Granville Barker

William Rothenstein

Coloured chalks on paper

Photographically “reproduced by Mr. Emery Walker” (Preface)

See below for text accompanying this portrait.

Image capture, color correction, and text by George P. Landow

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and University of Toronto and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]

[Rothenstein does does not identify which of the “various hands” wrote the commentary below that accompanies his portrait drawing.]

It is passing hard for a personal friend and keen admirer to write a page on Granville Barker which shall have that judicial detachment and discrimination so desirable in the valuer of other men's wares. However — !

Everybody knows his work for the stage; but few perhaps realize the extent to which his strong individuality cut across the stubborn shibboleths, and revitalized the stationary mechanism, of the British stage.

His work at the Court theatre was, frankly, a revolution; for in those four years, from 1903 to 1907, he formed a school of acting whose offshoots to this day provide the best miming in this island.

Granville Barker, first of moderns, made London realize that 'the play's the thing', and before him the 'stars' in their courses trembled and stood still. Many lesser lights who passed through his hands have become 'stars' since, yet none of these have quite forgotten that their places in the planetary system are not absolute but relative.

But it is rather of Granville Barker the dramatist, than of Granville Barker actor and producer, that one would speak. 'The Voysey Inheritance' has not been surpassed as a comedy of English manners in our time; nor 'The Marriage of Ann Leete' as an experiment in technique. As for 'Waste' seldom was a play better named. Banned by the incredible censorship of that day, it never had a chance. It is not, perhaps, the great tragedy which William Archer thought it, but it is an extraordinarily interesting play. A little yarn of its first and only production comes into the mind. "The play strikes its sublimest note," wrote one of its critics, "when the hero, going out to commit suicide, utters the words: 'Leave it!'" Well, Granville Barker who wrote the play, produced the play, and played the hero, had, as he left the stage for death, descried a stage hand about to shut the wrong door. The sublime utterance 'Leave it!' was made to that stage hand.

Just one word to end on Loyalty. There never was a man who more loyally served the best interests of the drama in this country, than Granville Barker.

References

Rothenstein, William. Twenty-four Portraits with critical appreciations by various hands. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1920. Internet Archive version of a copy at the University of Toronto. Web. 20 November 2012.

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Last modified 20 November 2012