In face of this authoritative pronouncement, it must be conceded that
the spectacular system has been given, within recent memory, every
chance of succeeding, and, as far as recorded testimony is available,
has been, from the commercial point of view, a failure.
Meanwhile, during and since the period when Sir Henry Irving filled
the supreme place among producers of Shakespeare on the stage, the
simple method of Shakespearean production has been given no serious
chance. The anticipation of its pecuniary failure has not been put in
satisfactory conditions to any practical test. The last time that it
was put to a sound practical test it did not fail. While Irving was a
boy, Phelps at Sadler's Wells Theatre gave, in well-considered
conditions, the simple method a trial. Phelps's playhouse was situated
in the unfashionable neighbourhood of Islington. But the prophets of
evil, who were no greater strangers to Phelps's generation than they
are to our own, were themselves confuted by his experience.
V
On the 27th of May 1844 Phelps, a most intelligent actor and a serious
student of Shakespeare, opened the long-disused Sadler's Wells Theatre
in partnership with Mrs Warner, a capable actress, whose rendering of
Imogen went near perfection.
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