THE PASSING OF SIR HENRY IRVING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2626, 13 July 1904, Page 69

THE PASSING OF SIR HENRY IRVING.

Tn ihe course of a speech at a reception given in his honour at the Manchester Arts Club recently Sir Henry Ir\iug announced - t iac the end of his stage career was draw- • nigh, 50 years' service being, in hi 3 j\v, enough. The following is the ad,s Sir Henry delivered: —

I ha\o listened lery often to j our . » C'iy greetings, but they come with a jie>pfcUul Uesline^g. l cau assure jou it

is a great comfort to a strolling player like myseit to know that he can alwaj.s count upon au excellent meal and a kind word at tho Arts Club. \Vo h^e been at it a good many years — making the^c old associations it is such a pleasure to renew — and 1 daicsay the younger members of this club — 3-011 must have younger members now and then — occasionally wonder how r old the strolling player who keeps on turning vp — how old ne can be! An actor's age, 1 am told, is always the subject ot 5-jnipathet'c niteiest. About 20 years ago. I remember, a lady wrote to mo and said : 'f ■> it true that you are getting on for 80V 1 replied, ' that it was quite true ; but I hoped it wouldn't make any difference.' The- other day I 'had a letter offering mo a plaj — such things do coioe c oinotinics. The author said it was a 2 3OC tical sllcgoiy, and I c wanted to ca^t me in tho part of leather Time. I wrote, in what 1 thought was quite a playful ppirit, to say that if I accepted the part I might want to -u*c Father Time's scythe to cvi. down the other paits. He wrote back in quite a different spirit: 'How like an actoi-mana-gcr !'

" txe-ntlemen, the strolling player who is now addressing you for, it may be, tho hundredth occasion — I have qttite lost count — may strike those younger membeis as rathrr like Father Time. But I can as-uie them that ho carries nothing so unsociable as a scythe — only a cigar-cutter. As I look back upon these associations of ours it seems to me there is .not a subject relating to the welfare of tlfo stage that we haie not discussed together. Endowed theatres — dramat.c schools — the dearth of plays — you 'know them all. The dearth of plays I scarcely dare to montion, because it provokes lively correspondence in the newspapers. Authors write to say that they have masterpieces in abundance, which the selfishness of actor-managers will not allow to &cc the hqht. But eveiy manager is not an actor yearning for tho middle of the stage. Mr Charles Frohman is about as enlerprisir g a manager as you will find ; yet, strange to sa}-, he doesn't want to act. But he searches the highways and bj ways of Britain and America, and I have ne-vcr heard him complain that he has more masterpieces than he knows what to do with. "«•

"I see that an ingenious gentleman has been over to Paris to consult some eminent French experts about the state of the British drama, and the only comfort they could give him was that perhaps it might be bettered if the Examiner of Plays would pevmit dramatists a little more freedom in dealing w ith vital questions of modern life. But to imagine the Examiner licencing an experiment in freedom, on the plea that it dealt -with a vital question of modern life, is to suppose a re\olution in English taste. 1 doubt whether this plan, even if it could be adopted, would let loose a native genius for play-writing, which is now suppressed by our excessive decorum. But the endowed theatre would certainly give -a chance to the unacted author. In tlve success or failure of a play there is often an element of mystery. It spring;: from some unknown quality in the public mind, with which the longest experience cannot reckon. Now the endowed theatie — wh:eh need not shut its dcors when it is emptj- — might try a number of plays which the a\erage manager dare not touch. I would suggest, therefore, that the unacted authors should form a league — a league for the cajoling of millionaires so as to raise the capital lot- that endowed theatre, which even the superfluous wealth of Manchester lias not yet established.

"If only we could find a millionaire who writes plays the thing would be -done. Perhaps ihe is listening to mo now. Out of the fulness of his heart and pocket let ■ him speak so that the strolling player maypiss away from your hospitable boaid. Oh, he'll come back, I hope — feeling that he has* achieved a great work, and feeling more venerable than e\er. Yes, vene.rable, perhaps, for it is 44 years since I first came amongst you — 48 since I first set foot upon the stage ; and it is at times borne in upon me, and never more than at moments like these, when life has so mtich that is good to leave, that in another couple of years the time will come when I must say farewell to the art which I have. lo\ed all my life.

'"Fffty years of activd work as a player is enough ; and vhen 1 havf> eomiDleted the tally of those years I shall shortly make my last bow to the public, who have shown to me- so much love and patience and sympathy; and T shall take with me as I go back from the glare of the footlights a memory which '-hall be a pride and a pleasure to whatever period of rest may be my lot."