OCR Text |
Show HALF CENTURY OF IRVING-. Remarkable Stngo Career of England's Eng-land's Foremost Actor. In retiring from the stage two years ! hence, after half a century of active life asnn actor. Sir Henry Irving will round out a theatrical career of extraordinary ex-traordinary range and one comprising a remarkable variety of roles. When he left the Theater Royal at Edinburgh at end of his stage apprenticeship appren-ticeship he had played 300 parts. What his record of roles now is Is only to be conjectured. Probably no Important actor of the present day has represented represent-ed so many diverse creations of the playwright. It Is a wonderful record, both of versatility ver-satility and of length of service. In the latter particular exceeding Booth's and Kemble's by eight years, and Kean'a by seventeen. It falls short of Forrest's by one year. By an Jnteresting coincidence the announcement of the actor's proposed pro-posed retirement comes colncldently with the Issue of the late John Coleman's Cole-man's "Fifty Years of an Actor's Life." A volume of reminiscences. In such a volume there should be an acknowledgment of the good turn done him by the obscure provincial actor who taught him elocution after office hours while he was a clerk looking forward for-ward to a mercantile career In India. At 18 Irving made his first stage appearance ap-pearance as the Duke of Orleans In 'Richelieu " An Indifferent duke the critics thought him. Another year saw him at Edinburgh In the theater where Charlotte Cushman and Helen Fauclt were to be hla Instructors. At 28, In 1SC6, ho was playing in London. "Ten years from now," said a companion of George .Eliot as they left the theater, "he will be at the head of the stage." "He Is there already," said the more discerning writer. This was five years before he played Mathlae In "The Bells," his first noteworthy hit. "I have waited long for a chance," said Irving. "The Bells" gave It, and the critics were silenced. "Although I knew the play backward in the French," said Walter Herrles Pollock, "I was astonished aston-ished at the possibilities of the chief character which the actor revealed." In the thirty-three years since that triumph what a banquet of the drama the actor has provided for his audiences' audi-ences' "Amid the mortifying circumstances circum-stances attendant upon growing old," said Lamb, "It Is something to have heard 'The School for Scandal' In its glory," To live contemporaneously with a great actor, to follow him from "Richelieu" to "Becket" and through the grand Shakespearean gallery through "Lear" and "Hamlet" and "The Merchant of Venice" is to gain a liberal and a profound acquaintance with all .that is best in the drama. Those who lived In Booth's generation may deservedly be envied. Irving has complemented lesser gifts of acting with a stagecraft ofrarT"? i elaboration. Hp firt v l8lllb . ft Player's aid the JSKX t S J I Bcenery and setting J 8 ot r-Af whleh has since ei&?.yWp3H of stage carpentry Q tho c5 WT MP?ruwpo 11 13 not Quite mi that he found th Btacrn m Wsicl to and left it mahoiXyW 4 But the credit Its tratVi ' from bareness to splendoM, i forM - u |