Quality Street: West End

Ellaline Terriss as Phoebe, with A. Vane Tempest (Ensign Blades) and Stanley Brett (Lieut. Spicer). From Play Pictorial, No.4. 1902.

Quality Street. Comedy in four acts by J.M. Barrie. Presented by Messrs. A. & S. Gatti & Charles Frohman. Scenery by W. Harford [based on designs by Edwin Lutyens]. Costumes and uniforms designed by Percy Anderson. Stage manager George Fielder. Musical director Gustave Chaudoir.

There had been some speculation in early 1902 that Maude Adams would play Phoebe in the London production of Quality Street. But this was never going to be the case. It was just scuttlebutt put about by Charles Frohman, who was well aware that his star was resting and might be away from the stage for a long time.

Seymour Hicks & Charles Frohman

Seymour Hicks had first met Charles Frohman in New York in 1895, when Hick and Ellaline Terriss were both performing on Broadway—Hicks in The Shop Girl and Terriss in His Excellency. Though neither piece took Broadway by storm, Hicks persuaded Frohman to back a London production of the American farce A Night Out (an adaptation of Georges Feydeau and Maurice Desvallieres’ L’hôtel du libre-échange). This was duly staged at the Vaudeville Theatre, where it ran for 525 nights. This play was Frohman’s introduction to the West End, and thereafter he divided his operations between the theatrical centres of London and New York. His relationship with Hicks proved very fruitful. While Terriss was still playing for George Edwardes at the Gaiety Theatre in A Runaway Girl, Hicks had appeared for Frohman at the Duke of York’s Theatre in The Dove-Cot in 1898. In 1899, Hick and Terriss joined Frohman at the Criterion for My Daughter-in-Law, and the following year, they played the same roles on Broadway.

In 1900, Hicks and Frohman (in association with A. and S. Gatti) joined forces to run the Vaudeville Theatre, producing a string of successful plays and musicals: Self and Lady (1900), Alice in Wonderland (1900), Sweet and Twenty (1901), Bluebell in Fairyland (1901), Quality Street (1902), The Cherry Girl (1903), and The Catch of the Season (1904). They were subsequently associated with numerous musical productions at the Aldwych and Hicks Theatres: Bluebell (a revived version of the 1901 musical) (1905), The Beauty of Bath (1906), My Darling (1907), The Gay Gordons (1907) and The Dashing Little Duke (1909).

Of the above productions, the most successful was The Catch of the Season with 621 performances, followed by Quality Street with 457.

Seymour Hicks and Ellaline Terriss take up the story.

When “Bluebell’s” splendid run came to an end, in which my wife had set London singing “The Honeysuckle and the Bee,” the theatre was re-decorated, and we produced “Quality Street.” Mr. Barrie, having been delighted with my wife in the previous fairy play, gave her, in Phoebe Throssell, one of the most beautiful parts imaginable. Miss Marion Terry played her sister, Susan Throssell, divinely, and the two of them seated side by side in their out-of-the-world home, working their samplers and sitting in their lavender-scented garden, to which came the faint echoes of the Napoleonic Wars, were a delight to watch. ...

“Quality Street” was one of the most delightful plays imaginable. I had a very difficult part in it, Valentine Brown, the one-armed doctor. The loss of this member, I believe, handicaps even a billiard player, let alone a light comedian. This Barrie success ran some eighteen months, and at its conclusion I produced a play by myself and Ivan Caryll, called “The Cherry Girl” (December, 1903) which, although not so successful as “Bluebell,” on whose lines it was moulded, did extremely well.

Seymour Hicks, Twenty-Four Years of an Actor’s Life By Himself, pp.254–257

Hicks continued:

I possess some thirty letters from Barrie, most of them written to my wife, for whom he had a great affection, and some to myself, though I grieve to say that some of those addressed to me contain bitter complaint that I had introduced a line into the last act of “Quality Street” which, although it was the means of obtaining a big laugh, offended him. I always felt he never quite forgave me for having taken this liberty. My excuse is, shall I say, that I was younger then?

Seymour Hicks, Me and My Missus—Fifty Years on the Stage, p.75

Ellaline Terriss added:

Following Bluebell in Fairyland came Quality Street. Never shall I forget my delight at being chosen by Sir James Barrie to play Phoebe Throssell in his beautiful piece.

How inspiring to act opposite Marion Terry, to be waited on by that bundle of merriment Rosina Fillipi, and to discuss recruiting for the Napoleonic Wars with such a sergeant as George Shelton, afterwards the lovable pirate of Peter Pan. That unique personality Herbert Vane Tempest was an ensign of the Waterloo period, and among the ladies were that fine actress Henrietta Watson, pretty Constance Hyem and Irene Rooke. Of the little boys who were my pupils in the play, it was strange to meet in Canada lately, the lad on whose tummy I used to write a big “S” and say “Chest, Georgie, chest,” to the delight of a Barrie audience. To-day he is a married man with his own little Georgies about him.

Quality Street was by far the sweetest play I ever acted in, filled as it was from beginning to end with the quaint and beautiful thoughts of its great author.

Ellaline Terriss, By Herself and With Others, pp.136–138

From The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 25 October 1902

From The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 25 October 1902

Ellaline Terriss had more to say:

After Bluebell came something which was to be another landmark in our career. That was Quality Street. It was produced at the Vaudeville on 17th September, 1902, and it ran for 459 performances, a very long run in those days when, it must be remembered, the number of playgoers was much less than it is now and the means of transport very different too.

This play brought us into touch with J.M. Barrie, who was not Sir James then. Seymour knew him of course; he had played in Walker, London. I was overjoyed when I heard that Barrie and Frohman had chosen me to play Phoebe Throssell (Phoebe of the Ringlets).

Frohman had already produced the play in New York and there Phoebe had been played by the great Maude Adams! To be chosen to create in London what this great actress had created in New York was an honour indeed. She had also created Lady Babbie (in The Little Minister) in America before Winifred Emery played this part with such success at the Haymarket. Seymour and I always wanted to do The Little Minister ourselves but we never got the chance. When the rehearsals for Quality Street started, I was delighted. Barrie attended all of them. He never said much. He just used to sit there and smoke his pipe, hardly speaking a word. He watched everything very closely but he never interfered. Both he and Frohman wanted everything of the very best and saw that they got it. Edwin Lutyens—not yet Sir Edwin—designed the whole of the settings. He had everything quite correct, down to the smallest detail, as witness the bows on the chair-legs, the velvet glove hanging by the fire with which the Georgian tongs and poker were handled.

The whole thing was quite perfect. It was a play of sweetness, which did not cloy because it was so right in sentiment and period. It was a thing which made every moment of being in the theatre a joy. The clothes were so delightful—I have often wondered why women’s fashion did not swing right back to the Waterloo period as a result, for all women were enthusiastic about the dresses. So were the men. And how right they were!

From The Sketch, 22 October 1902

From The Sketch, 22 October 1902

Ellaline Terriss continued:

I loved my costumes—that pale green frock and hat, with the snowy Thibet fur boa and muff of enormous proportions. It was quite plain but it had a neckerchief of white cambric edged with fine lace pinned down to a point on both front and back of the bodice, held with a topaz brooch. The hat was wide-brimmed, quaintly tied down, and made of pale green satin. My scarf was of white crêpe de Chine, with green borders and a white fringe. The ball dress was of beautiful simplicity, of soft white satin, ankle short, and flounced round the skirt edge with soft cream lace headed with loops and bows of bébé ribbon. The tiny bodice had a small berthe of lace, with puffed sleeves and a posy of white flowers in front. Even the prim grey Quakerish dress for the days of struggle and poverty had a great charm, and I adored the tight little white cap tied under the chin with narrow black velvet ribbon, which held my ringlets.

It was an inspiration, too, to act with Marion Terry, who had a very full share of the Terry talent, genius and charm—and also, I fear, the same Terry failing of forgetting her lines—but who cared? What a lovely actress she was.

Quality Street was pure Barrie and indeed the first of his many whimsical plays. Those which had gone before, Walker, London and The Professor’s Love Story, even The Little Minister, had not had quite the same elusive Barrie charm.

I loved Phoebe Throssell, and the scene where she says, as she thinks, good-bye to her dreams of love and marriage and puts away that bridal dress in the drawer, always moved me deeply. I recall, too, one slight contretemps during the run. Seymour would never allow any bouquets to be handed over the footlights—I think he was quite right—but one night the musical director handed one up to me and I had to take it. Seymour was furious, but it came from Kominski, the great furrier who had done so much for the Stage, so not much could be said.

Seymour played the dashing Valentine Brown, who goes to the Napoleonic Wars, whose financial advice brings about the ruin of the Throssell sisters and who departs for battle before marrying Phoebe, returns, minus an arm, to find them ruined—and of course marries Phoebe in the end. I thought he looked as handsome and certainly as dashing as the part required and that he gave a lovely performance. But although everyone else got excellent notices, the critics slated him. Fortunately the public disagreed with them entirely and Valentine Brown was one of Seymour’s most memorable parts. Indeed, I think that most people remember us by this play. Often when those who saw me act when I was young meet me again, they always end up by saying, “And—ah—Quality Street!” Although the year of production was 1902, Waterloo—the battle, not the station—was still a landmark. It was the last great battle of the world, until the First Great War came along, in which this country had been deeply involved. The Crimean War, grim as it was, had nothing so earth-shaking or vitally important. Waterloo stood as a symbol, when we had broken the dream of a tyrant’s world power. Perhaps it will still stand as a landmark, despite all that has gone between. It certainly ended an epoch and brought nearly a century of peace to this land. Seymour was very downcast for a while by his notices. He mentioned this to Sir Charles Wyndham, who cheered him up by saying: “Don’t worry, my boy. I got awful notices for my first performance of David Garrick. I was compared most unfavourably with Sothern. I don’t play it any better today, but now the Press are eulogistic. Don’t worry. There is only one thing to be frightened of, and that’s when you get good notices. Then—be careful!” I have mentioned the fact that during the play Seymour was supposed to lose an arm at Waterloo, playing the rest of the piece with an empty sleeve pinned across his breast. When Barrie was asked why he made his hero a one-armed man, he is reported to have said, “It was the only way I could keep Seymour Hicks quiet.” I don’t know that he altogether succeeded. Nothing could do that.

Heedless of the critics, Barrie had his own ideas of Seymour's acting. He spoke to Lord Esher about us and the gist of what he said amounted to this—he said that Seymour had not sufficient confidence in his own powers; that there was nothing at all to prevent him from taking the First Place on our Stage, except his own disinclination. He said that Seymour must take his courage in both hands and “have done with all the Musical Comedy business”. Lord Esher agreed and so did I.

It was when I was playing in Quality Street that Barrie read me Peter Pan, which he had just completed. I shall never forget it. I was to play Wendy and Seymour was to be Captain Hook. But it never came to pass, although Seymour certainly played Captain Hook many years later. There was a very good reason why I did not play Wendy in the first production—for I had to play Wendy in real life, with my own precious Betty to be a little mother to.

Ellaline Terriss, Just a Little Bit of String, pp.168–172

From The Sketch, 22 October 1902

From The Tatler, 27 January 1904

The cast for Quality Street comprised:

 N.B. Susan and Phoebe’s surname has been variously spelt in assorted references, theatre programs and newspaper and journal reviews as both “Throssel” and “Throssell”, however the former is the spelling used by Barrie in the published playscript, and so it has been adopted for the cast lists and photo captions throughout. Likewise, Barrie’s spelling of Phoebe’s alter ego “Miss Livvy” has also been adopted.

Quality Street proved a huge success at the Vaudeville, running for 457 performances. According to Andrew Birkin (J.M. Barrie & the Lost Boys), Barrie would have preferred it if Dion Boucicault had directed the play, rather that Hicks, whose adlibbing and exuberance he found irritating. However, Boucicault was fully occupied at the Duke of York’s overseeing the first production of The Admirable Crichton, which opened just six weeks after Quality Street. It is interesting that none of the contemporary reviews (or the program) reference Edwin Lutyens as the designer of the original set. However, his involvement in the production is mentioned by Ellaline Terriss in her memoirs and Barrie’s first meeting with Lutyens in 1899 is well documented. According to Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Lutyens’ 1902 designs for Quality Street “helped establish a contemporary fashion for a genteel style of architecture that was essentially early eighteenth century with Regency trimmings.” (From “Horace Field and Lloyds Bank”, p.287). Lutyens would also design the sets for Peter Pan (1904). And in 1918, he designed the interior of Barrie’s London flat at Adelphi Terrace. Frazer Lewis in his essay “J.M. Barrie, Edwin Lutyens and the development of fantasy architecture” (Chapter 11, Edwardian Culture: Beyond the Garden Party), notes that “Lutyens felt the need to make the set of Quality Street as literal as possible. He designed a Neo-Georgian room true to scale with proper mouldings and details. He even selected props and furniture himself from London shops, and even personally helped paint the backcloth.”

From Play Pictorial, No.4. 1902.

The Reviews

Miss Ellaline Terriss invests the part of Phoebe Throssell with her winning personality, and affords a delightful picture of romantic girlishness. She looks charming in her green and white gowns in the happier moments, and plays with persuasive sincerity in Phoebe’s several trying scenes. The incidental dances and brief stanzas of song are in her customary captivating style. Mr. Seymour Hicks as the handsome and genial Valentine Brown merits of epithet of “dashing”, and acts with befitting ardour in the critical interview with the imaginary “Miss Livy”. Miss Marion Terry presents an admirable portrayal of the devoted Susan, depicting with fine womanly feeling the sisterly affection and solicitude of the character. Miss Rosina Filippi submits a very amusing sketch of the familiar domestic, Patty, who thinks the return of the soldiers from Waterloo augured well for the matrimonial mart, asking her mistress “who’s to take off their wooden leg of an evening”. Mr. George Shelton gives an exceedingly clever impersonation of a Hibernian Recruiting Sergeant, and his scene in the drawing-room, whither the philandering sergeant is summoned by the dauntless Phoebe to explain his presence “below stairs” with Patty, affords considerable amusement. The parts of Ensign Blades and Lieutenant Spicer are effectively contrasted by Mr. A. Vane-Tempest and Mr. Stanley Brett. As the prudish Miss Willoughby Miss Henrietta Watson scores neatly, and the roles of Fanny Willoughby, Henrietta Turnbull, and Charlotte Parratt are well differentiated by Misses Irene Rooke, Constance Hyem,and Marion Draughn. Master George Hersee acts intelligently as Master Arthur Wellesley Tomson; Mr. Charles Daly is a bluff Waterloo veteran, and Isabella and Harriet are brightly enacted by Miss Winifred Hall and Miss May Taverner. The play was received with every demonstration of success, and there were calls for all concerned at the conclusion.

The Stage (London), 18 September 1902, p.16

Act 3 set—A Tent Pavilion, used as a card and retiring room at the Officers’ Ball

From Play Pictorial, No.4. 1902.

Marion Terry as Susan Throssel

From The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 5 September 1903

The review in The Era was no doubt one of the “uncomplimentary” ones that Seymour Hicks referred to:

The objections which will occur to most people who see Quality Street are not likely to be removed by the acting. Neither Mr Seymour Hicks nor Miss Ellaline Terriss is quite capable of dealing with leading characters in a play of this sort, which might tax the powers of Bancrofts and Kendals. Mr Hicks works hard, and both the aim and the effort are obvious; but the scent of the burlesque actor and the “touch-and-go” comedian cling to him still, and sentimental acting is certainly not his strong point. There is a jerkiness about his attempts at repose and an oddity about his earnestness which considerably reduces the effect of his performance of the part of Valentine Brown. He is simply over-weighted by it, especially in the later acts; in the first, when buoyant activity has only to be displayed, he is more satisfactory. It is somewhat the same with Miss Ellaline Terriss. She is captivating in the childish portions of her role of Phoebe Throssell, but shallow in the deeper ones. Her gaiety is natural; but her passion and pathos are artificial and unconvincing. The fact is, a training altogether different from that of the musical play and the Christmas annual is needed to prepare ambitious artists for the embodiment of characters as subtle, delicate, and deep as these in Mr Barrie’s play, which requires art of the best quality to make it plausible and continuously interesting. Unfortunately for Miss Terriss, her shortcomings were thrown into disadvantageous relief by her being associated on the stage with Miss Marion Terry, an actress of the greatest charm, and the most thorough artistic skill and experience. Miss Terry, however, had few opportunities of employing her powers, for the part of Susan Throssell is of the sketchiest sort; yet, here and there, the superiority of the finer and truer art of Miss Marion Terry peeped out, and contrasted dangerously with Miss Terriss’s active, but comparatively feeble, exertions. If the leading actress was a little inadequate, the same cannot be said of the “support” generally, in which artists of acknowledged talent were engaged to sustain parts quite beneath their abilities. Miss Rosina Filippi, who has made her name in high comedy, had a commonplace servant’s part; Miss Henrietta Watson, a comedienne of decided originality and acuteness, had only a few lines to speak as a formalist friend; Mr A. Vane Tempest, so excellent as a modern exquisite, was cast as a clumsy Ensign. That sound and clever comedian, Mr George Shelton, played a recruiting sergeant with rich humour; and Mr Charles Daly was excellent as a Waterloo veteran. Whatever the talents of Miss Irene Rooke, Miss Constance Hyem, and Miss May Taverner, there was not much opportunity of displaying them in the roles of Miss Fanny Willoughby, Miss Henrietta Turnbull, and Miss Charlotte Parratt.

The Era (London), 20 September 1902, p.15

From The Sketch, 22 October 1902

Of the acting of Ellaline Terriss and Seymour Hicks, Max Beerbohm (Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s rather cynical younger half-brother) recorded the following in Around Theatres (1924), a compilation of his reviews from The Saturday Review:

She walks and talks very prettily, and is very pretty altogether. But never for one moment does she forget herself, still less merge herself for us, in the part she is playing. And in ‘‘Quality Street,” alas! she is playing a very important part—a part on which rests quite a half of the play’s burden, a part requiring infinite skill. All she does with it, in the lighter scenes, is to coo and nestle appealingly towards the audience, as though she were speaking the tag of an old English comedy; whilst in the emotional scenes she is like nothing but a school-girl repeating a lesson at the top of her voice. ‘The voice, I repeat, is very pretty, and—but no! why qualify? Miss Terriss, flushed by the applause of her uncritical audience, and by the paeans of critics who think it safer not to discriminate between chalk and cheese, can face with equanimity my little plain truth. Of Mr. Seymour Hicks, as Valentine Brown, all that can be said is that from the moment of his first entry into the Miss Throssells’ parlour he behaves only as though he were playing football; and ail that can be hopefully suggested to him is that he might try, by degrees, to make it parlour-football. The rules of the latter game are, I believe, quite simple—simpler far, anyhow, than the rules of acting. (p.223)

A special event during the London run of the play was related by Ellaline Terriss in her 1954 autobiography:

There was something else which happened during the run of Quality Street, too, which I shall never forget. The play had a Command Performance at Windsor Castle on the occasion of the visit of the King and Queen of Portugal. It was on 21st November, 1902. We were indebted to our good friend Lord Esher for this honour. It was absolutely unlike that Command we had had at Sandringham, which had been so informal. This was a State Occasion and the first Command Performance of King Edward VII’s reign. Indeed, no play had been given in the Waterloo Chamber since the Covent Garden Opera Company had been there in 1895. It was a fitting background, as our play was of the Waterloo era. It was an occasion golden, glittering and brilliant to a degree. Everyone was extremely nervous, but that beautiful and gracious lady. Queen Alexandra, put everyone at their case. She had arranged a tea for the children in the play, and she asked me to come up with her and watch them enjoy it and have games afterwards. She was on friendly terms with them almost at once. They lost their awe of a Queen when they met so kind a lady. Her Majesty asked me all about them and was amused at my little stories concerning them. There was another surprise, too. It happened to be Her Majesty's birthday, and she actually gave me a tier of her magnificent four-tiered birthday cake, asking me to cut it up and give it to the children at the theatre next day. You should have seen their surprise and their joy when I did so. It says much for them that they did not eat it up at once—they took it home to show their parents and relations.

That night we played to one of the most distinguished audiences we ever faced—and two reigning monarchs and their consorts. I never saw so many jewels or tiaras. I think we rose to the occasion in our performance. When the curtain fell, Marion Terry, Seymour and I were summoned to meet the King and Queen in the Ballroom. They expressed themselves delighted with everything. The Queen was most interested in my clothes—we were still in our make-up and costumes, of course. The King laughed at me and said it was a pity I had to hide my pretty curls under the Quaker cap. But he gave Seymour a bit of advice. He said: “You wear whiskers in this piece. I should not advise you to wear them in private life. I don't think whiskers attract the ladies very much.” And then he chuckled heartily. He wore a beard himself, of course—and I never heard that it repelled the ladies.

A few days later we received a message from Sir Dighton Probyn in which he said that he had been commanded by the King to thank everybody who had taken part in the performance, and for Seymour came a large double silver loving cup, inscribed, “From His Majesty King Edward VII to Seymour Hicks—Actor.” I am sure the King meant the double loving cup for both of us and it was a tactful and kingly gesture.

I cannot leave Quality Street without one little backward glance. Years afterwards we staged it for a Benefit Matinee, playing our original parts. Seymour came to me in his uniform—a much more mature figure than the slender Valentine Brown of that Command Performance. But he was obviously very pleased with himself and said to me, “Well, what about Valentine?” I could not resist a little dig and replied: “Valentine Brown? My dear Seymour, you look more like John Bull.” Seymour, like Queen Victoria, was not amused. But it made me laugh, although perhaps I should not have said it.

Ellaline Terriss, Just a Little Bit of String, pp.168–172 

From Play Pictorial, No.4. 1902

Elisabeth Kumm collection

Bibliography

Max Beerbohm, Around Theatres, William Heinemann, London, 1924

Andrew Birkin, J.M. Barrie & the Lost Boys, Constable & Co., Ltd, London, 1979 

Timothy Brittain-Catlin, “Horace Field and Lloyds Bank”, in Architectural History, vol. 53, 2010

Naomi Carle, Samuel Shaw & Sarah Shaw (eds), Edwardian Culture: Beyond the Garden Party, Routledge, New York, 2018

Seymour Hicks, Twenty-Four Years of an Actor’s Life By Himself, Alston Rivers Ltd., London, 1910

Seymour Hicks, Me and My Missus—Fifty Years on the Stage, Cassell & Company, Ltd., London: 1939, p. 75

Phyllis Robbins, Maude Adams: An Intimate Portrait, Putnam, New York, 1956

Ellaline Terriss, By Herself and With Others, Cassell & Company, Ltd., London, 1928

Ellaline Terriss, Just a Little Bit of String, Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., London, 1954

H.M. Walbrook, J.M. Barrie and the Theatre, F.V. White and Co. Ltd., London, 1922

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel, 2nd edn, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, 2014