A Garden of Peace: A Medley in Quietude

by Frank Frankfort Moore

we continued talking of theatres until the summer night was reeking with the smell of sawdust and oranges, to say nothing of the fragrance of the poudre de ninon of the stalls, wafted over opera wraps and diamond-studded shirt-fronts—diamond studs, when just over the glimmering marble of my temple the Evening Star was glowing!

But what had always been a mystery to Friswell as the extraordinary lack of judgment on Irving's part in choosing his plays. Had he ever made a success since he produced that adaptation of Faust?

Beautifully staged and with some splendid moments due to the genius of the man himself and the never-failing charm of the actress with whom he was associated in all, yet no play worth remembering was produced at the Lyceum during that management. Faust made money, as it always has since the days of Marlowe; but all those noisy scenes and meaningless moments on the misty mountains—only alliteration's artful aid can deal adequately with such digressions from the story of Faust and Gretchen which was all that theatregoers, even of the better class, who go to tire pit, wanted—seemed dragged into the piece without reason or profit. To be sure, pages and pages of Goethe's Faust are devoted to his attempt to give concreteness to abstractions. (That was Friswell's phrase; and I repeat it for what it is worth). But in the original all these have a meaning at the back of them; but Irving only brought them on to abandon them after a line or two. The hope to gain the atmosphere of the weird by means of a panorama of clouds and mountain peaks may have been realised so far as some sections of the audience were concerned; but such a manager as Henry Irving should have been above trying for such cheap effects.

Faust made money, however, and helped materially to promote the formation of the Company through which country clergymen and daily governesses in the provinces hoped to advance the British Drama and earn 20 per cent, dividends.

I was at the first night of every play produced at the Lyceum for over twenty years, and I knew that Irving never fell short of the highest and the truest possible conception of any part that he attempted. At his best he was unapproachable. It was not the actor who failed, when there was failure; it was the play that failed. Only one marvellously inartistic feature was in the adaptation of The Courier of Lyons. He assumed that the sole way by which identification of a man is possible is by his appearance—that the intonation of his voice counts for nothing whatsoever. He acted in the dual rôle of Dubose and Lesurges—the one a gentle creature with a gentle voice, the other a truculent ruffian who jerked out his words hoarsely—the very antithesis to the mild gentleman in voice, in gait, and in general demeanour, though closely resembling him in features and appearance. The impression given by this representation was that any one who, having heard Dubose speak, would mistake Lesurges for him must be either stone-deaf or an idiot. But each of the parts was finely played; and the real old stage-coach arriving with its team smoking like Sheffield, helped to make a commonplace melodrama interesting.

Personally I do not think that he was justified in trying to realise at the close of the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice, the tableau of Christ standing mute and patient among the mockers. It was an attempt to obtain by suggestion some pity and sympathy for an infamous and inhuman scoundrel. In that pictorial moment Shylock the Jew was made to pose as Christ the Jew.

Mrs. Friswell had not seen Irving's Shylock, but she expressed her belief that Shylock was on the whole very badly treated; and Dorothy was ready to, affirm that Antonio was lacking in those elements that go to the composition of a sportsman. He should not have wriggled out of his bargain by the chicanery of the law.

“They were a bad lot, and that's a fact,” I ventured to say.

“They were,” acquiesced Friswell. “And if you look into the history of the Jews, they were also a bad lot; but among them were the most splendid men recorded as belonging to any race ever known on this earth; and I'm not sure that Irving wasn't justified in trying to get his audiences to realise in that last moment something of the dignity of the Hebrew people.”

“He would have made a more distinct advance in that direction if he had cut out the 'business' of stropping his knife a few minutes earlier, 'To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there,'” I remarked.