Preface to the First Edition [1936]

In putting forward my views on Shakespearian production I am conscious of deep and various obligations. This book is the result of long attention to a subject which has been my main interest since childhood and which antedates by many years any of my writings. Therefore I first express gratitude for each and every performance I have witnessed. My criticisms in the following pages are levelled not against producers, but points of production. Especially I acknowledge the grounding and stimulus towards understanding received from frequent visits as a boy to His Majesty’s Theatre under Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. If today we differ from his principles, we have nevertheless scrapped one great tradition without properly creating another. Tree was an artist and a great one. The richness and dignity which the Shakespearian play, especially Shakespearian tragedy, demands in presentation died with him. For at His Majesty’s you attended always something beyond entertainment, of ceremonial grandeur and noble if extravagant artistry. I well remember Tree’s marvellous make-up as Othello; and the Weird Sisters floating through smoky clouds at the opening of Macbeth; and—how appropriate this a symbol of his whole approach—the incense filling the theatre from the Forum scene of Julius Caesar. I had the privilege of seeing, and above all of hearing, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson in Shakespeare during his farewell season at Drury Lane in 1913; and The Passing of the Third Floor Back still lingers in my memory as the occasion for the most exquisite vocal cadences I am ever likely to hear. To these pre-war experiences I must add another of great importance: Mr. Granville Barker’s delightful productions of The Winter’s Tale, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To them I owe my earliest insight into the possibilities of solidity and permanence in stage-properties and scenic effects, and the freedom of invention attending a non-realistic interpretation. Twelfth Night was the best. Especially I recall the formal kneeling of Dennis Neilson-Terry as Sebastian before Olivia, and his lovely speaking of the lines ‘If it be thus to dream …’; and the exquisite singing of Feste’s final song by Mr. Hayden Coffin. The whole production dwells in my mind still as a single unique quality, indissoluble and unanalysable as the pungent sweetness of an aroma. I assume that my readers are acquainted with Mr. Granville Barker’s notable Prefaces, to which I would refer any reader who is not. I remember, too, an admirable and somewhat similar arrangement of The Taming of the Shrew, with Martin Harvey as Petruchio, by Mr. William Poel.¹ Those were comparatively modernistic productions: but there were also indirect links with the more remote past. I paid a flying visit to Stratford, in 1914 or thereabouts, to see H. B. Irving in Hamlet, and I never nowadays sail up the Gulf of St. Lawrence without recalling the death of his brother Laurence Irving, whom I saw as Iago, with Tree, and in Typhoon, and felt at that time to be potentially the greatest of living actors. There was a glamour haloing the Irvings, for in all my theatre-going adventures the figure of their father, partly through descriptions and imitations of him by my own, loomed as a felt presence, a kind of god-like and numinous force, its influence over the London stage not yet dissolved.² Such are my early obligations. Above all, I owe a debt of lasting gratitude to my own parents, who catered so continuously for a child’s hobby of so unorthodox and expensive a variety.

Since the war my most profitable theatre-going has mainly concerned itself with the Shakespeare Festival Company under Mr. W. Bridges Adams. From this company I can hardly overemphasize the advantages I have received. When I first saw the Shakespeare Festival Company I thought their performances almost perfect; nowadays I grow more critical. I conclude that they have themselves been training my faculties. Especially I admire the example set of almost military smartness, and feel that what knowledge I have of the possibilities of significant grouping owes much to Mr. Bridges Adams’ productions.¹ I regret not knowing more of the Old Vic., which is nearly always closed when I am in London; or of Mr. Nugent Monck’s important work at the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich.

My own experience of acting and producing dates from the year 1926. During my six years at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, I acted annually in the Cheltenham Branch of the British Empire Shakespeare Society’s productions; and I am grateful for having been allowed to do so. At the school I was fortunate in being able to start regular work in Shakespeare production, first with junior forms and later with the Speech Day play.² During the last four years this experience has been greatly extended at Toronto.³ My own productions have been: Romeo and Juliet, 1932; Hamlet, 1933; Othello, 1934; King Lear, 1935;⁴ also Henry VIII, for the Shakespeare Society of Toronto, 1934; together with abbreviated versions, for the Shakespeare Society, of Richard II and Richard III. In these, with the exception of Henry VIII, where I played Buckingham and the Porter’s assistant, I gained the additional valuable experience of acting the name-parts. I am indebted to the Shakespeare Society of Toronto for what experience I have gained under their auspices; and also to Mr. Brownlow Card, of Toronto, for experience under his. Toronto, and especially the University, is most fortunate in the location within the University of Hart House Theatre. My recent production of Hamlet at the Rudolf Steiner Hall, London, was an interesting and enjoyable experiment. I was particularly pleased with a letter received from such an authority as Mr. C. B. Purdom, whose writing I had admired, from which I have permission to quote this passage: ‘I appreciate the difficulties under which you were working, but your performance of Hamlet certainly gave me an entirely new impression. You unfolded a spiritual significance revealed in no other production I have ever seen’.

To Madame Irving, of the Irving Academy, Cheltenham, and to Mr. B. A. Pittar, whom I first met during a delightful and profitable fortnight at Citizen House, Bath, I am grateful for valuable instruction and encouragement. To all who have in various ways made my Toronto productions possible I record my thanks. But my greatest debt by far is owed to Mr. Leslie Harris of Toronto, whose wide experience, skilful teaching, and continual encouragement have gone far to remedy the worst of my numerous faults in acting, and more than once recharged my attempts with confidence when that was most needed.

G.W.K.

Toronto and Cheltenham, 1935.

¹  That is my recollection, but I cannot find Poel’s collaboration noted in either Maurice Willson Disher’s The Last Romantic or Robert Speaight’s William Poel. [1963]

²  My father’s theatre-going reminiscences were a continual enrichment to my awaking passion for the stage. [1963]

¹  An appreciation of Mr. Bridges Adams’ work at Stratford is given by Mr. A. K. Chesterton in the section ‘Bridges Adams: Master of the Stage-Picture’ in his history (1934) of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre entitled Brave Enterprise.

²  I had earlier produced As You Like It in collaboration with Mr. C. A. P. Tuckwell, who has done so much to give the school a Shakespearian tradition. In my subsequent (two) Speech Day productions Mr. Alan Bromly laid the foundation of his stage career with notable performances of Puck and Feste. He also played Rosencrantz in my 1935 London Hamlet. Two other old Decanians took part in it: Mr. Francis Berry and Mr. Roscoe Railton. Yet another Old Decanian, Mr. Leonard Jayne, gave me valued advice and encouragement during This Sceptred Isle in 1941. [1963]

³  It was my good fortune to be appointed to the Staff of Trinity College in the University in 1931.

⁴  Produced after this preface was written, though I included a short description in my book (p. 121 below). I now make this insertion in my original preface. [1963]