IV

Irving had long wished to act the part of Dante if he could get a good play on the subject. To this end he had made several efforts, including that in the direction of Tennyson. In July 1894, when Madame Sans-Gêne was being played in London by Rejane, Irving had a conversation regarding a play on the subject of Dante with Emile Moreau, joint author with Victorien Sardou of the French comedy. The issue of the meeting was that Sardou and Moreau were to write a play and submit it to Irving. It was not, however, till some seven years later that the idea began to materialise. There was a good deal of correspondence spread over the time, but after an interview at the end of May 1901 in London with Miss Marbury, who had just returned from paying a prolonged visit to Sardou, the matter rose over the horizon of practicability. It was agreed that Sardou was to submit a scenario before the end of that year. Irving felt justified after the success of Robespierre to venture on another play by the same author. The scenario was sent to him in due course, and he studied it very carefully in such pauses as were in the American tour of that autumn. When we were in Chicago in December he told me that he had practically given up hope of doing Dante as he could not see his way to accepting the scenario. By his wishes I drafted a letter for him to that effect. I considered that the matter had there ended and did not have an opportunity of reading the scenario which was returned.

Much to my surprise, in the following spring Irving told me that he had decided to do the play and asked me to draw out a contract on the lines of that of Robespierre. I asked him why he had changed his mind and reminded him that from what he had told me of the original scenario, we had agreed that it was not likely to make for success. He did not, however, wish to talk about it then—he could be very secretive when he wished—but said he had sent word to Sardou that he would go on with the idea of the play. I knew it would upset him to argue about anything to which he was pledged; I said no more.

MM. Sardou and Moreau delivered the completed play in August, and forthwith Irving began to use his great imagination on its production. His son Laurence had taken the translation in hand.

The production was on a gigantic scale; the arrangements for it having been made in Paris, but not through me. The labour of preparation and rehearsal was endless, the expense enormous. The curtain went up on the night of production to an incurred expense of nearly thirteen thousand pounds.

On Monday, January 12, 1903, Irving read Dante to the actors and actresses of his company at his office in Bedford Street—the great room occupied for so many years by the Green Room Club. My contemporary note runs:

“Read it wonderfully well. Adumbrated every character!”

To me this was in one way the most interesting of all his readings to the company of a new play. Hitherto I had not read the play or even the scenario, and I am bound to say that as it went on my heart sank. The play was not a good one. It had too many characters and covered too wide a range. Indeed had it not been for Irving’s wonderful reading I should not have been able to follow the plot. When I saw the play on the first night, acted by a lot of people and lacking the concentration of the whole thing passing through one skilled mind, I found a real difficulty of comprehension. Strange to say this very difficulty in one way helped the play with the less cultured part of the audience. As they could not quite understand it all they took it for granted that there was some terribly subtle meaning in everything. Omne ignotum pro magnifico.

The play was produced at Drury Lane Theatre on April 30, 1903—the last day, by the way, allowable for production in London by the contract—with great enthusiasm. There was an immense audience, and managerial hopes ran high. Irving was certainly superb. He did not merely look like Dante—he was Dante; it was like a veritable re-incarnation. His features had a natural resemblance to the great poet! The high-bred “eagle” profile; the ascetic gauntness; the deep earnest resonant voice; the general bearing of lofty gloom of the exile—these things one and all completed a representation which can never be forgotten by any one who saw it.

The play ran during the whole season at Drury Lane, eighty-two performances. On the provincial tour the following autumn it was given twenty-one times in only three towns. Then succeeded the American tour on which it was played thirty-four times—a total of one hundred and thirty-seven performances.

When we opened in New York the civic elections, which that term were conducted with even more than usual vigour, were on. As the receipts were not up to our normal we thought that the political “colieshangie” was the sole cause; we found out the difference when the répertoire bill was put up the third week. The experience was repeated in Philadelphia, Boston, Springfield, Hartford, New Haven, Brooklyn, and Washington. The last performance in America was given at the Federal capital to a great house—the largest the piece was played to in America. Perforce we had to accept the verdict: the public did not care for the play. Accordingly we stored it in Washington and for the rest of the tour gave the répertoire plays. When the tour was over we paid the expenses of sending the scenery into Canada where we gave it away. This was cheaper than paying the duty into the United States, which we should have had to do had we left it behind us.

Altogether Dante as a venture was a fearful hazard. Before it was done I remonstrated with Irving about the production, he being then not really able to afford such an immense loss as was possible. As Chancellor of the Exchequer to his Absolute Monarchy I had to be content with his reply:

“My dear fellow, a play like this beats Monte Carlo as a hazard. Whatever one may do about losing, you certainly can’t win unless you play high!”