We are sitting near a front window at the Bellevue, looking out upon Broad street. Presently we are joined by the interviewer, and Irving is not long before he is engaged in a conversation about the actor’s art, and his own methods.
“Every character,” he says, “has its proper place on the stage, and each should be developed to its greatest excellence, without unduly intruding upon another, or impairing the general harmony of the picture. Nothing, perhaps, is more difficult in a play than to determine the exact relation of the real, and what I may call the picturesque. For instance, it is the custom in Alsatia for men to wear their hats in a public room; but in a play located in that country it would not do to have a room scene in which a number of men should sit around on the stage with their hats on. There are reasons why they should not do that. In the first place, their hats would hide their faces from the audience. It is also an incongruity to see men sitting in the presence of an audience with their heads covered. Then, again, the attention of the audience would be distracted from the play by a feeling of curiosity as to the reason why the hats were not removed. These are little things that should be avoided; but in general they are not likely to intrude themselves where proper regard is paid to the general appearance of a scene. The make-up of the stage is exactly like the drawing of a picture, in which lights and colors are studied, with a view to their effect upon the whole. There is another feature. I would not have the costume and general appearance of a company of soldiers returning from a war exactly the same as they appeared when the men were starting for the battle-field. I would have them dishevel their hair and assume a careworn aspect, but yet appear in clean clothes. Everything on the stage should always be clean and pleasant.”
The subject of realism being mentioned, he said his death in “The Bells” had been called very realistic, whereas the entire story was unrealistic, in the strict sense, particularly the trial and death. “Dramatically poetic, if you like,” he said, “but not realistic. There are so-called realisms on the stage that are no doubt offensive,—overstrained illustrations of the pangs of death, physical deformities, and such like. As for the interest of an audience in the person who is acting, the knowledge that what they see is an impersonation has its intellectual attractions for them. For instance, it would not be satisfactory to see an old man of eighty play ‘King Lear’; but it would be highly satisfactory to an audience to know that the character was being portrayed by a man in the vigor of life. As you look upon a picture you do not see something that is real, but something that draws upon the imagination.
“Perhaps there is no character about which such a variety of opinions has been expressed as that of Hamlet, and there is no book that will give any one as much opportunity of understanding it as the ‘Variorum Shakespeare’ of Mr. Horace Howard Furness. He is still a young man,—he is not an old man,—and I trust that he will be able to complete the whole of the work that he has begun, and I hope that some one will follow in his footsteps. It was a labor of love, of most intense love to him, and he has earned the gratitude of all readers of Shakespeare. I hope I shall meet him.”
II.
The Chestnut Street Theatre, where Irving appeared on November 28, is a handsome brick building. The width of the stage at the proscenium is thirty-three feet, depth forty feet, height of proscenium forty feet. There are three tiers of seats, which will accommodate one thousand five hundred people. The theatre was first opened in 1863, under the management of William Wheatley, with Edwin Forrest as the leading actor. The interior was reconstructed in 1874, and improved in 1875, with results that make the house singularly elegant and comfortable. Among the audience on the first night of Irving’s appearance were his old friend Mr. McHenry, and a party of relatives and friends; the latter including Lord and Lady Bury, whom he and Miss Terry, and several of his fellow-travellers, met at a number of social receptions during the week.
Irving’s Louis made just as profound an impression here as in New York. “No finer performance has been seen on the Philadelphian stage for many years,” said the “Ledger.”—“From his first appearance on the stage to the moment when he falls dead upon the floor, he rose from climax to climax, and held, not the hearts, but the minds, of his audience captive,” said the “Inquirer”; and they give the cue to the general criticisms. The other plays were equally well received. Shylock excited the usual controversy as to Shakespeare’s intentions, but none as to Irving’s interpretation of his own views. The critics, on the whole, were the honest mouth-pieces of the audiences in regard to their enjoyment of the entire play. A writer, who confessed to disappointment in Miss Terry’s Portia, and who counted Shylock’s business as above his elocution, had no words to express his admiration of the entire setting of the piece, which he described as “a discovery and a conquest.” It is no reflection upon the literary skill and critical powers of the Philadelphia press, when it has to be admitted that here and there the notices bore evidence of an influence preceding Mr. Irving’s appearance, notably in their criticisms of Hamlet.
“There are three kinds of criticisms,” said Irving, when discussing this point one evening after a quiet supper: “the criticism that is written before the play; the criticism that is more or less under the influence of the preconceived ideas that are associated with previous representations by other actors; and the criticism that is bona fide a result of the night’s performance, and also, in a measure, an interpretation of the opinions of the audience. What I mean by a criticism written before the play is the notice that has been partially prepared beforehand, in connection with the literature of the subject, and the controversies as to the proper or improper views taken of the character under discussion. These start in on one side or the other, just as the writer feels about it, irrespective of the art that is exercised by the actor. This is more particularly the case in regard to Shylock and Hamlet. As to the latter character there is the natural loyalty some writers feel towards what is called the established or accepted Hamlet of the country. It is not given to all men to feel that art is universal, and of no country. Don’t think I am complaining; I am not. I am trying to justify some of the Philadelphian notices of Hamlet, which were in opposition to the verdict of the audience before whom I played it in America for the first time.”
“You were warned that Philadelphia claims to occupy the highest critical chair in America; and that, of all other cities, it would be the least likely to accept a new Hamlet, especially a Hamlet that aims at being natural as against the artificial school; or, in better words, an impersonation as opposed to the so-called traditional school of declamation.”
“I think that decided me to play Hamlet for the first time in Philadelphia; and I never played it to an audience that entered more fully into the spirit of my work.”