ABSTRACT
According to W. D. King, Edward Gordon Craig saw Irving as 'his model for the Supreme Creator' and his 'writings on Irving tend to construct his memory as a prophetic embodiment of Craig's own theories about the artist of the theatre'. In Craig's view, Irving was artificial, even slightly stylised in the way he achieved his effects – he astonished, he was expressive, he was dramatic, says Craig – but he was never commonplace. The theatre of Irving, far from being a contained and unified segment of theatre history, should be viewed as a transitional force with a certain degree of seepage into the theatrical thinking that informed the modernist movement. Defending Irving against William Archer's criticisms of his physical and vocal idiosyncrasies as a performer, Craig wrote: 'He danced, he did not merely walk – he sang, he by no means merely spoke. He was essentially artificial in distinction to being merely natural.'.
