Royal Adelphi Theatre Seasonal Digest for 1884-1885
Ed. Peggy Russo
The 1884 season promised to be as commercially successful as that of 1883. On 6 October 1884, the Adelphi planned an anniversary performance of In the Ranks, which had played continuously since its opening on 6 October 1883. In their Times advertisement, the Gattis proudly announced the 310th night of their "immensely successful drama" (6 October 1884). Moreover, the melodrama continued to draw or re-draw audiences. On the following Thursday, for example, the Duchess of Edinburgh, who had seen In the Ranks the previous February, paid her second visit to the production, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh and also the Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia (Times, 10 October 1884, p. 7f). Such was the popularity of In the Ranks, that it remained on the Adelphi stage without interruption (except for dark nights on Christmas and Ash Wednesday) until 28 March 1885, when the Gattis announced that the play would be performed that evening for the "457th and last time" (Times, 28 March 1885).
Following the final performance of this Adelphi hit, the theatre was dark for five nights (29 March through 3 April) in order to prepare for the opening of The Last Chance, a new five-act melodrama written for the Gattis by George R. Sims whose collaboration with Henry Pettit had produced In the Ranks. With Sims as playwright, the Gattis obviously assumed that they would have another hit on their hands, and judging by reports of enthusiastic opening-night response, they were correct. Critics were quick to point out, however, that The Last Chance amounted to little more than hackwork--there were too many plot and character parallels between the new piece and In the Ranks. Once again, Charles Warner played a hero outdone by villainy who spends time in the middle of the play suffering as a dock laborer (rather than a soldier) while his wife, at her lowest point, lies down in the snow to die. Once again, the hero and his wife are restored to good fortune. The Athenæum noted, tongue-in-cheek, that Sims's "inventive and literary gifts have been put to no very great strain," but added that the piece "is wholly to the taste of his patrons" (11 April 1885, p. 481). The Times agreed but lamented the taste of Adelphi patrons:
They like the cant of philanthropy with which his dialogue is loaded and applaud his lofty sentiments with the fervour with which an audience of East-end wife beaters may be trusted to receive a moral aphorism (6 April 1885, p. 10c).
The Theatre also criticized the typical Adelphi audience, calling it a "baby, ready to laugh if you only tickle its toes, and equally ready to cry if you only pretend to cry yourself." Moreover, Adelphi drama was labeled "not so much a play as a huge and perfectly legitimate commercial venture" (p. 252). Nonetheless, the harshest criticism was aimed at Sims:
If I were asked--could Mr. Sims write a really high-class melodrama for the Adelphi, supposing he were to try, I should say, no--because the Adelphi does not want a really high-class melodrama, and Mr. Sims is mentally incapable of producing what is not wanted (Theatre, 1 May 1885, p. 255).
Besides re-hiring Sims as playwright and director for the re-hash of the In the Ranks plot and characters, the Gattis aspired to a repetition of some of the scenic effects. But the scenery, designed by Bruce Smith, Walter Hann, and William Telbin, did not stimulate the universally positive response awarded In the Ranks. The Athenæum praised the scenes of "the West India Docks with the crowd of hungry applicants looking for work," but the Times suggested that if the audience wanted realism, they should "save the price of a seat ... and travel eastwards to see the reality in preference to the sham." The Theatre was also unimpressed and pointed to the plight of the actors who were outweighed by the scenery:
Mr. Warner seemed to be everlastingly clutching, convulsively ... at effects which were not in his part. He appeared to be yearning ... to "let himself go," but there was nowhere for him to go ... the actors supported the scene-painters (p. 254).
The Gattis gave The Last Chance every chance at success. Following the opening on 4 April and publication of the Times critique on 6 April, the Gattis began running an advertisement on 8 April designed to counter the critique's negative effects. It read: "Adelphi.--The Last Chance.--Immense Success," and appeared daily through 28 April, after which the Adelphi advertisements started to shrink in size and number (for the final performances, there was a single advertisement with no cast list). Despite negative critical consensus, the Gattis continued presenting The Last Chance through 19 June, but their attempt at a successful sequel to In the Ranks did not succeed and may have cost them their heroic leading man. Charles Warner severed his ties to the Adelphi, after a five-season commitment (1880-1884), perhaps in search of a less commercial environment (the Olympic Theatre). After the close of The Last Chance, the Adelphi shut down for a full month (22 June through 24 July). The Last Chance had been accompanied on the bill by Borrowed Plumes, a farce by Alfred Maltby. Early in the run, the loyal Duchess of Edinburgh paid a royal visit, accompanied by Princess Louise (Times, 8 April 1885, p. 9f).
In addition to its demoralizing end, the season that had begun so well was marked by the death of actor Edward H. Brooke on 30 November 1884 (Era Almanack, p. 41). Brooke, who had been a regular player at the Adelphi during the seasons 1878 through 1882, was popular with audiences and among his fellow actors, many of whom had taken part in the benefit for him at the Adelphi on 7 June 1882.
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Royal Adelphi Theatre Seasonal Digest for 1885-1886
Ed. Peggy Russo
Following the disappointing run of The Last Chance, which closed on 19 June 1885, the Adelphi remained dark until 25 July. It re-opened for the 1885-86 season with yet another Boucicault revival--this time of Arrah-na-Pogue, accompanied by a farce, Leave It To Me, by C. H. Hazlewood and A. Williams. While pointing out that the Boucicault "revival appears designed only to meet the modest requirements of the summer season," the Times praised the "great care and completeness" afforded the production, noting that the public's opinion of the play had changed in the eighteen years since its first production at the Princess's Theatre on 22 March 1865. Public sentiment at that time had forced the play to be "prematurely withdrawn" because "the political element of the story" surrounding Irish rebellion against the British was considered "seditious." This time, however, audiences listened to the "rebel sentiment" with "equanimity" and even with "pleasure." The cast was termed "adequate" (Times, 27 July 1885, p. 8b). Recalling the original cast, the Athenæum called Mary Rorke "a worthy successor to Mrs. Boucicault," and praised J. D. Beveridge's Colonel O'Grady, but found Charles Sullivan "lacks as Shaun the Post the humour and tenderness of Mr. Boucicault" (Athenæum, 1 August 1885, p. 154).
Following the somewhat unexpected success of Arrah-na-Pogue, the Adelphi mounted a revival of The Colleen Bawn, another of Boucicault's Irish dramas. And this revival too achieved popular success. In an attempt to explain their popularity, the Times noted:
after the complicated and too often sordid plots invented by the dramatist of the present day, the simplicity and directness of motive and the romantic incidents of these impossible stories of Irish life are as refreshing as the "shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (26 October 1885, p. 4c).
Boucicault's skill as a playwright certainly should be considered as cause for success, but worthy of note also is the Times news story appearing on the same page as the play review in which is reflected an interest in equal rights for Irish tenant farmers, surely an indication that British public sentiment toward the Irish question was softening. In part, the cause for this softening may be attributed to Boucicault's attempts to change British attitudes through his Irish dramas.
Mary Rorke again appeared in the part originally played by Mrs. Boucicault, and both she and Miss Millward earned praise from the Times. Also praised was the treatment of Boucicault's major sensation SCENE: "The famous water cave scene where the Colleen Bawn is thrown into the pool by Danny Mann and rescued by Myles-na-Coppaleen thrills the house as it has always done" (26 Oct., 1885, p. 4c).
During the run of The Colleen Bawn, there was a special matinee of the "first London production" of Roma; or The Deputy by Gospodin Lubimoff, adapted from a play by Sardou (Times, 28 November 1885). Elaine Verner starred as Roma. The run of The Colleen Bawn continued Until 12 December 1885.
The theatre was dark from 13 December through 22 December in preparation for one of the Adelphi's biggest hits of the eighties. The Harbour Lights was the second collaborative effort of George R. Sims and Henry Pettitt, who had co-authored In the Ranks, the Adelphi hit of the 1883 season. The Harbour Lights was primarily "a naval version of the recent military drama by the same authors, In the Ranks, eked out with scenes or ideas derived from The Colleen Bawn and other familiar sources" (Times, 24 December 1885, p. 9f). The Athenæum noted that there was "in character and in incident no element of novelty," but it was "a distinct success ... well mounted and acted" (2 January 1886, p. 43). Despite its lack of originality, the Theatre called The Harbour Lights "all that an Adelphi melodrama should be--a strong, touching play, excellently placed on the stage, and admirably acted" (1 January 1886, p. 42). Especially praised was William Terriss for "courageously saving a woman from a watery grave, represented by some hundreds of yards of undulating calico" in a scene obviously borrowed from Boucicault's Colleen Bawn (Times). The Theatre said:
There never was a better hero for this kind of play than Mr. Terriss, who looks the handsome young lieutenant to the life, and is always active, easy and vigorous (p. 44).
Indeed, in William Terriss, the Adelphi had found a much-needed replacement for Charles Warner who was now part of the rival Olympic Theatre company. In addition, when the Gattis made the decision to pair Terriss and Jessie Millward as romantic leads, they had finally perfected their recipe for the Adelphi melodrama of the eighties. Terriss and Millward had acted together before, in Much Ado About Nothing at the Lyceum, but Harbour Lights represents the beginning of their career together in Adelphi melodrama. The Times applauded this pairing, claiming that Terriss and Millward "impart into popular melodrama the finished style of the Lyceum" (12 April 1886, p. 4a). Terriss and Millward were to remain as romantic leads at the Adelphi through the 1889 season and would later return for the seasons 1894-97. Terriss was to be murdered outside the Adelphi Theatre on 15 December 1897. As George Rowell so aptly points out, Terriss:
gave the expression "Adelphi melodrama" a new meaning, and by his association with Jessie Millward ... provided the theatre with the double attraction that the Lyceum possessed in Irving and Ellen Terry or the Criterion in Wyndham and Mary Moore (Rowell, Theatre in the Age of Irving, p. 143).
Mary Rorke was also a drawing card for the Adelphi in the 1885 season. Calling her "one of our most gifted emotional actresses," The Theatre ran a full-page picture and biography of her (1 March 1886, p. 116a, 162).
The Adelphi announced the one-hundredth performance of Harbour Lights on 5 April 1886, and marked the occasion with
the adoption of a new act drop, painted by Hawes Craven from a picture lent by Mr. Irving and giving a glimpse of old English life as it was lived by Robin Hood and his merrie men in the glades of Sherwood Forest (Times, 12 April 1886, p. 4a).
While taking note of the one-hundredth performance and the new act drop, the Times gave The Harbour Lights a mid-run review, asserting, "The play itself is, as yet, far from needing any adventitious attractions ... and time after time one may sit it out with pleasure." Indeed, a significant number of London playgoers must have sat it out time after time. Beginning on 9 January, Saturday-matinee performances were held weekly, and this practice continued until 15 May. The production received three royal visits during this season: the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh (Times, 30 December 1885, p. 7e); the Duchess of Connaught and the Duke and Duchess of Oldenburg (Times, 12 May 1886, p. 9d); and Prince and Princess Henry of Battenburg and Countess Erbach (Times, 23 March, p. 12a).
On 23 June 1886, the Adelphi hosted a special matinee performance of The Suspicious Husband by Benjamin Hoadley in order to "aid the Funds of the Thimble League" (Times, 22 June 1886). First produced at Covent Garden in 1747 with Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard, Hoadley's comedy "requires for its successful presentation a class of acting now not easily to be found," according to the Athenæum, and this production "did not rise much above the level of amateur representations." Nevertheless, the Athenæum praised Amy Roselle's delivery "with spirit" of a prologue by Walter Besant and Bessie Hatton's recitation "with much pathos [of] Mr. [Robert Traill Spencer] Lowell's poem of 'The Relief of Lucknow'" (26 June 1886, p. 856).
Performances of The Harbour Lights continued through the summer and into the following fall. Thus, the season, which had begun with productions of Boucicault revivals in order to recover from the disaster of The Last Chance, ended with the perfection of the Gatti's formula for success in the pairing of William Terriss and Jessie Millward combined with one of the Adelphi's biggest hits. Due to the extended run of The Harbour Lights, the theatre did not close between seasons; for this reason, we end the 1885 season arbitrarily on 4 September 1886.
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