ABSTRACT
… Though none guessed, it was a historic moment when Harley Granville Barker (Candida on his mind) took the first morning rehearsal of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 1 The comedy is a Shakespearean notebook: one must hear it spoken to mark how thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves: scenes and speeches that, one day, especially in Romeo and Juliet, the dramatist would do much better. Few impressions of this revival have endured, though it was smoothed along gracefully, and Barker sacrificed himself as a player to the futilities of the servant Speed: in view of later events, a very apt name. The production did enchant A.B. Walkley, even if he omitted to mention Barker in a Times notice, for “stage managers” were not much publicised then. “I came away,” he said, “under so strong a charm that I almost told the cabman, ‘To Mantua—by sea.’” 2 In the next month (May 1904), Leigh had a drive at Timon of Athens in a play still less familiar, overlooked since 1856 and the reign of Phelps at Sadler’s Wells. London had forgotten its scorching condemnation of ingratitude, a sin that Shakespeare abhorred. Both Timon and Alcibiades learn the falsity of the Athenians. One cries “I am misanthropos and hate mankind.” The other returns to cow the Senate. What matters is the music threaded uncannily through the gale: “He ne’er drinks, But Timon’s silver treads upon his lip”; “We must all part into this sea of air”; “The sea’s a thief, whose liquid surge resolves The moon into salt tears”; “Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat Thy gravestone daily.” The Court revival (nothing to do with Barker) made no dint at all, even upon collectors, and the tragedy would not return to a London list until 1922.
