XI
SHAKESPEARE PLAYS—III
I
Of all the plays of which Irving talked to me in the days of our friendship when there was an eager wish for freedom of effort, or in later times when a new production was a possibility rather than an intention, I think Macbeth interested me most. When I met him in 1876 he had already played it at the Lyceum; but somehow it was borne in on me that what had been done was not up to his fullest sense of truth. His instinctive idea of treatment—that which is the actor’s sixth sense regarding character—was correct. So much I could tell, for the conviction which was in him came out from him to others. But I do not think that at that time his knowledge of the part was complete. In the consideration of such a play it has to be considered what was Shakespeare’s knowledge of its origin; for it is by this means that we can get a guiding light on his intention. That he had studied Wintown and Holinshed is manifest to any one who has read the “Cronykil” of the former or the Chronicle of the latter. Now Irving had got hold of the correct idea of Macbeth’s character, and from his own inner consciousness of its working out, combined with the enlightenment of the text, knew that Macbeth had thought of and intended the murder of Duncan long before the opening of the play, and that he and his wife had talked it over. But I think that not at first, nor till after he had re-studied the play, was he aware of the personal relationship between Macbeth and Duncan: that after the King and his sons Macbeth was the next successor to the crown of Scotland. This is according to history, and Shakespeare knew it from Holinshed. But even Shakespeare is somewhat wanting in his way of setting it forth in the play. I know that I myself had from my earliest recollection been always puzzled by the passage in Act I, scene iv, where Macbeth in an aside says:
“The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies.”
Nothing that has gone before in the play can afford to any unlearned member of an audience any possible clue as to how Macbeth could have been injured or thwarted by an honour shown to his own son by the King who had already showered honours and thanks upon his victorious general. In his Address at Owens College, Manchester, six years after his second production of the play, Henry Irving set forth this and many other critical points with admirable lucidity.
To me Irving’s intellectual position with regard to the character was from the first irrefragable. He added scholarship as the time went on; but every addition was a help to understanding. Between the time when I had first heard him talk over the play and the character in 1876 and when I saw him play it, twelve years elapsed. In all that time it was a favourite subject to talk between us, and I think it was one evening in February 1887 on which after he and I, having supped alone in the Beefsteak Room, talked over the play till the windows began to show their edges brightening in the coming day, that he made up his mind to the reproduction.
We were then deep in the run of Faust, which had passed its three hundredth representation at the Lyceum; but in the running of a London theatre it is necessary to look a long way ahead; a year at least. In this case there was need of a longer preview, for our plans had already been made for a considerable time. We were to run Faust through the season except some weeks at the end to prepare other plays which together with Faust we were to take to America in the tour already arranged for 1887–8. As we should not be back till the spring of the later year the production of a new play, together with the music and selection of the company, had all to be thought of in time. Irving had—and justifiably—great hopes of the play, and spared on it neither pains nor expense. With regard to the scenery he thought that he would get Keeley Halswelle, A.R S.A., to make the designs. He was very fond of his work and considered that it would be exactly suitable for his purpose. The painter consented and made some lovely sketches.
He expressed a wish to paint the scenes himself, and when the sketches and then the models in turn had to be approved of, we engaged the great paint-rooms of the Covent Garden Opera House then available, for his use. The canvas-cloths, framed pieces, borders and wings were got ready by our own carpenters and “primed” for the painting.