Shakespeare and the Modern Stage | Page 6

long run.
In face of this authoritative pronouncement, it must be conceded that
the spectacular system has been given, within recent memory, every
chance of succeeding, and, as far as recorded testimony is available,
has been, from the commercial point of view, a failure.
Meanwhile, during and since the period when Sir Henry Irving filled
the supreme place among producers of Shakespeare on the stage, the
simple method of Shakespearean production has been given no serious

chance. The anticipation of its pecuniary failure has not been put in
satisfactory conditions to any practical test. The last time that it was put
to a sound practical test it did not fail. While Irving was a boy, Phelps
at Sadler's Wells Theatre gave, in well-considered conditions, the
simple method a trial. Phelps's playhouse was situated in the
unfashionable neighbourhood of Islington. But the prophets of evil,
who were no greater strangers to Phelps's generation than they are to
our own, were themselves confuted by his experience.
V
On the 27th of May 1844 Phelps, a most intelligent actor and a serious
student of Shakespeare, opened the long-disused Sadler's Wells Theatre
in partnership with Mrs Warner, a capable actress, whose rendering of
Imogen went near perfection. Their design was inspired by "the hope,"
they wrote in an unassuming address, "of eventually rendering Sadler's
Wells what a theatre ought to be--a place for justly representing the
works of our great dramatic poets." This hope they went far to realise.
The first play that they produced was Macbeth.
Phelps continued to control Sadler's Wells Theatre for more than
eighteen years. During that period he produced, together with many
other English plays of classical repute, no fewer than thirty-one of the
thirty-seven great dramas which came from Shakespeare's pen. In his
first season, besides Macbeth he set forth Hamlet, King John, Henry
VIII., The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and Richard III. To these he
added in the course of his second season, Julius Cæsar, King Lear, and
The Winter's Tale. Henry IV., part I., Measure for Measure, Romeo and
Juliet, and The Tempest followed in his third season; As You Like It,
Cymbeline, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Twelfth Night, in his
fourth. Each succeeding season saw further additions to the
Shakespearean repertory, until only six Shakespearean dramas were left
unrepresented, viz.--Richard II., the three parts of Henry VI., Troilus
and Cressida, and Titus Andronicus. Of these, one alone, Richard II., is
really actable.
The leading principles, to which Phelps strictly adhered throughout his
career of management, call for most careful consideration. He gathered

round him a company of actors and actresses, whom he zealously
trained to interpret Shakespeare's language. He accustomed his
colleagues to act harmoniously together, and to sacrifice to the welfare
of the whole enterprise individual pretensions to prominence. No long
continuous run of any one piece was permitted by the rules of the
playhouse. The programme was constantly changed. The scenic
appliances were simple, adequate, and inexpensive. The supernumerary
staff was restricted to the smallest practicable number. The general
expenses were consequently kept within narrow limits. For every
thousand pounds that Charles Kean laid out at the Princess's Theatre on
scenery and other expenses of production, Phelps in his most ornate
revivals spent less than a fourth of that sum. For the pounds spent by
managers on more recent revivals, Phelps would have spent only as
many shillings. In the result, Phelps reaped from the profits of his a
handsome unencumbered income. During the same period Charles
Kean grew more and more deeply involved in oppressive debt, and at a
later date Sir Henry Irving made over to the public a hundred thousand
pounds above his receipts.
VI
Why, then, should not Phelps's encouraging experiment be made
again?[3]
[Footnote 3: It is just to notice, among endeavours of the late years of
the past century, to which I confine my remarks here, the efforts to
produce Shakespearean drama worthily which were made by Charles
Alexander Calvert at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, between 1864
and 1874. Calvert, who was a warm admirer of Phelps, attempted to
blend Phelps's method with Charles Kean's, and bestowed great scenic
elaboration on the production of at least eight plays of Shakespeare.
Financially the speculation saw every vicissitude, and Calvert's
experience may be quoted in support of the view that a return to
Phelps's method is financially safer than a return to Charles Kean's.
More recently the Elizabethan Stage Society endeavoured to produce,
with a simplicity which erred on the side of severity, many plays of
Shakespeare and other literary dramas. No scenery was employed, and

the performers were dressed in Elizabethan costume. The Society's
work was done privately, and did not invite any genuine test of
publicity. The representation by the Society on November 11, 1899, in
the Lecture