Star material
JOHN GIELGUD
The Actor Managers Frances Donaldson (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 45s) Nothing, of course, is more difficult to assess than the talents and magnetic qualities of star actors who are dead, but Lady Donald- son's new book succeeds in condensing a mass of somewhat indigestible material for the older generation of readers, many of whom will remember the acting she de- scribes, and for the younger who have only heard dimly of the triumphs which delighted elder playgoers over the last eighty years. The availablZ material for research of course varies enormously in quality, as I know my- self from long acquaintance with most of the writers whom Lady Donaldson has studied so carefully. The genius of Irving and Ellen Terry has already been richly commemo- rated in at least half a dozen fine books, but here Henry James's strictures are admir- ably quoted to give some salt to the glories of the Lyceum which Craig and Laurence Irving have described so well. The excerpts from Max Beerbohm, too, with his witty literary magic, are delightfully apt. Wisely, the panegyrics of Austin Brereton and Bram Stoker have been ignored by the present writer.
I agree with her in finding the Ban- crofts' own book quite unreadable today, but she herself has persevered with it and used the material most successfully. The careers of Alexander and Forbes-Robertson make less interesting reading. Both men of course succeeded at first on their good looks, and later by their sensible attitude towards their colleagues and the public, as well as to the authors who provided their material. Both men seem to have been unusually modest and sincere. The shadow of Irving, their old master, must at first have hung somewhat fearsomely over their heads when they first went into management, but after his death in 1905, they evidently felt able to spread their wings, and both became con- siderable figures in their own right. Tree was quite another kind of actor, and Lady Donaldson (like James Dale in his charming essays recently published) brings him vividly before us. Perhaps he became a great star more easily because he had never worked with Irving, though he can hardly have been a really worthy rival, and his huge success at the turn of the century must have been a bitter pill for the older man. Lady Donald- son emphasises cleverly the contrast of Irving's personal magnetism and genius for stage management (himself always the bril- liant centre, with Ellen Terry dancing round him and the rest of the company nowhere) and Tree's spontaneous, good-natured eccen- tricities, his brilliant make-up, extravagant scenic displays, and shrewd ability to sur- round himself with the best young players of the day.
Du Maurier is, of course, a far more recent figure, and the author's father Fred- erick Lonsdale, and Daphne du Maurier in her superb biography, Gerald. have both given her excellent material to work on. It seems strange to us now how greatly the fashions and conventions of the day governed the careers of these great actors. If only Irving had been persuaded to play the Bishop in The Pretenders or Du Maurier tempted to appear as Lopakhin or Astrovl Barrie, alas, was the only author of distinc- tion that he could find to serve him. Forbes- Robertson was lucky, as far as posterity is concerned, in creating Shaw's Caesar and his own intelligently conceived production of Hamlet. But what of The Passing of the Third Floor Back? Tree and Irving, who made Shakespeare so popular, only achieved great personal success in a few of the great parts—Irving in Hamlet, Shylock, Benedick; Tree in Malvolio, Falstaff, Richard it and King John. The melodramas of forgotten authors always were the great recipe for commercial success in the theatre during the careers of all actors in this book. Yet Alex- ander owes most of his posthumous fame to Wilde and Pinero, while the Bancrofts (though perhaps the most daringly realistic innovators of their day) relied on Tom Robertson and adaptations of Sardou, now almost completely forgotten. The good writers live while the actors die—yet the actors can console themselves with the applause, the profits (the Bancrofts), the glory and subsequent financial disaster (Irving, Tree and du Maurier) and the solid Edwardian respectability and security of Alexander and Forbes-Robertson.
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