We few...

Today being Remembrance Sunday, it seems appropriate to remember those members of the Benson Company who fought during The Great War of 1914 -18.  Those members of the company who lost their lives are commemorated in a window which can be seen in the Gallery Swan of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Unveiled by Dame Ellen Terry in 1925, it shows St George defeating the dragon.  St George is the likeness of Eric Benson, the only son of Frank and Constance, who was killed in action  at the Somme in September 1916.  Winchester College's website contains more details of his war service, military honours and death:  http://www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/archive/eric-william-benson/

Lt-Col Eric William Benson 

Nine other Bensonians are also remembered in the window: Charles Bibby, Harold Chapin, Rupert Conrick, Arthur Curtis, William Harris, Frank Mathews, Guy Rathbone, W Ribton Haines and James Stanners. Many other members of the Company served and survived the war. Benson himself tried to sign up on several occasions and made spirited efforts to convince the authorities that he was actually younger than his age. Finally in 1916 he and Constance set out to work with the Red Cross.

The BATH CHRONICLE AND WEEKLY GAZETTE of June 3rd 1916 reported that Sir Frank Benson, the Shakespearian actor, and Lady Benson are going to Salonika to help in the work of one of the Serbian Army hospitals. They hope to start in about three weeks. "The opportunity of going out presented itself," he said, "and we naturally jumped at it. So many actors have thrown up everything and gone to the front that we felt we ought to do what we could...I do not say that every one on the stage ought to go to the front, for I think that the theatres at home are doing real war work in keeping the nation in good spirits, and the work of actors and actresses in cheering the wounded has, I believe, been of great service. "There is, of course, a difficulty in obtaining men for Shakespearian plays, for you need young, vigorous men for Shakespeare - just the kind you need for the Army. About a dozen of my younger men have gone to the Army during the past year. The stage has already given a great proportion of its men to the Army, and others are working in munition factories and showing skill and ability... I do not advocate closing theatres, but when a man gets a call to go he has to answer it, and that is why I am off." Sir Frank Benson's absence will mean the suspension of his company's Shakespearean tours until next spring.

In 1917 Sir Frank and Lady Benson ran canteens in France for the French Red Cross. They returned to England in June 1917 and recommenced touring , but returned again to France in 1918, Frank driving an ambulance and Constance serving in the British base at Etaples. Sir Frank was awarded the French Croix de Guerre. 

Progress: slow but steady

Two exciting things happened in the spring and summer of this year.  The first was that the essay I submitted to the Society for Theatre Research won their 'New Scholars' Prize for 2014 and is to be published in their journal, Theatre Notebook. As a long-time member of the STR, I am delighted that they are going to publish my research into one of the Benson productions.

Me and Shakespeare's Birthplace in the rain, July 2015

The second exciting thing was the award of a Bursary from the Shakespeare Birthplace Centre.  The Louis Marder Scholarship, in the words of the Birthplace Trust ' is awarded to ‘a worthy Shakespearian currently pursuing a Ph.D. or similar study, who pledges to produce an original, publishable article on a previously approved literary, historical, or biographical topic about William Shakespeare (as opposed to character analysis or authorship studies) from The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library or Archives, approved by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s assigned authorities, within two years of the accepted funds.' My attempts at mapping the Benson itineraries and exploring the repertory was deemed 'worthy' by the judges and so I have been given a bursary to enable me to spend more time in the Shakespeare Birthplace archives to work on creating something suitable for publication. To say I was delighted would be an understatement. 

Both of these endorsements come from organisations I greatly admire and which have, over the years, nurtured my curiosity about theatre history and enabled me to feel brave enough to take the first steps to write about what I've discovered. There's still a long way to go but knowing that someone else has faith in what I'm doing and believes it is valid, interesting and useful, really makes me want to keep going!

35% mapped and still going...


 

A Lovely Day!

I've had a lovely day today!  For once, I've allowed myself a WHOLE DAY to work on the database. Since January I've been trying to map the touring schedule and repertory of Frank Benson's company, using just resources which are available on line and during the long summer holiday I've been spending an hour or two every day (or more accurately, every night - I'm nocturnal during the hols!) 'topping up' the information I'd already found.

I'm mainly using the British Library's online Newspaper Archive.  I'm an annual subscriber, which works out very much more efficient and actually very inexpensive when compared with paying by view.  I'm an amateur researcher and I've evolved my own method of searching. It has four basic levels.  Level 1 was the research I'd already done for my MA using the Stage newspaper archive to get a rough outline of the touring schedules for each of Benson's companies.  Level 2 involved using the British Library archive to start fleshing out the skeleton - I managed about 10% of the rep using the approach of targetted searching for place and date.  I'm at Level 3 at the moment -  taking a year at a time and doing some close searching, using Benson's name as my starting point, and with this approach I've managed to fill in around 70% of each of the years I've done so far.  That leaves Level 4 - the tough-nut category which may well take me off the sofa and into the actual archives to find the last few remaining details for each year.

Today, I had a dental appointment at 1.30pm, so I decided to spend the morning working my way through 1890 and 1891.  And when the dental appointment was cancelled it seemed to make sense to keep working! It's now 5.30 and I've 'completed' the 3nd level search on '90, 91 and 92, unearthing twelve new 'dates', three undiscovered venues and a whole mountain of performance data.

There's still a long way to go to reach my goal, but today I feel I've really made huge progress!  30% complete is on the horizon...!

Now on Facebook too...

From next week, there'll be regular updates on the Merry Shrews project on the new Facebook page as well as the blog entries here.  Keep up to date at https://www.facebook.com/merryshrews

Benson in London

 This week I've been concentrating on the year 1890 for which I had very few database entries. Generally speaking, my research is centred on Benson's touring to the provinces but sometimes it is necessary to look at the bigger picture and see how the two theatrical centres of activity of London and Stratford each had an impact on his work.    Although not a good businessman, Benson - or his management team - seem to have had a canny understanding of the principal of the USP (unique selling-point)  and so, in the early years of the Company, advertisements would often point out that the props and scenery - and indeed the actors Benson toured with - were 'the Globe Company'.  

There have been three theatres of that name in London, the most recent, of course, being the replica of Shakespeare’s theatre, created by actor Sam Wanamaker which opened in 1997.  The other Globe Theatre – in Shaftesbury Avenue – changed its name to the Gielgud  in 1994, partly to avoid any confusion with the South Bank Globe project.  However, the Globe Theatre that Benson leased in 1889 was at the end of the Aldwych on the site now occupied by BBC Bush house.  A large theatre with a capacity of 1,5000, it backed onto the Opera Comique and the initially the wall between the two theatres was allegedly so thin that noise from one could be heard in the other!

Perhaps the obvious most attraction of the Globe for Benson was the name, with its automatic association with Shakespeare: the theatre's act-drop portrayed a image of Stratford upon Avon. Benson appears to have made a popular success of this season: opening on the 19^th of December with his new production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, he was still performing the play to audiences the week beginning April 21^st.  The Dundee Courier recorded the one hundredth performance of the play and commented on the twice weekly matinees and the demand for seats.

Benson hated long runs of a single play, believing that they led to stale and lifeless performances.  To combat this, he changed the programme for Thursday and Friday evenings, giving first The Taming of the Shrew, then Hamlet and finally Othello.  The London press were cautious in their praise, admiring the intention - if not always the execution - of the season. However, Dream  seems to have been a success with audiences, so much so that the production would form the back-bone of the Benson touring rep for many years.

Benson left London in May 1890 to return to  provincial touring, having made at least a dint in the stranglehold of the established London management over Shakespeare and he had also shown that there was an audience for the rather neglected 'fairy play'.  Beerbohm Tree's famous production of the play - complete with live rabbits -wouldn't make an appearance until ten years later, beating Benson's 'century' of performances by a narrow margin.  The Globe Theatre was demolished in 1902 to make way for the restructured Aldwych.  

Side entrance in Newcastle Street.

Exciting news coming very soon...!

I've been away from blogging for what feels like a long time, and not through choice: life and work took priority in April and May, as I knew they would do, and I had to put my Benson project on pause.
However, this week something very exciting has happened.  I'm not at liberty to divulge what, just yet, but it does mean that I'm going to be very busy with Benson in the months to come!  More news will follow...

In the meantime, having missed Shakespeare's birthday, I thought I'd add this  - taken in July 1916, it shows Benson and Constance in London, at a costumed fete at the Temple.  I love the fact that FRB has his overcoat on over his doublet: it looks more like November than July!

Another Benson

This week I've been away in the Lake District, but Benson has still been at the forefront of my mind.  The fit -up 'South' company visited  Keswick, Ambleside and Bowness and the Principal and  'North' Companies made several visits to Kendal, Penrith and Ulverston throughout the years Benson was touring.  Keswick, in particular, still has a strong theatrical heritage through the 'Theatre By the Lake' a repertory theatre in the most stunning of settings: http://www.theatrebythelake.com/

W. A. S. Benson - Frank Benson's elder brother by four years - was an architect and designer who made many items of furniture and lighting for Morris & Co and ended up as a Director of the company after Morris's death. The family resemblance between William and Frank is clear in the photo below.  He is well known as a member of the Arts and Crafts movement and his designs for electric lighting are now collectors' pieces. https://www.blackwell.org.uk/.

 

Some of these are on show at Blackwell, a fabulous Arts and Crafts House in the Lake District, just outside Bowness and are truly lovely: the anticipate the Art Nouveau movement with stylised plant forms and the Vaseline glass shades. Blackwell is a delight: a cross between Morris and Mackintosh and well worth a visit:

Interestingly, Shakespeare's Globe are taking their 'fit up' production of Romeo and Juliet to the grounds of Blackwell in the Summer this year, following in the footsteps of  Benson's summer 'pastoral' performances.  http://www.oldlaundrytheatre.co.uk/event.php?event=149&cat=3

Stratford upon Avon in the Spring

Stratford upon Avon is wonderful in any season, but it is especially beautiful in Spring.  For the last two years I've spent 24 hours there as part of my Easter holiday - it's a kind of 'cultural retreat'.  I stay in B&B near the theatre, walk, eat cake, talk to as few people as I can get away with, go to the theatre (of course!) and then spend the second day in the Birthplace Trust library and archives reading room, trying to cram a year's research into five and a bit hours...

The Birthplace Library holds the archives of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and has a lot of material relating to Frank Benson which I'm slowly becoming more familiar with.  This time, I looked at two prompt books for As You Like It and Taming of the Shrew and began to sift through some of the company's accounts from 1909 and 1910 which made for quite alarming reading because Benson was clearly touring at a ridiculous level of financial loss.

Stratford is a very spiritual place, for me. It's hard to explain it without it sounding silly, but the first time I went there I felt as if I'd returned home to somewhere I'd always been missing.  It has the same impact for me still, today, almost thirty years on, and there's a sense of theatrical history there which is almost tangible. Leaving it is always a wrench. I'm saving some of the pictures for a post later in the month about the old Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, but these give something of the flavour of Stratford in Spring...  I wish I could  bottle the scent and sound of the place as well!

Holy Trinity Churchyard; The 'Gower' Hamlet; Canal Basin and Avon bankside looking towards the Church:
 April 10th 2015

Dumfries, 1886

On March 8th 1886, the Benson company started a week's performances at the Theatre Royal in Dumfries, the first visit Benson made to the town.  The photographs here have come from 'Burns' Scotland' website and show the theatre as it was in 1900.  I love old photos of theatres.
This theatre, often cited as being the oldest working theatre in Scotland opened on Shakespeare Street in 1792 and Robert Burns and J M Barrie are amongst the famous names connected with its history.

Renovated in the 1890s (by our friend Mr Phipps!) the theatre was purchased in 1959 by the Dumfries Guild of Players.  It was threatened with demolition in 2006 and again with closure in 2011.  However, finance was secured for renovations in 2013 and the theatre has just launched a fund raising campaign to enable them to afford the 'finishing touches'.  They hope to reopen in time for this year's pantomime.  (Hopefully the resident ghosts who were featured in  'Mostly Ghostly's Theatre Event' haven't been too inconvenienced by works!)

It's worrying to see how close it came to closure: interestingly, the theatre was considered to have little architectural value i n 2006 but by 2011 was cited as being a rare example of a surviving Georgian theatre - a salutatory example of how opinions can differ.  My last trip to Dumfries was in 2005 and we walked past the theatre on our way back to the station: it looked in need of a lot of TLC.  I look forward to revisiting it when it reopens!

(You can support the fund here: https://fundly.com/help-us-finish-our-new-building#gallery/2)

 http://www.burnsscotland.com/items/i/image-taken-from-glass-plate-negative-of-the-theatre-royal,-dumfries-c-1900.aspx 

Database Update 1

I've been working on completing my Bensonian database and thought this morning I might print it out so I had a paper copy.  So far the Basic Edition (dates and venues only) runs to 62 pages of printing...! It's a book in itself!!!

Edinburgh February 1893

Benson made many visits during his career to Edinburgh, often for two week seasons, and always performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre.  Like the Waterford Theatre, the Edinburgh  Royal Lyceum (named after Irving’s Theatre in London) is still operating as a theatre today, now with its own resident theatre company.  Benson first visited the Lyceum in 1888, five years after it had opened.  Yet another auditorium designed by the prolific C.J Phipps, the theatre reputedly cost £17, 000 to build.  

On February 15th 1893, Benson presented a week of plays including Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night,  Richard III and Hamlet as well as ‘Old English’ comedies, The Rivals and School for Scandal.  The following week was a full week of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Benson had originally produced his ‘Grand Production’ of the Dream in 1889 for a six week season at the Globe Theatre where it had been very favourably reviewed by the national press.  The Pall Mall Gazette, in particular, praised Benson’s ambitious intentions: ‘There has been no ‘scamping’ behind the scenes at the Globe – no half measures in the matter of mounting.  On the contrary, the play has been put upon the stage with as much care as if it were intended run for a year.’  

Benson would go on to use the fact that this was a London production in much of his publicity for the play and would recruit local ‘elves and sprites’ from each town the production visited to be trained up for the performance.    Benson’s production obviously proved popular in Edinburgh, returning the following year for a further week’s performances.

Waterford, 1895

Given that so many of the theatres the Benson Companies visited became victims to fire, war, or the inner city developer, it is always wonderful to find a survivor!

The Theatre Royal Waterford is very much alive and well, and still operating as a theatre. What makes this even better is the fact that the theatre is such an old one: performances began there in 1787.  Benson's company made their first visit to Waterford in 1895.

According to its fascinating website, the Theatre Royal is 'the premiere venue in the South East of Ireland, plays host to the best national and international touring artists and companies and with the assistance of Waterford City Council and TheArts Council is increasingly seeking to mount its own productions for the people of the city and the region.'  It's a small venue, nowadays seating 430 patrons on three levels (although it would probably have held more in 1895!).

And what a stunning auditorium! Another one of C.J. Phipps's make-overs, it was recently refurbished  and given  a £4million face-lift. The auditorium is an elegant Georgian space, with horseshoe shaped balconies and a high proscenium.


I haven't been able find any period photographs of the theatre itself, which  includes an Assembly Rooms and the Corporation's Art Gallery. However, the postcards reproduced below were taken around 1900 and give something of the flavour of the city at the time, which, according to the  National Archives had an expanding population at this time.
  
According to the records I have, the Bensonians only visited seven times, all around the end of December or into January.  I've yet to unearth any repertory records for any of these engagements.  

I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't even really know where Waterford was until I started this project.  It's now on my 'bucket list' of theatres to visit!  

Belfast January 1892

During the 1880s, 90s and the early 1900s Benson and his Company could usually be found in Ireland during December and January, undertaking seasons which were sometimes several weeks long in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Waterford and Londonderry.  At this time, of course, Ireland was not  divided  into the North and Eire.  In 1892, the Bensons were spending a second week in Belfast at the impressive Theatre Royal.  The theatre had been refurbished in 1881 after a disastrous fire and the interior was redesigned by the renowned theatre architect C. J. Phipps, (best known today for several West End theatres, including  Her Majesty's, home to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera). 

At its re-opening The Era  noted  'Along the whole of the facade in Arthur-square a covered veranda or porch has been erected of iron and glass; so that the audience waiting for the opening of the doors will be protected when the weather is wet, and those coming in carriages will not have to cross a damp pavement previous to entering the theatre.'  The auditorium was sumptuous - a gold proscenium, a painted ceiling, enhanced by 'the rich colour of the wall-paper, of a warm Venetian red tone - while the hangings to the private boxes are of silk tapestry, a deep turquoise blue colour, embroidered with sprigs of flowers in colour. The whole scheme of colour has been very carefully arranged by the architect, and the paper and curtains have been specially manufactured for this theatre.'

The Company's programme for the week included Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, School for Scandal and - of course - Shrew, Merry Wives and Merchant of Venice!  Merry Wives came in for particular praise from the critic of the Belfast Newsletter  who felt 'No piece presented here in recent years approaches this production in the beauty of its treatment or the splendour of its mounting... Special scenery, abounding in beautiful effects and rare artistic treatment, special music and a delightful fairy ballet have been provided with the natural result that Mr Benson has afforded lovers of true comedy a treat at once unique and charming  The concluding act especially was beyond praise.'    

The Bensons would be frequent visitors to the Theatre Royal until its closure and redevelopment as a cinema in 1915.  It finally closed its doors and was demolished in 1961,  Its theatrical rival, Frank Matcham's Grand Opera House, would be rather luckier, narrowly escaping the developers and surviving the bomb damage of the Troubles, to become Belfast's touring theatre today.