୮ 'He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leaf Most fatal defect of all, Beatrice is quite imperfectly individ- "The Cenci" does not seem to be a particular favorite with the chief American student of Shelley, Professor Woodberry, whose note in the Cambridge edition is very brief and somewhat perfunctory. He sums up the final impression of the play in the following significant but one-sided statement: The total effect is of intense and awful gloom. . . . In it culminates that fascination of horror in Shelley which was as characteristic as his worship of beauty and love, though it is less omnipresent in his poetry."2 66 The last noteworthy discussion of 'The Cenci' appears in an interesting contrast between it and the early work of Shakespere, in Mr. A. A. Jack's recent monograph on Shelley. Mr. Jack finds that, "Shelley has a cooler grasp of the tragic issue; he is more absorbed in the meaning of his tragedy than the young Shakspere ever was." On the other hand, there is an opulence of dramatic material in Shakespere which we do not find in Shelley. "The Cenci is a tragedy in line, of one attitude," and "we feel as if Shelley's voice were exhausted in that note." Mr. Jack also asserts that the earlier part of the tragedy, in which Cenci is of chief importance, is the 1J. M. Robertson, New Essays towards a Critical Method, London 1897, pp. 233-35. 2 Shelley's Works, 1901, Cambridge ed., p. 626. part which is most characteristic of Shelley, but is least dramatic.1 With this final utterance of literary criticism, which is in direct opposition to the impression of the dramatic critics who saw the play performed in 1886, we may fittingly turn back to the story of that production, the most interesting event in the history of Shelley's drama. Since "The Cenci" was originally written for the stage, the judgment of the theater is important -in all that concerns its dramatic power far more important than the judgment of literary critics. 1 A. A. Jack, Shelley, An Essay, London 1904, p. 120. IV PRODUCTION OF "THE CENCI" IN 1886 The manifest histrionic opportunities in "The Cenci" have often attracted the attention of actors. Macready, after he had left the stage, is reported to have said that he would return if he could have the opportunity to appear as Count Cenci.1 Samuel Phelps carefully examined the play with a view to its production, but came to the conclusion that its dramatic interest terminated with the death of Count Cenci. Miss Glyn (Mrs. Dallas) had a lifelong ambition to play the part of Beatrice, but her managers constantly refused. Miss Genevieve Ward also desired to appear in this role, and at one time seriously discussed the question of giving a private performance. In July, 1885, at a meeting of the Wagner Society, Miss Alma Murray (Mrs. Alfred Forman), a young actress of talent, gave a dramatic reading of the last scene of "The Cenci." It was left for the Shelley Society, however, in the first year of its organization actually to bring the play as a whole upon the stage. In doing so they met with many difficulties. Of course the old charge of the immorality of the play was revived. The newspapers held aloof from the undertaking, and the Lord Chancellor refused to permit a public performance. The Shelley Society then resorted to the plan of renting a theater for a private performance, with admission by invitation only. They found no trouble in procuring capable actors to give their services. Miss Alma Murray, who had gained considerable reputation as the Constance of Browning's "In a Balcony," and had on the very first day of the Shelley Society's 1 Shelley Society, Original Prospectus, December 8, 1885. 2 Shelley Society Note Book, p. 188. 3 Ibid., p. 8. 4 Ibid., p. 55. "Shelley Society Note Book, p. 11. existence received an invitation to play the part of Beatrice, now responded with enthusiasm and delight. Mr. Hermann Vezin, one of the most talented actors of the English stage, undertook the part of Count Cenci. In preparation for the performance, Messrs. H. Buxton Forman and Alfred Forman published an edition of the play. As a frontispiece, Mr. W. B. Scott made an etching of Guido's Beatrice, and thus at last another of Shelley's original desires was fulfilled. The editors prefaced the text with a brief aesthetic discussion, pointing out the high degree in which the play aroused that pity and fear which Aristotle deemed essential to great tragedy, and ranking it in this respect with the "Oedipus Tyrannus," "Medea," "King Lear," and "Phèdre." The Shelley translation of the Italian manuscript account was given in an appendix. There were no notes of any kind in this edition, which was designed chiefly as a popular handbook for the performance. On the afternoon of Friday, May 7, 1886, at the Grand Theater, Islington, before an audience of something more than twenty-five hundred invited guests, the play was presented. The mounting and costuming were careful, though not so elaborate as to give the scenery any independent value. The drama was given literally according to the published text, without "cuts" or changes of any kind, save for a verse Prologue by Mr. John Todhunter, and a division into six acts instead of five-the division coming in the middle of the third act. The performance occupied nearly four hours, but this length of time, very unusual in a modern drama, did not seem to weary the audience, which, from the beginning to the end, listened spell-bound, rewarding every act with tumults of applause. At the end of the play, when Miss Murray was called back to the stage, the enthusiasm reached its climax, and the entire audience rose spontaneously and cheered.1 The comments in the lobbies after the play were loud and enthusiastic. Judging from the general attitude of that audience, one would have been justified in supposing that "The Cenci " 1 Shelley Society Note Book, 51-53. 2 Ibid., 65. was a great dramatic success.1 But the theatrical critics were not yet heard from-and when their verdict appeared it told a very different tale. The success of the particular performance before its special audience was acknowledged, and unanimously enthusiastic praise was accorded to the acting, especially to that of Miss Murray, which the Weekly Dispatch called the finest piece of tragic impersonation that had been seen for twenty-five years. But the play itself was condemned by the vast majority of the critics as entirely undramatic. Certain scenes, as presented, had indeed impressed them, notably Beatrice's appeal to the guests at the banquet, in the first act; the climax at the begin'ning of the third act-according to Le Figaro "la plus belle scène" of the performance; Cenci's curse in the fourth act; and the final speech of the play; but the merit of these scenes was attributed rather to the actors than to the drama itself. The play aroused in the breasts of the theatrical critics, for the most part, only the emotions of horror,2 disgust and weariness. They stigmatized it as gloomy," and as most unwholesome. The beauty and pathos which had been found in the drama by literary critics were hardly mentioned. The journalists went on to assert that the success of the play before a packed house of Shelley admirers, inclined to judge from a literary rather than a dramatic standpoint, could in no wise be accepted as indicative of genuine dramatic merit." 6 Unfortunately for a just estimate of the play it is evident from the tone of the theatrical criticisms that if the Shelley 1 The following papers referred to the favorable attitude of the audience: Hornsey and Finsbury Park Journal, May 18; Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper, May 9; Oxford Magazine, May 12; Western Daily Mercury, May 8; Athenaeum, May 15; Echo, May 8; Evening News, May 8; Saturday Review, May 15. 2 Daily Chronicle, Echo, Evening News, Liverpool Courier, Lloyd's Weekly, Morning Post, Times. 3 Times. 4 Times, Daily Telegraph, Morning Post. 5 Evening News, Observer. 6 Daily Chronicle, Daily Telegraph, Hornsey and Finsbury Park Journal, Lloyd's Weekly, Scotsman, Times. Athenæum, Daily Chronicle, Echo, Saturday Review. |