Henry Irving

Sir Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving
Born	John Henry Brodribb 6 February 1838 (1838-02-06) Keinton Mandeville, Somerset, England
Died	13 October 1905 (1905-10-14) (aged 67) Bradford
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1856–1905 (his death)
Spouse(s)	Florence O’Callaghan

Sir Henry Irving, as Hamlet, in an 1893 illustration from The Idler magazine

Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility (supervision of sets, lighting, direction, casting, as well as playing the leading roles) for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as representative of English classical theatre. Known as "The Governor" to those under his supervision at the Lyceum, he was the first actor to be awarded a knighthood. Irving is thought to have been the inspiration for the title character in Lyceum manager Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.

Life and career

Irving was born to a working-class family in Keinton Mandeville in the county of Somerset. He attended City Commercial School for two years before going to work in the office of a firm of lawyers at the age of 13. After seeing Samuel Phelps play Hamlet soon after this, Irving sought out lessons, letters of introduction, and, finally, work in a theatre in Sunderland in 1856. He labored against great odds from 1856 till his 1871 success in The Bells in London set him apart from all the rest.

His personal life took second place to his professional life. On opening night of The Bells, November 25 1871, Irving's wife, Florence criticised his profession: "Are you going on making a fool of yourself like this all your life?" (She was then pregnant with their second boy, Laurence.) Irving got out from their carriage at Hyde Park Corner, walked off into the night and chose never to see her again. He maintained a discreet distance from his children as well, but became closer to them as they grew older.

His elder son, Harry Brodribb Irving (1870-1919), usually known as "H B Irving", became a famous actor and later a theatre manager. His younger son, Laurence Irving (1871-1914), became a dramatist and later drowned, with his wife, in the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. Dorothea Baird married his son H B and the couple had a son, Laurence Irving (1897-1988), who became a well known Hollywood art director and a biographer for his grandfather.

Florence Irving never divorced Irving, and claimed herself "Lady Irving" once he had been knighted. Irving never remarried. He went on to take over the management of the Lyceum Theatre and brought the actress Ellen Terry into partnership with him as Ophelia to his Hamlet, Lady Macbeth to his Macbeth, Portia to his Shylock, Beatrice to his Benedick, etc. Irving might be said to have found his family in his professional company, which included his ardent supporter and manager Bram Stoker and Terry's two illegitimate children, Teddy and Edy.

Whether Irving's long, spectacularly successful relationship with his leading lady Ellen Terry was romantic as well as professional has been the subject of much historical speculation (Most of their correspondence was burned by her descendants). According to Michael Holroyd's book about Irving and Terry, A Strange Eventful History:

Years later, when Irving was dead, Marguerite Steen asked Ellen whether she really had been Irving's lover, and she promptly answered: 'Of course I was. We were terribly in love for a while.' But at earlier periods in her life, when there were more people around to be offended, she said contradictory things.

Terry's son Teddy, later known as Edward Gordon Craig, spent much of his childhood indulged by Irving backstage at the Lyceum (from when he was eight years old in 1889 to 1897). Craig, who came to be regarded as something of a visionary for the theatre of the future, wrote an especially vivid, book-length tribute to Irving. ("Let me state at once, in clearest unmistakable terms, that I have never known of, or seen, or heard, a greater actor than was Irving.") George Bernard Shaw, a theatre critic at the time who was jealous of Irving's connection to Ellen Terry (whom Shaw himself wanted in his own plays), conceded Irving's genius after Irving died.

Before joining the Lyceum, Terry had run off from her first marriage and had conceived two children out of wedlock with bohemian artist Godwin. She was somehow able to maintain an exalted position in the hearts of her Victorian audiences, regardless of how much and how often her behavior defied their strict moralities.

Early career

After a few years schooling, he became a clerk to a firm of East India merchants in London, but he soon gave up a commercial career and started as an actor. On 29 September 1856 he made his first appearance at Sunderland as Gaston, Duke of Orleans, in Bulwer Lytton's play, Richelieu, billed as Henry Irving. This name he eventually assumed by royal licence.

For 10 years, he went through an arduous training in various stock companies in Scotland and the north of England, acting in more than 500 parts. He gained recognition by degrees, and in 1866 he obtained an engagement at the St. James's Theatre, London, to play Doricourt in The Belle's Stratagem. A year later he joined the company of the newly-opened Queen's Theatre, where he acted with Charles Wyndham, J. L. Toole, Lionel Brough, John Clayton, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Wigan, Ellen Terry and Nellie Farren. This was followed by short engagements at the Haymarket Theatre, Drury Lane, and the Gaiety Theatre. At last he made his first conspicuous success as Digby Grant in James Albery's Two Roses, which was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre on the 4 June 1870 and ran for a very successful 300 nights.

In 1871, Irving began his association with the Lyceum Theatre by an engagement under Bateman's management. The fortunes of the house were at a low ebb when the tide was turned by Irving's sudden success as Mathias in The Bells, a version of Erckmann-Chatrian's Le Juif Polonais by Leopold Lewis, a property which Irving had found for himself. The play ran for 150 nights, established Irving at the forefront of the British drama, and it would prove a popular vehicle for Irving for the rest of his professional life. With Bateman, Irving was seen in W. G. Wills' Charles I and Eugene Aram, in Richelieu, and in 1874 in Hamlet. The unconventionality of this last performance, during a run of 200 nights, aroused keen discussion and singled him out as the most interesting English actor of his day. In 1875, again with Bateman, he was seen as the title character in Macbeth; in 1876 as Othello, and as Philip in Alfred Lord Tennyson's Queen Mary; in 1877 in Richard III; and in The Lyons Mail. It is in this time that he became life-long friends with Bram Stoker, who praised him in his review of Hamlet and thereafter joined Irving as the manager for the company. Stoker was inspired by Irving for his 1897 novel Dracula.

Peak years

In 1878, Irving entered into a partnership with the actress Ellen Terry and re-opened the Lyceum under his own management. With Terry as Ophelia and Portia, he revived Hamlet and produced The Merchant of Venice (1879). His Shylock was as much discussed as his Hamlet had been, the dignity with which he invested the vengeful Jewish merchant marking a departure from the traditional interpretation of the role.

After the production of Tennyson's The Cup and revivals of Othello (in which Irving played Iago to Edwin Booth's title character) and Romeo and Juliet, there began a period at the Lyceum which had a potent effect on the English stage.

Much Ado about Nothing (1882) was followed by Twelfth Night (1884); an adaptation of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield by W. G. Wills (1885); Faust (1886); Macbeth (1888, with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan^[1]); The Dead Heart, by Watts Phillips (1889); Ravenswood by Herman, and Merivales' dramatic version of Scotts Bride of Lammermoor (1890). Portrayals in 1892 of the characters of Wolsey in Henry VIII and of the title character in King Lear were followed in 1893 by a performance of Becket in Tennyson's play of the same name. During these years, too, Irving, with the whole Lyceum company, paid several successful visits to the United States, which were repeated in succeeding years. As Terry grew older, there seemed to be less opportunities for her in his company, and that was one of the reasons why she eventually left, moving on into less steady but nonetheless beloved work on the stage, including solo performances of Shakespeare's women.

Later years

The statue of Sir Henry Irving in London, behind the National Portrait Gallery

The chief remaining novelties at the Lyceum, during Irving's term as sole manager (the theatre passed, at the beginning of 1899, into the hands of a limited liability company) were Arthur Conan Doyle's Waterloo (1894);^[2] J. Comyns Carr's King Arthur in 1895; Cymbeline, in which Irving played Iachimo, in 1896; Sardou's Madame Sans-Gene in 1897; and Peter the Great, a play by Laurence Irving, the actor's second son, in 1898. In 1898 Irving was Rede Lecturer at the University of Cambridge.^[3] The new regime at the Lyceum was signalled by the production of Sardou's Robespierre in 1899, in which Irving reappeared after a serious illness, and in 1901 by an elaborate revival of Coriolanus. Irving's only subsequent production in London was as Sardou's Dante (1903) at the Drury Lane.

Irving died shortly after suffering a stroke during a performance while on tour in Bradford on 13 October 1905, aged 67. F Anstey describes the scene in his 'Long Retrospect':

Within three months, on October 13, 1905, Henry Irving, when appearing as Becket at the Bradford Theatre, was seized with syncope just after uttering Becket's dying words 'Into thy hands, O Lord, into thy hands', and though he lived for an hour or so longer he never spoke again.

He was brought to the lobby of the Midland Hotel, where he died. The chair that he was sitting in when he died is now at the Garrick Club. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. There is a statue of him near the National Portrait Gallery in London. That statue, as well as the influence of Irving himself, plays an important part in the Robertson Davies novel World of Wonders.

Legacy

Both on and off the stage, Irving always maintained a high ideal of his profession, and in 1895 he received a knighthood, the first ever accorded an actor. He was also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Dublin, Cambridge, and Glasgow.

His acting divided critics; opinions differed as to the extent to which his mannerisms of voice and deportment interfered with or assisted the expression of his ideas.

Notes

References

•  "Irving, Sir John". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 
• Stoker, Bram. Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving: Volume 1 and Volume 2. London : W. Heinemann, 1906. Scanned books via Internet Archive.
• Holroyd, Michael. A Strange Eventful History, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008 ISBN 0701179872
• Irving, Laurence, Henry Irving: The Actor and His World, published in 1989.
• Information about Irving at the PeoplePlay UK website

External links

• Henry Irving at Find a Grave
• The Irving Society
• The Henry Irving Foundation
• NY Times article that includes information about Irving's American tour and the lease of the Lyceum to the American company at the same time