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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 76-3458 HUSTON, Hollis Wilburn, 1947- MACREADY AND THE ORIGINS OF THEATRICAL DIRECTION. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1975 Theater

I Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

© Copyright by Hollis Wilburn Huston 1975

...... m THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. MACREADY AND THE ORIGINS

OF THEATRICAL DIRECTION

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Hollis Wilburn Huston, B. A,, M* A.

*****

The Ohio State University

1975

Reading Committee: Approved By

Alan L« Woods, Chairman A. Richard Nichols Charles A. Ritter

Advisor Department of Theatre VITA.

April 10, 1947 • • • • • Born - Durham, North Carolina

1968 • ••••••... B. A., Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

1968-1969. House Manager and Publicity Director, Tufts Arena Theatre, Medford, Massachusetts

1969-197 0...... Teaching Assistant and Actor, Department of Drama, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts

1970 •••••••••• M.A., Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts

1970-1971. ••••••• Instructor of Drama and Speech, Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, Mississippi

1971-1975. ••••••. Teaching Associate, Department of Theatre, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

PUBLICATIONS

"Macready's Richelieu Promptbooks: a Step toward the Box Setting," Theatre Studiesa No. 21.

"The Possibilities of Mime," Theatre News, 7, No. 4, p. 9.

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page VITA ...... it

LIST OF FIGURES* ...... iv

Chapter

I. THE QUESTION ...... 1

William Charles Macready • • • ...... 8 Publications on Macready • •••.«••• 18 Methodology. ••••*•••••••.»• 24

II. MACREADY'S TECHNICAL MANAGEMENT...... 34

Scenery. •••• •••••• 68 Practicable Levels •*•»••••• 69 Non-Parallel Scenery •••••••• 96 Enclosed Settings...... 114 Summary. .. ••••••• 149 Lighting ...... 156 Sound, ...... 164

III. MACREADY AND HIS SUPERNUMERARIES...... 168

Static Elements— Picturization 170 Crowd Movements and Business ...... 265

IV. CHARACTER BUSINESS ...... 298

V. SUMMARY...... 328

Macready and the Star System ••••... 328 Macready's Rehearsal Schedule. ..•••• 338 Conclusions. 342

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 351

ill LIST OF FIGURES

Page 1. Coriolanus, Scharf, triumphal entry. . . . 40

2. Coriolanus, Scharf, Roman Senate • • • • • 43

3. Coriolanus, Scharf, dead march •••••• 46

4- King Lear, Scharf, abdication scene. . . . 49

5* King John, Hall of State, Telbin design, • 53 P. 182.

6. Richelieu, Scharf, Louvre presence .... 57 chamber.

7. Othello, Scharf, Council scene ...... 74

8. Othello, Council scene, P. 1611. • • • • • 76

9. Virginius, Scharf, Forum ...... 79

10. Henry V, Scharf, Siege of Harfleur • • • • 87

11. The Merchant of Venice. Trial scene, P. • 90 1605.

12. To Marry or Not to Marry, Forest, P. . • • 100 1149.

13. William Tell, Scharf, Tell's Cottage . . . 103

14. King John, Siege of Angiers, P. 29 . . . • 111

15. Werner, Scharf, Decaying Palace... 117

16. Werner, Decaying Palace, P. 1613 • • • • • 120

17. Macbeth, Sleepwalking scene, P. 1157 . . . 123

iv 18. Cvmbeline, Imogen*s bedroom, F. 544* ...... 126

19. The Bridal, frontispiece, P. 1147* • 128

20. Richelieu, Richelieu's office, P. 1134,. • • • • 130 Book #3•

21. Richelieu, Scharf, Richelieu's office* • . • • • 132

22. Richelieu, Palace at Ruelle, P. 1134, Book #2. • 136

23. Richelieu, Scharf, Palace at Ruelle. •••••• 138

24. The King of the Commons, discovery scene, P. • • 143 1150.

25. Macbeth, Scharf, alarm after the murder...... 145

26. Richelieu, asymmetrical enclosure, P. 1134,. • • 148 Book #1.

27. The Spitfire, frontispiece, F. 601 ••••••• 153

28* Chaos Is Come Again, frontispiece, F. 791. .... 155

29 • Macbeth, meeting with Duncan, P. 1165. • • • • • 175

30* Macbeth, alarm after the murder, P. 1165 • • • • 178

31. Macbeth, invitation to the banquet, P. 1165. • . 180

32. Macbeth, gathering at Birnam Forest, P. 1165 • • 182

33. Macbeth, final tableau, P. 1165. •••••••• 185

34. Henry V (first production), presenting the . . . 188 Pedigree, P. 1601

35. Henry V (first production), French camp, P. • • 190 1601.

36. Henry V (first production), English camp, P. • . 192 1601.

27 • Henry V (first production), the King intervenes, 195 P. 1601.

v 38* Henry V (first production), Alliance, • • • 197 P. 1601.

39. As You Like It, final tableau, P. 1595# . • 201

40. King John, confrontation with nobles, P. . 203 29•

41# Henry VIII, court scene, P. 1602. • • • • • 206

42. Hamlet, the Players, P. 1610, •••«•«• 209

43. Hamlet, duel scene, P. 1 1 5 3 ...... 212

44. Ion, the Great Square, Harvard *65T-25. • • 214

45. Ion, altar scene, Harvard *65T-25 ...... 217

46. Ion-i altar scene (later), Harvard • • • • • 219 *65T-25,

47. Henry V (first production), State Chamber,. 221 P. 1601.

48* Henry V (first production), Siege of. . . . 223 Harfleur, P. 1601.

49. Henry V (first production), English Camp, • 226 P. 1601.

The Winter1s Tale, accusation of • • • . • 233 Hermione, P. 1609.

51. The Winter1s Tale, Paulina's entrance . . . 235 P. 1609.

52. The Winter's Tale, Shepherd's Cottage,. • • 238 P. 1609.

53. The Winter1s Tale, Polixenes's entrance,. • 240 P. 1609.

54. The Winter's Tale, continuation, P. 1609. • 242

55. The Winter's Tale, clustered groupings, • . 245 P. 1609.

vi Julius Caesar, Assassination scene, P. 1604. • • 247

57* Coriolanus, Volscian camp, P. 1598 • •••.•• 250

58* King John, State Chamber, P.29.^.»...... 253

59. King John, instructions to Hubert, P. 29 • • • • 256

60* Hamlet, meeting the Ghost, P. 1153 ..••••• 258

61* Henry V (second production), the • ••.•••• 261 conspirators, P. 1600.

62. Henry V (second production), the traitors. . . . 264 isolated, P. 1600.

Except for the Ion promptbook, all catalogue numbers are from the John H. McDowell Archives of the Ohio State University Theatre Research Institute. For further information on the sources of these illustrations, see the footnotes in the text.

vii 1

CHAPTER I

THE QUESTION

director (di rector, di-). . . . 3. the person responsible for the interpretive aspects of a stage, film, television, or radio production; the person who super­ vises the integration of all the elements, as acting, staging, lighting, etc., required to realize a playwright's conception.

The art form called theatre is known to be at least two and a half millenia old, and in that scale of time, the director is a rank newcomer.

Researchers have traced the origins of modern direc­ ting as far back as the middle third of the nineteenth century. Great directors have been associated with the most diverse theatrical styles; the emergence of the powerful director, however, seems inextricably bound up with the emergence of modern realism^ from neo-classic formalism. Before Meierhold, there was Stanislavski; before Copeau, there was Antoine; before Piscator, there was Brahm. The great Realist directors of the turn of

^The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, the Unabridqed Edition (New York: Random H5uSerX^6577 P. 4071 ------the century stood at the end of a long line. They had all seen performances of the Meininger troupe,

in the 1870's and 80*s. They admitted being influ- : enced by their unified, three-dimensional use of

space, by their detailed crowd scenes, and by their ensemble acting style. The Meiningers have often been called the first company to show the work of

a director; but the meaning of such a statement is questionable, in view of research into the work of earlier managers and acting companies. Marvin Carlson has found, for instance, in the work of Montigny, Laube, and Tom Robertson,

a unified approach to realistic detail predating the Meiningers and the theory of Realism.

By the 18 70's, therefore, when such re­ formers as Zola were beginning to campaign for Realism in the theatre, the theatre had in fact already experienced its first wave of Realist experimentation. . . . Clearly the reformers at the end of the century exaggerated their originality.

Carlson does not claim to have found the prototypical directors, but rather warns us against the temptation to find a Great Innovator.

2 Marvin Carlson, "Montigny, Laube, Robertson: the Early Realists," ETJ 24 (19 72), pp. 234-35. 3 In qualifying this simplistic view, we must avoid merely shifting the view back a generation, and arguing (as Clement Scott argued for Robertson) that the real innovators in such matters were Montigny, Laube, and Robertson. In fact they, like Antoine, Brahm, and Shaw, are surely best understood not as founders of a new tradi­ tion but as significant synthesizers of trends which can be fougd in the theatre throughout the century.

Carlson is advising us that the development of direc­

ting and of stage Realism is evolutionary rather than innovational. We must not expect to find a

single figure who invents the art of directing out

of whole cloth.

The roots of directing practice in England

have been traced much earlier than Robertson. M.

Glen Wilson has written of the Charles Kean management

at the Princess's Theatre (1850-59), that it "estab­

lished the concept of special, integrated ensemble

performance for which the Meininger company became 4 famous.” Shirley Allen claims that Samuel Phelps "applied to his Shakespearian productions the methods

of directing which have become standard in the twen-..

tieth century" in his management at Sadlers* Wells

3Ibid., p. 235. 4 "Charles Kean at the Princess's Theatre: a Financial Report," ETJ 23 (19 71), p. 51. 5 (1844-1862). Much study has also been given to the managements of Madame Vestris at the Olympic

Theatre and at Covent Garden. Rosamund Gilder claims that, by taking the reins of the Olympic in 1831, g Vestris became "the first modern directress." Gilder argues that Vestris first brought detailed settings and a director's sense of style to the domestic farce. It is often argued, on the other hand, that the serious drama first received such treatment at the hands of William Charles Macready. The scholars who have studied Macready's managements at Covent Garden (1837-39) and at Drury Lane (1841-

43) find evidence in the Macready productions of many elements that marked the Kean and the Meininger productions: unified antiquarian decor, carefully rehearsed crowd scenes, realistic acting styles.

The scholarship on Macready will be enumerated speci­ fically later in this chapter. It is sufficient here to point out that Abraham Bassett has gone

5 Shirley Allen, Samuel Phelps and Sadlers1 Wells Theatre (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 19 71), p. 81. g Rosamund Gilder, Enter the Actress: the First Women in the Theatre (New York: 1931), p. 258. See also Clifford J. Williams, Madame Vestris: jk Theatrical Biography (London: Sigwick and Jackson, 19 73) and William W. Appleton, Madame Vestris and the London Stage. (New York: Columbia University Press, 19 74). Of the two recent works, Appleton's is more intensive in production. so far as to say that Macready "was the first of 7 modern directors." One can accept the evolutionary theory implied by such scholarship, and still suspect a fallacy in the statement that Macready was a director. The extreme terms of an evolution need not bear direct comparison. If A resembles B, and B resembles

C, and C resembles D, it does not follow that D resembles A. Macready influenced Kean, Kean influ­ enced the Meiningers, the Meiningers influenced Stanislavski; Stanislavski is unquestionably a direc­

tor; but from those premises, it does not follow that Macready's form of management was direction, in any sense that is meaningful today.

When a scholar describes an early nineteenth- century manager as a director, it is fair to ask if he is not committing Fischer's Fallacy of the Q False Dichotomous Question. One may wonder what alternative descriptions the historian had in mind. Is he fully aware of the huge middle ground between

7 Abraham J. Bassett, "The Actor-Manager Career of William Charles Macready," Diss. Ohio State Univ. 1962, p. 419. O David Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies (New York: Harper & Row, 19 70*7^ pp. 8-12. The victim of that fallacy assumes that two possibilities are mutually exclusive and complete, when they are not so. He asks himself: "Is A true? Or, on the other hand, is B true?" Both, or neither, may be true. a director like Stanislavski, on the one hand, and a hack manager like Alfred Bunn, on the other?

Should one not assume that a Vestris, a Macready, a Kemble, is a transitional figure, until there is good evidence to make us think otherwise? Should one not expect the work of such figures to combine modern and neo-classic practices in ways we would now think contradictory? This dissertation will study a wide variety of Macready promptbooks, with the aim of discovering to what extent the tragedian*s practice of management in the early Victorian era corresponds to that of a present-day director. The function of the director will be treated in detail later, but it will be assumed throughout that a director is a person who regulates all aspects of theatrical production, so as to realize a unified, specific, and personal interpretation of the work performed. A director may or may not see himself as following the author's intentions, actors and designers may or may not contribute significantly to the interpretation of the work; but that interpretation is nevertheless personal to the director, in that it would be materi­ ally different if he were not the director.

Lavishness of production will not be taken necessarily as evidence of directorship. For that some of the most famous Macready productions will not be.extensively discussed here. The Shakespearean

revivals, and the Christinas pantomimes, were sometimes

quite spectacular. In each such case, the question

to be answered is: to what extent does a new group

of settings, a moving diorama, a flying apparatus,

or other such luxury, support a specific and unified interpretation of the play? It will be necessary

to draw a distinction between two kinds of activity, both of which would fall within Macready's sphere

as manager: as champion of the stage's besmirched

dignity, he was obliged to spend time and money

enforcing the highest standards of technical and

histrionic performance; as a director, however, we would expect him to unify and control in a certain way the splendid- resources with which he provided himself. A manager might easily act in the ,first capacity, without necessarily acting in the second. Some attention will be given to selected aspects of technical production. There will also be an

attempt to reconstruct some of the use Macready made of actors in various kinds of ensemble effects. Most contemporary directors think of the work that goes on actually within the playing space, governing

and organizing actors in relation to each other

and to the total work, as their primary task. A thorough investigation of Macready's productions for evidence of directorship, therefore, must search

in detail for such activities.

William Charles Macready It is useful here to point out certain salient facts and formative events in Macready's life.

No attempt at completeness will be made here, in describing his personality or in characterizing 9 his personal life. The eminent tragedian was born on March 3,

1793, to William McCready, a provincial theatre manager, and his wife Christina Ann Birch McCready.

Ten years later, when old enough to go to a boarding school, he was sent to Rugby with the intention that he should be prepared for a learned profession, probably law. Even as a child, Macready despised the profession of the theatre. His father had imbued him with a longing for the respectability and social standing which could only come from a more staid occupation. When he showed a talent for recitation

9 Those who are interested in completeness should consult the definitive biography by Alan S. Downer, The Eminent Tragedian William Charles Macready (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966). The following account makes extensive use of Macready's Reminiscences and Selections from His Diaries and Letters. ed. Sir Frederick Pollock (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1875). in school theatricals. Dr. Inglis, his headmaster

called me to him, and desiring me to "keep my hat," continued to walk with me by his side. He inquired of me what my father designed for me. I told him that X was intended for the law. He continued: "Have you not thought of your father's profession?" "No, sir." "Should you not like it?" "No, sir, I should wish to go to the bar." "Are you quite certain you should not wish to go on the stage?" "Quite certain, sir; I very much dislike it, and the thought of it."

In 1808, however, his aspirations took a sudden

and permanent reversal. Arriving home in Manchester for his Winter vacation, the young man found his father virtually bankrupt, lacking funds to pay either his son's' school fees or the theatre's debts.

Macready took a clear view of his responsibilities.

I found [my father] in his private room in the theater, and . . . stated my wish, as my bills at Rugby could not be paid, to take up the stage as a profession. He made a slight demur to the proposal, intimating that Mr. Birch would arrange for the non-payment of the bills— that it had been the wish of his life to see me at the Bar, but that if it was my real wish to go upon the stage, it would be useless for him to oppose it. I gave .

^Pollock, p. 11 10

him to understand that my^ijtind was made up, and the die was cast.

Macready is one of the few great actors who ever took to the stage out of financial necessity. In his forty-three year career, he achieved perhaps more security for himself and his family than he could have as a barrister. He moved in a circle of the most illustrious artists, authors, and intel­ lectuals of his age. Yet he always felt vulnerable to the scorn of persons he considered socially above him, ethically beneath him. If we are to believe his diaries, he had no love for the profession of acting. A psychological biographer might interpret his adult life as an attempt to regain the assured status which a "gentleman's profession" might have afforded him. The lack of such status multiplied and intensified his depressions. His quarrel and physical combat with Alfred Bunn, for instance, won him more sympathy than animosity, but Macready could only see it as an indelible black mark on his character.

I have forgotten the dues of a gentleman, it cannot be cloaked or denied. It is very true that I am not sought for by

11Ibid., p. 19 11 persons of rank, as they are termed, by persons of distinction, but heretofore I could repel this indifference with indif­ ference. I feel my title to rank with any man as a gentleman unquestionable: how can I now answer th^objsctions that may be made against me?

Macready's feeling that he was held in contempt by his inferiors helps to explain his priggishness, his radical democratic politics, and his fanatical devotion to the dignity of the stage.

For three years after leaving Rugby, Macready prepared himself to become an actor, managing his father's companies, and observing the established artists of his time as they passed through the thea-. . tres on their tours. In Birmingham on June 7, 1810, the role of Romeo was played by "a YOUNG GENTLEMAN, being his first appearance on any stage." After several repetitions of that role, the youth played

Lothair in Adelgitha, and this time his name was announced: Mr. William Macready. 13

In his next six years as a provincial actor of growing reputation, his rising stature brought Macready into fi'equent clashes with his father, and he soon left to become a touring actor in his

12Ibid., p. 3 71.

13Ibid., pp. 30-31. 12 own right. In his period of apprenticeship, he showed the spirit of prudence that would characterize his mature financial and professional activities, declining offers of a London engagement until he felt ready for the intensely competitive atmosphere of London theatrical life.

By 1816, however, he felt the plunge must be taken. On September 16, he made his Covent Garden debut as Orestes in The Distressed Mother. The reception was encouraging. Hazlitt wrote that "he succeeded in making a decidedly favourable impression on the audience." 14 The critics felt that his great­ est asset was his voice.

This gentleman brings to the utterance of loud and fierce emotion, a large quantity of vocal . • . force; and for occasions which call for a different mode of delivery, he knows how to substitute a speaking eye, or a deep and broken murmur.

Hazlitt agreed, but he and other reviewers made a complaint that Macready would hear for many years to come: Macready, it was said, was too ugly to

14 Hazlitt on Theatre, ed. William Archer and Robert Lowe (1895; rpt. New York: Hill and Wang, 1957), p. 98. 1SThe Times (London), Sept. 17, 1816, p. 3. 13 be a tragic actor.

His voice is powerful in the highest degree, and at the same time possesses great harmony and modulation. His face, is not equally calculated for the stage.

The News concluded that

Mr. Macready is the plainest and most awkwardly made man that ever trod the stage, but he is an actor whom in some respects we prefer to Mr. Kean.

On June 24, 1824, he married Catherine Atkins, a young actress whom he had met during his provincial tours. His domestic life with Catherine soon became the calm center of his harried existence. Macready « was not fortunate with his family, and outlived seven of his ten children; but it was the hope of providing for them a secure and respectable indepen­ dence that kept him moving through the intense compe-

* tition of London theatrical life, through the lonely routine of the touring star, and through the perils of managership.

Macready cultivated a stable of the most highly regarded dramatic authors of his day, who wrote

16Archer and Lowe, p. 98. 17 Quoted by Downer, p. 47. 14

major roles specifically for him. It was in such contemporary dramas as Knowlesrs Virginius. Byron's

Werner, and Bulwer-Lytton's The Lady of Lyons. that

Macready scored his most unqualified successes.

He exercised a strong hand in shaping those scripts

for the stage; he often rewrote passages himself. The Macready acting scripts are evaluated differently

by different persons. George Vandenhoff, from the

standpoint of a rival actor, was appalled at Macready's cutting of The School for Scandal.

The truth is, Mr. Macready valued an author as far as the author served him; and he respected the„text, as far as it answered his purpose.

A contemporary critic, however, viewing the work

from quite another perspective, sees it differently.

For Marvin Spevack, Macready's editing is not merely

a way of creating star vehicles, but also a means by which the actor shaped an entire dramatic genre

which presented life as we see it about us, with its emotional virility and sincerity, in a natural manner suited to the capacities of all men. . . . A hit for more than twenty years,

18George Vandenhoff, An Actor's Notebook, or The Green-Room and Stage (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1860), p. 231. 15 Macready's Werner is the crystallization of the intelligent, imaginative, and dedi­ cated powers of a man of the theater.

Though in many cases he dominated the script, Macready premiered many of the nineteenth century's most res­ pected plays.

Twice in his career, Macready took up the manage­ ment of a London patent theatre. At Covent Garden

(183 7-39), and at Drury Lane (1841-43), he attempted to make those vast houses profitable again, while restoring them to their mandated duty of maintaining the classic English drama. It was no mean task that he set himself, and many men with lower standards had failed at the Theatres Royal. Even so indiscrimi­ nate a circus-master as Alfred Bunn (who had asked Macready to play a mutilated version of the first three acts of Richard III. as an afterpiece) had been forced to relinquish his dual management of

Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Theatrical evolution was moving away from the patent theatres. They had both been rebuilt so large after fires, that spectators could see and hear only the grossest histrionic devices; thus the patent houses were increasingly unfitted for

19 George Gordon Byron, Werner: _a Tragedy, ed. Marvin Spevack (Munich: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1970), pp. xxi, xxxiv. 16 the developing realism of nineteenth-century acting.

At the same time, a burgeoning proletarian audience, which would later foster the Music Hall, demanded entertainment. The costs of maintaining separate companies for operas, ballets, farces, and the classic drama were staggering— yet all these personnel were essential if the patent theatres were to maintain 20 serious drama and still draw a mass audience. After Macready's Drury Lane management, and after the repeal of the theatrical monopoly in 1843, the evolution of the English drama toward realism tended to take place in theatres that had once been consid­ ered minor playhouses: Sadler's V7ells under Phelps, the Princess's Theatre under Kean, and the Prince of Wales, under the Bancrofts and Tom Robertson, for instance. 21 On the whole, Macready's four seasons of manage-’ ment were not particularly profitable, and he could

20 For a concise discussion of the difficulties of the patent theatres in the period, see Allardyce Nicoll, A I-Iistory of Early nineteenth Century Drama. 1800-1850. 2 vols.~Tcambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), X, 22-47. 21See Allen, Samuel Phelps and Sadler's Wells Theatre; M. Glen Wilson, "Charles Kean: a Study in Nineteenth Century Production of Shakespearean Tragedy," Diss. Ohio State Univ. 1957, and "Charles Kean's Production of Richard II." ETJ 19 (1967), pp. 41-51; Squire and Marie Bancroft, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft On and Off the Stage (London: 1888). 17 have made more money during those years as a touring actor. There is a widespread belief among nineteenth- century commentators that the managerships were disastrous; Bassett, on the other hand, points out that one of his seasons actually turned a profit, and finds evidence that Macready did not lose much of his own money in the difficulties of the patent theatres.^ In the late years of his career, Macready'was caught in an international artistic feud. The

American actor Edwin Forrest took it into his head that Macready and his friends were conspiring to prevent his entry into the European theatrical scene.

The feud had little impact on Macready*s career until May 10, 1849, when his last American tour was cut short by the infamous Astor Place Riot. A mob of Forrest's proletarian supporters were de­ termined to prevent the Englishman from playing at the pretentious Astor Place Opera House; the intellectual and political authorities of the city were determined that he should do so. The military were called out to quell the riot, and fired bn

^Bassett, pp. 409, 152-55. It should also be noted that Macready's managements gave him a cultural and moral stature that he could not have attained merely by acting, and may have contributed to the success of his subsequent tours and London engagements. 18

the mob, killing at least thirty-one persons, most

of whom were innocent bystanders. 23 ■ Macready was hustled safely out of the city, but his tour was

finished, and so was his plan to retire in America.

On February 26, 1051, Macready retired at the

height of his powers to domestic life, performing

Macbeth for his farewell benefit. His retirement was long but not happy. He saw the deaths of his

wife and seven of his children, and illness clouded his last years. He died April 2 7, 1873.

Publications on Macready

Macready*s life has not lacked documentation.

His journals have been a primary source on the early nineteenth-century theatre since Sir Frederick Pollock edited and published the Reminiscences and selections

from the Diaries. Because Pollock deleted many

incidents which he thought embarassing, and because— maddeningly for the historian— he has ommitted names

in all uncomplementary references, the modern reader will be more interested in Toynbee*s edition of 24 the diaries, published in 1912.

23Figures are from Richard Moody, The Astor Place Riot (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958), p. 12. 24 The Diaries of William Charles Macready. 1833-1851. 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1912). 19

Many nineteenth-century actors and managers mention Macready in their memoirs. He seems to have been difficult to work with. Fanny Kemble reports that he prowled the stage unpredictably,

in a way that was unsettling to his fellow actors, and that his manner was so violent that he once promised not break her little finger in performance

if he could remember. 25 The diaries attest to his temper; the assault on Bunn was his most famous fit, but all his life he struggled against a tendency to anger. George Vandenhoff, J. R. Anderson, and

John Coleman helped to establish Macready's reputation for egoism and professional jealousy, though they also expressed respect for his high standards of professionalism, and for his achievement as an actor- pg manager. Vandenhoff summed up as well as anyone the mixed impressions to which Macready gave rise.

The two points that struck me most . . . were his intense devotion to the work . of his profession, and his equally intense egoism; which imperiously subjected as

25Frances Anne Kemble, Records of Later Life (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1882T7 PP* 642, 646. J g Vandenhoff, An Actor*s Notebook; James Robertson Anderson, An Actor1s Life (London: Walter Scott Publishing Company, 1902); John Coleman, Players and PIaywrights jC Have Known (London: Chatto and Windus, 1889 ) . 20 far as he was able, every thing and every body, to the sole purpose of making himself the one mark for all eyes to look at. . . . Yet every one who recollects Macready's managerial campaigns at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, will admit that he brought his forces into the field in the highest state^af equipment, and general effici- . . ency.

While few theatrical people thought of Macready as their friend, nearly all respected his integrity and ability. During his managements, he was always able to assemble a company of illustrious actors at reduced salaries.^® Macready made some enemies. Among them would be numbered Edwin Forrest, and Alfred Bunn, the manager with whom he came to blows in 1837. In his own apologia. Bunn heaped scorn on the actor's powers.

"The Shakespearian actor" was totally unequal to the task of attracting an audi­ ence that would meet (or anything near2g it) the expenses of the establishment.

Helena Faucit remembered Macready as her first

^7Vandenhoff, pp. 221-233. ^®Pollock, p. 405. 29 Alfred Bunn, The Stage (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1840), p. 220. 21

producer, a father figure by turns solicitous and

demanding. When shejwas a few minutes late for i a rehearsal, he would sometimes let her off with I the mildest of rebukes;l 9 when illness forced her i I to leave the stage fbr a time, he sent her verses.

I recall with gratitude the comfort and instruction for which I was indebted to my friend Brabantio— my "cruel father," as I used to call him. He was the kindest and gentlest of men.

The patriarch's kindness, however, must have depended

i to some extent on the submissiveness of an inexperi-.f. i enced young actress,|for even Faucit concedes that

| "he would never, if he could help it, allow any

one to stand upon the same level with himself."

The first Macready biographers, William Archer

and W. T. Price, published their works in the last I decade of the nineteenth century. More recently.

we have J. C. Trewin s Mr. Macready: a Nineteenth-

Century Tragedian am 3 His Theatre:, but the most

recent biography, an< 1 the definitive one, is Alan Downer's The Eminent Tragedian William Charles ^

"^Helena Faucit On Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters. 5th ed. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1393), p. j>0.

31I b i d . , p . 234 22 Macready. 32 Downer gives extensive treatment to Macready's acting style, but he also devotes an entire chapter to his management practice. He finds in Macready*s patent theatre productions an archaeo­ logical authenticity, an attention to ensemble, and a realistic acting style which anticipate the

great directors of the early twentieth century. By way of illustration, Downer provides a detailed reconstruction of a typical performance of Macready's

Macbeth. Charles Shattuck has studied the scattered

Macready promptbooks, and has done more reconstruc­

tions of the productions than any other scholar.

He has published studies of King John. As You Like It, and Milton's Comus. 33 Particularly valuable has been his discovery that many of the best Macready promptbooks were in the possession of Charles Kean, having been copied by George Ellis, when he served as assistant to Wilmott, Macready's prompter.*

32 William Archer, William Charles Macready (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1890); William Thompson Price, A Life of William Charles Macready (New York: Brentano's, 1894); J. C. Trewin, Mr. Macready: a Nineteenth-Century Trage­ dian and His Theatre (London: George C. Harrap & Co., Ltd., 1955)• 33 William Charles Macready's King John (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962); Mr. Macready Produces As You Like It (Urbana: University of . Illinois Press, 1962); "Macready's 'Comus:' a Prompt Book Study," JEGP 40 (1961), pp. 731-748. 2 3 Shattuck's reconstructions, in fact, are developed chiefly from Kean's promptbooks. 34 The most comprehensive study of the patent theatres under Macready's management is Abraham J. Bassett's "The Actor-Manager Career of William Charles Macready," a massive, indispensible collec- 35 tion of information. ' ‘It includes the composition of the acting companies, production calendars, com­ plete cast lists for most productions, a chart of the frequency of each play in the repertory, summaries of press reaction, and considerable material on the profit and loss of each season and of many indiv­ idual productions.

In Bulwer and Macready. Shattuck has published the letters between the eminent tragedian and one of his favored dramatic authors, reconstructing 36 their long personal and professional relationship. Macready incorporated letters which he thought impor­ tant in his Reminiscences. and Pollock added other correspondence, from the late years of the actor’s life. Macready's biographers have also delved into the Macready correspondence, and published parts

34 "The Macready Prompt Books at Folger," Theatre Notebook 16 (1961), No. 3, pp. 7-10. 35 Op. cit. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958). of some letters, but there is no standard collection

of the correspondence.

Methodology In order to discover what part directorship, in a contemporary sense, played in Macready*s manage­ ment, it will be necessary to investigate not only

Shakespearian productions, but serious non-Shakes- pearian productions as well, and, to the extent possible, after-pieces. A well-rounded study must

also take stock of unsuccessful productions, and

not merely pick out the high points of a career, generalizing into a pattern what may have been only

an occasional achievement. It is not the purpose of this dissertation

to evaluate productions critically. We shall try not to pass judgment on Macready's directorial decisi ons; instead, we will try to decide, in a number of productions, whether such decisions were made. We must be prepared to discover some surprising

things. It is possible, on the one hand, that a famous and commercially successful production-may not have been managed directorially, but may have been popular for other reasons, such as a great performance or spectacular technical effects. On the other hand, a directorially managed production 25

need not have been a successful one. For that reason, productions of Richelieu and Chaos Is Come Again will be discussed alongside the Macready interpreta­

tion of Macbeth: the 183 7 production of Henry \r,

which ran for two nights, will be mentioned in the

same breath as the 1842 revival of King John, which ran for twenty-six nights. We are trying to recon­

struct Macready*s routine managerial practice, not his occasional achievements. As of yet, there is no systematic study of the areas in which Macready shaped a production.

Reconstructions by Downer and Shattuck are excellent, but they are only small parts of the picture.

Bassett's study is at the same time too generalized and too narrow to serve that purpose. Its wealth of information oh biographical, financial, and histo­ rical matters prevents it from focussing on the process of stage direction; when the study does deal with directing practice, on the other hand, it is confined almost exclusively to Shakespearean production, and, for the most part, to those Shakes­ pearean revivals which had long runs and favorable press notices. The question before us is: to what extent could

Macready*s activities at Covent Garden and Drury Lane as manager be described today as directing? To answer the question, we must first more precisely define the activity of the theatrical director. The Random House Dictionary definition of the word "director" contains three important points: the director is "the person responsible" for "the inter­ pretive aspects" of a production, which he controls through the "integration" of all the means of produc­ tion. Alexander Dean's description of the director's work emphasizes those same integrative and interpre1- tive components.

The work of the director is obviously to convey to the audience every part and quality of a play in its fullest dramatic value, to see that his actors not only act their characters but convey the con­ cept.

• The statement implies an integrative function, since characters (plural) are reduced to a concept (singu^-.:* lar). A degree of interpretive functioning is also implied, since it is the director who enforces the concept; in pragmatic terms, the director defines that concept for the actors and technicians. The clear premise of Dean's statement is that the produc­ tion is more than the sum of its parts— the "concept"

37 • Alexander Dean and Lawrence Carra,* Fundamentals of Play Directing (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1965), p. 19. 2 7 cannot be left to take care of itself. There is widespread agreement on that score among modern directors. Peter Brook put it most succinctly:

"If you just let a play speak, it may not make a sound." Harold Clurman, quite a different kind of director from Brook, bases the director's craft on the same premise.

Contrary to a widely held assumption, no dramatic text plays itself in the living theatre. . . . In short, the function of the director is not merely "to edit" a theatrical performance, to see that it runs smoothly (in good tempo and with sufficient audibility), but acti^ly to interpret the text in every way.

Since the play does not speak for itself, someone must give it a voice. The director, in modern par­ lance, is the person responsible for defining the concept of the play (interpretation), and enforcing that concept (integration).

A director's interpretation is unified, specific, and personal. It is unified, meaning that it requires certain integrative processes for its realization;

38 Peter Brook, The Empty Space (New York: Athen- eum, 1968), p. 38. 39 Harold Clurman, "The Principles of Interpreta­ tion," John Gassner, Producing the Play, rev. ~ed** (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1941), p. 2 7 2 . 28 if Lear is "every i.uju king," the other characters must not treat him with contempt. The interpretation is specific, since each production requires that

an infinite number of decisions be made which apply only to itself; Lear's castle is not Macbeth's castle or Richelieu's castle, but has its own singular shape, texture, and mood. The interpretation is personal, in that it would be materially different if another person were directing. Thirty-one of Macready's productions at Covent

Garden and Drury Lane will be studied for evidence of directorship, that is, for evidence that Macready was consciously integrating the elements of production in order to realize a unified, specific, and personal interpretation of the play. The productions will be examined chiefly in the light of information gleaned from promptbooks, but from time to time, reference will be made to reviews in the contemporary press, and to the available iconography; in order to verify that information. Sixteen of the produc­ tions are Shakespearean, fifteen non-Shakespearean. Twenty-nine are major productions,.two (Chaos Is Come Again and The Spitfire) are afterpieces.^

40 I have also studied a script of Wallenstein, which Macready perused and cut, as well as promptbooks for To Marry or Not to Marry. The Fatal Dowry. The King of the Commons. and King Richard XI. plays 29 Promptbooks for the Christmas pantomimes are unavail­

able, but the most interesting points of those produc­ tions were mentioned in the press, and have been summarized by other scholars. The pantomimes, and Shattuck's reconstruction of Comus. will be referred to when they bear, positively or negativelyon the promptbooks in hand. A list of the promptbooks on which this dissertation is based appears in the

Bibliography.

The largest collections of Macready promptbooks are a group of twenty-five at the W. C. Macready

Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a group of eighteen at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

I have also used a King John promptbook from the

Newberry Library, a group of five books from the Harvard Theatre Collection, and two of the Charles

Kean promptbooks from the Folger.

In many cases, I have been able to compare several promptboojcs to the same production. The various books usually amplify and corroborate each other, but there are some interesting exceptions. One of the three Richelieu promptbooks, for instance.

which Macready performed and/or produced outside his patent theatre managerships. Although these books, properly speaking, fall outside the scope of this study, they will be referred to when they clearly corroborate or contradict the evidence of patent theatre productions. 30 is not a production book, but a private copy in which Macready marked his own speeches, and sketched an idea for staging one scene, which we shall examine later, in an asymmetrical enclosure. 41 One of the

three promptbooks to Knowles's Virginius is merely a hand-written "side," showing Macready's lines 42 as Virginius, his cues, and his important actions* The productions will be examined in a number

of categories, selected not because they give a comprehensive account of Macready's activity, but because they comprise a clear measure of directorship,

if any is present.. Those categories are listed below. Vie shall not be looking for decisions that are mandated by the mechanics of a text, or for practices governed by a standard operating procedure; we shall be seeking evidence of judgments which consciously support and make perceptible the dramatic values of a text. 1. ) Use of scenery to create specific environ.- J. ment. Under this heading is included any scenic device used to make a point about a particular scene of a particular play, rather than as part of standard

41Hand-written promptbooks, V7. C. Macready Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum; John H. McDowell Archives, Ohio State University Theatre Research Institute, P. 1134. 42 Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert; McDoweli P. 1139. 31 operating procedure. When we discuss Macready*s settings as environments, we will sometimes be : speaking of scene-painting. Promptbooks are more informative, however, about the shape than the color of scenery. We shall discuss intensively, therefore, such matters as three-dimensional scenery, units set oblique (rather than parallel) to the curtain line, practicable levels, and asymmetry.

) Lighting effects to create _a specific mood.

The standard practice of lowering the lights to half intensity for all night scenes without an obviously adequate light source, does not show directorial decision-making. We must look for light that is . used arbitrarily, in a way not literally demanded by text, but in support of text. The state of the art, of course, in Macready*s time,-did not permit a wide range of choices. 3. ) Sound effects to create _a mood or to inter-. pret text. Here again, standard business demanded by the text— the customary "Flourish of Trumpets and Drums" before a royal entrance, for instance— does not indicate the presence of a director. We are interested precisely in those effects which the text does not require, because these may show a director's mind at work. 4.) Groupings of actors to picturize specific 32 dramatic situations. We will look for evidence that there were conventional ways of grouping actors; such conventions will be compared with instances of innovative and expressive blocking. 5.) Orchestrated crowd reactions. When the crowd's role as commentator becomes important, the crowd can be an active, even decisive force in a scene. 6. ) Arbitrary business. defining ja major charac-.j ter or situation. By arbitrary business, I mean that sort of business neither required by the text

("He dies"), nor clearly implied by it ("Is this a dagger which I see before me?"). Arbitrary business is invented in order to add subtextual detail to a dramatic situation. Such business may occasionally be executed by a crowd of minor actors, but more usually is performed by leading actors in major roles. At this point, a number of disclaimers should be made. First, it should be clear, as we have stated before, that lavishness of production does not prove by itself the presence of a director.

We must look not for splendor, but for integration. Nor are we primarily interested in questions of theatrical innovation. We are asking not whether Macready was the first director, but whether he 33 was a director at all. Novelty in managerial techh- nique is neither necessary nor sufficient to prove directorship. We must always consider whether the resources of the theatre, old and new, were being used in an integrated fashion, to support a unified, specific, and personal interpretation.

We are not primarily in the business of aesthetic judgment. The question is not whether Macready was a good director, but whether he was a director at all. It might be objected that, since our understan­ ding of directorship belongs to the twentieth century, we are unfairly holding Macready responsible to a mode of artistry that he could not possibly have known about. The answer to that objection is that * we are not holding Macready responsible to anything.

We are making a plain comparison, without judgmental content, between one mode of functioning and another, between the procedure of W. C. Macready as an early

Victorian manager, and the procedure of a typical twentieth-century director. In that process we hope to illuminate, rather than to obscure, the differences and similarities between these two kinds of functionaries. 34

CHAPTER II MACREADY'S TECHNICAL MANAGEMENT

To what extent did Macready1s scenery, light, and sound, reflect specific personal decisions to support a unified interpretation? Theatre lighting and sound, compared to present standards, were still in their infancy: there were not a wide variety of choices available to a manager. The greater part of this chapter, therefore, will be devoted to scenery. Promptbooks are not made for audiences. They tell us very little about the "look" of sceneryr or about its overall effect. They are more inform­ ative about the shape of that scenery. Promptbook notes are usually more geometric than aesthetic.

They tell us how a director shapes space, rather than how he decorates it. We will therefore emphasize the spatial aspect of design over the decorative. The decorative aspect of some of the more famous productions, is available from illustrations, and from commentary in the contemporary press. Before plunging into the promptbooks, we should make a brief survey of that information, with the understan­ 35

ding that it will be neither complete nor definitive.

Nor will the information gathered in this way be

as incontrovertible, as "hard’,'.' as the more technical information which we will bring to light in the main part of the chapter. A spectator reacts first to the "look" of

scenery, meaning the style of its painting and decor­

ation. Scenery may be well or badly painted, but it is more important here to note intention than execution. Is the scenery decorated in the style

of any particular place or period? Does it reflect

the social class of any of the characters? Does it serve as a metaphor for the mood, mental state,

or desires of a character? Or, at the other extreme,

are we dealing merely with stock scenery, scenery

that is thrust onto the stage because it fits the

requirements of a scene in the most superficial way, because, for instance, it is an interior with two entrances, or because it is an exterior with

trees? Can the decor be taken as a conscious decision

to support a unified, personal interpretation of

a play's meaning? We are not drawing the distinction between expensive and shoddy scenery. A production can be splendid, even meticulous, without showing a

a process of directorial decision-making. In the 36 case of a spectacular production, we must decide whether the spectacle, no matter how finely executed, is organized in a directorial manner. Augustus

Harris in the nineteenth century, and Cecil B. DeMille in our own, have shown how to produce rich settings and stunning technical effects that do not necessarily add up to a unified artistic statement. Some of Macready's patent theatre productions were evidently decorated with the specific intention or recreating historical periods, or of making com­ ments about characters or events in the play. Some productions were decorated opulently, without neces­ sarily being organized with directorial intention. At least one production was actually criticized for slipshod decor. About the vast majority of the patent theatre productions— Macready produced one hundred forty-two different plays in four sea-\ • sons— there is no iconography and no significant press response, implying that the public saw nothing 1 extraordinary in such productions.

On the evidence of its press notices, Coriolanus

^Abraham J. Bassett, "The Actor-Manager Career of William Charles Macready," Diss. Ohio State Univ. 1962, pp. 474-486. These pages form Appendix B, which is an "Alphabetical List of Plays Presented by William Charles Macready, with the Author's Name, Date of First Presentation, and Number of Presenta­ tions During Each Season." All routine information on the runs of the productions is drawn from this appendix. 37

would appear to be the best example from the Macready

productions of a unified directorial decor. It opened March 12, 1838, at Covent Garden, and was

revived for the next season in September of the

same year, with Vandenhoff playing the lead. The lengthy press notices concentrated on the mise-en- scene. The work had not been mounted with the opu­ lence one expects of a Roman play. Macready adhered strictly to the concept of an early period in the history of Rome.

Rome appears not in its most high and palmy stage, but when its colonnades and temples, emulating the Doric simplicity, rose from amongs£ rude huts and cumbrous arches of brick.

Simplicity and rudeness were the key words in

Macready*s concept of Rome in the days of the Repub­ lic. The scenic resources of a patent theatre had been disciplined by antiquarian research.

Fifty years ago no; manager would have thought of distinguishing different periods of ancient history; a Roman was a Roman; as long as there were a temple with fluted columns, a few tunics, togas, helmets, and short swords, that was sufficient; no one looked into peculiarities of costume,

^The Spectator, March 17, 1838, p. 253, quoted by Bassett, p. 114. 38

&c., or thought of consulting classic Journales des Modes for different times; Julius Caesar and Coriolanus lived comfort­ ably together in houses precisely of the same fashion, and even though Brennus did burn Rome down between the periods of these gentlemen's lives, what matter! Up it sprung again, not the simile but the idem, for the same scenery served for both occasions.

Macready*s friend John Forster wrote one of his most fulsome reviews in The Examiner, rejoicing that the play had been mounted neither as a shabby assortment of stock scenery, of Gothic arches and Byzantine chambers, nor as a generalized spectacle, but with an eye to the texture of a specific period.

Rome has been presented on the theatrical scene before, but never this Rome: the rude city of the rude age of the conqueror of Corioli. . . . To what infinitely higher purpose is the moral grandeur of the place and of the men, set off b* a comparatively rude and barren city.

George Scharf's illustrations preserve some* of the flavor of the production. Fig. 1 shows the triumphal entry of Coriolanus into Rome, after his

^The Times (London), March 13, 1838, p. 5, quoted by Bassett, pp. 113-114. ^The Examiner. March 18, 1838, p. 165. F ig . 1 .

Coriolanus. Scharf, triumphal entry. 40

r— i

j, 41 5 victory over the Corioli. The procession is a lavish one, but we are concerned here only with the decor. John Bull wrote that

the stage gives a marvellous picture of a Roman Iiolyday. . . . The massy gate through which the procession moves, framed of alternate bricks, and large blocks of peperino^. bespeaks at once the walls of Servius.

The Examiner referred in passing to "the old and 7 rude brick buildings of the city." The stage-left portion of the illustration confirms the construction of "large blocks" and "rude bricks," without the conventional "fluted columns." Fig. 2 shows the Senate of Rome assembled.

The massed numbers are imposing— Scharf drew approx­ imately two hundred faces, and Forster calculated the numbers at "between one and two hundred," but the chamber is spare and functional, without carved

5 George Scharf, Jr., Recollections of the Scenic Effects at Covent Garden Theatre, During the Season 1B38-39 (London: James Pattie, 1839), Library of Congress; John H. McDowell Archives, Ohio State University Theatre Research Institute, F. 165. The illustrations, at least in their microfilm form,- bear no page numbers. They will therefore be cited only as "Scharf illustrations." ^April 1, 1838, p. 153. 7March 18, 1838, p. 165 F ig . 2 .

C o r io la n u s . S c h a r f, Roman S e n a te .

4 4 details or decoration on the walls.

Before [the Consul] burns the sacred fire on the altar— and behind him, overhead, is the only other ornament of the place, the famousgbrazen wolf suckling Romulus and Remus.

For Forster, the scene showed a deliberate managerial strategy— to imply the greatness of the Roman charac­ ter by understating it scenically. "It does not strike the senses, but appeals at once to the imagi­ nation. "9

Fig. 3 shows the final dead march. The chief interest of the scene is its crowd movements, but - the view of Rome painted on the shutter is based on antiquarian research, and was specifically recog­ nizable to the John Bull reviewer.

The city frowns in the distance, begirt with the lofty and turreted walls of Servius, and encircled (the view is ..from the Appian way) by its wide moat.

The critics make it clear that Macready*s Coriolanus was distinguished from other Roman period

8Ibid. 9Ibid. 10April 1, 1838, p. 153. F ig . 3 .

Coriolanus. Scharf, dead march. a

c 4 7 productions by an uncustomary degree o£ historical exactness in decor. The Times summed up the total effect by saying that "The scenery was beautifully painted, and well-calculated to give a picture of

Rome in her infancy. King Lear, one of Macready's greatest artistic successes, had middling success financially. It opened for ten performances on January 25, 1838, and was revived on February 4, 1839, when it ran for six performances. John Bull gives us a glimpse at the scenic concept of the production. The reviewer tells us that here also, Macready was attempting to recreate a historical period: "The scenery . . . corresponds with the period, and with the circum­ stances of the text." The period of King Lear is much more obscure than that of Coriolanus; the writer notes, however, that the chambers and buildings are not stock settings, but are specifically painted to create an early medieval feeling. "The castles of the production are heavy, sombre, solid; their walls adorned with trophies of the chase and instru- 12 ments of war." Scharf's illustration of Lear's presence chamber (Fig. 4) confirms that comment,

^ M a r c h 13, 1838, p. 5. ^ J o h n Bull. January 28, 1838, pp. 45-46. F i g . 4 .

King Lear. Scharf, abdication scene. 49 50 for instruments of war are visible, and the walls themselves are painted as large blocks without decor­ ation. Since the reviewer only claims, however, that most of the scenery was new, we must assume that stock scenery was also used. Macready produced As You Like It twice at Covent

Garden, but his great success with the play came only with the Drury Lane production that opened his last season of management on October 1, 1842, and ran for twenty-two nights. There is some evidence of unified decor in the court scenes. The Spectator described the interiors and exteriors as “designed 13 in the old French style." An Illustrated London

News drawing shows, in the stage right background of the wrestling scene, the turret of a chateau, suggesting a "period" setting in the French Renais- s ance.14

The production of King John that opened at

Drury Lane on October 24, 1842, met extravagant critical praise, ran for twenty-six performances, and was so widely recognized as definitive, that it became the basis of later revivals by Phelps and Kean. The Theatrical Journal praised its "faith­

13 October 8 , 1842, p. 9 75, quoted by Bassett, p . 307.

^Bassett, p. 310. 51 ful adherence to the customs and manners of the 15 Gothic times." The Telbin design for Act I (Fig.

* 16 5) may be taken as an example of the decor. The

Spectator described it as "a Gothic hall . . . exhib- 17 iting the rude pomp of elder days." The reviewer cites a number of features which demonstrate conscious antiquarianism: the tapestry along the side walls, with bare stone showing above, the square canopy over the throne, and the carved timbers of the roof. The Times wrote about The Merchant of Venice. which opened Macready's first Drury Lane season on December 2 7, 1841, that

The scenery is in the best possible taste, very beautiful, and yet nicely discrimin- ^g ated, so as not to over-balance the drama.

Such a statement would be supremely uninformative, did we not also have The Spectator1s commentary, in which the reviewer describes the decor as

^October 29, 1842, pp. 345-48, quoted by Bassett, p. 318. 16 Promptbook copied for Charles Kean by Ellis, Folger Shakespeare Library; McDowell P. 182. The designs for both the Kean and the Macready productions appear after the text. 1 7 October 29, 1842, p. 1046, quoted by Bassett, p . 321. 18 December 28, 1841, p. 5. Fig. 5.

King John. Hall of State.

Telbin design, P. 182.

54

an amplification of Canaletto’s pictures of Venice, with the clear sharpness of form and bright . . . .tints that charac­ terize his buildings.

The comment implies that Macready based his decorative scheme on the style of specific paintings, and a look at his diary entries for October confirms that implication.

[Oct. 7, 1841] . . . Caught Mr. Holloway, and asked him about views in Verona and Venice. . . . Called at Colnaghi's, and again inquired about the picture of a Court of Justice at Venice. . . . 25th.— Looked through the books on Venice for authority respecting the courts of justice.

The Council scene of Othello. in which the

Moor defends his intended marriage to Desdemona, seems also to have been based on the authority of a painting. Forster, in The Examiner, wrote that Macready had "absolutely revealed to us a fac-simile 21 of the great picture by Tintoretto."

A number of Macready's non-Shakespearean produc­ tions also show evidence of unified decor. Richelieu

19 January 1, 1842, quoted by Bassett, p. 250. 20Macready1s Reminiscences and Selections from His Diaries and Letters. ed. Sir Frederick Pollock (London: Macmillan, 1875), p. 486.

2 October 22, 1837, p. 679. 55 is one of the plays written for the eminent tragedian by his friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Premiered at

Covent Garden on March 7, 1839, it remained a staple of the English dramatic repertory throughout the nineteenth century. Like all reviewers of the produc­ tion, Forster praised its decor, picking out especi­ ally the spectacular interiors.

Richelieu's palace— his castle, at Ruelle— and the presence chamber at the Louvre— are splendid specimens of t£g art, and elicited frequent cheering.

Scharf's illustration of the last scene shows that presence chamber in the Louvre which Forster mentioned (Fig. 6 ). The upward-directed ceiling, and the use of sculpture as an integral part of the decorr ation, confirm that the setting was conceived in 23' the baroque style of the Louvre. •

In each of the preceding cases, we have consi- " dered evidence that Macready may have controlled- the decor of certain productions according to periods. The promptbooks of two non-Shakespearean productions, however, indicate another criterion of decorative

The Examiner. March 10, 1839, pp. 149-150. 23 I do not mean to imply that either the ceiling or the sculpture were real. The setting is, however, decorated in the style of a room having both features. Fig. 6. Richelieu, Scharf, Louvre presence chamber. 57

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unity, that is, unity of mood. The Werner promptbooks show that the settings for the first three acts were to mirror the depression and moral decay of Werner's soul. The prompter's note before the first

scene says

All the apartments in the Old palace, particularly this Scene, should convey the idea of long desertion & extreme wretch­ edness; the rotting tapestry hanging in tatters from the walls, the cornices ornaments crumbling with damp & decay.

Since all the promptbooks contain this note, we

may assume that it reflects Macready's general prac­ tice; the note shows that Macready intended to create a unified scenic decor, though it does not prove

that all the scenery was created specifically for the production. One of Macready's first productions at Covent

Garden (October 7, 1837) was The Bridal. an adaptation by Knowles of The Maid's Tragedy. The promptbook describes "a Hall in Amintor's Palace" which has been prepated for a Masque, in celebration of the

7 A Harvard Theatre Collection TS 2 732.588, p. 4, published in George Gordon Byron, Werner: a_ Tragedy, ed. Marvin Spevack (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1970). Werner was presented in three of Macready*s seasons, opening at Covent Garden on October 21, 183 7, and November 30, 1838, and at Drury Lane on January 13, 1343. u

59 betrothal of Amintor and Evadne.

This scene should be as magnificent and brilliant as it can be made: festoons, flowers, and lights tastefully-arranged in profusion through the hall.

The decor reflects, the mood of an impending joyous occasion, but also contrasts ironically with the depression of the love-sick Aspatia.

Macready's production of Comus, presented at

Drury Lane on February 24, 1843, as an afterpiece to Much Ado About Nothing. contrasted the darkness of an enchanted wood with the brilliant Hall of

Comus. Helena Faucit wrote the best description of these scenes.

The enchanted wood was admirably presented, with its dense, bewildering maze of trees, so easy to be lost in, so difficult to escape from. . . . The Hall of Comus . . • was a kind of Aladdin'5^garden, all aglow with light and colour.

25Hand-written promptbook, V7. C. Macready Collec tion, Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 25 ; McDowell P. 1136. In the case of promptbooks and other mater­ ials present on microfilm in the McDowell Archives, second references will be listed by McDowell numbers and pages only. If the promptbook is based on a printed edition for which publication information is available, such information will be given with the first reference only. 26 Helena Faucit (Lady Martin), On Some of Shakespeare1s Female Characters. 5th ed” TEdinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1893), p. 329. 60 That contrast made clear the distinction between pagan forces of disorder, on the one hand, and the elements of reason and virtue, on the other. In the productions discussed so far, there is clear evidence that some settings may have had a unified decor. In another group of productions, the evidence is not so conclusive. The Tempest

was the greatest single "hit" of Macready's manage­ ment, playing to fifty-five houses in the 1838-39 season at Covent Garden. The production drew much praise for its scenery. Its spectacular moments

included transformations, flying scenes for Ariel,

and a literal representation of the shipwreck in the first scene. It is not clear whether the spec­ tacle of the mise-en-scene was organized directori—

ally. The Times seemed to imply a supernatural quality pervading some of the settings.

The mountains are tinted with a fantastic variety of hues, so that while nature is delineated, v?e seem aware2^f some dis­ tinct supernatural presence.

It is difficult to know if such a supernatural quality implied any specific style of painting, or if it

^October 14, 1838, p. 5 61 composed a unified decor. 28

Macready produced Henry V in both of his Covent

Garden seasons. The first production was not success­ ful, and closed after two nights. The second, however, was very popular because of its mise-en- scene, and particularly because of a set of moving dioramas by Clarkson Stanfield. The dioramas served as visual accompaniment to the speeches of the Chorus.

Bassett has summarized the contents of the dioramas 29 and settings better than can be done here. It should be noted, however, that the improvements

Macready had introduced into the production were controversial in the eyes of the critics, and did not necessarily compose a unified statement. The

Spectator saw the dioramas as an intrusion on the play.

More is attempted than the stage can acc­ omplish, and the play is overlaid with show. . . . The scenic effects, instead of being kept subordinate to the dialogue and action, as the accessories of a picture, are made principal, and divert the attent^gn too much from the poetry and personation.

See Bassett, pp. 169-185, for a description of various technical effects in the production.

29Ib id ., pp. 206-221.

30June 15, 1839, pp. 558-59, quoted by Bassett, p. 204. 62

The Times said that "as a scenic spectacle, the play of Henry V . . . merits unqualified praise," but then qualified its praise with the following warning;

It must be remembered that it is as a pageant we praise it, and we still retain an opinion formed long ago, that excessive pageantry is no sign of the revival of the drama. . . . With all the improvements in machinery and scene painting, we still feel the force of the poet’s lines who saw the difficulty of enclosing "two mighty monarchies" "within the girdle of these walls."

The production was spectacular, but, as with The

Tempest. a claim of directorial unity in decor is hard to prove. The Spectator judged that "the long narrow chambers of state, with their rich hangings and quaint canopies, are very characteristic," and

The Athenaeum recognized the "velvet hangings and canopies" and the "sumptuous richness of regal state" 32 of a Gothic chamber in the first scene. That evidence, however, does not prove that the complex production was as a whole decoratively unified. Several other productions elicited provocative,

31June 11, 1839, p. 5. The Spectator. June 15, 1839, pp. 558-59, quoted by Bassett, p. 207; The Athenaeum. June 15, 1839, pp. 453—54, quoted by Bassett, p. 207. 63

inconclusive comments from the press. Of Knowles's William Tell (December 3, 1838, Covent Garden), Forster wrote that "we had Switzerland before us—

her lakes, her torrents, her snow-capped peaks, 33 her cold blue sky." For Two Gentlemen of Verona

(December 29, 1841, Drury Lane), The Spectator men- 34 tioned a "view of Verona and Milan." Neither state­ ment, however, can support by itself a claim for

total scenic integration. Of the vast majority of Macready's pi*oductions,

there is little to be said. The promptbooks are

unavailable, or they are silent about the decor. Can we assume that they all received the unified treatment that Macready may have given to the produc­ tions discussed above? According to the press

accounts of at least one production, we cannot.

Fraser's Magazine describes the first production of Henry as

a very dull and meagre representation of that most picturesque tragedy, where the English gentlemen were habited in those suits which used to be called Spanish dresses thirty years ago, but which never were worn in any age or country; and the

33The Examiner. December 16, 1838, p. 790. 34 January 1, 1842, p. 9, quoted by Sassett, p. 263. French courtiers, by way of contrast, apggared in suits of the time of Francis

The description resembles Forster's relation of the horrors of early nineteenth-century history play production.

The archbishop of several centuries before Luther figured in full-blown lawn, and the Majesty of France, in boots a la Louis Quatorze, handled in the manner of an auctioneer's hammer what seemed to be designed for a real truncheon. The power of England, under a shabby painted flag, mustered in the shape of some seven ragged supernumeraries; the might of France, flagless and bannerless, crawled on in three.

Forster meant to describe a kind of production which

Macready had banished from the stage; but it would seem that the Macready meticulousness was realized only on some occasions. John Bull roundly criticized the "crude and incomplete manner,” the "insufficient 37 production," and the "bad dressing" of Henry V.

"It is too bad," concluded Fraser1s . "and Mr. Planche would have committed suicide had he witnessed the

351 7 (1838), p. 166. 3^The Examiner. June 16, 1839, p. 375.

■^November 26, 1837, p. 573. play."38 65 If such a figure as Macready needs a defense, it might be said in his behalf that the production was for some reason hurriedly mounted, that Macready was not happy with it himself, and that it does not represent a serious, coordinated effort on his part. He found himself preoccupied with its condition on the day of the opening.

November 14th [1837],— Thought over, and did what I could to imprint the character of King Henry V on my mind— taken thus by surprise as I am with it. . . . Went to the theatre, where I rehearsed King Henry V. . . . Read King Henry V. Acted the part'as well as I could; not well, for I was not^^repared; and I will do this no more.

It is not clear exactly how Henry took him by surprise, but the earliest intimation of the produc­ tion in his diaries occurs just four days before, on November 10th, when "Hr* Vining sent back the 40 part of Gower in King Henry V, which made me angry."

Macready must have mounted many other productions with similar speed, however, because during his four

3817 (1838), p. 166. 39 The Diaries of William Charles Macready. ed. V/illiam Toynbee, 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1912), I, 425. 40 Toynbee, I, 424. 66 seasons as a manager, he produced, on the average, more than one new play a week, not to mention revivals of old productions from previous years. Henry V was criticized because Macready had taught the public to expect a higher standard in Shakespearian produc-- tion. The press notices, collated with available iconography, show that several of the most famous

Macready productions were meticulously decorated according to specific design concepts. That group includes Coriolanus. King Lear. As You Like It. King John. The Merchant of Venice. Richelieu, Werner.

The Bridal.:and Comus. About several productions the evidence is inconclusive; they are respectably, even spectacularly mounted, but there is no firm a indication of a unified style of decor. That second group includes The Tempest. the second production of Henry V, William Tell. and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

About the vast majority of the productions there is no significant commentary. The first production of Henry V confirms what one would feel instinctively; that we cannot generalize about the decor of the obscure productions from our knowledge of the famous ones. We know that some stock scenery was used in even so major a production as King Lear; it is reasonable to assume, until we meet with evidence 67 to the contrary, that routine entertainments were mounted with routine scenery, routine costumes, and perfunctory rehearsals. Now that we have briefly surveyed some of

Macready's productions from a reviewer's angle, we can proceed to the technical information provided by the promptbooks. Most of that information concen­ trates on Macready's use of stage space. The change- ment \ vue system defined space conventionally in parallel planes, with bilateral symmetry. The only variable in that organization of space was the depth of the scene, and even that decision was often prag-. ’ matic rather than aesthetic, because a deep scene with any special furniture or equipment usually required a shallow "carpenter's scene" before and after. Wing-and-shutter staging made the modern directorial function of spatial organization unnec­ essary; in a repertory system that demanded one hundred forty-two productions in four seasons,

Macready had neither the time, nor the resources, nor the conceptual equipment to make such decisions for every play. Today we expect a director to organize the space of each scene in detail. His scenery is usually built in three dimensions rather than two, and can be set at any angle to the curtain line. He may 68

enclose any part or all of the setting; he can organ­

ize the space asymmetrically, or divide the space horizontally with levels or vertically with walls. All such decisions are taken with a view toward supporting a specific and personal interpretation of the play's meaning. We shall shortly see to what extent Macready imposed such directorial dec­ ision-making on the conventional, planar, and bila­ teral symmetry of the chanqement vue system.

Scenery

We shall examine Macready's shaping of stage

space in terms of three variables: 1 .) practicable levels, 2.) non-parallel structures, and 3.) encloi-

sures. A survey of those types of scenery is by no means a complete account of Macready's scenic practice. It will, however, indicate how far, Macready moved from wing-and-shutter conventionalism into the practice of modern directorial decision-making. In the following survey, we shall admit only

those devices which appear to show the independent judgment of a producer. In looking for traces of

the directorial decision-making process, devices mandated by a script are of no use. A device must 69 be to some extent arbitrary, it it is to be taken

as a reflection of the director's taste. We shall

omit, for instance, Prince Arthur's fatal leap in

King John, because the upper level in this case is mandated by the script. Royal daisses will be

ommitted as well, because they are mandated by stage

custom; the placement of a throne on a low platform tells us nothing about the producer's view of the play. Practicable Levels. The acting edition of one of Morton's farces indicates at least one prac­

ticable level in the last scene.

Scene the last— The deck of the Spitfire— Crew clearing for action— men and boys in the rigging, and at the guns— thg,mast in the centre— Marines on the poop.

The poop must definitely be a platform. There may or may not be a practicable level in the rigging; but it is interesting that even for a minor afterpiece like The Spitfire, the stage space might receive some special shaping. Byron's Werner was first presented under

(London: Chapman and Hall, n. d.), Harvard, p. 7; McDowell F. 601. This acting edition was based on the Macready production. 70

Macready's management at Covent Garden on October

21, 1837. In III. iv., Werner discovers his son Ulric in the crumbling palace gardens under suspicious circumstances. The young man has leapt down into the garden from a "practicable terrace" in the third entrance left hand. The Harvard promptbook describes the scene.

A Garden of the Palace by Moonlight. . . . Palace seen on the L. H. , a practicable terrace projecting from it 3. E. L. H. The Rivg£ and distant Country in the back Ground.

A Folger promptbook makes it clear that the terrace v;as specifically Macready's device.

According to Macready's arrangement, this scene has a practicable terrace 3 E. L. H. . . . The scene now is a,Garden by Moonlight— being Flats in 2 G . . . . and^no terrace used. Ulric enters from 2 E. L. H. instead of over the Terrace— which is supposed to be a little distance off the stage. N. B . : These

Harvard 2 732.588, p. 115. It will be ray practice, when quoting from the promptbooks, to regularize the punctuation somewhat according to modern usage, in cases where the bizarre punctuation of the prompters impedes understanding. Spelling and abbreviation, unless specifically noted, are those of the prompters. 71

alterations prevent the confusion, g^ise, and delay of unskillful carpenters.

Apparently then, the practicable terrace was aban­ doned by subsequent managers. Perhaps Macready's carpenters were more skillful than later ones, but it is more likely that he felt a compelling reason to make Ulric's entrance something out of the ordin­ ary. It is not difficult to see what that reason could have been; as we learn later in the play,

Ulric has just assassinated Stralenheim. The entrance is preceded by "a Crash heard within;" by making a furtive entrance, leaping from the upper level onto the stage floor, the actor lends a strangeness 44 to the character's behavior. Two days after the opening of Werner, on October

23, Macready gave his first performance as an actor- manager of Othello. A practicable two-story unit represented Brabantio's residence. V7hen Roderigo and Iago rouse him to report that Desdemona has eloped with the Moor, "Enter Brabantio above, at

(London: John Murray, 1823), Folger Shakespeare Library, 54, p. 115; McDowell P. 1613. Each of . the Macready promptbooks from the Folger Library is identified on the title sheet of its microfilm copy with an Arabic number. That number will be given with first references.

44Harvard TS 2732.588, p. 115. 72 nci a window 2 E. L. H.," the house itself "occupying 45 part of the scene and the wings L. H."

In the Council scene, when Brabantio tries

to win back his daughter with the force of law,

a three-sided platform is used to seat the Duke

and the Senators in suitable majesty. Fig. 7 shows

Scharf's drawing of the scene, and Fig. 8 shows 46 a promptbook groundplan. According to the prompter, j "The Senators are disc , seated up the sides, and

x at the back of Sc*, on elevated platf1*1."47 Forster

confirms that

The "Ten" sat on a raised dais which exten­ ded through the breadth of the apartment— the Doge a little elevated above the rest— and the other senators in exact costuragg- • . . . lined the two; sides of the hall.

By raising the Council above the level of the floor,

Macready lends an air of authority to an otherwise

anonymous group of characters. Knowles's Virginius was one of his personal

45 Rev. J. P. Kemble (London: John Miller, 1814), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, pp. 7, 5 ; McDowell P. 1154. 46 (London: Simkin, Marshall and Co., 1838), Folger, 52, p. 15 ; McDowell P. 1611.

47Ibid. 4Q The Examiner. October 22, 1837, p. 678. Pig. 7. Othello, Scharf, Council Scene. 74 Fig. 8. Othello. Council Scene, P. 1611. O o\fr„0 O O 0 O OO O 0 OO 0 O .V s. // ?*0 o o

C 0 ^ -

iA.‘ °fe I 0 e

£ H V

$ o 0

2, 183 7. The play's most crucial actions occur in its three Forum scenes. Appius sees Virginia and takes a fancy to her. He engineers a deception that she is the daughter of a slave and therefore the property of Claudius, one of his friends. * Virginius kills his daughter rather than let her become a concubine to Appius. Through most of the crucial actions, Appius stands upon a Tribunal to emphasize his position of power. The Tribunal is a platform with steps leading to it, extending between the 2nd and 3d wings. In Fig. 9, Scharf shows how Appius, flanked on each side by six lictors, dominates the Forum. "The Tribunal is a solid block of stonef" says the promptbook, showing that it is a simple 49 platform with a step unit before it.. In the first act of The Barbers of Bassora. an opera by Morton and Hullah which premiered on

November 11, the houses of the two barbers face . each other across the stage. On the left is the house of the poor barber Kadib, on the right is the house of the rich barber Mustapha. Mustapha's

49 (London: 1820), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 30r; McDowell P. 1137. Pig. 9. Virgin!us. Scharf, Forum. 79 daughter Beda observes them from a practicable second 50 floor balcony. The level allows her a clear view of the action, and concealment from, her father as well, as she comments on their dialogue in the opening trio.

Let us return for a moment to Coriolanus.

The Senate scene, in Fig. 2, is a study in levels much like the Council scene in Othello. The grandeur of the scone is reinforced by the banked rows of senators extending around three sides of the stage.

Scharf shows four levels, while the press mentions only three. 51 The principle, however, is the same in either case; the mass of senators is raised metaphorically to a mythological dimension. No longer a mere group of men, the Senate becomes

a reflection of the great heart, of Rome. . . . It is, as it were, the actual pres-., ence of the genius of Rome— . . . of that high-souled thought and temper, which, whenever, the few great minds of the earth have since her fall made a stand against violence and fraud in the cause of liberty and reason, has still in thg^midst of them conjured up her image.

50 (London: Chapman and Hall, n. d.). Harvard, p. 7; McDowell F. 605. This acting edition was based on the Macready production. 51 Bassett, p. 123.,

^2The Examiner. March 18, 1838, p. 165. 81

Macready first produced Cymbeline near the

beginning of his second Covent Garden season, on

September 25, 1838. In the scenes near the cave of Belarius, there are two raked entrances upstage right. Belarius the exile sends the two kidnapped

princes into the mountains to hunt.

i But up to the mountains! This is not hunters* language. He that strikes The venison first shall be the lord o' the feast. . »3. I,* 11 meet you in the valleys.

They leave, appropriately enough, by the upward ramp: "Exeunt Guid & Arv up rak^ platm R. U. E."^4 . When Cloten, however, enters from the'court and civilization, he comes in by the downward ramp, that is, from the valleys. "Enter Cloten from under 55 the stage R. U. E." Belarius and Arviragus? check­ ing to see if he has brought troops with him, also

53Shakespeare: the Complete Works. ed G. B. Harrison (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1952), p. 1403. 54Ed. Steevens, Folger, 40, pp. 60-60r; McDowell P. 1599.

55Ib id ., pp. 82-82r. 82 Cg go "down rake U. E. R." The two raked entrances

make a visual distinction between the life of the wild, which the poet depicts as virtuous, and the

life of the court, which is shown to be corrupt. "And we will fear no poison, which attends / In 57 place of greater state," says Belarius. A journey

to that "greater state" becomes, literally, a descent,

while a trip into the mountain wilderness is an

ascent.

We have seen that some notice was taken of the Swiss mountain scenery in Knowles's William

Tell (premiered December 3, 1838, Covent Garden).

The practicable levels of that production show us

much about the thematic use of mountain scenery.

In two scenes, Macready used extensive platforms

to show characters descending from great heights.

The manner of the characters' descent is quite im­

portant. The first scene of Act II is set outside Tell's home.

n j Tell's Cottage 2 E. R. H. on the right of a mountain: a distant view of a lake, backed by Mountains of stupendous height, their tops covered with snow, and lighted

56Ibid., p. 86r. 57 Harrison, p. 1403. 83

at the very points by the rising sun;, the rest of the distance being yet in shade. 3 Entr. a Vineyard L. H. |>£ill further back a practicable descent.

Tell's young son Albert makes his entrance by that practicable descent. "Albert appears on an eminence 5 9 L. H. Descending and approaching Emma. '* Macready shows in this way the harmony between the mountaineers and their environment: even the children can safely negotiate the rugged terrain.

To the foreign tyrant Gesler, on the other hand, the mountains are strange and hostile. In

Act III, Gesler finds himself at the mercy of a mountain storm.

Back Grooves. A mountain with mist, covered with snow. Furious Tempest. Flatforms behind. Gesler is seen descending the mountains with a hunting pole. Gesler*s voice is hear shouting for help, before he enters— he is then seen struggling with the storm, clinging to a rock, hollaing for help;— and at length half frantic with dismay and suffering, ^Jje staggers on the level of the stage.

58 (London: Thomas Dolby, n. d.), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 19; McDowell P. 1140.

5 9 I b i d . 60 I b i d . , p p . 3 4 -3 4 r . 84 Gesler despairs of his life, while the storm grows

fiercer, but a native of the mountains helps him

to escape.

Albert is seen descending by the side of one of the streams, sg^aks on platform L. H. U. E. Comes down.

Albert promises to take Gesler safely down the moun­ tain, and they leave together. By elevating the entrances in the two scenes, Macready makes it poss­ ible to show two different kinds of relationship to the same environment. To the free-born natives, it is friendly, but to the Austrian tyrant, it is . hostile. The walls of Gesler1s castle in the last scene are also practicable. "The ramparts [are] lined with archers and spearmen. Rudolph, Gerard, Lutold, 62 and Gesler, on top of an advanced bastion." The

"advanced bastion" may be the only practicable part of the fortress, the rest being painted on a shutter.

Nevertheless, when the Swiss storm the castle, and "Verner, Furst, Erni and Swiss enter the gates with

Tell, and go on the ramparts," a visual statement

61Ibid., p. 35.

62Ibid., p. 81. 85 6 n is made of the transfer of power. Ramparts also figure in the second, improved production of Henry V. Fig. 10 is Scharf's illustra­ tion of the siege of Harfleur. The walls of the

town on stage left are practicable, for the promptbook 64 says that "the Governor appears upon the walls." John Bull noted "the walls crowded with armed men 65 . . . some twenty in number." When the French

• forces leave the walls and come down onto the stage level, it is a sign of their defeat. "The Governor

and Heralds with a white Flag appear at the gate."^ The Herchant of Venice opened Macready's first season at Drury Lane, on December 2 7, 1841. The trial scene reminds us powerfully of the Council scene from Othello, and the Senate scene of Coriolanus. The' now-familiar horse-shoe platform encloses the action.

The steps lead to elevated benches all

63Ibid., p. 84r. ^Folger, 41, p. 3 73v ; McDowell P. 1600. There is another Folger promptbook for the first production Henry V. At Folger, it is numbered 42. The micro­ film copy at the McDowell Archives is numbered P. 1601. 65June 16, 1839, p. 285.

^McDowell P. 1600, p. 374r. Fig, XO. Henry V, Scharf, Siege of Harfleur. 87 88 rd the stage for the Superior Judges and the Duke- who is on a slightly elevated seat C.

The composition is exactly like that of the Othello scene. Even more striking are the parallel costume and color schemes. In The Merchant of Venice.

3 Heads of the Council of Ten in red gowns on either side of [the Duke], 23 superior Judges and Legates, in black and violet col gowns with open ermin'd sleeves,

share the platform, while in Othello.

the Senators are discov , . . . ten in Red Gowns, including the Duke, Gratiano, and Brabantio. A_. at back, Thirty, inclun-r. ding Lodovico, in Blagk Gowns, with large open ermin'd sleeves.

69 Fig. 11 shows the grounplan for the trial scene. As in other, similar scenes, the platform makes more vivid the presence of a powerful, but anonymous, group of characters. Eoth settings are Venetian; because the composition and decor are so similar.

6 7 This and the following quotation from Folger, 46, p. 71 ; McDowell P. 1605. go Promptbook copied for Charles Kean by Ellis, Folger, p. 15 ; McDowell P. 183. go v McDowell P. 1605, back side of p. 71 . F ig . 1 1 .

The Merchant of Venice. Trial Scene, P. 1605. 90

MMSR 91 one suspects that when Macready presented Othello for the first time at Drury Lane on May 23, 1842, he may have used scenery from The Merchant of Venice.

In II. i. of Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is set in a "Vestibule in the Duke's Palace," the entrance to Julia's apartment is above a "Staircase 70 door at top L. 2. E." The platform serves to clarify her relationship with Valentine, for at her entrance, he is placed quite literally at the feet of the woman he loves.

Macready presented Byron's Marino Faliero for his own benefit on May 20, 1842. His acting copy 71 contains no specific comments on the staging.

Faliero's trial scene, however, makes one think of the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice and the Council scene from Othello. The printed stage directions describe

The Hall of the Council of Ten assembled with the additional Senators, who, on . the Trials of the Conspirators for the Treason of Marino Faliero, composed what was called the Giunta.

70 Folger, 49, p. 195; McDowell P. 1608.

^Harvard Thr 483.2.100*. 72 The Complete Poetical Works of Lord Byron {New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2905), p. 538. 92 The setting is again a legal one, in Venice, The production was a minor one, running only for two nights, and it is unlikely that much new scenery would have been built for it. There is no documen­ tation to prove it, but it is reasonable to think that the Council of Ten and the additional Senators would have been placed on the familiar three-sided platform, within the same setting that had housed

Shylock, and possibly the Moor.

King John, which opened October 24, 1042, at

Drury Lane, was a major production in every sense. The battle before Angiers in the second act recalls the siege of Harfleur. As in Henry V, assaulting armies from stage right face the practicable ramparts of a city at stage left. "Sentinels Care] discovered on the walls of Angiers," and, as long as the city denies entrance, the citizens tower over the rival

English, French, and Austrian forces: "1st Citizen, with 4 others, in arms, appear upon the walls."

When John and Philip agree to an alliance, so they can enter the town together, "The Citizens, in great •73 joy and exultation, leave the walls." The upper level is again used to represent military power.

73 H. Scharf autograph promptbook, Newberry Library, pp. 211 , 217V, 228r; McDowell P. 29. The same scene shows a raked entrance similar

to those found in Cymbeline. The English forces

enter out of a slote, on a ramp that leads up to

a deep right entrance. When entrance has been refused to both the English and the French, and the two

forces must go offstage to fight for the town, the

French exit at the first and second entrances right, while the English leave by the same raked entrance

they came in by. After the battle, the English 74 enter again by the rake. The practicable rampart and the raked entrance

support a complex convention about stage and offstage

space. Macready keeps the stage picture alive through

the offstage battle, by supposing that the armies

are on a battle plain below the town. The stage

floor stands for an elevated plateau where the town

is located. The battlefield is below and behind

the plateau; it is hidden from the audience, but not from the citizens of Angiers, in their commanding position on the ramparts. Macready suggests the progress of the battle through elaborate sound ef­

fects, and through the reactions of the citizens, letting the audience imagine details which would be difficult to realize on the stage itself. The

74Ib id ., pp. 213-221 94

raked entrance not only defines the relationship of the battlefield to the plateau, but allows the

French and English to have separate entrances, as

if coming from opposite sides of the battlefield,

without obliging the English to go awkwardly around

the ramparts of Angiers. As a total composition, Act II of King John

is perhaps Macready's most exciting single exploit­

ation of space. It shows a complete conception

of the relationship between the space which the

stage represents and other contiguous spaces.

Macready was thinking of the stage space represen-

tationally as well as conventionally. The stage

is not merely the place where the actors move; it represents a real space, larger than itself, and connected to other spaces.

V?e can find evidence of the use of practicable levels in thirteen of Macready*s productions. In

Othello. Coriolanus. The Merchant of Venice, -and possibly in Marino Faliero. a platform surrounding the playing area mythologizes an authoritative but visually conglomerate group of characters. In Virginius. William Tell. Henry V, and King John, a higher level is used as a metaphor for political or military power. In The Spitfire and Othello, a second level is added for realism: marines fire 95 from the poopdeck of the Spitfire, as they would in an actual battle, and Brabantio answers the knock on his door from a chamber window realistically located on the second floor. In The Barbers of Bassora, a practicable balcony allows Beda to overhear the conversation of her father and. her lover. In

Werner, and in Two Gentlemen of Verona, levels are used to define characters: in Werner, a practicable terrace requires the assassin to make an awkward, suspicious entrance, while in Two Gentlemen, a small landing helps to picturize a love relationship.

In Cymbeline. William Tell. and King John, raked ramps are used in certain entrances, for different purposes. In Cymbeline. the ramps express the poet's moral judgment on the places from which they lead.

The raked entrances in William Tell support extensive business which shows the relationship between environ­ ment and various characters. In King John, the ramp helps to establish the existence of spaces not depicted on the stage. We have shown how, and why, Macready sometimes broke up the single level of the stage floor. We should now turn our attention to the options he did not allow himself in the use of levels. Two generalizations can be made.

1.) Levels bounded entirely on the stage are 96

always horizontal. Macready*s raked platforms always lead from the stage space to some other place.

Strictly speaking, of course, not even the stage

floor was horizontal, because it was raked for pers­ pective; but all platforms are intended to appear

parallel to the horizon. 2.) There are never more than two levels in

the same scene. One might quibble about Coriolanus.

and say that the banked rows of Senators constitute

separate levels, in which case there are four or

perhaps five levels in the scene. A look at the

illustration, however (Fig. 2), shows that no distinct

impression of the separate rows is intended, and

that the important contrast is between the massed

body of the Senate, and any figure who stands within

the main acting area. It should be pointed out that the majority of

the productions we have studied used only the level

of the stage floor. Deviation from the conventional single level was an exceptional procedure for

Macready. He exercised a director's options with regard to horizontal division of the stage space

only rarely, and primitively. Non-Parallel Scenery. Through the nineteenth

century, a change was occurring in the public's 97 perception of stage space. In the neo-classic conven­ tion, all significant aspects of a space could be represented in two dimensions. A shutter with paral- ■ lei wings, if skillfully painted, could be taken to represent even an enclosed interior. Furniture, unless the script required that it be practical, could be painted on flats. Entire scenes, therefore, could be represented on parallel flats; directorial decisions about how to dispose scenery around the stage space were rarely necessary.

The theatres could not ignore the third dimension forever. As early as 1799, in the initial production of Sheridan's Pizarro. some practical furniture 75 was used in ways not mandated by the script.

One of the early stages in the breakdown of parallel scenic conventions is the use of plugs or cabinets to fill the spaces between wings. McDowell has shown, in fact, that by using several plugs in a single scene, one creates a de^ facto enclosure, and that plugs may be an important ingredient in 76 the development of the box set. The most common plugs are door units in interior scenes where it

75James Marsico, unpublished reconstruction of the first production of Sheridan's Pizarro. May 25, 1799, p. 5. 76 John H. McDowell, "Historical Development of the Box Set," Theatre Annual (1945), pp. 65-59. 98 is important to specify the number and location of entrances; without such units, all of the spaces between wings can be taken as potential entrances. Other kinds of units also, however, such as walls, ramparts, and platforms, have the same effect of introducing the third dimension into a stage compo­ sition. The introduction of such units requires specific directorial decisions as to how to use the perimeters of the stage. Non-parallel units are more difficult to recog.- nize in exterior scenes than in interior ones.

In an exterior scene which includes part of a building at one side, the entrance from that building may be a door plug between tree or rock wings, or between wings that represent walls. On the other hand, it may be a practicable door in a parallel flat unit. The promptbooks rarely tell us which method is used. We can find iconographic evidence for both techniques. In Mrs. Inchbald'c T°. Marry or Not to Marry, performed by Macready at the Haymarket in 1840, we find the sketch of a forest scene, with "a ruin*d Cottage U. E. L." (Fig. 12).*^ The wall in which the door is set appears to vanish behind

77 2nd ed. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1805), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, pp. 3 7 -37; McDowell P. 1149. 99

Fig. 12

To Marry or Not to Marry. Forest, P. 1149.

4 100 101 one of the trees, and it seems, therefore, that i it was set oblique to the curtain line. In a scene that we have already studied from William Tellj I however, the Scharf illustration seems to show!that Tell's cottage at the second entrance right hand i is a flat unit with a practicable door (Fig. 13). In such cases, we shall have to indicate merely the possibility of a non-parallel unit. ! Here follows a survey of the promptbooks for non-parallel structures. Macready first produced

Hamlet on October 3, 1837. In the play scene,iset in the fourth grooves, there is an arras in both the right and left second entrances, allowing the i King and Polonius to oversee Hamlet's scene with | Ophelia. In'the closet scene, a door fills the

i first entrance left, while two portraits, one of| Claudius and one of the elder Hamlet, fill the|first 78 i and second entrances right, respectively. Polonius i 79 i hides behind an arras second entrance left. ]In | i the churchyard scene, the funeral party must pass through gates on the right to enter the cemetery, and a "Church with door practicable L. H." may be

78Macready Collection, Victoria and Alber 52r ; McDowell P. 1153. 79Folger, 51, p. 58; McDowell P. 1610. F ig . 1 3 .

William Tell, Scharf, Tell's Cottage. 103

yi ^

> w

1 A l'l

;f ' i : # V) o 1 0 4

a three-dimensional unit. 80 The Bridal uses a number of door and arch plugs. There is a door in the third entrance right of the "room in Aspatia's house," I. i. The Hall in Amintor's Palace (II. i.)# a scene whose festive decoration has already been noted, has "Arches, 81 as entrances, R. and L. " The same scene employs

"two thrones with canopies, one 2. E. R., the other

2. E. L." 8 2 In Amintor's Library, a door is disco­ vered on the right, open. In III. i., another scene

in Amintor's Palace, one of Amintor's entrances is marked "thro* arch R." There is a door on the

left in IV. ii., and a door on the right in V. i., 83 both set in the King's Palace. The first scene of Werner. set in the decaying castle whose decor we have already discussed, has door units in the right and left second entrances,

the right unit having three steps below it. The

final scene, set in another of Siegendorf's Gothic

80KcDowell P. 1153, p. 70r . 81 v McDowell P. 1136, p. 25. 82 (London: Chapman and Hall, n. d.), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 16; McDowell P. 1147. 83McDowell P. 1136, pp. 9GV , 108V . halls, has doors in the first and third entrances right. ^ The entrance to Brabantio's house, in Othello, s t nd is "between 1 and 2 Wings," and a Porch unit sits in the first entrance right in the following street scene. In the second scene of the third act, set in the Castle at Cyprus, there are doors right and left. IV. ii., which uses the same setting, is the scene in which Othello first confronts

Desdemona with his suspicions. After telling Emilia to leave them, the prompter ominously writes that Q C "Othello closes the doors after Emilia." The

Folger promptbook elaborates the business with the door unit; the scene begins with the notation of a "Door piece 1. E. R. Key in it," and when Emilia leaves, "He locks the door." Desdemona quickly senses the threat in his actions.

Upon my knees, what doth your speech import? I understand a furggin your-words. But not the words.

Rd Harvard TS 2732.508, pp. 5, 156.

05McDowell P. 1154, p. 62r

^^Harrison, p. 1009. 106 8 7 The promptbook notes "Des alarmed L, kneeling." We have already seen the groundplan of the Council scene, with its three-sided platform extending not only across the back of the scene, parallel to the rear wall, but along the sides of the stage as well. Macready*s promptbook of The Stranger shows QQ "on the right side, a low lodge among the trees."

The lodge had a practicable door, for the Stranger makes many entrances from it; the unit may or may not be three-dimensional. The Tribunal unit from which Appius dominates the Forum scenes of Virginius 89 is an oblique unit placed between wings. The acting version of The Barbers of Bassora shows that Mustapha's splendid shop on the right side of the stage had a practicable door, which may have been 90 oblique rather than parallel. The promptbook for the first production of Henry V indicates that the Gate of Harfleur must have been practicable, for "The Governor and 2 Citizens Entr at the Gates

87KcDowell P. 1611, p. 55v • 88 (London: John Cumberland, n. d.), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 11; McDowell P. 1145. The Stranger was performed once in each of Macready*s seasons at the patent theatres: October 31, 1837; June 25, 1839; May 17, 1842; October 11, 1842. 89McDowell P. 1137, p. 32V . 90 McDowell F. 605, p. 9. 107

& kneel L. H.;" that gate may have been an oblique 91 unit at the left of the stage." In the abdication scene of King Lear, the throne is placed on a dais placed diagonally on the left, 92 according to the Scharf illustration (Fig. 4).

The third scene of Act I, in which Lear first receives a check to his high-handed way of living, is set outside the Duke of Albany's palace, a wing of which extends onstage at the right second entrance. Several characters make their entrances and exits there. When Edmund convinces Edgar to flee for his life,

n r l he leaves through "a Turret Door R. 2 E.," while

Gloster enters through large folding doors center. The hovel which Lear, Kent, and the Fool discover 93 on the heath is located at third entrance right. The three-sided platform of the Senate scene in Coriolanus exploits the third dimension of the stage space. In the assassination scene of Ion. performed May 4, 1838, at Covent Garden, Ion goes through a door in the second entrance right to reach

9^Ed. J. P. Kemble (London: John Miller, 1815), Folger, 42, p. 29 ; McDowell P. 1601. 92 While the dais itself is not noteworthy, its oblique placement tends to establish the third dimen­ sion of the stage space. 93 Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, pp. 1, 16, 29v-30, 55; McDowell P. 1156. 108 the chamber in which King Adrastus lies. 94 In the opening scene of As^ You Like It. "The

House, as within the Orchard, is L. 2. E." The

wrestling scene, which follows, includes a "Turret ce 95 et w steps . . . at R. 3. E." The steps would imply some kind of practical door in the entrance. Henry VIII was first performed at Covent Garden

on May 14, 1838. In the second scene of Act II,

Wolsey introduces the King to Cardinal Campeius,

who has come as a papal legate to try the case of

his marriage to Katherine. A "fow R. D." is the

center of a piece of business, by which Wolsey makes

it clear to the new arrival where the real power

lies. Henry makes his exit by the

fowd R. D. which Wols^ opens. Business between Wolsey and Campeius at exit. Camps is follg the King— Wols^ holds out his hand to him-g^e halts— Wols exits. Camp follows.

The "Castle of Altorf" in the first scene of William Tell has an entrance placed in the third opening left hand. Tell's cottage in II. i. is

94 Harvard *6ST-25, p. 80.

95Folger, 37, pp. 103v , 109v ; McDowell P. 1596.

96Folger, 43, p. 404r ; McDowell P. 1602. 109 placed in the second entrance right, though it may 9 7 be a flat unit. We have already noted the practical ramparts and gate of Harfleur in the second production ' of Henry V, and the three-sided platform extending across the back and sides of the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice. Rowell's interpretation of the siege scene from Henry \/ is that "The arch 98 on Stage L. is presumably a wing." That interp­ retation is an unlikely one, because it would make much of the business of the scene quite awkward; the Governor and the twenty armed men who appear on the walls need to face their attackers, not the audience. Presumably, therefore, the unit was an • oblique one. Another consideration is that the scene resembles the Angiers scene of King John, in which we have absolute proof of a practical ob­ lique rampart unit, with a gate set below. We have seen that the battle before Angiers in King John requires a practicable rampart with gates. The promptbook groundplan (Fig.- 14) removes any doubt that the unit was oblique rather than 99 parallel. The scene in the French King's t e n t

^McDowell P. 1140, pp. 1, 19. QQ George Rowell, The Victorian Theatre: _a Survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. x.

9^McDowell P. 29, p. 211V. F ig . 1 4 .

King John. .Siege of Angiers, P. 29. I l l

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■MUM £ 112 (III. i.)f in which the alliance between John and

Philip is dissolved, places great emphasis on two daisses at the left side, where the two kings sit on two thrones, side by side.^®^ When Hubert comes to Prince Arthur's cell to put out the boy's eyes, the implements of torture and execution are brought into the chamber for a "Door L. before which a piece 101 of tapestry hangs." Wien John kneels in the

Temple Church to surrender his authority to Pandulph, the papal messenger, "The chair of Pand [is] on 102 a low dais 1. W. L. " In the final death scene, the gate of Swinstead Abbey is a practical unit set oblique, for the instructions accompanying ^ * ■* Telbin's design describe an "Abbey Gate piece— -3.

E. R ."103 In Much Ado About Nothing. one of Macready*s last major productions (February 24, 1843, Drury Lane), two entrances to Leonato's house are depicted in the left wings. The porch is in the thirds entrance and a side door is in the first. Because the house

100Ibid., p. 231V .

101Ibid., p. 251v . 102Ibid., p. 2 70r . 103 Promptbook copied for Charles Kean by Ellis, Folger; McDowell P. 182. The designs for both the Kean and the Macready productions appear after the text. 113 seems to have taken up the left side of the stage, it would seem that at least the upper entrance must 104 have been set oblique.

A number of points can be made about the various

units we have discussed. 1.) There is a tendency in Macready*s productions to specify entrances in interior scenes by means of door or arch plugs. Such units sometimes make possible important pieces

of business: Othello can lock the door behind Emilia, for instance. Even when no specific business is

designed around them, the plugs tend to differentiate

the stage space. If the spaces between wings are

left open, they are all potential entrances. The presence of a door plug, however, limits the possi­ bilities at each point around the stage perimeter; paradoxically, it is the open spaces which, by con­ vention, become impassible.

2.) The three-sided platforms of Othello.

Coriolanus. and The Merchant of Venice must also be counted as oblique units. They emphasize and define the sides of the playing area in a way that parallel wings do not. When one considers, in fact, the height to which these platforms raise the massed characters placed on them, one concludes that the

104Harvard 13846.G9.13*, p. 217. 114

platforms compose a kind of three-sided enclosure.

3.) All of the oblique units tend to break

down the conventions by which three-dimensional space had been reduced to parallel planes in neo­

classic stage design, and to mix with those conven­

tions a different, more literal representation of

the third dimension. 4.) All the units we have discovered leave

unchanged the symmetry of the stage. , The units

are rarely symmetrical themselves, but they preserve

the symmetrical trapezoidal shape of the wing-and- shutter stage. None of them divide the stage into

separate areas. None of them encroach into the

central playing areas. Macready*s productions show

some development of the modern perception of three

dimensions in the perimeters of the stage space, but there is no development of the third dimension

within the stage space.

Enclosed Settings. Non-parallel structures

confirm the audience*s impressions of the side boun­

daries of the setting. The ultimate extension of

that tendency is the enclosed scene. A number of

the cases we have just examined are virtually de

facto enclosures. There are, in addition, a small number of complete three-sided enclosures in the

Macready productions. It is not clear that any 115 of the enclosures are actually box sets, in the

strict sense, since there is no proof that they were covered by a ceiling piece. They have many of the qualities of the box set, however, and it will be useful to examine them for evidence of direc­ torial decision-making, particularly in the area of

Macready*s use of space.

We should first take note, however, of several settings which in effect are very nearly enclosures.

The three-sided platform configuration which Macready used for legal settings (Figs. 2 and 7) defines the shape of a symmetrical enclosure. The effective height of that composition is the height of the platform plus that of the figures seated on it. It was not possible, therefore, to act behind the platforms. Even if the scenery was parallel, there­ fore, the platforms and the figures sitting on them effectively enclosed the stage, and defined the shape and size of the acting area. We have already discussed some aspects of the decaying palace scene in Werner. Since there were practicable doors right and left, we know that there were, in a sense, three walls. Scharf*s illustration, in fact, seems to indicate a completed enclosure

(Fig. 15). We have a promptbook sketch, however. F i g . 1 5 .

Werner. Scharf, Decaying Palace. v V W

I

{ \\ \ •/?

CT 3 2 7 -aC

L XT 118 which shows that is not the case (Fig. 16). 105 The side walls are separated from the shutter by the conventional space between the second and third wings. We are dealing, of course, with an ad hoc mixture of conventions, and one of the odd paradoxes of the arrangement is that the space left physically open between the second and third wings is considered closed by convention, xdiile the actual entrances are in the spaces which have been filled. The first scene of King John has already been noted for its decor. Telbin's scene design (Fig. 5) bears indications of "2 pairs of flats, set ob*- 106 lique, R & L." It is not clear whether these flats joined the shutter or not, though the placement of the sunlight on the shutter right seems to show that it was not continuous with the side flats.

At left is the door through which the French ambass­ ador makes his entrance, early in the scene. As Werner, there are clearly three walls, tho.pgh they are not necessarily joined into a unified enclo­ sure. The closet scene from Hamlet is also semi-, enclosed, in much the same way as the Werner and

105(London: John Murray, 1823), Folger, 54, p. 5 ; McDowell P. 1613.

106McDowell P. 182. P ig . 1 6 .

Werner. Decaying Palace, P. 1613. " 1

4

i f

s

I-

*

^ ■* m z£fi^2 > £ ^ 2 £ $ L 121 and King John scenes. The scene is set in the third 107 grooves. With the portraits of the two kings filling the first and second entrances right, with a door in the first entrance left, and an arras in the second entrance left, we have, in effect, two side walls. There is a space, however, between those walls and the shutter.

We may take these cases of near-enclosure as accidental, resulting not from a conscious design, but as the sum total of many smaller decisions about the shape of entrances and the accoutrements of the stage. From such cases of accidental semi-enclosure, however, we shall now procede to consider several productions in which Macready intentionally used complete three-sided enclosures. A promptbook ground- plan shows us such an enclosure in the sleepwalking 108 scene of Macbeth (Fig. 17). The scene in Imogen's bedroom from Cymbeline is described in this way: log "The Sc' itself should be enclosed." Ellis's water-color of the scene shows that a series of columns, walls, and tapestries encloses the scene

McDowell P. 1153, p. 52. 108 Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 56 ; McDowell P. 115 7.

■^^McDowell P. 1599, p. 33V. F ig . 1 7 .

Macbeth, Sleepwalking Scene, P. 115 7. 123| 1 2 4 on three sides (Fig. The last scene of Much Ado About Nothing. in which all the lovers are reconciled, is set in "a Room in Leonato's House." The setting is described as "An Enclosed Chamber 111 w doors R & L." The Bridal is a conjectural case: the frontispiece of a printed edition (Fig.

19) appears to show two characters in an enclosed interior, but of course there is considerable doubt

about the veracity of such engravings. 112

Richelieu is the only Macready production which employed more than one enclosure. Two scenes are set in Richelieu*s office-apartment, I. ii. and

II. ii. The setting is depicted in the promptbooks (Fig. 20) and in Scharf*s Recollections (Fig. 21).

The promptbook diagram shows that, between the curtain line and the second groove, the set is composed of wings and plugs. A door, and a secret entrance concealed by a tapestry, fill the left entrances; the groundplan shows a door in the first right posi­ tion, while the text indicates a "private entrance"--

■^^Folger; McDowell F. 544. '^1 Harvard 13846.69.13*, p. 307. 119 McDowell P. 1147, frontispiece. 113 Book #3, Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 14 ; McDowell P. 1134. The book number is my own. Book #1 is Macready*s personal study copy. Book #2 is a promptbook used in production, and Book #3 is a fair copy of Book #2. 125

Fig. 18.

Cymbeline. Imogen's Bedroom, F. 544. 126 F ig . 1 9 .

The Bridal, frontispiece, P. 1147. 73V 128 F ig . 2 0 .

Richelieu, Richelieu*s Office.

P. 1134, Book #3. 130

XfitWty. (2*t- □ CD

1VJ F ig . 2 1 .

Richelieu. Scharf, Richelieu's Office. 132

1

m

I

B 133 never used, curiously enough— in the second right entrance. In any case, the space is filled by a unit which the Victoria and Albert promptbooks des­ cribe as "Swords," and the Harvard promptbook calls a "Pile of Arms."11^

A screen appears, in both the groundplan and the illustration, behind the Cardinal's desk. For a number of reasons, the space behind the screen should be interpreted as an enclosed acting area rather than as a painting on a shutter. First, the illustration shows the vanishing point of the space as off-center to house left, which is very improbable for a perspective painting, but altogether normal as a view from house left of an enclosed space. Second, if we interpret the arc in the prompt­ book sketch as an arch at the second entrance, and the shapes traced within it as the groundplan of a set of walls, we find that the lines match the conformation of the walls in the illustration.

The promptbook indicates an opening at the rear, and we can see an arched opening above the screen in the illustration. An upper left-hand door indic­ ated in the groundplan appears between the heads of Julie find the Cardinal in the illustration.

114Book #3, McDowell P. 1134, p. 14v ; Harvard TS 2507.100, p. 9. 1 3 4 Scharf has also illustrated III. i., which is set in Richelieu's apartment in the palace at

Ruelle. Here again we can compare a promptbook 115 sketch with an illustration (Figs. 22 and 23).

The setting has continuous walls, with a recess at the center of the rear flat. On the left is a large window through which the moon is visible, on the right a pair of folding doors through which- the Cardinal will be revealed in his bed, feigning death to deceive his would-be assassins. There are two other doors, at the right and left first entrances, set not obliquely, but directly facing one another. Enclosures are so rare in Macready's management, that one assumes there must have been some compelling reason for constructing them in the four well- documented cases we have discussed. In the Much

Ado About nothing enclosure, however, it is difficult to see what that reason could be. The church., scene, in which the wedding of Hero and Claudio is called off, is much more important dramatically, and a detailed grounplan shows that Macready took much

115 Book #2, McDowell P. 1134, inserted between Acts II and III. F ig . 2 2 .

Richelieu, Palace at Ruelle, P. 1134, Book #2. ^ & £ ) & * • A •*•" & * £ & * 137

Pig. 23. Richelieu. Scharf, Palace at Ruelle. 138 139 greater pains in producing it. 1X6 In the other cases, however, the enclosed set­

tings are used to make statements about characters associated with them. The enclosure of Lady Macbeth

within castle walls is a metaphor for the entrapment of her mind within dark and bloody memories. "All

the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little 117 hand. . . . V.’hat's done cannot be undone." The continuous walls would have had a striking effect of entrapment for an audience accustomed to open

space at the sides of the stage. Imogen's bedchamber

requires a special eroticism, a special attention to the colors and textures of surfaces. The colors,

according to the promptbook, are gold and silver, with deep reds and blues. «

All the furniture of the Sc' is gilt— Tables, stools, &c; the chest is red gold, Drap* of Bed &c blue and silver.

Iachimo's description of the chamber sounds like

a poetic paraphrase.

116Harvard 13846.69.13*, p. 276. ^Harrison, pp. 1213-14.

110McDowell P. 1599, p. 33V . X40

. . . it was hanged With tapestry of silk and silver; . . .

The roof o' the chamber With golden cherubins is fretted. Her andirons— I had forgj^gthem— were two winking Cupids Of silver.

Ellis's water-color of the scene (Fig. 10) shows that Macready capitalized on the tendency of the enclosure to emphasize surfaces: the walls are defined not by flats, but by voluptuously draped fabrics.

The two Richelieu settings reflect different sides of the Cardinal's character. The first setting, in his Paris residence, shows an active and alert

Richelieu, at the height of his power. The second, dimly lit chamber at Ruelle, with its moonlight "frequently obscured," shows a pensive and discouraged

Richelieu, beset by conspirators. The first setting is an ad hoc, almost improvised arrangement; the second shows that Macready was aware of the special property of the enclosure, that it yields more usable surface than parallel scenery can do. The setting can accomodate the discovery of the Cardinal in his bed, and also contain the atmospheric values of the large window left and the recess at the rear.

119 Harrison, p. 1399 141 Not all Macready1s enclosures occurred in the patent theatre productions. In the last act of The King of the Commons. which Macready performed in 1845, a conspiracy is unmasked in the presence chamber of King James of Scotland; the promptbook specifies an ''Enclosed Scene." Fig. 24 shows an incomplete groundplan which accompanies that descrip- tion. 120 The oblique row of attendants at right, and the oblique door unit at left, tend to confirm a three-sided enclosure. Evidently Macready was attempting to put the conspirators visually at a disadvantage by literally enclosing them within the King's own space. Generally the principle of enclosure implies an interior setting. If we are to believe Scharf's illustration of Macbeth II. iii., however (Fig. 25), we must admit that much of the same effect is possible in an exterior. Downer has interpreted that setting as "an enormous walled square filling the entire stage." 121 The illustration shows the moments just after the discovery of Du.ncan's murder; the same setting, however, would have accomodated the agonies

120 (London: T. C. Newby, 1846), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 79; McDowell P. 1150. 121Alan S. Downer, The Eminent Tragedian William Charles Macready (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 324-25. 142

Fig. 24. The King of the Commons. Discovery Scene, P. 1150. r.# rz/^v-^h. jfern L. - <21SSm

;1XG OF TIIE COMMONS.

» <■'* irsis ft) , ACT V.

^M ^jtaU djijH irt^ ThejCom ^ti^ijH^rou^

T h e Lords obtervmg him.

SOMERVILLE (to K IL M A U lw ) . His grace is heavier than his wont

K IL M A 0 R 8 . lie looks All ruurnl, first upon one, then on another, As he would dive into their hearts.

SOMERVILLE. See now! How he is gazing on Lord Sc ton’s face.

JAMES. Soton! BF.TON, tfT/.i Your Majesty! c JAMES. Come near me, Seton!- ' *’ hat is’t detains the Cardinal so long? ’Tis no such mighty work; a ready pen And a good will should make it minutes' business. 6ETON. I'll seek his grace. JAMES. Bid him despatch. Exit f Setow. fola^Vmar*

JAMES (to home). A word— T li* escort is retu rn ed from LaichmontP F ig . 2 5 .

Macbeth. Scharf, Alarm after the Murder. 145 146 of Macbeth just before and after the murder. The atmosphere of the enclosure is oppressive and claus­ trophobic. The Richelieu promptbooks show that on at least one occaision Macready considered using a two-sided asymmetrical enclosure. Fig. 26 shows a sketch which appears opposite the first page of Act II in Macready's acting copy. 122 The sketch shows a set with two v.’alls, two doors, and an apex at up right center. The sketch does not reappear in the production books, and the Harvard promptbook shows that the scene was actually played with a 123 shutter in the first groove. The sketch shows , that Macready considered the applications of asymmetry to stage design, but rejected the alternative in this case. Two points should be made about Macready*s enclosures. 1.) All of them are symmetrical. 2.)

They all reinforce the same trapezoidal stage,, shape demanded bv winq-and-shutter staging. The Richelieu settings show some slight variations, but all the enclosures are composed essentially of a back wall parallel to the curtain line, and two oblique side

122Book #1, McDowell P. 1134, Act II, p. 1V 123Harvard TS 2587.100, p. 25. F ig . 2 6 .

Richelieu. Asymmetrical Enclosure. P. 1134, Book #1. 148

J. 149 walls placed symmetrically- Again we find that Macready confined his decision-making about the stage space to its perimeter, leaving the playing area, and the conventional shape of the setting, untouched. Summary, Thirteen of the thirty-one plays for which we have examined promptbooks made some use of a practicable level other than the stage floor. Four seen definitely to have used enclosed settings, and seventeen other productions made some more limited use of non-parallel scenery. To what extent are the thirty-fcur productions in our sample typical of the one hundred forty-two Macready patent theatre productions? Are they likely to be more or less conventionally staged than the average pro­ duction?

There is a strong presumption that the produc­ tions whose promptbooks have survived are those which for some reason were considered "important." Our collection is heavily slanted toward Macready1s

"serious" productions, productions with which we might expect him to take special care.

Shakespearean plays are almost guaranteed to be "serious," and our sample is heavily weighted toward Shakespeare. 13% of the plays Macready pro­ duced at the patent theatres— nineteen out of one 150

hundred forty-two— were by Shakespeare; 5 2 %— sixteen

out of thirty-one— of our sample productions are Shakespearean. Most of the other productions were

distinguished in some way from routine entertainments.

Four were personal star vehicles for Macready: Talfourd's Ion. Bulwer-Lytton's Richelieu. Knowles’s

Virginius. and Byron's Werner. Such plays were

not only considered artistically important; they were Macready's bread-and-butter. William Tell

and The Bridal. by Knowles, and Marino Faliero.

by Byron, though not as financially rewarding to Macready as the preceding group, were nonetheless

artistically important for being written by highly-

regarded authors. The School for Scandal. Love

for Love. The Stranger. Venice Preserved, and The

Provoked Husband, were proven war-horses of the

stage, important by tradition.

Seven of the thirteen productions with practic­

able levels, eleven of the seventeen with non-parallel

« scenery, and three of the four with enclosed settings,

* are Shakespearean. These figures are slightly more

disproportionate even than our sample. We may guess

that serious non-Shakespearean productions were perhaps more casually and conventionally raounted

than Shakespearean productions. The acting editions of two of Morton's farces. 151 The Spitfire and Chaos Is Come Again, are based on the Covent Garden productions. Both frontispieces seem to show that such plays were routinely staged in flat scenes: Figs. 2 7 and 28 both show shallow 124 scenes backed by shutters. Entrances in Chaos

Is Come Again are from open wings. In Scene 1 of

The Spitfire there is a "door R. C.," in Scene 2 a "Door R. C. leading to a cabin— door L. C. leading 125 to the companion ladder." In general, such routine entertainments seem to have relied on conventional wing-and-shutter stage practice. The great majority of scenes in Macready produc-

* tions, even in the untypically elaborate productions we have studied, were played in symmetrical wings and shutters. Some of the spaces between wings were occasionally plugged. In four cases, one or more scenes was enclosed on three sides. For a specific and urgent purpose, a second level was sometimes introduced into the scene. All of those tamperings, however, were confined to the perimeter of the stage space, which retained its conventional trapezoidal symmetry from the neo-classic stage

The Spitfire. McDowell F. 601, frontispiece; Chaos is Come Again (London: Chapman and Hall, n. d.), Harvard' frontispiece; McDowell F. 791.

125McDowell F. 601, pp. 5, 11. F ig . 2 7 .

The Spitfire, frontispiece, F. 601. 153

"Vitj 1 • F ig . 2 8 .

Chaos Is Come Again, frontispiece, F. 791.

n ‘Mi i t 156 practice. Macready*s basic tool was the conventional stage floor; though he tampered at times with its

edges, he was not in the business of shaping the cental stage space to the demands of each scene. At the boundaries of the stage, Macready was making decisions

which undermined neo-classic practice; but he seems

not to have grasped the conceptual importance of

those decisions, for the main playing area was used

in exactly those automatic ways that his work was undermining. The directorial function of shaping

space was largely inoperative in Macready*s management.

«

Lighting

Mordecai Gorelik has described the function of modern lighting design, indicating how its vari­

ables of hue, intensity, focus, and directionality must continually support an interpretation of the work. The designer

must visualize the type of lighting which is to be used, its psychological effect, and its modifications, or jggcnsifications, in the course of the play.

196 "Designing the Play," John Gassner, Producing the Play, rev. ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1941), p. 336. The interpretive function of light in Macready*s day was still severely limited by technology. Gas lighting was somewhat brighter, certainly safer and more convenient, than candlelight. The full psycho­ logical and sculptural potential of light, however, could not be exploited— indeed, it could not even be conceived of— without lighting instruments that would yield the intense directionality of modern electric illumination. Without such directionality, managers could obtain only the most primitive of effects. The chief variable was intensity, and the most common light cue in the Macready promptbooks, as in all early nineteenth-century promptbooks, is

"Lamps h down." The majority of such cues are not useful for our examination, because in most cases they are simply the conventional reflection of a night setting. Lighting as a conscious interpretive element was very much in its infancy.

Macready is credited with one of .the innovations which brought theatrical lighting to maturity. The limelight is the instrument which gave the theatre its first brilliant and highly directional beam;

Macready is the first manager known to have used it. The historic event occurred on December 26, 183 7, at the opening of Harlequin and Peeping Tom of Coventry, the Covent Garden Christmas pantomime. 158

The principal feature of the pantomime was one of Stanfield's dioramas, presenting a series of places in Europe. 12 7 For the third scene, set in the Valley of Aosta at Villeneuve, Macready created the effect of moonlight bathing the scene.

The most beautiful effect of moonlight that we have ever beheld, throws into startling contrast the,grand and simple severity of the scene.

There appear to have been two startling qualities of the new instrument: on the one hand, it was more brilliant than anything the public was used to, and on the other, it was more directional— the viewer could tell where the light was coming from. The

Mirror, for instance, noted that the moon "actually 129 appears to shed light over the scene." The lime­ light was so brilliant, according to John Bull. that

"one person complained that he 'never saw the moon 130 shine so bright.'"

The limelight is one of the most important

12 7 For a summary of the scenic effects of the production, see Bassett, pp. 88-91. l^SThe Examiner. December 31, 183 7, p. 837. January 6 , 1838, quoted by Bassett, p. 90.

■^^December 31, 103 7, p. 634. 159 technological breakthroughs in the history of theat­

rical design, for it meant, at least in theory, that lighting was no longer restricted to a generalized

wash. Technological innovations, however, often precede the conceptual innovations which .allow their

full exploitation; Macready seems to have had no idea of the importance of what he had done. 131 VJithin

a few days he had cut the effect from the production, apparently for reasons of expense. On January 15, he wrote in his diary that

Mr. Gye . . . wanted to argue with me that I ought to retain his light through the run of the pantomime, which he charged at LI 10s. per night.

There are a few other occasions on which Macready may have used a limelight. One of the Macbeth prompt- ■ books reports that, after the witches have delivered to Macbeth their prophecy of power, "From R. Lightning 133 [is] thrown directly on Macbeth's face." Downer

For fuller discussion of the incident, see W. J. Lawrence, "First Use of Lime-Light on the Stage," Notes and Queries. 7th Series, 8 (September 1889), p. 225; and Lawrence P. Goodman, "More Light on the Limelight," TS 10 (1969), pp. 114-120.

^3^Toynbee, I, 440-41. 133 Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 11V ; McDowell P. 1165. 160 has interpreted the effect as a device "perhaps to mark the brand that is upon him, perhaps to signal the beginning of his withdrawal from his compan- 134 ions." The intensity and directionality of such a beam suggest limelight. Moonlight settings are the classic early exploit­ ation of limelight. In the Ruelle setting of Richelieu

(Fig. 22), the great window at stage left is for moonlight. It may be that the moon was seen through the window, or that moonlight poured through the window on the scene. The latter interpretation would suggest limelight. The Times noticed another moonlight effect in The Merchant of Venice.

The moonlit garden in the fifth act is particularly beautiful, sparkling with soft light, and melting awa^jLnto a poetic indistinctness at the back.

There must be considerable doubt about that example, however, because "soft light" is not one of the charac­ teristics of the limelight effect. Moonlight also . shines on the gate of Swinstead Abbey in the last 136 scene of King John. Atmospheric moonlight, though

134 Downer, p. 322.

^December 28, 1841, p. 5.

136McDowell P. 29, p. 283v. 161 probably not created by limelight, also figures in Ion IV. iii., and again in As^ You Like It III. ii. : "Summer evening— moon seen faintly in the sky." 13 7 Occasionally more interesting than his use of light is Macready*s use of darkness; sometimes darkness or semi-darkness becomes more than the conventional indication of night. In one scene from Werner, the darkness is literal and not conventional. Gabor finds himself in a secret passage leading to Stralen- heim's chamber. The setting is a series of arches running to the deepest groove. The only light, at "the very extremity.of the stage," is a "Dark lanthorn at crevice behind," which represents Stralenheim*s chamber light showing through a keyhole. "Stage quite dark," writes the prompter, and then again, because it is an unusual direction, he restates it: 133 "The stage should be literally quite dark." One assumes that the figure of Gabor would still be seen dimly by auditorium lighting. A motif of semi-darkness 139 is associated with the witches in Macbeth. In III. i. of Ion. when the young man begins to realize that he must die to raise the curse on his city,

^3^Harvard *65T—25, p. 95; Folger, 36, McDowell P. 1595, p. 44 . 138Harvard TS 2 732.588, pp. 113v-113.

139McDowell P. 1157, pp. 5V, 8V. 162 the light grows dim for a metaphorical purpose. 140 Before we leave the subject of lighting, there is a fringe category which should be noted, because it gives evidence of atmospheric intentions with regard to certain scenes. Macready occasionally shows the source of light, thus filling in information which the primitive lighting practice of his day could not supply. The scenery of the King*s ante­ chamber in The Bridal includes "a lamp burning," and in the following prison scene, the promptbook specifies a "Lamp burning, suspended from the cei- ling." 141 By showing the source of illumination,

Macready implies that there is no other source.

The effect is rather like the carrying of torches in the Elizabethan public stage. Both of the scenes from The Bridal need a dark and gloomy atmos­ phere. In the first Evadne comes to the King's chamber at night, supposedly as his mistress. In the second, Mclantius waits in a prison cell, while assassins will shortly attempt to kill him. In Richelieu III. ii., a scene set "in the house of Count de Baradas," there are transparent chandeliers painted on the flats," that is, the flames of the painted chandeliers

140Harvard *65T-25, p. 58. 141McDowell P. 1147, pp. 44-45 163 were made of gauze, and illuminated from behind. 142

With the general illumination cut by half, the glowing

points of light suggest the furtive atmosphere of the conspirator's house; at the same time, Macready avoided the movement of flaming candles in the vjings of the

theatre. The condition of lighting in Macready's time

was not such that it allowed much scope for directorial judgments. Some of Macready1 s most interesting com.- ments on illumination, as we have just noted, have

nothing to do with the instruments which actually illuminate the stage. Macready is justly credited with the innovation of limelight; in Harlequin and

Peeping Tom of Coventry, he used it for directorial,

atmospheric purposes. It is also clear, however, » that he had no sense of the significance of that

innovation. Macready's other directorial use of light consists of a few cases in which he used its

absence in ways that are not merely conventional.

For the most part, however, in the thirty-four produc­ tions we have studied, and, we must assume, in the rest of the one hundred forty-two patent theatre plays, the chief function of light was to make the stage visible to the audience. Macready had neither

142Harvard TS 258 7.100, p. 67 164 the technical nor the conceptual equipment to use light in the plastic, directorial way it is used today.

Sound

Host of the sound effects in the Macready pro­ ductions are either mandated by the script, or purely

conventional. It would hardly be possible to produce

King Lear without providing thunder for the heath

scenes, so that the thunder effects which have been

studied by Bassett do not by themselves show a specific T Jt O interpretation of the scene. An example of a purely

conventional sound effect would be the "Flourish of Trumpets and Drums" which accompanies every royal

entrance in a history play. There are two uses of •: sound in the Macready productions, however, which seem directorial.

In two productions, liacready uses the sound of the sheep bell to accompany a pastoral setting, thus adding to the visual element an auditory distinc­ tion between corrupt court and virtuous countryside. When Florizel and Perdita are introduced to us in

143 Bassett, p. 100. 165 The Winter* s Tale at "The Shepherd's cottage," the 144 scene is complemented by a "Tinkling Sheep Bell." We have already looked at the moonlit forest scene

of As_ You Like It; a "Shepherd's pipe, tabor, and sheep 14*^ bell heard occasionally" lent additional atmosphere. In two of his history play productions, Macready

created elaborate battle scenes whose chief component

was sound. In the second production of Henry V,

while the Chorus describes the passage across the

Channel,

very distant shouts a:;d alarums are heard, which continue very fainj^ through the remainder of the speech.

When the Chorus finishes the speech, the sound appears

to come nearer, for we hear "all the tumult of a battle." The diorama shows the assault on Harfleur. An English party enters from the first entrance left,

fleeing from the city walls. Henry and his party

enter from the left; he rallies his troops again

"into the breach" and leads them off again left.

More troops follow from right to left, as if again

^44Ed. Cteevens, Folger, 50, p. 60; McDowell P. 1609. 145Folger, 38, p. 34r ; McDowell P. 1597.

146McDowell P. 1600, pp. 366-369V . assaulting the walls. Here follows a comic interlude in which Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, and a Boy wish they were home. During all that action, "Shouts, Trumpets, and Discord [are] kept up at short Intervals in Scene Room." The series of separate dramatic beats played on stage, with the modulations of the offstage sound, create the impression of a long, fluctuating battle. The battle itself, however, does not intrude onto the stage, which shows only a series of tangential events. The battle before Angiers in King John is created entirely through sound effects and the reactions of the citizens, who watch from the city walls.

Shoutsj Crashes i and Trumpet Alarums. This is done 3 distinct times, increasing .^.7 nearer and becoming more remote each time.

The repetitive rhythm of sound quickly and cheaply creates the impression of a long and futile battle.

Both the King John and the Henry V battle scenes show an awareness on Macready*s part of the implicative powers of sound. To present the length and arduousness of either battle on the stage would have been a problem of staggering difficulty. Before leaving the subject of theatrical sound,

147McDowell P. 29, p. 220r . we should note two storm effects which seem more than merely mandatory. The effects in the first scene of Iferner are not in themselves particularly distinctive: "Begin with storm. No thunder, only 143 wind and rain." They are, however, part of the decor that serves a metaphor for the depression and decay of Werner's soul. It is interesting that Macready omitted thunder, which would have implied a grandeur lacking in the self-pitying hero* The rain effect in III. iii. of Much Ado About Nothing is more than atmospheric, for it forces Conrade and Borachio to take shelter on a porch, where Dogberry, Verges, and the rest of the Watch overhear and arrest them.4.*, 149 Though most use of sound in the Macready produc­ tions are either mandatory or conventional, there are a few instances in which sound is used in an original and directorial way.

148McDowell P. 1135, p. 4V. 149Harvard 13846.69.13*, p. 269 168

CHAPTER HI MACREADY AMD HIS SUPERNUMERARIES

Macready*s managership was often praised for the detail and realism of its crowd scenes. Because of that quality, Wilson claims that Macready antici* pated the methods of the Meiningers. According to Downer, the public perceived such crowd scenes as a radical innovation.

The audience, accustomed to wait for the star's points, suddenly were stirred out of themselves by a scene in which the leading character did not appear. The masses of soldiers or courtiers demanded by so many of Shakespeare's plays were no longer a band of pitiful rascals, but. a contributory part of the whole action.

J. R. Anderson, who acted for Macready and later managed in his own right, wrote that the extras in Coriolanus had to give as much care to their performances as the leading actors.

Alan S. Downer, The Eminent Tragedian William Charles Macready (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966)9 pT 242*. 169 The citizens of Rome were numerous enough to fill the stage completely— and every one of them was taught to act the part as- if on him rested the success of the play.

The Examiner rhapsodized upon a crowd in the opera Sappho, produced at Drury Lane on April 1, 1843.

How dense is the mass that drives ![the priest] before it, yet how completely does it separate itself into distinct individualities, each glowing with a sepa­ rate passion! If we recollect how choruses are usually managed, how individuals are melted down into one lifeless series, how one stiff semicircle of singers seems to represent every emotion that stirs the human heart, we can appreciate the value of Mr. Macready*s exertions in infu­ sing a life into that whichuconvention had made utterly inanimate.

The commentary leaves a number of suggestions in

the historian's mind. First, there seems to have

been a conventional way of arranging crowds on the « stage, one form of which is described as a "stiff

semicircle." Second, the conventional way of direc­ ting crowds was perceived as "lifeless," or "inani­ mate." it gave no vivid impression of what the various

persons felt or desired. Third, Macready's crowd

2 James Robertson Anderson, An Actor's Life (London: James Scott Publishing company, 1902), p. 73.

^April 8, 1843, p. 212. 170 members, by comparison with conventional "supers," were perceived as "distinct individualities, each glowing with a separate passion*" This chapter will seek evidence both of directorial and of merely conventional crowd management* It will also evaluate the extent to which both kinds of management were present in the Macready productions, and elucidate the differences between them. Though picturization and movement are in practice inextricably related, we shall make a separation between them, for the purposes of our argument, since we shall be examining them in the light of different kinds of information. The static element of picturization is accessible to us in many dozens of promptbook diagrams; the fluid elements of movement and business are recorded in interpolated stage directions. The chapter will begin with an analysis of static elements; and proceed to a treatment of fluid elements, concluding with a brief consideration of some interesting entrances and exits*

Static Elements— -Picturization. Every manager must see that his actors get on and off the stage without bumping into each other. He must also make sure that the important actors are usually visible to the audience. A director, however, must also 171 keep many other values in mind.

The Director must go far beyond his bare framework of action to devise movement and groupings which will bring out the full dramatic content of the scene, . . . The director uses his blocking to create the appropriate emotional climate for the action.

He must show us the different factions of the dramatic conflict, and indicate which faction holds the upper hand at any given moment. He must show us which characters are important, and which subsidiary,

to the super-objective of the scene. It is important that we understand to what extent Macready*s stage pictures provided the kind of information we have just described, because it is to that extent that they are directorial. It is not possible, within the scope of this chapter, to analyze every promptbook groundplan which is

available. Since most of the groundplans can" be reduced to a few simple conventions, we will analyze only selected examples of those formulae, while pointing out other examples. We shall then proceed to analyze some groundplans which show divergence

4 Theodore Hatlen, Orientation to the Theatre (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 19 72), p. £l$. 172 or elaboration from conventional formulae. There are three main conventional shapes evident in Macready1s routine stage compositions: the straight

line, the circle, and the trapezoid. We find the three basic conventions in isolation and in combina­

tion. We also find that Macready's most advanced

and directorial compositions usually graft interpre­

tive variations onto the conventional forms.

The simplest form of staging is the straight

line parallel to the curtain. The chief advantage

of the convention is its simplicity. It is easy

to conceive and easy to execute; it crops up time

and time again in amateur productions whose chief

quality is formlessness. The greatest disadvantage

of the straight line is its total inexpressiveness. Though a figure in the center is slightly dominant,

it gives no clear focus to any point on the stage. A director cannot create focus by directing the

attention of actors within the group, because the

sightlines between actors are blocked. Actors are therefore compelled to play directly to the audience,

ignoring environment, circumstances of the scene,

and each other. Straight line staging is clearly

incompatible with the creation of unified, personal, and specific interpretations of a text, for it forces each actor into a one-on-one relationship with his 173 audience, and destroys any relationship he might have with an ensemble. The promptbooks for Macbeth (November 6, 1837, Covent Garden) give many examples of straight line staging. In I. iv., for instance, when Macbeth and Banquo appear before King Duncan to receive his thanks for their services, the actors are formed 5 into three ranks (Fig. 29). The upstage row consists of chamberlains, the middle row of characters who have no active role in the scene. In the front row stand, from right to left, the princes Donalbain and Malcolm, the King, and the two heroes of the occasion, Macbeth and Banquo. Though the King re-» ceives a certain prominence from being in the center, there is no indication in the staging of his feeling toward Macbeth and Banquo. Malcolm and Donalbain have almost nothing to say after the entrance of the two chieftains, but in their downstage right position they are more prominent. The written scene establishes Banquo and Macbeth as renowned military heroes, but the blocking does not. When Duncan is discovered murdered in Macbeth's

e W. c. Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 14 ; John H. McDowell Archives, Ohio State University Theatre Research Institute, P. 1165. F ig . 2 9 .

Macbeth. Meeting with Duncan, P. 1165. 175

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castle, the modern viewer expects to see a picture

of panic and disorder. The promptbook, however,

arranges the shocked and terrified main characters

in a single neat row (Fig. 30 ).6 In III. i. Macbeth, now king, invites Banquo •

his feast. The composition is again in three rows

(Fig. 31), the front rank for principals, the rear for supernumeraries, the middle for characters having 7 no active part in the scene. Though Macbeth is

duping Banquo, and is fully in control of the situ­

ation, he has the weakest of the three positions

in the front rank. Banquo, the dupe, has the dominant central position; even the child Fleance is placed

on the stronger right side, while Macbeth is on

the weaker left. The staging alone, therefore, ■ would leave a very confused impression in the viewer's mind. The linear pattern is carried through into

V. iv., in which Macbeth's enemies gather, at Biman o Forest (Fig. 32). The principals range in a rank

at the front, while another row behind is composed

6 Ibid., p. 29v . 7 Ibid., p. 33v .

8 Ibid., p. 60r. F ig . 3 0 .

Macbeth. Alarm' after the Murder, P. 1165. 178

f t - A + j? F i g . 3 1 .

M a c b e th . Invitation to the Banquet, P. 1165. 180

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Fig. 32.

Macbeth, Gathering at Birnam Forest, P. 1165. 182

’ X *» K <0 • ' X A^v*. ‘S kr» 4 X’ % i rt »» - i ^V / iVjfc* 44/ < 4 / J=£ " 1 X83 9 of supernumeraries. The final tableau (Fig. 33) is only a deeper version of the same pattern, composed of five ranks rather than two or three.Malcolm, the heir, who speaks the closing lines, has the central position, while Macbeth's body lies at the k feet both of his conqueror and of his successor.

There is a metaphorical sense to that triad, and one might take the regularity and symmetry of the entire composition as an image of the new political order, had one not seen the same qualities in scenes of disorder, darkness and duplicity.

The promptbook for the first production of

Henry V (November 14, 1837, Covent Garden) also contains many examples of linear staging. In II. iv., Exeter delivers to the French court Henry's demand that the French King resign his crown. The persons of the court are ranged across the stage in a single line, with supernumeraries behind.

When Exeter, Montjoy, and the two English lords enter at left to present the pedigree, both lines

9 The shape of the composition is linear and conventional, but the symmetrical arrangement of English and Scottish forces is interesting. Macready composed all the last military scenes in that way, evidently to make the point that Macbeth's own sub­ jects have joined with the invading armies to over­ throw him.

10McDowell P. 1165, p. 67v. Fig. 33.

Macbeth. Final Tableau, P. 1165. 185

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simply move to the right (Fig. 34).** Exeter's

mission is to hurl defiance at the French court:

MIf you hide the crown / E'en in your hearts, there 12 will he rake for it.*1 One might expect, therefore,

that the stage picture would reflect an opposition of French and English interests. The single line

shown in the groundplan, however, would seem to

indicate homogeneity. The French King cannot even

see Exeter, much less confront him, because there

are other characters in the way. In a French camp*1 scene before Agincourt, the Court is arranged in 13 the same sort of straight lines (Fig. 35).

The English camp follows the same pattern. When Montjoy asks Henry for a truce in IV. vii.,

he arrives in the camp to find the English in symmet­

rical straight lines (Fig. 36).*4 Then again, in

IV. viii., Williams and Fluellen have been fighting,

as the result of practical joke played on them by

Henry. They are interrupted by Warwick and Gloster,

**Ed. J. P. Kemble (London: John Miller, 1815), Folger Shakespeare Library, 42, p. 26 ; McDowell P. 1601. 12 Shakespeare: the Complete Works. ed. G. B. Harrison (Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1948), p. 746. *3McDowell P. 1601, p. 30r .

*4Ibid., p. 52r. Fig. 34 Henry V (first production).

Presenting the Pedigree, P. 1601. 188

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a &<(■,. /*/f,/& Ah• '* & z ^ 1' ' '": $ < A -AT/fr» f ??iru* yri’ ;nt^) Fig. 35.

Henry V (first production).

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Henry V (first production).

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i f u r ^ 193 then by the King and his party. Since both groups of intruders are feigning surprise, one night expect the staging to reflect a sense of opposition between the brawlers on the one hand, and the groups arriving at stage left, on the other. Far from providing such a feeling, the staging of Henry's entrance

(Fig. 37) makes it difficult for Henry even to see the contenders. 15 The final court scene, when the French and

English royalty meet to negotiate a marriage and a peace, is also in symmetrical lines (Fig. 38 The difficulty with the linear pattern in this scene is that it does not clarify the political significance of the event. As we have seen, parallel lines do not express the opposition of rival forces; by them­ selves, however, they do not express unity either, unless the parties within the lines are mixed.

In Macready’s staging, the English and French forces are arranged in parallel straight lines, but comp­ letely separate from each other. The blocking ex­ presses neither the division which is bridged, nor the unity which is achieved. A spectator who could not hear the words would not understand that an

15Ibid., p. 57v

16Ibid., p. 62r Fig. 37.

Henry V (first production). The King intervenes, P. 1601.

Fig. 38.

Henry V (first production).

Alliance, P. 1601. "X > ' $ 'S 2 '- }. /j ^ fikfttter £y$/Ui/>cr' 198 17 alliance is being sealed.

Circular staging is a second routine convention of Macready's picturization. Actors are arranged

in a curved line which forms a part of a circle, open toward the audience. Usually the line is an arc or a semicircle, but in some cases more than

half the circle may be represented, with only a small portion removed on the downstage side. Some­ times a king or other dominant figure stands in the center of the circle. More often, however,

the curved line displays a number of characters

in a more or less equal manner, much as the straight line does. Since the central position on the curved line is further removed from the audience than the

ends of the line, it provides even less focus than

the linear convention, though circular staging does 17 Some other compositions wholly or in part linear may be found in the following promptbooks. The list is not complete, but only indicates the extent and variety of such compositions. J. S. Knowles, The Bridal, hand-written prompt­ book, M acre ady Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 55 (III. i. ); McDowell P. 1136. Shakespeare, Othello, rev. J. P. Kemble (London: John Miller, 18141, Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 24r (II. i.); McDowell P. 1154. Shakespeare, Othello (London: Simkin, Marshall and Co., 1838), p. 13 <1. ii.), p. 52 (IV. i.); McDowell P. 1611. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Folger, 45, p. 79 (V. iv.); McDowell P. 1604. William Congreve, Love for Love. Folger, 53, p. 45 (III. i.); McDowell P. 1612. Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Harvard 13846.69.13*, p. 260"'(lII. ii. ). 199 allow some degree of communication between actors. Circular staging survives as a dominant convention even today in the production of Gilbert and Sullivan or other light operas, when a chorus will gather round a group of centrally placed lead singers, to repeat refrains and to echo key phrases of a musical numbex. Circular staging is often revealed in the final tableau of a production. The last scene of A£ You Like It (May 5, 1838, Covent Garden) ends with all the principals in an arc, the Duke standing upstage 18 center (Fig. 39). Two Gentlemen of Verona (January 19 29, 1841, Drury Lane) ends with a similar picture.-

A more sophistocated circular composition is revealed in IV. ii. of King John (October 24, 1842,

Drury Lane). Here Hubert reports falsely to his king that he has killed Prince Arthur. The court is arranged in almost a complete circle, with the 20 king placed on the right side (Fig. 40). His superior status is implied not by his place in the grounplan, but by the conventional royal dais.

18Folger, 36, p. 96; McDowell P. 1595. 19Folger, 49, p. 195; McDowell P. 1608. H. Scharf autograph promptbook, Newberry Library, p. 255 ; McDowell P. 29. 200

Fig. 39.

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As a metaphor of the strained relationship between John and his nobles, the arrangement does not make sense. John has given himself a second coronation ceremony, and the lords openly disapprove of his ostentation; their feelings are all the stronger because they suspect the treacherous king of plotting against Arthur's life. Pembroke and Salisbury, in the early moments of the scene, are the spokesmen for the rebellious nobles, yet the staging obliges them to speak their impassioned complaints with their backs to the house. Further­ more, though the lords are openly defying their king in an extraordinary way, the composition shows them keeping a respectful distance at the boundaries of the circle. The circle,- however, was not conceived specifi­ cally for that scene, but is a common convention for a royal court. I. ii. of Henry VIII (May 14,

1838, Covent Garden) shows a more elementary version 21 of the same principle (Fig. 41). In this scene, Henry first hears accusations against Buckingham.

The Cardinal and the Queen, one of whom is on the rise and one of whom is soon to fall, sit on either side of the King, while Bishops, Lords, and Gentlemen

^Folger, 43, p. 443v; McDowell P. 1602 F ig , 4 1 .

Henry VIII. Court Scene, P* 1602. (luA 2 0 7 stand in an open circle around the throne. We shall see later that the opening of King John is based on the same convention, though there are some expres- 22 sive variations in that composition.

The third major conventional principle at work in the Macready picturizations may be called trapezoi­ dal. We have seen that wing-and-shutter staging, and even the early enclosure tended to form the stage space into a symmetrical trapezoid. In many of his compositions, Macready simply molded the mass of his actors to fit that shape: a group of actors stood at the back in lines parallel to the shutter, while two other lines, like side walls, ran obliquely down the sides of the stage.

In II. ii. of Hamlet (October 3, 1837, Covent Garden), the befuddled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stand along one wall, while the players stand at the other; between them, in the dominant position, are Hamlet and Polonius, and "1st Actor" declaims 23 down left (Fig. 42 /. Since the arrival of the

22Circular stage pictures are also found in the following promptbooks. Thomas Otway, Venice Preserved (London: Sirokin and Marshall, 1820), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 56 (V. iv. ); McDowell P. 1146. Shakespeare, Henry V (first production), McDowell P. 1601, p. 6 8 (V. i.).

2^Folger, 51, p. 40r ; McDowell P. 1610. F i g . 4 2 .

Hamlet, the Players, P. 1610. 209 icrvsHovfi 210 players at Elsinore is an unexpected diversion, and since Hamlet, whom they are assigned to watch, is taking an active interest in the actors, one might expect Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to pay close attention to the troupe; instead, Macready places them as far away as possible. Also trapezoidal is the duel scene, with the throne platform at the apex of the figure, and oblique platforms for cour­ tiers at the sides, framing the playing space (Fig.

4 3).2 4

The plot of Talfourd's Ion (May 4, 1838, Covent

Garden) is remarkably like that of Oedipus the King: a plague on the city can only be lifted, according to the oracle, by the death of the murderous King

Adrastus, and the extinction of his line. Some of the groundplans demonstrate the trapezoidal conven­ tion and how the stage picture might be actively manipulated to make it possible. In II. iii. (Fig. 4 4), King Adrastus comes out of self-imposed exile to "the great Square of the City," to face the com-*- plaints of his people; the arrangement is a classic 25 trapezoid. Two more sketches from III. ii., in which Ion and other youthful conspirators confer

24Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 81v ; McDowell P. 1153. 2J*Harvard *65T-25, p. 49• F i g . 4 3 .

Hamlet. Duel Scene, P. 1153. 212

7 9 ^

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Ion, the Great Square.

Harvard *65T-25. S C E N E IH.

The greatSquare o f the Citv. Adbastus teatedon a

th r o n g Aof.woh. ' Ti Mncfr.a. Cl.(1 0^ '.' andfothtri, seated at Councillor!— Soldier* line the stage at g dutance,

A n itA S Tus. Upon your summons, Sages, I mn Item ; Your king attends to know your pleasure; speak itl AOBNOR. r P. And canst thou askI If the heart dead within thee Receives no impress of this awful time. A rt thou o f sense forsaken I Are thine ears So charm’d by strains o f slavish minstrelsy That the dull groan and frenzy-pointed shriek Pass them unheard to Heaven ? O r are thine eyes So conversant with prodigies o f grief. They cease to dazzle at them 1 Art thou arm’d ’Gainst wonder, while, in all things, Nature turns To dreadful contraries;—while Youth's full cheek Is shrivcU’d into furrows of Bad years, And 'neath its glossy curls untinged by care Looks out a keen anatom yw hile Age Is stung by feverish torture for an hour Into youth's strength; while fragile Womanhood 1 Starts Into M ghlM cod age, all unlil e The gentle strength its gentle weakni is feeds To make affliction beautiful, and stall a 215 near a public altar, show that the manager is p o s i ­ tively uncomfortable when the actors are not in a symmetrical arrangement. Fig. 45 is composed of a trapezoid and a straight line, while Fig. 4 6 26 is purely trapezoidal. The first production of Henry V, which we have already studied for its linear staging, is also rich in trapezoidal configurations. In the first such scene (Fig. 4 7), the King in his state chamber 27 receives the insults of the French ambassador.

The King and his guards form the back line, while various attendants and lords are ranged along the two sides of the stage. In the next example, the

English forces wait before Harfleur for the gates to open and the town to surrender. The upper line of the trapezoid is perhaps supplied by the walls of the town, while the English soldiers, rather improbably in any realistic sense, fill the sides 28 of the stage (Fig. 48). In the English camp before

Agincourt, the lords and soldiers once again take on a trapezoidal configuration, with the King at

26Ib id ., pp. 64, 69.

27McDowell P. 1601, p. 8r .

28Ibid., p. 29v. F i g . 4 5 .

Ion. Altar Scene.

Harvard *65T-25. 64 ION i A TRAGEDY. [s e t in. As then tbo'toure waswhy should" ye now Echo my stepsVfrh melancholy sound As ye were consciohsofa guilty presenceT The lovely light of eve^hat, as it waned, Touch’d ye with softer, ntaielier look, now fades In dismal blackness ; and yVp twisted roots O f ancient trees, with whose fantastic forms M y thoughts grew humorous, look terrible, As if about to start to serpent life, And hiss around me;—whither shall I tum ?— Where fly !—I see the myrtle-cradled appt Where human love instructed by divine \ Found and embraced me firs t; I ’11 cast me Upon that earth as on a mother's breast, In hope to feel myself again a child. - ..... '■. ■ — — ------■ ....[Inng n u d.

EBl

CTESItylOK. Sure this m utt be the place that Phocion spoke o f;— The tw ilight deepens, yet he does not come. Oh, if instead o f idle dreams o f freedom, He knew the sharpness of a grief like mine, He would not linger thus I

CASSAMDBR. ■ "The sun’s broad disk O f misty red, a few brief minutes since,______, > C“V §Sank a ’neath the leaden wavcj/b u t night steals on W ith rapid pace to veil us, and thy thoughts P ig . 4 6 .

Ion, Altar Scene (later).

Harvard *65T-25. 2X9

scbnb II.J ION; A TRAGEDY. CU >C*v CTBSIPIION [tO I ow.^1 T h y h a n d ! 'Tis cold as death. ION. Y e s ; b a t i t is as firm . What ceremony neat? . * A rCTESi Piiow Itadt lo w to the altar, and jrisM kirn- knife, CTESIPIIOK. Receive this steel, For ages dedicate in my sod home To sacrificial nses; grasp it nobly, And consecrate it to nntrembling service Against the king o f Argos and bia race. ION. His race I Is he not left alone on earth ? He hath no brother, and no child. CTHSIPHONa Such words The god hath used who nerer. speaks in nun. ' FHOCIOM . Thera were old rumoCirs o f an infant bora And strangely vanishinga tale of gnilt Half-bush’d, perchance distorted in the hushing, ■Aud bj the wise starve liaaled, ftir they darn'd it— One o f a thousand guilty histories, W hich, if the w allstrf palaces could speak, .Would show that, nursed oy prideful luxury. To pamper whkh the virtuous peasant toils, W rite s grew eapunishld waioh-ths pirttss* asst, ------

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Fig. 47.

Henry V (first production).

State Chamber, P. 1601. 221

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Henry V (first production). Siege of Harfleur, P. 1601. 223

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•/if? 224 oo the center (Fig* 49). We have been making the point that much of Macready's blocking was arranged according to three conventional shapes, the straight line, the circle, and the trapezoid. We have looked at a number of the clearest cases of each, and at some of the produc­ tions in which one of more of these conventions is particularly prevalent. We have found that in many cases the picturization is at odds with the content of the scene. How is such an anomoly possible in the work of a great actor-manager? We must con­ clude that, for Macready and his public, picturization was not considered to be one of the parameters of

29Ibid., p. 45v. Some additional examples of trapezoidal compo­ sition are found in the following promptbooks. George Gordon Byron, Werner, hand-written prompt­ book, Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 24 (I. i . ); McDowell P. 1135. Shakespeare, Othello. McDowell P. 1611, p. 32 (II. ii.J. J. S. Knowles, Virqinius (London: 1820), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 30 (II. iv.), p. 24 (II. ii.); McDowell P. 1137. Shakespeare, Macbeth, McDowell P. 1165, p. 6 (I. ii.), p. 9 (I. iii. ), p. 18r (I. vi.). Shakespeare, King Lear (London: W. and J. Richardson, 1761J, Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 3 (I. i.); McDowell P. 1163. Shakespeare, Coriolanus. Folger, 39, p. 24 (II. ii.); McDowell P. 1598. J. S. Knowles, William Tell (London: Thomas Dolby, n. d .K Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 87r (V. ii.); McDowell P. 1140. Sargent Talfourd, Ion. Harvard *65T-25, p. 12 (I. i.). J

Fig. 49.

Henry V (first production). English Camp, P. 1601. /„/- m s %/- A / ' J X j *s

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As it becomes customary to develop a unified impres­ sion of the stage action, to support a specific and personal interpretation of a play, it also becomes necessary to deprive some actors of their clear access to the audience, so that other actors can make more effective those relatively few points which the director considers essential to the scene's meaning. In the time of Macready's management, however, no such understanding of theatrical art had become general. It is not surprising, therefore, that we find much of his practice reflecting the older individualistic view of "every actor for himself." The three conventions we have examined support and make effective, for actor and audience, such a concept of theatrical art. If conventional staging had advantages for actors, it also made possible the prevailing repertory system of Macready*s day. Macready produced one hundred forty-two titles in four seasons, not to mention revivals from previous seasons— -a rate of more than one new play a week. A manager who was also overseeing the accounts of the theatre, and performing regularly himself as the company's leading tragedian, could not have picturized expressively

every scene of every play. We shall shortly see that, in selected productions, a great deal of atten­

tion was given to picturization and movement. Such specific care could not have been possible, however, if there had not been a standard shorthand of the theatre, which could be relied upon for the mounting

of a great many routine productions. The technical element of that shorthand was provided by the neo­ classic wing-and-shutter method of staging. Convent­

ional forms of picturization were another ingredient of that shorthand. The concepts of straight line, circle, and trapezoid, were easily conceived, easily

expressed by managers, easily understood by actors, and easily executed in the heat of hurried rehearsals and conventional performances.

Part of the elegant simplicity of the convent­ ional forms is that they fit the scenery at hand. Trapezoidal composition results simply from lining three sides of the stage with actors. Linear staging

often reflects a setting in the first groove, while

the circular convention may be regarded as a deeper 230

version of the linear. All three conventions are

molded by the variations of a uniformly symmetrical

and trapezoidal stage space.

A word is in order here about the promptbook for the first production of Henry V, which we have

found to be rich in examples both of linear and of trapezoidal staging. That particular book is

interesting to the historian, because it shows routine production methods applied to a subject which the critics, and Macready himself, felt required extra­ ordinary exertions. We have seen how unfavorably the press received the play, and how Macready reg­ retted having to mount it “hurriedly, •• vowing not • to do such a thing again. Because the production was hasty, it shows us how Macready mounted a play when he lacked time, or interest, to take special pains with it. Because the production was Shakespear­ ian, it has been preserved for us in great detail.

The promptbook gives us our clearest look at the routine practice of the theatres royal under J

Macready's management.

We may now move on to examine some of Macready*s more personal and distinctive picturizations. We will find that many of them are variations on the conventional forms. It is interesting that the first production of Macready's management was perhaps 231 the most complex in terms of picturization and crowd movement. The groundplans for The Winter’s Tale

(September 30, 1837, Covent Garden) show a fluidity unmatched in any of his other productions.

In scene iii. of Act II., Paulina presents

Herraione's child to King Leontes. The King has disowned the child, claiming that it is the bastard of Hermione and Polixenes, so there is some danger in Paulina's action. Fig. 50 shows the actors ar- 30 ranged asymmetrically at the opening of the scene.

The door in the shutter left is the main entrance. Leontes is disposed on the couch right, while lords, ladies, and attendants crowd the space within and beyond the doorway. The second sketch (Fig. 51) shows how the actors change their position after Paulina's entrance. Paulina kneels at the feet of Leontes, while the minor characters fill the doorway and spill onto the scene at the left in 31 irregular groups. The irregular groupings show that the crowd is conceived as a collection of real persons rather than as a conventional mass. Of particular interest in this scene are the crowd reactions, which we will discuss later.

30 V Ed. Steevens, Folger, 50, p. 33 ; McDowell P . 1 6 0 9 .

31Ibid., p. 35v. Fig* 50*

The Winter1s Tale*

Accusation of Hermione, P. 1609. 233

j 2 3 4

Fig. 51.

The Winter*s Tale. Paulina’s Entrance,>. 1 6 0 9 . 235 Irregular groupings also play an important part in IV. iv., the scene at the shepherd's cottage.

Polixenes and Caroillo arrive on camels, to check up on Prince Florizel. MWhen Camels stop, slaves 32 kneel in front of them to assist them to dismount."

The groundplan (Fig. 5 2) shows Polixenes and Camillo up center, in the best position to observe the Prince"• 33 and his behavior. Not all the actors in the scene

are shown. The two lovers, Perdita and Florizel, enjoy the focus of the composition, while the Old

Shepherd is on their left; at the upper left is

another group including the Clown, Mopsa, and Dorcas.

Fig. 5 3 shows how the arrangement changes as Perdita goes up to the newcomers and places wreathes on their necks, but one can see in Fig. 5 4. that she 34 returns to essentially the same position. This is one of the rare cases in which Macready used asymmetrical configurations to establish visual focus. A sketch from later on in the same scene (Fig.

5 5) shows another radical principle in crowd dispos-

32Ib id ., p. 68r.

3 3 I b i d . 34 Ibid., pp. 69v, 70r. 237

Pig. 52.

The Winter's Tale. Shepherd's Cottage, P. 1609. • ' ; \

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.; A w * - . ' U , J * k . . 239

Fig. 53.

The Winter’s Tale. Polixenes*s Entrance, P. 1609.

i 240 F ig . 5 4 .

The Winter*s Tale. Continuation, P. 1609. f ' k 9 : U & ~ 243 35 itions. The conventional forms arrange the actors in various kinds of rows. Certain scenes from The

Winter*s Tale, however, abandon rows altogether, placing the supernumeraries in irregular clusters. That tendency is explicit in Fig. 5 5, which shows the extras placed in three dynamic clusters. The potentialities of that principle are completely unrealized in this static and symmetrical scene; yet the idea of arranging crowds into independent but related groups seems to anticipate later practice. As with the asymmetrical box design for Richelieu. we seem to see here the flicker of a revolutionary idea passing through Macready's mind, an idea whose time had not yet come, and which therefore lay dormant yet for a number of decades. Fig. 5 6 shows the assassination scene from

Julius Caesar (February 20, 1838, Covent Garden).

In this scene, Hacready imposes a complex composition on a mixture of conventional symmetries. The benches are trapezoidal, the standards linear, and a row of "lictors & fasces" at the back is circular. Within and downstage of the benches, however, we see a different, informal kind of composition. The senators on and about the side benches are

35Ibid., p. 75v 2 4 4

Fig. 55.

The Winter*s Tale. Clustered Groupings, ?. 1609. 245

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t LI 248 grouped haphazardly, Caesar has the dominant position

in the center, with the conspirators massed ominously about him on the left. Those conspirators stand between him and a large "Mob of Citizens"— Caesar has to be isolated from his power base. The Sooth­ sayer is grouped with the Citizens, so that he must

shout his unheeded warnings over the heads of the conspirators. A trio of unsuspecting persons, inclu- . ding Lepidus, stand near the benches at right. Brutus and Cassius, leaders of the conspiracy, stand by the statue of Pompey, where Caesar in a matter of seconds will die. The total impression, with its combination of formality and asymmetry, is of a turbulent event disrupting a place of traditional 36 authority. That effect depends as much on the conventional as on the informal elements of the composition. The conventional forms of picturization, in this case, are made expressive.

In the promptbook for Coriolanus (March 12, 1838, Covent Garden), we find another kind of vari­ ation on a conventional pattern. Fig. 5 7 shows a martial scene in the Volscian camp: the configu­ ration is trapezoidal, except that a side of the

36 McDowell P. 1604, no page number i F ig * 5 7 .

Coriolanus. Volscian Camp, P. 1598. 250

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King John shows many expressive variations on conventional forms. Act I (Fig. 58) is based on the pattern of a circular court gathered around a throne, much as we found in Henry VIII. Some of the deviations from that pattern are subtle, and some are quite striking. Queen Elinor sits on the King's right side, but there is no balancing force on his left.. The imbalance emphasizes the authority of Elinor, a strong woman behind the throne. Hubert is isolated in the lower right corner. Though

Hubert Is not a prominent character in the early scenes, he will later be given the assignment of killing Prince Arthur. His strong position, and his placement outside the conventional circle, estab­ lish him early in the minds of the audience. Hubert is too much his own roan to carry out the assassination which his King will command; here in the first scene he is made literally an outsider to the court, stan­ ding alone and apart from the enclosed configuration of the other characters. Another interesting quality

37McDowell P. 1598, p. 48r . 252

Pig. 58.

King John. State Chamber, P. 29. 253

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All the characters in turn are assuring Prince Arthur, who has just been captured by the English, that he will be kept safe from harm. In a few moments, however, the characters downstage will divide and retreat to the sides, leaving King John alone with Hubert to suggest an assassination he cannot squarely command. An expressive small composition is found in Hamlet I. iv., the prince's first meeting with the

Ghost. Fig. 60 shows Horatio, Hamlet, and Marcellus

38McDowell P. 29, p. 201V

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’,: ■, t.'o ■.: l 1 * i ■ '-■» ;u ^ v . - ^ ,s.]:^.-’^-i;. -7-' • ,H. F ig . 6 0 .

Hamlet. Meeting the Ghost, P. 1153. 258 z- f' V '•

2 ^ (ii" j^6l£C4*. <* ------V ■> ■*-%. ' ' f • 259 arranged in an oblique line, with the Ghost down 40 right. That conformation allows all three charac­ ters to focus on the Ghost, while at the same time Horatio and Marcellus can restrain Hamlet from follow­ ing: "Unhand me, gentlemen. / By Heaven, I'll make 41 a ghost of him that lets me." The oblique straight line in the center of the stage is quite rare in

Macready's productions. In this case, it is quite expressive. The unmasking of the conspiracy, in both produc­ tions of Henry V, depends on a similar composition. At the beginning of the scene, Cambridge, Grey, and Scroop are at the lower right corner of a sym­ metrical trapezoid. Fig. 61 shows how the actors are arranged just as the king presents documents 42 to the conspirators. "Read them, and know I know 43 your worthiness." The conspirators, "when called by the King, . . . stand together near Proscenium 44 R." The three lords quickly discover, of course, that the documents contain a charge of treason.

40McDowell P. 1153, p. 17v .

41Harrison, pp. 893-94. 4^Folger, 41, p. 350r; McDowell P. 1600.

4 ^Harrison, p. 743. 44McDowell P. 1600, p. 350r. F i g . 6 1 .

Henry V (second production).

The Conspirators, P. 1600. 261 1 .1 i N ) M *•. v > w u k j « A H *-v » ‘N■ % ^ . t V Vii V * * * * V . >- c ■ ' < \ \ V V 4' 1 * S ^ \ .V- % S S - V y ! y % ' v ■ ^ . — *v A ,-v. ; < £ V A j i ! 1 262

Why, how now, gentlemen! What see you in those papers that you lose So much complexion? Look ye how they change!

The Nobles break the trapezoid and form an oblique line behind the King, focussing their attention on the guilty group, and isolating them in the lower right-hand corner (Pig. 6 2).4<* Most of Macready's stage pictures were based on a few conventional forms. Nearly every scene could be arranged in some combination or variation of the straight line, the circle, and the trapezoid.

To a modern eye, those conventions appear often to take precedence over, and to conflict with, the dramatic content of a scene. Even the more expressive* stage compositions are usually variations of the basic conventions. The modern directorial function of picturization* was rarely operative in the Macready management. That is not because he was a bad director. In this respect, he was not a director at all, but an e^rly Victorian manager. His allegiance, and the allegiance of his actors and his public, was to an individualis-

^ _

45Harrison, p. 743.

46McDowell P. 1600, p. 353V. F ig . 6 2 .

Henry V (second production). The Traitors Isolated, P. 1600. ' a ' M i ~

/ ' / .4u */£**a A** A & - t - <*4v<-- t' * /t *. +*£*& . *

"-■•-iV , W A±h

self: the basic conventions of his staging maximize

the direct contact between principal actors and

their audiences. As the manager of a royal repertory

company, Macready had to mount productions at the

rate of more than one per week, and however much care he might put into selected showcase productions,

he desperately needed a conceptual shorthand for

the mounting of routine entertainments. The forms

of his conventional staging provided him with one

component of that shorthand.

Crowd Movement and Business. When a manager

takes care with the activity of his crowds, he tends

to write many hotes in his promptbooks. When he

does not take such care, he does not write notes.

Consequently, expressive crowds are documented,

inexpressive ones are not. There is a shorthand

of conventional, inexpressive stage composition;

there is no such notation for the lack of expressive

activity. The evidence concerning the fluid, elements

of crowd management is by its nature positive.

Our strategy, therefore, must be to examine the positive evidence, and then to draw some inferences concerning the lack of such evidence in many passages.

In general, Macready*s crowd activities are more

I 266 interesting to the modern critic than his composi­ tions.

The Winter*s Tale, in both the static and fluid elements of crowd direction, is Macready*s most expressively crafted production. In the second scene of Act I, King Leontes gives a farewell banquet for his friend Polixenes. To imply the strength of the friendship which will shortly be shattered, it is .important that Macready create a sense of joyous activity. That feeling is aroused not by massive spectacle, but by a complex business which shows the mixing of wine and other preparations of the hall. The entire business is executed by only sixteen actors.

Butler & 6 slaves, foil by 3 Water- Carriers, enter R. 2. E. w jugs of wine. 3 pass to L. of wine vase C. & pour in wine one after the other; as the S. R. [slaves] are about to pour in, the slaves L. exit R., leave their jugs. . . . Car­ riers advance to the Vase, and pour in water. Two together, then one, place the jars flat on their heads, & exit R. The Butler mixes the wine, the 6 pages enter all L. 2. E. w wine jugs, the Butler ladles wine into their jugs from Vase, the pages go on to platf & fill the goblets of Guests, 2 P. S., the other 2 0. P., after which, come down steps R. 4 Slaves advance to Vase at signal from Butler, take Vase off R. 2. E., foil by 2 Slaves & 6 Pages.

^McDowell P. 1609, pp. 3V, 3 2 6 7

Here follows a musical interlude, composed of a

"Pyrrhic Dance" and a "Hymn to Apollo." At the

end of the interlude,

Butler & 6 slaves w 3 chairs & 6 pages w 3 footstools enter R. 2. E., place them and Exit. . . . Musicians come down §£eP3 and exit L. 2, E., foil by 2 Cupb •

In the first scene of Act II, Leontes makes

his unjust accusation of adultery against Herroione.

At the beginning of the scene, Hermione sits with

the child Maroillius in her lap. The child is soon

taken by one of the attendant ladies. Leontes enters,

and orders that Mamillius be taken away. Immediately

there is tension in the air, and "PaulCina] gets near Herm[ione]*s seat. All rise when Queen rises."

Bystanders cannot believe their ears as Leontes begins his accusation: "Movement. Leon[tes] goes up C. A movement of entreaty all." The lords kneel •i when Leontes appeals to them, and then "rise slowly, one after the other. Ant[igonus] leans against prose." Leontes condemns Herroione to prison: "2 Ladies rise" as she says "Who is*t that goes with me?" "The 2 Ladies look up to Herm. They weep,"

and she answers, "Do not weep, good fools, / There

4 8 I b i d . 268 is no cause." The Lords turn and follow Hermione with their eyes as she makes her exit. Then they t 49 make a "Move of entreaty" to the King. In the third scene of Act II, Paulina presents

Hermionefs new child to Leontes; the King, of course, refuses to recognize it as his own. A large force of lords, ladies and slaves observe the action, and become a decisive element in the scene. After at first resisting Paulina*s entrance, the lords accompany her into the chamber, while slaves fill the doorway (Figs. 51 and 52). "Paulina conr* from door— down L. w Lords. Slaves fill up in opening. **

Leontes shouts an order to throw Paulina out. There is a "Move*1 of Lords," but their sympathies are not with the King, and Paulina is a redoubtable figure: "Lords retreat." Paulina kneels at Leontes's feet with the child. On Leontes's command, the lords advance again to dismiss her, but "Paul throws defiance to Lords as they move towards her.H When

Paulina leaves, "after she lays child down at Leontes* feet," the Lords follow her out: "3 Lords move into openCing] L., looking after Paul." Antigonus has been left with the baby, and while Leontes rails at him, the Lords gather round him.

49Ibid., pp. 22-27V 269

Ant carries cradle. • . • Leon X R. [Lords] move down a little. Ant L . t puts cradle down in front of him. During this the Lords slowly surround him.

At this point we have a confrontation between Leontes on the right hand, and the child, surrounded and protected by lords, on the left. When Leontes c o m * ”:, raands Antigonus to "take it to the fire," there is a "Move*'— Lords— »shudder.11 One of them makes an impassioned plea for the child*s life.

On our knees we beg. As recompense of our dear services Past and to come, that you do change this purpose. Which being so horrible, so bloody, must Lead on to some foul issue.

Faced with such united sentiment, and with a group of noblemen gathered in a defensive posture around the child, Leontes changes his mind. The stage directions show a relaxation of tensions. "Shudder— f move of repose— Lords. Lords rise— recede up to back." Leontes then makes Antigonus swear to desert the child in a foreign place. There is "grief among Lords•" The crowd in this scene not only embody

Leontes*s conscience, but they are a decisive force 27 0 50 in the actions of the King.

At the trial of Hermione, the assembled judges, leges, and spectators constitute a moral force in opposition to Leontes. As Herroione defends herself,

there is a "Grow9 conviction among Judges & Auditory. • • • Slight movement. . . . General sympathy

throughout the speech for the Queen." When the Oracle is read, clearing Hermione, the crowd cannot

conceal its happiness.

Great anxiety from all as Oracle read; lean forward. Sensation. All rise as one and speak "Now blessed [be the great Apollo!]" General commotion. Ladies raise Her to Couch.

Leontes, however, chooses not to believe what he hears; he insists "There is no truth at all i'the oracle," and depression settles again over the crowd:

"All slowly lower arms." Leontes changes his mind

only when a servant tells him that his son is dead: he decides that the god is punishing his unbelief.

Great anxiety— part of all. Long pause, during which different-attitudes and expres­ sions of strong grief.

50Ib id ., pp. 33v-40r.

51Ib id ., pp. 43v—48r . 2 71

The statue scene, in which a sculpture of the supposedly dead Herroione is revealed as Hermione herself, was one of Macready's roost successful scenes.

Helen Faucit recalled the moment vividly.

It is impossible to describe Mr. Macready here. He was Leontes* very self! His passionate joy at finding Hermione really alive seemed beyond control. Now he was prostrate at her5feet, then enfolding her in his arms.

The promptbook shows that Macready's histrionics, at each stage of the transformation, were supported by well-defined crowd reactions.

All turn & look at Leon. All grad^withdraw gaze from Leon. Move on stage. D — fear. D — shrink. Move of fear &c., as she turns her head, all turn9 tow the statue. . . . All drop on knees as she moves a first step., Hermione slowly descends & comes fow C. As she slowly raises her hand, all shrink backwards. • • • 53 Move of Rejoicing all over the Scene.

The only evidence of crowd training in Hamlet occurs in the graveyard scene, when "All exhibit surprise and concern" while Hamlet and Laertes fight

52 Helena Faucit (Lady Martin), On Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters. 5th ed” (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1893), p. 329.

S^McDowell P. 1609, pp. 117V-118r . 272 54 in Ophelia's grave. No Roman tragedy is complete, however, without its fickle Roman mob, and crowds play an active role in a number of the scenes in

Virginius (November 2, 183 7, Covent Garden). A crowd of Citizens accompanies Appius and his party through the "Street in Rome" where the first scene is set. Dentatus assaults one of his supporters, while "the Citizens L. H. side, move back and crowd together on the R. H., looking angrily at Dentatus.“

Before the scene ends, "The crowd are rushing on 55 Dentatus threateningly.M

In the third act, Appius hatches his plot to steal Virginia and make her his concubine. He trumps up a claim that she is really the daughter of a slave belonging to Claudius, one of his lackeys.

Claudius drags her away as his property. There is "A shriek without L. L. enter Two Citizens. [Citizens] pointing L. L. enter Claudius, dragging along Virginia, followed by Servia and all the Citi­ zens. . . . Cries of 'Shame! Shame!

The case comes to trial before Appius in the Forum. The Citizens have gathered on the left side

54McDowell P. 1153, p. 77V. * ^McDowell P. 1137, p. 13.

56Ib id ., pp. 41v-42r. 273 of the stage. They sense the deceit in Claudius's case.

Loud murraers. . . . Claudius enters still holding Virginia, preceded by Servia, women and citizens with loud murmers "Shame! Shame!"

Appius, of course, supports Claudius, but Numitorius and the citizens insist that the case cannot be decided in Virginius's absence. Appius agrees to continue the matter until "tomorrow," but Claudius wants to take possession of Virginia in the meantime. The citizens will not allow it, and Appius has to intervene.

All rush toward the Tribunal. . . . Claudius takes refuge at Appius*s feet, who rises and throws up his arms as a signal to both parties to desist,--^whereupon the people retire slowly to L. • . • All Citizens recede and drop the menacing attitudes which they were [sic] when Appius speaks.

Macready took pains to instill irregular detail in the climactic tableau.

The citizens should be grouped in different attitudes, with uplifted staves and lances

57Ibid ., p. 43 274

over Claudius, who lies extended on the steps. Icilius the prominent figure below, and Appius standing with his hands stretched straight over Claudius, which as he very slowly lets fall, the citizens relax the threatening attitudes.

One regrets that there is no more information on the "different attitudes" of the crowd.

The last of the play*s Forum scenes is the climactic one. A decisive confrontation occurs between the mass of citizens, and the mass of Appius*s guards. As Virginius arrives at the Forum, "A dead silence prevails." The Citizens again take their accustomed place on the left.

Citizens enter first, looking back at Virg[inius] and his daughter and as they come on, say "Hush!" . . . Citizens, men and women, are filling up • • • first, second, and third wings.

Appius gives Virginia to Claudius. Virginius appeals to the Citizens, but they are overpowered by the guards.

The Lictors advance X the stage to I*, and the people retreat, and at the same time the Soldiers advance in link to the Centre of the stage.

58Ib id ., pp. 48-50r 275

To save his daughter from a fate worse than death,

Virginius seizes a knife from a butcher stall and 59 kills her. "A tumult ensues: the people shouting."

In the combat scene of King Lear (January 25,

1838, Covent Garden), the crowd of knights forms the fighting area. "Locrine and Knights motion to others on the stage, to form the lists with their 60 spears and weapons." The Times wrote that "In the combat scene a great effect was produced by the sudden construction of the lists from the spears 61 of the soldiers." The crowd is characterized specifically as a group of Edmund's soldiers, for when the fight goes against him, they try to inter­ vene.

When Edmund falls, the surrounding Knights and soldiers catch up their different weapons, and advance toward him.

To the modern sensibility, the crowd dynamics of Julius Caesar are as essential as fine acting in the lead roles. Macready's direction of Antony's

5 9 Ibid., pp. 63v— 71.

60McDowell P. 1163, p. 1 7 8 r . 61January 26, 1838, p. 6 .

62McDowell P. 1163, p. 1 8 2 r . . 276 oration would hold the stage even today. After

Brutus's flaccid speech, "The Citizens turn to one another, as though quietly obtaining each other's sentiments.'1 Antony, however, stirs them out of deliberation and into action. He holds up Caesar's will, and "Several of the Citizens extend their hands to Antony & press forward towards him." He tells the mob that "you are his heirs;" there is "A movement of surprise and joy by all." He displays the body, and the crowd begins to disperse sadly. "The Mob break up and cross the Stage R & L— as going off." He summons them back, however, and when he claims that Caesar's will "gives, / To every several man, seventy-five drachmas," the crowd makes

"A general movement of surprise." At the end of the speech, the crowd is in a fury.

Great excitement shewn here by all the Cit s. Exeunt the Plebeians, bearing Caesar's body with great noise and tumult. . . . All vociferating together, as they cross R. & L.— Exit at ghe different Ent , as rapidly as possible.

Our promptbook for Coriolanus contains virtually

McDowell P. 1604, pp. 51 -5 7 . The notes are dimly written and difficult to read in the micro­ film copy. I have relied partially on Downer's reconstruction, pp. 2 4 4 - 4 6 . 2 7 7 no crowd directions, but the press tells us that the crowd was very impressive: perhaps the book is from a production prior to Macready's tenure at Covent Garden. In the first scene, the mob "rush in, mad with excitement, brandishing axes, mallets, and staves." Like the Examiner critic writing about

S appho. this critic from The Spectator compares

Hacready's mob to the conventional stage mob.

Instead of half a score lay figures, moving like automata, and giving at intervals a feeble hurra, less formidable than the shout of a pack of urchins let loose from school, we hear the roar of the man-head monsggr, like the surging murmers of the sea.

John Bull described the mob as "an onward and in­ creasing wave."65 At the triumphal entrance of Coriolanus into

Rome, the crowd was equally tumultuous. Forster praised

The emotion of the vast crowds as the passage of the procession through the gate brings nearer and nearer its renowned

6 4 March 17, 1338, p. 253, quoted in Abraham J. Bassett, "The Actor-Manager Career of William Charles Hacready," Diss. Ohio State Univ. 1962, p. 116.

65March 18, 1838, pp. 129-130 278 hero— the forest^gf laurel boughs rustling through the air*

It is clear from such descriptions that the mob was numerous; that its movements were carefully organized to suggest the surging of waves in the sea; and that the supernumeraries were given props to handle and directions about how to use them. 101 persons appeared on the stage in the wrest­ ling scene of Ais You Like It* Their movements and business were organized to give a detailed impression of the court life and its routine, and of the court*s attitudes about the combatants. Gradually and lang- ourously, the bored courtiers drift onto the scene to watch an event which they hope may relieve their tedious routine*

Groups of Courtiers and Ladies enter up terrace steps and move upon the Scene as if awaiting the wrestling* As the courtiers catch sight of Celia and Rogglind they salute them respect-

^^The Examiner. March 18, 1838, p. 165* ^Folger, 37, p. 1 1 4 r ; McDowell P* 1596* go Folger, 38, hand-written notes following the script; McDowell P. 1597* 279 Some Courtiers wit|igMerlins on their wristsr The Duke with one.

Servants bustle about to place the barriers for the combat, recalling the soldiers who created lists with their own weapons in King Lear.

Attendants enter to place chairs70nd prepare the ring with ropes and pillars.

The ring is formed, but the Entrance not yet closed. Groups yet remain within.

Oblivious to the efforts of the servants around them, the indolent courtiers stand in the way of the proceedings. Only when the Duke leaves the combat area himself do they clear the arena.

As the Duke moves down.to his seat R. the Officers clear the ring and stand ready to.close it. Spectators ranged around.

Obsequious to authority, the courtiers move only when and where the Duke moves. Before the fight.

69McDowell P. 1595, p. 15V.

70McDowell P. 1597, notes following script.

71McDowell P. 1595, p. 15V .

72Ibid., p. 1 6 r . 280 they lionize the Duke's wrestler, Charles, and have only contempt for Orlando.

Many of the courtiers and ladies are crowd* ing round Charles as if congratulating him, he is apparently full of confidence. Other courtiers are talking together, all in high glee in regarding Charles and occasionally glancing sneering^y at Orlando who stands modestly apart.

The courtiers react to the fight, and as Orlando gets the upper hand, their sympathies shift to him.

As struggle begins, great interest and anxiety among the bystanders with cries of encouragement and fear commencing in ■ a whisper and as the parties close to struggle becomes more vehement. When Charles is thrown, g e n e r ^ shout and app-r lause from all on stage.

The same spectators who made jokes about Orlando when they thought he would lose, now find themselves warmly disposed toward him. "The courtiers &o. 75 crowd in eager congratulations to Orlando." The change of sympathy is permissible, because the Duke, displeased by the outcome, covers his rage and disap*

73 McDowell P. 1597, notes following script.

74Ibid.

McDowell P. 1595, p. 17v. 281 pointment. "Duke advances to Orlando. Courtiers 76 all smiles and delight." When the Duke leaves his seat, the attendants clear the apparatus of the combat.

As the Duke rises the Attendants at his signal take uj^ythe ropes &c., and exeunt down terrace.

The directions show the indolence and sycophancy of the courtiers, and establish a contrast between the court and the more honest life-style of the

Forest of Arden. The prologue to Henry VIII sums up that rambling play in two lines: "In a moment, see / How soon 78 this mightiness meets misery." Crowds are used to direct the audience's sympathies toward victims of injustice. In the first scene of Act II,

Buckingham delivers some last words on the way to his execution. Ah his entrance, accompanied by a bell and muffled drums, "All take off hats slowly as Buckm appears. Action of afront [sic] & murmers." The citizens know that he has been framed. The

76Ibid. 77 McDowell P. 1597, notes following script

78Harrison, p. 1506. condemned man will speak no evil of his accusers, but the crowd feels the anger that he will not give voice to.

The law 1 bear no malice for my death.

But those that sought it I could wish more Christians. Be what they will, 1 heartily forgive *em.

Action— relat^ to the Card* as having been the cause, w slight murmers.

All extend hands to him— some weeping. You few that loved roe And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham, His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave Is only bitter to him only dying. Go with me, like good angels, to my end. All heads droop. Break up in small groups w slight murmers, some raise their eyes & hands to Heaven spgak9 to each other occas* and look^ tow Buck now and then.

They are indignant, as Buckingham tells how his father suffered even more unlawfully.

My noble father, Henry of Buckingham, Who first raised head against usurping Richard, Flying for succour to his servant Banister, Being distressed, was by that wretch be­ trayed And without trial fell. All action of afront [sic] and repugnance. 283

When Buckingham resigns himself to his fate, conceding that at least "I had my trial,** there is a **low murmer of regret." "All advance a step R* & I*.H as Buckingham gives his last advice.

You that hear me. This from a dying man receive as certain: Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels Be sure you be not loose.

They "All kneel— slowly— both knees" as he asks them to pray for him, and exits to the accompaniment 79 of a "Bell & Drum at intervals." Supernumeraries and minor characters also express sympathy for Queen Katherine. The Cardinals Campeius and Wolsey attempt to try the legality of her marriage to Henry. When Katherine is called into the Court, the entire assembly shows the utmost respect.

All rise when proc11 appears. . . . Flourish as Sc opens— cont till Queen seated & then everybody sits slowly.

The lords and ladies show a sympathetic attention to the Queen's defense.

79McDowell P. 1602, pp. 457V-459V 284 During the Queen's speech the most earnest attention to her on the part of everybody. [At one point] Ladies weep.

Katherine startles the court by addressing Wolsey

directly.

Camp[eius] rises a little. A move on the part of the upper benches L. • . • Cormack & Taylor [actor's names] rise. . • . Earnest conference on the part of all.

There is even more commotion, as she denounces her

accuser.

I must tell you You tender more your person's honour than Your high profession spiritual; that again I do refuse you for my judge.

There is a gen1 and very marked raovera* d on the part of the Bishops— partly accomp w low murmers. The Ladies get nearer and speak to the Queen.

The churchmen are discomfited. The lords and ladies watch the Queen respectfully as she leaves the Court.

Queen adv a pace from seat— she curtsies to the King. Pause. All eyes on the Queen. All eyes follow until she is off. Bishops get up in front of Gds L. King 285

In the next act, Katherine resists the entreaties of the Cardinals to go through with the trial, while her attendants reflect and amplify her moods. When she declares herself "a woman, friendless, hopeless!M there is an "Action of interest." Cambridge warns her not to stay away from the court: "If the trial of the law o'ertake ye, / You'll part away disgraced," and the ladies respond with an "Action of surprise."

Finally, Katherine sees how powerful are the forces against her.

I am the most unhappy woman living. Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes? No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me. Almost no grave allowed me. Like the lily. That once was the mistress of the field and flourished, 1*11 hang my head and perish.

"All att get nearer, advance to Katherine. . . . 81 All hands to faces— -weeping." In the climactic scene of William Tell (December

3, 1838, Covent Garden), the crowd represents the

80Ibid., pp. 468r-472r.

81Ibid., pp. 471v-479v. 286 citizens of Altorf. They make clear their partiality for Tell, who has been led by the tyrant Gesler to "an open place in Altorf," where he must shoot an apple off his son's head.

Enter, first, women and citizens U. E. R. H., looking back, raising and clasping their hands, and weeping.

When Tell succeeds, they are overjoyed.

Tell shoots, and a shout of exultation bursts from the crowd. Tell's hand drops on his bosom; he with difficulty supports himself upon his bow. All on the stage, except Gesler and Sarnem, are in attitudes expressive of the deepest interest and anxiety. When the arrow is shot, there is a general shout from soldiers and people. The people wavingptheir caps and hands. Shout four times.

Though in Henry V the King makes no reply to the taunts of the French ambassador in the first n act, the attendant lords make it clear that there will be a resounding answer. When the chest is opened containing the Dauphin's gift of tennis balls

(a mocking reference to the King's dissolute youth), there are "Low murmers and movement throughout the

®^McDowell P. 1140, pp. 65-70r. 287 83 court." At the unmasking of the conspiracy, when Cambridge, Grey and Scroop receive the documents which show that the King knows their treason,

Cambridge lets his paper fall. They kneel. All on stage shrink slowly away, and leave the conspirators alone.

After the battle of Agincourt, when the herald Montjoy informs the Bnglish of their victory, "All shout 85 & wave their Caps and Helms, &c." In the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice

(December 2 7, 1841,. Drury Lane}, as Portia stipulates that "no jot of blood" may fall from Antonio's body as Shylock enforces his bond, there is "A slight movement of attention to Portia, on the part of all on stage." When she threatens to confiscate

Shylock's wealth, however, her power play becomes clear to all. There is "A general and marked expres- 86 sion of pleasure and surprise." In Two Gentlemen of Verona, when Valentine and Speed agree to join the outlaws who have captured

83McDowell P. 1600, p. 340r. We refer here to the second, improved production.

84Ibid., p. 353v. * » 85Ibid., p. 425V. 86McDowell P. 1605, p. 82r. 288 them in the forestst, "The Outlaws express their satis- B7 faction. Omnes: Aye, aye, aye." When Marino Faliero, in Byron*s drama, reveals himself to a nocturnal meeting of conspirators, they jump to their weapons, thinking they have been betrayed to authority, and shouting "The Doge! The Doge!" OO (Faliero is the Duke of Venice). We have studied the arrangement of scenery for the battle of Angiers in King John. The fight is a stalemate, and forces an alliance between the

French and the English, so that both may enter the city together. In the first scene of Act III, the papal legate.Pandulph dissolves that alliance. Englishmen and Frenchmen stand in mixed dispositions around the interior of the French King's tent.

The new allies, John and Philip, sit together on a dais at the left, as a sign of friendship. ■ At! the entrance of Pandulph and his train, an awe- stricken silence falls on the scene.

All turn and look towards Pand and bow very low as he enters with his suite, and papers, down R. C. The deepest silence, and attention.

87McDowell P. 1608, pp. 235v , 235

88Harvard Thr 483.2.100*, p. 78. 289 Pandulph demands that John install the Pope's candi­

date as Archbishop of Canterbury. John refuses

to acknowledge the Pope's authority, and Pandulph

raises the spectre of the Pope's ultimate weapon:

"Then, by the lawful power that I have, / Thou shalt

stand cursed and excommunicate." The crowd reacts

with a "Shudder and sensation of horror through

the assembly." Pandulph now turns his influence

to breaking the alliance between the Catholic and

the Protestant king: "Philip of France, on peril of a curse, / Let go the hand of that archheretic."

The French and Austrians fear the papal curse; the

English fear that the French king will now break his commitment.

English party, watching with intense anxiety the French King. Strong deprecating actions by the French and Austrians.

After long arguments on both sides of the question,

Philip yields to Pandulph*s pressure: "England,

I will fall from thee." The nobles, who had been amicably mixed, immediately break into separate camps.

Phil leaves the throne and X's to R. C. General excitement and movement. Nobles bracing on their shields preparing for battle X R. and L.gand crowd round their respective Kings.

The breaking of one homogenous group into two hostile ones is a metaphor for the dissolution of alliance. In IV. ii., when Pembroke requests the King

to release Prince Arthur from prison, "The Lords appear to acquiesce with Pembroke*s request;" they

fear— truthfully enough— that John means to have

Arthur murdered. When John confirms their fears by announcing that "Arthur is deceased tonight,"

"The Lords start and are much excited." Salisbury openly charges his King with "apparent foul play;" he leaves the Court, and other lords follow. As

in several other productions, the crowd becomes 90 an embodiment of conscience.

A crowd of wedding guests amplifies all the shocking events of the church scene in Much Ado

About Nothing. Claudio quickly disrupts the ceremony: "Oh, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!" "All exhibit surprise." Claudio asks Leonato "Will you with free and unconstrained soul / Give me this maid, your daughter?" Leonato replies, "As freely, son.

89McDowell P. 29, pp. 235V-241V

90Ibid., pp. 257v-258r. 291 as God did give her me." "Leon takes Hero's hand, puts her aX to Claud'," but Claudio rejects her, I* because he thinks her unfaithful to him: "There,

Leonato, take her back again." "All start astonished.

. . . Turn^ to each other, then all look at Hero, pressing forward." Her own father turns on her: "I charge thee [answer truly], as thou art my child."

All press more forward to hear Hero's reply." Don Pedro corroborates Claudio's charge.

Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window. The Company break up, as if departing— Some X to R., others, to L.— but all stop and turn, wherever they may be, when Claudio speaks. . . . Exeunt Claudio, Don P[edro], Don J[ohn] L.— and all t^e Guests &c., who may be on R. and L.

Before we conclude this discussion of crowd movements and business, we should take note of a few special cases in which mass entrances or exits are organized to make a special dramatic point.

Many such entrances are notable chiefly for their size, and are not of particular interest here. In one or two cases, however, an entrance or exit makes a special contrast or thematic statement.

91Harvard 13846.69.13*, pp. 246-49. 292 and such cases are worthy of examination.

While Stralenheim*s entrance in the first scene of Werner is not a large moment in terms of numbers, it makes a vivid contrast between the desparate solitude of Werner, and the relative power and afflu­ ence of his arch-enemy Stralenheim. While only eight of Stralenheim's servants appear on the scene, a number of devices magnify the effect of those numbers. Even before the entrance, it is implied that the whole party is much larger. “Noise heard without,

& lights seen passing and repassing behind the.win- *■ dow." Stralenheim*'s servants are reinforced by servants of the palace, who turn out to welcome the Baron (but have not attended on the poverty- stricken Werner).

As Idenstein speaks. Enter first 6 Servants of the palace with Torches, who range downwards on each side: Idenstein, Baron Stralenheim, who come down R. H. to Center, Idenstein officiously bowing and scraping before him is at his L. Fritz a little behind him R.— 8 Servants in Stralenheim* s livery follow & range double file across the back. . . . Fritz places a chair in Centre & Stralenheim sits down. 92 Werner (aside): *Tis he! I'm lost.

Since Werner has no attendants, the fourteen who

92Harvard TS 2732.588, pp. 28-30 293 appear when his enemy arrives are as overpowering

as a hundred would have been. With light and sound.

Macready implies that there are many more outside

the room. He gives the center of the stage to

Stralenheim, and makes Idenstein fawn conspicuously

upon him. Though Werner remains on the stage, he

now seems like an impotent outsider.

The entrance to Angiers in King John, which takes place after the long and futile battle before .

that town, is in most respects a routine mass exit.

It does, however, show that an alliance has been

sealed, for the twenty-two ranks of actors each 93 include a mixture of French and English characters..

In the scene immediately following, Pandulph breaks

the new alliance; the joint exit of the contending

forces prepares the intermingling of French and English personnel in the French King's tent.

While our promptbook gives few directions for the last scene of Coriolanus.the press makes „

it clear that there was an expressive exit at the dead march. John Coleman has vividly described the moments following the assassination of Coriolanus.

Each man looked upon the other, as who should say, 'Twas thy hand, not mine.

93McDowell P. 29, p. 229v. 294 that struck the felon blow! Then cam^ silence— silence, awful and profound.

The silence was broken by the elaborately prepared entrance of the hero's mother, Volumnia. By her mere presence, the matron strikes the Volscians dumb with shame; they have killed a man of greater stature than themselves.

Presently was heard the sound of a distant trumpet, followed by another, and yet an­ other. Men passed rapidly forth in answer to the signal, doubtless to relate how Caius Marcius fell. Again silence— more eloquent than speech. Ill news spreads fast. From afar rose the cry of women and children; then there came hurrying through the camp a host of fair maidens and stately matrons, piercing the air with lamentations, as they waved their arms aloft, and tossed aside their dis­ hevelled hair. Before them strode a majes­ tic figure, like one of the Eumenides. It was the Roman mother, Volumnia, who confronted, with pale face and flashing eyes, the man who had done to death her lionhearted son.

The Volscians remorsefully take up the body.

The soldiers trailed their steel spikes, and as they moved forth with rhythmic tread, the mother of the murdered hero

94 This and the following three quotations from John Coleman, Players and Playwrights .1 Have Known (London: Chatto and Hindus, 1889), pp. 19-20. 295 followed, still erect and defiant. Next came the weeping wife and child, and the fair Valeria, while, with eyes cast down, * bareheaded and repentant, Tullus Aufidius followed.

All elements were coordinated to increase the stature of Coriolanus, and to diminish that of his awe- stricken assassins.

Interesting also is that Volumnia's entrance and the dead march were composed obliquely. Speaking of the dead march, Coleman tells us that “The sad procession wound, snakelike, round the defile.1*

Forster describes

the appearance— the black apparition rather— of Coriolanus* mother and family, with the other Roman matrons. stretching obliquely across the stage.

Crowd movements are one of the most directorial aspects of Macready's management. Supernumeraries were often directed so as to reflect the playwright's sympathies, as in Henry VIII or The Winter's Tale.

They might be used to portray shifting alliances . . and balances of power, as in King John. In Coriolanus and Julius Caesar, and in at least one scene from

The Winter's Tale, the crowd becomes a dynamic and

^ T h e Examiner, March 18, 1838, p. 165. 296

decisive character in its own right.

However, the degree of crowd direction varies

from one promptbook to another. The Court of

Elsinore, for instance, is given no specific reactions

to the duel of Hamlet and Laertes. Nor is there

any reaction to Lear's abdication, though the scene

shows a palpably foolish decision by a monarch,

taken in full view of his subjects. Nearly all the cases we have studied are taken from Shakespearian productions. Macready seems to have given more

or less attention to his crowds, according to the

resources at his disposal, and to his view of the

play's importance. The static elements of Macready's crowd direction

are, for the most part, governed by tradition and

convention, rather than by specific directorial

decision. Most routine compositions are based on * a shorthand consisting of linear, circular, and

trapezoidal elements. Even the more expressive compositions are variations on the basic forms. The fluid elements of crowd direction, on the

other hand, show flashes of directorial insight. That statement must be taken with two qualifications,

however. 1.) The kind of evidence which bears on crowd movements is by its nature positive. When a manager does not think about his crowds, he does not leave any notes to record it. 2.) The degree of crowd direction is variable. In The Winter*s

Tale and in Henry VIII. most of Macready's creative energy seems to have gone into his crowds; in some other productions, crowds received no attention at all. It is unwise to generalize from selected showcase productions, and to extend those occasional findings into the pattern of Macready's entire manage­ ment* 298

CHAPTER IV CHARACTER BUSINESS

In previous chapters, we examined the way Macready shaped the stage space with scenery, and filled it with actors. Now we should consider another area of operations, relating to single major charac­ ters. The Macready character business sometimes shows psychological and subtextual detail.

Let us first consider two cases in which super­ numerary business reflects on major characters. There is an excess of ritual in the abdication scene of King Lear (Jan. 25, 1838), that shows the empty pomp to which the old king has become accustomed.

Forty-four soldiers and guards join the king at his entrance, as well as a physician, an officer, a herald, six ladies, two lords, and four attendants. When Lear comes to the center of the stage to deliver his power, four others come with him: the Physician holding the sword, the Officer holding the map, the Herald holding the crown, and Kent. Lear cannot simply place the crown in Albany's hands, but he must make a ceremony of it. 299 Lear giving the crown to Albany. Takes the crown from Herald at his R. H. Herald X'es behind, and receives it again from Albany.

Such pomp constitutes the show, rather than the essence, of greatness; Lear will shortly demand of his daughters the show, and not the essence, of love. The confusion of appearance with essence is Lear's tragic flaw, and Macready's staging of the scene displays the king's fatal attachment to outward forms.. Later notes show how the daughters trim his retinue. The party depicted in the opening scene represent the hundred knights that he keeps about him. When next we see him, however, as he carouses with his party, the group is already decimated.

"10 Knights . . . pass over and out R. 2nd. £. 2 Enter 10 Knights who remain L." 'Later the daughters will deny him even one retainer, and on the heath he finds himself to be "unaccomodated man." Macready performed the death scene from II

Henry IV at Drury Lane on May 29, 1843, as part of a benefit for the Siddons memorial. The behavior

1 (London: W. and J. Richardson, 1761), W. C. Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, pp. 3 -10r; John H. McDowell Archives, Ohio State University Theatre Research Institute, P. 1163.

2Ibid., pp. 33v. 300 of the minor characters establishes both the divinity and the frailty of the dying king. "The Persons all move very quietly through the whole scene." While lamenting the disreputable company kept by his son Harry, the King suffers the fatal attack. Gloucester senses immediately that "This apoplexy will certain be his end;" the King requests the princes and attendants to "take me up and bear me hence." They move him with respect and even tender­ ness.

They support the King to his Couch, and Westmoreland goes behind, and lays the mantle over him, then goes to Table L. Princes raise the King. Warwick motions Pages to move the Couch in to C. West­ moreland moves back the chair to R. C. behind, then raises the coverlet partially from the Couch as Warwick and the Princes lay King upon it. Warwick lifts up his d feet, and lays them on the Couch. Westm lays Coverlet over King.

The action of a crowd can tell us a great deal about a major character. More often, however, charac­ ter business is executed by major characters them­ selves. In the play scene of Hamlet (October 3, 1837), for instance, we know the exact moment at

^Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, handwritten insert before p. 42, pp. 42-45 ; McDowell P. 1158. 30X which Claudius understands the double meaning of “The Murder of Gonzago." When the character Lucianus announces his intention to use “Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing," to murder

the player-king, Claudius,

who has been much agitated, covers his face with his hands, and leaning down, remains hiding his face in violent agita­ tion .

Some attention is also given to the guilty reactions of Gertrude, as her thoughts begin to turn inward.

In the play scene, Hamlet chooses to sit with Ophelia

rather than his mother: the dumb-show reveals that the play will touch on some painful memories.

Queen becomes pensive and hangs down her head: she starts, as from a reverie, when Hamlet speaks tp her. [Madam, how like you this play?]

A She leaves the stage before Hamlet at the end of the closet scene, but not before she makes a mute appeal to her son for help in living with a guilty conscience.

^(London: Simkin and Marshall, 1820), Folger Shakespeare Library, 51, p. 53 ; McDowell P. 1610.

5Ibid. p. 52r. 302 The Queen goes to the R. Wing— stops, looks back at Hamlet, and rushes back to throw herself round Hamlet's neck. He repels her, and she exits sorrowfully R. H.

When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sent on their mission to spy out the inner workings of Hamlet's mind, they are puzzled and uncommitted to the task; Hamlet makes no secret of his indifference toward them. When the two courtiers encounter Hamlet,

They both look confused. Hamlet's back is turned to Rosencrantz, who moves a^step back, and motioning to Guild, speaks.

All the business is psychological: it shows what is on the minds of characters. In the conclusion of Werner (October 21, 1837) Gabor accuses Ulric, under the eyes of the young ruffian's father, of Stralenheim's murder. Ulric replies with a gesture of startling psychological realism. The main outline of the action is printed in the acting edition, but since Macready added his own notes to the business, we know that he adopted it into his concept of the play.

6Ibid., p. 62r.

7Ibid., pp. 35v , 36. 303 Ulric • • • has unbuckled his sabre and• is drawing lines with it on the floor- still in its sheathe.

The action neither admits nor denies the charge; but is a way of ignoring it. Ulric expresses defiance without integrity. "Ulric looks at his father and says: Let the man go on!" When Gabor demands that

Werner "bid your son lay down his sabre," "Ulric casts it from him contemptuously into the Centre of Stage."8 Macready first performed the role of Othello at Covent Garden on October 16, 1837. He gave the jealous Moor fits of violence, instantly alternating with impotent depression. "Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore," he threatens Iago.

Taking him by the throat. . . . Throws Iago off, goes up L., back to R., up R., and sinks in R. chair.

Macready found a striking image for the terror of a domestic murder. Desdemona lies in a curtained

8Harvard TS 2732.588, p. 169. 9 Othello promptbook (London: Sirokin, Marshall and Co., 1838), Folger, 52, pp. 45, 46 ; McDowell P. 1611. Ellis, the prompter, adds on p. 45 one of his interesting historical notes: "At these words, Edmund Kean fell on the neck of his son, was carried off the stage, and never acted again." 304 bed; Macready climbs into the bed, and closes the curtains after him. There is a long silence, a "Pause, of about half a minute,"1® according to one promptbook, while another instructs the actress playing Emilia to "Count sixteen before knocking," and to speak while she knocks; Othello emerges from the bed only after all that business is done.11 The first promptbook shows Othello performing the murder in a violent mood.

As Othello rushes up to the Bed, Desdemona shrieks, and clutching at the curtains, pulls them down before the Bed.

The other book gives the more painful impression of a tender Othello, who three times kisses his sleeping bride, then

touches the sides of the drape curtains, they descend and enclose them from the audience. He smothers her.

Othello promptbook, rev. J. P. Kemble (Londons John Miller, 1814), Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 74 ; McDowell P. 1154.

^McDowell P. 1611, p. 65v. 12McDowell P. 1154, p. 74*.

13McDowell P. 1611, p. 64*. 305

In a domestic scene from Virqinius (November

2, 1837), the father teases his daughter about her infatuation with Icilius, a young man of whom he actually approves. Blunt, kindly Dentatus reassures her that it is all well-meant.

Virginia shrinks back, and looks up depre- catingly to Dentatus, who smiles and presses her hand, and then resumes his speech.

The motive force of that play's action is the passion of Appius for Virginia, and Macready points up the exact moment when Appius first sees her in the Forum.

The moment Appius sees her, which is on her entrance, she makes an obeisance to the Tribune. He starts and pauses, and resumes his speech in a wild and disordered manner, his eyes intently fixed on Virginia, whose facet-is turned exactly to the Tribunal.

The script, of course, specifies that the distracted father will kill his daughter in the climactic Forum scene, rather than let her fall captive to Appius. The manner of the slaying, however, is the most arresting incident in the production.

14(London: 1820), Macready Cillection, Victoria and Albert, p. 18 ; McDowell P. 1137. —

15Ibid., p. 35v .

< 306 Virginius, perfectly at a loss what to do, looks anxiously around the Forum; at length tils eye falls on a butcher*s stall, with a knife upon it. . . . Virginius secures the knife and returns to the centre of the stage. Virginia shrieks and falls half-dead upon her father's shoulders. [Virginius] Kissing,, her. Stabs her, and draws out the knife.

The Roman legend on which Knowles's play is based specifies the way in which the weapon comes into Macready's hand; but it is the manner of the action which we should examine here. Virginius is described as 11 at a loss what to do;" he is not a stoic Roman, acting solemnly on moral principles. Macready's treatment of the role slants it away from the heroic, and toward the domestic emotions.

Macready's characterization of Macbeth (performed .

November 6, 1837) shows a similar emphasis on the personal emotions, rather than the tragic stature, of the thane. His resolution in the early scenes seems to proced entirely from Lady Macbeth, who leads him about like a child. She is the first to suggest an assassination to him, when he returns to Inverness as a war hero. The idea is not new to him, of course, but rather than springing him into action, it seems to immobilize him; she must

16Ibid., pp. 69-70. 307 force him to move from the spot. "Lady M. takes 17 his hand and leads him off." After the murder, a knocking at the gate threatens to wake up everyone in the castle. Macbeth is immobilized by his fears and his feelings of guilt. Lady Macbeth must rouse him from those paralyzing thoughts.

Hark! More knocking. Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us And show us to be watchers. Be not lost So poorly in your thoughts.

Lady M. does not touch M. during this speech until the last word "thoughts," when she seizes him by tjjie hand and shoulder and pulls him away L. H.

With such points as these, Macready emphasizes the high-strung and sensitive imagination of Macbeth, asserting his personal suffering rather than his public stature. In his evaluation of Macready's career, !'Was

Macready a Great Actor?," George Henry Lewes stated that the domestic roles were the most successful ones.

17 Macbeth promptbook, Macready Collection, Victoria and Albert, p. 17; McDowell P. 1165.

18Ibld., pp. 26, 26r. 308 In all the touching domesticities of tragedy he is unrivalled. But he fails in the characters which demand impassioned gran­ deur, and a certain largo of execution. His Macbeth and Othello have fine touches, but they are essentially unheroic— their passion is fretful and irritable, instead of being broad, behement, overwhelming. • • . I believe Macready to be radically unfitted for ideal characters— for the display of broad elemental passions— for the representation of grandeur, moral or physical; and I believe him peculiarly fitted for the irritable, the tender, and the domestic; he can depict rage better than passion, anguish better than mental agony, misery better than despair, tender­ ness better than the abandonment of lover*?

The staging of Virginia's death, and the character business of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, show how Macready might shape a role to fit his own peculiar gifts. When the conspirators read their arrest warrants in Henry V (June 6, 1839), Macready's business under­ cuts the potential melodrama of the scene. Shakespeare describes the reactions of the traitors with a vividness that actors would find difficult to match.

Why, how now, gentlemen! What see you in those papers that you

19 John Forster and George Henry Lewes, Dramatic Essays, ed. William Archer and Robert W. Lowe (London Walter Scott, Ltd., 1896), pp. 132-33. 309

lose So much complexion? Look ye how they change! Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there That hath so cowarded and chased your blood Out of countenance?

Any attempt to perform those reactions would result in redundant posturings, and Macready curtails any urge on the part of his actors to do so. The direc*- tion reads merely "Cambridge lets his paper fall," and it demonstrates a preference on some occasions for the small, subtextual action over the large, 20 literal one. The actor is not required to play an emotion; he is asked only to perform a simple action, which acquires its meaning from the context in which it is placed.

In Henry VIII (May 14, 1638), we have seen that a simple action establishes where the power lies between Wolsey and Campeius. Campeius is follow- ing the King out a door; by stopping Campeius in the doorway, and leaving first himself, Wolsey estab­ lishes his control of the ensuing trial scene.

In Queen Katherine*s death scene, "the Queen mechan­ ically marks time with her hand a little while" to the "sad and solemn music" which puts her to

^ F o l g e r , 41, p. 352r ; McDowell P. 1600 310 sleep. 21 The action shows her sympathy with the mournful quality of the music, while the weakness of her movements show how near death she is, Macready sometimes characterized by the manner of an action rather than by the matter. In Cymbeline., (September 25, 1838), Imogen flees the court in boy's clothing, to escape notice. She finds herself in a wilderness,' and when she hears strangers coming, she must use her weapon.

Best draw my sword, and if mine enemy But fear the sword like me, he'll scarcely look on't.

She draws the sword "awkwardly underhanded," as would 22 a woman, unused to handling weapons. Drawing the sword is mandatory, but the manner of doing so is a personal decision by the director. In Knowles's William Tell (December 3, 1838), the scene at Tell's cottage shows how Macready could occasionally use arbitrary business by a major charac­ ter to make a point about environment. After young Albert has descended from the surrounding mountains, he sets up his equipment for archery practice.

21Folger, 43, p. 500; McDowell P. 1602, 22Ed, Steevens, Folger, 40, p. 77v ; McDowell P. 1599. 311

Re-enter Albert from cottagef with a bow and arrows and a rude target, which he sets up off the stage R. H. X. E. during the first lines, Xaying his bow and quiver on the ground.

When William enters, he watches Albert's practice some time in silence before he speaks.

While Albert continues to shoot. Tell enters L. H«~U. E., watches some time in silence.

The business continues after William's talk with

Albert, through a lengthy conversation with Emma.

Just as the raked entrances helped to show how the mountaineers are at home in their terrain, Albert's archery practice suggests how deeply the skill is ingrained in the domestic life of those people; but one wonders why Macready would allow his own lines to be upstaged by nonessential business per­ formed by a less important character. In this case, apparently, he surrendered some of the prerogatives of a star actor-manager, in order to add another dimension of detail to the picture of Tell's home life. The business makes credible the play's climac­ tic scene, in which Tell shoots an apple off his 23 (London: Thomas Dolby, n. d.}, Macready Collec­ tion, Victoria and Albert, pp. 22-25; McDowell P. 1140. 312 son's head.

In the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice

(December 27, 1841), a simple piece of business once again typifies the character of Shylock quicker than any amount of posturing or description. The bloodthirsty Jew "comes sharpening his knife on 24 the stage, and afterwards on the sole of his shoe."

One of the few indications of business in Marino Faliero (May 20, 1842), however, runs to just the opposite extreme of melodramatic bathos. When the

Doge reaches the scaffold where he will be executed, he

throws himself upon his knees, and as the Executioner raises his sword, the voice of Angiolina is heard— She rushes on, exclaiming: I will not be withheld, my lord, my husband! The Senators throw themselves before the Doge, as the sword of the Executioner descends— the bell tolls— and Angiolina shrieks and falls.

Macready did not like melodrama. He found Angiolina*s shrieking undignified; immediately after those notes 25 he writes "No shriek & not on." Macready was not primarily known as a comic actor, but he did from time to time attempt comic

2*Folger, 46, p. 75v ; McDowell P. 1605. 25Harvard Thr 483.2.100*, p. 165. 313 roles, and he managed productions of many comedies and farces. Arbitrary business for the purpose of comic characterization is common in the Macready promptbooks. The tobacconist Tobias Shortcut, in Morton's farce called The Spitfire (October 13,

1837), impersonating a naval captain, finds himself in the middle of a battle, and reveals his identity by his response to a

mutual cannonade, and musketry, during which Shortcut keeps^bobbing his head to avoid the shots.

A comic interlude in the siege of Harfleur, from the first production of Henry V (November 14,

1637), points up the contrast between the young king's courage and decisiveness, and the cowardice of his old friends. The mass of the English army, rallied by King Henry (MOnce more unto the breach"), charges offstage to the right.

L. H. Enter Boy, Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, in excessive trepidation, each striving to get behind the others before him--they come on, holding the boy and stooping to screen themselves; at every alarm, their fear increases. Loud alarums. All crouch down trembling violently.

Og (London: Chapman and Hall, n. d.). Harvard Theatre Collection, p. 17; McDowell F. 601. 314 Fluellen enters on the left and tries to bully them forward into the battle: "Up to the breach, you dogs! Avaunt, you cullions!"

Fluellen beats them and drives them forward in a mass, till they break asunder and get behind him, urging him on and crying, "To the breach!"

The plot of Morton's Chaos Is Come Again (October

19, 1838) centers on the humiliation of the pompous figure of Colonel Chaos. John Bunce, his nephew, thinking that the blustery person in the next room of the inn is a bailiff come to arrest him, tells the servants that the visitor is a deluded madman, whom they had better put into a straitjacket. The landlord and his servants taunt and assault the Colonel; his denials and explanations seem a great joke.

Enter Chaos from R., closely followed by Tottenham, who never takes his eyes off him; Sam and four servants follow Tottenham, who points out Chaos to them; they wink significantly and loiter about. [Chaos] turning round, sees Tottenham at his elbow, who makes a little bow and retires to a short distance, still keeping his eyes fixed on Chaos.

^Rev. J. P. Kemble (London: John Miller, 1815), Folger, 42, pp. 28-29; McDowell P. 1601. 315 [Chaos] turns round, and sees Samuel close to him, who holds up his finger admonish- ingly, and shakes his head at Charles.

The threat of violence becomes actuality.

[Chaos] makes a rush at Tottenham— Bunce snatches off his wig, flourishes it in his face, and runs among the dancers— Chaos follows him, crying.

The Colonel is carried out by force, but breaks away.

Chaos with his arms pinioned, runs hastily on— Tottenham and Samuel follow, holding him back by the end of the cord by which his arms are tied. [Bunce] pulling Chaos's wig out of his pocket, and burying his face in it— Chaos snatches.the wig, and puts it on wrongside forroost.

In the course of such business the character of

Chaos is both defined and exploited. The more des­ perately the Colonel tries to maintain his own dig­ nity, the more deeply he is humiliated. In II. iii. of The Merchant of Venice. Old

Gobbo applies to Bassanio, in his rambling way, to take on his son as a servant. The impatient

28 .. (London: Chapman and Hall, n. d. ), Harvard, pp. 16-19; McDowell F. 791. 316 and volatile Launcelot, however, cannot wait for his father to make the point, and interrupts at every turn.

Launce at the coram* of each of his speeches, Xes in front of old G to Bass, with great anxiety of manner.

Bassanio listens to the suit quietly and without any fuss; "Bass* has been occas^ writ^ on tablets 29 during Launce's speech." Three distinct physical attitudes help to establish three different charac­ ters. Macready*s masterpiece of comic character busi­ ness was Much Ado About Nothing. a production unremar- keable in most other respects. Macready was not primarily renowned for his comic acting; Genest had written that he "ought never to have played 30 any part in comedy, which was not quite serious. "

Genest had a particularly low opinion of Macready's

Benedick. Of a performance at Bath, in December 31 of 1815, he wrote "Benedick«W. Macready— very bad."

29McDowell P. 1605, p. 27v. 30 John Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830 (Bath; 1832), VIII, 492. 31Ibid., VIII, 561. 317 Much Ado was presented on: February 24, 1843, for Macready's own benefit. Though the house was full, the public was apprehensive. The Examiner wrote that "Possibly not a few were anxious to observe how a Benedick would acquit himself in weeds of 32 tragedy." The Times reported that

There was much curiosity to see what the tragic actor would make of the prince of the “light comedy" line, and we believe that the general anticipation was,’that the mercurial Benedick would prove rather too’ grave a personnage, that his spirits would be too much sobered down, that there would be somewhat toc^much of solemnity to the whole affair.

The result, however, chiefly because of brilliantly conceived character business, was a considerable success.

Infinite must the surprise of . • . the audience have been. Mr. Macready's Benedick revels in the Comedy of the character.

Never did actor bring down louder shouts of laughter than Macready elicited by his Benedick. He took the character as one by which mirth was to be excited, and this mirth it was his constant aim to produce. He seized the ridiculous side

32February 25, 1843, p. 118. 33February 25, 1843, p. 5.

34Ibid. 318 of Benedick, and made that prominent at the expense of the5more graceful features of the character.

Macready achieved his success with a series of points showing the various effects of love on the misogynist 1 tic soldier. In the arbor scene, when Benedick overhears the false information that Beatrice is in love with him, he tries to pretend that he is making a rational decision. Actually, his heart is pounding, his head is giddy, and his physiology has taken complete control of him. He is alternately thunderstruck and hyperactive.

Benedick advances from the Arbour, with a very lackadaisical expression and looking » after them,— as he adv , he takes the nearest of the three chairs, on R.— and, dragging it to the front C.— he sits,— looking vacantly to the front for half a minute before he speaks.

When he finally rouses himself from that thirty second "take," there is so much extra energy in his body that he cannot sit still. "During his speech he X'es & reX'es his legs over his knee, 36 several times." The Times called that "the first

3^The Examiner. February 25, 1843, p. 118 36Harvard 13846.69.13*, p. 254. 319 great effect" of the performance*

He marched from the arbour, and he took a chair, and there he sat for some minutes with the oddest expression of countenance in the world. Benedick did not know what to make of the new dawnings of love in his bosom, so he fidgetted, and he crossed his legs in some new fashion at the end of every three words, and he looked at one moment so lugubrious, and at the next . . . so self-satisfied, that he was per­ fectly irresistible*

"I will be horribly in love with her," he shouts, and finds that he must move, but the movement leads him nowhere: "Rises, joyously, goes to R.— and back to chair." When Beatrice is sent out to fetch him to dinner, she is in a rage and means him to know it, but the love-mad Benedick looks only for signs of passion.

Enter Beatrice L., turns her back on him; Ben, before he speaks, walks around her, endeavouring to see her face as he adv , she turns,.till both in their original positions.

When Leonato, Claudio, and Don Pedro next come across Benedick, his demeanour and his dress are

^ F e b r u a r y 25, 1843, p. 5* 38Harvard 13846.69.13*, p. 254 entirely changed: "I am not as I have been," he says.

The three conspirators take advantage of Benedick's melancholy.

Ben' is holding his hat in front of him, Claud' snatches it, looks at it, and as Ben1 endeavours to regain it, Claud'throws it aX to Don P,— Ben' goes quickly to him, and, as he takes the hat, Don P snat-' ches his hdkf from his vest, smells it, as he speaks, then throws it aX to Claud*, who holds it in Leon's face. Ben' at last recovers it and chafes up and down the stage C.— all the others enjoy his vexation, &c.

Such rapid and finely coordinated ensemble business seems to have been exceptional, because the prompter wrote an explanation in the promptbook.

Note: If this is done quickly and neatly, it is sure^to tell capitally with the audience.

The Times confirmed the effect of the business.

The droll misery in his countenance when reviled by the Prince and Claudio, his horror at the discovery of his brushed hat and civet perfume, were admirable. "He is all mirth," quoth Don Pedro, iron­ ically, and the contradiction given to the assertion by that melancholy visage

39Ibid., p. 261 321 40 was humorous in the extreme.

When the wedding of Hero and Claudio has been called off, because of the false accusations framed against Hero by Don John, Macready adds business and lines of dialogue to show a conflict between love and honor. Beatrice and Benedick finally confess their true feelings for each other. "I protest I love thee," says Benedick, "Come bid roe do anything for thee." The answer, however, is not what he expected. "Kill Claudio," she says, "bursting into tears, & fall^ on his shoulder." Benedick has to stop and think. Claudio has shamed Hero by voicing false accusations, but he is Benedick's friend.

"Ha! Not for the wide world," he decides. Beatrice moves away: "You kill me to deny it. Farewell;", but he snatches her hand: "Tarry, sweet Beatrice." Benedick reconsiders: does she truly hold Claudio to blame? "Yea, as surely as I have a thought or a soul." Macready adds the lines:

Ben: You do!

Beat: I do!

Benedick agrees to duel with his friend, and Beatrice

40February 25, 1843, p. 5 322 loves hint again

Beat with her hand resting on his shoulder, is now in front of Ben' and looks up in his face delightedly— their eyes meet— he smiles and takes her hand.

Benedick vows that "Claudio shall render me a dear account," and Macready inserts a reply for Beatrice:

"Kiss my hand again." He does so, and, like a love- struck adolescent, he keeps it up for some time, v ~ 'L.l

"Going with Bteat' to R., still kiss^ her hand."

Left to himself, even though he has been maneouvred into mortal combat with his friend, he is puffed up with excitement.

When she is off, he puts on his hat, arran- * ges his costume, &c., and drawing on hig. glove, walks off very self-satisfiedly.

So far we have chiefly seen love make Benedick foolish. When he presents his challenge to Claudio, it gives him dignity. He delivers his message with composure and with every courtesy. He comes to his friend "taking off his hat, and bowing respt^ to the prince." In leaving, he "Bows again to the

41Harvard 13846.69.13*, pp. 286-87 323 prince, puts on his hat. Exit L. 3

When he had undertaken to fight Claudio, and make Hero*s cause his own, and he was still pursued by the bantering of his former friends, he nicely distinguished the impatience shown by a man with a seri­ ous purpose on his mind, who shakes off frivolous jests, from that of the mere butt, who is fidgetty at being teased. His acknowledgment to the Prince of past obligations was dignified and respectful, and would have been commendable in any reading of the character.

The playful character of love reasserts itself in the last scene. Claudio and Hero, now reunited, reveal halting love poems which Benedick and Beatrice have written to each other. Neither author wants to acknowledge his work.

Claud* showing a paper which Ben & Beat both endeavour to obtain— Beat secures it.

When Hero produces Beatrice's letter.

The same business repeated, Ben* getting the paper— they open them both at the same moment, and then look at each other.

42Ibid., p. 297. The Tiroes (London), February 25, 1843, p. 5. 44Harvard 13846.69.13*, p. 312. Both lovers read the Idiotic rhymes of the other to the assembled company* We see in this conclusion how love has changed a pair of mature and cynically independent people into giddy adolescents.

The essential character development of the play is defined more through character business than through any other element of the production* Two excellent examples of the famous "Macready pause1* make the business sometimes more implicit than expli­ cit. Benedick*s thirty second pause in the arbor scene, and his pause after Beatrice asks him to kill Claudio, set the audience to imagining the effect which love produces on his mind.

Macready*s character business reveals a number of points about his management. First, he was in­ clined in some of his tragic characters to emphasize the sensitive and domestic qualities over the heroic ones. His Macbeth is an imaginative man led by his wife into crime, struck motionless with horror at the act itself. His Virginius, rather than a stoic Roman, is a loving father driven to distraction. Second, the business is often psychological rather than physical, revealing states of mind rather than significant actions. The fears of Claudius and Gertrude are revealed during the play scene of Hamlet, and the confusion of Rosencrantz and 325 Guildenstern about: their mission is shown as they

approach Hamlet. The chief interest of Benedickas

business in the arbor scene is the internal conflict between his normal self-control and the new emotions

which are seizing him. Third, Macready is often inclined to express

extreme or complicated emotions in a simple gesture

which takes its meaning from context. The dropping

of a document, in Henry V, expresses the terror

of the traitors at their apprehension. In Henry

VIII. Wolsey puts Campeius in his place simply by preceding him through a doorway. Fourth, Macready sometimes drew a character

through the manner, rather than the matter, of his

actions. A great deal is said about Imogen's attitude

toward her disguise, by the awkward way she draws her sword to defend herself.

Fifth, Albert's archery practice in William

Tell shows how character business could be used contrapuntally to the main action of a scene, as

a statement about the cultural or environmental background of that action. In summary, the Macready character business shows us a manager moving toward domestic realism.

Macready looks for simple statements rather than melodramatic posturing; he is more interested in 326 the human than the heroic aspects of character;

he is interested in the interior side of behavior,

in "what makes people tick;" he uses business on

occasion to fill in an environment, rather than

to reveal the thought of a leading character directly. Before we leave the present chapter, we should

consider its place in the general inquiry we are

engaged in. We are considering whether Macready's managerial practice, between 1837 and 1843, consti­ tutes directorship. We have found a certain consis­

tency of style in the character business. To the

extent that such business governs a production, • we may say that production was directed, for the business

we have examined is the record of conscious decisions

taken to support a unified, specific, and personal

interpretation. Usually, that interpretation tends

in the direction of psychological realism and domestic

emotion. Those statements must be taken, however, with

two important qualifications. 1.) As with the crowd business, our evidence is by its nature positive.

Business which Macready did not consciously design, which he left to convention, to tradition, or to the various instincts of his actors, did not need

to be recorded in the promptbooks. We have discussed business from some sixteen plays in this chapter. 327

We cannot with any assurance generalize the patterns

we have found there; we cannot assume that the other one hundred twenty-six plays in the Macready canon

contained similar detail.

2.) Only rarely is the business of a Macready

production the dominant organizational principle.

Much Ado About Nothing is dominated by the business of Beatrice and Benedick. The Winter*s Tale is dominated by its crowds. I have previously presented

two chapters, however, dealing with other areas in which Macready*s hand was often more evident.

The character business constitutes only one part,

and not the largest part, of our investigation. 328

CHAPTER V SUMMARY

Before proceding to the conclusions of this work, we should examine, in the light of previously published and readily available evidence, two kinds of statements that have been made about the Macready management. It has been said that Macready abolished the star system in his companies, and that he began the modern practice of intensive and extensive re­ hearsing. Macready and the Star System. Bassett states flatly that, during Macready*s tenure at the patent theatres, "the star system was abolished."^ Since

Macready was the star of his own companies, one would expect such a radical policy to be reflected in his casting of himself over a wide range of produc­ tions. Bassett supports his assertion by noting that Macready played the roles of Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet (April 30, 1838, Covent Garden), Harmony in Everyone Has His Fault (December 28,

^Abraham J. Bassett, "The Actor-Manager Career of William Charles Macready," Diss. Ohio State Univ. 1962, p. 414. 329

1841, Drury Lane), and Valentine in Two Gentlemen

of Verona (December 29, 1841, Drury Lane).

It is interesting that Bassett finds only three

cases, from one hundred forty-two plays and two hundred and eight productions at the patent theatres,

in which Macready cast himself in less than star

roles. Even more interesting, though, is that two of the three cases are questionable. Valentine

is one of two leading juvenile roles in Two Gentlemen

of Verona: it is hard to imagine how Macready was making any sacrifice to take the role. To be sure, he felt greatly put upon to assume it, and wrote

loftily in his diary about the benefit he was bringing

to the theatre by doing so.

* Reconsidered the question of acting the unimportant parts of Harmony and Valentine, and came to the decision that everything should be done to raise and sustain the character of the theatre; that my reputation could scarcely be affected in any way by the assumption of these parts; and that it would be a sad calculation to think of propping my reputation by the ruins of the theatre.

Valentine is a smaller role than Proteus, but hardly an obscure one. There was some improbability in

2 The Diaries of William Charles Macready^ ed William Toynbee (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1912), II, 149-150. 330

casting a forty-eight year old man as an inamorato, but no greater than in a number of other youthful

roles, including Claude Melnotte, which Macready played in his later years. Some of the role*s insig­

nificance in Macready's eyes must have proceded

not from its size, but from its lack of literary

stature.

Friar Lawrence, of course, is a true cameo role; by assuming it, Macready made a conscious gesture toward the democratization of acting. The gesture was a brief and a grudging one, however.

The production was'withdrawn after two performances,

and one of the reasons was Macready*s inability to play second fiddle.

I find the playing a part of this sort, with no direct character to sustain, no effort to make, no power of perceiving an impression made, to be a^very disagree­ able and unprofitable task.

Macready*s complaint that the role provides "no character to sustain" can only be a smoke-screen for his real feelings. The nature of his problem lies near the end of the sentence: the role was

3 Macready* s Reminiscences and Selections from His Diaries and Letters. ed. Sir Frederick Pollock (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1875), p. 430. 331

not large enough to arouse applause

Having required many of the actors to do what they considered beneath them, perhaps it was only a just sacrifice to their opinions to concede so far*

The reference brings up, however, Macready*s practice of assigning to other reputable actors

in his company roles which they were not used to

accepting. Downer has outlined a number of incidents

which typify Macready*s policy of "casting to

strength."^ On October 10, 1837, he

settled the cast of Othello with Mr. Bartley for the Duke, as an example to the other actors, and to show the public that there would be no impediments to the best possible disposition of the characters in the play.

James Warde was prevailed upon to take the part of Banquo, a role at that time considered demeaning; he drew praise from the Times for acquiescing in

"a system by which all the chief actors of a company are made to participate in the performance, and

4Ibid* ^Alan S. Downer, The Eminent Tragedian William Charles Macready (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 240-41.

^Toynbee, I, 416. 332 7 insure the success of a play." The small part of Le Beau in the famous production of Ass You Like

It was assigned to Hudson, who complained to Macready that the role was insignificant. Macready read the part to him.

Before the reading was concluded, Hudson was in convulsions of laughter, and delight­ ed to take the character. "Excellent, sir! excellent!" he said. "I had no idea of what it was." He gained great and deserved applause in it, with a merry response from &he audience while he spoke the words.

If as the Times said, all the chief actors of a Macready company had to contribute to a major production, that policy apparently did not apply to Macready himself, who, except for the cases men­ tioned by Bassett, and for the role of Jaques (a traditionally choice cameo), played male leads or nothing. With companies that employed notable actors like J. R. Anderson, Samuel Phelps, and George V

Vandenhoff, Macready could not always play the tragic leads. On September 24, 1838, for instance, on opening his second season at Covent Garden, he relin-

7 November 7, 1837, p. 5.

iQ Juliet Creed Pollock, Macready As 1 Knew Him. 2nd ed. (London: Remington and Co., Publishers, 1885), p. 21. 333 quished the part of Coriolanus to Vandenhoff.

In the production of Cymbeline which opened the

following night, Phelps took the part of Posthumus• That season's mounting of The Winter's Tale (October 5) billed Vandenhoff as Leontes. On November 23, Anderson played Ion, and on November 26, Vandenhoff was the Othello to Macready's Iago. At Drury Lane, on February 14, 1842, Phelps took the part of Pierre, in Venice Preserved. In none of these cases did g Macready assign himself to a mere supporting role.

Macready held to himself, in fact, a repertoire which, with the possible exceptions of Bassett's cases, constitutes a star tragedian's line of busi­ ness: Leontes, Hamlet, Melantius in The Bridal.

Othello, Werner, Pierre, Iago, the Stranger,

« Virginius, Macbeth, Henry V, Lear, Brutus, Coriolanus, Ion, Wolsey, William Tell, Richelieu, Shylock, Marino

Faliero, and King John. He also took for himself the comic roles of Lord Townly in The Provoked Hus­ band. Benedick, and Joseph Surface. While Macready demanded the very highest level of acting support

O Bassett, pp. 420-473. These pages comprise Appendix A, a "Chronological List of Plays Presented by William Macready at Covent Garden Theatre, 1837— 1838 and 1838-1839, and at Drury Lane Theatre, 1841- 1842 and 1842-1843." The tables contain cast lists for nearly all productions, and a day-book for the theatres royal under Macready's management. for himself, he was hardly ever willing to use his own talents in a supporting role. Macready had a reputation among his contempora­ ries for insisting on the prerogatives of a star. While acting with Macready in 1848, Fanny Kemble had a conflict with him on the matter of dressing-

* rooms•

X am sorry to say that I have not the same dressing-room I had before at the Princess's Theatre. Mr. Macready is quite too great a man to give it up to anybody, and my attiring apartment now is up a steep flight of stairs, which is a great discomfort to roe.

His productions, she said, were arranged so as to give prominence only to himself. In particular, she found his disposition of the banquet scene in

Macbeth to be "an act of unwarrantable selfishness."

I was much astonished and annoyed to find, at my first rehearsal, a long banqueting- table set immediately at the foot of the steps in front of the dais, which rendered all but impossible my rapid rushing down to the front of the stage, in my terrified and indignant appeals to Macbeth, and my sweeping back to my place, addressing on my way my compliments to the tables on either side. . . . All my remonstrances . . . were in

*®Frances Ann Kemble, Records of Later Life (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1882T, p. 635. 335 vain. Mr. Macready persisted in his deter­ mination to have the stage,arranged solely with reference to himself.

Kemble charges that Macready paid scant regard to other actors on the stage, upstaging them constantly and refusing to time his movement regularly.

Macready is not pleasant to act with, as he keeps no specific time for his exits or entrancesy comes on while one is in the middle of a soliloquy, and goes off while one is in the middle of a speech to him. He growls and prowls, and roams and foams, about the stage, in every direc­ tion, like a tiger in his cage, so that I never9know on what side of me he means to be. - .

Vandenhoff agreed that the Macready production style was calculated to highlight a single central role.

Whatever was his part for the night, whether he was Othello or Iago, Brutus or Cassius, Posthumus or Iachimo, that part must be the feature of the play. . . . Thus, when he played Othello, Iago was to be nowhere! Othello was to be the sole consideration: . . . Iago was a mere stoker, whose business it was to supply Othello's passion with fuel, and keep up his high-pressure. The next night, perhaps, he took

13-Ibid., p. 638.

12Ibid., p. 642. Iago; and lo! presto! every thing was changed. Othello was to become a mere puppet for Iago to play with.

Macready1s acting versions, in Vandenhoff*s eyes, were prepared chiefly with the intention of minimizing

secondary roles.

Mr. Macready did not scruple to cut out a speech, or portion of a speech, however beautiful, in the part of another actor, if the retaining it would give that actor— especially a favorite actor— too much hold of the.scene, too much apparent impor­ tance.

Vandenhoff quibbles with a number of Macready*s

textual interpretations, but he is particularly offended at one script.

For his benefit, at New Orleans, Mr. Macready produced (as an afterpiece!) the "School for Scandal," in three acts! cutting out the great scandal-scene, the picture-scene, and several other scenes; so as to confine it, as much as possible, to the development of the "Plots of Joseph Surface," which character he played, • • •

13 George Vandenhoff, An Actor*s Notebook, or The Green-Room and Stage (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1860 7, pp. 222-223. 14Ibid., p. 234. 337

and which consequently became, of course, the feature•

One can detect in such testimony the malice of jealous rivals, and yet its consistency implies that it has some foundation. Kemble's frustration may be the petulance of an obsolete actress forbidden to practice her stock business.

From time immemorial, the banquet scene in "Macbeth" has been arranged after.one invariable fashion: the royal dais and throne, with the steps leading up to it, holds the middle of the stage, sufficiently far back to allow of two long tables, at which the guests are seated on each side, in front of it, leaving between them ample space for . . . Lady Macbeth's repeated rapid descents from the dais and return to it, in. her vehement expostu­ lations with him, and her courteous invi­ tations to the occupants of both the tables to "feed, and regard him not."

She describes herself as

Accustomed to this arrangement of the stage, which I never saw different anywhere in all roy life for this scene.

Vandenhoff*s comments are a different matter, for

15Ibid., p. 231. ^Kemble, pp. 637-38. 338 although there was professional jealousy also between

Vandenhoff and Macready, there does exist a promptbook of The School for Scandal; the script has been cut in just the self-serving way Vandenhoff has des*- 17 cnbed.

Macready was, if anything, rather a conservative in relation to the star system. His management certainly did not abolish that system. Throughout his career, he took pains to preserve his own pre­ eminence as a star actor* Within his own companies, he preserved for himself the star tragedian's line of business; only very rarely, and grudgingly, did he use himself in a supporting capacity for other - actors. He took great pains, however, to see that actors of stature played supporting roles to his leads.

Macready»s Rehearsal Periods. Scenery, prompt­ books, and actors, in the early nineteenth century, composed a vast system of interchangeable parts; if one knew how to do Hamlet at Drury Lane, one knew how to do it in any theatre in Britain. Contemporary theatre art rests on a different assumption. We expect every new combination of actors, designers, and performance space, to produce

17 (London: Charles Cumberland, n. d.), Macready— Collection, Victoria and Albert; McDowell P. 1145. 339

a new Hamlet. We require a director to bring order out of the potential chaos which threatens every new production. If we have gained greater freedom and personality of expression, we have lost the

mechanical ease with which the actor-managers once threw together nightly changes of bill. Since we

assume that a play must be rediscovered for each

production, a long grueling rehearsal period is

always required to bring a play to respectable con­

dition. One of the views often expressed about Macready*s

management is that .he began the modern practice of long and intensive rehearsal.

Where other managers were accustomed to call special rehearsals only for new panto­ mimes and operas, and fitfully for new plays, Macready rehearsed endlessly the standard plays of the repertory, Shakespeare and Venice Preserved. The Gamester and The Stranger.

Macready certainly rehearsed some of his productions more thoroughly than was customary. It is quite another matter, however, to claim that he used what

in modern practice would be called rigorous rehearsal. The extent of Macready's innovation in this respect

is difficult to determine.

18 Downer, p. 242. 340

In her memoirs, Helena Faucit makes the rehear­

sals sound very modern indeed.

Rehearsals began at ten in the morning, and usually went on until three or four. When reviving an old, or bringing out a new play, these rehearsals were as a rule continued daily for three.weeks at least, sometimes four or five.

Taken literally, Faucit's statement implies that the average production under Macready*s management was given four weeks of daily rehearsals. Such a system was impossible, however. Macready*s management was governed by the.conventions of the early nineteenth-century repertory theatre. He brought out a new play, on the average, once 20 a week; a new production, once every five days. In the evenings, he was often performing. In the daytime, he had to study his roles, and conduct the business of the theatre. He was a devoted family

Helena Faucit (Lady Martin), On Some of Shakespeare * s Female Characters. 5 th ed“ (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1893), p. 52. 20 Dividing the number of titles produced in four seasons into the number of days in those seasons (981+142), one arrives at an average figure of 6.9 days. That is too generous, however, since many of the plays were mounted several times over the various seasons. Dividing the number of days by the total number of productions (981*208), one arrives at the interval of 4.7 days. 341 nan, and escaped from London when he could, to his home at Elstree. Three days is, if anything, too generous an estimate of the average rehearsal period. Faucit's recollection, though certainly inaccu- rate as a generalization, may reflect Macready's practice in a few especially elaborate productions. The mechanical wonders of The Tempest, for instance

(Covent Garden, October 13, 1838) may have required many rehearsals to prepare. If that is true, however, many other productions must have been rehearsed hardly at all. In no case do the published portions of the diaries prove that Macready set up what would today be called an adequate rehearsal schedule. Even for The Tempest, Bassett finds only five confirmed rehearsals, beginning on October 8, a mere five - 21 days before the opening. King John (October 24,

1842, Drury Lane) and The Winter's Tale (September 30, 1837, Covent Garden) were both noted for their crowd directions. Macready mentions only a single 22 rehearsal of King John, however, on October 10. The only recorded rehearsal for The Winter's Tale

21 "The Actor-Manager Career," pp. 166-67.

22Pollock, p. 501. 342 23 was on the day of the opening. Only five rehearsals are recorded for the elaborate second production of Henry V.24 Perhaps there were other rehearsals, but even : if there were, it is hard to believe that Macready*s schedules could ever have been directorial, in the contemporary sense. The Tempest, particularly with

a great deal of new machinery, cannot be directed in five rehearsals, or even in fifteen rehearsals. Such a timetable might allow Macready to manage the stage, to see that the machines ran smoothly, to teach the times and places of entrances, to estab­ lish the main outlines of the business. To direct the play, however*, to shape each detail of each moment in accordance with a unified, specific, and personal interpretation of a play's meaning, would require extended and concentrated attention. The prevailing repertory system did not allow such atten­ tion to a single production.

Conclusions Was Macready a director? The promptbook evidence falls into two categories. The first is the class of static, or design elements. That class of evidence

23Toynbee, I, 412.

24Pollock, pp. 455-56; Toynbee, II, 3-6. 343 tells us how Macready shaped, composed, and filled the stage space with scenery and actors. The second category is the class of fluid, or histrionic ele­ ments. That class includes the activities of actors, individually and in a mass.

Evidence from the second category tends to be positive by nature, while evidence from the first class is more balanced. Stage business is only recorded in a promptbook when the manager wants it done in a particular, personal way. When actors are left to work out their own business, by tradition, by convention, or by personal instinct, it cannot be reliably recorded. Even in the most ordinary production, however, a prompter will appreciate a certain amount of tech­ nical information: where the wings are set, how deep the scene is, where the actors will enter from, where they will stand on the stage. Consequently, we have documentary evidence to prove that the technic cal aspects of some productions were totally unexcep­ tionable. We can only surmise about the fluid ele­ ments of such routine productions. The fluid category can be sudivided into the two areas of crowd movement, and individual character' business. We found that Macready*s character business implies a production style which emphasizes domestic 344 over heroic emotion. Macready's Macbeth is no re­ solved assassin, but a man immobilized by his imagi­ nation, led into crime by his wife. Virginius kills his daughter not with the resolve of a stoic Roman, but in a moment of desparate distraction. Macready prefers the simple action with subtext to melodramatic gesture. The conspirators against Henry V merely drop a piece of paper when they read their death- warrants. Shylock's hunger for revenge is expressed simply by the psychological gesture of sharpening h'is knife. Cardinal Wolsey shows his domination over Campeius by preceding him out a door. In one scene from William Tell. Albert's archery practice is a kind of counterpoint to the dialogue of Tell and his wife, enriching the image of the mountain life-style. The business is often psychological rather than physical; as best exemplified in Much

Ado About Nothing. Macready's character business can reveal the condition of a character's mind, and the changes which go on there. Despite its sophistocation, however, the character business is only sporadically developed. Macready*s crowd business is equally intermit­ tent. In a few cases, it becomes the controlling force of a production. In The Winter*s Tale, for the crowd is not only a moral force, directing the 345 audienceBs sympathies toward Hermione and her child, but a dramatic agent as well, forcing Leontes to modify some of his commands. In Henry VIII. the crowd is the moral center of the play, sympathizing with the victims of injustice, Katherine and Bucking­ ham. Crowds are also used to establish a moral center in Virqinius and in William Tell. The feelings of the crowd in Julius Caesar are so clearly depicted that they reveal the rhetorical strategy of Mark

Antony. Here again, it is surprising that such business is inconsistently developed. The Lear abdication scene, and the Hamlet duelling scene, both of which seem to demand reactions from bystan­ ders, show no sign of them.

In the category of design, or static, elements, we have discussed the shaping of stage space by scen­ ery, and the filling of it with actors. We discovered that the Macready stage compositions are built almost entirely on three conventional forms: the straight line, the circle, and the trapezoid. In most cases, these patterns are used baldly, more for logistical convenience than for visual expressiveness. In some productions, in Macbeth and in the first produc­ tion of Henry V; for instance, the stage compositions are often at odds with the situations they depict.

The conventional forms are usually present even 346 in Macready*s most sophistocated compositions.

In the assassination scene from Julius Caesar, for instance, they contrast with asymmetrical and informal elements. The opening of King John consists of a few variations on the circular motif. Only The Winter"s Tale shows a consistent use of irregular groupings .u The Macready stage compositions show flashes of originality, flashes of directorial decision-making, in the midst of a thoroughly conven­ tional mode of operation.

Macready occasionally worked with a number of individualizing variations on the boundaries of the stage space. In a number of cases, a second acting level was placed on or around the stage peri­ meter, usually to symbolize political or military power. One or more entrances might be plugged, particularly in interior scenes, to lend more speci­ ficity to the space, and to limit the number of places at which entrances and exits could be made. In a few cases, full three-sided enclosures were effected, usually to make some kind of comment on a character associated with the setting. Never, however, did Macready violate the basic trapezoidal symmetry of the wing-and-shutter stage. Never did he use more than two horizontal levels. Never did he divide the central acting area of the stage. In the most fundamental respects, Macready did not shape space in a directorial manner. Was Macready a director, or just a manager?

The question is falsely dichotomous. Taking into account all the information at our disposal, we cannot call Macready a director without stretching the word out of all semblance of its meaning. On the other hand, to classify him as an actor-manager merely, fails to describe the most interesting parts of his activity.

We must remind ourselves that Macready spent his entire theatrical life wishing he had been a barrister. Since his father's finances had denied him a respectable profession, his obsession was to raise the theatrical profession to respectability.

He suffered under the professional standards of ... his time, standards which at best were free-wheeling, at worst were slovenly. In his passion to raise those standards, and to make his milieu respectable— in his determination to regularize theatrical practice and to see that the classic plays were produced with the care and integrity they demanded— Macready showed flashes of directorial activity and insight. His drilling of other actors, individually and en masse, sometimes expressed a unified, specific, and personal interpretation of particular scenes. 34 8 In The Winter*s Tale, and in Much Ado About Nothing.

Macready*s business becomes the organizing principle

of an entire production. In three respects, Macready

stands on the verge of modern directorial design. He flirted with limelight, an innovation which poten­

tially opened the door to the expressive possibilities of modem lighting. In Richelieu, he considered

the use of an asymmetrical enclosure,-, a technique

which would not be fully realized until.the

Shakespearean revivals of Charles Kean, more than a decade later. In The Winter*s Tale, there are

signs that he organized his crowds into dynamic,

irregular groups, a method which which would flourish

in the work of the Meiningers, in the 1870*s. It should not be held against Macready that

none of those revolutionary concepts were fully implemented. The public did not demand such tech­ niques; and the prevailing repertory system did not allow the necessary concentration of resources.

Under such conditions, the mere conception of such possibilities is a remarkeable achievement.

Macready was not a director, but he was a trans­

itional figure. If we exaggerate his innovations,

and overlook the differences between his activities and those of a director, we cannot fully appreciate his real contributions to the English stage. 349 A note is in order, at the close of the argument,

about the limits of the present method of inquiry. Because many Macready promptbooks are available,

and few of them have been fully exploited, this dissertation has relied almost entirely on prompt­ books. As far as possible, I have tried to recon­ struct Macready*s methods not merely in a few lavish

productions, but over the broad range of his reper­

tory. I have assumed that one cannot understand

the work that Macready was engaged in for four years

of his life, merely by examining a dozen of so

Shakespearean revivals, many of which may be called high points of his career. One must also look at the failures of his management (the first production of Henry V ). and at plays which were reasonably successful but entirely trivial (Chaos Is Come Again?.

I have analyzed and drawn information from all the promptbooks available to me. Even so, the sample is heavily slanted toward "important" productions, because it is precisely those promptbooks which

Macready and others took care to preserve. This method has produced some new insights

.about Macready*s innovations. A great deal of the material we have uncovered, however, bears on the traditional and conventional aspects of the Macready management, and thus serves as a corrective to any 350 exaggeration of those innovations. These materials cannot be fully understood, however, until similar studies have been made on other nineteenth-century managers. The information on Macready*s technical management, particularly, will be much more useful after comprehensive prompt­ book studies have been made of the managements of

Kean and Phelps after him, and Kemble before him. It would also be revealing, if enough promptbooks can be assembled, to do such a study on Gunn, or Osbaldiston, or any of the truly uninspired hack managers of Macready*s time. That kind of study would give us a clearer picture of the differences, if any, between Macready*s practices and those of less conscientious managers. When such studies have been made, we will be able to analyze Macready*s management not only internally, but externally as well, making direct comparisons, and gaining thereby a more precise idea of where he and other figures stand, in the evolution of the directing art. BIBLIOGRAPHY 352

I

Books and Articles

Allen, Percy, The Stage Life of Mrs. Stirling, with Some Sketches of the Nineteenth-Century Theatre (London: T. Fischer Unwin, Ltd., 1922). Allen, Shirley S., Samuel Phelps and Sadler*s Wells Theatre (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 19 71). Anderson, James Robertson, An Actor*s Life (London: Walter Scott Publishing Company, 1902). Appleton, William W., Madame Vestris and the London Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974T. Archer, Frank, An Actor*s Notebooks. Being Some Memories. Friendships. Criticisms and Experiences of Frank Archer (London: Stanley Paul, 1912 ). Archer, William, William Charles Macready (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1890). . The Old Drama and the New (Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1923). Archer, William and Lowe, Robert W., ed., Hazlitt on Theatre (1895; rpt. New York: Hill and Wang, 1957). Armstrong, Cecil Ferrard, "William C. Macready," A Century of Great Actors. 1750-1850 TLondon: Mills & Bodn, Ltd., 1904).

.Baker, Henry Barton, The London Stage: 1576-1903. 2 vols. (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1904). . Our Old Actors (London: R. Bentley & Son, 188177 353 Bassett, Abraham J., "The Staging of Bulwer-Lytton1s Richelieu. The Lady of Lyons. and Money." Thes. Ohio State Univ. 1957.

______, "The Actor-Manager Career of William Charles Macready," Diss. Ohio State Univ. 1962.

Bunn, Alfred, The Stage (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1840). Butler, James H.', "Early Nineteenth-Century Stage Settings in the British Theatre," TS_ 6 (1965), pp. 54-64.

______, "An Examination of the Plays Produced by Madame Vestris During Her Management of the Olympic Theatre in London from January 3, 1831 to May 31, 1839," TS 10 (1969), pp. 136-147. Carlson, Marvin, "Montigny, Laube, Robertson: the Early Realists, ETJ 24 (1972), pp. 227- 236. Coleman, John, Players and PIaywrights jC Have Known (London: Chatto and Windus, 1889).

Cook, Dutton, Hours with the PIayers. 2 vols. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1889).

Downer, Alan S., The Eminent Tragedian William Charles Macready (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966). ______, "The Making of a Great Actor— William Charles Macready." Theatre Annual (1948), pp. 59-83. . "Players and Painted Stage: Nineteenth Century Acting," PMLA 61 (1946), pp. 522- 576. Faucit, Helena (Lady Martin), On Some of Shakespeare*s Female .Characters, 5th ed. (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1893). Forster, John and Lewes, George Henry, Dramatic Essays (London: Walter Scott, 1896K Genest, John, Some Account of the English Stage. from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830 (Bath: 1832). 354 Gilder, Rosamund, Enter the Actress; the First Women in the Theatre (New York and Boston: 1931) Goodman, Lawrence P., "More Light on the Limelight," TS 10 (1969), pp. 114-120. Houtchens, Lawrence Huston and Houtchens, Carolyn Washburn, ed., Leigh Hunt * s Dramatic Criti­ cism 1808-1831 (New-York: Columbia Univer sity Press, 1949). Hunter, Jack W., "Rise of, Realism on the Eighteenth -and Nineteenth-Century Stage," The OSU Theatre Collection Bulletin. 5 (19587"! pp. 2 7-39.

Kemble, Frances Anne, Records of Later Life (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1882). Knowles, Richard Brinsley, The Life of James Sheridan Knowles (London: James McHenry, 1872) . Lawrence, W. J., "First Use of Lime-Light on the Stage," Notes and Queries. 7th Series, 7 (1889), p. 225. Marshall, Thomas, Lives of the Most Celebrated Actors and Actresses TLondon: E. Appleyard, 1848).

Marston, John Westland, Our Recent Actors: Being' Recollections Critical and in Many Cases, Personal, of Late Distinguished Performers of Both Sexes (Boston: Roberts Brothers, T 8 8 8 )• Martin, Sir Theodore, Monographs: Garrick. Macready. Rachel. and Baron Stockmar (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1906). Merchant, W. Moelwyn, Shakespeare and the Artist (London: Oxford University Press, 1959). Moody, Richard, The Astor Place Riot (Bloomington Indiana University Press, 1958). Murdoch, James Edward, The Stage, or Recollections of Actors and Acting from Experience of Fifth Years: A Series of Dramatic Sketches ' (Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddard & Co., 1880 ). i Nicoll, Allardyce, A History of Early Nineteenth- 355

Century Drama. 1800-1850. 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930). Planche, James Robinsin, The Recollections and Reflec­ tions of J. Planche, 2 vols. (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1872). Pollock, Sir Frederick, ed., Macready*s Reminiscences and Selections from His Diaries and Letters (Hew York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1875). Pollock, Juliet Creed, Macready As Knew Him (London: Remington and Company, 18B5“n Price, William Thompson, A Life of William Charles Macready (New York: Brentano's, 1894f.

Ranney, H. M., Account of the Terrific and Fatal Riot at the New-York Astor Place Opera House~TNew York: 1849*71

Rowell, George, The Victorian Theatre: _a Survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1956).

Scott, Clement, The Drama of Yesterday and Today. 2 vols~ (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1899). Scharf, George, Jr., Recollections of the Scenic Effects at Covent Garden Theatre. During the Season 1830-9 (London: James Pattie, T839T;

Shattuck, Charles H., Bulwer and Macready: jt Chronicle of the Early Victorian Theatre (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958). \ . "The Macready Prompt Books at Folger," Theatre Notebook 16 (1961). No. 3, pp. 7-10. . "Macready*s‘*Comus:* a Prompt Book Study," JEGP 40 (1961), pp. 731-748.

. Mr. Macready Produces As You Like It, (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1962). William Charles Macready*s King John (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1962). 356

Spevack, Marvin, ed., Werner: a Tragedy. George Gordon Byron (Munich, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1970).

Sprague, Arthur Colby, Shakespearian Players and Performances (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1954). Stirling, Edward, Old Drury Lanes Fifty Years* Recol­ lections of Author. Actor, and Manager. 2 vols. (London: Chatto and windus, 1881). Toynbee, William, ed., The Diaries of William Charles Macready. 1833-1851. 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1912 ). Trewin, J. C . , Mr. Macready. a Nineteenth-Century Tragedian and His Theatre (London: George C. Harrup & Co., Ltd., 1955). Vandenhoff, George, An Actor*s Notebook. or The Green-Room and Stage (New York: D. Appleton and Company, I860)". Waitzkin, Leo, The Witch of Wych Street: ji Study of the Theatrical Reforms of Madame Vestris Tcambridge, Mass•: 1933 ). Wilson, M. Glen, "The Box Set in Charles Kean's Produc­ tions of Shakespearean Tragedy," The OSU Theatre Collection Bulletin 5 (1958"), pp. 7-2 7. . "Charles Kean: a Study in Nineteenth Century Production of Shakespearian Tragedy,*' Diss. Ohio State Univ. 1957. . "Charles Kean at the Princess's Theatre: a Financial Report,*' ETJ 23 (1971), pp. 51-61. . "Charles Kean's Production of Richard II." ETJ 19 (1967), pp. 41-51. .Wyndham, H. Saxe, Annals of Covent Garden Theatre. from 1732 to 189 7. 2 vols" (London:' Chatto & Windus, 1906T. 357

Promptbooks Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu: Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1134 OSUTRI. Macready's acting copy, autographed* . Richelieu, Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1134 OSUTRI. Production book, rough copy• . Richelieu, Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1134 OSUTRI. ' Production book, fair copy. , Richelieu, Harvard Theatre Collection TS 2587.100. . Richelieu, Harvard Theatre Collection TS 2587.102. Byron, Marino Faliero: Harvard Theatre Collection Thr 483.2.100*. , Werner, Victoria and Albert, Macready Col­ lection, P. 1135 OSUTRI.

. Werner, Harvard Theatre Collection TS 2 732.588, published by Spevack (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 19 70), Wilmott prompter.

______, Werner, Folger, 54, P. 1613 OSUTRI. Congreve, Love for Love, Folger, 53, P. 1612 OSUTRI. Inchbald, To Marry or Not to Marry, Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1142 OSUTRI.

, To Marry or Not to Marry, Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1149 OSUTRI.

Knowles, The Bridal, Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1136 OSUTRI.

i . The Bridal, Victoria and Albert, Macready 358

Collection, P. 1147 OSUTRI.

. Virqinius. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 113 7 OSUTRI. With a letter to Forster. . Virqinius, Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1138 OSUTRI.

. Virqinius. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1139 OSUTRI. Handwritten "side11 for the role of Virginius. . William Tell, Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1140 OSUTRI.

Kotzebue, The Stranger. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1145 OSUTRI. Incomplete.

Massinger, The Fatal Dowry. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1148 OSUTRI.

. The Fatal Dowry. Harvard Theatre Collection, uncatalogued.

Horton, The Barbers of Bassora. Harvard Theatre Collection, F. 605 OSUTRI. .

. Chaos Is Come Again. Harvard Theatre Col­ lection, F. 791 OSUTRI.

. The Spitfire. Harvard Theatre Collection, F. 601 OSUTRI. Otway, Venice Preserved. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1146 OSUTRI.

Schiller. Wallenstein. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1141 OSUTRI. Private study copy, copiously cut. Shakespeare, As You Like It. Folger, 38, P. 1597 OSUTRI. ______, As You Like It. Folger, 37, P. 1596 OSUTRI. ______, As You Like It. Folger, 36, P. 1595 OSUTRI.

. Coriolanus. Folger, 39, P. 1598 OSUTRI.

. Cymbeline. Folger, 40, P. 1599 OSUTRI. 359 Hamlet. Victoria and Albert. Macready Col­ lection, P. 1153 OSUTRI.

Hamlet. Folger, 51, P. 1610 OSUTRI. Julius Caesar. Folger, 45, P. 1604 OSUTRI. Historical notes and several casts included.

II King Henry IV. Act IV, scene ii., Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1148 OSUTRI. King Henry V. Folger, 42, P. 1601 OSUTRI.

King Henry V, Folger, 41, P. 1600 OSUTRI. King Henry VIII. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1159 OSUTRI.

King Henry VIII. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1164 OSUTRI. King Henry VIII. Folger, 43, P. 1602 OSUTRI. King John, Newberry Library, P. 29 OSUTRI. H. Scharf autograph book. King John. Folger, 44, P. 1603 OSUTRI. King John. Folger. Kean promptbook, Ellis prompter. Published by Shattuck in William Charles Macreadv1s King John (Urbana: iTlinois University Press, 1962). King Lear. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1156 OSUTRI.

King Lear. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1162 OSUTRI.

King Lear. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection P. 1163. King Richard II. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1152 OSUTRI. King Richard II, Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1161 OSUTRI.

Macbeth. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1157 OSUTRI. 360

______, Macbeth. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1165 OSUTRI.

. The Merchant of Venice. Folger, 46, P. 1605 OSUTRI.

. The Merchant of Venice. Folger, P. 169 OSUTRI. Kean promptbook, Ellis prompter.

. Much Ado About Nothing. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1155 OSUTRI. . Much Ado About Nothing. Harvard Theatre Collection 13846.69.13*.

. Othello. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1154 OSUTRI.

. Othello. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1160 OSUTRI.

. Othello. Folger, 52, P. 1611 OSUTRI.

. Othello. Folger, P. 183 OSUTRI. Kean prompt­ book, Ellis prompter. . Two Gentlemen of Verona. Folger, 49, P. 1608 OSUTRI.

, Two Gentlemen of Verona. Folqer. 48. P. 1607 OSUTRI.

______, The Winter1s Tale. Folger, 50, P. 1609 OSUTRI.

Sheridan, The School for Scandal. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1143 OSUTRI. Talfourd, Ion. Harvard Theatre Collection *65T—25.

Vanbrugh & Cibber, The Provoked Husband. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1144 OSUTRI.

White, The King of the Commons. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1150 OSUTRI.

. The King of the Commons. Victoria and Albert, Macready Collection, P. 1151 OSUTRI.