Joseph Harker

A Presentation in 3 Acts with a Prologue and an Epilogue

Prologue

We have a lot to thank J. Alan Kenyon for—not only for his memoirs—currently published online in Theatre Heritage Australia’s quarterly newsletter, On Stage—but also for the over-large and fairly bursting folio of J.C. Williamson designs, dating back to very early 20th century, if not a little before. Mr. Kenyon, aka George, worked as a set designer, scenic artist and props maker for more than four decades; his son John joined him, and when the latter died in 2019 his son Miles discovered he was now the custodian of this veritable treasure-trove of scenic work.

All in all, there are around 120 examples, from pencil sketches to highly detailed and finished artwork, wings, flats, legs, borders, front and back cloths, cut-cloths, mostly executed at a 1 to 24 ration, very close to the ratio now favoured by today’s scenic designers—1 to 25. To absolutely verify this I would need to measure all 120 examples. This is something to be attempted at a later stage, but one setting I have examined suggests the height at around 7 metres—with the width at 11 metres.

Unfortunately none of these designs are signed—the most we can find is the occasional name scrawled on the reverse, by someone else—but someone who felt confident enough to identify the odd example. The following are all the names, rightly or wrongly, that appear.

George Upward, William R. Coleman and son William, W. Hogg and J.F.Hogg, Philip William Goatcher, Hawes Craven Green, Conrad Tritschler and Joseph Cunningham Harker. Some were born in the UK and then moved here, more or less permanently, others simply forwarded their designs for adaptation here following their production in London.

Of all the designs contained within the folio Joseph and His Brethren is the most fully represented (and in fact glued on the reverse are fine wooden supports which enable it to be set up as 3-dimensional maquette) so I will focus on the English-born Joseph Harker: the name Harker is tantalizingly inscribed on the back of several pieces.

J. Alan Kenyon folio of JCW designs

Miles Kenyon collection

Reverse of main set-piece—Potiphar’s House—JCW designs

I. Harker history

Born in Levenshulme, Manchester, in 1855 on the 17th of October, Joseph Cunningham Harker was the son of Maria (O’Connor) and William Pierpont Harker, an Irish theatre family who were currently performing at the Theatre Royal in Manchester. Joseph was educated in that city and in Edinburgh and after playing some ‘child parts’ he began his painterly career in 1881 working on a production of Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow, following an apprenticeship with T.W.Hall, a scene painter at the Globe Theatre. The young Joseph became a stock artist for a time, but on moving to Dublin and the Gaiety Theatre, he met the indomitable Henry Irving (christened John Henry Brodribb). He also spent a period gaining experience under Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Augustus Harris, Sir George Alexander, Oscar Asche—to name but a few.

But it was for Irving and the Lyceum Theatre in London that Harker was to produce some of his finest work, often in collaboration with Hawes Craven and William Telbin. Over the years he worked on well over one hundred productions, collaborating also with T.E. Ryan, Walter Hann, Henry Emden, Robert McLeery—among others. Theatres included the Haymarket, Empire, Garrick, Drury Lane, Lyceum, and many, many more. Bram (Abraham) Stoker was the latter’s business manager at the time Harker was employed there, under the directorship of Henry Irving, later Sir Henry Irving. One of the leading characters, Jonathan Harker in Stoker’s novel Dracula, was named after him, and the name appears enigmatically in Joseph O’Connor’s 2019 Shadowplay. Harker, in the novel, is a young woman hoping to attain the position of scene painter at the Lyceum, and she disguises herself as a young man. It is also suggested that the ‘leading role’ of Dracula was inspired by, or based on, Stoker’s much-celebrated employer, Henry Irving.  And I cannot help but wonder if Shadowplay’sauthor, Joseph, is not a descendant of Joseph Harker’s mother’s family, Maria O’Connor’s, or of two Victorian scenic artists, also by the name of O’Connor.

Bram Stoker, 1906. Photo by W. & D. Downey.

National Portrait Gallery, London

Henry Irving, 1888. Photo by Barraud.

National Portrait Gallery, London

Well into the 20th century Harker was a great champion of the scene-painting profession. He wrote extensively on the subject, which included, in 1924, a book of reminiscences entitled Studio and Stage.

In the late 1870s he married Sarah Hall, daughter of the aforementioned T.W. Hall, and they produced a family of nine children, three girls and six boys—Alice, Dora and Phoebe, Philip, Gordon, James, Joseph, Roland and Colin. Several of the boys went on to continue the family tradition of scene painting, and Gordon (1885–1967) had a long career on the stage from the age of 17, and also appeared in almost seventy films between 1921 and 1959, most notably in three silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

More family matters: Joseph and Sarah’s grand daughter (I can’t track which of the nine Harker siblings produced her) married one Mr. Adams and their daughter, Polly (Pauline) Adams, became an actress of some note. She married a Richard Owen and their daughters are named Nelly, Caroline and Susannah—all actresses—and all have taken the surname Harker—for pretty obvious reasons, I would say. The latter, now in her 50s, has worked in film, television and theatre and is most widely remembered for her role as Jane Bennet in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It should be noted, her mother Polly played that same character in a 1948 film version of the novel. Most recently Susannah appeared in a 2017 episode of Grantchester, but her many other roles date back to the mid-1980s.

So, another wonderful theatrical dynasty, to join that of the Foxes, Kendals, Redgraves, Kembles and Cusacks—and there are more.

Gordon Harker, 1933

tuckdbpostcards.org

Susannah Harker, 1996. Photo by Ivan Kyncl.

Author’s collection

II. Dissected designs

But, it is time to return to the designs for Joseph and His Brethren. Along with these JCW examples attributed to Harker are several colourfully exotic pieces inscribed with ‘Hogg’. Where do they belong? On checking the lists of the work of the two Hogg artists, initials J.F. and W. only, was hardly enlightening.  But on calling up the 1914 Australian production of Joseph and His Brethren, some answers were provided. J.F. Hogg was responsible for Zuleika’s Room in Act II and The Prison in Act III. It would appear W.R. Coleman, and son, were the designers for many of the other scenes, along with George Upward. So the vibrantly scarlet pieces are the work of Upward or—are they, in fact, truly the imported creations of Joseph Harker, following London’s production.

Potiphar’s House, left side—JCW designs

Potiphar’s House, right side—JCW designs

Zuleika’s Room—Hogg design for Australian production—JCW designs

Zuleika’s Room—Harker set for 1913 London production

From Play Pictorial, Vol. XXII, 1913

Joseph and His Brethren, an oratorio by George Frideric Handel, was first performed in 1744 at Covent Garden. Almost 170 years later Louis Napoleon Parker was responsible for its presentation, now a Pageant Play of a very biblical nature, incorporating family jealousies, lies and deception, and the ever-constant feuding between Israelites and Egyptians. This was first performed in 1913 at His Majesty’s Theatre in London. On the 14th of February, 1914, Melbourne’s Theatre Royal was treated to its Australian premiere—six weeks later Sydney was home to the production.

The play was produced by Cecil King, Stage Manager for Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s His Majesty’s Theatre in London, and presented by J.C. Williamson. The play consisted of four acts and incorporated thirteen scenes.

Program for the Melbourne production of Joseph and His Brethren, 1914

Elisabeth Kumm collection

Synopsis of scenes from the Melbourne program

Elisabeth Kumm collection

According to The Australian Live Performance Database, Joseph Harker is listed as being the designer for several productions in Sydney and Melbourne, and in New Zealand, but that does not necessarily mean he had joined the team of scenic artists here in His Majesty’s paint-room except that—from April 1912 to June 1913 one of his sons, the actor Gordon, toured Melbourne and Sydney, appearing in several productions, all with scenery attributed to his father Joseph. But it is highly unlikely that he accompanied his son, with so many scenic commitments back in London, including Joseph and His Brethren, The Merchant of Veniceand Twelfth Night.  He could hardly have made a ‘flying visit’. According to Matthew Someville’s  ‘Theatricalia’ Harker was involved, in the period 1911 to 1914, in the production of eight major plays and operas, and on referring to the 1984 March edition of Theatrephile, a further eight plays and pantomimes: here, obviously, was a man in very high demand.

Wikipedia tells us: ‘In 1905, Harker had a two-storey, open plan studio constructed to his specifications on Queen’s Row, a narrow street off Walworth Road in London. The painting studio continued to produce scenic designs for the West End and other UK theatres until the 1990s. It was used to create David Hockney’s celebrated backdrops for the Glyndebourne Opera Festival.’

And goes on: ‘Despite the building being Grade ll listed in 1989, as an important and rare example of a theatrical scene-painting workshop, the Southwark Council in early 2017 granted permission for the studios to be redeveloped into six luxury flats and an office unit … In response a petition which gained more than 4000 signatures was organized in 2017 requesting that the council change its decision.’    

Sadly, this petition was unsuccessful and the studios were carved up and redeveloped as threatened. See Spitalfieldslife.com for some wonderful shots of the former studios.

Harker Studios in 2015

 

Interior of Harker Studios, 2015

 

III. Design queries and clues

Returning home, if we refer to the images we can access in the digitized JCW Scene Books, many give clues to the identity of the Kenyon folio’s designs. It is not always that we see a full stage set—we see a backdrop, borders, wings, a cut-cloth, a flat. Which is why it is important—or lucky—that in Book No. 5 we can often see a whole plan for a stage set, if not an actual elevation. If only there were more of these plans and elevations—although we can see, for example, plans for Silver King, The Arcadians, The Boy, Katinkaand House of Temperley—for none of which, sadly, Harker seems to have created designs.

There is also the fact that backdrops/cloths were recycled or cannibalized, or simply painted over. Cut-cloths of foliage—trees, flowering plants—were also used time and time again. 

In Book No. 3 and Book No. 6 there’s a surprising amount of backgrounds for Joseph and His Brethren—palms, pyramids and pillars, sphinxes, formal gardens and rocky outcrops—and many cut-cloths, foliage necessary for the romantic garden scene between Joseph, an Israelite, and Asenath, a young Egyptian girl. Sometimes the scenic artist’s name is typed or written alongside the image—the name Coleman appears frequently. For the back-cloths 36 feet by 23 feet is the measurement most often cited, around 11 metres by 7 metres high. There is a panoramic scene that worked out at 14 metres across, another at 20, but the height was always set at 7 metres.

Setting for Potiphar’s House—JCW designs

Then there is the question of colour—was the deep red (shown here) for Potiphar’s House used in the London production—was it used in the Australian one? Was it Harker or the Colemans who were responsible for these models—are they a true representation of what was seen on stage, back in 1913 and/or 1914?

We are so used to thinking of 19th century sets as monochromatic—the 1000s of examples within the JCW Scene Books—when of course they were ‘in colour’, as is very evident when viewing the many pieces of artwork within the Kenyon folio. Could we discover the JCW sets’ colours by applying that special technique, whereby one can convert black and white to colour? Something film restorers have been doing for decades. 

Potiphar’s House—Harker set for London production in 1913

From The Play Pictorial, Vol. XXII, 1913

Set shot from JCW Scene Books—the question is: Joseph Harker or George Upward?

Theatre Heritage Australia

In Book No. 10 we have photographic records of some actual English productions. Here we can see the originals—the inspirations or guides for the later Australian plays or operas. They include The Second Mrs. Tanqueray(Harker design), As You Like It, Guy Domville, Importance of Being Ernestand Lady Windermere’s Fan—among others.

There is something that I very much doubt happens these days: within one production of, for example, 3 acts with 2 or 3 scenes in each, there would be—as we have seen—several different artists, depending on their painterly or design expertise, or on their speciality. One artist may specialize in landscapes, another in architecture, interiors, ornamentation, etc. Figures may also come into it—see A Royal Divorce (Books 1,4,5,6 and 8). Apparently Joseph Harker was passionate about birch trees and often introduced them into his pastoral settings—Joseph and His Brethren definitely being the exception!

To learn more about Harker and his work, his studio and his family, I cannot recommend highly enough Raymond Walker and David Skelly’s formidable 2018 publication, Backdrop to a Legend—a limited edition with ongoing supplementary chapters. I am indebted to them both.

Set for The Second Mrs. Tanqueray from JCW Scene Book No. 10

Theatre Heritage Australia

Joseph Harker—fronticepiece of his 1924 reminiscences Studio and Stage

www.hathitrust.org

Epilogue

But to close, in 1927 on the 27th of March, Joseph Cunningham Harker died, at the age of 71. His scenic design business carried on—first by his eldest son Philip (whose two sons were to die tragically during the Second World War), followed by fourth son Joseph and fifth, Roland. I found listings, from 1930 to 1962, for a dozen productions attributed to a Joseph Harker—possibly the work of Joseph junior and of Roland? Two of the Harker daughters, their sisters, took to the stage—and so the tradition continued.

And continues to this day.

Sources and inspiration

Australian Live Performance Database—AusStage

Backdrop to a Legend—Walker & Skelly—2018

Miles and Lisa Kenyon

Elisabeth Kumm—Theatre Heritage Australia

Scenic Studios—Melbourne

Shadowplay—Joseph O’Connor—Harville Secker, 2019/Vintage, 2020

Spitalfieldslife.com

Theatrephile—Vol.1, No.2, March 1984—Sean McCarthy

Theatricalia—Matthew Someville

Wikipedia

Explore the JCW Scene Books

  The St. James's Theatre, King Street, London

 Sir George Alexander (1858—1918)

An extract from The Illustrated and Dramatic News - Saturday 7th February 1891

The new management of the St. James’s Theatre.

Mr. Alexander is fortunate to have so charming and thoroughly wholesome a production as Sunlight and Shadow, with its attractions unexhausted and ready for transfer intact to a new theatre. The labour and anxiety incident to such a move as that just accomplished by the young manager are quite enough without the added responsibilities of a new play; so, it was much better to defer the rehearsing ‘The Idler’ until after the rest of the work has been carried out. What this work was may be judged from the fact that the St. James’s has been fitted with a new stage by Mr. White, has been lighted throughout with electricity, has been warmed with stoves placed in all parts of the house, and what is by no means less important, has been refurnished and made draught proof by Messrs. Oetzmann. The theatre is thus made as comfortable as it is handsome, and it is altogether a far more pleasant place of entertainment than it has ever been since John Braham, the great tenor, who built it some 55 years ago.

Auditorium and Proscenium of the St. James's Theatre (1902)

From ‘The Idol of the Ladies’ by W. Macqueen Pope.

The St. James’s Theatre was the ideal setting for Sir George Alexander; it had an atmosphere to house his brilliant and successful management. As he transferred from the Avenue Theatre, his first step was to make the theatre more comfortable, so he installed electric light, which was a great innovation. The seating was re-upholstered, and the walls were repainted in warmer and softer tones. The backstage area was fully carpeted to reduce noise during scene changes and dressing rooms were renovated.

From the very start Mr. Alexander impressed his views, his methods and his personality on his theatre and it became like himself.

The new box office manager became a character too and always wore a top hat while on duty. His assistant was called in true theatrical fashion, De Courcy. Even the tickets were different. They were not of paper but of pasteboard and had something of the appearance of a railway ticket.

The housekeeper, who kept the place like a new pin, knew every patron and their tastes, especially Royalty, for whose visits she kept a special tea service with a solid silver tea and coffee pot. On one occasion, being told that her Royal Highness the Princess Royal (the Duchess of Fife) was coming to a matinee, and that a nice tea should be served, she replied, ‘Rightly speaking, sir, Her Royal Highness does not partake of tea - she prefers coffee.’ That, again, was true St. James’s. In her black dress and gold chains, she pervaded the theatre, and nothing escaped her eagle eye.

The staff that Alexander surrounded himself with stayed with him loyally for his entire 28 years there until his death. Gilbert Miller, the successful American theatre producer, began his career on the staff of the St. James’s Theatre and then took over its management when Alexander died in 1918 casting the future film star Claude Rains in his first production who himself had begun life as a call boy with Herbert Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket Theatre.

Everything about his time was about politeness and his method of treating his guests the audience is shown in this extract from one of his programmes:

‘Mr. George Alexander would respectfully request those ladies who frequent the St. James’s Theatre intent on viewing the performance to recollect the similar purpose in those who sit behind them. If therefore every large hat was left in the cloakroom (for which there is no charge) the lady so doing would confer a great benefit on her immediate neighbours.’

It is feared that the appeal fell on stony ground. Some ladies, after someone from the pit had yelled out ‘Take that hat off’ were reduced to pinning the hat to the back of the seat in front of them with their hatpins which could be dangerous affairs with silver or gold hilts like daggers. Frequent were the loud squeaks of pain when one of those pins penetrated the back of the occupant in front and profuse the apologies that followed.

Politeness even extended to the refusal of applications for free seats. The manager would not say to Arnold, when handing him a stamped and addressed envelope, 'regret this one' - the usual managerial formula for turning down an application and posting a printed form whereby 'Sir George Alexander regrets that due to public demand, he is unable to comply with your request at the moment.' No, he would say, ‘Send him Box C’. This was polite fiction, because there was no Box C in the theatre.

Arnold understood what to do, But if, because it was near the end of a run, there happened to be room for a bona fide member of the profession, and the request was granted, then you were sent, not the usual ticket stamped ‘Complimentary’ but a special ticket, a paper one, larger in size than the one sold for cash, showing clearly what it was, placing the recipient apart from the cash customers, and carrying instructions to the effect that you must wear evening dress, or you would not be admitted. It stated in large type, impossible to overlook, 'Evening Dress Compulsory’. Alexander was not going to have the tone of his stalls or dress circle let down by a non-paying guest. Nor did he desire to let his paying guests know that some were in ‘on the nod’. But it mattered little, for in Edwardian days nobody would have dreamed of entering the stalls or circle unsuitably attired.

It was probably a desire to inculcate his own good manners into the late arriving stallites, whose noisy entrances so often disturbed the house, which caused Alexander to ‘ring up the curtain’ on The Second Mrs Tanqueray at the odd hour of 8.10pm. If so, it was unsuccessful, for nothing will make some playgoers punctual!

Despite all this politeness and social conformity, Alexander’s management was a highly commercial one. He had many plays written for him and gave many chances to young actors and actresses. He taught them their jobs in the same way that Dame Ellen Terry had coached him on stagecraft throughout his time at the Lyceum under Sir Henry Irving. Much of her guidance had been onstage during performances where she shocked him with improvisations to keep him on his toes and to be sure he was listening intently through every minute. She would drop a handkerchief to see if he could pick it up in character and not miss a beat or change a move to surprise him. A hard set of tasks for a young actor but ones she said he coped with brilliantly.

He was an expert in casting, discovering and risking everything on the then unknown Mrs Patrick Campbell and later the talented Henry Ainley, who was the incarnation of manly beauty.

During his 28 years in management, cut short by his early death from consumption brought on by overwork during the First World War, he presented 82 plays, 7 of which were by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero and two by Oscar Wilde. By then the Victorian and Edwardian age of the actor-manager was coming to an end as the world picked itself up from the horrors of war and a changing population waking up to a new era heralding the 1920’s. 

Generic programme cover for the theatre

Business Manager Robert V. Shone (1895)

Hesketh Pearson writes:

The most continuously successful actor-manager on the stage of my time throughout his tenancy of twenty-seven years at the St. James’s Theatre, the most fashionable playhouse in London. The more expensive seats were occupied by Society with a capital ‘S’, the less expensive seats by those who longed to be in Society, the least expensive ones by those who wished to see what Society looked like. In such circumstances it is not to be expected that the drama served up at the St. James’s Theatre was of the most exalted kind.

Most of the plays dealt with life as lived by the upper classes, and peers of the realm were as common onstage as they were in the stalls. Alexander catered for their dramatic taste as much as the Savoy Hotel catered for their gastronomic taste.

In a typical St. James’s play the humorous characters were delightfully playful, the serious characters charmingly sentimental, and the plot savoured of scandal without being too truthful. Adultery was touched on and inevitably touched up; theft was made thrilling and murder romance.

George Alexander himself was ideally suited to the parts that he played and the drama he produced: he was a polished but uninspired actor; he had a perfect sense of what his audiences wanted because it was exactly what he wanted; he was handsome is a rather expressionless way; his voice was genteel and admirably modulated and his movements were as graceful as they were decorous. He was so well dressed that men would often study his clothes before ordering their own. He had an enormous and loyal following and was the perfect matinee idol of his day. If he was not in one of his productions, the box office takings would drop considerably.

Judy Leech collection

A.E.W. Mason continues:

Mr. George Alexander, who, having tried his hand successfully as a manager at the Avenue Theatre until his box office manager fled to Mexico with £700 of box office takings, now took on the challenge on a larger scale and against far heavier odds at the St. James's Theatre, King Street, St. James’s- a very fashionable side of town but on the outskirts of the main theatre district. He took with him several of his previous casts including Miss Marion Terry, Miss Maud Millett, Mr. Nutcombe Gould and Mr. Ben Webster who then formed the nucleus of a new company—afterwards swelled, as occasion might demand, by the addition of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Misses Fay Davis, Winifred Emery, Lily Hanbury, Ellis Jeffreys, Gertrude Kingston, Rose Leclercq, Evelyn Millard, Julia Neilson, Juliette Nesville, Amy Roselle, Irene and Violet Vanbrugh ; Messrs. Allan Aynesworth, Arthur Bourchier, H. V. Esmond, James Fernandez, H. B. Irving, Cyril Maude, John Mason, Edward Righton, E. M. Robson, Vane Tempest, Fred Terry and Herbert Waring—which could, in modern comedy, drama or tragedy, hold its own against any in the world. The theatre, too, was thoroughly overhauled. Ironically, aged 16 in 1874, he had performed there in a charity performance for the Royal Hospital for Consumption, an illness he was to die from too early in 1918 from overwork.

However, with great energy for this new adventure he installed electric light, decorated the auditorium with warm tints, and re-upholstered the seating.

It was indeed to a new theatre, rising Phoenix-like out of the ashes of the old, that Mr. Alexander bid his patrons welcome on January 31st, I891, when the following programme was presented:

Elisabeth Kumm collection

DRAMA

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.

MR. ALEXANDER is fortunate to have so charming and thoroughly wholesome a production as Sunlight and Shadow, with its attractions unexhausted and ready for transfer intact to his new theatre... 

Apart from the convenience of the arrangement, the transfer of Mr. Carton's play is quite justified by the degree of favour with which the public continues to regard the piece; for even though its hundredth representation has been reached, there must still be many playgoers anxious to make the acquaintance of so typical and pretty a specimen of the idyllic home-grown English comedy, which smells as it were of lavender, and has all the varying charms of the summer day spent in a country village. One must grant a playwright his choice of plot and subject, or else one would be inclined to quarrel with Mr Carton for the touch of melodrama imported in the introduction of Mark Denzil's outcast wife, and her attempted but abortive theft of the bank notes. One cannot help fancying that it would have been quite safe to leave the existence of the unhappy Janet Felton to the imagination, and would have avoided the one jarring note in the harmony. But this is the only blot, and after all it is a slight one. The general impression produced, whether by the "sunlight" of Maud Latimer's girlish gaiety or by the "shadow" of Helen Latimer's passing sorrow and George Addis's sore trial—this is wholly satisfactory. Not since the time of Two Roses have we listened to brighter and more natural dialogue as spoken between sisters and lovers, and fathers and friends and in his graver moments—as in the really fine scene between Helen and her crippled worshipper—Mr. Carton attains a depth and sincerity of pathos such as were beyond Mr. Albery altogether. Much no doubt this episode owes to its exceptionally beautiful interpretation by Mr. Alexander and especially by Miss Marion Terry. We remember few things upon the stage more touching in absolute truth to woman's nature than Miss Terry's study of the gentle self-sacrificing Helen's distress when, broken-hearted herself, she is asked by her poor deformed friend for the kind of love which she knows she can never really give again, but which she cannot refuse lest the meaning of her refusal should be misunderstood. This is a noble piece of pathetic acting on the part alike of actor and of actress. In admirable contrast with the tender sweetness of the one sister is the sunny brightness of the other as embodied by Miss Maude Millett. The very thoughtlessness of the younger girl seems one of her charms, and the whole impersonation, with its saucy fun and its occasional indications of true albeit superficial credit, shows the popular young actress quite at her best. Mr. Nutcombe Gould perhaps is a shade too refined in speech for the country practitioner, but his Dr. Latimer is none the less a capital sketch of character, whilst the only fault of Mr. Yorke Stephens's Denzil and of Mr. Webster's Bamfield is a slight tendency to drag the action. On the whole Mr. Carton is as fortunate in his interpreters as are they in the matter supplied them for interpretation.

The novelty in the programme is the little piece which brings it to a close. This is a one-act comedy by Mr. A. C. Calmour called The Gay Lothario, and written in the somewhat archaic manner generally affected by this young playwright. The Gay Lothario seems to owe its motive to the Spanish El Desden contre el Desden, best known perhaps on our stage through the medium of the late Dr. Westland Marston's Donna Diana. In this case it is Sir Harry Lovell, an eighteenth century lady killer, who being bent upon asking the hand of the beautiful heiress, Amanda Goldacre, discovers from her maid Letty that she means to play with him disdainfully as might a cat with a mouse, encouraging him at first only to make his final rejection appear the more disastrous. Amanda's reason for this heartless project is her belief that Sir Harry is about to propose for her only in fulfilment of a wager which he has laid in his capacity of deliberate lady killer. She has no chance, however, of carrying through her scheme, inasmuch as Sir Harry's long expected profession proves to be merely one of complete indifference, expressed with as much courtesy as the case will allow. Amanda's enraged indignation grows more and more violent until she learns that her careless courtier does, at any rate, care enough for her to fight a duel about her good name—a duel which, unlike most of those fashionable in Bath in the eighteenth century, is fought, not with swords, but pistols. Sir Harry soon returns uninjured and perfectly ready for the proposed reconciliation. There is not very much in it all, and the lady is allowed too little chance of self-defence. But there is plenty of spirit in the conduct of the dialogue as well as ample chance of distinction for both the chief performers. These are Mr. George Alexander and Miss Maude Millett, who while throwing all possible animation into their simulation of scornful indifference, are both, perhaps, a little too free and easy of bearing to suggest the typical beau and belle of bygone Bath. In this respect, however, the actress is more to blame than the actor, for her tone and method are altogether modern, while his are only fitfully so. In spite of this flaw the performance is an extremely pleasant one, the players took their parts admirably, and careful sketches of the inevitable domestics are supplied by Mr. Webster and Miss Graves. The luck, therefore, of Mr. Calmour in getting his pieces well played follows him as steadily as ever.

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (London), Saturday, 7 February 1891, p.719

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

George Alexander as 'George Addis'

Harvard University, Houghton Library

Alexander as 'George Addis' & Marion Terry as 'Helen Latimer' 

National Portrait Gallery, London

Maude Millett

Elisabeth Kumm collection

The Idler (C. Haddon Chambers)

First performance was on 26 February 1891 and ran until 17 July; second season began 30 September and concluded on 4 November 1891 for a total of 173 performances– Scenery by Walter Hann, Walter Johnstone & Joseph Harker – Furniture by Frank Giles and Co. of High St., Kensington

(George Alexander’s first new production as manager of the St. James.)

(Revived in 1895 on 4 until 10 July for 6 performances and 1897 on 30 November for 1 matinee performance.) 

(playscript at https://archive.org/details/idlerplayinfoura00cham )

National Library of Australia, Canberra

The Idler was a traditional drawing room melodrama of that period including ‘asides’ to the audience plus a ‘trick’ or stage convention to bring down the curtain at the interval. The duel, the bouquet and the fan were all stock pieces of mechanism and Haddon Chambers employed them all. The public received the play enthusiastically but the critics, as one might suspect, were divided.

A London critic, Mr. William Archer scornfully declared that "From the literary point of view, the play ranks no higher than the most ephemeral 'railway reading.' It belongs to the Hugh-Conway-cum-Fergus-Hume, not to the Bret-Harte-cum-Rudyard-Kipling, order of fiction." Archer was a writer of melodrama himself but found it very hard to endure with difficulty melodrama in other writers. Other critics like those of H.D.Traill, Stephen Coleridge, Lady Martin and Edmund Yates, found in its fresh and nervous dialogue, a good deal of human nature and a very moving conclusion. The general consensus was that Alexander had played an extremely difficult part with tact and force. It ran for a total of 173 performances.

Mrs Langtry refused to appear in it and may have regretted her decision. As a result, Mr. George Alexander and Miss Marion Terry suddenly found themselves the toast of the town with a popularity which those artists have never before experienced in London and in the company of such excellence.

 Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection, University of Bristol

George Alexander as 'Mark Cross' with Lady Monckton as 'Mrs. Cross'

V&A Museum, London

Alexander as 'Mark Cross' with Herbert Waring as 'Sir John Harding, M.P.'

V&A Museum, London

The Idler

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE. IT is a curious chance that almost simultaneously with Mrs. Langtry's not too promising production of Lady Barter, there should have been scored an unmistakable success with The Idler, a play which Mrs. Langtry had accepted some time ago, and for the non-production of which she paid a substantial penalty. On the face of it, it looks as though the lady had made a mistake in asserting her feminine privilege of changing her mind, and yet she was probably quite right in hesitating over Mr. Haddon Chambers's play, clever though that play undoubtedly is. In the first place the dramatic interest of The Idler which, by the way, was to have been called The Bouquet, in reference to one of its most striking episodes rests almost entirely with its masculine characters, their motives and their actions. In the second place it owes much of what seems likely to prove a most popular triumph to the powerful and admirably balanced acting of players whom Mrs. Langtry had not called in to her assistance. With interpretation a shade less skilful than Mr. Alexander's, the title-part would not only lose sympathy, but would become actually repulsive. The graphic point of the scenes between the three men, Mark Cross, Sir John Harding, and Simeon Strong, in Acts 2 and 4, depends very largely upon the tact and quiet force of the performance in which Mr. Alexander is so admirably seconded by Mr. Waring and Mr. James Mason, the latter an American comedian with a fresh individuality of style which is extremely welcome. It would, however, be in the last degree unfair to the young playwright to suggest that The Idler has little intrinsic merit of its own. The play has, to begin with, the saving virtue and what a virtue it is in these days of dreary moralising on the stage of a strong interesting story, such as makes nine out of ten of its hearers keenly excited concerning each of its coming developments. It has dialogue which, if without any special literary quality, has at least the advantage of being terse and appropriate. It has situations which, although they are in some instances arrived at by familiar methods, are none the less striking when they are reached. In its essentials the play is a melodrama in its manner and surroundings; it is a drawing-room piece. It is none the worse, however, but rather, as it seems to us, the better for this combination of styles, and for following deliberately the track laid down by the late Sir Charles Young in that skilful drama, Jim the Penman, and by its own author in Captain Swift. The only mistake in this connection is the hint of a backwoods duel, without seconds, in a man's Piccadilly chambers, though even this incongruity is overlooked by spectators, who draw their breath quickly as they watch to see whether the wished-for explanation will come before the revolvers go off. Graver artistic defects are perhaps the obvious reminiscences of well-known plays like The School for Scandal, and the perfunctory nature of light comedy "relief," which has the air of being written in to order. Here, again, however, Mr. Chambers's good luck in the matter of interpretation befriends and saves him. Mr. Nutcombe Gould and Miss Gertrude Kingston are, it is true, hardly able to conceal the fact that they are superfluities; the part, indeed, played by the lady—that of a widow scheming for a second marriage might with advantage be excised bodily. But Miss Maude Millett catches with such delightful spirit the humour of her subordinate part that her comic scene with Mr. Mason goes with one long shout of appreciative laughter, though, as a matter of fact, it delays dangerously the very serious interest which it interrupts. The plot of The Idler hinges upon the sudden temptation to an act of almost incredible baseness undergone by a man by no means wholly base but left by the circumstances of a loafing life defenceless against the suggestions of unworthy intrigue. Ingeniously contrived accident, not unassisted by what the author calls “the long arm of coincidence," places Mark Cross in a position to offer Lady Harding her husband's immunity from a menacing peril at the price of her own honour. Now, Mark was in love with Lady Harding before her marriage, but by reason of his own secret and unhappy marriage had gone away without declaring his passion. On his return he finds her the affectionate wife of an honourable man menaced by the terrible punishment of a youthful folly; a drunken frolic out in the Golden Valley, where Sir John shot a mining comrade, whose brother, Simeon Strong, now vows vengeance for a murder which was really only manslaughter. Over Strong Mark Cross has sufficient hold to induce him to stay his avenging hand, and one of the most interesting passages in the play is that in which this hold is exerted. Other powerful episodes are those of the signal given by Lady Harding in the dropping of her bouquet—that she consents to her former lover's terrible terms for saving her husband, and of the evening visit which accordingly she pays to his rooms. The finest sympathetic touches of the drama are those whereby Lady Harding's tender womanly appeal to Mark's better nature induces him to forego his evil purpose, and to let her depart in peace. Here Miss Marion Terry's pure and gentle pathos, tearful, yet not unduly lachrymose, produces a convincing effect, while Mr. Alexander on his side has let us see that Mark, ignoble though he is in reckless passion, might yet be quite conceivably moved by pleading such as Lady Harding's. At this juncture, a new but more conventional turn is given to the romance by making Sir John discover his wife's compromising visit, give way to unreasoning yet not unreasonable jealousy, and propose a duel in outrage with his wife's supposed betrayer. Happily, the dramatic interest is sustained better than the tone of the story; the interruption of the duel by Simeon Strong is contrived in a very telling manner, and the lonely remorse in which the sympathetic villain is left to expiate his base design ends the play with as picturesque effect as need be wished. Altogether, The Idler, if not a perfect, is, at any rate, a very clever piece of work, and its probable success will be thoroughly well deserved. Mr. Alexander has, we think, never acted before with such sustained force and such tactful ease as in the very difficult and risky part of Mark Cross, whilst his winning grace of manner has seldom been of more value. Mr. Mason is a comedian from whose combined sense of fun and of almost tragic earnestness great things may fairly be looked for, and Mr. Waring as Sir John grapples firmly with a not very thankful task. To Miss Terry's charming performance reference has already been made, as also to Miss Millett's bright rendering of a damsel whose pretty impertinences are, so far as the author is concerned, decidedly overdrawn. Lady Monckton gives her wonted distinction and significance to the small part of Mark's mother, and Mr. Nutcombe Gould helps to complete a cast of singularly level excellence. The mounting of the piece is perfect in taste and suitability, being handsome without extravagance, and perfectly natural in its detailed illustration of the dress and furniture and appointments belonging to the fashionable life of to-day.

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (London), Saturday, 7 March 1891, p.879

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Marion Terry as 'Lady Harding' & George Alexander as 'Mark Cross'

Elisabeth Kumm collection

Marion Terry as 'Lady Harding' & John Mason as 'Simeon Strong'

National Portrait Galley, London

Gertrude Kingston as 'Mrs. Glynn-Stanmore'

V&A Museum, London

 OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC

"THE IDLER."

The central idea of The Idler is certainly not a new one. It has been utilised by all the great dramatists in turn—Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Sardou, and—if I remember rightly—Simms and Petit! Measure for Measure, Marion Delorme, La Tosca—to go no further—are variations of the same resource as that upon which Mr. Chambers' play is founded. Indeed, from first to last, the stage owes a great deal to this device of bargaining for the sacrifice of a woman's honour in exchange for a man's life. Nor has the theme been neglected by the writers of unacted fiction. From the old Italian novelists down, almost every tale-teller has given us at least one version; while the historians, too, have found the notion useful, and branded us an Angelo or a Scarpia some politician whom they wished to make wicked indeed. However, notwithstanding the familiarity of the subject of The Idler, the piece has good qualities. The construction, for instance, is, in the main, admirable, and the plot is—as regards the principals, at all events—simple and interesting. It is not so exciting as it might have been had some of those leading personages been a little more thorough. At the critical points—at the climax of incident—the villain abjures his villainy and the avenger foregoes his vengeance all too readily. The author brings about situations which would have had veritable intensity. But exactly where the emotion should have been strongest the edge is taken off. There is not sufficient force—to be on terms with the rest of the piece—in the conditions under which Mark Cross abandons his claim upon Lady Harding and Simeon Strong relinquishes his cherished hope of bringing her husband to the gallows. The result is that the audience, wound up by what has gone before almost to melodramatic pitch, finds itself of a sudden letdown in a lump amidst the simpler methods of comedy. Comedy is an excellent thing in its way, but it comes in at the wrong time when it takes the vigour out of melodrama in this wise. The effect here is that with a decidedly sensational plot there is from first to last no really sensational episode. Nevertheless, the story and the acting, which if not always quite on the lines of the story, take hold of the audience, and full houses testify to the fact that The Idler is at least an entertaining play. The dialogue is not ambitious, but if it gives us little in the sense of epigram, it also avoids extravagance; it is perhaps even too subdued in style, where the passion comes in. The plot is soon told. In the old days Mark Cross, although a married man, has adored Miss Merryweather, and her manner has encouraged him to believe that his regard was reciprocated. He returns from America, Mrs. Cross having died meanwhile, to learn that the heroine whom he hoped to find still free is now the devoted wife of his former comrade, Sir John Harding. It was in the mining regions of the Far West that Cross and Harding were associated, and there in a drunken row the baronet (Gentleman Jack they called him) has shot a man. Cross having, now that it is too late, declared his love to Lady Harding, and she having told him that her former feeling for him was one of liking merely, is filled with a great hatred of her more fortunate husband. Simeon Strong, of the United States, a brother of the miner who was shot, has sworn to bring to justice the man who caused his death. In vain the baronet protests that the shooting was unintentional. Cross first, and afterwards Strong with Cross's corroboration, accuse him of homicide with intent. Sir John, who is now an M.P. with the prospect of an Under-Secretaryship, is threatened with arrest. But he will not disappear, as Cross would wish him to. He will stand his trial, if his accusers do not believe his word.

The danger of her husband's position is communicated to Lady Harding by Cross, and her terror made the most of. Then he proposes the bargain. If she will give herself for Sir John—if she will come to the villain's rooms and stay there—the prosecution shall not go on. The signal that she accepts his offer is to be the dropping of her bouquet at the close of a reception that evening—a device by no means novel. After a struggle Lady Harding at length drops the bouquet, but with the mental reservation that having first saved her husband, she will then save herself. Amongst other things in his eventful past, Mark Cross has rescued Simeon Strong from death. In a scene which is ingenious, but too ingenious to be harmonious in this particular play, the villain utilises this fact to make Strong write a letter renouncing the vengeance of his life. When Lady Harding arrives, Cross has performed his part of the compact, and it is for her to fulfil hers. At first it appears almost as though the villain were sufficiently in earnest to listen to nothing, but the persuasion of the intended victim produces rapidly the desired repentance, and, as it seems to me, in a manner far too unemphatic for so emphatic a situation, the episode is closed. The discovery of Lady Harding in Cross’s rooms by her husband, for whom she has risked so much, and who, refusing to listen to any explanation, repudiates her there and then, brings down the curtain effectively on the third act. It must be remembered in excuse for Sir John that he does not give the same importance that Cross and Lady Harding do to the charge of murder which Strong holds over his head. Perhaps if he did the piece would be all the better; for the audience in such a matter is not likely to feel more anxiety than the person chiefly interested. In the fourth act Sir John enters in a fury with a couple of revolvers, and he and Cross are about to fight a duel muzzle to muzzle when Strong intervenes. The duel goes for little, and the rest is reconciliation. By way of comic relief—all the foregoing is serious—there are in and out of the play an elderly General Merryweather, and his daughter Kate. The General has twice married already, and wishes to marry again. There are passages of no great originality bearing out this idea, between the General and the two widows, the mother of Mark Cross and a Mrs. Glynn-Stanmore—a marrying woman. The General's gushing daughter, Kate, is a marrying girl, and she sets her cap at Simeon Strong, the American millionaire, whose words are few, and whose manner is deliberate. Mr. Mason (his first appearance in London) is excellent in this part; I must wait to know how he would be in another. Miss Maud Millett overacts the character of Kate until some of her tricks become tiresome. Mr. Nutcombe Gould can hardly be blamed for the weakness of the General's part, which is, indeed, rather silly. Miss Gertrude Kingston does well with the slight opportunities afforded by the widow, Stanmore.

Lady Monckton, as Cross's mother, has a stronger character, and gives an excellent performance. In her principal scene—that in which she visits her son in his rooms and tries to elicit the secret of his altered nature—for it seems, although the play does not show it, that he must have been nice at one time—she is a very natural mother. Mr. Herbert Waring as Sir John Harding is consistent. Miss Marion Terry is charming, and—to the height of the situations—forceful and pathetic as Lady Harding. Mr. George Alexander gives, as usual, a finished performance as Mark Cross. But I fear that he wants to be at the same time both a villain and an object of sympathy, and, as it is difficult to serve two masters, I could wish that he might give the villain a little more swing. The scenery and mounting are liberal. The grand old furniture of “the idler's" rooms is, indeed, more than liberal. For a man of no occupation and no prospects he is prodigiously well located. Messrs. Oetzmann could not afford to set up every dramatic villain in so handsome a way.

[Caricatures by Alfred Bryan]

The Illustrated Sporting And Dramatic News, (London), 11 March 1891, p.28

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.

Fresh from the triumphs of the first tour which he has undertaken as manager Mr. George Alexander returned to the St. James's on Wednesday evening to begin his second season. He brought with him no actual novelty, although Mr. Frith's Molière, which appeared in the programme, had been given only on one previous occasion in town. The pièce de resistance  was, of course, The Idler, which, as one of the most interesting drawing-room dramas known to the contemporary stage, may well prove equal to a still further extended run. It is unnecessary again to point out the many marked merits, and the few defects of Mr. Haddon Chambers's capital play. As on the first night, the audience on Wednesday was interested from the moment the story was fairly started, and was kept on the tiptoe of excitement until the very fall of the curtain. Nor is it necessary to repeat our recognition of the extent to which Mr. Alexander's personal share in the performance—his admirable study of a new, thoroughly unstagey type of villain—contributes to the freshness, the force, and the finish of the production. Suffice it to say that Mark Cross remains as plausible and as suggestive a creation as ever, and strikes the keynote of absolute naturalness for the whole piece. Miss Marion Terry, in her delightfully womanly embodiment of Lady Harding, Lady Monckton, with her tactful firmness as Mark's mother, as well as Mr. Waring, Mr. Nutcombe Gould, and Miss Gertrude Kingston, all reappear, whilst Mr. Lackaye again does his best to replace Mr. Mason as the American avenger. The one new impersonation is that of Kate Merryweather, by Miss Lily Hanbury, a promising young actress who has, no doubt, an exceptionally difficult task in following so happily placed a predecessor as Miss Maud Millett. Miss Hanbury's touch is a little heavy for light comedy, and though she gives full significance to her lines, her pertness is rather lacking in that charm of girlishness for which so much is forgiven.

The performance of Molière, which brings the evening to a most successful close, has gained greatly in ease and point since it was last under notice. The play is taken more briskly than before; the death-scene is abbreviated, and Mr. Alexander has gained the weight which formerly seemed wanting in his clever impersonation.

The Illustrated Sporting And Dramatic News, (London), 3 October 1891, p.26

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Scenes

Act I - At Sir John Harding's Kensington Palace Gardens (scenery by Walter Hann) - JCW Scene Book 2 - Theatre Heritage Australia

 Act II - At Mrs. Cross' (scenery by Walter Johnstone) - JCW Scene Book 2 - Theatre Heritage Australia

Acts III & IV - Mark Cross' Rooms in Piccadilly (scenery by Joseph Harker) - JCW Scene Book 2 - Theatre Heritage Australia

SCENE FROM "THE IDLER" AT THE ST. JAMES'S THEATRE - The Illustrated London News, 7 March 1891, p.316

Sources:

W. Macqueen-Pope, Carriages at Eleven: The Story of the Edwardian Theatre [Robert Hale & Company, London: 1947 - reprinted: 1972]

 A.E.W. Mason, Sir George Alexander and the St. James' Theatre [Macmillan & Co., London: 1935] 

Hesketh Pearson, The Actor Managers [Methuen & Co., London: 1950]

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage 1890-1899 : a calendar of productions, performers, and personnel, 2nd Edition [Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield: 2013] 

Acknowledgements:

With grateful thanks to the curator and staff of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection for their assistance in providing the St. James's theatre programmes. 

With thanks also to Rob Morrison for his assistance in the preparation of this article.