My Life in Pieces (7 page)

A crucial figure in the development of the theatre, Irving is equally significant as a man of his times, a phenomenon of the Victorian age, and it is as such that Jeffrey Richards considers him in a book which, though academic in design, is commendably clear in expression (when the non-word ‘performativity’ crops up in his otherwise jargon-free text, it is a bit of a shock). The details of Irving’s extraordinary life are briskly despatched in an opening paragraph, and then reappear in different contexts in Richards’s thematically headed chapters, in each of which a key concept of the Victorian world is explored. The thematic approach yields remarkable and unexpected glimpses of him. Focusing on Irving’s evangelical convictions, his Christian socialism, for example, reveals the central position in his world view of the ideal of gentlemanliness, of chivalry; this sense of the ennobling power of gentle strength was brought to its apotheosis in his production of
King Arthur
. Similarly his commitment to the educative potential of the theatre has its roots in the same philosophy, and resulted in the commission of a large number of historical dramas (
Charles I
,
Becket
,
Robespierre
,
Dante
), all scrupulously researched historically and archaeologically, none undertaken without extensive consultations with the British Museum.

The designs of his shows – entrusted to the leading painters of the day – were universally acknowledged to be miracles both of stagecraft and aesthetic accomplishment; when the curtain went up on the first scene of
Charles I
, the set painter had to be given a round of applause before the play could continue. Irving’s exploration of the possibilities of light (always evocative gas or limelight, never harsh and unpoetic electricity) was exhaustive and innovative, constantly aspiring to ever greater patination of texture. Richards’s book is especially thought-provoking in its account of Irving’s achievements as a director. He endlessly strove for a Wagnerian
Gesamtkunstwerk
, the integration of all the elements – scenic, musical, thespian – into one artistically overwhelming gesture, hypnotising his audiences with a succession of sustained and deeply harmonised visions. The intention was spiritual as much as theatrical: by sheer force of will and intensity of belief, he turned Tennyson’s indifferent verse drama
Becket
into an act of worship. Even his (many) detractors admired the physical productions at the Lyceum Theatre, achieved with the aid of veritable armies of collaborators, on stage and off: in one of his shows,
Robespierre
, the company of sixty-nine actors was supported by three hundred and fifty staff backstage; the regular standing orchestra consisted of thirty-five players. In one sense, his work was old-fashioned,
the culmination of the nineteenth-century stagecraft of illusion, but in another he looked forward to the cinema: had he lived only thirty years later, that is surely where his great talents would have found their proper place. The most remarked-on scene in his production of
The Merchant of
Venice
, for example, was one not envisaged by Shakespeare at all, in which Shylock returned to his empty house, knocked at the door and was greeted by silence. The curtain fell as he turned his grief-stricken face to the audience. In the parlance of Hollywood, Irving was ‘opening the play out’.

Richards fascinatingly proposes that Irving’s passion to create theatrical harmony was fuelled by his sharp awareness of one of the central Victorian experiences: doubleness, the schism in the soul, the lie in the heart. Many of the age’s most famous citizens led double lives: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Oscar Wilde. Wilde and Robert Louis Stevenson provided the great fictional exemplars of this doubleness, and Irving’s repertoire encompassed many plays in which he played twins, one brother noble, the other dastardly. Most famously he brought to the stage the portrayal of stricken conscience: Eugene Aram, Faust, Vanderdecken in
The Flying
Dutchman
. Supreme among these guilt-racked figures was Matthias in
The Bells
, his first and perhaps greatest success: ‘The feverish alertness engendered by the strife of a strong will against a sickening apprehension,’ as a contemporary wrote, ‘the desperate sense, now defiant and now abject, of impending doom, the slow analysis of the feelings, under the action of remorse – these indeed were given with appalling truth.’

Few disputed Irving’s greatness as Matthias, but despite his pre-eminence as a manager, his gifts as an actor were by no means universally acknowledged. ‘Nature has done very little to make an actor of him,’ wrote Henry James. ‘His face is not dramatic, it is the face of… anything other than a possible Hamlet or Othello. His figure is of the same cast, and his voice… is apparently wholly unavailable for the purposes of declamation.’ The playwright Henry Arthur Jones identified the doubleness at the heart of his art, writing of him that ‘he was supremely great in what was grim, raffish, ironic, crafty, senile, sardonic, devilish; he was equally great in what was dignified, noble, simple, courtly, removed, unearthly, saintly and spiritual. The core of them was in himself. The sly impishness, the laconic mockery and grim
diablerie
that were the underwoof of his character were the strange, harmonious complements of his hauteur, asceticism and spirituality.’ It is a paradox that such an exotic and complex actor, with no access to straightforwardly heroic or romantic
characters, should have become the outstanding actor of the day. He achieved his pre-eminence by will-power, by unremitting hard work and by shrewd manipulation. He imposed himself on the British theatre, and the British theatre on the nation.

Richards’s book is wonderfully informative about the Victorian cult of celebrity (a word which, surprisingly, was current in more or less its present meaning from the 1850s) and Irving knew exactly how to turn it to his advantage. The first London manager for whom he worked – ‘Colonel’ Hezekiah Linthicum Bateman, who occupied roughly the same position in his life that ‘Colonel’ Parker did in Elvis Presley’s – taught him the black arts of promotion. Irving and his general manager, Bram Stoker (author of
Dracula
), engineered sensational atmospheres at first nights, and cleverly paid court to friendly critics; Irving’s intimate dinner parties backstage for the greatest celebrities of the day – Liszt, Gladstone, Buffalo Bill, Whistler – make him the Elton John of his days. His cultivation of royalty knew no limits: he personally paid for the Command Performances he gave at Windsor. He became something of a cult himself, his idiosyncratic appearance – long hair, pince-nez, tall broad-rimmed hat, low collar, and flowing-collared coat – widely imitated.

Alongside all this commercial calculation was his mission to transform public attitudes to the theatre. His strictly Nonconformist mother had cut him off the moment he decided to make the stage his profession, and after the first night of
The Bells
his upper-crust wife Florence asked him: ‘Are you going to go on making a fool of yourself like this all your life?’ As soon as she said the words, he stopped the carriage, got out, and never spoke to her again; nor was he ever reconciled to his mother. But he determined to prove them wrong: that the stage was both moral and serious. Tirelessly making speeches, cultivating academic, journalistic, ecclesiastical and aristocratic patronage, he succeeded triumphantly. ‘I know of nothing in the history of modern civilisation,’ wrote a contemporary, ‘that can compare with the revolution in thought and idea caused by Irving’s work in connection with the theatre as a national institution.’ For the Coronation of his patron and supporter Edward VII, he threw – at his own expense – a banquet on the stage of the Lyceum for all the colonial premiers, princes and their retinues. His knighthood (announced the day that Oscar Wilde was convicted of gross indecency) seemed to confirm that the theatre was now part of the establishment. This did not mean that it was reactionary: Irving himself was socially and
intellectually progressive; his Shylock was a radical reassessment of the character from a characteristically liberal perspective. But it meant that the theatre now operated from within society rather than from its traditional position, at its barely respectable fringes.

Towards the end of his life, Irving unveiled a plaque to one of his great predecessors, James Quin. The stage journal
The Era
commented: ‘The present generation, with its keen sensitiveness, its intellectual activity, its moderation, its humanity, and its self-control, paid honour on Friday to the eighteenth-century ideal of an actor: the three-bottle or six-bottle man, the rake, the duellist and the beau. How much humanity has advanced since those days of limited ablution and unlimited paint, powder and perfume; of foolish fighting and intemperate indulgence; or heartless repartee and scandalous epigram, it is hardly necessary to note.’ From this distance, it is hard not to lament what has been lost: the great alternative carnival tradition, embracing the antipodes so alarming to the Victorians, celebrating the continuum of existence, exalting the communal body. Thanks to Irving, the theatre ceased to be part of
us
and became part of
them
. It has yet to be fully reclaimed.

My knowledge of the theatre, past and present, was becoming encyclo
pedic. Immersing myself in it in almost scholarly fashion, I was at a loss
to know what to do with these insights, these overwhelming emotions. I
had a small – a tiny – outlet in the Sixth Form Literary and Debating Soci
ety, which I had founded with the sole purpose of giving myself the
opportunity of reading great roles in dramatic masterpieces, which I
accordingly did. As the price of that indulgence, I reluctantly submitted to
the tedious horrors of the weekly debate. I was also involved in another
form of play-acting, in that I had been appointed Head Boy of the school.
It was a part I took to enthusiastically, seeing myself as a Reform candi
date, which I suppose I must have been. I was a dunce at sport, success in
which area had hitherto been the sole criterion for Head Boyship; they
must, I reasoned, have wanted something different. So I gave it to them. I
vigorously set about transforming the prefectorial system, attempting to
increase the prefects’ power and responsibilities and diminish those of the
teachers. The headmaster, like many another absolute ruler who has
wanted to make a gesture in the direction of change, found that he didn’t
in fact want to change anything, and blocked my reforms. I handed in my
notice. Like Lady Bracknell, he told me that if I should cease to be Head
Boy, he would inform me of the fact; until then I was to go back to doing
what every other Head Boy had done. As this amounted to being tall and
handsome and doing dashing things with balls, I was unable to oblige, and
sulked my way through my year of tenure, in office but not in power.

I left school in a state of high disgust, reviling the academic life in any
form, determined above all not to go to university. Instead, I went to work
in Oppenheim’s Library Wholesalers in South Kensington, which was a
mistake for someone who loved books, as it involved carrying large piles of
Mills and Boon romantic novels from one shelf to another. My visits to the
National at the Old Vic became compulsive. As I have recorded elsewhere,
my passion for it, and especially for what I perceived to be the company
spirit that seemed to touch every part of that organisation – ushers, book
stall, ice-cream sellers – led me to write a three-foolscap-page letter to
Olivier himself. I stood by the letter box trembling before I finally bit the
bullet and shoved the letter in. Astoundingly, he wrote back by return of
post, inviting me to come and work at the Old Vic, in the box office. This
was my first professional connection with the theatre. I could scarcely
have hoped for a more exhilarating one. The National, though it was going
through a slightly sticky patch, was still close to its golden zenith. When
I went to work there in 1967, it was only five years after it had opened,
and I sold tickets for some of the productions which had made it world
famous, bringing a level of glamour to the classical theatre that it had
scarcely known since the days of Irving and Tree. Olivier’s combination
of absolute mastery of the physical aspects of acting with a determination
to make his work speak directly to the audience about their own lives per
meated the organisation he had created, which felt dedicated in every
fibre of its being to creating the nightly miracles on stage that I was now
able to see as often as I liked.

Ken Tynan’s influence was everywhere too. He would appear in a foyer
or down a corridor, a haunted, brooding presence, immensely tall, his legs
stick-thin, the skin pulled tight over his skull, eyes bulging with intelli
gence, a lit cigarette always delicately held between second and third
fingers. At the age of forty-two he was already the figure he later
described himself as being, Tynanosaurus Rex, his best work behind him.
To me he seemed mythic, more so, curiously, than Olivier himself, whose
offstage persona of absent-minded senior clerk of a city company was
unimpressive, if endearing. At the time, Tynan was notorious: he had just
said ‘fuck’ on television, he was talking about producing an erotic revue,
and he was publicly at war with the Board of the National. I of course
knew nothing about the dramas that were at the time engulfing the organ
isation; I simply knew that if the National were anything like the sort of
theatre Tynan lauded in his reviews – glamorous, cosmopolitan, provoca
tive – then I wanted to be part of it. On the whole, it was, and that it was,
was in no small measure thanks to him; but it was a brief golden age, and
it ended badly for both Olivier and Tynan. When he left the National,
Tynan lost an empire, and never thereafter found a role. Even I was
vaguely aware that there was dissent in the ranks, that my hero was on
the way out as a result of titanic boardroom struggles, that Sir Laurence
was not as well as he might be. All this gossip was thrilling: the National
was always in the newspapers, the world and his wife wanted tickets,
there was a constant sense of its place at the centre of cultural life. For
me this was exactly what I had dreamed of. However menial my position
might be (and it was), Life seemed suddenly to matter; I seemed to have
escaped the rut of the ordinary, to be condemned to which was the thing
I dreaded more than anything in life.