Lyceum Theatre, London

“ After the destruction of Covent Garden Theatre, where it had met for seventy years, the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks migrated to the Bedford Coffee-house, where it remained till the building of the Lyceum Theatre in 1809, in a special room 44of which it took up its abode till 1830, when the Lyceum also was burnt down. ”

“ A London correspondent tells us how a favorite actress of that place faced three husbands, and as it is in order to continue turning the crank of the scandal machine while foreign talent is the material to be ground, I will give the paragraph. He says: "The true glory of the Lyceum Theatre is that English Bernhardt, Miss Ellen Terry. This blue-eyed, blonde-locked, Saxon siren is not a radiant beauty as was the ill-fated Adelaide Neilson, but she is something better—she is a charmeuse, as the French call any one possessing that peculiar feminine—which she exercises so powerfully—magnetism. ”

“ On those grounds alone the Committee dismissed the Appeal, and declared the Lyceum Theatre closed till further notice. He might say, however, that they might possibly be induced, after a certain interval, to reconsider the question, and allow the theatre to be reopened on Mr. Irving's undertaking to produce dramas of an entirely unobjectionable character in future. ”

“ The original Lyceum was built in 1765 as an exhibition-room for the Society of Arts, by Mr. James Payne, an architect, on ground once belonging to Exeter House. The society splitting, and the Royal Academy being founded at Somerset House in 1768, the Lyceum Society became insolvent. Mr. Lingham, a breeches-maker, then purchased the room, and let it out to Flockton for his Puppet-show and other amusements. About 1794 Dr. Arnold partly rebuilt it as a theatre, but could not obtain a licence through the opposition of the winter houses. [315] It was next door to the shop of Millar the publisher. ”

“ The fencing Lecture, entitled, The Story of Swordsmanship, seems to have been so great a success, last Wednesday, at the Lyceum, as to have aroused the ire of some Music-hall Managers, who earnestly contend that the Stage of the Theatre, that is, of the Drama pur et simple, very pure et very simple, should not be used or misused for the purpose of giving an entertainment, which, though given without scenes, was yet "illustrated with cuts."
It is highly probable that this offensive and defensive subject will be followed by other lectures more, perhaps, in keeping with theatrical tradition. ”

“ For let there be no confusion: art and the theatre are not the same thing; almost one might say that if a play possesses artistic quality it holds a passport to eternity, with this difference, that many things lost in eternity are remembered. A little more may be said of this further on.
London has always been a city of theatres, perhaps because we have, for many centuries, laboured under the Puritan tradition: its bitterness has attached to the theatre a glamour foreign to it in hotter lands. ”

“ If such a scene was required at all, it should, certainly, have been produced in a less attractive form. We should not have been so severe on this subject if we did not feel that no theatre in London less needs to depend on such displays for success. No theatre in London has it so completely in its power to show to what noble uses a stage may be applied; for on none is there so near an approach to the ancient glory of the drama in the skill and ensemble of the actors. Exercising talents like these on ghosts and festivals is a mere waste of power. ”

“ In that panic the English drama disappeared for the time, and at the moment of writing it does not exist. There are many excellent entertainments at our different theatres, and most of them are deservedly successful. But in the very height of this theatrical season there is not a single London theatre that is giving a play that so much as pretends to picture our modern English life,—I might almost say that pretends to picture human life at all. ”

“ We have some twenty or thirty theatres in London without one school of acting; which is possibly a mistake. But it is not such a bad mistake as to have four large music schools without one lyrical theatre. Nothing can be more preposterous. Yet there is at this moment more chance of a fifth music school being established than of an Opera-house being founded at which the shoals of composers and vocalists shot out every year would have an opportunity of pursuing their profession. ”

“ It sometimes happens that at a première in London the least enjoyable part of the performance is the play. I have seen many audiences more interesting than the actors, and have often heard better dialogue in the foyer than I have on the stage. At the Lyceum, however, this is rarely the case, and when the play is a play of Shakespeare’s, and among its exponents are Mr. Irving and Miss Ellen Terry, we turn from the gods in the gallery and from the goddesses in the stalls, to enjoy the charm of the production, and to take delight in the art. ”

“ If the murky London daylight in the theatre shows a mournful change from its nocturnal glories, even sadder is the contrast between the splendid entrance hall, or lobby, blazing with welcome lights, and the dark, grimy, and generally wretched "stage-door," which opens, mostly, into some gloomy back-street, and seems, to the uninitiated at least, to have no connection at all with the theatre. ”

“ In no theatres of the first class outside London and New York is the system known, and even here and in New York it is of comparatively recent origin. But Londoners have grown so accustomed to the system that they overlook the havoc which it works on the theatre as a home of art. Both actor and playgoer suffer signal injury from its effects. It limits the range of drama which is available at our great theatres to the rank and file of mankind. Especially serious is the danger to which the unchangeable programme exposes histrionic capacity and histrionic intelligence. ”

“ And yet in spite of all this, the writer of these lines has ventured to believe that the London theatres are highly characteristic of English civilization. The plays testify indirectly if not directly to the national manners, and the whole system on which play-going is conducted completes the impression which the pieces make upon the observer. One can imagine, indeed, nothing more characteristic than such a fact as that a theatre-going people is hopelessly destitute of a drama. ”

“ The absurd liberalism of the day has given every corner of London a theatre, and has degraded the character of the stage in all. By scattering the ability which still exists, it has stripped the great theatres of the very means of representing dramatic excellence; while, by adopting popular contrivances to obtain temporary success, they have driven away dramatic genius in contempt or in despair. Our stage is now condemned to be fed like a felon from the dungeons, and, like the felon, to feel a stigma in every morsel which it puts between its lips. ”

“ Who knows if Shakespeare was better satisfied with the less rowdy portion of his audience? Art was not the sole attraction of the theatre. We read in an old book on English plays:—
"In the play-houses at London it is the fashion of youthes to go first into the yarde and carry their eye through every gallery; then, like unto ravens, when they spy the carrion, thither they fly and press as near to the fairest as they can." [1] These fine gentlemen, who sat or reclined at full length on the stage, were probably as much occupied with their ladies as the less well- to-do theatre-goers. ”

“ Large convenient approaches from Shoreditch lead, by lobbies equally convenient, into one of the finest and largest theatres in London. Handsome in shape, thoughtful in arrangement, excellently conducted, this theatre is a model place of public entertainment. From every part of it, an excellent view of the stage can be had; the comfort of the audience is well cared for; there is everywhere ample space, and to spare, and the ventilation is perfect. ”

“ Students who reject this method will always fail to realize the essential characteristic of one of the greatest ages of English dramatic poetry, while he who adopts it may confidently expect revelations of interest, not only to the playgoer, but to all who devote attention to dramatic literature. Above all things should it be borne in mind that the more the conditions of the Elizabethan theatre are studied, the better will it be perceived how workmanlike London’s theatrical representations then were, and that they had nothing amateurish about them. ”

“ For, after all, what is the use of our Commissionership if we do not speak the truth? We say, then, that in few theatres of London can a fair representation be presented to the public of any dramatic work whatever, which contains more than one principal part; there is scarcely one theatre, in short, where a play can be acted. Let us not blame the unfortunate modern author, therefore, if he accommodates himself to circumstances, and produces a drama with one strongly developed character surrounded by nonentities. ”

“ The majority of young men and maidens love comic opera, which seems, indeed, to be one of the paying "lines" in the London of to-day. Music-halls flourish; it is an eloquent sign of the times that the large and ornate "Palace Theatre,"—opened, with such a flourish of trumpets, a few years ago as the "New English Opera House," and known far and wide by its flashes of brilliant search-light,—should now have descended to a "variety" show. The great middle-class supports Shakespeare and the "legitimate" drama; shop-girls, and dressmakers' apprentices, like the "society" plays of the St. ”

“ A leading theatrical, in search of attractions for his theatre, got hold of her, and found how full she was of dramatic power. Rose had always been fond of the stage, even as it appeared in such a humble form as that in which it was revealed to her at Sloville, and the finished acting of the London theatre gave her immense satisfaction. At first the pay was small, and her work was hard; excellence on the stage, as excellence everywhere, is not to be won without steady work, but she was an apt learner, and made rapid progress. ”

“ For smart society is a great supporter of the drama, and even royalty, whose attendance in the theatre is always announced beforehand by the supply of white silk programmes in the royal box, occasionally vouchsafes its presence. Especially is there always a great furore over the procuring of "first night" seats at the best London theatres. So far, indeed, as the audience of the stalls is concerned, the "first-nighters" are, more or less, always the same people ”

“ Godmother replied, “and neither right costume nor proper scenery makes good acting, you know. If we had time to stay and listen, we should hear this play very well acted. Do you notice how breathlessly quiet the audience is?”
Betty followed her guide reluctantly out of this strange theatre, looking back at the curtain-hung stage, with the young men in their short velvet cloaks, seated on stools close to the players, at the crowd standing in the open space under the blue sky, and at the circular galleries thronged with people. ”

“ If we could secure this endowment, that theatre would become in a very few years the most fashionable, if not the most popular, in London, and even the great public would go to it. Nor need such a theatre be expensive—as theatres go—for it is to the mind and not to the eye that it must appeal. A sufficient audience is there ready; what is lacking is the point of focus, a single-hearted and coherent devotion to the best, and the means to pursue that ideal without extravagance but without halting. ”

“ Now it happened that in London there was a theatre given up to a season of foreign opera, and, this theatre having been built by one of those gifted geniuses so common among theatre architects, it followed that the balcony (into which, of course, neither the architect nor the manager for whom it was built had ever strayed) contained a number of seats from which no view of the stage was visible at all—unless one stood up, and then the people behind were deprived of their view. This, of course, means nothing to architects or managers. ”

“ Of course, every stranger walks through this quarter, for in it are the most ancient and renowned among the theatres of London, namely, Covent-garden and Drury-lane.
Old and venerable houses are they, with blackened columns and sooty walls, and surrounded with the questionable traffic of an equivocal neighbourhood. A theatre in prudish London has not much good fame to lose ”

“ In plain English, most of our theatres are managed, or rather mismanaged, upon the supposition that the principal players are more important than what they represent.
It is the opinion of many disinterested observers that only three or four of our actors and actress in legitimate drama draw an appreciable amount of money in London to the theatre, and sacrifices made for those who do not obviously are futile. ”

“ Where is the advantage of a National Theatre in London unless there are existing at least six Repertory Theatres in the provinces which may serve as training grounds for actors and for the experiments of dramatists? ”

“ Despite its flaws, London Stage is an indispensable source for research on theater and stage history, repertory, acting careers, theater personnel, trends in drama, reception history—in short, on nearly every aspect of the drama and stage of the period. Important advice on the use of the work is offered by Hume, “Theatre History, 1660–1800: Aims, Materials, Methodology” (M2385a) . Researchers must also consult Highfill, Burnim, and Langhans, Biographical Dictionary (M2400) , whose entries make numerous corrections and additions to London Stage. ”