ENGLAND'S GREATEST ACTOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 12 August 1905, Page 13

ENGLAND'S GREATEST ACTOR.

In this column last Saturday a letter to the Sydney Herald from Miss Rosy Barton was published describing the impressions formed by an Australian actress of the extraordinary and well-deserved popularity of Sir Henry Irving, as demonstrated at ithe opening of his season at Easter. At tho end of the Drury Lane season renewed Scenes of enthusiasm followed at the close of "Becket." Iteven appears (says the Herald writer) that the great actor at last went away to put on evening dress for Vhe private presentation of a silver loving-cup from the members of the National Association of Theatrical Employeesi In the meantime, during his absence, the audience in the theatre refused to go home. The pitites, indeed, scaled the barriers, and surged into the stalls in order that their oheering might be more easily heard behind the scenes. The result was that just before midnight the iron curtain had to be raised, and the presentation became a public event, which closed with a touching little speech and a "God bless you all" from the famous artist. The curious part of it all, as viewed by the remote observers at t'he Antipodes, is that, in spite of this constant enthusiasm, Irving was driven from the Lyceum by a lack of public support. He does not den.y, no one in the theatrical profession denies, that, but for his. repeated triumphs in the United States, which ho has toured eight times, ho would have had to retire from continuous management years ago. "Coriolanus" was a gha&tly financial failure, there was no oioney in "Robespierre," the Danlo spectacular drama at Drury Lane failed to "catoh on," and the season just concluded, though it may have been as inag--nificent as the London press, with its invariable loyalty, declares, has certainly been the occasion of a suspiciously large number of revivals. It is a weird and inexplicable state of affairs in relotion lo the one really great actor of the English rflage. Tho fact that he is also it, man of tho highest cultivation, and of such kindliness of disposition that ho is personally popular with all classes of society, only emphasises tho strangeness of tho whole situation.