Three typescripts from the papers of Lillah Emma McCarthy [manuscript].
Items
Details
Title
Three typescripts from the papers of Lillah Emma McCarthy [manuscript].
Description
3 items
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance
Place of creation/publication
Great Britain -- England.
Item Details
Call number
FAST ACC 271846 (flat)
Folger-specific note
From dealer's description: "Lillah McCarthy [Lady Keeble] (1875-1960), actress associated with Bernard Shaw and her husband Harley Granville-Barker [William Poel (1852-1934), pioneer director of Shakespeare; Sir Henry Irving] Lillah McCarthy, actress and wife of Harley Granville-Barker, on William Poel and Sir Henry Irving.] Three typescripts, including 'Notes from memory of William Poel' and 'Sir Henry Irving in 1895 from memory by Lillah McCarthy'. Uniform. Without date or place. But one with reference to Wolfit's 1944 'Lear'. Three typescripts from the papers of Lillah McCarthy (Lady Keeble). The first two - both apparently unpublished - are full of interest: they gives personal reminiscences of her work with William Poel, the 'pioneer of modern Shakespeare production', whom she considered the greatest influence on her career. She describes Poel's working methods, his lecture style, rehearsals, use of make up, modern influence (with reminiscences about Wolfit and Olivier), and even his death, at which she was present. The second item discusses Irving, with reference to those of his productions which she attended, and a meeting with him. The three items uniform in layout and paper stock, each printed on rectos and paginated, and each with the leaves stapled together at one corner. The three in good condition, lightly aged. All three items are scarce: no copies are listed on OCLC WorldCat, and the only copy of Item One traced is noted in Claris Glick, 'William Poel: His Theories and Influence' (1964), as at the 'Royal Shakespeare Library' (now part of the Birmingham Shakespeare Library?). ONE: 'NOTES FROM MEMORY OF WILLIAM POEL. | by Lillah McCarthy. (Lady Keeble).' 9pp, 4to. Begins: 'WILLIAM POEL 1895. | Director, Lecturer and Teacher of the Shakespeare Reading Society which still exists. | Founder, Director and Producer of the Elizabethan Stage Society.' Poel was, McCarthy begins, 'pre-eminently a keen Elizabethan scholar: his special subject: Shakespeare. His ambition was to produce Shakespeare's plays as they were produced and acted in Shakespeare's time, with the Apron Stage and the set scene. But as actresses were and had been very popular William Poel had no need to resort only to boy actors as in Shakespeare's day. Delivery of the verse, rapid and clear: perfect diction, rhythm, voice strong and resonant. | Gestures to be employed sparingly, only when really necessary to the action of play, but then strong and definite.' There follows a section on 'Make Up', with descriptions of that used for Lady Macbeth, Viola and Olivia. Of Lady Macbeth she writes: 'The hair or wig no matter what colour was needed for the part. The forehead must be built up high and broad. Hair dressed high, well back from the ears, swept high from the forehead and up from the neck.' Sections follow on 'Carriage Style' and 'Costumes'. She next turns to Poel's activities around the time when she became a member of the Shakespeare Reading Society in 1895. During weekly lectures Poel 'would stand at his desk on the platform and declare in emphatic tones his determination to get a public together that could appreciate Shakespeare for the genius as a playwright. | There was nothing academic about Poel's way of lecturing. He spoke excitedly, passionately and often violently.' She recalls how she took the part of Romeo in one of Poel's public readings: 'We the actors used to sit in a semi-circle in the way that the Theatre Francaise Presented Moliere, each of us standing up when our turn came. Though we knew our parts by heart; Poel saw to that - we had to have the book in our hands because it was a "reading".' A page and a half are devoted to Poel's 'Rehearsals', during which he was 'ruthless': 'He rehearsed each of us one at a time. We were made to repeat after him our lines until we had got the rhythm and then the right expression of the passion or the tenderness or other essential of the part which the character demanded.' She performed three Shakespeare parts under Poel's direction, and 'also played the leading part in his production of Swinburne's LOCRINE. He also produced THE BACCHAE in which I played DIONYSUS.' She recalls how the Greek scholar Gilbert Murray, whose translation was used, was present at rehearsals. Returning to Shakespeare, she gives numerous examples of how 'Poel insisted on the YOUTH of Shakespeare's leading characters': 'Youth was exuberant in Shakespeare and old age only a dim background.' She states that while Poel 'was a lion and a tiger' at rehearsals, 'he was in himself charming, sensitive and kind. Never violent off stage - but a fury on the lecture platform . . . A man of passionate beliefs and yet gentle withal. I, like every one of his pupils, am entirely grateful to Poel and every one of us recognised that he was a great master.' She explains why 'Poel's rehearsing of "Macbeth" was the most tremendous dramatic experience I have ever known.' She recounts how she was 'with him during his last days in his little home at Putney were he made poverty gracious. He died from bronchitis and wilst sleeping. Sitting by his side, looking at his beautiful sensitive face, I watched the power which had sustained the great pioneer ebb slowly away [...] Poel was always a poor man, but he lived a rich life - a Shakespearean life - and he looked the part; a reincarnation of Shakespeare. His was a great achievement: to have made the British public of the declining years of the last century alive to the beauty of Shakespeare.' In a long footnote she describes how '[t]he influence of Poel is seen today in the acting of, among others, Donald Wolfit and Lawrence Olivier'. She describes an exchange with Wolfit after his 1944 'Lear' ('the finest I have ever seen'), and states that [in the celebrated 1935 production] 'Olivier WAS Romeo: Youth in love.' She also describes a conversation with 'Elsie Fogerty, the Founder and Principal of the Central School of Speech-training and Dramatic Art' on Olivier's performance. Poel's 'methods of production' were, she states, 'adopted at St. James's and Savoy Theatres [...] but the 1914 war put a stop to all that'. TWO: 'SIR HENRY IRVING | in 1895 | from memory by Lillah McCarthy.' 4pp., 4to. Begins: 'Sir Henry Irving, so far as I remember, had no jealousy, nor prejudice. He encouraged and helped all members of his profession. I was a student under the direction of William Poel, who was at that time director of the Shakespeare Reading Society. William Poel was a great admirer of Irving as an actor-manager, but he did not approve of the elaborate and ornate stage settings in which Irving took such pride, with every detail meticulous and the scenery and costumes highly decorative.' She describes the 'few' of Irving's productions she saw, 'from the gallery of the great Lyceum Theatre', and what she has been told of his practice at rehearsals. She contrasts Irving's insistence on 'character' in acting with Poel's 'platform work': 'What a contrast between Irving's grand productions and Poel's methods with the Shakespeare Reading Society, no scenery, no costumes, ordinary evening dress!' A paragraph discusses the Shakespeare Reading Society, of which Irving was the first president, followed by a reminiscence of McCarthy's meeting with Irving 'at a public luncheon [...] given in order to raise funds for a memorial to Sarah Siddons': 'I had never been on the stage as an actress but only as a platform reciter. | After the luncheon I was presented to Irving. He kissed my hand, smiled and wished me success. [...] Irving had the grand manner on and off the stage, not patronising but gracious and friendly. Friendship, I should say, was his chief off-stage quality. He was kind and generous.' She concludes with the thought that Irving was 'a great personality' as well as a great actor and producer, and that that '[e]veryone who saw his work on the stage and knew his work off stage could write of him as I do'. The text ends with a quotation from Shakespeare. THREE: 'NOTES ABOUT WILLIAM POEL FROM | "MYSELF AND MY FRIENDS" | By | Lillah McCarthy. | (Lady Keeble.)' 8pp, 4to. Transcriptions of passages relating to Poel in her autobiography, published in London in 1933."|Ordered from Richard Ford, D9350, 2019-09-30, email quote.