Page 70 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

STAGE-HISTORY lxv

January 1861; but in May he acted Lear at the Princess's
Theatre, and here he was last seen in the part on
6 December. Charles Kean had essayed the part here
from 17 April 1858, but was an inadequate rival; 'he
gave the Fool again to a woman', says Hazelton Spencer. 1
He followed previous versions in omitting the blinding
of Gloucester and his fall at Dover, and his production
was characteristically spectacular in its dicor, which
aimed at representing Saxon Britain. 2
After Phelps had left, Sadler's Wells saw Charles
Dillon as Lear in 186 8, Drury Lane Mr and Mrs Rousley
in 1873 and Ernesto Rossi in 1876, and the Princess's
had Edwin Booth in his sole L,ondon Lear (Maud
Milton the Cordelia), in 1881. The next memorable
King Lear was Irving's one and only revival at the
Lyceum, opening on 10 November 1892. The Times on
11 November reported a 'most cordial reception', but
Irving had overstrained his voice and was barely audible.
He staged it till the end of January 1893, and again from
6 February for some nights, but it had by then proved a
failure. One critic, indeed, declared his Lear 'magni-
ficent and terrible in its pathos'; and Gordon Crosse
recalled it in detail sixty years later as a 'thrilling ex-
perience'; Professor Odell, who judges Lear to have
been beyond Irving's powers, records Ellen Terry's
Cordelia as 'a great moving performance' of 'ineffable
pathos'. Irving, like others, omitted the blinding of
Gloucester and cut very extensively; nor was the
scenery as splendid to the eye as in many of his produc-
tions, though he contrived realistic eifects of dazzling
lightning and terrifying thunder. 3
1
The Art and Life of Shakespeare (1940), p. 328.
2
Odell, 11, 294-5, 352.
3 For Irving's production see Odell, n, 387-8, 446;
Gordon Crosse, Shakespearean Play-going; 1890-1952(1953),
p. i2 j Laurence Irving, Henry Irving (1951), pp. 548-52.