Reviewed in COLERIDGE BULLETIN

Noted scholar Julie Carlson has reviewed my new book Romantic Actors, Romantic Dramas: British Tragedy on the Regency Stage in the latest issue of The Coleridge Bulletin.

The journal is published by The Friends of Coleridge, which celebrates the life and work of the poet and dramatist Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of the tragedy Remorse, among other works. My book contains a chapter on Remorse, which made it an apt piece to be reviewed in the journal.

Carlson is a major figure in the study of British Romanticism, and is perhaps best known for her 1994 book In the Theatre of Romanticism: Coleridge, Nationalism, Women. I was thrilled to find she's reviewed my own book, noting that it offers a "bold corrective" to those who resist acknowledging Coleridge's standing as a practical playwright.

My book emphasizes the roles of actors in shaping dramas during the Regency period in Britain. In the case of Remorse, the magnificent Julia Glover played a crucial role in the play's success. Though Glover is not as well known as other actors I examine in the book--including Sarah Siddons, Edmund Kean, and Eliza O'Neill--she helped to make Remorse a rousing success on stage.

As Carlson notes in her review, during the rehearsal process Coleridge exhibited a "new receptiveness to the revolutionary power of women and the strength of their influence." This is no doubt attributable at least in part to Glover, who has been sadly neglected by historians of the theatre.

I hope other publications review the book with the sensitivity and insight Carlson displayed.

My Book on Sale!

If you've been wanting to order a copy of my new book, Romantic Actors, Romantic Dramas, but were putting it off because copies were too expensive, now is the time to get one, as the book is currently on sale for $24.99!

That's only if you get the hardcover edition, of course. If you want the e-book, you still have to pay $89. Yes, the illustrations are in color in the electronic version, but not only is there no substitute for paper, but the hard copy is currently cheaper, so why not get it?

Click here to order the book. I'm not sure how long the sale will last, so you might want to order it soon. The publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, is also advertising free shipping on select orders. Oh, and if you're in Europe, they're advertising books for €24.99 as well. (That's slightly more expensive at current exchange rates, but might be cheaper than paying conversion fees.)

The full title of the book is Romantic Actors Romantic Dramas: British Tragedy on the Regency Stage. It reinterprets British dramas of the Romantic era through the lens of the star actors for whom they were written. In addition to providing an overview of the period, the book provides four in-depth case studies of actors and the playwrights they influenced: Sarah Siddons and Joanna Baillie, Julia Glover and S.T. Coleridge, Edmund Kean and Lord Byron, and Eliza O'Neill and P.B. Shelley.

Hopefully, you'll find it insightful and filled with interesting surprises!

LEOPOLDSTADT Episode Airs Tomorrow

Tomorrow THEATER: All the Moving Parts on CUNY TV will be airing an episode on Tom Stoppard's new play Leopoldstadt featuring some commentary by yours truly.

The show will also feature Faye Castelow, Arty Froushan and Brendan Uranowitz, three of the 38 cast members in the play. Host Patrick Pacheco interviews them about the challenges of bringing Leopoldstadt to life. He also speaks to veteran Stoppard director Jack O'Brien and me about the writer's theatrical legacy.

You can catch the show tomorrow at 9:30 pm. It will then re-air on Saturday at 7:30 am and 3:30 pm, Sunday at 6:30 am, and then Monday at 7:00 am, 1:00 pm, and 11:00 pm. CUNY TV is available on NYC Metro 25.3, Spectrum/Optimum 75, RCN 77, and Verizon FiOS 30. If you've disconnected from cable, you can watch the show on its YouTube channel.

It was great fun filming the show. They were also kind enough to mention my new book Romantic Actors, Romantic Dramas which is now available both in hardcover and as an ebook. The ISBN for the print book is 978-3-031-13709-9 and for the ebook is 978-3-031-13710-5. It runs 233 pages and includes images of Regency actors including Sarah Siddons, Julia Glover, Edmund Kean, and Eliza O'Neill.

Unfortunately, in spite of being a finalist for the Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellows, I was not named as one of the fellows this year. However, the DGF has now named the fellows for this cycle: Aaron Coleman, Nicholas Connors, Joriah Kwamé, Matthew Libby, Zizi Majid, Julián Mesri, Gloria Oladipo, April Dae Okpwae, and SMJ. Congratulations to them all!

The Book Is Finally Out!

After a long wait, my new book Romantic Actors, Romantic Dramas: British Tragedy on the Regency Stage is now available from publisher Palgrave Macmillan.

The book reinterprets British dramas of the Romantic era through the lens of the star actors for whom they were written. It is the first book-length study to examine the interplay of early 19th century actors and the dramatists writing for them.

I've tried to answer questions about how and why actors from the Romantic period influenced major writers. The work focuses on four pairs of actors and playwrights: Sarah Siddons and Joanna Baillie, Julia Glover and S.T. Coleridge, Edmund Kean and Lord Byron, and Eliza O'Neill and P.B. Shelley.

If you're interested in any of those people, you'll want a copy of this book. Unfortunately, both the e-book and the hardcover version are rather pricey at the moment, but Palgrave Macmillan does frequently have sales, so keep your eyes open for possible discounts to come.

In the meantime, ask your local library to order a copy. The hardcover is still not officially released, but you will be able to pre-order the physical book soon. Electronic versions are available already.

The cover image features Eliza O'Neill. Interior images include a mezzotint of Siddons, a toy theatre version of Coleridge's play Remorse, a close-up photograph of a screen owned by Lord Byron, and a cartoon comparing Siddons and O'Neill.

What Doesn't Go up in Smoke

I have no affection for cigarettes. When I was growing up, both of my parents smoked, and wanting to be like them, I wanted to smoke, too. One day, sitting on my mother's lap, I asked her if I could have a puff of her cigarette. She handed it to me. I took a puff. I have never wanted to smoke anything ever again.

What I do have a fascination for, however, is cigarette cards. These cards were originally added to cigarette packages to stiffen them, and by the 1880s, manufacturers were printing advertisements on them, often including popular images that could be collected by consumers. Those images could be of sports stars, famous Native American leaders, national flags, exotic animals, or sometimes actors and actresses.

These cards can sometimes be found on Internet auction sites, and I've purchased a few in recent years, wanting to have images of performers from the Regency era. The first one I bought was when I saw for sale a cigarette card of the actress Eliza O'Neill identical to one in the collection of the New York Public Library. The card, issued by Chairman Cigarettes, probably dates to the 1920s. The reverse side gives information about O'Neill, including that she excelled in the roles of Belvidera, Juliet, and Mrs. Beverley.

Chairman Cigarettes appears to have been based in England at the beginning of the 20th century, but I've found scant information on them. Recently, I obtained a number of cigarette cards issued by Player's Cigarettes. John Player & Sons was based in Nottingham, but it merged with Imperial Tobacco Group in 1901. Under the ownership of Imperial, Player's issued a number of trading cards, though it had issued its own cards as far back as 1893. Probably around the same time Chairman issued the card showing O'Neill, Player's issued a series of 25 cards showing miniature portraits of great painters. (I've seen 1923 given as the year for this series, but cannot verify it.)

Many (though not all) of those miniature portraits displayed images of actresses. This one shows Sarah Siddons, who according the the reverse side was "one of our greatest tragic actresses." Siddons first appeared on the London stage in 1775, but her first great success did not come until seven years later, when she appeared at Drury Lane as Isabella in an adaptation of Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage. The Player's card calls this performance "a triumph almost unequalled in the history of the English stage."

Siddons introduced her most famous role, Lady Macbeth, in 1785. This portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, however, appears to show her in the role of Mrs. Haller from The Stranger, an adaptation Benjamin Thompson did of a melodrama by August von Kotzebue. Siddons was long the reigning tragic actress on the London stage. It was only after the retirement of Siddons that O'Neill came to London from Dublin, taking over many of the elder performer's roles, including Isabella and Mrs. Haller. Neither actress, however, had much of a gift for comedy. The great comedic actress of the period was Dora Jordan.

Here's a Player's trading card showing Jordan. As the card states, the image is based on a painting by George Romney. Jordan's real name was Dorothea Bland, but for obvious reasons, the actress changed it. Like O'Neill, she was born in Ireland and rose to fame in Dublin. Jordan made her London debut at Drury Lane in 1785, the same year Siddons first wowed audiences as Lady Macbeth. Rather than competing with the great tragedienne, Jordan gravitated toward comic roles, making her London debut in the role of Peggy, the protagonist of David Garrick's bowdlerized version of The Country Wife. 

Jordan was just as famous for her personal life off of the stage as she was for the roles she played on stage. In 1790, she became the mistress of the Duke of Clarence, a younger son of the reigning monarch, George III. They had ten children together, but sadly, the Duke could not marry her. After all, she was a humble Irish actress, and he was in line to ascend the throne. In fact, when his elder brother died in 1830, the Duke became King William IV. By that time, poor Jordan was dead. Her body was buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Paris.

Another Regency actress, Maria Foote, appears on this Player's card, based off of a portrait by George Clint. Foote made her London debut at Covent Garden in 1814, as did O'Neill, but while O'Neill went on to massive fame as an actress, Foote did not. As the reverse side of her trading card puts it, she was "more celebrated for her beauty than for her acting." After her debut in The Child of Nature by fellow actress Elizabeth Inchbald, Foote went on to perform numerous Shakespearean roles, including Miranda in The Tempest, Lady Percy in Henry IV, and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Foote also played a key role in Virginius, a new play by James Sheridan Knowles that after a brief run in Glasgow made its London premiere at Covent Garden in 1820. Foote played Virginia, the virtuous daughter of the title character. Virginia falls in love with Icilius, but the tyrant Appius lusts for her, and claims she is secretly the daughter of one of his slaves, sold to Virginius's now conveniently dead wife, since she was allegedly barren. The play made the new British king, George IV, rather nervous, since he was known for treating his wife and numerous mistresses not terribly well.

When I bought several Player's cards from a vendor, he kindly sent for free this 1930s card as a thank you. The card shows Nell Gwyn, who according to the reverse side of the card rose from being "a fruit hawker in the precincts of Drury Lane Theatre" to eventually becoming "enrolled a member of the King's Company of Players." This was during the Restoration under Charles II, and the king himself "fell a victim to her charms" as the card says. It was allegedly Gwyn who persuaded the king to complete the construction of Chelsea Hospital to provide a home for discharged soldiers.

The card is one of a series of 25 "Famous Beauties" taken from drawings by A.K. Macdonald. Other "beauties" drawn by Macdonald included Catherine the Great, the Queen of Sheba, and Pocahontas, so including the actress is quite a compliment. Gwyn was a close associate of the playwright Aphra Behn, who dedicated her play The Feigned Courtesans to the actress.

While I certainly am not a fan of the cigarettes that led to the creation of these cards, I'm glad many of the cards are still around today. They give us a fascinating glimpse not just of the world that created them, but also of the way that world looked back upon its own past.

O'Neill's London Debut

On October 6th, 1814, the actress Eliza O'Neill made her London debut at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. She played the role of Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and for years afterward, the night would not be forgotten.

One contemporary said of her that "for grace, sweetness, delicacy, and refinement, she was unequalled." The painter Sir Thomas Lawrence marveled at how natural O'Neill's acting was, comparing her (as many people did) to Sarah Siddons, who had retired from the stage by that time.

Born in 1791 into a theatrical family, O'Neill allegedly made her first stage appearance being carried onstage in her father's arms. The family performed for years in her native Ireland, going back and forth between the Drogheda and Dundalk Theatres. These were decidedly small affairs, so she was quite fortunate to be spotted by a talent scout and invited to perform in Belfast.

O'Neill insisted that her entire family join her in Belfast, so her father, three brothers, sister, and a sister-in-law were all given engagements at the new theatre. It was O'Neill, however, who was undoubtedly the star, and the newspapers in Belfast were extremely favorable in their revues. After two years, the whole family moved to Dublin, where a dispute between a theatre manager and a star actress led to O'Neill getting an opportunity to appear as Juliet at the Crow Street Theatre.

After her successful appearance as Juliet, the manager of the theatre offered her a contract, agreeing to take on her father and brother as well. It was in Dublin that John Philip Kemble first spied the actress. "She has great talent and some genius," was Kemble's assessment. He offered her an engagement in London. Again, O'Neill asked that she be able to take her family with her. Kemble refused to employ them, but did agree to allow her brother Robert to accompany her as a personal protector and to have access to the theatre's green room.

And so it was that O'Neill was finally able to bring her celebrated Juliet to London. The actor William Charles Macready, recalling O'Neill's debut, hailed her "beauty, simplicity, and grace," as well as her "native elegance" and "feminine sweetness." Others commented on how as Juliet her character blossomed after she fell in love, and then fell into a heart-breaking despair. If she was ever perceived in a negative light, it was because audiences found her too boisterous and vehement for an era that still extolled classicism.

In fact, O'Neill helped to usher in a new era of Romantic acting. That January, Edmund Kean had made his debut at Drury Lane, and audiences were looking for a more emotional approach to the stage than had been taken by the previous generation. O'Neill obliged them, at least until 1819. That was when she left the stage to marry William Wrixon Becher, Esq., who soon after the marriage became a baronet. Thus, the once impoverished actress ended her life as Lady Becher.

Many theatre fans no doubt wished she had continued on the stage, but the former actress seemed happy in her retirement. She and her husband raised a family in Ireland, and she ended up living to the ripe age of 81. In any case, the revolution in acting she helped to bring about continued, and performers throughout the rest of the nineteenth century tended to adopt her emotion-filled style.

The Theatric Tourist

One of the books I picked up on my recent trip to England was a facsimile of James Winston's The Theatric Tourist.

Winston, an actor, theatre manager, and artist, published the book in 1805, including brief histories and illustrations of the major regional theatres in England during his day.

Though the title page boasts the book contains "all the principal provincial theatres in the United Kingdom," theatres in Scotland and Ireland are noticeably missing. However, Winston does give accounts of the major theatres in England that were outside the metropolis.

The most important of those, of course, was the Theatre-Royal, Bath. "Next to London, Bath should be thought the favorite of the muses," Winston writes. "No theatre has shone so conspicuously as a nursery for London, as this Bath." He mentions it was that theatre which brought Sarah Siddons "so nearly to perfection."

Andover in Hampshire was not nearly so blessed. Winston claims that "as Bath enjoys perhaps the most considerable share of public estimation, so Andover challenges the most deficient." The town did not have a Theatre Royal, but the local theatre building had written on it From the Theatre-Royal, Windsor with "Theatre-Royal" written "in striking characters," Winston tells us, while everything else was "written so faintly, as to be scarcely legible."

Margate in Kent, on the other hand, did have a Theatre Royal, and it's still there! Well, parts of it, anyway. It was originally a rectangular brick building, as pictured here in The Theatric Tourist:

Later in the 19th century, it was completely remodeled, with one side wall removed and the stage and auditorium gutted. A new front of house was also added and a stucco frontage. Here's what it looks like today:

It's interesting to me which towns were deemed worthy of a patent theatre in 1805 and which were not. Neither Tunbridge-Wells, nor Reading, nor Brighton had a Theatre Royal in 1805 (though Brighton has one now). Yet Richmond had that honor, and Winston provides seven pages of text on the Theatre-Royal, Richmond. His illustration contains a tree which he claims was "planted by the hand of the Maiden Queen" Elizabeth I.

Unlike the Theatre-Royal, Margate, the theatre in Richmond remains largely intact from the Georgian era. It closed down in 1848, sparing it the renovations that the later Victorians made to so many theatres. Refurbishments in 2003 used painstaking research to try to recreate a more authentic color scheme, and they even tried to calibrate the electric lighting to approximate candlelight. Here's what the auditorium looks like today:

Winston goes on to discusses other theatres in Newbury, Portsmouth, and Grantham. One thing I find interesting is that he always lists the prices they charged and how much the management could take in with a full house. For the theatre in Lewes, that was seventy pounds, while the theatre in Exeter could hold enough people to make nearly 100 pounds at the same prices (three shillings for a box seat, two to sit in the pit, and a single shilling for the gallery). The Theatre-Royal, Newcastle seemed to have varying prices depending on the time of year. (Prices were raised during the race weeks.) At optimal prices, it could hold enough people to take in 140 pounds, and its stage was larger than that of the Haymarket in London. Here's Winston's illustration of its grand exterior:

Winston goes on to discuss smaller theatres in Edmonton and Maidstone, as well as in Liverpool, which was not quite the thriving city it would later become. Still, Liverpool was no place to sniff at, even in the Georgian era. It was there that the Irish actress Elizabeth Farren came to recognition, acting onstage in Liverpool at the tender age of fifteen. The Theatre-Royal, Liverpool has since been demolished, but here's what it looked like in Winston's day:

The theatre in Windsor was a Theatre Royal, though Winston said it could "scarcely be said to enjoy a regular season." Its proximity to Windsor Castle made it a favorite place for the royal family to go see plays. The theatre at Chichester was not so favored, and Winston spends less than a page of text on it. He gives a much fuller account of the theatre in Birmingham, which did not obtain a royal patent until two years after Winston published his book. He does provide it with a rather lovely illustration, though:

Winston chronicles other theatres in Manchester, Southampton, and Plymouth. I'll skip over those, but give a great anecdote he tells about the theatre in Winchester:

In the play of Alexander the Great, for Keasbury's benefit, some olive leaves that were used for decoration, twisted and interwoven with little bits of wax, caught fire from the lights. The flames continuing to blaze, occasioned an intolerable stench, and an universal cry of fire, which was succeeded by a general panic; but none received so terrible a shock as the departed Clytus, who, at that time, lay dead before the audience. As by Galvanic impulse, he instantly revived, and, in his haste, o'erthrew the son of the immortal Ammon, who measured his extended length on that dread spot where he had slain his General. However, as soon as the cause was ascertained, all was restored to order, and the redoubted Clytus quietly returned, and (hard and uncommon lot) for the second time gave up the ghost.

The last theatre in the book is the Theatre-Royal, Norwich. Winston claims a strolling company of players performed in Norwich occasionally "from the year 1712." Parliament officially licensed the theatre there in 1768, and in 1801 William Wilkins remodeled it. Here's the illustration included in The Theatric Tourist:

When Eliza O'Neill appeared there in 1818, her appearance caused a furor. Unfortunately, the building where she performed no longer exists. A second Theatre Royal was built in 1826, and that one was destroyed by a fire in 1934. Sadly, very little remains of the wonderful theatres Winston featured in his remarkable book.

Succeeding the Siddons

I'm happy to announce that my article "Succeeding the Siddons: Eliza O'Neill and the Triumph of the Romantic Style" has been published in the British journal Theatre Notebook.

The article is based on a paper I gave at the Society for Theatre Research's conference on Theatre in the Regency Era in Cambridge, England. It deals with the effort to find a fitting successor to the great actress Sarah Siddons following her retirement.

If you're ever at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, they have an excellent portrait of Siddons as the Tragic Muse. The folks at the Huntington were kind enough to allow me to reproduce an image of the painting in the journal.

Eventually, Eliza O'Neill became the new leading tragic actress in England. In order to reproduce an image of her, I requested new photography of an engraving of O'Neill owned by the British Museum. In November I got to spend some time in the prints and drawings collection at the museum, doing research on toy theatres. I hope to turn that research into another article soon.

In the meantime, if you check out the recent issue of Theatre Notebook, you'll also find articles by Leslie Thomson, John H. Astington, Geoff Davidson, and Alan C. Dessen. Enjoy!

The Rise of the English Actress

I just finished reading Sandra Richards's book The Rise of the English Actress. By its nature, the book is a rather general study, but it gives a wonderful history of women on the British stage.

Women appeared on stage during the middle ages, but by the Renaissance they were official banned from taking part in the public performances of plays in England. There were some exceptions, such as the infamous "Moll Cutpurse" who acted illegally, and the French actresses who were hissed at the Blackfriars Theatre in 1629.

It wasn't until the Restoration that actresses became the norm in England, and they quickly became an attractive novelty. Richards points out that in 1664 Thomas Killigrew staged an all-female performance of his play The Parson's Wedding. All-female casts were still being used a decade later when John Dryden's Secret Love was revived with only women on the stage.

By the early eighteenth century actresses were using playwrights to pen works especially for them. Richards cites Henry Fielding's Deborah and The Intriguing Chambermaid, written for Kitty Clive, and Colley Cibber's The Careless Husband and The Provok'd Husband, both vehicles for Anne Oldfield. Such collaborations did not always go well, though. Samuel Jonson blamed the failure of his play Irene on a sub-standard performance by Hannah Pritchard.

Perhaps the most celebrated eighteenth-century role created for a specific actress was Lady Teazle in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal. According to Richards, Sheridan wrote the part especially for Frances Abington. It was Abington who made the mob cap fashionable after she wore it on stage in James Townley's two-act farce High Life Below Stairs. The role she played, Kitty, was originally played by Kitty Clive, but Abington used it to create a fashion sensation that came to be known as the Abington Cap.

Women were instrumental in the creation of the benefit performance, and their earnings could top those of male actors. Richards notes that in 1792 the top-grossing benefit night belonged to Dora Jordan. That year, Jordan earned 540 pounds, while the tragic actress Sarah Siddons earned 490 pounds, and the leading male actor, John Philip Kemble, earned only 480 pounds. The Jordan-Siddons rivalry mirrored a debate over whether comedy or tragedy was the superior genre. The Dramatic Magazine in 1788 sided with Jordan, declaring she "fairly beat Melpomene out of the field."

The late eighteenth century also saw the remarkable career of Mary Robinson, the actress who in 1775 began publishing her poems under the patronage of the Duchess of Devonshire. Unfortunately, her 1794 play Nobody struck a nerve, and was hissed off the stage when it exposed the gambling habits of a number of prominent society ladies. Robinson allegedly dictated her poem "The Maniac" while under the influence of opium. As one might expect, Samuel Taylor Coleridge saw a kindred spirit in her and in 1800 declared Robinson "a woman of undoubted genius."

Robinson was famously painted by the major artists of the day, and as Richards puts it, it was in the eighteenth century that actresses "now became a means of establishing a painter's reputation when they allowed themselves to be portrayed." Portraits of actresses "were offered to the market by painters satisfying a public demand, and reflected how audiences saw female players." Richards specifically cites Thomas Lawrence, whose 1790 portrait of Elizabeth Farren catapulted the painter into fame and royal favor.

The great tragic actress of the late eighteenth century was of course Sarah Siddons, and Richards devotes an entire chapter to her. Drawing on Siddons's biography by Thomas Campbell, Richards points out that Siddons strove to be "natural" but by "natural" she meant credible for the character, rather than what we today might consider naturalistic. Siddons famously studied Egyptian and Greek sculpture, using it to help her achieve the exact poise and muscle tension she wanted to have.

In spite of her generally acknowledged superiority over her brother, John Philip Kemble, Siddons could not always enjoy her stardom. While Kemble was given a public dinner at the occasion of his farewell performance, Siddons received no such honor. She remarked to Samuel Rogers, "Well, perhaps in the next world women will be more valued than they are in this." Still, she left her mark on plays, and Richards notes that "Siddons's personality and bearing unquestionably informed and determined the role" of Jane de Monfort in Joanna Baillie's play De Monfort, which premiered in 1800.

Eliza O'Neill succeeded Siddons as the great British tragedienne of the early nineteenth century. O'Neill retired from the stage in 1819, though, and in the early Victorian period actresses like Helen Faucit and Siddons's niece Fanny Kemble took the reins. In 1837, Fanny Kemble wrote An English Tragedy, but William Charles Macready refused to stage the play, in spite of recognizing that it was "full of power, poetry and pathos."

The most famous Victorian actress was Ellen Terry, and Richards gives Terry her own chapter. Terry was most renowned for playing Lady Macbeth, wearing "a gown of soft green silk and blue tinsel edged with rubies and diamonds, draped by a heather velvet cape and decorated with flaming griffins and real beetle wings of green to achieve a metallic dazzle.” John Singer Sargent painted a portrait of Terry wearing the dress, helping it to become, in Richards's words, "the most famous costume in stage history."

Sybil Thorndike was one of the great British actresses of the early twentieth century. Richards considers her production of Percy Shelley's The Cenci in 1922 to be one of the most important of the actress's career. According to Richards, "Sybil's Beatrice established her firmly as a great tragic actress and Shelley as a great dramatist." At the time, George Bernard Shaw was trying to determine who should play the title character in his new play Saint Joan. After seeing Thorndike as Beatrice Cenci, Shaw informed his wife, "I have found my Joan." Thorndike later became closely associated with the role of Joan of Arc, which she did indeed originate in Shaw's play.

Richards continues the story of the English actress past Thorndike, writing for instance about Peggy Ashcroft, who played Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson in Othello. She goes right up to the present, discussing Harriet Walter, who I just saw play Prospero in an all-female production of The Tempest. All in all, this is a wonderful book for anyone interested in the history of British acting.

Elliston as Manager

I recently finished Christopher Murray's biography of the actor and theatre manager Robert William Elliston. It's amazing the number of things Elliston managed to accomplish, including in 1815, lighting the exterior, saloon, and part of the auditorium of the Olympic Theatre with gas lighting.

Frederick Albert Windsor had patented gas lighting in 1804, when it was first used to light the facade of the Lyceum Theatre. It was not until 1817 that gas lights were first used to illuminate a London stage. (The previous year, the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia had used gas lighting.)

So Elliston's illumination of the Olympic was a dubious first. He had greatly expanded a technology already in use, but not brought it to its full capability. The same could be said about many aspects of Elliston's management. He dragged the London theatre forward (sometimes kicking and screaming), but only so far.

Throughout his life, Elliston managed a number of theatres, both in and outside of London. Murray devotes one chapter to Elliston's management of the Birmingham Theatre Royal, where he attracted such luminary performers as Eliza O'Neill. According to Murray, hundreds of people had to be turned away from the theatre when O'Neill appeared, and many "settled for a glimpse of the adored actress coming or going at the Royal Hotel."

Later, when Elliston was managing the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane in London, he fared considerably poorer with dramatists than he did with actors. He tried to get Walter Scott and Thomas Moore to write plays for him, but both declined. Of course, he received unsolicited scripts from John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Leigh Hunt, and rejected them all. Alas, the tyranny of the slush pile is nothing new! Without a friend on the inside, even the best writers of the nineteenth century couldn't get their work taken seriously.

Elliston was managing Drury Lane when King George III died at the beginning of 1820. The sad event closed the theatres out of respect for the nation's mourning, but it also opened up a new possibility. Since the king had gone mad, no one had dared perform King Lear (for obvious reasons). Elliston rushed a production of Lear to the stage after the theatres were allowed to reopen in February. Though he for the most part followed the adaptation by Nahum Tate with its absurd happy ending, he did restore some of Shakespeare's text to the heath scene and to Lear's recognition of Cordelia.

The following year, Elliston gained notoriety for staging Lord Byron's play Marino Faliero without the author's permission. Again, Elliston rushed the piece into production, securing a copy of the play while it was still going to press and not even completing casting until a week before the show opened. Elliston had secured permission to perform the play from the Lord Chamberlain's office, so he legally had a right to do it whether Byron wanted him to or not. Alas, the controversy was not enough to sell tickets, and the play was ultimately deemed a financial and critical failure.

Later at Drury Lane, Elliston staged the first English-language version of Goethe's Faust. After a collapse in health (and finances) Elliston lost his lease on Drury Lane, but he did not give up on theatrical management. In 1827, he took over a theatre in Surrey, where he staged melodramas by popular writers like Edward Fitzball, William Thomas Moncrieff, and Douglas Jerrold. Elliston also staged the only play by Walter Scott to be performed in the writer's lifetime, The House of Aspen. As was the case with Marino Faliero, the production was without the author's permission.

Elliston is perhaps best known as an actor, a fine Romeo and the original Alvar in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Remorse. However, Murray makes a good case that Elliston's greatest achievements were not as a performer, but as a manager.

A Christmas Eve Image

When the Society for Theatre Research published my article on Eliza O'Neill in Theatre Notebook I was very grateful to the British Museum for allowing me to use an image from their collection sans royalties.

Their policy made sense. Theatre Notebook is a non-profit journal with a very limited circulation. The image I wanted to reproduce was a cartoon created in the early nineteenth century, so it had long been in the public domain. True, the British Museum had gone to the trouble of photographing it and placing an electronic file in their database, but they are a public institution with taxpayer support.

I was disappointed, however, when I wanted to reproduce some other images from the British Museum in the journal SHAW. It seems the museum's policy has changed. I can't blame them. I'm sure the British Museum has been facing budget cuts from a Tory government intent on a policy of austerity. The museum must be having to look for every crumb of funding they can get now, so they probably had little choice but to monetize their online collection.

As I am not a British taxpayer, I have no right to complain. If the British people want to starve their public institutions, that's their own affair, and as a citizen of a republic that has just elected the least qualified chief magistrate in its history, I certainly should not be throwing stones. Still, it saddens me greatly that the British Museum has been forced into being so parsimonious. We are talking about images in the public domain. The only thing still under copyright is the photograph of the image, not the image itself.

Well, I paid the British Museum (or rather the contractor they hired) for the rights to the images I couldn't get anywhere else. There was one, however, that I was able to secure the rights to permanently. The image in question is of John Singer Sargent's famous painting of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. The opening stage directions of G.B. Shaw's The Philanderer mentions "theatrical engravings and photographs" of various actors, including Terry. This was one of the images I definitely wanted to include in the article.

Since I wanted to illustrate Shaw's stage directions, I needed an engraving of Sargent's painting, not an image of the painting itself (which is owned by the Tate Gallery in London). The British Museum has such an engraving in their collection, but surely many such engravings exist. Couldn't I find one elsewhere? Well, not at the National Portrait Gallery (though they had an image of John Kemble I needed), and not at the New York Public Library (though I've used their images in the past).

After a search online, I discovered a print dealer selling an actual engraving of the painting for less than the British Museum wanted for the rights to reproduce the image in the journal. To be fair, the price was comparable--the same amount in dollars as the museum wanted in pounds, and I also had to pay for shipping. Still, by purchasing the engraving and scanning the image myself, I secured the rights to use it whenever I wanted.

So in the spirit of Christmas Eve, I am offering this image to anyone who wants it, to publish it in any journal, book, newspaper, or magazine they choose. I didn't paint it--that was Sargent. I didn't engrave it--that was C. Carter. The only value I added was making a digital image of the piece. You can have that for free.

If you want a higher quality image, feel free to contact me. You can credit it to the personal collection of James Armstrong. Enjoy!