ABSTRACT
The metaphors might be mixed, but Peter Brook's insistence on the essential mark left by the 'striking theatrical experience' goes to the heart of why theatre might matter. Contemporary accounts suggest that Henry Irving's 1899 production of Robespierre, commissioned from Victorien Sardou and translated by Irving's son, Laurence, offered such an experience to many in his audience. As the New York Dramatic Mirror reported, 'in the midst of the clamour Robespierre stands like a gaunt rock'. Even if silenced by 250 supers, there is no danger whatever of this Robespierre being lost in the turmoil. When revolutionary leaders again made an impact on European stages it was in the intense drama-documentary format of Danton's Death, a play directly concerned with the crushing of individuals by the movement of history. Irving's stage had been crowded before: Faust used more than 200 supers in 1885, The Dead Heart some 300.
