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Herbert Beerbohm Tree's King Henry VIII: Expenditure, Spectacle and Experiment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2009
Extract
Soon after breakfast-time on the morning of 1 September 1910 ‘suburban ladies with their camp stools, sandwiches, and crochet work took up position outside the pit and gallery doors’ at His Majesty's Theatre in London's Haymarket; later they were joined by messenger boys reserving places for more affluent enthusiasts, and by the time the doors opened at 6.15 p.m. the queue had swelled to the extent that only half could be admitted. Amongst the more privileged members of the audience which thronged the theatre that Thursday evening were to be seen Prince Francis of Teck, the Ranee of Sarawak and Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle, a notable turn-out at a time of year when, according to Vanity Fair, ‘London is supposed to be deserted by that fraction of the population whose absence or presence causes it to be designated as empty or full’. Such intense anticipation is rarely generated by a theatrical event, yet throughout that summer the press had dutifully recorded the latest developments in what was to prove to be Herbert Beerbohm Tree's most lavish Shakespearian production King Henry VIII. Whilst the press and public eagerly awaited the latest Bardic offering (his fourteenth) from the foremost actor-manager of the day, his theatre, from his office in the dome downwards, was a bustle of activity involving actors, designers, costumiers, and all the other participants in a great theatrical enterprise. Tree's own grasp on the mechanics and economics of theatre production was legendarily vague, but, fortunately for him and indeed for us, those matters were handled and meticulously recorded by his manager Henry Dana, and it is through Dana's account books, now in the Tree Archive in the Theatre Collection at the University of Bristol, that the financial framework, on which was to be placed the sumptuous spectacle of Henry VIII, can be found.
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- Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1977
References
Notes
1. Daily News, 2 09 1910.
2. Vanity Fair, 10 09 1910.
3. The extent of the accounting system is indicated by the fact that accounts for Henry VIII occur in six different ledgers. Details from the accounts, the promptbooks, lighting plots etc. are reproduced by kind permission of the Keeper of the Theatre Collection, whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged.
4. Daily Sketch, 26 08 1910.
5. Daily News, 21 06 1910.
6. Hughes, Alan ‘Henry Irving's Finances: The Lyceum Accounts, 1878–1899’ in Nineteenth Century Theatre Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, Autumn, 1973, pp. 79–89.Google Scholar Subsequent references to Irving's finances are from this article.
7. Parker, Louis N., ‘A Tribute’, in Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Some Memories of Him and His Art, collected by Max Beerbohm, London, 1920, p. 212.Google ScholarPearson, Hesketh refers to the rehearsals of Henry VIII in Beerbohm Tree. His Life and Laughter, London 1956, p. 170.Google Scholar
8. Some comparitive figures for P and P for other productions:
9. Grein, J. T. in The Sunday Times, 4 09 1910.Google Scholar
10. Daily Express, 27 07 1910.
11. The break-down of cost per scene did not appear in the press, but is included here for convenience. The figures are taken from a pencil note in Tree's promptbook and in fact the total arrived at (£1,080) is less than that given under P and P (£1,311 17s. 6d.). The P and P figure is likely to be more accurate, but the promptbook figures give a guide to the relative spending on individual scenes.
12. Reprinted in Tree, Herbert Beerbohm, Thoughts and After-Thoughts, London, 1913, pp. 292–3.Google Scholar
13. Daily Mail, 2 09 1910.
14. Daily Telegraph, 2 09 1910.
15. The Times, 2 09 1910.
16. ibid.
17. Liverpool Daily Post, 2 09 1910.
18. Glasgow Herald, 2 09 1910.
19. East Anglian Daily Times, 3 09 1910. In spite of his rural readership, this critic's horticultural knowledge appears to have been scant.
20. Daily Express, 27 07 1910.
21. Daily Chronicle, 2 09 1910.
22. The People, 4 09 1910.
23. The Birmingham Gazette, 2 09 1910.
24. Rosenfeld, Sybil, ‘Some Experiments of Beerbohm Tree’, in Nineteenth Century Theatre Research, Vol 2, No. 2, Autumn 1974, pp. 75–85Google Scholar; Rowell, George, ‘Tree's Sheakespeare Festivals 1905–1913 in Theatre Notebook, Vol. XXIX, No. 2., 1975, pp. 74–81.Google Scholar
25. Daily Mail, 5 08 1910. Disappointingly little comment was made by critics on the use of the apron and the prompt-books do not contain detailed blocking.
26. Pall Mall Gazette, 20 09 1910.
27. Daily Express, 27 07 1910.
28. The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 17 11 1910. Tree paid out under £20 to his principal actors for taking part in the film, for which according to Roger Manvell he received £1,000 from Barker (Manvell, RogerShakespeare and the Film, London 1971, p. 19).Google Scholar