Dramatic Criticism in America
William Winter, poet, critic, and exquisite man, was one of the first to write of Henry with whole-hearted appreciation. But all the criticism in America, favourable and unfavourable, surprised us by the scholarly knowledge it displayed. In Chicago the notices were worthy of the Temps or the Journal des Débats. There was no attempt to force the personality of the writer into the foreground nor to write a style that would attract attention to the critic and leave the thing criticised to take care of itself. William Winter and, of late years, Alan Dale have had their personalities associated with their criticisms, but they are exceptions. Curiously enough, the art of acting appears to bore most dramatic critics, the very people who might be expected to be interested in it. The American critics, however, at the time of our early visits, were keenly interested, and showed it by their observation of many points which our English critics had passed over. For instance, writing of "Much Ado about Nothing," one of the Americans said of Henry in the Church Scene that "something of him as a subtle interpreter of doubtful situations was exquisitely shown in the early part of this fine scene by his suspicion of Don John—felt by him alone, and expressed only by a quick covert look, but a look so full of intelligence as to proclaim him a sharer in the secret with his audience."
"Wherein does the superiority lie?" wrote another critic in comparing our productions with those which had been seen in America up to 1884. "Not in the amount of money expended, but in the amount of brains; in the artistic intelligence and careful and earnest pains with which every detail is studied and worked out. Nor is there any reason why Mr. Irving or any other foreigner should have a monopoly of either intelligence or pains. They are common property and one man's money can buy them as well as another's. The defect in the American manager's policy heretofore has been that he has squandered his money upon high salaries for a few of his actors; and in costly, because unintelligent, expenditure for mere dazzle and show."
William Winter and His Children
William Winter soon became a great personal friend of ours, and visited us in England. He was one of the few sad people I met in America. He could have sat upon the ground and "told sad stories of the deaths of kings" with the best. In England he loved going to see graveyards, and knew where every poet was buried. He was very familiar with the poetry of the immediate past—Cowper, Coleridge, Gray, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and the rest. He liked us, so everything we did was right to him. He could not help being guided entirely by his feelings. If he disliked a thing, he had no use for it. Some men can say, "I hate this play, but of its kind it is admirable." Willie Winter could never take that unemotional point of view.
His children came to stay with me in London. When we were all coming home from the theatre
one night after Faust (the year must have been 1886), I said to little Willie:
"Well, what do you think of the play?"
"Oh my!" said he, "it takes the cake."
"Takes the cake," said his little sister scornfully. "It takes the ice-cream!"