Wilson Knight - Shakespearian Production V 6

G. WILSON KNIGHT
COLLECTED WORKS

G. WILSON KNIGHT
COLLECTED WORKS

VOLUME VI

SHAKESPEARIAN PRODUCTION

With Especial Reference to the Tragedies

First published 1964 by Faber & Faber Ltd

Reprinted in 1968 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd

This edition published 2002 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

First issued in paperback 2012

The early chapters originally published under the title Principles of Shakespearian Production by Messrs. Faber & Faber Ltd in 1936 and reissued by Penguin Books Ltd in 1949

1964 by G. Wilson Knight

Epilogue to the Agamemnon O Heidi MacNeice 1964

Typeset in Times New Roman by

Keystroke, Jacaranda Lodge, Wolverhampton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 978-0-415-27896-6 (hbk) (Set)

ISBN 978-0-415-48849-5 (pbk) (Volume VI)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original book may be apparent.

SHAKESPEARIAN PRODUCTION

with especial reference to the Tragedies

by

G. WILSON KNIGHT

LONDON

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL LTD

Dedication 1964 edition

To

the memory of

HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE

producer actor and writer

and of

his disciple

in the art of acting

LESLIE HARRIS

Dedication 1968 paperback edition

For

Olive Hewetson

remembering Timon of Athens 1948

Contents

Illustrations

Between pages 112113

F or this republication in a third edition of my Principles of Shakespearian Production I have again added material, so that the present volume entitled Shakespearian Production is composed of layers reflecting a wide span of variously settled and changing opinion.. The extent and nature of these additions appear to justify the new and more comprehensive title.

I have tidied up details of faulty expression in my old text, and made some deletions, but where new sections or thoughts are added to old material they are dated. I did not include my account of Timon of Athens, here presented in , in the Penguin edition mainly, so far as I recall, because I still at that time had hopes of being given the opportunity of repeating it on a larger and more public scale.

Following the productions recorded in my original preface (pp. 214 below) my Toronto work included The Winters Tale in 1936, Antony and Cleopatra in 1937 and Timon of Athens in the early part of 1940, together with revivals of Hamlet, for which I was joint-producer with Miss Frances Tolhurst, in 1938 and Romeo and Juliet in 1939; also The Tempest in 1938, directed by Miss Josephine Koenig (see p. 274 below); the two revivals presented by, and the others in association with, the Shakespeare Society of Toronto. These various presentations, though performed in the University area and relying largely on the University for their audiences, were not in themselves university productions, nor was Hart House a University theatre, though both staff and students often took part. We drew widely on the acting strength of the city.

I am happy to hear from time to time good news from Mr. Raymond Card of the Shakespeare Societys activities, so recalling to memory my many friends in the Society, and their goodness to me. Among my Canadian correspondents I record my gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Stafford Johnston, Miss Josephine Koenig and Mr. Leonard Parker for sending to me particulars of the new Festival Theatre at Stratford, Ontario.

My war-time composite of Shakespearian excerpts and lecture-commentary, given first in 1940 in collaboration with Miss Nancy Price at the Tavistock Theatre, London, was repeated at various centres about England, at one of which Cyril Maude was chairman, and culminated in a week at the Westminster Theatre in the summer of 1941, under the title This Sceptred Isle. For this production, though I had no acting support beyond off-stage voices, the late Henry Ainley returned from retirement to read some of my commentaries, as indeed I had heard him read the commentary of Hardys Dynasts in Granville Barkers production at the Kingsway Theatre in 1914. At one performance we had the additional honour of a contribution by Sir John Martin Harvey. Among the most appreciative of those who attended were Sir Nigel and Lady Playfair, whose son Lyon was the Osric of my 1935 London Hamlet; and also Violet Vanbrugh, whom I had so admired (p. 51) as Lady Macbeth with Tree in 1911. The support of my mother and my brother did much to ease the anxieties of this ambitious and difficult year.