“Such success as I have obtained I attribute to small powers of observation and great patience and perseverance.”
His work is always up-to-date, for Mr. Pinero is modern to his finger-tips.
How delightful it is to see people who have worked together for years remaining staunch friends. One Sunday I was invited to a luncheon the Pineros gave at Claridge’s. The room was marked “Private” for the occasion, and there the hospitable couple received twenty guests, while beyond was a large dining-room, to which we afterwards adjourned. That amusing actor and charming man, John Hare, with whom Pinero has been associated for many years, was present; Miss Irene Vanbrugh, his Sophy Fullgarney in the Gay Lord Quex, and Letty, in the play of that name, that dainty and fascinating American actress, Miss Fay Davis, and Mr. Dion Boucicault. There they were, all these people who had worked so long together, and were still such good friends as to form a merry, happy little family party.
Gillette, the American hero of the hour, was also present, and charming indeed he proved to be; but he was an outsider, so to speak, for most of the party had acted in Pinero’s plays, and that was what seemed so wonderful; because just as a secretary sees the worst side of his employer’s character, the irritability, the moments of anxious thought and worry, so the actor generally finds out the angles and corners of a dramatist. Only those who live in the profession can realise what such a meeting as that party at Claridge’s really meant, what a fund of good temper it proclaimed, what strength of character it represented, what forbearance on all sides it proved.
That party was representative of friendship, which, like health, is seldom valued until lost.
Photo by Langfier, 23a, Old Bond Street, London, W.
MR. ARTHUR W. PINERO.
There are as many ways of writing a play as there are of trimming a hat. Some people, probably most people, begin at the end, that is to say, they evolve some grand climax in their minds and work backwards, or they get hold of the chief situations as a nucleus, from which they work out the whole. Some writers let the play write itself, that is to say, they start with some sort of idea which develops as they go on, but the most satisfactory mode appears to be for the writer to decide everything even to the minutest detail, and then sketch out each situation. In a word, he ought to know exactly what he means to do before putting pen to paper.
The plots of Mr. Pinero’s plays are all conceived and born in movement. He walks up and down the room. He strolls round Regent’s Park, or bicycles further afield, but the dramas are always evolved while his limbs are in action, mere exercise seeming to inspire him with ideas.