Independent Theatre Society
Encyclopedia
The Independent Theatre Society was a by-subscription-only organisation in London from 1891 to 1897, founded by Dutch drama critic Jacob Grein
to give "special performances of plays which have a literary and artistic rather than a commercial value." The society was inspired by its continental forerunners, the Théâtre-Libre (Free Theatre) and Die Freie Bühne (Free Stage). The Society produced modern realist plays, mostly by continental European playwrights, on the London stage.
; and in this way they were able to avoid the censorship of the London stage.
During 1891, the Royalty Theatre
fell vacant and offered the Society an opportunity to stage plays with a professional cast and crew. The first performance for the Society there was of Henrik Ibsen
's Ghosts
, on 13 March 1891 — in a translation by William Archer
. This was followed by Émile Zola
's Thérèse Raquin
on 9 October 1891. Both plays were greeted with a storm of protest. Ghosts was described thus: "an orderly audience, including many ladies... listened attentively to the dramatic exposition of a subject which is not usually discussed outside the walls of an hospital". Other critics called for the withdrawal of Kate Santley
's licence. The following year, Grein approached the (then) young theatre critic George Bernard Shaw
for a play for the Society. Shaw's first play, Widower's Houses, premièred for the Society at the Royalty Theatre
on 9 December 1892. A Question of Memory by Michael Field
premièred on 27 October 1893; and The Black Cat by Irish playwright, John Todhunter
received its only performance, on 8 December 1893, at the Opera Comique
. The Society premièred Ibsen's The Wild Duck
(in translation) in 1894. In 1895, Grein invited Aurélien Lugné-Poe
to present a season of productions in French, of Ibsen's Rosmersholm
, The Master Builder
and Maurice Maeterlinck
's symbolist
L'Intruse
and Pelléas and Mélisande
.
Membership of the Society never exceeded 175, but it was influential, including George Meredith
, Arthur Wing Pinero
, Thomas Hardy
and Henry James
, amongst the members. In 1895, Shaw wrote (of the Society) "The Independent Theatre is an excellent institution, simply because it is independent. The disparagers ask what it is independent of.... It is, of course, independent of commercial success.... If Mr Grein had not taken the dramatic critics of London and put them in a row before Ghosts and The Wild Duck, with a small but inquisitive and influential body of enthusiasts behind them, we should be far less advanced today than we are. The real history of the drama for the last ten years is not the history of the prosperous enterprises of Mr Hare, Mr Irving
, and the established West-End theatres, but of the forlorn hopes led by Mr Vernon, Mr Charrington, Mr Grein, Messrs Henly and Stevenson, Miss Achurch, Miss Robins and Miss Lea, Miss Farr and the rest of the Impossibilities." He went on to urge that the London managers "might provide one marketable play each year", so that the Society could continue as a laboratory for experimental theatre.
As a result of its small subscription base and its high ambitions, the Society was not financially successful and was wound up in 1897, having presented 22 productions and premières of an additional 26 one-act programmes. The Incorporated Stage Society took over the work two years later and was itself the inspiration for the formation of the Abbey Theatre
in Dublin and the English Stage Company, which is today the resident company of the Royal Court Theatre
. Grein continued his interest in European theatre, founding the German Theatre in London Programme in 1900 with his future wife, the actress, Alice Augusta Greeven.
J. T. Grein
Jacob Thomas Grein was a Dutch-born theatre impresario and drama critic who helped establish the modern theatre in London, England.-Biography:...
to give "special performances of plays which have a literary and artistic rather than a commercial value." The society was inspired by its continental forerunners, the Théâtre-Libre (Free Theatre) and Die Freie Bühne (Free Stage). The Society produced modern realist plays, mostly by continental European playwrights, on the London stage.
Description
The Society's performances, using professional actors, were given in theatres that were otherwise 'dark' — on Sundays, when no normal performances were scheduled. Because membership was by subscription, the performances were not "public", and so the Society was allowed to perform plays that had not received a licence from the Lord Chamberlain's OfficeLord Chamberlain's Office
The Lord Chamberlain's Office is a department within the British Royal Household. It is presently concerned with matters such as protocol, state visits, investitures, garden parties, the State Opening of Parliament, royal weddings and funerals. For example, in April 2005 it organised the wedding of...
; and in this way they were able to avoid the censorship of the London stage.
During 1891, the Royalty Theatre
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...
fell vacant and offered the Society an opportunity to stage plays with a professional cast and crew. The first performance for the Society there was of Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's Ghosts
Ghosts (play)
Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882.Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th century morality....
, on 13 March 1891 — in a translation by William Archer
William Archer (critic)
William Archer , Scottish critic, was born in Perth, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he received the degree of M.A. in 1876. He was the son of Thomas Archer....
. This was followed by Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
's Thérèse Raquin
Thérèse Raquin
Thérèse Raquin is the title of a novel and a play by the French writer Émile Zola. The novel was originally published in serial format in the journal L'Artiste and in book format in December of the same year.-Plot introduction:Thérèse Raquin tells the story of a young woman, unhappily married to...
on 9 October 1891. Both plays were greeted with a storm of protest. Ghosts was described thus: "an orderly audience, including many ladies... listened attentively to the dramatic exposition of a subject which is not usually discussed outside the walls of an hospital". Other critics called for the withdrawal of Kate Santley
Kate Santley
Kate Santley was an American-born English actress, singer, comedienne, and theatre manager. Her brother was the English baritone, Sir Charles Santley, famous in Wagner's Flying Dutchman among other roles.-Musical theatre career:...
's licence. The following year, Grein approached the (then) young theatre critic George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
for a play for the Society. Shaw's first play, Widower's Houses, premièred for the Society at the Royalty Theatre
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...
on 9 December 1892. A Question of Memory by Michael Field
Michael Field (author)
Michael Field was a pseudonym used for the poetry and verse drama of Katherine Harris Bradley and her niece and ward Edith Emma Cooper . As Field they wrote around 40 works together, and a long journal Works and Days...
premièred on 27 October 1893; and The Black Cat by Irish playwright, John Todhunter
John Todhunter
John Todhunter was an Irish poet and playwright who wrote seven volumes of poetry, and several plays.- Life :...
received its only performance, on 8 December 1893, at the Opera Comique
Opera Comique
The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, between Wych Street and Holywell Street with entrances on the East Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway...
. The Society premièred Ibsen's The Wild Duck
The Wild Duck
The Wild Duck is an 1884 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.-Plot:The first act opens with a dinner party hosted by Håkon Werle, a wealthy merchant and industrialist. The gathering is attended by his son, Gregers Werle, who has just returned to his father's home following a self-imposed...
(in translation) in 1894. In 1895, Grein invited Aurélien Lugné-Poe
Aurélien Lugné-Poe
Aurélien-François Lugné-Poë born Aurélien-François-Marie Lugné was a French actor, theatre director, and scenic designer best known for his work at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre, one of the first theatrical venues in France to provide a home for the artists of the Symbolist Movement at the end of the...
to present a season of productions in French, of Ibsen's Rosmersholm
Rosmersholm
Rosmersholm is a play written in 1886 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In the estimation of many critics the piece is Ibsen's masterwork, only equalled by The Wild Duck of 1884...
, The Master Builder
The Master Builder
The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's most significant and revealing works.-Performance:...
and Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
's symbolist
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
L'Intruse
L'Intruse
Intruder is a play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. It is the second play Maeterlinck wrote.Intruder concerns man's conflict with preternatural forces, against which he is powerless...
and Pelléas and Mélisande
Pelléas and Mélisande
Pelléas and Mélisande is a Symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck about the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters. It was first performed in 1893....
.
Membership of the Society never exceeded 175, but it was influential, including George Meredith
George Meredith
George Meredith, OM was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era.- Life :Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two...
, Arthur Wing Pinero
Arthur Wing Pinero
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero was an English actor and later an important dramatist and stage director.-Biography:...
, Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
and Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, amongst the members. In 1895, Shaw wrote (of the Society) "The Independent Theatre is an excellent institution, simply because it is independent. The disparagers ask what it is independent of.... It is, of course, independent of commercial success.... If Mr Grein had not taken the dramatic critics of London and put them in a row before Ghosts and The Wild Duck, with a small but inquisitive and influential body of enthusiasts behind them, we should be far less advanced today than we are. The real history of the drama for the last ten years is not the history of the prosperous enterprises of Mr Hare, Mr Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
, and the established West-End theatres, but of the forlorn hopes led by Mr Vernon, Mr Charrington, Mr Grein, Messrs Henly and Stevenson, Miss Achurch, Miss Robins and Miss Lea, Miss Farr and the rest of the Impossibilities." He went on to urge that the London managers "might provide one marketable play each year", so that the Society could continue as a laboratory for experimental theatre.
As a result of its small subscription base and its high ambitions, the Society was not financially successful and was wound up in 1897, having presented 22 productions and premières of an additional 26 one-act programmes. The Incorporated Stage Society took over the work two years later and was itself the inspiration for the formation of the Abbey Theatre
Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...
in Dublin and the English Stage Company, which is today the resident company of the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
. Grein continued his interest in European theatre, founding the German Theatre in London Programme in 1900 with his future wife, the actress, Alice Augusta Greeven.