More about 1911

Having published the previous post, I continued trying to fill in 1911 gaps and found an advertisement in several newspapers for May's edition of The Windsor Magazine promising a photographic feature about the Shakespeare Festival. The Windsor Magazine was "An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women" featuring articles of interest, short stories, poems and illustrations and a number of well-known authors - for example, Arnold Bennet and E Nesbit - were regular contributors.  The monthly magazine was available as a  twice-yearly bound edition.

It didn't take too long to locate an available copy on ebay from a UK seller  and it had arrived by the time I returned from holiday.

The article itself contains little more than a run down of who will be playing what and with whom.  It laments in two separate paragraphs that the chronological cycle of English History plays is not making a reappearance and hints at the fact that this season is rather more 'popular' than previous years.

The photographs are excellent, showing the Festival of 1910 and portraits in role of many of the 'names' appearing with the company in Stratford.  Unfortunately, the paper is quite glossy and the weight of the book makes scanning impossible with the basic equipment I have here.  Light reflects off the curve of the page and so my reproductions here don't do the original pictures justice,  I've picked two interesting ones to begin with - the others will follow in due course.

The backdrop in the photograph of  husband and wife  Mattheson Lang and Hutin Briton as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth also appears  in the portrait of Violet Vanbrugh. Although Vanbrugh is wearing a dress and crown which seems to place her in one of the 'Wars of the Roses' plays, she actually played Beatrice at the Festival.   Both photographs are credited to 'Ellis & Walery' and it seems likely that the backdrop was a stock 'castle' used at their studios as it appears in at least one other photograph - of James Carew - in the National Portrait Gallery archives.  at  at 51 Baker Street between April 1899 and March 1913.  Benson's castle - as it appears in the film of Richard III was a little less 'polished'.