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Category Archives: ENGLISH HISTORY

Leviathan: An Astonishing History of Whales – South Australian Maritime Museum

24 Thursday May 2018

Posted by aphk in 19TH CENTURY ART, Adelaide, ANIMALS, ART, ART GALLERIES, Australia, AUSTRALIAN THEATRE, ENGLISH HISTORY, HISTORY, PEOPLE, South Australia, TONY'S TOURS - Travel Journal, TRAVEL, TRAVEL JOURNEY, TRAVELING IN AUSTRALIA, Uncategorized

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ANIMALS, ART, Australia, Hollywood, Port Adelaide, South Australian maritime museum, SOUTH KOREA, TRAVEL, whales

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As part of the South Australian History Festival that has been running throughout May, there is a truly fascinating exhibition at the South Australian Maritime Museum in Port Adelaide – Leviathan: An Astonishing History of Whales. This a celebration of the compelling majestic power and beauty of whales.

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Part of this exhibition is devoted to the history of ‘whaling’, past and present. Hunting whales, despite its current ‘politically incorrect’ status, was and still is part of human history. Why hunt whales? Many people today, including myself, would find such a thing truly repulsive – and it is! Nonetheless, whilst acknowledging the brutality of ‘whaling’, this exhibition captures the fascination, dependence upon and respect for whales by a number of human groups and tribes, some of which continue to hunt whales today. This includes a few modern indigenous tribes in places such as Indonesia and Greenland, as well as past ‘western’ commercial whaling that inspired artists and writers, including Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

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I am most certainly not defending the hunting of whales and ‘whaling’, nonetheless, there is a fascinating mystery, a kind of ‘romanticism’ about ‘whaling’ that is part of past and modern human history. Why? Neither I nor this exhibition has an answer, yet it does exist and is a conundrum – which is partly why this exhibition is so fascinating and well worth a visit. Furthermore, it is a part of South Australian history as Port Adelaide once was a trading centre for commercial whaling in the now distant past. This may be uncomfortable for many who think it should be buried beneath the veneer of the niceness of modern ‘political correctness’ – nonetheless, it remains an historical fact. This exhibition challenges as well as informs without being gory and horrific, adding to its overall impressive value.

Furthermore, there are many other reasons why a visit to the South Australian Maritime Museum is worthwhile. There are numerous artefacts from the past that are fascinating. This includes a series of ‘figureheads’ that once stood proudly at the prow of sailing ships – a lost art form in itself.

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Tony Knight

 

 

THE RISE OF THE AUSTRALIAN ACTOR: 2. GEORGE COPPIN (1819-1906)

17 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by aphk in 19TH CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, Adelaide, ADELAIDE THEATRE, Australia, AUSTRALIAN ACTORS, Australian Art, AUSTRALIAN THEATRE, BRITISH DRAMA, DIRECTORS, DRAMA, ENGLISH DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, HISTORY, PEOPLE, PLAYS, SHAKESPEARE, South Australia, THEATRE, Uncategorized, UNITED KINGDOM, USA

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19TH CENTURY DRAMA, ACTORS, Australia, AUSTRALIAN ACTORS, DRAMA, EENGLISH ACTORS, THEATRE, USA

THE RISE OF THE AUSTRALIAN ACTOR: George Coppin (1819-1906)

images-2George Selth Coppin (1819-1906) has been called “the father of Australian theatre” (Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, 1939). Whilst this may be disputed, nonetheless, George Coppin was one of the prime movers in establishing a professional theatre in Australia in the mid-colonial period. In many ways, he could be called 19th Century Australia’s ‘greatest showman’. As Sally O’Neill states, ‘Undoubtedly his enterprise was irrepressible; the business of entertainment suited his talents but, more important, he had an ingrained love of the theatre. He acted to make money but he found a stage in many other spheres.’ (Australian Dictionary of Biography).

George Coppin was born 8 April 1819 in Steyning, Sussex, England. His father, George Selth Coppin, was the son of a clergyman who gave up his medical studies to become an actor, and subsequently was disowned by his family. Hence, George Coppin was born into a theatrical family and started performing (with his sister) from the age of six. From 1835 he was working in the English provinces and at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, where he established himself as ‘first low comedian’. It was also in Dublin he met Maria Watkins Burroughs, nine years his senior, and they lived together from 1842-1848, Maria accompanying Coppin on first adventures overseas.

In 1842 George and Maria decided to leave the UK, with a choice between the USA and Australia. On a toss of a coin, they decided on Australia and arrived in Sydney 10 March 1843. From this point and for the next fifty years Coppin’s fortunes were like a rollercoaster, going from ‘boom’ to ‘bust’ several times. He worked in Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne, and Adelaide, either as an actor-manager, or hotel owner. He created a number of theatres and hotels, including the Queen’s Theatre, Adelaide, and the Semaphore Hotel, which gave the Adelaide suburb its name. It was also in Adelaide, in 1848, that Maria died.

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In 1851, after going ‘bust’ again, he left for the Victorian goldfields, and whilst he did not find gold, nonetheless, he earned a considerable amount performing for the gold diggers. In 1853 he returned to Adelaide, paid off his creditors, and returned to England. He worked successfully in London and the provinces, and it was whilst working in Birmingham he met Gustavus Brooke (1818-1866), one of the leading British tragedians of the time. He engaged Brooke for an Australian tour and had a pre-fabricated ‘Iron Theatre’, specially built for the tour. In a way, Coppin’s ‘Iron Theatre’ prefigured popular ‘pop-up’ theatres in the 21st Century.

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This marks the beginning of ‘international’ actors touring Australia. Whilst there had been a number of English and American actors touring Australia, the Coppin-Brooke partnership truly marks the successful touring of Australia by internationally renowned actors. These included Gustavus Brooke, Joseph Jefferson, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, and Maggie Moore and J. C. Williamson.

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From 1858 Coppin also established a political career that lasted off-and-on until 1895. Time and space does not allow for any elaboration on Coppin’s political career, other than stating that it was relatively successful and he was a valued member of the respective Victorian parliaments and legislative committees on which he sat. It is, however, in his ‘off’ political years that Coppin furthered Australian theatre. This included acquiring the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, which unfortunately was burnt to the ground in 1872. As the Theatre Royal was uninsured Coppin went ‘bust’ again. Nonetheless, he formed a committee and rebuilt the Theatre Royal. It was in this period that he also performed in the USA where he met J.C. Williamson and Maggie Moore, and in 1881 engaged them to perform in Australia.

Suffering from gout from 1868, Coppin announced his retirement from the stage; an announcement he kept making for next twenty-odd years. He embarked on numerous ‘farewell’ tours in Australia and other British colonies but did not give up the theatre until the mid-1880s. His later years were mainly concerned with his political career, as well as developing the Victorian seaside suburb of Sorrento, where he lived with his family. In 1855 Coppin had married Harriet Hilsden, Gustavus Brooke’s widowed sister-in-law. Harriet died in 1859, and subsequently, Coppin married one of her daughters from her first marriage, Lucy Hilsden, in 1861. Coppin had three children from his first marriage, three daughters, and seven children from his second marriage, two sons and five daughters. Except for one daughter from his first marriage, Lucy and the other children survived him when Coppin died in 1906.

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This brief sketch doesn’t really do justice to the incredible life of George Coppin. As an actor, he specialized in ‘low comedy’, but was also successful in ‘classical’ works, such as Sir Peter Teazle in Sheridan’s The School for Scandal, Bob Acres in Sheridan’s The Rivals, Tony Lumpkin in Goldsmith’s She Stoops To Conquer. Launcelot Gobbo in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. The contemporary Australian critic James Smith described Coppin’s talent and ability to successfully portray “the ponderous stolidity and impenetrable stupidity of certain types of humanity—the voice, the gait, the movements, the expression of the actor’s features, were all in perfect harmony with the mental and moral idiosyncrasies of the person he represented, so that the man himself stood before you a living reality”. This suggests that there was an acute sense of observation of real life, and a kind of early ‘naturalism’ in Coppin’s characters, albeit in essentially heightened comic roles. This is complemented by his theatre-manager-director insistence on ‘correct costuming’ for his characters and productions (Australian Dictionary of Biography).

As well as building theatres, including the Princess Theatre, Melbourne, establishing new download-7methods of advertising shows, and bringing international artists to Australia, Coppin also helped to establish copyright legislation for playwrights in Australia and was one of the first to advocate for a ‘school of acting to develop Australian acting’ (Australian Dictionary of Biography).

Coppin also advocated and brought camels to explore the interior Australia, some of the camels that Coppin imported were on the disastrous Burke and Wills expedition (1860-61). Whilst owner and manager of the Cremorne Gardens, Melbourne, he arranged for the first aerial balloon ascent over Melbourne and helped to introduce English thrushes and white swans to Australia. This is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of the truly remarkable George Coppin.

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TONY KNIGHT

THE RISE OF THE AUSTRALIAN ACTOR.1 – Eliza Winstanley (1818-1892)

28 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by aphk in 19TH CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, Australia, AUSTRALIAN ACTORS, AUSTRALIAN THEATRE, BRITISH DRAMA, BROADWAY, Classical Theatre, DRAMA, Elizabethan Drama, ENGLISH DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, HISTORY, LITERATURE, LONDON, PEOPLE, PLAYS, SHAKESPEARE, THEATRE, Uncategorized, UNITED KINGDOM, WEST END, LONDON

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INTRODUCTION

This series of post is about the identity of the Australian actor. It is partly based on recent public lectures I recently delivered at the National Portrait Gallery and the National Film & Sound Archive, Canberra.

Currently, many Australian actors enjoy considerable national and international acclaim and success; however, whilst generally unknown and unacknowledged this has always been the case, from the colonial period to present day. Former posts have been about The Genesis of the Australian Actor, focusing on the convict performance of George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer in 1789, and how many features of that performance have their resonance in the modern world and instrumental in the formulation of the character and identity of the Australian actor. This series is focused on highlighting some of the most exceptional 19th and early 20th Century Australian actors who achieved national and international success and played a significant part in the forming of the Australian actor. Due to time and space, this is highly selective and only gives a hint at the diverse and extraordinary range of Australian actors and their respective careers.

Shakespeare wrote that actors enact the abstract and brief chronicles of the times (Hamlet). Whilst this is true it also relates to other crucial aspects about actors and acting. Relatively, no actor is remembered beyond his and her own times, unless they achieve an iconic status that reaches beyond a particular career. This series is partly designed to draw attention to the great but now largely forgotten Australian actors of the past. Why should we care? T. S. Eliot was once challenged by a young student with this question – Why should we study people from the past when we know so much more than they did? ‘Exactly,’ replied Eliot,’ and they are what we know.’

ARTISTIC IDENTITY

Acting is a highly emotional art form, attracting and triggering strong responses. We often talk about actors in highly emotional terms – “I love that actor” – “I hate that actor” etc. Whilst there may be a number of reasons for responses, one is that a particular actor triggers and sparks an individuals imagination and others do not. This involves the appeal (or not) of a particular on-stage (or on-screen) persona, their unique artistic identity. This can be defined by examining three particular areas:

  1. TALENT
  2. TECHNIQUE
  3. TEMPERAMENT

TALENT – is what the actor is blessed with. It can be very difficult to define, as Constantine Stanislavsky stated, but we know it when we see it. Generalizing, an actor may have a great talent for comedy, or drama, and if particularly talented can do both. The most versatile actor is what in Musical Theatre terms is called the triple threat. This is the actor who can Sing, Dance and Act – such as Hugh Jackman. What is remarkable about the Australian actor is that many of them, past and current, enjoy this particular talent.

TECHNIQUE – is associated with skills. Just as there are many different types of actors, so too are there numerous techniques that assist the actor to unlock creativity when inspiration fails. In the US the so-called ‘method’ and its derivatives are naturalistically based and is something in which the American actor excels. All the contemporary Australian actors who have found success in the US and UK essentially have a technique and skills that complement this.

TEMPERAMENT – this is associated with particular stories and characters in which the particular actor is interested and excels, and in which complements their unique talent and technique. Subsequently, it is closely associated with a public persona – on-stage and off-stage – and is what we generally come to expect from a particular actor. This may be ‘personality’ based, in that it is essentially just one persona, or is ‘transformational’ and has radical variations. In US terms, is the actor a ‘movie star’ or an ‘actor’? They can also be both – such as Nicole Kidman. The question is – does the actor remain within a particular genre or ‘personality’, or does the actor work in numerous genres, aiming for ‘transformation’ – like Nicole Kidman.

As previously stated time and Space does not permit for me to go into great detail about the great Australian acting pioneers. There are, however, a number that I wish to highlight,  who in many ways encapsulate and represent the evolution of the Australian actor throughout the 19th Century and early 20th Century. These are – Eliza Winstanley, George Coppin, J. C. Williamson, Maggie Moore, Nellie Stewart and Oscar Ashe. All these actors were triple threats (and more), and all enjoyed national and international acclaim and success.

ELIZA WINSTANLEY [O’FLAHERTY] (1818-1892)

Eliza Winstanley has the distinction of being the first Australian actor to achieve international success. She was the first Australian actress to appear and have a successful career in the UK and USA.

Eliza Winstanley was born in England in 1818 and emigrated with her family to Australia in 1833. Her father, William Winstanley, was a scene painter and decorator at Barnett Levey’s Theatre Royal, the first successful professional theatre in Sydney, and it was here that she made her professional debut in 1834. She married the actor-musician-writer Henry Charles O’Flaherty in 1841 and henceforward acted under her married name – Mrs. Eliza O’Flaherty. With her husband, she also worked as a theatre manager, primarily at the Olympic Theatre in Sydney. Along with another female Australian theatre pioneer, Anne Clarke (c. 1806-1847), Eliza Winstanley brought a new level of respectability and social acceptance of actors into the growing cities of Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart.

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Despite beginning in the operatic and musical theatre it soon became apparent that her particular talent and skills lay in the world of classical theatre and popular melodrama.The melodramas were of the blood-soaked horror kind, such as Madeline the Maniac, the title suggestive of the extreme emotional characters in which she excelled. She was the first to appear on the Australian stage as Shakespeare’s Desdemona in Othello, Rosalind in As You Like It, and Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor, as well as scoring considerable success as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. 

Hal Porter in his Stars of Australian Stage and Screen (1965) cites critical responses to ‘this tall, dark-eyed, lively, comely, and intelligent girl. With her “agreeable form”, “rich voice”, “graceful deportment”, and countenance susceptible to strong expression”, she quickly became Sydney’s favourite actress.’ She also attracted negative responses – ‘Miss Winstanley is too affected and making improper use of the letter “h” ‘, and “if she had not displayed such a wish to be in heroics she would have succeeded better’.

Eliza Winstanley’s bold theatrical and personal temperament is suggested by two incidents. In 1840, whilst she and her sister Anne were walking home after performing they were accosted by a group of young men who wore ‘cabbage tree hats’ as a symbol that they were ‘native’ born. The Winstanley girls were regarded as English and not ‘native’ born, and subsequently were seen as inferior. Previously they had been heckled numerous times with profanities whilst performing on-stage. This night a young teenager called Charles Davis threw his ‘cabbage tree hat’ at Anne Winstanley’s feet, which Eliza Winstanley then kicked out of the way. Davis then threatened to kick them cabbage-tree hat Powerhouse Museum Sydney‘for attempting to tread on the cabbage tree’. When this came before the authorities Davis changed his story, stating that he would have kicked them ‘if they were not women’. This incident was reported in the Sydney Monitor (1 January 1841) and was also dramatized for the Sydney stage by Henry Charles O’Flaherty, in a number of sketches – Thespis in Austalia: or The Stage in Danger – in which O’Flaherty appeared as ‘Knight of the Fiddle, and Champion of the fair Eliza’, stroking ‘the place where his beard should be’ and claiming that he received a black-eye in the incident. This was followed by a poem The Battle of the Cabbage Tree, which was a satiric parody of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. It is possible that these dramatic pieces were part of O’Flaherty’s wooing of Eliza Winstanley as they were married the following month on 6 February 1841. (Australian Plays for the Colonies 1834-1899. Ed. Richard Fotheringham. University of Queensland Press. 2006. 49-50).

Another example of her independent spirit and temperament is the minor scandal she caused in 1842 when she appeared as Richard III in Shakespeare’s Richard III. Whilst it was not uncommon for women to play male roles in the early Australian theatre, mainly out of necessity, nonetheless, for many contemporaries, this was far too audacious for the times.

In 1846 she and her husband went to England, and after appearing with a number of provincial theatre companies she made her successful London debut at the Princess Theatre, London. In 1848 she also successfully toured the USA. She was the first Australian actress to appear and achieve success in the London and New York theatre. Back in London in 1850 she played leading roles with Charles Kean’s company at the Princess Theatre, establishing herself as one of London’s most popular and successful actresses of the time.

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This success was due not only to her particular talent, skill, and temperament but also to the changing theatre scene in London. After considerable pressure, the 1843 Theatre Act dissolved the previous 200 years old monopoly of Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the Haymarket theatres, subsequently allowing for more than 20 new theatres in London. One of these was Charles Kean’s Princess Theatre. Furthermore, the young Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert loved Kean’s epic productions of Shakespeare so much that they had a permanent box at the Princess Theatre. As Hal Porter states, Kean’s productions were ‘tastefully opulent, archaeologically correct to the minutest detail, with hundreds of supernumeraries including horses and hounds, spectacular scenery, and hand-picked casts in which Eliza Winstanley shone’. (Porter. 25).

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In 1848 Queen Victoria revived the staging of a Royal Command Performance at Windsor Castle by invited companies. For Eliza Winstanley this led to another ‘Australian first’. Eliza Winstanley was the first Australian actress to take part in a Royal Command Performance; playing for the benefit of the young Queen Victoria and the royal family the role of Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan’s The Rivals. She subsequently appeared in many other Royal Command performances; as well as touring extensively throughout the UK and the rest of the world. As Hal Porter states, ‘Possessed of inexhaustible vitality, without which no actress in that age of body-breaking stage labour and grisly traveling facilities could survive, she toured widely: Melbourne, Hobart, Launceston – playing the Cape as she came out, and Canada as she returned – France, Germany, Italy, and even Russia. enacting the Shakespearian roles by which she had earned her fame.’ (Porter. 25).

In 1865, at the age of 47 years old, she retired from the stage and took up writing, successfully publishing over the next 15 years 33 novels, as well as her own autobiography Shifting Scenes in Theatrical Life (1864). Significantly, most of her novels were set in Australia, including For Her Natural Life: A Tale of 1830 (1876), which was her ‘proto-feminist’ re-working of Marcus Clarke’s popular convict novel For the Term of His Natural Life (1870-72). 

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In 1880 Eliza Winstanely (O’Flaherty) she returned to Australia. After initially staying with her sister Anne in Geelong, she moved to Sydney, where she died of ‘diabetes and exhaustion’ in a house on Clarence Street December 2, 1882. She is buried in Waverly Cemetery, right next to Henry Lawson.

Eliza Winstanley [O’Flaherty] was quite an extraordinary actress, person, and pioneer. What is significant is not only her wide and diverse and internationally successful career but also what her artistic identity represents in regard to the character of the Australian actress. Independent, intelligent, strong, determined, expressive, bold, and, as Hal Porter stated, possessed of an inexhaustible vitality. Such characteristics could equally apply to many, and many of those are modern Australian actresses – but Eliza Winstanley was the first.

TONY KNIGHT

THE GENESIS OF THE AUSTRALIAN ACTOR – George Farquhar’s THE RECRUITING OFFICER – 4. The Actors

27 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by aphk in 18TH CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, Australia, AUSTRALIAN ACTORS, Australian Art, AUSTRALIAN THEATRE, BRITISH DRAMA, Classical Theatre, DRAMA, ENGLISH DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, HISTORY, LITERATURE, PLAYS, RESTORATION DRAMA, SHAKESPEARE, THEATRE, Uncategorized, UNITED KINGDOM

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INTRODUCTION

On June 4, 1789, in the middle of a Sydney winter and less than 18 months since ‘First Settlement’, the first piece of ‘Western’ theatre was produced in the new colony – The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar. This first theatrical production in the new colony was mounted in honour of King George III’s birthday, performed by a group of unknown convicts, to an elite audience of about 60 people, including Governor Arthur Phillip, the Marine Corps officers and their wives, as well as the few ‘free settlers’, and was performed in a ramshackle convict hut. Other than this not much is known about this first theatrical production, nonetheless, there are a number of factors that remain as considerable influences on the character of the contemporary Australian actor. These include – the Play, the ‘Performing Space’, the ‘Event’, and the Actors. This series of posts will look at each of these factors and how they relate to modern Australian theatre, film, and television practice in forming the character of the Australian actor. This post concerns ‘The Actors’.

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4. The Actors

We do not know the names of the convict actors who performed The Recruiting Officer. What we do know is that ‘some of the actors acquitted themselves with great spirit, and received the praise of the audience’ (Watkin Tench, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales. London. 1793. 25). Furthermore, they had no higher aim than ‘humbly to excite a smile’ (David Collins. An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales. London. 1798). It may, however, be assumed that they were amongst the few who could read, and possibly write. It may also be reasonably assumed that they may have seen in England a production of The Recruiting Officer.

Subsequently, whilst speculation, they may have modeled their performances on the current style of the acting in the English theatre in the late-18th Century. This is exemplified by such actors as David Garrick (1717-1779), Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), John Phillip Kemble (1757-1823), and Dora Jordan (1761-1816). It is quite possible that the convict actors may have seen these popular actors, particularly Dora Jordan who was the leading comic actress of the time.

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The acting style may have been illustrative and demonstrative, complementing the relatively ‘romantic’ and ‘sentimentality’ of contemporary popular tastes. However, in regards to these convict actors’ performance, any excessive gesturing may have been somewhat restrained due to the intimate ‘One-Room’ performance space of a small convict hut. One over-excited hand wave may have knocked over a candle and the whole place would have gone up in a blaze

What also can be assumed is that the convicts were an ensemble of ‘amateur’ actors.

In modern Australia ‘amateur theatre’ is the largest and most diverse of theatrical activity and engagement in the country. Furthermore, whether it be in a high school or university production or with a local amateur theatre company, this is where most Australian actors begin.

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‘THE PLAYMAKER’, ‘OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD’ & ROBERT SIDAWAY

Thomas Keneally’s novel The Playmaker (1987), and Timberlake Wertenbaker’s stage adaptation Our Country’s Good (1988) is about this convict production of The Recruiting Officer. Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play has been successfully staged throughout the world, is still being produced, and is particularly popular with drama schools.

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 In Keneally’s novel and Wertenbaker’s play, the convict actor Robert Sidaway (1758-1809) is a member of the cast for The Recruiting Officer. There is no proof that this was the case, nonetheless, despite speculation, it is quite possible as Robert Sidaway has the distinction of being amongst the first of recorded Australian actors.

Robert Sidaway was born in London in 1758. By 1782 he had been identified as a notorious thief, was convicted of ‘grand larceny’, and sentenced to death. This was commuted to transportation, and hence Sidaway found himself as part of the ‘First Fleet’ on the ship Friendship.

Sidaway was a ‘trickster’. During the voyage to Port Jackson, his name was recorded by Lt. Ralph Clark on two occasions and was put in ‘irons’ for ‘impertinence’. Whilst it is unknown whether or not he was a member of the convict cast of The Recruiting Officer, nonetheless, his name reappears in 1789, being involved with the hanging of Ann Davis, the first woman to be executed (for theft) in the new colony. In 1792 Sidaway received a conditional pardon and a full pardon in 1794, with a contract to be a baker for the resident troops.

In 1796 he opened a 120 seat theatre in Bell Row (now Bligh Street), Sydney, with the permission of Governor John Hunter. He put on Nicholas Rowe’s The Tragedy of Jane Shore, which was followed by other, including a revival of The Recruiting Officer. Unfortunately, Sidaway’s theatre was closed in 1800, being regarded as exerting a ‘corrupting influence’ on the fledgling town of Sydney.

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During the brief period in which Sidaway’s theatre operated, he produced an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, which was the first of Shakespeare’s plays to be staged in Australia. Like other contemporary adaptions of Henry IV it is reasonable to assume that this adaptation focused primarily on the popular character of Falstaff.

David Malouf in his 1998 Boyer Lecture – A Spirit of Play: The Making of Australian Consciousness contends that Shakespeare’s Falstaff is the one that best encapsulates the nature of the Australian character. Similar to Sergeant Kite in The Recruiting Officer Falstaff is a clever, witty, and mercurial ‘trickster’. It is possible that these roles, and their perceived relative popularity, mark the beginning of the Australian ‘larrikin’ character. Furthermore, dramatic ‘trickster’ characters are notorious for their mercurial characteristic and qualities, being able to adapt and exist in multiple worlds, high and low. As will be later discussed in future posts, this mercurial, anti-authoritarian, ‘trickster’, ‘larrikin’ character will become a major feature of the Australian actor, nationally and internationally, as exemplified by such Australian actors as Snowy Baker, Errol Flynn, Mel Gibson, and Hugh Jackman.

This concludes this series on The Genesis of the Australian Actor. To re-cap – these are the elements regarding the convict production of The Recruiting Officer that still have an influence today:

  1. Modern satiric comedy that is relevant, particularly reveling in ‘trickster’ characters.
  2. The Event – that festivals complement the highest and most diverse theatrical activity in modern Australia.
  3. ‘One-Room’ Theatre – that intimate performing spaces are the most common throughout Australia, producing a cultural habit and expectation in regards to Australian acting that is intensely physically and emotionally immediate and intimate.
  4. Amateur Theatre – that the unknown convicts who performed in The Recruiting Officer in 1789 were amateur actors, and that amateur theatre is the largest and most diverse form of theatrical activity in modern Australia, and is where most professional Australian actors begin their respective careers. 

This may the ‘Genesis’ of the Australian actor – but there is so much more – which will be explored in future posts.

TONY KNIGHT

 

 

THE GENESIS OF THE AUSTRALIAN ACTOR – George Farquhar’s THE RECRUITING OFFICER – 3. The Performing Space – ‘One-Room’ Theatre

26 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by aphk in 18TH CENTURY ART, 21st CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, Australia, AUSTRALIAN ACTORS, AUSTRALIAN THEATRE, BRITISH DRAMA, DRAMA, ENGLISH DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, HISTORY, LITERATURE, PLAYS, RESTORATION DRAMA, THEATRE, Uncategorized, UNITED KINGDOM

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INTRODUCTION

On June 4, 1789, in the middle of a Sydney winter and less than 18 months since ‘First Settlement’, the first piece of ‘Western’ theatre was produced in the new colony – The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar. This first theatrical production in the new colony was mounted in honour of King George III’s birthday, performed by a group of unknown convicts, to an elite audience of about 60 people, including Governor Arthur Phillip, the Marine Corps officers and their wives, as well as the few ‘free settlers’, and was performed in a ramshackle convict hut. Other than this not much is known about this first theatrical production, nonetheless, there are a number of factors that remain as considerable influences on the character of the contemporary Australian actor. These include – the Play, the ‘Performing Space’, the ‘Event’, and the Actors. This series of posts will look at each of these factors and how they relate to modern Australian theatre, film, and television practice in forming the character of the Australian actor. This post concerns ‘The Performing Space’ and the influence of ‘One-Room’ Theatre.

3. The Performing Space – ‘One-Room’ Theatre

The anniversary of his majesty’s birthday was celebrated, as heretofore, at the government house, with loyal festivity. In the evening, the play of the Recruiting Officer was performed by a party of convicts, and honoured by the presence of his excellency, and the officers of the garrison. That every opportunity of escape from the dreariness and dejection of our situation should be eagerly embraced, will not be wondered at. The exhilarating effect of a splendid theatre is well known: and I am ashamed to confess, that the proper distribution of three or four yards of stained paper, and a dozen farthing candles stuck around the mud walls of a convict hut, failed not to diffuse general complacency on the countenance of the sixty persons, of various description, who were assembled to applaud the representation. Watkin Tench, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales. London, 1793. 25.

Watkin Tench’s eye-witness account of this first theatre performance in the new colony is one of the very few that exists. What can be gleaned from Tench’s account, however, is of considerable significance. Previous posts in this series have highlighted the choice of the play, George Farquhar’s popular satiric comedy, The Recruiting Officer, and its immediate ‘modern’ relevance to the contemporary audience, and that it complemented an ‘event’. Both these issues are still relevant and influence the formulation of the Australian actor. Of even greater significance and influence, however, is that the play was performed in a convict hut, with mud walls, and ‘three or four yards of stained paper, and a dozen farthing candles. This is, in modern theatre parlance, intimate theatre – ‘One-Room’ theatre in which the demarcation between audience and actor is relatively minimal.

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The above images are derived from a later period, nonetheless, they give the impression of what convict ‘slab-huts’ were like – they were not very big at all. It was in such a place, however, in which the convict production of The Recruiting Officer took place – intimate ‘One-Room’ theatre and performing space.

In the English theatre, it wasn’t until the mid-18th Century that the lights in the auditorium in a theatre were turned down, creating what is known as ‘Two-Room’ theatre, with a clear demarcation between auditorium and stage. This was a French theatre innovation that was taken by David Garrick and introduced to English theatre, partly in order to quieten the audience, to make them passive observers and focus on the action on-stage. By 1789, however,  this innovation was still relatively new.

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Watkin Tench’s account references the rather improvised design of the production. It is easy to overlook the fact that the particular items cited – three or four yards of stained paper, and a dozen farthing candles – were actually precious and relatively rare commodities in the new colony. There was no printing press to churn out paper, nor was there an ready and easy supply of wax for candles. In relative terms to the dreariness and dejection of their situation, this was an expensive production; a marvel that it even went on at all.

The play was performed under candle-light, which was also common practice in the English theatre. This is a much softer light on actor’s faces, and subsequently often demands heavier and more defined make-up. In an intimate performing space, candle-light can also influence gesture and physical expression; any overt and reckless gesture could knock over a candle and the whole theatre could have gone up in a blaze of fire.

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‘One-Room’ theatre demands and exerts a considerable influence on the physical nature of performance. There is a physical, and subsequently emotional, intimacy between actor and audience. Over the years, and centuries, this steadily become a ‘cultural habit’ – and is very much a part of contemporary theatre practice. Whilst the larger proscenium arch ‘Two-Room’ theatres play a major part, particularly for commercial theatre (i.e. musicals), most Australian actors begin their careers and acting experience in intimate ‘One-Room’ theatres. The very immediacy and physical presence inform the acting style and approach – and this began with the convict production of The Recruiting Officer. 

Throughout Australia in major cities and in regional communities, there is a plethora of intimate ‘One-Room’ performing spaces. These can be school halls or old buildings that have been converted into theatres. Examples include The Stables Theatre in Sydney, which originally was an old stable for horses, as well as The Bakehouse Theatre in Adelaide, which originally was an old bakehouse, and the Powerhouse Theatre in Brisbane, which was an old electrical powerhouse. There are many others – including the La Mama Theatre in Melbourne, the Hayes Theatre in Sydney, the Blue Room in Perth, and Whilst all the major subsidized state theatre companies have proscenium arched ‘Two-Room’ theatres, they also have smaller intimate ‘One-Room’ theatre performing spaces.

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Subsequently, the ‘cultural habit’ and influence of ‘One-Room’ theatre is firmly entrenched. Audiences and actors are accustomed too, and very often prefer the physical and emotional intimacy of ‘One-Room’ performing spaces – and this ‘cultural habit’ and legacy began with the convict production of The Recruiting Officer.

TONY KNIGHT

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GENESIS OF THE AUSTRALIAN ACTOR – George Farquhar’s THE RECRUITING OFFICER – 2. The Event

25 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by aphk in 18TH CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, ADELAIDE FESTIVAL CENTRE, ART, Australia, AUSTRALIAN ACTORS, Australian Art, AUSTRALIAN THEATRE, BRITISH DRAMA, Classical Theatre, DRAMA, ENGLISH DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, HISTORY, LITERATURE, OZ-ASIA, PLAYS, RESTORATION DRAMA, THEATRE, Uncategorized, UNITED KINGDOM

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INTRODUCTION

On June 4, 1789, in the middle of a Sydney winter and less than 18 months since ‘First Settlement’, the first piece of ‘Western’ theatre was produced in the new colony – The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar. This first theatrical production in the new colony was mounted in honour of King George III’s birthday, performed by a group of unknown convicts, to an elite audience of about 60 people, including Governor Arthur Phillip, the Marine Corps officers and their wives, as well as the few ‘free settlers’, and was performed in a ramshackle convict hut. Other than this not much is known about this first theatrical production, nonetheless, there are a number of factors that remain as considerable influences on the character of the contemporary Australian actor. These include – the Play, the ‘Performing Space’, the ‘Event’, and the Actors. This series of posts will look at each of these factors and how they relate to modern Australian theatre, film, and television practice in forming the character of the Australian actor. This post concerns ‘The Event’.

2. THE EVENT

This production of George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer was arranged and performed as part of an ‘event’ – in honour of King George III’s birthday. It is highly likely that Governor Arthur Phillip and the rest of the ‘First Fleeters’ had no idea that by this time King George III had succumbed to the first in a series of serious mental health battles, which quite possibly was the generic disease ‘porphyria’ that has plagued other members of the British royal family. Besides, the approximately 1,500 people who made up the ‘First Fleet’, convicts as well as officers, free settlers and their respective wives and servants, had their own concerns – mainly survival in a strange and hostile land.

220px-Watkin_tench.jpgLieutenant Watkin Tench (1753-1833) was a Marine officer with the ‘First Fleet’ and provided one of the few eye-witness accounts of this production of The Recruiting Officer. Tench wrote, ‘That every opportunity of escape from the dreariness and dejection of our situation should be eagerly embraced will not be wondered at’ (Trench – A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson in New South Wales (1793). 25. Tench’s comment reflects the genuine concern and fragile position that faced the ‘First Fleeters’ in establishing the colony. There were only copies of two English plays that accompanied the First Fleet – George Farquhar’s popular satiric comedy The Recruiting Officer (1706) and the sentimental The Tragedy of Jane Shore (1714) by Poet Laureate Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). Considering the difficulties, the ‘dreariness and dejection’ felt by Tench and one can assume by many others, Governor Arthur Phillip wisely chose Farquhar’s comedy to honour King George III’s birthday.

The complementary matching of theatrical performances with respective events is still very much a part of the annual modern Australian theatre scene. It is notable that the occasions in which there is the most heightened theatrical activity occur during the numerous festivals throughout Australia. This includes the Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Darwin Festivals – plus others – such as the Adelaide Fringe Festival, which is the second largest in the world.

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Furthermore, a number of festivals are targeted towards specific audiences, similar in a way to the target audience of  The Recruiting Officer – the respective Marine officers and their wives. Examples include The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Festival, and the Oz-Asia Festival in Adelaide.

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In conclusion, whilst a number of Australians are regular theatergoers, nonetheless, it would seem that Australian audiences really love ‘events’ with theatre attendance soaring during such ‘events’ like the annual festivals, combined with and complementing the vast range and diversity of productions that can be seen and experienced in these respective ‘events’ and festivals. Many of these productions are in ‘site-specific’ locations, such as the convict production of The Recruiting Officer, which is the subject of the next post in this series. Whilst it may be somewhat romantic (and theatre is a romantic world), the combination of heightened theatrical activity and events helps to produce a ‘spirit of play’ in the formulation of the character of the Australian actor.

TONY KNIGHT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THEATRE: Thomas Otway’s VENICE PRESERV’D (1682)

03 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by aphk in 17TH CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, BRITISH DRAMA, Classical Theatre, DIRECTORS, DRAMA, ENGLISH DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, FASHION, HISTORY, LITERATURE, LONDON, PEOPLE, PLAYS, RESTORATION DRAMA, THEATRE, Uncategorized, UNITED KINGDOM, WEST END, LONDON

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ACTORS, DRAMA, ENGLISH THEATRE, RESTORATION TRAGEDY, THEATRE, THOMAS OTWAY, VENICE PRESERV'D

har250214_venicepreservd_web_logo_640_27_3_14This article on Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d is a continuation of the series devoted to ‘neglected’ plays.

Of all the ‘neglected’ plays so far discussed Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d (1682) is by the far the best – it is truly one of the great English tragedies. Extremely popular as well as controversial, and with a performance history that spans centuries, it is somewhat bizarre that this brilliant play has relatively dropped out of fashion. There have been the occasional revivals and reinventions, notably the National Theatre Company’s in 1984 and the Glasgow Citizen’s Theatre Company’s in 2003, but nothing like the enormous popularity and frequency that it previously enjoyed.

venicepreservdor00otwaI first was introduced to Venice Preserv’d whilst a young directing student at The Drama Centre, London. I was assigned the play by Christopher Fettes to work with a student designer from the Motley Design Course, under the auspices and guidance of Glen Byam Shaw (1904-1986) and Margaret (‘Percy’) Harris (1904-2000) no less. Amazing when I think back on it. Furthermore, it was through working on Venice Preserv’d with the students and teachers at the Motley Design Course that I discovered the work of Edward Gordon Craig who had done numerous stage design concepts for the play. Looking at more modern stage designs for Venice Preserv’d it is interesting noticing Craig’s great influence.

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 I have no idea why Christopher gave me this play – maybe he knew that I would love it. He was right – I did – and still do. Of the plays that still sit on my ‘I wish’ list Venice Preserv’d and Lope de Vega’s Fuenteojveuna are definitely the top two. This says a great deal about me and my particular tastes; namely that I like political theatre that has function in dealing with social injustice and crimes against humanity. It gives a ‘purpose to playing’.

0318Set in Venice in the late 17th Century Venice Preserv’d is a play about love, death, friendship and betrayal. It is a highly political play involving intrigue, rebellion, corruption and deceit, encapsulated by its subtitle – Venice Preserv’d, or A Plot Discovered. Whilst possible inspired by the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, nonetheless, at the time it was first produced in 1685 it was seen as an attack on the despised royalist government of the recently deceased Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-83). The elderly, scurrilous and decadent Venetian Senator, Antonio, was regarded as a satiric portrait of Shaftesbury. Antonio’s scenes with the courtesan Aquiliana, with his constant referring to his ‘Nicky-Nacky’, whilst hilariously funny also caused controversy, especially considering that ‘Nicky Nacky’ was contemporary slang for a woman’s genitalia. Furthermore, a century later, in 1795, performances of Venice Preserv’d at Richard Brinsely Sheridan‘s Drury Lane Theatre, featuring John Philip Kemble and Sarah Siddons, were involved in notorious ‘theatre riots’ and other disturbances in the wake of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. The play was seen as ‘disgraceful to public morals, and so inimical to order and government’. The play continued to provoke strong reactions – an American production was banned in 1798, and there were further public demonstrations when the play was revived in 1809 and again in 1848, the year of numerous riots and rebellions throughout Europe.

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Maybe this is why Venice Preserv’d is no longer often performed – it has the potential to excite heated and demonstrative passions. We have, overall, as audiences, become too passive. The popular drive is for harmless and diverting ‘entertainment’, hence the universal popularity and international success of musicals such as The Lion King, Wicked and Matilda. However, there are ‘political’ and ‘satiric’ musicals as well, exemplified by Hamilton and The Book of Mormon. The political and satiric message, however, has been filtered through comedy, making and criticism seemingly palpable and acceptable to modern audiences. Venice Preserv’d is something completely different. For a start, for centuries many of the respective audiences knew the play, often quoting from it, and/or saying lines along with the actors as they performed the play.

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Venice Preserv’d has a very large cast of characters, which would make any theatre company’s General Manager, HR, and Board, gulp in fear and apprehension. Nonetheless, how thrilling it could be if done well. I have only ever been in one incident that could be called a ‘theatre riot’; when an audience erupts in fury and anger at what is being presented on stage. This was, for me, years ago when Sydney’s Old Tote Theatre Company did a production of Edward Bond’s Lear, where the blinding of Gloucester was so realistic and gory that most of the audience stood up, shouted and left in disgust. I remember I lent over to my naturally concerned mother and said, ‘We’re not going!’. Haha.

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Essentially, Venice Preserv’d involves four young people, Jaffier and his newly married wife Belvidera, Jaffier’s revolutionary friend Pierre, and Aquilina, a courtesan in love with Pierre. Due to his scandalous marriage to Belvidera, a Senator’s daughter, Jaffier finds himself and Belvidera ostracised and impoverished, with little sympathy from Belvidera’s autocratic father, Senator Pruili. In despair Jaffier seeks consolation from his dear friend Pierre, and subsequently becomes involved in a plot by Pierre and his fellow conspirators to overthrow the Venetian Senate. The price for Jaffier’s involvement and silence is for Belvidera to be made hostage by the conspirators. The price for his silence is that Belvidera must be held as a hostage. Jaffier agrees and makes a sacred vow to assist the conspiracy and conspirators. Meanwhile, Pierre has his own personal problems. He loves the beautiful courtesan Aquilina, but she has as a client the corrupt old Senator, Antonio. Aquilina loathes Antonio and loves Pierre, but she will not give up her financial independence. She is suspicious and concerned, however, about Pierre and his secretiveness – she suspects the worst – and she is right.

Belvidera is held hostage by one of the conspirators, Renault, who attempts to rape her. Unsuccessful, he vows revenge. Belvidera is desperate. She confesses to Jaffier who is outraged and is persuaded by Belvidera to go to Venetian Senate and reveal the conspiracy, betraying his friend Pierre. Jaffier agrees and informs the Senate, being given a promise that he, Belvidera and Pierre will not be harmed. The Senate, however, breaks its promise and all the conspirators are condemned to death. Feeling the depths of guilt and dishonour, Jaffier threatens to kill Belvidera unless she can persuade her father not to execute Pierre and his co-conspirators. Meanwhile, Aquilina is doing her best to save Pierre in her dealings with Antonio. Belvidera, however, is successful – but the pardon arrives too late. Jaffier visits Pierre in his cell to beg forgiveness from his friend. Pierre forgives him but asks if Jaffier will kill him so that he does not suffer an ignoble public death. On the scaffold, Jaffier stabs and kills Pierre, and then kills himself in atonement. In the final scene, the insane Belvidera sees the ghosts of Jaffier and Pierre rise from the dead and subsequently dies of grief, guilt and shame.

Full on stuff, eh? It is! Despite the 3.5hrs length of the play (another potential drawback for modern productions) the play moves along at a hectic and fast pace. In his assessment of the 2003 Glasgow Citizen’s production The Guardian theatre critic, Mark Fisher wrote ‘so speedy and intense are the exchanges that they leave no space for distraction; all that matters is the passion of the moment’.

006e88d690266a91b623b1cd8643841d--quotes-women-english-literatureFor centuries Venice Preserv’d held equal status with the most popular and esteemed plays by Shakespeare. Unfortunately, Thomas Otway (1652-85) did not benefit from the success of his play, nor of his other success The Orphan (1680). Otway fell in love with Elizabeth Barry (1658-1713), for whom he wrote most of his main female characters, 200px-Elizabeth_Barryincluding Belvidera. Mrs Barry, however, did not return his love, preferring the advantageous attention of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647-80). Tragically, Thomas Otway died in abject poverty. There is an apocryphal story about his death first noted by the actor Theophilus Cibber (son of Colley Cibber) in his Lives of the Poets. The destitute and starving Otway was begging near Tower Hill. When he received a guinea from a passing stranger he rushed to the nearest baker, and due to his haste in eating choked on his first bite and died.

Part of the reason why Venice Preserv’d enjoyed its long popularity is due to the fantastic roles and the opportunities they offer to great actors. Some of the greatest English speaking actors have performed successfully in this play. The original cast included Thomas Betterton (1635-1710) as Jaffier and Elizabeth Barry as Belvidera, and their respective success in these roles, which they played for many years, greatly assisted in establishing the plays celebrated status.

Zoffany-Garrick_&_Cibber_in_Venice_PreservedIn the 18th Century the play was so popular that audience members knew respective speeches by heart, just like today some of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches are known (e.g. ‘To be or not to be”). James Quin (1693-1766),  David Garrick (1717-79)  and later John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) respectively played Jaffier for many years. Susanna Maria Cibber (1714-76) and Sarah Siddons (1755-1823) scored big hits playing Belvidera. In many ways Sarah Siddons‘ Belvidera became the centre of the play and a major reason for its continued popularity. William_Holl_the_Younger02Sarah Siddon’s Belvidera took on full responsibility for the fates of Jaffier and Pierre. How Sarah Siddon’s performed the final scene in which Belvidera goes mad and dies was recorded in 1808 – ‘her ravings, wild, terrible, desperate, were rendered more awful and impressive by the strong exertions in which her mind struggled from time to time to recover its balance and the evanescent glimpse of reason which glimmered doubtfully through the darkness of the soul’. When Sarah Siddon’s Belvidera died, ‘the terrible agonies of her death closed a representation of suffering nature almost too real and too dreadful to be borne’.

tumblr_mhh3pmhsih1qidnqfo1_500In the 19th Century Eliza O’Neill (1791-1872) and Fanny Kemble (1809-1893) respectively scored considerable success as Belvidera. Audiences rose to their feet and cheered Eliza O’Neill’s Belvidera’s death scene. Fanny Kemble wrote that she that she was so overwhelmed by Belvidera that she had to be stopped from rushing screaming from the theatre (bit O.T.T. maybe). Edmund Kean (1787-1833) and Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) were also notable Jaffier’s in respective productions of Venice Preserv’d.

In the 20th Century Jaffier has been played by John Gielgud (1953), Alan Bates (1969), John Castle (1970) and Michael Pennington (1984). Belvidera has been played by Cathleen Nesbit (1920), Barbara Leigh Hunt (1970) and Jane Lapotaire (1984). Pierre has been played by Paul Schofield (1953), Julian Glover (1970) and Ian McKellen (1984). Notable Aquilina’s include Dame Edith Evans (1920) and Stephanie Beecham (1984).

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This relatively small list of past great actors hints at another reason why Venice Preserv’d is now somewhat ‘neglected’ and unknown – it no longer attracts the contemporary ‘star’ actor; and yet this, the ‘star’ actor is what is needed for this play to work. The is partly due to the heightened emotions and passions that the respective roles require. Reducing these down to mere naturalism is not enough. The so-called ‘truth’ of the play does not lay with modern notions of naturalistic truth; the play has it’s own truth, for which is remains uncertain as to whether or not modern actors can match.

Whilst the characters may be something out of synch and/or out of reach of most modern actors, the theme and subject matter of Venice Preserv’d remain universal. It’s revolutionary political force against decedent authoritarian control is still extremely relevant. Furthermore, as evident in the relatively few productions in the 20th Century, the relationships, sexual, sensual and romantic, have been placed under post-20th Century psychoanalysis with startling results. For example, there is the sadomasochistic- masochistic aspect of the respective relationships, which may be a product of and comment on living in such a decadent world. Furthermore, the friendship between Jaffier and Pierre is more like a modern-day passionate ‘bro-mance’, equally as intense and romantic as Jaffier’s relationship with Belvidera.

I hope this rather lengthy post will encourage you to read Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d. It is just one representative of what could be called ‘Restoration Tragedy’, complementing the more well known genre of ‘Restoration Comedy’. It does not sit alone – there are many other such wonderful tragedies, including John Dryden’s All for Love (1677) and John Lillo’s The London Merchant (1731). Furthermore, they complement other great tragedies of the times that are also relatively ‘neglected’ in Australian theatre (at least), such as Jean Racine’s, Andromache (1667), Britannicus (1669), and Phedra (1677). It can only be hoped that someone somewhere (including myself) will produce these ‘neglected’ classics and great plays, such as Thomas Otway’s magnificent Venice Preserv’d.

TONY KNIGHT

 

 

THEATRE: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET (1862): ‘Sensation drama’ & the ‘femme fatale’

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by aphk in 19TH CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, BRITISH DRAMA, CINEMA, DRAMA, ENGLISH DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, FILM, HISTORY, LITERATURE, MOVIES, PEOPLE, PLAYS, THEATRE, Uncategorized, UNITED KINGDOM, WEST END, LONDON

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This is a continuation of the series involving ‘neglected’ plays.

Mary_Elizabeth_Maxwell_(née_Braddon)_by_William_Powell_FrithMARY ELIZABETH BRADDON (1835-1915) was a popular Victorian novelist, her most acclaimed and successful work being the ‘sensation novel’ Lady Audley’s Secret (1862). Initially published in serial form, the novel proved so popular that it was almost immediately adapted for the stage. There were a number of adaption, however, the most lasting and performed one was by the comedian Colin Henry Hazelwood (1823-1875); an irony in itself.download-2

It was subsequently produced many times throughout the 19th Century and well into the 20th Century – and then – disappeared from popular view. It was further adapted for ‘silent film’ in 1912, 1915, and 1920, Sadly, the 1915 version starring ‘the vamp’ Theda Bara, the most notorious and popular femme fatale of the early silent film era, has been lost. Perhaps the last big success it had in the theatre was in 1930 when Tyrone Guthrie directed it with Dame Flora Robson as Lady Audley.

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(c) Peter Copley; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
(c) Peter Copley; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

220px-EdwardbraddonThere are a number of fascinating things about Lady Audley’s Secret, not least its theatrical history and influence but also a rather fine connection to Australian history. Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s elder brother, Edward Braddon (1829-1904), immigrated to Australia in 1845 and eventually became Premier of Tasmania from 1894-99, and was a Member of the First Australian Parliament. The suburb of Brandon in the Australian Capital Territory, and the Tasmanian electorate of Braddon are named after Sir Edward Braddon. However, our story lays with his sister and the ‘sensation’ of Lady Audley’s Secret.

Sensation fiction in novels and plays was the most popular genre in Victorian England in the 1860s and 1870s. The three novels that best represent this are Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1859-60), Ellen Woods’ East Lynne (1861), and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862). Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1860-61) and his unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) also fall into this genre. Many of the sensation novels of this time were subsequently adapted for the theatre and later film, even musicals.

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The definition of this genre is that the story involves the uncovering of a secret, and is a deliberate mixture of romance and realism often involving murder, adultery, greed, forgery, blackmail, corruption, revenge, and madness. They are works of sheer melodrama. This is not something that can easily be dismissed as not matter how sensational the secret and action may be, invariably they are set within a relatively domestic world. The question of personal and social identity rises to the front, questioning individual and the world’s morals, ethics and actions. Invariably a kind of moral universe eventually exerts itself, with good triumphing over evil. One of the best essays on sensation fiction is John Ruskin’s Fiction – Fair and Foul. 

Furthermore, sensation drama, in theatre, film and television has been relatively and consistently present from the 1860s to today. Wonderful examples include Patrick Hamilton’s Rope (1929), as well as Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film of the same name, Emlyn Williams’ Night Must Fall (1935). Adding to these personal favourites, which are also now somewhat ‘neglected’ plays, is Reginald Denham’s and Edward Percy’s Ladies in Retirement (1940), which Charles Vidor turned into a film in 1941 with ida Lupino.

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As with all the works cited in this series of ‘neglected’ plays, if you are seeking new acting scenes in which to work on you will find some pretty fabulous ones in these plays. The fact that we still love sensation drama can be seen in popular crime detective dramas, as well as in the modern musical versions The Mystery of Edwin Drood and The Woman in White. 

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Very often this type of drama is based on a real-life event, adding to the complexity of the ‘identity’ issue, almost as if we need the incident to be dramatised in order to understand it. This is exemplified by Rope, which was inspired by the real-life murderers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, as well as Lady Audley’s Secret, which was inspired by the life of child murderer Constance Kent (1844-1944). Issues of gender and class division and madness played a significant role in the Constance Kent case, as they do in Lady Audley’s Secret. This is exemplified by the last lines spoken by Lady Audley in the play – ‘Aye – Aye (laughs wildly) Mad, mad, that is the word. I feel it here (Places her hands over her temples)’.

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Is Lady Audley mad? Or is she simply a cold-blooded psychopath? Or is she a type of proto-feminist character, a lowly female member of the Working Class, battling for upward social mobility against domineering men? She has been seen as all of these in subsequent analysis and re-inventions of the novel, play, and story. She certainly prefigures the ‘woman-with-a-past’ characters in the subsequent ‘problem plays’ in the late 19th Century, exemplified by Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893) [see previous article].

However, she also belongs to the much older theatrical heritage of the femme fatale character in drama, which stretches as far back to ancient times with Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra, as well as Medea and Phaedra. Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, Alexander Dumas’s Lady deWinter in The Three Musketeers , and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler are femme fatales, and modern times the femme fatale has been wonderfully portrayed a number of times by Glenn Close, in Fatal Attraction (1987) and Dangerous Liasons (1988). Aspects of Lady Audley can also be seen in Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson in Billy Wilder’s brilliant Double Indemnity (1944) and Lana Turner’s Cora Smith in Tay Garnett’s terrific The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). I’d even add Ann Downs in Joseph Kramm’s Pulitzer Prize winning play The Shrike (1952), and Shirley Stoller’s Martha Beck in Leonard Kastle’s ‘cult classic’ The Honeymoon Killers (1970), which Francois Truffaut called his ‘favourite American film’ (check it out), and, of course, Sharon Stone’s stunning Catherine Tramell in Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992). 

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One distinguishing characteristic of these characters, as well as Lady Audley, is that invariably they are ‘blondes’, or ‘redheads’. I have no idea why ‘blonde’ and ‘red-headed women have been associated with the femme fatale, but it stands as a rather curious essentially masculine construction and projection. Not only do you get the beautiful ‘Blonde Venus’ there is also the ‘Blonde Vampire’.

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I’m actually not too sure where the femme fatale sits today. She and sensation drama is certainly still present, exemplified by the upcoming revival in London of the musical version of The Woman in White. It would seem that she primarily belongs in the world of gothic fantasy and horror, exemplified by Rachelle Lefevre’s Victoria Sutherland in the Twilight film series.download-23

However, the modern femme fatale may not be the personification of pure evil that she once was, such as Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity and Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. Feminism has largely had an influence in diluting and reducing the evil power and nature of the modern femme fatale. download-22 This is highly apparent in Disney’s Maleficent (2014) in which the classic evil witch, although wonderfully played by Angelina Jollie, is given a relatively predictable ‘back story’ that makes her subsequent actions ‘understandable’ due to be the victim of male domination. This romanticised reduction concerns me a little, as it does with male villains, such as the vampire, as it seems to suggest that real evil, real evil people, male and female, don’t really exists, and that everyone and all evil actions are relatively ‘understandable’ – they are actually ‘nice’ people underneath all this. Rubbish. Real evil, real evil people, male and female, do exits, and their actions rather than being ‘understandable’ are repugnant, destructive, and – well – evil – and should be denounced. The potential danger of hypocrisy, and the gullibility of accepting ‘wolves in sheep clothing’ is remarkably pronounced; not all people are ‘understandable’ or ‘nice’.

download-24However, the above characters cited above are not really those that sit within the genre of sensation drama. As previously stated, and in reference to Lady Audley, sensation drama and the femme fatale really exists within a relatively domestic setting and not in the world of fantasy. This makes the modern femme fatale figure particularly dangerous. I am, however, hard put to find modern examples; although arguably Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood in the US TV series House of Cards (2013-2017) falls into the femme fatale archetype. As does Nurse Ratched in Dale Wasserman’s continuing popular play adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1963). Furthermore, whilst Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth may remain the most ever-present femme fatale I doubt very much if we will ever see again Ann Downs in Leonard Kastle’s The Shrike, or Lady Audley in Lady Audley’s Secret. Nonetheless, you can always read and see these works, and the femme fatale remains, in various forms, a vital archetype in modern and classical drama – long may she reign.

TONY KNIGHT

 

 

THEATRE: THE SECOND MRS TANQUERAY (1893) by Arthur Pinero

22 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by aphk in 19TH CENTURY ART, 20TH CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, BRITISH DRAMA, DRAMA, ENGLISH DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, HISTORY, LITERATURE, LONDON, PEOPLE, PLAYS, THEATRE, Uncategorized, UNITED KINGDOM, WEST END, LONDON

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1890s, 19TH CENTURY DRAMA, ACTORS, ARTHUR PINERO, DRAMA, ENGLISH THEATRE, FASHION, GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, MRS PATRICK CAMPBELL, NEGLECTED PLAYS, PROBLEM PLAY, THE SECOND MRS TANQUERAY, THEATRE

This is an article in a series of re-evaluation of major plays from the past that are not often found in modern History of Theatre courses, nor, despite their previous popularity are no longer performed today. For this article the exact period under review is 1890-1895. A quick overview reveals some truly extraordinary plays, some of which are still regularly performed – some are not.

This includes –  Pinero’s The Cabinet Minister (1890), Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (1891), Wedekind’s Spring Awakening (1891), Wilde’s Salome (1891), Feydeau’s 13 Rue de l’Amour (1892), Thomas’ Charley’s Aunt (1892), Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), Ibsen’s The Master Builder (1892), Hauptmann’s The Weavers (1892), Shaw’s Widower’s House (1892), Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893) and The Amazons (1893), Schnitzler’s Anatol (1893), Suderman’s Heimat (1893), Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance (1893), Maeterlinck’s Pelleas and Melisande (1893), Shaw’s Arms and the Man (1894), Shaw’s Candida (1894), Ibsen’s Little Eyolf (1894), Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession (1894), Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (1895), Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), du Maurier’s Trilby (1895), and Barrett’s The Sign of the Cross (1895). I am primarily concerned with the plays that whilst once were extremely popular and influential, yet nonetheless are no longer part of the overall modern repertoire, such as Arthur Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray.

download-2Arthur Pinero (1855-1933) was one of the most successful British playwrights of the late 19th Century. His most popular works include – The Magistrate (1885), The Schoolmistress (1886), Dandy Dick (1887), The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893), and in particular his wonderful Trelawny of the ‘Well’s that is the most consistently revived of Pinero’s work.

220px-thumbnailArthur Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893) was one of the most controversial plays of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. It is what was known as a ‘problem play’ in that it dealt with the moral dilemma of a ‘woman with a past’. In other words she had relationships with men outside the marriage bed. The play was also famous as being the one that made Mrs Patrick Campbell a ‘star’. The Second Mrs Tanqueray maintained its relative popularity in the first half of the 20th Century. The American actress Tallulah 50446894Bankhead scored considerable success with on the New York stage early in her career in the 1920s. The play has also been filmed three times – two ‘silent’ film versions, a British one in 1916, and an Italian one in 1922, and another British version in 1952 with Pamela Brown as Paula Tanqueray and Virginia McKenna as Ellean Tanqueray. Subsequently, however, this once very popular play has slid into relative obscurity, with a notable National Theatre revival in 1983.

download-3In Pinero’s play, Mrs Paula Jarman, who was previously Mrs Paula Dartry, is a notorious London ‘hostess’ who has married the very respectable Mr Aubrey Tanqueray, becoming his second wife after the death of his very religious first wife. Complicating matters there is his daughter Ellean Tanqueray who being estranged from her father for years and brought up in a convent now comes to live with her father at his country estate with the second Mrs Tanqueray. Things are not going well in this household. Paula is acutely aware that she has been snubbed by the local gentry, nor is she and her step-daughter hitting it off – both are at fault, and Paula is acutely jealous and paranoid about her husband’s affection for his daughter. The sheltered and inexperienced Ellean is taken to Paris by an old family friend and falls in love with a young respectable army officer, Captain Hugh Ardale. It is all rather sudden, but her father doesn’t object to the match, until Paula reveals that in a previous life she and Hugh Ardale were lovers. The result is a tragedy – Paula, unable to shake her past, commits suicide.

download-4The early 1890s saw the production of numerous ‘problem plays’, as well as novels, involving ‘fallen women’, exemplified by George Moore‘s wonderful novel Esther Walters (1894). The so-regarded ‘problem’ of a ‘woman with a past’ is integral to Oscar Wilde‘s Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and An Ideal Husband (1895), as well as George Bernard Shaw‘s Mrs Warren’s Profession (1894). It is quite possible that Shaw was inspired by The Second Mrs Tanqueray, not just because he admired the character of Paula Tanqueray but also because it was played by Mrs Patrick Campbell whom Shaw adored.  Shaw’s play, however, whilst written in this period 1890-1895 was not actually performed until 1902 due to its subject matter.download

Shaw wrote a short essay about Mrs Patrick Campbell and The Second Mrs Tanqueray titled ‘An Old New Play and a New Old One’. It is a fascinating short essay by the cantankerous and condescending Shaw. In this essay he compares Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest with Pinero’s The Second Mrs Tanqueray, with a marked preference for the later. Shaw praises Mrs Patrick Campbell very highly (of course), stating that Paula Tanqueray is ‘an astonishing well-drawn figure’. His uber critical eye then focuses on the play itself. ‘In The Second Mrs Tanqueray I find little except a scaffold for the situation of a step-mother and a step-daughter finding themselves in the positions respectively of affianced wife and discarded mistress to the same man. Obviously, the only necessary conditions of this situation are the persons concerned shall be respectable enough to be shocked by it, and the step-mother shall be an improper person’. Whilst admiring Pinero for certain aspects of his writing, Shaw can’t help himself in placing Pinero is a relatively minor league. Of the character of Paula Tanqueray Shaw states, ‘she is a work of prejudiced observation instead of comprehension…Mr Pinero is no interpreter of character, but simply an adroit describer of people as the ordinary man sees and judges them’. Nonetheless, Shaw ultimately does praise Pinero, if in a rather pompous and condescending way – “Add to this a clear head, a love of the stage, and a fair talent for fiction, all highly cultivated by hard and honorable work as a writer of effective stage plays for the modern commercial theatre; and you have him on his real level. On that level he is entitled to all the praise The Second Mrs Tanqueray has won him’.

imagesShaw adds a wonderful caution in regards to reading the play in contrast to actually seeing it. The reader ‘must not expect the play to be as imposing in the library as it was on the stage. Its merit there was relative to the culture of the playgoing public’. This may be an all too common reason why some of the older plays become neglected, in that they do not read as well as they play.download-1

Perhaps we have forgotten how to ‘read’ such works due to modern influences and tastes, such as the predictable cry that such a play as The Second Mrs Tanqueray is no longer relevant, innovative, nor entertaining. This somewhat limited imaginative, dismissive and knee-jerk fashionable response flies in the face of such wonderful and internationally successful re-interpretations by Stephen Daldry of J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls (1945) in 1992. There are many others – but we don’t see them in Australia. Recently the works of Terrence Rattigan have been re-evaluated and revived to great success.

images-1Shaw’s criticism of Pinero, in that he is ‘no interpreter of character, but simply an adroit describer of people as the ordinary man sees and judges them’, is the problem – on page when reading Pinero. It could be, however, a completely different story if Pinero (and others) are actually seen and experienced on-stage. I suspect it is. Rather than being ‘old fashioned’ I think that The Second Mrs Tanqueray, in the right hands, could be wonderfully re-invented for modern audiences. After all, the essential drama between a relatively priggish and censorious 18 year old step-daughter dealing with a glamourous and beautiful step-mother with a notorious past is still the stuff of great drama.

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Furthermore, Pinero has some wonderful observations about life that are remarkably pertinent, relevant, and often very witty. For example, the confidante friend of Aubrey Tanqueray, Cayle Drummle, has this to say about Tanqueray’s overprotection of his daughter – ‘My dear Aubrey, of all forms of innocence mere ignorance is the least admirable. Take my advice, let her walk and talk and suffer and be healed with the great crowd…if your daughter lives, she can’t escape – what you’re afraid of’.

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TONY KNIGHT

 

GREAT ACTORS: ‘Sir Henry Irving & “The Bells” by Edward Gordon Craig.

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by aphk in 19TH CENTURY ART, ACTING, ACTORS, DIRECTORS, DRAMA, ENGLISH HISTORY, ENGLISH THEATRE, FASHION, HISTORY, LITERATURE, PLAYS, SHAKESPEARE, THEATRE, Uncategorized

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download-2SIR HENRY IRVING (1838-1905) was the greatest English actor of the late 19th Century. Sadly, however, very few now know anything about Irving. Yet his legacy lives on in London, primarily due the still operating Lyceum Theatre. This was Irving’s theatre – a grand proscenium arch theatre in which he performed his greatest roles, and to which the world came to be awed, entertained and shocked. Irving excelled at Shakespeare, yet his most famous role was Mathias in Leopold Davis Lewis’ The Bells (1871). download-3

This play is an English Gothic melodrama and was an extremely popular, rivaling other significant plays of the late-19th Century, including those by Boucicault, Ibsen and Wilde. It has been called the first ‘modern horror’ play, a label that is not without justification and truth. It is perhaps difficult to grasp nearly 150 years since The Bells was first performed how radically different and innovative it was at the time. In the biography Henry Irving: The Actor and his Times (1951), written by Irving’s son. Laurence Irving, there are details about the opening night performance on 27 November, 1871. It was performed to a relatively small house, who steadily became more and more intensely fascinated with the play. One woman fainted, and at the end the audience was in a state of stunned silence. In a modern edition of the play, Henry Irving and ‘The Bells’: Irving’s personal script of the play (1980), editor Eric Jones-Evans wrote,  ‘The play left the first-nighters a little dazed. Old fashioned playgoers did not know what to make of it as a form of entertainment. But when the final curtain fell the audience, after a gasp or two, realised that they had witnessed the most masterly form of tragic acting that the British stage had seen for many a long day, and there was a storm of cheers. Then, still pale, still haggard, still haunted, as it were, by the terror he had so perfectly counterfeited, the actor came forward with the sort of smile that did not destroy the character of the Dracula1stBurgomaster or dispel the illusion of the stage’. Irving was immediately catapulted to the forefront of English theatre, where he remained, often reviving ‘The Bells’, until his death in 1905. Not only was he extremely influential in regards to the art and evolution of acting, he also influenced the creation and evolution of the ‘horror’ genre. This is not just due to The Bells, but also because he was the primary source of inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Bram Stoker was the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre, as well as operating as Irving’s personal manager/agent and friend.

imageI’m fully aware that some may be a little perplexed as to why I would even bother to write about the now largely forgotten Irving. However, I have just re-read The Bells, partly because the edition I found in O’Connell’s Secondhand Bookshop in Adelaide had as its preface a wonderful piece by Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966) titled Irving’s Masterpiece – “The Bells”. I don’t wish to dwell too much on Edward Gordon Craig, although there is much to relate and discuss. Suffice to state at that Craig is one of the grandfathers of modern theatre design. Craig knew Irving well, personally and professionally. He saw Irving perform in The Bells over 30 times, and this preface is extremely enlightening as it gives a glimpse of what Irving was actually like on stage in The Bells. 

downloadCraig writes of Irving’s ‘deep and human beauty which he lets you see’. In regard to Irving’s entrance in The Bells, following an ensemble scene of about 15 minutes, Craig provides a kind of challenging definition of true ensemble acting that runs contrary to modern assumptions and practice – ‘On his (Irving’s) appearance, they one and all fell back into their places, since to obtrude would have been out of the question.  Ensemble was achieved, but there was something to achieve it for, something for which it can lend support; ensemble supporting itself, is it not rather a ridiculous spectacle? That’ democratic acting if you like – “for we are jolly good fellows…which none of us will deny.” For Craig, true ensemble acting is non-democratic; it only exists when there is something, or someone, to achieve it for –  focus and a goal.

downloadWhat Craig isolates is the power of the ‘star’ actor. When Irving entered he was greeted with a thunderous round of applause. Ordinarily, as stated by Craig, and referencing Stanislavsky, such applause was an annoying ‘interruption’. However, in the case of Irving, and other ‘star’ actors, such ‘hurricane of applause’ is not an interruption. “It is no boisterous greeting by an excitable race, for a blustering actor – it was something which can only be described as part and parcel of the whole, as right as rain…Power responded to power…It was necessary to them – not him’. This is very particular type of cathartic release that is necessary for the audience ‘to take in what he was about to give them’. Curious. I’ve only ever experienced such a release on the commercial West End and Broadway stage, as well as the Kabuki theatre in Japan; in egalitarian ‘democratic’ Australia it never happens. Is this why we tend not to see and rate our actors as great? Because we, the judicious ‘democratic’ orientated audience, won’t allow it?

Henry_Irving_Vanity_FairCraig then references the classical Noh theatre of Japan; how an entrance of a great actor is preceded by ‘suspense’, followed by a ‘surprise’. In regard to Irving, as well as Edmund Kean, ‘an entrance was something to experience’ – ‘The manner of coming on made it extraordinary with great actors – it was this manner of timing the appearance – measuring its speed and direction – which created a rhythm that was irresistible’. Whist most actors do not possess the talent and skill to be ‘great’, nonetheless, the lesson here is in detail and timing, which is something that all good actors can concentrate on and achieve through thorough and precise preparation. The rhythm of entrances is also not just confined to the theatre but is a vital aspect of film – ‘suspense’ then ‘surprise’. The reward for such detail being, as Craig observes in regard to Irving, is the intense focus of attention of the audience on the actor – ‘now watch what he will do – better still, how will he do it – best of all, watch his face and figure, and follow what it is these are hinting at’.

download-4Close attention to detail and the subtlety of psychological gestures is not something that is generally associated with 19th Century English acting, and yet it would seem that Henry Irving, as well as Ellen Terry, was a master at such insightful depth. Craig exemplifies Irving’s attention to detail, psychological gesture, and depth in how Irving as Mathias in The Bells removes his boots after entering, listening acutely to what is being said: ‘It was, in every gesture, every half move, in the play of his shoulders, legs, head and arms, mesmeric in the highest degree – slowly we were drawn to watch every inch of his work as we are drawn to read and linger on every syllable of a strangely fine writer. It was perfect craftsmanship’.

download-1Craig clearly captures a hint of what made Henry Irving a ‘great actor’, not only as Mathias in The Bells but also in Hamlet, Macbeth, Faust and many other roles: ‘The thing Irving set out to do was to show us the sorrow which slowly and remorsely beat him down. As, no matter who the human being may be, and what his crime, the sorrow which he suffers must appeal to our hearts, so Irving set out to wring our hearts, not to give us a clever exhibition of antics such as a murderer would be likely to go through. He does not appeal to any silly sentimentality in you – he merely states the case by showing you that quite obviously here is a strong human being, through a moment of weakness, falls into error and becomes for two hours a criminal – does what he knows he is doing – acts deliberately – but (here is Irving) acts automatically, as though impelled by an immense force, against which no resistance is possible.’

What is stated above has become of crucial importance in modern acting; not just here in Adelaide but elsewhere I have taught and experienced so-called ‘modern’ and ‘innovative’ theatre. The attention to detail is one thing – and many of you have heard me exclaim – ‘Acting is detail‘. The other thing is deliberate simplicity rather than indulge in sentimentality (generalised passive-aggressive bleating and ‘playing the victim’). Acting is a deliberate process of creative and imaginative detailed choices; characters act deliberately and consciously, good and bad, and it should be automatic to make it seem as if it is spontaneaous, ‘in the moment’, as if experienced for the first timei, ‘as though impelled by an immense force, against which no resistance is possible’. Too often this is not the case; there is no sense of deliberate action, only sentimental and demonstrative re-action, usually of the bleating kind, complemented by face pulling and excessive and ridiculous gesturing that has no meaning, except registering an actor’s discomfort and not insight re the character.

Whilst by no means the whole story, nonetheless, Edward Gordon Craig’s short essay on Henry Irving in The Bells does complement many of the things I hold dear and teach – part of an essential Acting Manifesto. Many will, and have, dismiss and ignore such sensible and practical advice, preferring the histrionics and ‘theatricalism’ currently demanded by the modern theatre of despair and deconstruction. Stanislavsky also loathed and criticized overt ‘theatricalism’. However, like everything, this too will pass – even though so-called ‘innovative’ deconstructive theatre has dominated our stages for the past 30-odd years. I’m not sure our current 30-something and 40-something ‘bright young things’ can do anything else. They certainly show a reluctance to embrace and challenge themselves with any different ‘style’, and certainly become resentful and pouty when challenged in regard to their relatively limited vision and expression. I don’t mind being labelled ‘classical’, and have and will continue to challenge myself with as many different theatrical styles as possible. ‘Innovation’, an over-used word I have come to loath, is too often merely ‘distortion’ – leading to bad acting. I believe, like Craig and Irving, that the actor should follow and aim for ‘the most ancient and unshakable tradition, which says the Dramatist (not the director) is to take the audience into his confidence. The actor who fails to do this (via sentimentality, demonstration, and imposed generalised emotional bleating) fails as an actor’.

As a final postscript to this rather lengthy article, there is something else about Irving and The Bells that is worth mentioning in regard to great acting. After the opening night, Irving was returning home with his wife, Florence, in a carriage. They had just reached Hyde Park corner when Florence ridiculed Irving, stating – ‘Are you going to make a fool of yourself like this all your life?’ Where upon Irving stopped the carriage, got down, and walked away, and never saw Florence again. One thing that all truly great actors have, and in a way must possess, is an almost obessional  dynamic energy in which the love of the art of acting is first and foremost. This may appear as completely selfish and ego driven to some, to many, but it is really once again this compelling ‘irresistible force’. It requires and demands great bravery, sacrifice, dedication and determination – even in the face of complete failure, ruin and ostracism. Whatever happens on a personal and professional front the ‘great actor’ never ever stops creating. Take that as you will. Laurence Olivier was once asked ‘Why do you act?’, Olivier responded with ‘Why do I breathe?’ – and that about sums it up – there actually isn’t a choice. This must have been what Irving experienced, a kind of epiphany, after his huge success on opening night of The Bells. Ironic in a way; that at roughly the same time that Ibsen wrote The Doll’s House (1872), the most controversial play of the 19th Century due to woman leaving husband, children, home and security, Henry Irving did the masculine version of the same thing.He walked out of his marriage for his own art. Of course he felt guilt – but he couldn’t live with this kind of negative judgment; the ‘irresistible force’ demanded he embrace his new identity – judge as you may.

TONY KNIGHT

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