“None, it is said, of all who revelled with the Regent, was half so wicked as Lord George Hell” and so begins this Fairy Tale for Tired Men. Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm—always called simply ‘Max’—the youngest son of nine children, was born in London in 1872 to Lithuanian grain-merchant Julius Ewald Edward Beerbohm and his second wife Eliza Draper. Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the renowned stage actor and director, was one of Max’s four half-siblings, and through him, he first met Oscar Wilde, whilst still at school (in 1888, at Charterhouse, an English Independent Boarding School in Godalming, Surrey, founded in 1611). Max was 16 and already writing.
Two years later, now at Merton College, Oxford, he became acquainted with members of The Bodley Head’s literary and artistic circle, and with Aubrey Beardsley in particular. He began submitting, and successfully, articles and caricatures to London publications. He became very well known for these—caricatures of famous artists and politicians—and his drama criticism, essays and dramatic works. George Bernard Shaw dubbed him ‘the incomparable Max’ and Oscar Wilde, with whom he maintained a close relationship right up to Oscar’s sad and bitter end, said of him “He plays with words as one plays with what one loves. When you are alone with him, does he take off his face and reveal his mask?” Also—Max “….had the gift of perpetual old age.”
Caricatures by Max Beerbohm: Self portrait, Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw
But at 22 years of age, Max had left Oxford, minus a degree, but he did manage to develop the personality of dandy and humourist. And it is in the era of dandies and bucks that his first piece of fiction, The Happy Hypocrite, was set.
Originally published in Volume XI of The Yellow Book in October 1896, it appeared the following year in book form, for John Lane, The Bodley Head. His article ‘A Defence of Cosmetics’ had appeared in the very first edition of The Yellow Book, back in 1894—obviously a forerunner to the fantasy of his Fairy Tale for Tired Men.
1896: Lord George—the First
The Plot, and a very basic one at that: Set in the reign of George IV, Lord George Hell is a worldly man—he gambles, womanizes and drinks to excess. One evening in London he is enjoying, with his lover La Gambogi, a new operetta at Garble’s Open-Air Theatre, The Fair Captive of Samarcand, when beautiful, young and innocent dancer Jenny Mere draws all his attention, just as Cupid, disguised as the performer, Merry Dwarf, shoots his arrow into Lord George’s heart.
He seeks Jenny out and immediately proposes marriage—only to be told that she will only marry a man whose face is that of a saint. Confused and heart-broken, he wanders the streets, eventually stumbling upon Mr. Aeneas’s mask-maker shop, where he asks if he may acquire a mask with the visage of a saint.
“Mask of a saint, my Lord? Certainly!” said Mr. Aeneas briskly. “With or without halo?” and later “I fancy it is just what your Lordship would wish. Spiritual, but handsome.”
“Is it a mask that is even as a mirror of true love?” Lord George asks, gravely.
George Sheringham: In a box at Garble’s
George Sheringham: “His window was lined as usual with all kinds of masks”
When he leaves Mr. Aeneas, now with his new false face, La Gambogi spies him and attempts to confront him. He pretends that she is unknown to him and sets off back to Garble’s, to see Jenny perform. He stops to view his ‘new look’ in a brook’s reflection and who should he see, on the further bank, but Jenny, watching him. And who should be perched astride the bough of a nearby tree, but the winged and laughing Cupid, in whose hand is a bow. It is now Jenny’s heart that receives an arrow, and “Surely,” she says, “you are that good man for whom I have waited” and so saying, and without much further ado, Jenny accepts his proposal of marriage.
Lord George signs the special licence as George Heaven, and, undergoing a total moral conversion, returns all his ill-gotten wealth to all he had cheated and to a string of charities—‘he would shun no sacrifice that might cleanse his soul’—keeping just enough to enable them to buy an old woodman’s tiny cottage ‘with a garden that was full of flowers.’ ‘Surely George Hell was dead, and his name had died with him.’ Henceforth he and Jenny lived a very simple life, subsisting on ‘bread and honey and little strawberries’, and Jenny’s home-made wine. ‘Every day chastened him with its joy’.
A month passed, and whilst celebrating the occasion, who should appear but La Gambogi— “I think she is foreign, for she has an evil face”, cries Jenny. “Forbid her to come in!” But La Gambogi insists on entering the garden and refuses to leave crying passionately “Show me your own face but for one instant, and I vow that I will never again remind you that I live.” George tries in vain to send her away but ‘like a panther she sprang upon him and clawed at his waxen cheeks.’ The three are involved in a violent scuffle—resulting in the tearing away of the mask, which now lies before them on the grass. And there, standing motionless before her, was the man she had unmasked, and line for line, feature for feature, it was as his mask had been—the face of a saint. George asks Jenny not to look at him, but she insists that he look at her, where he sees, in her eyes—with joy and wonder—the tiny reflection of his own true face. La Gambogi departs, forever, and George and Jenny are now alone—and the mask is no longer upon the grass, for in the sun it has totally melted away.
George Sheringham: “Deep down among the weeds and water-lilies lay the marble faun”
Thus ends The Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale for Tired Men—a short story fairly bursting with moral implications. It is a light and humorous tale of moral degradation—one could say a reversal of Oscar Wilde’s 1890 classic The Picture of Dorian Gray, which appeared originally in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, only to be enlarged and published in book form the following year.
Set in Edwardian times, as distinct from The Happy Hypocrite’s Georgian setting, in 1898 Beerbohm began work on what he described as ‘the work of a leisurely essayist amusing himself with a narrative idea’. He had always inclined to fantasy and Zuleika Dobson was just that, and on a larger scale than that of his previous tale. Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story, was a satire of undergraduate life at Oxford, and published—eventually—in 1911 by Heinemann.
1900: Lord George takes to the stage
But returning now to 1900, this particular year saw a staging of The Happy Hypocrite by Mrs Patrick Campbell, at the Royalty Theatre in London, a production starring ‘Mrs Pat’ herself, and Frank Mills. In 1902 she made her debut performance on Broadway, with The Happy Hypocrite, and several other productions—The Second Mrs Tanqueray, Magda, and Pelleas and Melisande. The English actor George Arliss was part of this company and was also making his American debut. But just who was responsible for the Hypocrite’s script?
Mrs Patrick Campbell
1915: In full colour …
In 1915 a lavishly illustrated edition of The Happy Hypocrite was published by John Lane. The artist was George Sheringham (1884–1937), a British painter, illustrator and theatre designer. He wrote and/or illustrated many books, decorated homes for the aristocracy, designed fans and was a recipient of the ‘Royal Designers for Industry’. He designed sets and costumes for ballets, operas and theatre, and made a significant contribution to the productions of D’Oyly Carte. (Just as recently as 2012, there was a re-issue of the illustrated Happy Hypocrite by publisher Michael Walmer.)
George Sheringham’s cover design
Sheringham’s title page
1925: In music …
Rolling on to 1925 we encounter one Herbert Elwell (1898–1974), an American composer and music critic, who became so captivated by Beerbohm’s Hypocrite that he composed the score for a ballet, during the time he spent whilst attending the American Academy in Rome. In the year before, whilst in Paris, he had received more praise for his ‘Quintet for Piano and Strings’ than George Gershwin (1898–1937) did for his ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. Praise indeed! In Paris Elwell had studied under Nadia Boulanger—a privilege Gershwin was apparently denied. Both Elwell and Gershwin had been Americans in Paris, in the 1920s—had they been known to each other? Were their Parisian experiences the inspiration for Gershwin’s 1928 jazz-influenced orchestral piece ‘An American in Paris’??
Elwell’s ballet music for The Happy Hypocrite was frequently performed and is still accessible—but what of the actual ballet? Who was its choreographer? Its designers? Which company? Or was it ever, in fact, performed as a ballet….?
Herbert Elwell (1898–1974)—Hennepin County Library (left), and ‘An American in Paris’ by Miguel Covarrubias (1929)—Malba Collection
1936: All singing, all dancing …
Now jump—or jete perhaps—to 1936 and along came yet another presentation of the Hypocrite, a play opening initially at Southport’s Garrick Theatre, followed by the Opera House in Manchester, and finally at His Majesty’s Theatre Haymarket in London, on 8 April, for a run of two months.
With a new script by Clemence Dane and music by Richard Addinsell (of later ‘Warsaw Concerto’ fame), the production was directed by Maurice Colbourne and the producers were Ivor Novello (who also played the part of the Regency ‘Buck’ Lord George Hell) and Richard D. Rose.
‘The Guardian: from our London Staff—That The Happy Hypocrite is to run at His Majesty’s is of particular interest to Mr. Beerbohm, as it was his half-brother, Beerbohm Tree, who built the theatre in 1897 and staged all his productions there until his death.’
Vivien Leigh played Jenny Mere, Isobel Jeans La Gambogi, Marius Goring played Amor in the London production and Viola Tree, a niece of Max’s, Lady Otterton. (There are many other names ‘to conjure with’ and easily accessed online in Theatricalia.)
Also involved in this production was the London-born dancer and choreographer Antony Tudor, who worked with and for Marie Rambert’s Ballet Club, creating (by this time) the ballets Cross-garter’d, Mr. Roll’s Quadrille, Lysistrata, Adam & Eve, and among others, most famously, The Planets. Tudor used two Rambert dancers—Hugh Laing, an English dancer born in the West Indies, and London-born Peggy Van Praagh, a name to become very familiar in Australian ballet circles. On the death of Edouard Borovansky in 1959, she was invited to direct the company’s last season, and this was followed by the invitation to be the first artistic director of a new company—The Australian Ballet. But this, of course, was more than twenty years into the future …
Ivor Novello and Vivien Leigh as George and Jenny—photo by Angus McBean
Peggy van Praagh and Hugh Laing as Country Lovers—photo by Angus McBean
Of her role in Dane’s Happy Hypocrite, a Country Lover partnering Hugh Laing, she wrote ‘I was certainly very pleased when he (Antony Tudor) chose me to dance with Hugh ...’ ‘Hugh and I danced a Pastoral Pas de Deux and a small mimed ballet with Vivien Leigh, on a stage within the stage’ and later ‘I was sorry when it all finished, because I had enjoyed working in an atmosphere so different from a ballet company’s, and seeing how actors worked at perfecting their roles.’ Peggy became a founder member and principal dancer with Tudor’s London Ballet, followed by positions elsewhere as teacher, ballet mistress, producer and director—and mentor to many.
And then there were the designers, the Motley Group, consisting of sisters Margaret and Sophia Harris, and Elizabeth Montgomery, who designed sets and costumes for more than forty years for theatre, opera, ballet and motion pictures. Their very first work was for John Gielgud’s 1932 production of Romeo and Juliet and they ‘established themselves by their exquisitely graded colour schemes and simple but brilliantly suggestive scenery.’ Later that year Gielgud invited Motley to design both sets and costumes for the history play Richard of Bordeaux by Gordon Daviot, the non de plume of Elizabeth MacIntosh. (She was also known as Josephine Tey, and the contemporary Suffolk-born writer Nicola Upson writes of Tey and fictionalizes the Motley sisters—An Expert in Murder—Faber & Faber—2008—‘the book is a tribute to the people whose hard work and achievements created such a special world during the 1930s—particularly to Sir John Gielgud and Margaret Harris.’)
Act ll, Scene 2—A Wood in Kensington by Motley (left), and photo of the Motley women—Sophia Harris, Elizabeth Montgomery and Margaret Harris—by Howard Coster
In the London production of The Happy Hypocrite Marius Goring, as Amor, or the God of Love, wore a copper-coloured costume and held a bow and arrow. Once George Hell, now George Heaven, had removed the mask, it was evident that both his face and character had changed. The mask had been made from a cast of Novello’s face—the idea was, of course, that a complete transformation had taken place. Presumably Mr Novello, for the start of the tale, had applied some rather unappealing makeup. A young Angus McBean created Mr Aeneas’s masks, and so impressed was Ivor with Angus’s photographic ability that he commissioned him to take a set of production photographs. McBean went on to become one of the 20th century’s most significant portrait photographers.
Margaret Harris and Elizabeth Montgomery were responsible for the sets and Sophia Harris designed most of the costumes. The various scenes required very elaborate painting and painted backcloths. The scene shown here is, presumably, Garble’s Open-air theatre, and the performance of The Fair Captive of Samarcand, with Jenny Mere making her debut in ‘Eastern draperies’ and a blue turban.
George’s make-up—before and after
Amor and Mercury torment the jarvey who has brough Lord George (Ivor Novello) to the woodland glade
“We had terrible disagreements with Clemence Dane”, Margaret Harris was recorded as saying. “She used to come sailing in, bossing everybody—even Ivor Novello and Vivien Leigh.” Max Beerbohm attended the performances and he sat in a box, “a tiny little white gentleman, white hair, white face, and white collar and tie. He seemed to be quite happy.” He was 64 years of age.
1952 & 1956: Goes to Air …
Interestingly, 16 years later The Happy Hypocrite, now entitled Lord Inferno, was adapted by Giorgio Federico Ghedini as a one-act radio opera for Radiovisione italiana (Rai) on 22 October 1952. The libretto was by Franco Antonicelli, and four years later it was staged as L’ipocrita felice at the Piccola Scala in Milan.
1956: First Australian connection
Also in 1956, and back in London, Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin’s ballet company—the Festival Ballet, a name adopted in 1950 at the time of the Festival of Britain—commissioned a young Australian designer, Ann Church, who was working and travelling in England and Europe with her husband Raymond Bury and choreographer and director Rex Reid, to produce costume and set designs for a new production of The Happy Hypocrite. Rex wrote that during 1956 he was invited to prepare The Happy Hypocrite as a ballet and that Ann had created a superb series of scenic and costume designs. Rex had had, by then, many links and much experience, both as a dancer and choreographer, with companies in England, South America and Australia. On arriving in London in 1937 his first contact had been with Antony Tudor. Sadly, the Festival Ballet Company was unable to find a suitably affluent sponsor and the ballet was never realized. The book shown here was Ann’s own copy and it is tantalizing to speculate as to what happened to her designs—were they also lost when Rex’s tiny touring ballet company lost all their costumes, due to falling foul of authorities, whilst touring Cairo, during the Suez Crisis of that year? I like to think Ann’s costume for La Gambogi may have been rather similar in style to that of her design pictured here!
The Happy Hypocrite book
Design by Ann Church for La Gambogi
1973: Second Australian connection
Charging ahead another 17 years and we find Peggy Van Praagh well and truly playing a vital role as joint artistic director with Sir Robert Helpmann, having been originally appointed artistic director after the death of Edouard Borovansky, and then again in 1962 with the re-formation as The Australian Ballet. She remained in this position until 1974, but in 1973 for the Australian Ballet Choreographic Workshop she commissioned young dancer and choreographer John Meehan to present, perhaps not so surprisingly, The Happy Hypocrite as a ballet, as part of the Workshop’s program. John Lanchbery, conductor, composer and/or arranger of many ballets, wrote the score, to be played on piano for four hands. The cast included Patty Cox and Garth Welch—both had danced with the Borovansky and Australian Ballet companies—and Garth was a brilliant choreographer in his own right. The program makes no mention of sets or costumes and unfortunately there is no video record of the ballet. The score, however, still survives in the possession of John Meehan, who left Australia in 1977 to join the American Ballet Theatre as a principal dancer, and went on to create many highly acclaimed ballets—now in the repertoires of The Australian Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Washington Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera, the Hong Kong Ballet and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. He has had a long and impressive career in ballet—as dancer, director, choreographer, professor—and is regularly invited to be a juror or judge for international ballet competitions and presentations.
John Meehan—photo by David Carter
John Lanchbery
2011: Lord George—a finale—or is it …
“All my life I have had projects that have never quite made it. I started writing The Happy Hypocrite, a musical based on a story by Max Beerbohm, in 1953, and I am still awaiting a full production.”
These are the words of the late David Benedictus (1938–2023), an English writer of novels and plays, and director of almost every actor of note. In 2011 he wrote “I have written a musical play which is scheduled for production in September 2012 at the Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmonds, one of the few remaining Georgian theatres (1819) still in business.”
It is possible to view a short video of a rehearsal, featuring Benedictus himself, the singers and the pianist. The composer—Stephan Hodel, the director/producer Juliana Ramos-Costa. But was it ever fully staged? The Theatre Royal is considered to be one of the most perfect examples of Regency theatres in Britain and in 2005 it was closed for two years so that a total restoration project could commence, and the building could be restored, as close as possible, to its original design. It is now fully restored and would have been such a fitting home for this beloved project of David’s—this could certainly have signified The Happy Hypocrite coming full circle.
Have there been any sightings of Lord George Hell/Heaven within the last ten years or so? He has been struggling for resurrection—yet another—for decades: my search will continue!
Sources
Sir Max Beerbohm, The Incomparable Max, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1962
Lionel Bradley, Sixteen Years of Ballet Rambert, Hinrichsen Edition Ltd., 1946
Mary Clarke & David Vaughan, The Encyclopedia of Dance & Ballet, Pitman, 1977
Doollee.com – the Playwright’s Database
Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, Hamish Hamilton, 1987
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Juliet Gardiner, The Illustrated Letters of Oscar Wilde, Collins & Brown Ltd., 1995
Hannah Johnston, ‘Defending Cosmetics and Decadece in Max Beerbohm’s “The Happy Hypocrite”’, Ryerson University, 2018, https://cdh.rula.info/y90sclassroom/2018/04/10/defending-cosmetics-and-decadence-in-max-beerbohms-the-happy-hypocrite/
James Laver, A Concise History of Costume, Thames & Hudson, 1969
Michael Mullin, Design by Motley, Delaware Press, 1996
Richard Southern, The Victorian Theatre: A Pictorial Survey, David and Charles (Publishers), 1970
‘The Happy Hypocrite’, Theatre Magazine (London), Vol. XXV, No. 136, May 1936
Theatricalia
thehappyhypocrite.co.uk
Nicola Upson, An Expert in Murder, Faber & Faber, 2008
Peggy van Praagh, How I became a Ballet Dancer, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1959
Nicola Upson, An Expert in Murder, Faber & Faber, 2008
Raymond Walker & David Skelly, Backdrop to a Legend, Walker & Skelly, Limited Edition, 2018
Wikipedia
