Henry Irving

because Anna's been very generous.

I've interviewed Anna in the past as well and remember very fondly a production she directed of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Riverside Theatre and was reflecting that theatre history is full of these couples who work together creatively like Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, like John Bell and Anna Volsker And I wonder, John, if you'd like to talk to us a little bit about how you have worked together creatively as a couple and whether there are things you can learn and understand and express in Shakespeare as a couple working on the material together that maybe you couldn't as individuals.

We played the Macbeths together, and that was a pretty hard one to do.

It doesn't bring you much closer together.

I have had other parts too, such as a voice speaks from within, or a noise is heard without, or a bell rings from behind, and a lot of things like that.

i played as a noise for seven nights before crowded houses where people were being turned away from the door and i've been a groan and a sigh and a tumult and once i was a vision passes before the sleeper so when i talk of acting and of the spirit of the drama i speak of what i know naturally too i was brought into contact very often into quite intimate personal contact with some of the greatest actors of the day i don't say it in any way of boasting but merely because of those of us who love the stage all dramatic souvenirs are interesting i remember for example that when wilson barrett played the bat and had to wear the queer suit with the scales it was i who put the glue on him and i recall a conversation with sir henry irving one night when he said to me fetch me a glass of water will you and i said sir henry it is not only a pleasure to get it but it is to me as a humble devotee of the art that you have ennobled a high privilege i will go further do he said henry was like that quick sympathetic what we call in french vibrant forbes robertson i shall never forget he owes me fifty cents and as for martin harvey i simply cannot call him sir john we are such dear old friends he never comes to this town without at once calling in my services to lend a hand in his production no doubt everybody knows that splendid play in which he appears called the breed of the treshams there is a torture scene in it a most gruesome thing harvey as the hero has to be tortured not on the stage itself but off the stage in a little room at the side you can hear him howling as he is tortured well it was i who was torturing him we were so used to working together that harvey didn't want to let anybody do it but me so naturally i am a keen friend and student of the drama and i hate to think of it going all to pieces the trouble with it is that it is becoming a mere mass of conversation and reflection nothing happens in it the action is all going out of it and there is nothing left but thought When actors begin to think it is time for a change, they are not fitted for it.

Now in my day, I mean when I was at the apogee of my reputation, I think that is the word, it may be apology, I forget.

Things were very different.