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The Magical Body on the Stage

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The Magical Body on the Stage 1 The Magical Body on the Stage: Henry Irving Reconsidered Michael Kendrick Punter Submitted for the degree of PhD Royal Holloway College, University of London Department of Drama and Theatre March 2014 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 6 Declaration 7 Abstract 8 Introduction 1 Outline 10 2 Methodology 15 3 Early Biographies of Irving and the Irving Narrative 19 4 Negative Responses to Irving’s Acting 23 5 Later Biographies and the Irving Narrative 24 6 Recent Irving Scholarship 26 7 Irving, Shaw and Modernity 30 8 An Overview of the Thesis 35 Chapters 1: Henry Irving and the Great Tragedians 1:1 Introduction 37 1:2 Irving’s Self-Fashioning 38 1:3 Irving’s Early Work 40 1:4 Irving and J.L. Toole 41 1:5 Influences on Irving’s Acting Style 43 1:5:1 John Phillip Kemble 45 1:5:2 Edmund Kean 48 1:5:3 William Charles Macready 53 1:5:4 Samuel Phelps 61 1:6 Conclusion 69 3 2: Henry Irving’s Early Career 2:1 Introduction 71 2:2 Irving’s Initial Casting 72 2:3 Irving’s Public Readings 76 2:4 Irving in Dublin 78 2:5 The Davenport brothers and Occult Performance 83 2:6 Irving’s Spiritualist Burlesque 90 2:7 Changes to Irving’s Casting from 1865 101 2:8 The Dream of Eugene Aram 106 2:9 Conclusion 107 3: The Bells: The Spectacular Body and the Magical Body 3:1 Introduction 108 3:2 The Melodramatic Body 108 3:2:1 The Magical Body 110 3:3 Background to The Bells 114 3:3:1 Texts of The Bells 115 3:3:2 Origins 116 3:4 Melodrama 117 3:5 Le Juif Polonais 122 3:5:1 Becoming The Bells 123 3:6 Critical Reception 125 3:7 Changes to The Bells 129 3:7:1 Lewis’s Modifications 131 3:7:2 From Mathis to Mathias 134 3:8 Irving’s Use of the Magical Body 142 3:8:1 Enacting the Magical Body 145 4 3:8:2 The Court Scene 150 3:9 Conclusion 153 4: The Melodramatic Hamlet 4:1 Introduction 157 4:2 Irving and Hamlet 157 4:3 Irving’s Roles in Hamlet 158 4:4 Hamlet and the Irving Narrative 159 4:5 Influences on Irving’s Hamlet 162 4:6 Irving’s Contemporaries as Hamlet 166 4:6:1 Samuel Phelps 166 4:6:2 Charles Kean 168 4:6:3 Charles Fechter 170 4:6:4 Tom Taylor’s Production of Hamlet 176 4:7 Irving as Hamlet in 1864 181 4:8 Irving as Hamlet in 1874 187 4:9 Towards a Hysterical Hamlet 191 5: The Hysterical Hamlet 5:1 Introduction 194 5:2 Irving’s Leadership of the Lyceum 196 5:3 Ellen Terry as Ophelia 198 5:4 Transformation of the Lyceum 199 5:4:1 Auditorium 199 5:4:2 Lighting 200 5:4:3 Music and Sound Production 203 5:5 Irving’s Text of Hamlet 205 5:6 Responses to the 1878 Hamlet 209 5:7 Irving and Hysteria 211 5 5:7:1 William Winter’s Approach to Irving 215 5:8 Conclusion: Henry Irving Reconsidered 222 6: After Hamlet: Irving Miscast? 6:1 After Hamlet 228 6:2 Faust 228 6:2:1 Mephistopheles or Faust? 231 6:2:2 An Occult Body 233 6:3 The Magical Body Untransformed 234 6:4 King Arthur 237 6:5 Abandoning the Magical Body 239 6:6 Henry Irving and Henrik Ibsen 240 6:6:1 Ibsen in England 241 6:7 The Medicine Man 246 6:8 Conclusion 250 Conclusion 253 Appendix: Henry Irving and Henrik Ibsen: A Speculation 272 1 Irving’s Brand? 272 2 The Bells and A Doll’s House: Two Late-Melodramas? 279 3 The Bells Neglected 288 Illustrations 291 Bibliography 299 6 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Gilli Bush-Bailey for her support, patience and insight throughout this project. I am also most grateful to Professor Dan Rebellato and Dr Sophie Nield for reading parts of this project in various drafts and pointing out new areas for my research. Additional thanks are due to Ben Hart for his advice on the Davenport séance and its relationship to Victorian magic; Kerry Bradley for bringing Irving’s world to life; Colin Blumenau and the cast and crew of Stagefright at the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds; Peter Johnson at the Society for Psychical Research for his assistance in locating the works of Eleanor Sidgwick; Marcus Risdell at the Garrick Club Library and Collections for enduring all my questions; Michael Kilgariff at the Irving Society, Lisa, Will and Manny Punter for putting up with my absences, physical and psychical, over five years. This thesis is dedicated with love to my parents, Roy and Valerie Punter, for their constant support of all my projects both creative and academic. 7 Declaration of Authorship I, Michael Punter, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is clearly stated. Michael Punter 1st March 2014 8 Abstract This thesis proposes that Henry Irving, the Victorian actor and manager, has been undervalued as a performer, and that his position in the history of nineteenth century theatre is in need of revision. The argument is developed by a re-appraisal of two contesting narratives that have, in their different ways, both obscured the nature of Irving’s work. Irving deployed a diverse range of techniques to present the Victorian body under stress from powerful and unseen forces. His work, although not obviously contributing to theatrical modernism, was both original and innovative in a number of important ways. Modernism’s rejection of Victorian melodrama located Irving firmly at the centre of George Bernard Shaw’s eviscerating criticism. This critical narrative was quickly countered with a number of pro-Irving biographies, mostly written after the actor’s death by colleagues and members of his family. Yet these have worked effectively to reinforce another narrative of Victorian theatre; the move to respectability and the gentrification of the actor/manager, of whom Irving is the exemplar. Both narratives ignore important aspects of Irving’s professional development and aesthetic approach, but the latter, identified here as the ‘Irving Narrative’, overwrites the actor’s biography and reshapes it to fit the well-worn trope of ‘rags to riches’. The thesis begins by defining the nature of the Irving Narrative and identifying the key texts that constitute it, then moves on to position Irving within the body of English 9 nineteenth century actors, considering those who influenced his development via anecdote or personal observation. Irving’s early career is then charted, focusing on three key incidents that the writers of the Irving Narrative have either simplified or chosen to ignore. Irving’s encounter with the work of the spiritualist performers the Davenport brothers is of particular importance. This meeting exercised a profound influence on his subsequent approach to both performance and production. The techniques of occult performance continued to be employed by Irving throughout his career, beginning with his performance of Mathias in The Bells in 1871. Occult performance emphasised the power and importance of the transformative body, making it appear magical. The thesis continues by examining Irving as a performer of the body in crisis. It argues that the actor’s selection of conflicted characters allowed him to demonstrate the effects of psychological extremity upon the body, resulting in a spectacular performance of male suffering and, eventually, hysteria. Irving applied this approach to Shakespeare, winning new audiences to his production of Hamlet by decoupling the play from certain well-established traditions. Finally, I consider the decline of Irving’s use of the magical body, and his increasing dependence on the creation of an overwhelming spectacle in plays such as Faust and King Arthur. The final reflections consider the indirect influence of Irving upon contemporary theatre. 10 Introduction Henry Irving’s Reputation 1 Outline This thesis is about the career of the Victorian actor Henry Irving and his representation in the theatre history of the late-nineteenth century. Irving was the most successful British actor of the age, performing in some of the most commercially and artistically successful productions of the period. Yet he divided audiences and critics. Many believed that Irving’s productions were the highest example of theatrical art they had seen. Others, on the other hand, took a diametrically-opposed view. To this latter group, Irving was artificial, unconvincing and old-fashioned. After Irving’s death in 1905, a glut of biographies lionised the actor, and yet the position of the anti- Irving group has generally held sway. This is largely due to the prominence of George Bernard Shaw amongst Irving’s critics and the influence of realistic forms of drama during the twentieth century. Henry Irving was associated with a reactionary and anti- progressive movement, and presented by Shaw as a relic of the previous century. In this thesis, I consider how Irving’s history has been over-written by contending narratives. These narratives have ignored important aspects of the actor’s work and over- simplified his career. Henry Irving was a complex and nuanced figure. He represents a considerable challenge to the modern theatre historian. Irving’s success was centred upon an extraordinary level of stage presence achieved via the ‘spectacular body’, a mode of 11 physical presentation associated with certain aspects of melodramatic performance. Yet Irving developed this into something unique; a way of representing the male figure in states of psychological extremity and even hysteria.
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