitzgerald, and by Mr. Boucicault's 
 clever but conventional portrait of the old ogre of 
 a Vice-Chancellor — who softens at the sight of 
 Kean's sword in act three, finances Tom's play, 
 and is thus, beneath the proscenium arch of the 
 old Pantheon Theatre, the means of bringing 
 Arthur and Rose together. Technically, as has 
 been said, Trelawny of the " Wells " is frankly 
 old fashioned, and, apart from its series of able 
 character sketches, it is a thing of ordinary 
 enough sentiment, proceeding well enough on 
 its amiable course to the refrain of " Ever of 
 thee — " Its charm is in the skill with which 
 it reconstructs the life of a period. But Sir 
 Arthur Pinero is not amongst the " literary " 
 dramatists, and it was wonderful to see how 
 his inelastic, sometimes stilted, dialogue was 
 pulled together and improved by the natural- 
 istic acting of the Repertory company — the 
 company, be it remembered, which on other 
 nights of the week was given up to the 
 142
 
 HELENA'S PATH 
 
 service of what the Telfers call "this new- 
 fangled stuff." 
 
 It is the duty of a repertory theatre to be 
 different. To drop into the Duke of York's 
 Theatre and find Helena's Path in progress was 
 just like dropping into the Duke of York's 
 Theatre any time these unregenerate ten years. 
 Lords and ladies, a colonel, pretty sentiments, 
 and a Marchesa played by Miss Irene Vanbrugh 
 — one felt at home at once. The memory flew 
 back to Mr. Hope's own Captain Dieppe. This 
 performance might have struck the casual visitor 
 as better stage-managed, that is all. It was very 
 nice and blameless and calculated to put no strain 
 on the weariest intellect, but the question could 
 not be avoided — why, with all the theatres at 
 Mr. Frohman's command, present it under any 
 such unfamiliar label as The Repertory Theatre ? 
 Two replies were conceivable. It might have been 
 offered hospitality as a delicate fragile thing unfit 
 to be trusted to the rude chances of the commer- 
 cial theatre ; or it might have been put into the 
 bill frankly as light relief, enabling the manage- 
 rs
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 ment by judicious alternation to hold their patrons' 
 interest in admirably serious works throughout 
 the long warm summer. Unfortunately for the 
 first reason, the fact was that Helena's Path was 
 cut just to the commercial measure. And, alas 
 for the second reason, the public at this theatre 
 failed entirely to appreciate it. 
 
 At this distance of time it is unnecessary to 
 crush Messrs. Anthony Hope and Cosmo Gordon 
 Lennox's butterfly under too ponderous a critical 
 heel. The comedy is an amiable slight thing 
 of cricket and sentiment and country gardens. 
 Helena, the Marchesa, a youthful widow newly 
 retired to the countryside, has a path. That is to 
 say, the path lies in her estate ; but her young 
 neighbour. Lord Lynborough, has been so accus- 
 tomed to use it to get to the sea that he claims to 
 have established a presumption of legal right. 
 The Marchesa has spirit, and is for going to law. 
 Lynborough won't go to law, but he will go to 
 bathe. The Marchesa is not concerned with Lord 
 Lynborough's arrangements over bathing or other- 
 wise. Her ultimatum delivered, the gate is 
 defended by padlock and briers, and by Lady 
 144
 
 HELENA'S PATH 
 
 Noiah Mountliffey. Lynborough jumps over the 
 gate and the head of Lady Norah at one bound, 
 and thus, as he tells the Marchesa, takes his first 
 wicket. Lady Norah thinks him just the sort of 
 man she'd like to fall in love with. Whereupon 
 the Marchesa points out that it is her path. The 
 course of Helena's Path will by now be clear ; 
 there is no call to follow it laboriously. At the 
 pretty cricket match scene, Lynborough gets 
 several more wickets. The Marchesa makes a 
 show of still holding out ; she talks of writs, 
 then of accepting Lynborough's offer to pay 
 some rent more or less nominal. The even 
 prettier scene of the garden by moonlight, 
 however, shows her conquered. Of course 
 Lynborough gets his Helena, and of course 
 Helena gets her path. 
 
 The distinguished players were as distinguished 
 as they might be. And Helena's Path was not 
 entirely without distinction, because Mr. Granville 
 Barker produced it. The cricket scene was charm' 
 ing and very cleverly put on. It was noteworthy 
 for a backcloth representing one line of trees 
 behind another, foreshortened very boldly, and 
 
 K 145
 
 THE REPERTORr THEATRE 
 
 (although no name was given) indicating once 
 more that artists were loose in the theatre. 
 
 To present an achievement in dramatic realism 
 such as we have not seen in this country hitherto 
 was reserved for the last of the productions of 
 The Repertory Theatre. Chains, by Elizabeth 
 Baker, had been given for one performance by the 
 Play Actors, the Sunday evening society to whom 
 is due the credit for its discovery. It may be re- 
 garded as the first veritable " realistic play." It pre- 
 sents a group of ordinary people quite truthfully ; 
 that is to say, without idealisation or caricature or 
 other deference to the conventions of the theatre. 
 Their incomes are not multiplied by five in order 
 — as is customary — to placate the great public, 
 which, in its theatre-going, hates anything 
 low. What is even more important, their con- 
 versation is so heightened and pointed (for 
 dramatic conversation must be heightened and 
 pointed ; if people spoke in the theatre with the 
 sloppy incompetence with which, alas, they com- 
 monly speak in life, no dramatic story would 
 ever get itself told) as to lose nothing in actuality. 
 146
 
 CHAINS 
 
 One might listen in vain for an occasion to stop 
 the action because any one of the characters was 
 speaking in a manner in which he might not 
 speak in real life. At the same time, with actual 
 people speaking actually, a story is dramatically 
 developed. There you have the realistic play. 
 There have been several attempts at it, notably 
 Mr. McEvoy's David Ballard; but none with 
 quite the same degree of achievement as Chains. 
 
 Chains is the Clerk's Tragedy (too low a thing 
 for the Elizabethans to have written, or any 
 dramatist subsequently). Charlie Wilson is one 
 of those less fortunate clerks to whom a black 
 coat and quill-driving and contesting with the 
 snails the rotten soil of his back-garden — over- 
 looked by six other villas of identical hideousness 
 with his own — are insufficient expression of indi- 
 viduality. We see him at 55 Acacia Avenue, 
 Hammersmith, with his contented little wife, Lil, 
 and their lodger, Tennant. When Tennant 
 springs upon them his decision to throw up his 
 clerkship and try his luck and his manhood in 
 Australia, Charlie is sorely tempted. " You're 
 married," says Tennant. " It's no good being 
 
 147
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 cross," says Lil, "you've got to make the best of 
 things." "You're here. Stick where you are," 
 says Morton Leslie, the worldly wise on two- 
 hundred a year (one meets the man in every sub- 
 urban railway carriage). Lil's people, the Masseys, 
 are unanimous as to his duty. On a Sunday 
 afternoon at their house in Chiswick — oh those 
 Sunday afternoons I — they have it out with him. 
 There is Alfred Massey, plumber, stertorous on 
 the American-cloth-covered sofa ; Mrs. Massey, 
 who "just drops off" in her stiff-backed placid 
 old way ; Percy, the boy who flirts because he has 
 nothing else to do with his evenings, and just at 
 present is on with Sybil Frost, the girl who won't 
 play the piano until she is sufficiently pressed. 
 The only one of them who is not a chain on 
 Charlie is Maggie, the girl who herself doesn't 
 want to settle, who wants to do things. In the 
 intervals of Moody and Sankey, all the others are 
 about his ears. Charlie braves it out, but appears 
 to be worsted. Then Tennant goes, and Charlie 
 is on the point of going by the next train after 
 him for Australia. But Lil whispers to him that 
 morning that he will have to be a very good man 
 148
 
 CHAINS 
 
 soon. In English other than that of the over- 
 delicate, underbred middle classes, there's a child 
 coming. She, as Maggie says, has got him. 
 Paternity is the final chain. 
 
 This conflict between Charlie Wilson and the 
 chains that bind him to his sphere in life — Acacia 
 Avenue and the Office — is an admirable dramatic 
 idea, well worth developing. The conflict that 
 ends in submission to circumstance is not the 
 most bracing sort of tragedy, and it will never 
 stir our emotions in the theatre as does a man's 
 mastery over his fate, or his noble sinking under 
 it, as in Othello ; but it is life, and life some think 
 — with Meredith — is worthy of the muse. It is not 
 open to dub Chains a tiresome anecdote — the 
 recourse of those who dislike the method of 
 realism — with even the degree of truth that 
 Justice was so dubbed, because the conflict in 
 Miss Baker's play is more human and more 
 personal. Take Charlie's outburst when his wife 
 plays one of the more God-forsaken compositions 
 of Moody ; that is a true touch, and it is also a 
 relevant, progressive touch, marking a climax of 
 the dramatic action. You may take, on the other 
 
 149
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 hand, the spectacle shown us of Mrs. Massey 
 singing completely through a verse of " Abide with 
 Me," marking the rise and fall of her favourite air 
 with her amiable, foolish old hand. That is relevant 
 only in so far as it can be shown to be another 
 link in Charlie's chains. Is it ? The question is 
 worth asking, because it raises the whole question 
 of realism. Why, unless it is significant, put on 
 the stage something which in real life has no 
 beauty, and any pleasure in the performance of 
 which is marred by a queer strain of unpleasant- 
 ness ? Your mere passion for accuracy will lead 
 you nowhither ; it is of no more use to the 
 dramatist than to any other artist. It leads to 
 mere cleverness, and that is barren, with no food 
 for the imagination or the emotions. This is the 
 danger of the method of realism, and from it in 
 the main Chains is remarkably free. That is why 
 the play is to be regarded, whether or no Miss 
 Baker is as yet complete master of the method, as 
 an achievement. 
 
 150
 
 CHAPTER FIVE : 
 FAILURE 
 
 THIS book is not greatly concerned with 
 whether The Repertory Theatre has or 
 has not made a commercial profit. It 
 was a private enterprise. It was in fact — and 
 the fact is well to remember — Mr. Frohman's 
 Repertory Theatre. 
 
 Although our point of view, however, is con- 
 cerned primarily with the artistic achievement 
 and significance of the experiment, and we have 
 the grace to recognise that the capital ventured 
 was private capital and that even if we wanted to 
 know which plays had made money and which 
 plays had lost money there would be no likelihood 
 of the information forthcoming, there is one 
 thing that may be said. There is no reason why 
 The Repertory Theatre should not have made 
 money. It could never under any circumstances 
 have made a great deal, for a great deal of money 
 is made only in speculative forms of enterprise, 
 and it was against speculation in the theatre, 
 with all its attendant consequences, that The 
 
 151
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Repertory Theatre set its face. A repertory theatre 
 by its nature is not adapted to the making of large 
 pecuniary profits ; it is adapted to the making of 
 artistic success. But if a repertory theatre will 
 make up its mind quite clearly at the outset what 
 public it is going to serve and what proportion 
 gains must bear to losses, there is no reason 
 under Heaven why it should not make also a 
 commercial success, in the sense that everybody 
 concerned, capitalist, managers, actors, and 
 authors, may make a living by it. 
 
 But the moment there is confusion of aim there 
 is the possibility of financial disaster. The 
 repertory theatres of Dublin, Manchester, and 
 Glasgow have each in their own way secured 
 their measure of success by keeping a single eye 
 upon the public they intend to serve. One, in the 
 confidence imparted by the possession of a small 
 subsidy, has been enabled on occasion to give 
 plays which have at first found their public unsym- 
 pathetic ; and to give them again and again until 
 the lack of sympathy has been lived down. The 
 others have made such modification in their fare 
 and in their methods of presenting it as will 
 152
 
 FAILURE 
 
 ensure a public of certain definite dimensions — 
 the fare and the public remaining, in spite of such 
 modifications of the strictest repertoryism, clearly 
 and definitely superior in quality to those of the 
 ordinary commercial theatres, with which these 
 theatres are in indirect competition. All three 
 have avoided the error of aiming at more than 
 one public — at a highly exclusive public at one 
 moment, at an only moderately exclusive public 
 at another, and at the next at a public which is 
 not exclusive at all. Now it is this clearness of 
 aim that one is not quite able to recognise in the 
 Repertory Theatre at the Duke of York's. If, 
 after the description given in the two preceeding 
 chapters of the theatre's entirely admirable record, 
 it is possible or necessary to devote a chapter to 
 " Failure," this is the reason. If Mr. Frohman, 
 who of course did not go into it with any idea of 
 commercial profit but for the prestige of an 
 artistic success, has been dissatisfied with the 
 actual commercial result of the experiment, 
 if the experiment has lacked anything in sig- 
 nificance and achievement, it is for the reason 
 that there was insufficient care in making it 
 
 153
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 quite clear at what The Repertory Theatre was 
 aiming. 
 
 This confusion of aim is noticeable in two 
 main particulars. At the outset of the experiment 
 Mr, Frohman delivered himself of a preliminary 
 prospectus. Having the theatre, the directors, and 
 the actors, the next business was the repertory 
 of plays. The prospectus was optimistic, both as 
 to the plays secured for presentation and the 
 plays it was hoped to secure. The optimism 
 regarding the plays secured would have been 
 better a little moderated, for in practice it was 
 found that not more than half their number could 
 be given within the limits of the season. How- 
 ever, optimism regarding the prospects of good 
 work is emphatically the mood in which to start 
 a repertory theatre ; it was in speaking of the 
 work which he wanted to attract to the theatre 
 that Mr. Frohman was led into indiscretion. "A 
 repertory theatre" he wrote, "should be the first 
 home of the ambitious young dramatist. I advise 
 him to learn the conventions of the stage, but 
 chiefly that he may be able to disregard them. I 
 have no preference for any particular kind of 
 154
 
 FAILURE 
 
 play ; I want what is good of any kind. One 
 sometimes hears it said, 'A good thing, but not a 
 play.' This is one of the kinds I want." Now 
 that is very good sense, and it might with little or 
 no modification have been said by any one of us 
 who is definitely and whole-heartedly on the side 
 of the repertory theatre. But to put it into a 
 preliminary prospectus, and to send it broadcast 
 around the press, was rather like crying the inner- 
 most article of one's faith from the housetop. 
 The inevitable result followed. A moment came 
 when the reactionaries found themselves banded 
 together against The Repertory Theatre, seeking 
 for a weapon with which to smite it ; and lo ! Mr. 
 Frohman himself had presented them with the 
 handle. Misalliance, The Sentiinenialists, and The 
 Madras House were in the strictest sense good 
 things ; but, presented in rapid succession, they 
 fell at the first few blows of the critics, and carried 
 with them the brightest hopes of The Repertory 
 Theatre. They were "not plays." 
 
 The wisdom of the start with Justice has already 
 been questioned. Its inspissated gloom supplied 
 the hostile critics with another weapon, of less
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 general efficacy, but sufficient in too many 
 instances to supply the coup de grace. The 
 wisdom of following it up with the plays of 
 Mr. Shaw, Meredith, and Mr. Barker, could only 
 be justified if it were the fact that The Repertory 
 Theatre was deliberately intending to be a 
 moderately exclusive theatre. If it were so 
 intending, then the solitary sop provided in The 
 Twelve-Poultd Look was unnecessary ; if it were 
 not, the sop was insufficient. It is difficult to 
 believe, however, that the conviction as to aim 
 was a very firm one, for at that point the first 
 revival was thrown into the bill — Trelawny of 
 the " Wells," making anything but an exclusive 
 appeal. Of the remaining revivals, the delightful 
 one of Prunella may well have seemed safe ; 
 Chains also, if not with quite the same public. 
 As for Helena's Path, one can account for 
 its inclusion only on the ground that it was 
 expected to appeal to the public which is not 
 exclusive at all, and to be perfectly safe. 
 
 Now a consideration of Helena's Path and of 
 Chains will lead in a moment to a full apprecia- 
 tion of where this confusion of aim landed The 
 156
 
 FAILURE 
 
 Repertory Theatre ; but first it will be as well to 
 take the evidence of the list of weekly repertories, 
 showing the alternation of the plays.* A repertory 
 theatre may be likened in method to a juggler; 
 certainly it may, within reason, be judged in the 
 same way, by the number of th ings it can keep going . 
 No definite rules can be laid down — one or two 
 havealready been considered in thefirst chapter — as 
 to the number of plays to be performed within the 
 week, and the maximum number of performances 
 of any one play, but it may generally be assumed 
 that the more strenuous and deliberate the adher- 
 ence to the repertory idea the greater the number 
 of plays per week. The Repertory Theatre started 
 gallantly. First Justice and Misalliance, then Justice 
 and Misalliance and the Triple Bill. Then The 
 Madras House was added, and for one giddy period 
 of a week or so all four were kept going, in nice 
 alternation. It is difficult not to regard this point 
 as marking the height of The Repertory Theatre's 
 ambition. It is difficult not to see in the record of 
 the ensuing weeks evidence of some confusion of 
 purpose. One might, indeed, suppose that there 
 * Appendix One. 
 
 ^S7
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 had been at this point a complete change of poHcy. 
 The Meredith fell to rise no more, then Misalliance; 
 and next moment one was conscious The Madras 
 House was no longer there. Justice held its place 
 very determinedly, but was speedily passed in its 
 aggregate by Trelawny of the " Wells." Then there 
 came a time when for some weeks at a stretch 
 Trelawny and Prunella were going up and 
 down together very placidly. The next 
 venture threatened to devote The Repertory 
 Theatre to Hope and Pinero ; but this was not 
 to be. Then the decision was made to work 
 Trelawny of the" Wells " for all it was worth — and 
 this, as has been said, meant the widest and least 
 exclusive public that could be drawn to the 
 theatre. With Chains, a semi-revival of great 
 credit, and the always delightful and invaluable 
 Prunella, the season drew to its close. 
 
 Reproach for running Trelawny for all it was 
 worth is out of the question. The opportunity 
 presented itself to recoup on one of the plays 
 which had found its public the losses on those 
 plays which had failed to find their public in 
 sufficient numbers. It is, indeed, a prime virtue 
 ^S8
 
 FAILURE 
 
 of the repertory system that loss on one produc- 
 tion may be cut by gain on another, to the 
 avoidance of those distressing downfalls which 
 are so far from infrequent in the commercial 
 theatre. One's apprehensions at the time were on 
 the score of indecision; and in retrospect one is 
 bound to feel they were not ill-founded. The 
 theatre lacked a single mind quite clearly made 
 up as to what public it was going to serve, and at 
 what it was aiming. 
 
 Consider Helena's Path and Chains. The one 
 was as commonplace a piece of work (while not 
 altogether without charm) as ever occupied the 
 stage of the Duke of York's Theatre. Its produc- 
 tion was placed in the hands of Mr. Barker. He 
 added immeasurably to its charm and almost gave 
 it distinction, with a summer garden seen from an 
 original angle by moon and lantern-light, and a 
 country cricket scene very cleverly viewed, that 
 remain in the memory. But he couldn't save 
 Helena's Path from being, for The Repertory 
 Theatre, a horrible blunder. Now the other, a 
 remarkable piece of dramatic realism, calling for 
 exact and imaginative sympathy in its production,
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 was not given to the producer of Slrife and Votes 
 for Women ! and The Silver Box. It was produced 
 by Mr. Boucicault. It is in no spirit of disrespect 
 to Mr. Boucicault that one recalls the fact that 
 the hundred-and-fifty-a-year Charlie Wilson was 
 made to live in a style better befitting twice that 
 income, and that the otherwise admirably truth- 
 ful " sing-song " in the first act was spoilt by the 
 old trick of making it audible in recurrent bursts, 
 conveniently silent whenever anything had to 
 be heard in the front room. The result of un- 
 sympathetic production and of more than one 
 mistake in casting was curiously to rob of its full 
 effect one of the most extraordinarily effective plays 
 of recent times. It was purely a case of giving 
 the wrong play to the wrong man. Mr. Bouci- 
 cault is an exceptionally able craftsman to whom 
 the stage is as his own pocket. His production 
 of Old Friends, with the curve of the white stair- 
 case down which Carry creeps in the dark, is 
 one of the most memorable things in the record 
 of The Repertory Theatre. One assumes also it was 
 another of Mr. Boucicault's happy partnerships 
 with Sir Arthur Pinero that was responsible for 
 1 60
 
 FAILVRE 
 
 the admirably painstaking and sympathetic re- 
 revival of Trelawny of the " Wells." Mr. Barker 
 is a producer — in addition to being a drama- 
 tist — of genius, who gets his effects in the theatre 
 with something of the certainty and imaginative 
 sympathy of the perfect conductor of an orches- 
 tra. This is not to say that he never slips — one 
 seems to remember that Prunella's Dutch Garden 
 was lit by two if not three moons. It is impos- 
 sible to doubt that Mr. Boucicault and Mr. Barker 
 are both capable of directing a repertory theatre. 
 But it would not be the same repertory theatre. 
 At the Duke of York's it was Mr. Barker who 
 called the first four tunes ; then considerations of 
 finance triumphed for a space over those of glory, 
 and Mr. Boucicault was installed to pay the piper ; 
 while at the finish Mr. Boucicault and Mr. Barker 
 were directing the piping together, and the instru- 
 ments would appear to have become mixed. 
 
 Before dismissing Helena's Path, it is well to 
 
 observe the position of the play in the table 
 
 of the season.* The play cut deliberately to 
 
 the ordinary or commercial measure was the 
 
 * Appendix One, 
 
 L l6l
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 one play to fail signally to attract its public, not 
 one-third of the number coming to see it that 
 came to see Meredith's Sentimentalists. So a 
 repertory theatre may aim at several publics 
 and not succeed in hitting them. By indecision, it 
 courts the disaster attendant upon hitting none. 
 
 Of course, this term "failure" in relation to a 
 repertory theatre — or any other theatre which is 
 not run primarily for profit— requires precise 
 definition. 
 
 It will have been appreciated that what this 
 chapter is concerned with estimating is the 
 degree in which Mr. Frohman's experiment 
 failed in artistic achievement. It would have 
 been desirable to achieve commercial success ; 
 whether The Repertory Theatre did so or 
 not, there is, as has been said, no reason in 
 the nature of things why it should not have 
 done so. Among the respects, however, in 
 which its failure in achievement must be con- 
 sidered artistic failure, is that it did not perform 
 all that it promised. 
 
 Five plays included in Mr. Frohman's too 
 optimistic prospectus were not given ; for The 
 162
 
 FAILURE 
 
 Outcry, by Henry James, and Mr. Masefield's 
 Tragedy of Pompey the Great one particularly 
 grieves. Helena's Path was not promised but, as 
 we have seen, was vouchsafed. The fifteen revivals 
 promised, of plays by Mr. Shaw, Mr. Barrie, 
 Mr. Barker, Sir Arthur Pinero, and Mr. Haddon 
 Chambers, of course presupposed a longer season 
 than The Repertory Theatre enjoyed. It must also 
 be accounted a deficiency that the one-act plays 
 which were to "receive great encouragement" 
 are conspicuous in the record by their absence. 
 Mr. Barrie's Twelve-Pound Look was employed to 
 eke out the shorter bills with an iteration that 
 came within an ace of being damnable. 
 
 So much for failure. In no useful sense of the 
 word can the artistic distinction gained to a theatre 
 — irrespective of commercial profit or loss — by the 
 production of The Madras House be regarded as 
 failure. Or take the case of The Sentimentalists, 
 near the bottom of the list. The public willing to 
 pay to see Meredith's sole work for the theatre 
 is exhausted in six performances ; that is to say, 
 supposing the Duke of York's Theatre (which 
 accomodates eleven hundred) to be half filled 
 
 163
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 at each performance, it numbers upwards of three 
 thousand persons. One may regret the number 
 is not larger — a useless proceeding. One may 
 rejoice on one's own account at having been 
 enabled to see the comedy, thanks to a repertory 
 theatre — for assuredly in no other sort of theatre 
 would one have done so. That is the mood 
 in which one begins to appreciate what a 
 repertory theatre is. This joyous thing of 
 Meredith's has been placed within the reach 
 of three times as large a public as would give 
 success to the average work of commercial 
 fiction. Yet, theatrically, this is " failure." 
 Here is the function of the repertory theatre — 
 to produce the plays which happen not to 
 appeal to the hundreds of thousands (as the 
 ordinary play must), but only to the tens of 
 thousands and the thousands. 
 
 164
 
 CHAPTER SIX : 
 SUCCESS 
 
 TO any one who has grasped the repertory 
 idea it is needless to say very much of 
 the symptoms of success. There is a 
 difference in kind between the plays to be given 
 at a repertory theatre and those which may safely 
 be left to make their own market. It is not that the 
 latter kind are necessarily of lower artistic value — 
 Hamlet is one of them. It is simply, as we have 
 seen, that one kind is capable of appealing to the 
 hundreds of thousands, and the other kind to the 
 tens of thousands and the thousands. The question 
 is whether The Repertory Theatre at the Duke of 
 York's did in the main, within the reservations 
 noted in the preceding chapter, succeed in giving 
 this second kind of play, and examples of it that 
 were well worth giving. And further, this book 
 will have been written in vain if it has not already 
 made clear that there is something abroad to-day 
 in the theatre which may be called the repertory 
 spirit — something of that spirit of "eager hfe 
 while we live," which, according to Morris, is 
 
 '65
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 above all things the aim of art. Was there any- 
 thing of this spirit to be noted in The Repertory 
 Theatre ? 
 
 The record of the plays has been set out. There 
 was Justice, a play of such deliberate intention 
 and austere technique that it falls without hesita- 
 tion into the class of limited appeal. Misalliance 
 might have been expected to interest a public of the 
 same size as that which Getting Married interested 
 — it remains to be explained why it did not quite 
 do so. It was calculated to make a more restricted 
 appeal than Yon Never Can Tell or Candida on one 
 hand and Man and Superman on the other — plays 
 which have already shown their capability of 
 holding their own on the system of a continuous 
 run. The Sentimentalists was a thing of rare and 
 strange beauty, calling for a sympathy of ear and 
 eye which is at present the possession of but 
 a limited public. It was typically a repertory 
 play. Old Friends qualified by its gloom — the 
 most prominent of the restrictive qualities while 
 playgoers insist upon brightness. The Madras 
 House had a depth unequalled, perhaps, by any 
 other work presented ; emphatically it wasn't 
 J 66
 
 SUCCESS 
 
 everybody's play. It was aggressively novel in 
 form. Prunella, again, was typically the play for 
 The Repertory Theatre in its delicacy and in its 
 bloom that would so easily rub off. One will not 
 go wrong in regarding it above all as the receptacle 
 of the repertory spirit. It has found its own 
 small public, and it holds it firmly. One comes to 
 it after each lapse of time with increased pleasure. 
 Chains, to see the light, had had to be dependent 
 upon the performance of a private society, and 
 it would not conceivably have gone into the 
 regular bill of any but The Repertory Theatre. 
 It is the first realistic play of satisfying achieve- 
 ment in this country, and the movement towards 
 realism in the theatre has up to the present 
 (although it is steadily winning ground) a following 
 which is strictly limited in numbers. 
 
 Trdawny of the " Wells," Helena's Path, and The 
 Twelve-Pound Look, were the plays which with 
 less success came within the characteristic reper- 
 tory class, for reasons that have already been 
 discussed. 
 
 When we come to look for the repertory spirit we 
 shall find it most readily in the acting. A standard 
 
 167
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 of acting was set up which was undoubtedly 
 superior to that of any other theatre in London, 
 It was acknowledged to be so by the friendly and 
 the unfriendly alike. Of course, it would be true 
 to say the same of the standard of acting set up 
 at the Court Theatre under Messrs. Vedrenneand 
 Barker ; and in large degree The Repertory Theatre 
 was carrying on the tradition of that acting. But 
 there was one distinction, and it is important 
 to notice. Although the Court Theatre was charac- 
 teristically the home of eager life while it lived, it 
 was not strictly a repertory theatre. The actingw^s 
 in every instance satisfactory, in many instances 
 brilliant and memorable, but it was not the acting 
 of a repertory company. To take only a couple of 
 instances — Yon Never Can Tell and Hedda Gabler 
 were in the bill contemporaneously at evening 
 and matinee performances respectively, and in 
 only one instance had any player a part in both. 
 Similarly, The Return of the Prodigal and Prunella 
 were played together with but three players in 
 both casts. It was the excellent custom of the 
 Court directors to go far afield for the right 
 player for the right part. Thus the Court Theatre 
 |63
 
 THE ACTING 
 
 had not a stock company, although it had the 
 nucleus of a stock company which did good 
 and persistent service and which, by virtue of its 
 unique training, became in time the nucleus of the 
 stock company of The Repertory Theatre. It was 
 the still more excellent custom of The Repertory 
 Theatre to cast the plays so far as possible from this 
 stock company — without, of course, any rigid rule 
 against going afield for a particular player when 
 especially desirable. To realise the degree of 
 success with which the ten plays presented were 
 cast from the members of the stock company, one 
 has only to glance at the records of the players,* 
 from which it is seen that more than one took 
 part in six of the plays, and nearly all in as many 
 as three or four. In all, including the players 
 who were added for the purpose of playing 
 specific parts — as were Miss Saker, Mr. Gerald 
 Lawrence and Mr. Aubrey Fitzgerald for Treldwny 
 of the " Wells" and Mr. C. M. Lowne for Misalli- 
 ance — the Repertory Theatre company numbered 
 fifty-eight, thirty actors and twenty-eight actresses. 
 Thanks in part to the resources and facilities of 
 * Appendix One. 
 
 169
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Mr. Frohman, it satisfied very well the require- 
 ments of a first-class repertory company in being 
 " large and representative yet not over-grown." * 
 It is not necessary again to go into the desir- 
 ability of the repertory system from the point 
 of view of the actor who is an artist, its un- 
 desirability from the point of view of the actor 
 who is merely a professional. The fact is that 
 repertory companies tend to be recruited from 
 those who regard their profession as an art, and 
 are eager and not afraid of hard work. When 
 the Abbey Theatre Company presents twenty 
 different plays during their London season of 
 four weeks, the achievement is only made possible 
 by spending the whole of every morning in 
 rehearsing the evening's bill. At the Duke of 
 York's, also, the repertory spirit was in evidence in 
 that some very exacting demands made upon the 
 
 • Archer and Barker, " A National Theatre." It is of 
 interest to note that their suggested National Theatre 
 repertory company consisted of forty-two actors and 
 twenty-four actresses, while the Comedie-Franfaise pre- 
 sented its repertory in igog, as we saw in the first chapter, 
 with thirty-six actors and twenty-nine actresses. These 
 figures, however, would not cover the players of the quite 
 minor parts, as do those given above, 
 
 170
 
 THE ACTING 
 
 actors were cheerfully and even eagerly met. At 
 one period Mr. Dennis Eadie was within the 
 week performing an extraordinary feat of imagi- 
 native self-subjection in the part of Mr. Gals- 
 worthy's criminal, delivering the brilliant lines of 
 Meredith's old Philosopher with delightful inci- 
 siveness and understanding, and as Philip Madras 
 achieving something like collaboration with Mr. 
 Barker. One cannot do better than single out 
 Mr. Eadie as the personification of the spirit that 
 is meant. Unobtrusive, reliant, his tireless powers 
 of observation and his admirable technique were 
 at the service of whatever calls might be made upon 
 him. Now repertory acting is not a mere matter of 
 what is called versatility. The word carries with 
 it a suggestion of the quick-change artist, who puts 
 the emphasis on the surprising completeness of 
 the disguise rather than on the perfect conviction 
 of each impersonation. In repertory acting the 
 call is not for this sort of virtuosity. It is supple- 
 ness that is wanted. That is another word for 
 the possession of imagination — and also, probably, 
 of the faculty of sympathetic observation. If the 
 acting has suppleness, it counts for nothing that 
 
 171
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 the actor is always recognisable. That is a matter 
 of personality. Amongst the ablest of repertory 
 acting is that of Miss Maire O'Neill of the Abbey 
 Theatre, who has the faculty of charging, as it were, 
 her personality with the characteristics of the 
 part she is presenting. In successive plays she 
 will present the most diverse characters, and be 
 each one to the life, but she is always herself. It is 
 a faculty that is shared in less degree by all the 
 Irish players, and is what gives to their acting its 
 significance. A growing appreciation of what is 
 good repertory acting will have done with this 
 loose admiring talk of versatility, and will welcome 
 personality in the theatre. Mr. Eadie is such an 
 admirable repertory actor because he unites to his 
 suppleness an extraordinary capacity for subject- 
 ing his own personality to the general tone and 
 complexion of the play. His Charlie Wilson was 
 as perfect an example of this as was his Falder ; 
 and, as an instance of his simple power of being 
 invaluable whatever the play, you have his Tom 
 Wrench in Trclawny of the " Wells." 
 
 Other reputations were made and enhanced. 
 No member of the company infected one more 
 172
 
 THE ACTING 
 
 successfully with the repertory spirit than did 
 Mr. Charles Maude — an actor of delightful supple- 
 ness of method. He has not yet in the same 
 degree as Mr. Eadie the faculty of being invaluable 
 in whatever part he puts his hand to, but he 
 possesses outstanding personality. His Pierrot 
 was a triumph of personality and of supple grace, 
 and is undoubtedly the most memorable single 
 performance of the season. His study of the 
 little finicking Cockney showman, in The Madras 
 House, with his sing-song of Anglo-French, was 
 also a little masterpiece. Next one would mention 
 Miss Mary Jerrold, who came into the company 
 from the Glasgow Repertory Theatre. She played 
 five parts, and four of them are very sharp and 
 pleasant in the memory. As the Meredithian 
 philosopher, Lyra, she swore in the garden as 
 prettily as one could wish. With an equal under- 
 standing and bravery she was Mr. Barker's very 
 different little philosopher, Miss Yates. As Doll 
 in Prunella, with the painted smile and her little 
 turned in toes, we are in no danger, as Pierrot 
 was, of forgetting her. Her Lady Norah nearly 
 succeeded in putting life into Mr. Anthony Hope's
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 pale little play. Miss Jerrold suggests unfailing 
 intelligence and zest in doing the utmost with 
 whatever part she is given, if it be but that of the 
 slavey in Trelawny oj the "Wells." Which is to say 
 that she possesses the repertory spirit. 
 
 Miss Florence Haydon has become an institu- 
 tion. One trembles to think what the intellectual 
 drama would do without her. There is the 
 Florence Haydon part, just as there is the 
 Dorothy Minto part, and Mr. Shaw and Mr. 
 Barker must be kept busy supplying them. 
 There is danger when the characters of different 
 dramatists come out so much alike in the hands 
 of the actor. It recalls Lamb's old objection to 
 something in the nature of acting, " which levels 
 all distinctions." But her feather-headed, endear- 
 ingly fatuous old ladies are irresistible. There 
 were Mrs. Tarleton in Misalliance and Mrs. Hux- 
 table in The Madras House, and she imported a 
 third into Chains rather, one thinks, than quite 
 realising anything conceived by the dramatist. 
 Aunt Prim in Prunella and Mrs. Mossop in 
 Trelawny were portraits a little out of Miss 
 Haydon's usual way, each sumptuous in finish. 
 
 174
 
 THE ACTING 
 
 Miss Haydon served at the Court Theatre her 
 apprenticeship as foil-in-chief to the intellectuals. 
 It was at the Court Theatre, also, that Mr. 
 Edmund Gwenn established his reputation. He 
 is just the actor for a repertory company. He 
 shares with Mr. Eadie his powers of observation, 
 and builds up one after another character studies 
 of astonishing verisimilitude. Sometimes they 
 are little masterpieces, not a hair nor an intona- 
 tion nor a gesture out, like his 'Enery Straker or 
 his Mr. Walker (the labour member) at the Court. 
 Such was his Alfred Massey in Chains, an astound- 
 ingly perfect piece of naturalistic acting. Some- 
 times Mr. Gwenn's portraits exceed the mark, as 
 did his Drinkwater in Captain BrassboimcTs Con- 
 version, and his Colpoys here. The truth is 
 he is not so unfailingly clever as Mr. Eadie at 
 turning out bricks whatever the quality of the 
 straw, and his Cokeson in Justice, in outline well 
 realised, just wavered curiously on this side of 
 conviction. The impersonation which Mr. Gwenn 
 appeared to relish most was Sir Harry Sims. To 
 watch him rehearsing Knighthood, with its five 
 things — " the Glide, the Dip, the Kiss, the Rise, 
 
 175
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 and you Back Out ; it's short, but it's a very beau- 
 tiful ceremony ! " — was a portion of Mr. Barrie's 
 little farce one could unreservedly enjoy. 
 
 Other recruits from the Court Theatre who did 
 persistently good work in nearly every play were 
 Mr. Lewis Casson, Mr. Hubert Harben, Mr. 
 Frederick Lloyd, Miss Mary Barton, and Miss 
 Sybil Thorndike (who succeeded very well in 
 making plausible the enthusiastic Maggie in 
 Chains). A brilliant young newcomer was Mr. 
 Donald Calthrop. He made an extraordinarily 
 good " Shaw boy" in Misalliance; and he contri- 
 buted a beautifully observed sketch of an office- 
 youth to The Madras House. Mr. Calthrop is 
 probably a mimic of exceptional parts, so precisely 
 does he hit off peculiarities of speech and appear- 
 ance. But that way danger lies, as his Boy in 
 Prunella showed, which was mechanical and 
 excessive, quite shockingly so at the last per- 
 formances. When he uses his head, Mr. Calthrop 
 suggests the possession of intelligence and supple- 
 ness and altogether exceptional endowments. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Whitby is a delightfully unctuous 
 comedian who created two unforgettable figures. 
 176
 
 THE ACTING 
 
 His Mr. State, American financier and sentimen- 
 talist, was perhaps the most perfect piece of 
 naturalistic acting of the season. And one could 
 see his delightfully sinister Scaramel time after 
 time and never weary. Indeed, it left one with a 
 wish to see Mr. Whitby's as lago. Mr. Whitby 
 possesses a personality of curious force, which 
 he put with the happiest effect into other- 
 wise unimportant parts in Chains and Helena's 
 Path, 
 
 Mr. Sydney Valentine and Mr. Charles Bryant 
 added to reputations already soundly established 
 in the ordinary theatre, and demonstrated the 
 readiness with which the more able actors will 
 adapt themselves to the conditions of repertory. 
 Mr. Valentine made of Constantine Madras an 
 immensely impressive figure, while in a different 
 genre his reconstruction asTelfer in Trelawnyofthe 
 "Wells" of the actor of the order which has passed, 
 was full of imaginative humour. Mr. Bryant, in the 
 speech for the defence in Jitstice, gave what was 
 undoubtedly the finest piece of pure elocution of 
 the season. He also embodied most successfully 
 Mr. Shaw's young man of forceful action. Mr. 
 
 M 177
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Bryant is masterly in his handling of words so as 
 to give them the greatest possible effect in the 
 theatre. *One wishes a part had been given to 
 him in The Sentimentalists, which was a demon- 
 stration of the joy of speech. 
 
 Mr. O. P. Heggie did a number of things very 
 well, and one thing consummately — Mr. Shaw's 
 "dam little clerk." The windmill-like gestures 
 with which he gave point to his oratory were 
 vividly true and humorous. 
 
 Mr. E. W. Garden made a completely living 
 figure of old Henry Huxtable in The Madras 
 House. Mr. Garden, also, in the small parts of 
 Mr. Ablett and of the Third Gardener in Prunella, 
 admirably exemplified the repertory spirit. 
 
 Two ladies of charmingly diverse personality 
 are responsible for the keenest of pleasant 
 memories. The Repertory Theatre could not 
 have dispensed with Miss Dorothy Minto. As 
 Carry in Mr. Barrie's Old Friends she was 
 beautifully simple and sincere, and her per- 
 formance will save the little tragedy from being 
 forgotten. As Prunella she is just a dear natural 
 child, and is triumphantly right. We do not owe 
 178
 
 THE ACTING 
 
 her Prunella to The Repertory Theatre, but we owe 
 to it the happiness of having seen her Prunella 
 again. Then there was that actress of elusive 
 charm, Miss Fay Davis. No one could have 
 embodied more nicely than she the intellectual 
 piquancy of Meredith's dedicated widow in her 
 old-world garden. How irresistibly she carried 
 the uncompromising frocks of Imogen Parrott, 
 and what play the character gave for that insur- 
 rectionary dimple of Miss Davis's ! And she was 
 able to realise quite beautifully the over-civilised 
 woman who was wife to Mr. Barker's Philip 
 Madras. 
 
 The acting of the stock company, then, was 
 individually always good and sometimes brilliant, 
 and nearly every member rose on occasion to 
 some one performance of outstanding distinction. 
 Of the concerted brilliance of the acting, which is 
 the achievement of the producer, mention will be 
 made in a moment. Let us consider first the 
 performance of those who, in accordance with 
 the judicious principle which has been referred 
 to, were brought into the company to play 
 specific parts. At the outset of the Repertory 
 
 179
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Theatre experiment, one of the gravest of one's 
 doubts was concerned with the suggested co- 
 operation of "stars." How would they stand 
 transplantation from the firmament in which they 
 were accustomed to shine to one so different in 
 its conditions as a repertory theatre, in which 
 indeed the shining of any individual in adven- 
 titious brilliance is forbidden ? It was the 
 successful fusion with the rest of the company 
 about which one had one's doubts. But The Reper- 
 tory Theatre was fortunate in its stars. It is by 
 reason of her shining intelligence that Miss Irene 
 Vanbrugh is a star. It is, if one comes to think 
 of it, always an intellectual appeal that she makes. 
 Her playing, be it of a Pinero heroine for the three- 
 hundred-and-fiftieth time, is always delightful in 
 its suppleness. So that Miss Vanbrugh came 
 into the Repertory company to play Rose 
 Trelawny and was at home from the first. She 
 might have remained to play something more 
 worthy of her intelligence than was Mr. Hope's 
 Marchesa. Miss Lena Ashwell, also, if it were 
 only for her work at the Kingsway on behalf of 
 an intelligent drama, was deserving of the honour 
 i8o
 
 THE ACTING 
 
 of a place in The Repertory Theatre. She stepped 
 into it, in the person of Mr. Shaw's lady acrobat, 
 with a perfect regard for all the other participants 
 in the debate. One reason there is perhaps 
 for hesitation in welcoming Miss Ashwell : her 
 presence would seem to have moved Mr. Barrie 
 to writing The Twelve-Pound Look especially to 
 display her powers. It might otherwise have 
 been such a much better little piece. That it 
 was written for display, and for nothing more 
 worthy, is proved by the fact than when Miss 
 Hilda Trevelyan took over Miss Ashwell's part 
 she could do nothing else with it than give an 
 excellent imitation of Miss Ashwell. Miss 
 Trevelyan was the third of the stars. She was a 
 model of all that she should have been in the 
 subsidiary part of Avonia Bunn in Trelawny. 
 But then Miss Trevelyan is the most reticent and 
 sympathetic of stars. If her personality was of 
 no service to Chains, the fault was none of hers, 
 but was that of the policy which imposed her 
 upon a play where there was no room for her. 
 It was here that the policy of bringing in stars — a 
 wise one for a repertory theatre so long as urgent 
 
 i8i
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 desirability alone brings it into exercise — came to 
 its Waterloo. 
 
 There were some who were brought in to play 
 specific parts without being stars, and without, 
 therefore, giving any cause for nervous apprehen- 
 sion. Miss Miriam Lewes was the latest and not the 
 least ensnaring of Shaw girls, and a good second 
 to Miss Lillah McCarthy in her appreciation of 
 the essentially lyrical quality of Mr. Shaw's prose. 
 Miss Edyth Olive made as appealing a figure of 
 Ruth Honeywill as Mr. Galsworthy would allow, 
 and was wonderfully effective in her restraint. 
 The beautifully Thackerayan butler of Mr. Aubrey 
 Fitzgerald in Trelawny of the " Wells " is unfor- 
 gettable. Mr. Boucicault, in addition to pro- 
 ducing, was the Vice-Chancellor who enquired 
 of Rose Trelawny, " Do we lack cheers ? " ; and 
 he contributed to Justice a masterly little study of 
 the Judge. 
 
 The art of producing is a part of the art of the 
 theatre which, if it is not altogether the outcome 
 of the new spirit abroad, has developed contempor- 
 aneously. The function of the producer is to 
 give artistic unity to the representation upon the 
 182
 
 PRODUCTION 
 
 stage. The artistic conscience of the theatre is in his 
 keeping. As this artistic conscience has developed; 
 the function of the producer has been reahsed to 
 be increasingly indispensable. The history of the 
 nineteenth century theatre has been the history 
 of the development of the artistic conscience. 
 One does not think it was very active in the 
 theatre of Thomas Morton and of George Colman 
 the younger. It was slumbering, let us say. 
 Robertson, with all his claims to be a dramatic 
 revivalist, took good care not to awaken it. What 
 Robertson possessed was a very well-developed 
 commercial conscience. The commercial con- 
 science remained a healthy monopolist in the 
 Sardou-enfolded theatre, and its guidance was ac- 
 cepted with but little reservation in the theatre of 
 Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones. Similarly it has 
 been challenged only in recent years in the sphere 
 of the poetic drama by the rise of the producer. In 
 Kean's theatre, when A Midsummer Night's Dream 
 was acted, Hazlitt found it to be " converted from 
 a delightful fiction into a dull pantomime. All 
 that is finest in the play is lost in the representa- 
 tion. The spectacle was grand : but the spirit 
 
 i«3
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 was evaporated, the genius was fled." We are 
 even yet not unacquainted with these dull 
 Shakespearean pantomimes, with their grand 
 spectacle, from which the spirit has fled. Irving 
 did better. Genius was not absent from his 
 productions, if it was not always the genius of 
 Shakespeare. It would not be possible to over- 
 look the significance of the Lyceum to the art of 
 the theatre, if only the reason that from it Mr. 
 Gordon Craig derived his inspiration. Apart 
 from what Mr. Craig has done, and the work of 
 Mr. William Poel — who succeeds in his produc- 
 tions in suggesting in an extraordinary degree the 
 contemporary Shakesperean spirit, but supplies 
 little interpretative imagination of his own — in 
 recent years but two tolerable Shakesperean 
 revivals remain in the memory for the spirit they 
 retained. Both serve to mark the rise of the new 
 influence of the producer. One is A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream at the Adelphi — " the play produced 
 for Otho Stuart by Oscar Asche." The other is 
 Mr. J. H. Leigh's Two Gentlemen of Verona at the 
 Court Theatre in April, 1904 — " the play produced 
 by Mr. Granville Barker." 
 184
 
 PRODUCTION 
 
 Robertson, one gathers from Trelawiiy of the 
 " Wells," came to wish that O'Dwyer — that " most 
 capable, invaluable fellow " — was dead. The day 
 of O'Dwyer passed, and he was superseded by the 
 stage-manager, who could manage a stage without 
 raving and stamping about it. But with the 
 production of plays more elusive in their spirit 
 than the comedies of Robertson — which might 
 well, indeed, be produced by the stage-manager, 
 since they are as well within his understanding as 
 that of the author — the stage-manager has seen 
 the rise of the producer. It was not a case this 
 time of supersession. The stage-manager retains 
 control of all the mechanical work of the stage. 
 The producer is the new supplementary authority 
 who assumes responsibility for the artistic unity 
 of the whole. It is a simple matter of allotment 
 of function. The dramatist supplies both letter 
 and spirit. The stage-manager is competent to 
 deal with the letter, and the producer's business 
 is to interpret the spirit. The dramatist may 
 be his own best producer, like Mr. Shaw. But 
 in general the producer will require to combine 
 sympathy with the work of the dramatist and an 
 
 185
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 understanding of the manifold technique of the 
 stage that the dramatist does not possess. The 
 producer may, of course, still call himself the 
 stage-manager. But that does not alter the fact 
 that the producer has arrived. 
 
 With the advent of the repertory theatre the 
 producer might be expected to have come into his 
 own. The history of the last few years in the 
 theatre has been the history of the active develop- 
 ment of the artistic conscience — not altogether 
 apart, as might be hastily concluded, from the 
 commercial theatre. It is a truer view of the 
 more worthy of the managers which sees them as 
 anxious to listen to the still small voice of their 
 artistic consciences to the degree that is consistent 
 with commercial stability in their most risky of 
 businesses. To such a degree, for instance, as 
 to recognise the function of the producer. There 
 is no merit whatever in a name, it is true. But 
 " producer " has been something more than a name 
 in the case, for example, of Mr. Dion Boucicault, 
 whose name has been familiar on the playbills of 
 the last half-dozen years in connection with the 
 works of Mr. Barrie, Mr. Hope, and Mr. Maugham. 
 i86
 
 PRODUCTION 
 
 The impetus, no doubt, has come from the artistic 
 theatre, from the societies — above all, from the 
 Stage Society, whose plays have from the outset 
 been in the hands of one or another of the members 
 of the Society for production. It was in this con- 
 nection that Mr. Granville Barker first made his 
 name as producer. 
 
 Mr. Barker and Mr. Boucicault, then, were 
 installed as producers to The Repertory Theatre, 
 and it became a familiar legend that they were 
 responsible for the production of the plays. The 
 relative share of each in the responsibility, and 
 the uncertainty and failure consequent upon the 
 lack of single and decisive direction, have been 
 discussed in the foregoing chapter. What re- 
 mains to be said is that a standard of production 
 was set up which has never been equalled in this 
 country, and which was well worthy of the first 
 theatre in London to put artistic conscientious- 
 ness in the forefront of its purposes. 
 
 There is a tone in acting, as Hazlitt recognised, 
 as well as in painting, which is its chief and master 
 excellence ; and it is this tone that good production 
 gives. Concerted brilliance is no more to be 
 
 187
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 attained by laisser faire individualism amongst 
 the members of the company than it is amongst 
 the members of the orchestra. It is unfortu- 
 nately true that the theatre gives scope for the 
 outstanding of individuals as other arts do 
 not ; but if the First Violin were to insist upon 
 special illumination and facilities for being 
 admired, such a state of things would not in 
 reality be more destructive to the art of the 
 concert-hall than is the dominance of the actor- 
 manager in the theatre. The comedy, just as the 
 symphony, only really exists when the harmony 
 of its parts is preserved with perfect sympathy 
 and understanding. The producer is to the one 
 what the conductor is to the other. One no 
 more than the other may rely upon any mere 
 drilling of the members of his company. The 
 good producer will utilise their skill, their supple- 
 ness, their intelligence to the full, and he will also 
 utilise their personality ; he will even be willing 
 to recognise that any one of the actors may have 
 a better conception of an individual part than he 
 has himself. Spontaneity and the working of 
 individual imaginations will go for much with 
 1 88
 
 PRODUCTION 
 
 him. The best that each member of the com- 
 pany can contribute it is the function of the good 
 producer to evoke, and then to blend all these 
 contributions into a concerted whole. 
 
 The production at The Repertory Theatre 
 stood this test, and gave this impression of 
 concerted brilliance. The brilliant individual 
 performances which it permitted, and the 
 general good service from the actors which it 
 evoked, have already been commented upon. 
 Of its own creative achievements, one recalls 
 Mr. Barker's putting on of the court scene in 
 Justice — a triumph of, observation and of 
 imaginative reconstruction, so convincing as 
 to raise ' sharply a question of some difficulty 
 — for certain people when they want one 
 sort of amusement go, they say, to the law- 
 courts, and when they want another go to the 
 theatre. Mr. Barker's imagination, however, 
 works within limitations in such scenes as this, 
 although the view chosen of the court, the 
 effective turning-on of the green-shaded lights 
 as the trial drew to its climax, the whole move- 
 ment and paraphernalia, down to the audible 
 
 189
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 dropping of a book, gave evidence that it was at 
 work. There is more pleasure in the recollection 
 of his treatment of Prunella and of The Senti- 
 mentalists. In each the setting was in perfect 
 harmony with the delicate spirit of the play, 
 calculated to heighten its beauties and to enforce 
 its appeal to the emotions ; while nothing of 
 over-emphasis was suffered to distract. In the 
 face of these productions we may forget the dull 
 pantomines labelled A Midsummer Night's Dream, 
 and reverse the conclusion to which Hazlitt was 
 driven, that poetry and the stage do not agree 
 well together. 
 
 There was in Prunella, it is true, more than one 
 moon. But that is merely to say that in stage 
 lighting and scenic effect The Repertory Theatre 
 has not gone all the way. In these matters the art 
 of the theatre has a very long way yet to go — 
 that is, of course, the truth. But here again the 
 spirit of The Repertory Theatre was the right 
 spirit. There were artists loose in the theatre. 
 The share of Mr. William Rothenstein and of Mr. 
 Norman Wilkinson in The Sentimentalists has 
 received its tribute. Miss Pamela Colman Smith 
 190
 
 SUCCESS 
 
 designed the costumes of the mummers in 
 Prunella. The very distinctive scenery of The 
 Madras House was the work of Mr. Keith Hender- 
 son and Mr. Wilkinson. Even Helena's Path was 
 not without a daringly successful back cloth to its 
 cricket-match. At last the spirit of experiment 
 is abroad. There is no other theatre where so 
 much has been attempted, although Mr. Trench 
 has done well in having set Mr. Charles Ricketts, 
 Mr. S. H. Sime, and Mr. Cayley Robinson to 
 work. The Repertory Theatre has at least done 
 something in avoiding vulgar ostentation and 
 in achieving sufficient beauty of scenic setting 
 to add appreciably to the joy of the theatre. 
 
 One other detail of management is worthy 
 of mention, since it has been the occcasion of 
 controversy. The curtain was raised at the end 
 of the acts, and the actors were suffered to bow 
 their acknowledgements, in continuation of the 
 practice at the Court Theatre. It is, of course, 
 the practice of every theatre, but it is the duty 
 of The Repertory Theatre to be different. The 
 practice, particularly in relation to the austere 
 Justice, was the subject of condemnation. It 
 
 191
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 is hard to see with what reason. The ideal 
 audience, may be, would not want to give vent 
 to its gratification by the audible application of 
 one palm to the other. But the theatre is a place 
 where the emotions are uppermost, and on the 
 whole this is not an undesirable way of giving 
 them vent. The practice of raising the curtain 
 becomes objectionable when it precedes and is a 
 signal for the applause, and when it is actuated 
 not by the desire of the audience to see the 
 actor, but by the desire of the actor to be seen. 
 To have the dead Falder popping up smiling is 
 offensive ; but to allow the audience to recognize 
 the artist who has made Falder live for them 
 seems a reasonable enough concession. At the 
 least it is as reasonable as to allow them on the 
 first night to see the author. It is difficult to 
 suppose that the author is encouraged by the 
 experience to write better plays ; whereas it 
 is a psychological fact that the actor does his work 
 the better for sympathetic and discriminating 
 applause. 
 
 192
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN : ON 
 LEAVING ARISTOTLE OUT 
 
 Give me a faithful, understanding soul. 
 Henry Tubbe, " To the Critick " 
 
 One must live. Mr. A. B. Walkley, 
 to the Committee on 
 the Censorship 
 
 FACED by a Repertory Theatre in London, 
 the critics did not come well out of the 
 ordeal ; they fell back upon Aristotle 
 and into inertia, or swore horrible oaths without 
 meaning or application. 
 
 There is no need to spend words here over the 
 press, whose interest in the theatre is limited to 
 what can be made out of it — in revenue from 
 its advertisements and in cheap copy from its 
 personalities and the stories of its plays. The 
 significance of this press to the theatre is no 
 greater than that of the vendors of postcards who 
 drive a good trade in the fair features of its 
 charming ladies. It found itself uncomfortably 
 divided between allegiance to Mr. Frohman, a 
 great advertiser, and distrust of the new thing 
 he was doing ; and distrust gained the upper 
 
 N 193
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 hand. The more reputable daily papers do not 
 stand to be losers by the new dramatic move- 
 ment, for the repertory theatre is particularly 
 dependent upon advertising to make known 
 its changes of bill. Their attitude towards Mr. 
 Frohman's experiment, however, was simple ; 
 any stick was good enough to beat a bad dog. 
 With one weapon they made great play, and it 
 was, as we have seen, placed in their hands by 
 Mr. Frohman himself. Each successive produc- 
 tion of The Repertory Theatre was — so the public 
 was informed — " not a play." 
 
 Now the decision in this clearly delicate matter, 
 of what is and what is not a play, was left to 
 Aristotle. 
 
 Thus, Justice was not a tragedy. Tragedy must 
 be an imitation of persons who are above the 
 common level ; read Aristotle. Misalliance was 
 not a play. The plot must be the first principle 
 and the soul of a play ; read Aristotle. The 
 Sentimentalists was not a play. Character and 
 thought are merely obscured by a diction that is 
 over brilliant ; read Aristotle. As for The Madras 
 House, did not Aristotle lay it down that " the 
 
 194
 
 LEAVING ARISTOTLE OUT 
 
 action must be entire, of a piece, and one without 
 episodes " ? 
 
 He did not, as a matter of fact, in these words, 
 for they are a restatement by Dryden, an admir- 
 able critic, although a little disposed to lean upon 
 his classical predecessor ; and Dryden goes on to 
 add — "the time limited to a natural day; and 
 the place circumscribed at least within the com- 
 pass of one town or city." Now these two of the 
 notorious Three Unities are admitted to be the 
 purest accretions, due to the super-subtlety of 
 the Italian critics of the Renaissance and never 
 laid down by Aristotle at all. That is the way 
 with your eternal verities ; those in authority 
 have a habit of re-stating them with a slight 
 additional bias against the disturbingly active 
 movement of the moment. 
 
 Amongst the things this Aristotle did unde- 
 niably lay down, in the very same treatise as his 
 verities, was that even a woman may be good and 
 also a slave ; though the woman may be said to 
 be an inferior being, and the slave quite worth- 
 less. 
 
 Should the dramatist of The Madras House 
 
 195
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 similarly have modified his conception to accord 
 with these statements ? It is no more likely that 
 Aristotle — expressing two thousand years ago the 
 best that was in him, like any honest man — 
 should have said the last word on Drama than 
 that he should have said it on Woman. 
 
 What sort of critics are they, then, who would 
 condemn a play by reference to Aristotle, and not 
 for the reason that it fails to give them pleasure 
 in the theatre ? 
 
 They, like Pierrot's friends, are rather a mixed 
 lot. There are the good critics '' with brains and 
 a temperament," and there are ''the dullards 
 who think that criticism consists in spotting 
 mistakes." There is Johnson's poring man. 
 There are the complete critics, possessed of a 
 memory like bird-lime and the true critical style, 
 with a tag from Pepys or Bosweli for every rule 
 in the rubric and every crime in the dramatist's 
 decalogue — "These fellows peck up wit as pigeons 
 pease. And utter it again as God doth please." 
 There are the critics towering in the confidence 
 of twenty-one, who would constrain us all to a 
 course of Sardou, Scribe, Sudermann, and the 
 196
 
 LEAVING ARISTOTLE OUT 
 
 younger Dumas. Too much in evidence is 
 Dickens' Mr. Curdle, who had, it will be remem- 
 bered, read much upon the subject and thought 
 much. "The unities, sir," said he, "are a com 
 pleteness — a kind of universal dovetailedness, 
 with regard to time and place — a sort of general 
 oneness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an 
 expression." 
 
 What all this talk of Aristotle amounts to — and 
 not of Aristotle alone, but of Scribe and Sardou 
 and Sarcey and Dumas peix and Dumas fils and 
 Goethe and Lessing and Brunetiere and Le Bon, 
 with their dicta that drama must be shown and 
 not heard, that it must present life "highly 
 coloured," that it must be cut to the measure of 
 the dullest and laziest spectator, being a function 
 of the crowd, etcetera, etcetera — is a gigantic 
 conspiracy against progress. 
 
 From Aristotle to Stevenson, every writer on 
 the theatre has laid down his "must" about it. 
 Whereas the need of the theatre is freedom to 
 experiment. 
 
 Incidentally the younger Dumas said the wise 
 thing — that the exigencies are the only conven- 
 
 197
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 tions. Pressing upon the dramatist are certain 
 urgent necessities ; some, which are inherent in 
 the nature of his art, he will be a fool if he 
 neglect ; some, which are but conventional 
 necessities — such as the happy ending, and certain 
 arbitrary tags in use amongst the critics — the 
 sooner he neglects the better for the drama. 
 '' Why," asked Lessing, " be at the pains to build 
 a theatre and train actors to perform in it, if the 
 work performed might have produced its effect in 
 some other way — as a book or a picture ? " Why, 
 indeed ? But The Sentimentalists or The Madras 
 House could produce their effect — their full effect 
 — in no other way than in the theatre. That is 
 why they were plays. 
 
 A work which is shaped in accordance with 
 the characteristic facilities and restrictions of the 
 theatre and gets its effect by human agency upon 
 the stage, is a play. It is a good play if there be 
 joy in it. 
 
 In respect to the things which Aristotle was 
 wise enough to perceive to be inherent in drama 
 — unity of expression, continuity, and cumulative 
 force of interest — the good dramatist has no wish 
 198
 
 LEAVING ARISTOTLE OUT 
 
 to leave Aristotle out. In the degree, however, 
 that Aristotle is hung as a weight about the feet, 
 those who are working towards a serious drama 
 will leave him out of their advance. In this sense, 
 and in this sense only, was The Repertory Theatre 
 an ''advanced" theatre. 
 
 How can we hope for a serious drama (serious 
 in the good — the French — sense of that word) 
 when we have so little criticism that is serious ? 
 Dramatic criticism must have imagination and it 
 must have sympathy ; else will it not be worthy of 
 the advancing drama it is its function to interpret 
 and to guide. 
 
 To this end it has been proposed to endow 
 dramatic criticism, even as we are about to endow 
 drama. There is no reason to think the effect 
 would be similarly beneficial ; this would not be 
 to make criticism more imaginative nor to give it 
 quicker sympathy, but to make it more academic, 
 and it is already academic enough. Two simple 
 things, however, may be done. By paying for his 
 stall the critic may purchase his independence 
 cheaply at half a guinea. And somehow the 
 drama must be freed from the dominance of the 
 
 199
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 newspaper train ; whether the critic write weekly, 
 or the curtain be raised earHer on first nights, or 
 the system of the repetition generate be instituted, 
 somehow must be changed the intolerable 
 tyranny under which the critic damns in a 
 harassed hour the dramatist's creative labour of a 
 year. 
 
 With these things changed, dramatic criticism 
 may more readily be worthy of the advancing 
 drama ; but it must also cease to be tired. 
 This attempt to estimate the critics in relMion 
 to the repertory system (which incidentally 
 puts more work upon them) amounts to no 
 sort of demand for an a priori approval of it. 
 Bad plays may be badly presented at a reper- 
 tory theatre, and good plays be well presented 
 for a run. But in connection with the cleavage 
 in the theatre, we are witnessing the interesting 
 phenomenon of the growth of a public more 
 ready in its appreciation of an advancing drama 
 than are its appointed guides. Each repertory 
 theatre in actual being is in direct contact 
 with a public that is youthful and enthusi- 
 astic, and that knows for itself what it wants. 
 200
 
 LEAVING ARISTOTLE 0U7 
 
 Between this public and the new dramatist who is 
 expert in self-explication the function of the 
 critic tends to dwindle. No critic since Coleridge 
 has made so considerable a contribution to the 
 criticism of the theatre as is contained in the two 
 short prefaces of J. M. Synge. The critic has 
 himself to blame. There is a disposition on his 
 part to think the importance of advance is being 
 " very much exaggerated," to call in Aristotle or 
 whosoever else will serve; in a word, to lean upon 
 the theatrical system as it is — which after all 
 butters his bread quite satisfactorily. Mr. Walkley 
 in his evidence before the Censorship Committee 
 gave so much of the case away. The Devil 
 tempted him and he told the truth. 
 
 201
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Plays ought to be exhibited at the 
 expense of the State. Smollett 
 
 It is only by a small circle resolutely 
 doing its otvn work that adequate 
 ideas will ever get current at all. 
 
 Matthew Arnold 
 
 MR. FROH MAN'S Repertory Theatre 
 has been and — there is reason to 
 fear — has gone. If it reopens for a 
 second season it is likely to be on lines that have 
 undergone modification, and modification not 
 altogether in the directions advocated in the fore- 
 going chapters. It may present Sir John Hare 
 in a repertory of his plays, together with works 
 by Sir Arthur Pinero, Mr. Barrie, Mr. Maugham, 
 and Mr. Sutro ; and these things, nicely alternated, 
 will be admirable and enjoyable, and much 
 superior to the entertainment provided at the 
 ordinary theatre of commerce. But with the 
 cessation of its association with the New dramatic 
 movement, it loses much of its significance as a 
 temple of the repertory idea. And further, it is 
 hard to see what a repertory theatre will be 
 doing with plays by Pinero, Barrie, Maugham, 
 
 202
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 and Sutro, who are accustomed to find audience 
 with the hundreds of thousands and not with the 
 thousands, and are unhkely for long to submit 
 to a diminution in royalties in a cause which 
 may well appear quixotic and a little unreasoned. 
 
 The record of The Repertory Theatre, then, is 
 already before us, its significance we have been 
 able to estimate, and from it we may draw our 
 conclusions. 
 
 The Repertory Theatre points forward, along 
 two equally definite paths. Its failure to make a 
 commercial profit — which we may go so far as to 
 assume — points to endowment, and to the 
 National Theatre. Its artistic achievement 
 points to another repertory theatre by the enter- 
 prise of individuals, and after that another and 
 another. 
 
 It is a step on the road. The seemly and requi- 
 site thing for the State to do is to elevate the drama 
 above the chances of commerce, as Smollett in 
 common with most thinking persons saw a cen- 
 tury and a half ago, as nearly every European 
 country has already done, and as this country will 
 do in something much less than another cen- 
 
 203
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 tury and a half. But the business of a National 
 Theatre is primarily with the classical repertory 
 of plays. Mr. Frohman's theatre, pointing as it 
 does to endowment, points equally clearly along 
 the path of individual experiment, which will 
 always be the path of the advancing drama. The 
 next step on this road is clear. A theatre com- 
 bining reasonable convenience of site with a rent 
 only moderately extortionate, foregoing the un- 
 necessary complication of expensive stars, and 
 keeping a clear eye on the public it would serve, 
 may be set going in London to-morrow with satis- 
 factory pecuniary profit. A certain definite public 
 is now made familiar with the repertory idea, and 
 to convert this public into a large, convinced, 
 and permanent public for good drama is a mere 
 matter of persistence — as by persistence Sir 
 Arthur Sullivan and Mr. Henry J. Wood succeeded 
 in creating such a public for good music. The 
 good playgoer will be created by good drama, but 
 it is not to be forgotten that the good playgoer 
 also exists and is only awaiting a theatre worth 
 his while. 
 
 There is no virtue in a word ; as much in 
 204
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 abracadabra as in " repertory," which has been 
 written a great number of times in these pages, 
 and is but a loose word at best. But the idea 
 and the spirit have definite existence, and they 
 are hastening the great day of the Renaissance 
 of EngHsh Drama. Lamb, it will be Remembered, 
 wrote for antiquity. When Swinburne wrote 
 plays it was with a view to their being acted at 
 the Globe, the Red Bull, or the Blackfriars. The 
 dramatists of to-day are writing for the repertory 
 theatre of to-morrow. These are Dublin and Man- 
 chester and Glasgow. There are Stockport and 
 Leeds and the societies, creating the ideal 
 audience. In London, the Duke of York's has 
 done its work; and there is Miss Kingston's Little 
 Theatre doing the repertory idea some service 
 pending the next bold step. The day of the good 
 playgoer is at hand. 
 
 At the end of a survey such as this — not of one 
 theatre alone, but incidentally of several — there 
 must be the consciousness of inadequacy, of dis- 
 proportion, and of a lack of justice done to this 
 and to that admirable endeavour. But the intention 
 
 205
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 of the book is clear. Do you know what it is to 
 cast a despairing eye over the whole twenty-three 
 of London's theatres, and to find nothing — posi- 
 tively nothing — that you wish to see ? This book 
 is written from the point of view of one who has 
 suffered the experience, and by no means alone. 
 It is written in celebration of a theatre which for 
 a season made the experience impossible, and, at 
 the same time, of the force now working in the 
 theatre at large to bring such a state of affairs to 
 an end. 
 
 206
 
 APPENDIX ONE : THE 
 DUKE OF YORK'S 
 
 A. The Programmes 
 
 B. Seventeen Weeks' Repertory 
 
 C. Summary of Performances 
 
 D. The Acting: an Analysis
 
 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21st, AT 8 O'CLOCK 
 
 CHARLES FROHMAN PRESENTS 
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 A Tragedy in Four Acts by JOHN GALSWORTHY 
 Produced by GRANVILLE BARKER 
 
 James How 
 
 Walter How 
 
 Robert Cokeson 
 
 William Falder 
 
 Sweedle ... 
 
 WiSTER ... 
 
 COWLEV ... 
 
 The Judge 
 
 Counsel for the Prosecution 
 
 Counsel for the Defence 
 
 The Clerk of Arraigns 
 
 An Usher 
 
 Foreman of the Jury 
 
 The Governor of the Prison 
 
 The Chaplain 
 
 The Doctor 
 
 The Chief Warder 
 
 A Warder Instructor 
 
 MOANEY ... 
 
 Clipton ... 
 O'Cleary ... 
 Ruth Honeywill - 
 
 SYDNEY VALENTINE 
 
 - CHARLES MAUDE 
 EDMUND GWF.NN 
 
 DENNIS EADIE 
 
 GEORGE HERSEE 
 
 LESLIE CARTER 
 
 C. E. VERNON 
 
 - DION BOUCICAULT 
 
 - OSCAR ADYE 
 
 - CHARLES BRYANT 
 
 C. C. CALVERT 
 
 TALBOT HOMEWOOD 
 
 R OSSULTON-RICHE 
 
 GRENDON BENTLEY 
 
 HUBERT HARBEN 
 
 LEWIS CASSON 
 
 - FREDERICK LLOYD 
 
 - BENEDICT BUTLER 
 
 - ROBERT PATEMAN 
 
 O. P. HEGGIE 
 
 - WHITFORD KANE 
 
 EDYTH OLIVE 
 
 A number of Barristers, Solicitors, Spectators, Ushers, Reporters, 
 Jurymen, Warders and Prisoners. 
 
 Act I. 
 
 The Office of James & Walter How. 
 
 
 Morning. July. 
 
 Act II. 
 
 The Assizes. 
 
 
 Afternoon. October. 
 
 Act III. 
 
 A Prison. 
 
 Scene I 
 
 The Governor's Office. 
 
 Scene 2 
 
 A Corridor. 
 
 Scene 3 
 
 A Cell. 
 
 
 December, 
 
 Act IV. 
 
 The Office of James & Walter How. 
 
 
 Morning. March, two years later. 
 
 The scenery desi 
 
 igned by Macdonald Gill and painted by 
 
 
 W. Hann. 
 
 
 
 
 209
 
 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd, 
 AT 8 O'CLOCK 
 
 CHARLES FROHMAN PRESENTS 
 
 MISALLIANCE 
 
 A Debate, in One Sitting, by BERNARD SHAW 
 
 John Tarleton, Junior - - FREDERICK LLOYD 
 
 Bentley Summerhays - - DONALD CALTHROP 
 
 Hypatia Tarleton - - - MIRIAM LEWES* 
 
 Mrs. Tarleton - - - FLORENCE HAYDON 
 
 Lord Summerhays - - HUBERT HARBEN 
 
 John Tarleton - - - -CM. LOWNE 
 
 Joseph Percival - - - CHARLES BRYANT 
 
 LiNA Szczepanowska - - - LENA ASHWELL 
 
 Julius Baker - - - - O. P. HEGGIE 
 
 As the debate is a long one, the curtain will be lowered twice. The 
 
 audience is requested to excuse these interruptions, which are made 
 
 solely for its convenience. 
 
 The debate takes place at the house of John Tarleton, on Hindhead, 
 Surrey, on the 31st May, 1909. 
 
 The Play Produced by the Author. 
 
 * For the gth, loth, and nth performances, the part was 
 played by Miss Mona Limerick, 
 
 210
 
 TUESDAY, MARCH ist, AT 8.30 
 
 CHARLES FROHMAN PRESENTS 
 
 OLD FRIENDS 
 
 A Play, in One Act, by J. M. BARRIE 
 
 Produced by DION BOUCICAULT 
 
 Stephen Brand - - - SYDNEY VALENTINE 
 
 Mrs. Brand - - - LENA ASHWELL 
 
 Carry .... DOROTHY MINTO 
 
 Rev. J. Carroll - - - HUBERT HARBEN 
 
 THE SENTIMENTALISTS 
 
 An Unfinished Comedy by GEORGE MEREDITH 
 Produced by GRANVILLE BARKER 
 
 HoMEWARE ----- DENNIS EADIE 
 
 Arden - . - . - CHARLES MAUDE 
 
 SwYTHiN - - - . HUBERT HARBEN 
 
 Osier . . - - . LEWIS CASSON 
 
 Professor Spiral - - - - C. E. VERNON 
 
 AsTR^A ----- FAY DAVIS 
 
 Lyra ----- MARY JERROLD 
 
 Dame Dresden - - - - MAY WHITTY 
 
 Virginia - - . . PENELOPE WHEELER 
 
 Winifred - . . . SYBIL THORNDIKE 
 
 Lady Oldlace . . - - EVA KILLICK 
 
 A Garden - The first scene in the morning. 
 
 The second in the evening. 
 
 The Dresses designed by William Rothenstein. 
 
 The Scene designed bv Norman Wilkinson and painted by 
 
 W. T. Hemsley. 
 
 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 
 
 A Comedy, in One Act, by J. M. BARRIE 
 Produced by DION BOUCICAULT 
 
 Sir Harry Sims - - - EDMUND GWENN 
 
 Lady Sims ----- MARY BARTON 
 
 Katk . - . . - LENA ASHWELL 
 
 ToMBES - - - - CHARLES CALVERT 
 
 211
 
 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9th, AT 8 O'CLOCK 
 
 CHARLES FROHMAN PRESENTS 
 
 THE MADRAS HOUSE 
 
 A Comedy, in Four Acts, by GRANVILLE BARKER 
 Produced by the Author 
 
 Henry Huxtable 
 
 Catherine Huxtable 
 
 Laura Huxtable 
 
 Minnie Huxtable 
 
 Clara Huxtable 
 
 Julia Huxtable 
 
 Emma Huxtable 
 
 Jane Huxtable 
 
 Major Hippisley Thomas 
 
 Philip Madras 
 
 Jessica Madras 
 
 Constantine Madras 
 
 Amelia Madras 
 
 Eustace Perrin State - 
 
 Marion Yates . - - 
 
 Mr. Brigstock 
 
 Mrs. Brigstock 
 
 Miss Chancellor 
 
 Mr, Windlesham 
 
 Mr. Belhaven 
 
 Three Mannequins J- 
 
 A Maid at Denmark Hill 
 
 A Maid at Phillimore Gardens 
 
 Act I. 
 Act IL 
 Act HI. 
 Act IV. 
 
 E. W. GARDEN 
 
 - FLORENCE HAYDON 
 
 ADA MARIUS 
 
 - ELIZABETH CHESNEY 
 
 - JOY CHATWYN 
 
 - VICTORIA ADDISON 
 
 SYBIL THORNDIKE 
 
 - NELL CARTER 
 CHARLES BRYANT 
 
 DENNIS EADIE 
 FAY DAVIS 
 
 - SYDNEY VALENTINE 
 
 - MAY WHITTY 
 ARTHUR WHITBY 
 
 MARY JERROLD 
 
 - LEWIS CASSON 
 
 - MARY BARTON 
 
 - GERALDINE OLLIFFE 
 
 CHARLES MAUDE 
 
 - DONALD CALTHROP 
 ASTA FLEMING 
 
 MAIR VAUGHAN 
 MARY BRENDA 
 MILLIE EMDEN 
 EVANGELINE HILLIARD 
 
 Denmark Hill 
 Roberts & Huxtable's 
 The Madras House. 
 Phillimore Gardens. 
 
 The Scenery designed by Keith Henderson and Norman 
 Wilkinson, and painted by W. Hann. 
 
 212
 
 TUESDAY, APRIL 5th, AT 8 OCLOCK 
 
 CHARLES FROHMAN PRESENTS 
 
 TRELAWNY OF THE "WELLS 
 
 A Comedietta, in Four Acts, by ARTHUR PINERO 
 
 James Telfee 
 Mrs. Telfer (Miss 
 Violet Sylvester) 
 Augustus Colpoys 
 Ferdinand Gadd 
 Tom Wrench 
 avonia bunn 
 Rose Trelawny 
 
 THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY 
 Theatrical Folk. 
 
 SYDNEY VALENTINE 
 MARIE SAKER 
 
 of the Bagnigge- 
 '■ Wells Theatre '^ 
 
 EDMUND GWENN 
 
 GERALD LAWRENCE 
 
 DENNIS EADIE 
 
 HILDA TREVELYAN 
 
 IRENE VANBRUGH 
 
 Imogen Parrott - (of the Royal Olympic Theatre) - FAY DAVIS 
 O'DwvER (Prompter at the Pantheon Theatre) WHITFORD KANE 
 Members of the Company of /C. C, VERNON, LEWIS CASSON 
 the Pantheon Theatre \EVA KILLICK, MAIR VAUGHAN 
 Hall-Keeper at the Pantheon - - R. O. RICHE 
 
 Non-Theatrical Folk 
 Vice-Chancellor Sir William Gower, Kt. - DION BOUCICAULT 
 Miss Trafalgar Gower - (Sir William's Sister) - MAY WHITTY 
 Arthur Gower 1 /u- /- j l-,j n f CHARLES MAUDE 
 
 Clara de Fcinix | (^'^ Grandchildren) | ^g^L CARTER 
 
 Captain de Fcenix - (Clara's Husband) - O. P. HEGGIE 
 
 FLORENCE HAYDON 
 
 E. W. GARDEN 
 
 AUBREY FITZGERALD 
 
 MARY JERROLD 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Telfer's Lodgings at No. 2 
 
 Brydon Crescent, Clerkenwell. May. 
 At Sir William Gower's, in Cavendish 
 
 Square. June. 
 Again in Brydon Crescent. December. 
 On the Stage of the Pantheon Theatre. 
 A few days later. 
 
 Period — Somewhere in the Early 'Sixties. 
 The Costumes designed by Percy Anderson 
 
 NOTB — BAGNIGGE- (locally pronounced Bagnidge) WELLS— formeriy a 
 popular mineral spring in Islingtou, London — is situated not far from the 
 better remembered Sadler's- Wells. The Gardens of Bagnigge- Wells were at 
 one time much resorted to ; but, as a matter of fact, Bagnigge-Wells, unlike 
 Sadler's-Wells, has never possessed a play-house. Sadler's- Wells Theatre, 
 however ^always familiarly knowu as the "Wells" — still exists. It was 
 rebuili in 1876-77. 
 
 Mrs. Mossop 
 Mr. Ablett 
 Charles 
 Sarah 
 
 Act I. 
 
 Act II. 
 
 Act III. 
 Act IV,
 
 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13th, AT 8.15 
 
 CHARLES FROHMAN PRESENTS 
 
 PRUNELLA 
 
 A Pierrot Play, in Three Acts, by 
 
 LAURENCE HOUSMAN and GRANVILLE BARKER 
 
 The Music by JOSEPH MOORAT 
 
 Produced by GRANVILLE BARKER 
 
 CHARLES MAUDE 
 
 ARTHUR WHITBY 
 
 O. P. HEGGIE 
 
 - HAROLD CHAPIN 
 FREDERICK LLOYD 
 
 HUBERT HARBEN 
 
 MARY JERROLD 
 
 EVANGELINE HILLIARD 
 
 NELL CARTER 
 
 SYBIL THORNDIK.E 
 
 FLORENCE HAYDON 
 
 PENELOPE WHEELER 
 
 AGNES HILL 
 
 ADA MARIUS 
 
 - MARY BARTON 
 WHITFORD KANE 
 
 - LESLIE CARTER 
 E. W. GARDEN 
 
 DONALD CALTHROP 
 
 LEWIS CASSON 
 
 DOROTHY MINTO 
 
 Pierrot 
 
 scaramel 
 
 Kennel 
 
 Callow 
 
 Mouth 
 
 Hawk 
 
 Doll 
 
 Tawdry 
 
 Coquette 
 
 Romp 
 
 Prim 
 
 Privacy 
 
 Prude 
 
 Queer 
 
 Quaint 
 
 First Gardener 
 
 Second Gardener 
 
 Third Gardener 
 
 Boy - 
 
 Statue of Love 
 
 Prunella 
 
 Conductor 
 
 Scene 
 
 THEODORE STIER 
 A Dutch Garden. 
 
 The Mummers' costumes designed by Pamela Colman Smith 
 and made by Lorna Burn-Murdoch. 
 
 Note. — Prunella was followed by Mr. Barrie's Twelve- 
 Pound Look with cast as given on page 211, except that on 
 and after April 18 Miss Ashwell's part was played by Miss 
 Hilda Trevelyan. 
 214
 
 TUESDAY, MAY 3rd, AT 9 
 CHARLES FROHMAN PRESENTS 
 
 HELENA'S PATH 
 
 A Comedy, in Three Acts, by 
 ANTHONY HOPE and COSMO GORDON LENNOX 
 
 Produced by GRANVILLE BARKER 
 
 Lord Lynborough - - - CHARLES BRYANT 
 
 Roger Wilbraham - - - CHARLES MAUDE 
 
 Leonard Stabb - - - ARTHUR WHITBY 
 
 Mr. Stillford - - - - O. P. HEGGIE 
 
 Col. Wenman - - - FREDERICK LLOYD 
 
 John Goodenough - - - LESLIE CARTER 
 
 Mr. Peters - . . . WHITFORD KANE 
 
 Green .... C. E. VERNON 
 
 A Photographer ... W. WILLIAMS 
 
 A Yokel ..... E. SIDNEY 
 
 Footman at Nab Grange - - HAROLD CHAPIN 
 
 The Marchesa di San Servolo - IRENE VANBRUGH 
 
 Lady Norah Mountliffey - - MARY JERROLD 
 
 Miss Gilletson - - - MARY BARTON 
 
 Acts I. and III, - The Boundary of the Nab Grange Estate. 
 Act II. - The Village Cricket-ground at Fillby. 
 
 Preceded at 8.30 by 
 
 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 
 
 A Comedy, in One Act, by J. M. BARRIE 
 
 Produced by DION BOUCICAULT 
 
 Sir Harry Sims - - - EDMUND GWENN 
 
 Lady Sims - . . . . MARY BARTON 
 
 Kate .... HILDA TREVELYAN 
 
 ToMBEs - - - CHARLES CALVERT
 
 TUESDAY, MAY 17th, AT 8.30 
 
 CHARLES FROHMAN PRESENTS 
 
 CHAINS 
 
 A Play, in Four Acts, by ELIZABETH BAKER 
 Produced by DION BOUCICAULT 
 
 Charlie Wilson - . - - DENNIS EADIE 
 
 Fred Tennent - - - FREDERICK LLOYD 
 
 Morton Leslie - - - ARTHUR WHITBY 
 
 Percy Massey - - - DONALD CALTHROP 
 
 Alfred Massey - - - EDMUND GWENN 
 
 Walter Foster - - - HUBERT HARBEN 
 
 Fenwick ... - - LEWIS CASSON 
 
 Lily Wilson - - - HILDA TREVELYAN 
 
 Maggie Massey - - - SYBIL THORNDIKE 
 
 Mrs. Massey - - - FLORENCE HAYDON 
 
 Sybil Frost - - - DOROTHY MINTO 
 
 Acts I., II. and IV. Charlie Wilson's House, 55 Acacia 
 
 Avenue, Hammersmith. 
 Act III. Alfred Massey's House, Chisvvick. 
 
 2I'>
 
 APPENDIX ONE 
 
 SEVENTEEN WEEKS' REPERTORY 
 
 Note. When a play is performed for the first time, its 
 name is printed in heavy type ; when for the last time, in 
 italics, 
 
 Feb. 
 
 Mar. 
 
 21 Mon. 
 
 Justice 
 
 22 Tues. 
 
 Justice 
 
 23 Wed. 
 
 Misalliance 
 
 24 Thur. 
 
 (Ma^) Justice 
 
 24 Thur. 
 
 Justice 
 
 25 Fri. 
 
 MisaUiance 
 
 26 Sat. ( 
 
 [Mat.) Misalliance 
 
 26 Sat. 
 
 Justice 
 
 28 Mon. 
 
 Misalliance 
 
 I Tues. 
 
 Triple Bill 
 
 
 Old Friends 
 
 
 The Sentimentalists 
 
 
 The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 2 Wed. 
 
 Justice 
 
 3 Thur. 
 
 (Maf.) Justice 
 
 3 Thur. 
 
 Triple Bill 
 
 4 Fri. 
 
 Misalliance 
 
 5 Sat. ( 
 
 [Mat.) Triple Bill 
 
 5 Sat. 
 
 Misalliance 
 
 7 Mon. Triple Bill 
 
 8 Tues. MisaUiance 
 
 9 Wed. The Madras House 
 10 Thur.(i\/a^) Misalliance 
 
 10 Thur. Justice 
 
 11 Fri. Justice 
 
 12 Sat. (Mat.) The Madras House 
 12 Sat. Triple Bill 
 
 14 Mon. The Madras House 
 
 15 Tues. Justice 
 
 16 Wed. Misalliance 
 
 217
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Mar. 17 Thnr-iMat.) Triple Bill 
 
 Old Friends 
 
 The Sentimentalists 
 
 The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 17 Thur. Misalliance 
 
 18 Fri. The Madras House 
 
 19 Sat. {Mat.) Justice 
 
 19 Sat. The Madras House 
 
 21 Mon. Justice 
 
 22 Tues. The Madras House 
 
 23 Wed. Justice 
 
 24 Thur.(Mrt;.)The Madras House 
 34 Thur. Justice 
 
 25 Fri. No performance (Good Friday) 
 
 26 Sat. {Mat.) Justice 
 26 Sat. Justice 
 
 28 Mon. Justice 
 
 29 Tue. The Madras House 
 
 30 Wed. Justice 
 
 31 Thur.(Ma^.) Misalliance 
 
 31 Thur. The Madras House 
 
 Apl. I Fri Justice 
 
 2 Sat. {Mat.) Justice 
 2 Sat. Justice 
 
 4 Mon. The Madras House 
 
 5 Tue. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 6 Wed. Justice 
 
 7 Thur. (Ma^.) Justice 
 
 7 Thur. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 8 Fri. Justice 
 
 9 Sat. {Mat.) Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 9 Sat. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 11 Mon. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 12 Tue. Justice 
 
 13 Wed. Prunella and TheTwelve- Pound Look 
 
 14 Thur. (Ma/.) Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 14 Thur. Justice 
 
 218
 
 APPENDIX ONE 
 
 Apl. 15 Fri, Trelawny of the "Wells" 
 
 16 Sat. (Mat.) Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 16 Sat. Trelawny of the " WeUs " 
 
 18 Mon. Prunella and The Twelve- Pound Look 
 
 19 Tue. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 20 Wed. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 21 Thur.(M«^) Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 21 Thur. Trelawny of the " Wells '' 
 
 22 Fri. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 23 Sat. (Mat.) Trelawny of the "Wells" 
 23 Sat. Trelawny of the "Wells" 
 
 25 Mon. Trelawny of the "Wells" 
 
 26 Tues. Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 27 Wed. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 28 Thur.(Ma^.) Prunella and The Twelve- Pound Look 
 
 28 Thur. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 29 Fri. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 30 Sat. (Mat.) Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 30 Sat. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 May 2 Mon. Trelawny of the "Wells " 
 
 3 Tues. Helena's Path and The Twelve- 
 
 Pound Look 
 
 4 Wed. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 5 Thur.(Mrt^.) Helena's Path and The Twelve-Pound 
 
 Look 
 
 5 Thur. Prunella and The Twelve- Pound Look 
 
 6 Fri. Trelawny of the " Wells" 
 
 7 Sat. (Mat.) No performance ( King's Death ) 
 7 Sat. 
 
 9 Mon. „ „ 
 
 10 Tue. ,, ,, 
 
 11 Wed. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 12 ThuT.{Mat.) Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 12 Thur. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 13 Fri. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 14 Sat. (Mat.) Trelawny of the " Wells '' 
 14 Sat. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 219
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 May i6 Mou. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 17 Tues. Chains 
 
 18 Wed. Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 19 Thur.(Mrt/.) Chains 
 
 19 Thur. Prunella and The Twelve- Pound Look 
 
 20 Fri. No performance (King's Funeral) 
 31 Sat. (Mat.) Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 21 Sat. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 23 Mon. Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 24 Tues. Chains 
 
 25 Wed. Trelawny of the "Wells " 
 
 26 Thur. (Ma/.) Chains 
 
 26 Thur. Chains 
 
 27 Fri. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 28 Sat. (Mat.) Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 28 Sat. Trelawny of the '* Wells " 
 
 30 Mon. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 31 Tues. Chains 
 
 June I Wed. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 2 Thur. (Mat.) Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 2 Thur. Chains 
 
 3 Fri. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 4 Sat. (Mat.) Chains 
 
 4 Sat. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 6 Mon. Trelawny of the " Weils " 
 
 7 Tues. {Pr&f. Mat.) Chains 
 
 7 Tues, Chains 
 
 8 Wed. Trelawny of the " Wells » 
 
 9 Thur. (Mfl^) Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 9 Thur. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 10 Fri. Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 11 Sat. {Mat.) Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 II Sat. Chains 
 
 13 Mon. Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 14 Tues. Chains 
 
 15 Wed. Chains 
 
 16 Thur.(Ma/.) Prunella and The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 16 Thur, Chains 
 
 17 Fri. Chains 
 
 220
 
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 221
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 THE ACTING AT THE REPERTORY 
 THEATRE : AN ANALYSIS 
 
 CHARLES MAUDE (Six Parts) 
 
 Walter How 
 
 Arden 
 
 Mr. Windlesham 
 
 Arthur Gower 
 
 Pierrot 
 
 Justice 
 
 The SeiiUmentalists 
 
 The Madras House 
 
 Trelawny of the " Wells 
 
 Prunella 
 
 Roger Wilbraham Heleuas Path 
 DENNIS EADIE (Five Parts) 
 
 William Falder 
 Homeware 
 Philip Madras 
 Tom Wrench 
 Charlie Wilson 
 
 Justice 
 
 The Sentimentalists 
 
 The Madras House 
 
 Trelawny of the *' Wells 
 
 Chains 
 
 FLORENCE HAYDON (Five Parts) 
 
 Mrs. Tarleton 
 
 Catherine Huxtable 
 
 Mrs. Mossop 
 
 Prim 
 
 Mrs. Massey 
 
 Misalliance 
 
 The Madras House 
 
 Trelawny of the " Wells ' 
 
 Prunella 
 
 Chains 
 
 MARY JERROLD (Five Parts) 
 
 Lyra 
 
 Marion Yates 
 Sarah 
 Doll 
 
 Lady Norah Mount- 
 liffey 
 
 The Sentimentalists 
 The Madras House 
 Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 Prunella 
 
 Helena's Path 
 
 222
 
 APPENDIX ONE 
 
 LEWIS CASSON (Five Parts)' 
 
 The Doctor 
 
 Osier 
 
 Mr. Brigstock 
 
 Statue of Love 
 
 Fenwick 
 
 Justice 
 
 The Sentimentalists 
 The Madras House 
 Prunella 
 Chains 
 
 HUBERT HARBEN (Five Parts)! 
 
 The Chaplain 
 Lord Summerhays 
 Rev. J. Carroll 
 Swythin 
 Walter Foster 
 
 Justice 
 
 Misalliance 
 
 Old Friends 
 
 The Sentimentalists 
 
 Chains 
 
 O. P. HEGGIE (Five Parts) 
 
 Clipton 
 
 Julius Baker 
 
 Captain de Foenix 
 
 Kennel 
 
 Mr. Stillford 
 
 Justice 
 
 M isalliance 
 
 Trelaivuy oj the " Wells " 
 
 Prunella 
 
 Helena's Path 
 
 FREDERICK LLOYD (Five Parts) 
 
 The Chief Warder 
 
 John Tarleton, Jnr. 
 
 Mouth 
 
 Col. Wenman 
 
 Fred Tennant 
 
 Justice 
 Misalliance 
 Prunella 
 Helena's Path 
 Chains 
 
 * Mr. Casson also played as member of the Company of 
 the Pantheon Theatre in Trelawny of the " Wells." 
 t Mr. Harben also played Hawk in Prunella. 
 
 223
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 MARY BARTON (Four Parts) 
 
 Lady Sims The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 Mrs. Brigstock The Madras House 
 
 Quaint Prunella 
 
 Miss Gilletson Helena's Path 
 
 CHARLES BRYANT (Four Parts) 
 Counsel for the De- 
 fence Justice 
 Joseph Percival Misalliance 
 Major Hippisley 
 
 Thomas The Madras House 
 
 Lord Lynborough Helena's Path 
 
 DONALD CALTHROP (Four Parts) 
 BentleySummerhciys Misalliance 
 Mr. Belhaven The Madras House 
 
 Boy Prunella 
 
 Percy Massey Chains 
 
 EDMUND GWENN (Four Parts) 
 Robert Cokeson Justice 
 
 Sir Harry Sims The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 Augustus Colpoys Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 Alfred Massey Chains 
 
 SYBIL THORNDIKE (Four Parts) 
 
 Winifred The Sentimentalists 
 
 Emma Huxtable The Madras House 
 Romp Prunella 
 
 Maggie Massey Chains 
 
 224
 
 APPENDIX ONE 
 
 SYDNEY VALENTINE (Four Parts) 
 James How Justice 
 
 Stephen Brand Old Friends 
 
 Constantine Madras The Madras House 
 James Telfer Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 ARTHUR WHITBY ^Four Parts) 
 
 Eustace Perrin State The Madras House 
 Scaramel Pntnella 
 
 Leonard Stabb Helena's Path 
 
 Morton Leslie Chains 
 
 LENA ASHWELL (Three Parts) 
 Lina Szczepanowska Misalliance 
 Mrs. Brand Old Friends 
 
 Kate The Twelve-Pound Look 
 
 NELL CARTER (Three Parts) 
 
 Jane Huxtable The Madras House 
 
 Clara de Foenix Trelawny of the "Wells " 
 
 Coquette Prunella 
 
 FAY DAVIS (Three Parts) 
 
 Astrrea The Sentimentalists 
 
 Jessica Madras The Madras House 
 
 Imogen Parrott Trelawny of the ''Wells" 
 
 E. W. GARDEN (Three Parts) 
 
 Henry Huxtable The Madras House 
 Mr. Ablett Trelawny of the ' ' Wells " 
 
 Third Gardener Prunella 
 
 p 225
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 DOROTHY MINTO (Three Parts) 
 Carry Old Friends 
 
 Prunella Pninella 
 
 Sybil Frost Chains 
 
 HILDA TREVELYAN (Three Parts) 
 
 Avonia Bunn Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 Kate The Twelvc-Ponnd Look 
 
 Lily Wilson Chains 
 
 MAY WHITTY (Three Parts) 
 
 Dame Dresden The Sentinientalists 
 
 Amelia Madras The Madras Honse 
 
 MissTrafalgarGower Trelawny of the "Wells" 
 
 DION BOUCICAULT (Two Parts) 
 
 The Judge fiistice 
 
 Sir William Gower Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 IRENE VANBRUGH (Two Parts) 
 
 Rose Trelawny Trelawny of the " Wells" 
 
 The Marchesa di San 
 
 Servola Helena's Path 
 
 AUBREY FITZGERALD (One Part) 
 
 Charles Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 GERALD LAWRENCE (One Part) 
 
 Ferdinand Gadd Trelawny of the " Wells " 
 
 MIRIAM LEWES and 
 MONA LIMERICK (One Part) 
 
 Hypatia Tarleton Misalliance 
 226
 
 APPENDIX ONE 
 
 C. M. LOWNE (One Part) 
 
 John Tarleton Misalliance 
 
 EDYTH OLIVE (One Part) 
 Ruth Honeywill Justice 
 
 MARIE SAKER (One Part) 
 
 Mrs. Telfer Trelawny of the "Wells " 
 
 227
 
 APPENDIX TWO : OTHER 
 REPERTORY THEATRES 
 
 A. Their Repertories 
 
 B. Specimen Weeks
 
 PLAYS PRODUCED BY THE 
 ABBEY THEATRE COMPANY 
 AND ITS PREDECESSORS 
 
 New 
 
 Plays 
 
 
 The Countess Cathleen 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 Kathleen Ni Houlihan 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 A Pot of Broth 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 The Hour Glass 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 The King's Threshold 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 The Shadowy Waters 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 On Baile's Strand 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 Deirdre 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 The Golden Helmet 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 The Green Helmet 
 
 
 W. B. Yeats 
 
 Diarmuid and Grania W. 
 
 B. Yeats and George Moore 
 
 The Bending of the Bough 
 
 
 George Moore 
 
 The Unicorn from the Stars 
 
 
 W 
 
 . B. Yeats and Lady Gregory 
 
 Twenty-Five 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 Spreading the News 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 Kincora 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 The White Cockade 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 Hyacinth Halvey 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 The Gaol Gate 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 The Canavans 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 The Jackdaw 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 The Rising of the Moon 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 The Workhouse Ward 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 The Image 
 
 
 Lady Gregory 
 
 In the Shadow of the Glen 
 
 
 J. M. Synge 
 
 Riders to the Sea 
 
 
 J. M. Synge 
 
 The Well of the Saints 
 
 
 J. M. Synge 
 
 231
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 The Playboy of the Western World 
 
 Deirdre of the Sorrows 
 
 Broken Soil 
 
 The Land 
 
 Thomas Muskerry 
 
 The Building Fund 
 
 The Eloquent Dempsy 
 
 The Mineral Workers 
 
 The Piper 
 
 Time 
 
 An Imaginary Conversation 
 
 The Clancy Name 
 
 The Cross Roads 
 
 Harvest 
 
 The Sleep of the King 
 
 The Racing Lug 
 
 The Man Who Missed the Tide 
 
 The Suburban Groove 
 
 The Heather Field 
 
 Maeve 
 
 The Eyes of the Blind 
 
 The Challenge 
 
 The Country Dressmaker 
 
 The Pie-dish 
 
 The Last Feast of the Fianna 
 
 Deirdre 
 
 The Twisting of the Rope 
 
 The Laying of the Foundations 
 
 The Townland of Tamney 
 
 Fand 
 
 J. M. Synge 
 
 J. M. Synge 
 
 Padraic Colum 
 
 Padraic Colum 
 
 Padraic Colum 
 
 William Boyle 
 
 William Boyle 
 
 William Boyle 
 
 Norreys Connell 
 
 Norreys Connell 
 
 Norreys Connell 
 
 S. L. Robinson 
 
 S. L. Robinson 
 
 S. L. Robinson 
 
 Seumas O'Cuisin 
 
 Seumas O'Cuisin 
 
 W. F. Casey 
 
 W. F. Casey 
 
 Edward Martyn 
 
 Edward Martyn 
 
 W. M. Letts 
 
 W. M. Letts 
 
 G. Fitzmaurice 
 
 G. Fitzmaurice 
 
 Alice Milligan 
 
 " A. E." 
 
 Douglas Hyde 
 
 Fred Ryan 
 
 Seumas McManus 
 
 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt 
 
 When the Dawn is Come 
 
 Stephen Grey 
 
 The Glittering Gate 
 
 232 
 
 Thomas MacDonagh 
 D. L. Kelleher 
 Lord Dunsany
 
 APPENDIX TWO 
 
 The White Feather R. J. Ray 
 
 The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet Bernard Shaw 
 
 Translations 
 
 The Doctor in Spite of Himself 
 
 Moliere, Trans. Lady Gregory 
 The Rogueries of Scapin 
 
 Moliere, Trans. Lady Gregory 
 The Miser Moliere, Trans. Lady Gregory 
 
 Interior Maeterlinck 
 
 Teja Sudermann, Trans. Lady Gregory 
 
 Mirandolina Goldoni, Trans. Lady Gregory 
 
 PLAYS PRODUCED BY THE 
 GAIETY THEATRE 
 
 New Plays 
 
 
 David Ballard 
 
 Charles McEvoy 
 
 When the Devil was III 
 
 Charles McEvoy 
 
 The Three Barrows 
 
 Charles McEvoy 
 
 Lucifer 
 
 Charles McEvoy 
 
 His Helpmate 
 
 Charles McEvoy 
 
 Gentlemen of the Road 
 
 Charles McEvoy 
 
 Cupid and tJie Styx 
 
 J. Sackville Martin 
 
 A Question of Property 
 
 J. Sackville Martin 
 
 The Purse of Gold 
 
 J. Sackville Martin 
 
 Woman's Rights 
 
 J. Sackville Martin 
 
 The Few and the Many 
 
 H, M. Richardson 
 
 Bringing it Home 
 
 H. M. Richardson 
 
 Going on Parade 
 
 H. M. Richardson 
 
 Marriages are made in Heaven 
 
 Basil Dean 
 
 233
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Mother to Be 
 
 Reaping the Whirlwind 
 
 The Choice 
 
 The Dear Departed 
 
 Independent Means 
 
 Makeshifts 
 
 The Feud 
 
 The Doorway 
 
 Trespassers will he Prosecuted 
 
 The Dove Uncaged 
 
 Before the Dawn 
 
 The Tallyman 
 
 Red 'Ria 
 
 Subsidence 
 
 Basil Dean 
 
 Allen Monkhouse 
 
 Allen Monkhouse 
 
 Stanley Houghton 
 
 Stanley Houghton 
 
 G. L. Robins 
 
 Edward Garnett 
 
 Harold Brighouse 
 
 M. A. Arabian 
 
 E, Hamilton Moor 
 
 Leonard Kampf 
 
 Edward A. Parry 
 
 Gertrude and Jack Landa 
 
 Fred E. Wynne 
 
 Revived Modern 
 
 Widowers' Houses 
 
 Candida 
 
 Press Cuttings 
 
 The Silver Box 
 
 Strife 
 
 Justice 
 
 The Return of the Prodigal 
 
 The Charity that Began at Home 
 
 The Great Silence 
 
 Clothes and the Woman 
 
 The Subjection of Kezia 
 
 The A mateur Socialist 
 
 The Tragedy of Nan 
 
 Unemployed 
 
 The Searchlight 
 
 Cupid and Commonsense 
 
 The Voysey Inheritance 
 
 234 
 
 Plays 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 John Galsworthy 
 
 John Galsworthy 
 
 John Galsworthy 
 
 St. John Hankin 
 
 St. John Hankin 
 
 Basil Hood 
 
 George Paston 
 
 Mrs. Havelock Ellis 
 
 W. Kingsley Tarpey 
 
 John Masefield 
 
 Margaret M. Mack 
 
 Mrs. W. K. Clifford 
 
 Arnold Bennett 
 
 Granville Barker
 
 APPENDIX TWO 
 
 Translations 
 
 The Vale of Content Sudermann 
 
 Midsummer Fires Sudermann 
 
 The Fantasticks Rostand 
 
 Interior Maeterlinck 
 
 An Enemy of the People Ibsen 
 
 Classics 
 The Knight of the Burning Pestle 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher 
 
 Much Ado about Nothing Shakespeare 
 
 Every Man in his Humour Ben Jonson 
 
 The Critic Sheridan 
 The Hippolytus of Euripides Trans. Gilbert Murray 
 
 PLAYS PRODUCED BY THE 
 SCOTTISH REPERTORY THEATRE 
 
 New Plays 
 Barbara Grows Up 
 The Truth about De Courcy 
 How Cottle Fell from Grace 
 Dealing in Futures 
 The Price of Coal 
 The White Dove 
 The Convenient Lover 
 Whose Zoo 
 Macpherson 
 
 The Suffragette' s Redemption 
 The Excelsior Dawsons 
 Coming Home 
 Our First Dinner 
 
 G. J. Hamlen 
 
 G. J. Hamlen 
 
 G. J. Hamlen 
 
 Harold Brighouse 
 
 Harold Brighouse 
 
 Richard H. Powell 
 
 Catherine Roxburgh 
 
 Robert Bankier 
 
 Neil Munro 
 
 Inglis Allen 
 
 R. K. Risk 
 
 Mary O'Neill 
 
 Florence Lloyd 
 
 235
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 The Last Man In 
 
 Jean 
 
 Oh! Christina! 
 
 W. B. Maxwell 
 
 Donald Colquhoun 
 
 J. J. Bell and L. Therval 
 
 Revived Modern Plays 
 
 How He Lied to Her Husband 
 
 The Man of Destiny 
 
 You Never Can Tell 
 
 Arms and the Man 
 
 Candida 
 
 Strife 
 
 Justice 
 
 Cupid and Commonsense 
 
 What the Public Wants 
 
 The Voysey Inheritance 
 
 Prunella 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 John Galsworthy 
 
 John Galsworthy 
 
 Arnold Bennett 
 
 Arnold Bennett 
 
 Granville Barker 
 
 Granville Barker, Laurence Housman and 
 
 Joseph Moorat 
 Cousin Kate H. H. Davies 
 
 Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace H, H. Davies 
 
 Admiral Guinea W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson 
 
 The Fountain 
 
 Lanval 
 
 The Palace of Truth 
 
 The Tragedy of Nan 
 
 The Cassilis Engagement 
 
 Lady Windermere' s Fan 
 
 The Falcon 
 
 Dandy Dick 
 
 Tilda' s New Hat 
 
 Augustus in Search of a Father 
 
 The American Widow 
 
 George Calderon 
 
 T. E. Ellis 
 
 Sir W. S. Gilbert 
 
 John Masefield 
 
 St. John Hankin 
 
 Oscar Wilde 
 
 Lord Tennyson 
 
 Sir Arthur Pinero 
 
 George Paston 
 
 Harold Chapin 
 
 Rosina Filippi 
 
 His Excellency the Governor Captain Robert Marshall 
 236
 
 APPENDIX TWO 
 
 The Drums of Oude Austin Strong 
 
 The Twelve-Pound Look J. M. Barrie 
 
 Translations 
 An Enemy of the People Ibsen 
 
 The Seagull 
 
 Anton Tchekov, Trans, by George Calderon 
 
 Classic 
 The Man of the World Charles Macklin 
 
 SPECIMEN WEEKS 
 
 THE COMEDIE-FRANgAISE 
 
 Eight Performances — Five Bills 
 1909. 
 July 18. Sunday {Mat. gratuite). Berenice (Racine, 
 
 five act tragedy in verse) and L'Etourdi (Moliere, 
 
 five act comedy in verse). 
 (Evening) La Parisienne (Becque, three act comedy) ; 
 
 La Veille du Bonheur (de Nion and de Buysieulx, 
 
 one act comedy) ; and Le Stradivarius (Maurey, 
 
 one act comedy). 
 July 19. Monday. La Rencontre (Berton). 
 July 20. Tuesday. Hamlet. 
 July 21. Wednesday. La Rencontre. 
 July 22. Thursday. Hamlet. 
 July 23. Friday. Le Demi-monde (Dumas fils). 
 July 24. Saturday. La Rencontre. 
 
 237
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Ten Performances — Nine Bills 
 1990. 
 October 31. Sunday (Ma/.). La Robe rouge (Brieux). 
 (Evening) La Fille de Roland (Bornier, four act 
 verse drama). 
 November i. Monday (Mat.). Gringoire (Banville, 
 one act comedy) and L'Honneur et I'argent 
 (Ponsard, five act comedy in verse). 
 (Evening) La Rencontre. 
 November 2. Tuesday. L' Amour veille (de Caillavet 
 
 and de Flers, four act comedy). 
 November 3. Le Baiser (Banville, one act comedy in 
 
 verse) and Connais-toi (Hervieu). 
 November 4. Thursday (Ma;!.). Chezl'avocat {¥e.xx\ex, 
 one act comedy in verse), Les Brebis de Panurge 
 (Meilhac and Halevy, one act comedy) and Le 
 Barbier de Seville (Beaumarchais, four act comedy). 
 (Evening) La Robe rouge. 
 November 5. Friday. Le Demi-monde. 
 November 6. Saturday. Vincenette (Barbier, one act 
 verse drama) and Connais-toi. 
 
 THE ABBEY THEATRE 
 
 Four Weeks' Repertory (Court Theatre, 
 
 June 1910). Thirty-two Performances 
 
 — Twenty Plays — Sixteen Bills 
 
 n ay 1 j^^^y^^^ qj ^^^ Sorrows and Hyacinth Halvey. 
 
 Wednesday {Mat.). Deirdre of the Sorrows and 
 Hyacinth Halvey. 
 
 23«
 
 APPENDIX TWO 
 
 r^v, A {The Image and The Workhouse Ward. 
 
 Friday \ Kathleen Ni Houlihan, The Playboy of 
 
 Saturday (Mat.n the Western World, dind The Work- 
 Saturday I house Ward. 
 
 Monday. The Eloquent Dempsy and The Glittering 
 
 Gate. 
 Tuesday. Harvest and The Workhouse Ward. 
 Wednesday {Mat.). The Playboy of the Western World 
 
 and The Glittering Gate. 
 Wednesday. Harvest and The Workhouse Ward. 
 Thursday. The Eloquent Dempsy and The Glittering 
 
 Gate. 
 Friday "i 
 
 Saturday {Mat.) ^ Thomas Muskerry and The Jackdaw. 
 Saturday j 
 
 Monday \Riders to the Sea and The Playboy of the 
 Tuesday] Western World. 
 
 Wednesday {Mat.). The Image and Hyacinth Halvey. 
 Wednesday. Riders to the Sea and The Playboy of the 
 
 Western World. 
 Thursday. Harvest and The Workhouse Ward. 
 Friday. Kathleen Ni Houlihan, In the Shadow of the 
 
 Glen, The King's Threshold, and The Rising of the 
 
 Moon. 
 Saturday {Mat.)\The Building Fund and The King's 
 Saturday J Threshold. 
 
 Monday. The Jackdaw, The Cross Roads, and The 
 
 Workhouse Ward. 
 Tuesday. The Rising of the Moon, In the Shadow of 
 
 the Glen, The Gaol Gate, and Spreading the News. 
 
 239
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 Wednesday {Mai.). Kalhlecn Ni Houlifian and The 
 
 Playboy of the Western World. 
 Wednesday. The Image and The Green Helmet. 
 Thursday. The Rising of the Moon, In the Shadow of 
 
 the Glen, The Gaol Gate, and Spreading the News. 
 Friday. The Image and The Green Helmet. 
 Saturday {Mat.). The Jackdaw, The Cross Roads, and 
 
 The Workhouse Ward. 
 Saturday, Kathleen Ni Houlihan and The Playboy of 
 
 the Western World. 
 
 THE GAIETY THEATRE 
 
 Three Weeks' Repertory (Coronet Theatre, 
 
 June 1909). Twenty-four Performances — 
 
 Eleven Plays 
 
 Monday. Widowers' Houses, by Bernard Shaw; and 
 
 The Dear Departed, by Stanley Houghton, 
 Tuesday. The Vale of Content (Das Gluck im Winkel), 
 
 by Sudermann ; and Makeshifts by G. L. Robins. 
 Wednesday. The Silver Box, by John Galsworthy; 
 
 and The Few and the Many, by H. M. Richardson. 
 Thursday. The Three Barrows, by Charles McEvoy. 
 Friday. The Feud, by Edward Garnett; and The 
 
 Doorway, by Harold Brighouse. 
 Saturday {Mat.). The Vale of Content. {Evening) 
 
 Widowers' Houses. 
 
 Monday. When the Devil was III, by Charles McEvoy. 
 Tuesday. Widowers' Houses, by Bernard Shaw. 
 Wednesday. The Silver Box, by John Galsworthy. 
 
 240
 
 APPENDIX TWO 
 
 Thursday. The Feud, by Edward Garnett. 
 Friday. The Vale of Content, by Sudermann, 
 Saturday [Mat.). When the Devil was III, by Charles 
 
 McEvoy. 
 Saturday. The Silver Box, by John Galsworthy. 
 
 Monday. David Ballard, by Charles McEvoy. 
 Tuesday. The Silver Box, by John Galsworthy. 
 Wednesday. The Vale of Content, by Sudermann. 
 Thursday. Widowers' Houses, by Bernard Shaw. 
 Friday. The Vale of Content, by Sudermann. 
 Saturday {Mat.). Widowers' Houses, by Bernard Shaw. 
 Saturday. Widowers' Houses, by Bernard Shaw. 
 
 THE SCOTTISH REPERTORY THEATRE 
 
 Calendar, May 24, 1910. 
 rp ■, [The Man of the World, by Charles Macklin. 
 
 Wednesday. Admiral Guinea, by W. E. Henley and 
 
 R. L. Stevenson. 
 Thursday. Cupid and Commonsense, by Arnold 
 
 Bennett. 
 Friday ) You Never Can Tell, by Bernard Shaw. 
 Saturday J W-'/^ose Zoo, by R. K. Risk (a local revue). 
 
 January 31, 19 10. 
 Monday "j 
 
 Tuesday j- What the Public Wants, by Arnold Bennett. 
 Wednesday j 
 Thursday "j 
 
 Friday My;«s and the Man, by Bernard Shaw. 
 Saturday J 
 
 Q 241
 
 THE REPERTORT THEATRE 
 
 THE NEW THEATRE, NEW YORK 
 
 Calendar, February 21 to March 5 
 Two Weeks — Twenty Performances — Ten Bills 
 
 Monday. The School for Scandal. 
 
 Tuesday {Special Mat.). The Witch. 
 
 Tuesday. II Maestro di Cappella and Alessandro 
 
 Stradella {Operas). 
 Wednesday {Mat.). La Fille de Madame Angot 
 
 {Opera). 
 Wednesday. Twelfth Night. 
 Thursday {Mat.). The Witch. 
 Thursday. The School for Scandal. 
 Friday. The Witch. 
 Saturday {Mat.). Twelfth Night. 
 Saturday. The Nigger. 
 
 Monday. A Son of the People {premiere). 
 
 Tuesday. A Son of the People. 
 
 Wednesday {Mat.). A Son of the People. 
 
 Wednesday. A Son of the People. 
 
 Thursday {Mat.). L'Attaqite du Moulin {Opera). 
 
 Thursday. The School for Scandal. 
 
 Friday {Professional Mat.). Don. 
 
 Friday, Madame Butterfly {Opera). 
 
 Saturday {Mat.). Twelfth Night. 
 
 Saturday. Twelfth Night. 
 
 Note.— The performances marked (Opera) in the above 
 list are given by the MetropoHtan Opera Company. 
 
 242
 
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