THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL AND THE LYCEUM THEATRE.
APPEAL OF MR. HENRY IRVING. RESULT.
(A not impossible Extract from Next Year's Morning Papers.)
"This is what the County Council's Licensing Bill for Places of Entertainment did not intend, as, according to the latest authoritative explanation, the L. C. C. does not consider Theatres as coming under the head of "places of entertainment". Rather hard on the Theatres!"
Yesterday, before the Theatres Committee of the London County Council, the appeal of Mr. Henry Irving (the well-known actor and manager) against the decision of the Sub-Committee to refuse a licence to the Lyceum Theatre, came on for hearing.
After Mr. Henry Irving (who appeared in person) had addressed the Committee at some length, dwelling upon the character of the pieces he had produced during his management, and the care and expense with which they had been mounted, several members of the Committee expressed a wish to put questions to him, which Mr. Irving promised to answer to the best of his ability.
Mr. Hecklebury. I think you told us that Hamlet was one of your favourite parts? Is it not the fact that the chief character in the play drives his fiancée to madness and suicide by his cruelty, slays her father and brother, together with his own step-father, and procures the death of two of his school-fellows?
Mr. Irving admitted that this was so. (Sensation.)
Mr. Hecklebury. That is all I wanted to ask you.
Mr. Fussler. I understand that you have produced a play called Othello on more than one occasion; perhaps you will inform us whether the following passages are in your opinion suitable for public declamation? (Mr. Fussler then proceeded to read several extracts to which he objected on account of their offensive signification.)
Mr. Irving protested that Shakspeare, and not himself, was responsible for such passages.
Mr. Fussler. Unfortunately, Shakspeare is not before us—and you are. You admit that you have produced a play containing lines such as I have just read? That is enough for Us.
Mr. Medlam. Unless I am mistaken, the hero in Othello is not only a murderer but a suicide?
Mr. Irving. Undoubtedly. (Sensation.)
Mr. Medlam. We have heard something of a piece called The Bells. I seldom attend theatres myself, except in the exercise of my public functions, but I do happen to have seen that particular play on one occasion. Does my memory mislead me in saying, that you committed a brutal and savage murder in the course of the drama?
Mr. Irving said that, as a matter of fact, the murder took place many years before the curtain rose—otherwise, the Member's memory was entirely accurate.
Mr. Medlam. Whenever the murder was committed, it remains undetected, and the criminal escapes all penalty—is not that the case?
Mr. Irving urged that the Nemesis was worked out by the murderer's own conscience.
Mr. Medlam said that was all nonsense; a person's conscience could not be made visible on the stage, and here a murderer was represented as dying several years after his crime, in his own bedroom, respected by all who knew him. Did Mr. Irving intend to tell them that such a spectacle was calculated to deter an intending murderer, or did he not? That was the plain question.
Mr. Irving thought that intending murderers formed so inappreciable an element in his usual audiences, that they might safely be left out of the calculation.
Mr. Medlam. But you might have an intending murderer among your audience, I suppose?
Mr. Irving's reply was not audible in the reporters' gallery.
Mr. Parseeker. I should like to hear what you have to say about duelling, Mr. Irving—I mean, is it, or is it not, a practice sanctioned by the laws of this country?
Mr. Irving said that he did not quite understand the drift of such a question; but, since they asked him, he should say that duelling was distinctly illegal.
Mr. Parseeker. You will understand the drift of my question directly, Mr. Irving. I have made it my business to acquaint myself with your dramatic career, and I find that you have played as hero at various times in Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Corsican Brothers, and The Dead Heart, besides Macbeth. Am I wrong in saying that in each of these pieces you fight a duel?
Mr. Irving. No. I fight a duel in each of them, except Macbeth, in which there is no duel, only a hand-to-hand combat. I do commit a murder in Macbeth.
A Member. Mr. Irving's tastes seem rather to run in the direction of murders. (Laughter.)
After the report of the Official Censor upon the general tone of the Lyceum plays during the last fifteen years had been read a second time and adopted, the Chairman, without more than a formal consultation with his colleagues, proceeded to announce the decision of the Committee. He said that they had not come to their present conclusion without long and anxious deliberation. They were now the constituted guardians of the public morals, and must fulfil their functions without fear or favour. (Applause.) They must look at the character of the performances at each theatre, considering only whether they were or were not beneficial to morality. In the past, under a régime happily now at an end, public opinion had been shamefully lax, and official control purely nominal; plays had been repeatedly performed, and even welcomed as classics, which he did not hesitate to say were full of incidents that were revolting to all well-regulated minds. Shakspeare, who, with his undoubted talents, should have known better, was, so far from being an exception, one of the worst offenders. The Council must free themselves from the shackles of conventional tolerance. (Applause.) Evil was evil—murder was murder—coarseness was coarseness—whether treated by Shakspeare or anybody else. Nor could the Committee shut their eyes to the fact that Mr. Irving's histrionic ability, and his popularity with those who attended his exhibitions could only intensify the injurious effect which such representations must have upon young and impressionable minds. In his opinion, much as he regretted having to say so, the Lyceum was nothing less than a School of Murder. It aggravated rather than extenuated the evil to be told, as they had been told, that all these deeds of violence had been represented on the stage with every aid which money, art and research could give. Again, was it desirable that the Democracy should derive their ideas of the family life of crowned heads from being admitted into the scandalous secrets of the household of Hamlet? Or did they wish to see an injured husband following the example of Othello? A thousand times no. These things must be stopped. The Council was very far from taking a Puritanical view of the question—(applause)—they fully recognised that the stage was a necessary social evil, and, as such, must be tolerated until the public taste was sufficiently purified to refuse it further countenance; but, in the meantime, the Council must insure that such exhibitions as they were prepared to sanction were of a kind consistent with the preservation of good manners, decorum, and of the public peace—(applause)—none of which conditions, in the unanimous opinion of the Committee, was fulfilled by the class of entertainment which the appellant Irving had, by his own admission, persisted in providing. On those grounds alone the Committee dismissed the Appeal, and declared the Lyceum Theatre closed till further notice. He might say, however, that they might possibly be induced, after a certain interval, to reconsider the question, and allow the theatre to be reopened on Mr. Irving's undertaking to produce dramas of an entirely unobjectionable character in future. (Mr. Irving begged for some more definite leading as to the dramas alluded to.) The Chairman said that he had been informed that an illustrated periodical called Punch was publishing a series of Moral Dramas, in which the sentiments and incidents were alike irreproachable. Let Mr. Irving promise to confine himself to these, and the Council would see about it. (Mr. Irving then withdrew, without, however, having given any definite undertaking, and the Committee adjourned.)