|
John
Hare was born John
Fairs in Giggleswick in Yorkshire (GB) and became one of the most famous
English actors and theatre managers of his generation.
|
|
|
John Hare
(left) and Marie Wilton (right) in Caste (1867 - the year
in which she married Squire Bancroft)
Click photo for enlargement
|
From 1865 to 1875, he achieved considerable success at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, London, where
he was a member of the famous company run by Squire Bancroft (1841-1926) an accomplished actor who had taken the sensible
step of marrying the theatre's lessee, the actress, Marie Wilton (1839-1921) who together made the theatre into a fashionable
venue. At the Prince of Wales's, John Hare created major character parts in all the comedies of T W Robertson, including
Sam Gerridge in Caste (1867), in which the preparation of tea and sandwiches in the first act was a famed comic
tour de force of the period.
Established as a major comic actor, he took over the management of the Court Theatre in 1975. Famed for the close attention
he gave to every detail of his productions, he achieved considerable success. In 1877, he commissioned W G Wills to dramatize
Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. He selected Ellen Terry to play Olivia, the female lead, and in this
sentimental piece she created her first important stage role, which brought her considerable public acclaim and led to
Henry Irving inviting her to join him at the Lyceum Theatre, where she was to remain for 25 years. Also in the cast were
William Terris (who played Squire Thornhill) and Charles Kelly, who became Terry's second husband.
In 1879, Lord Newry, the owner of St. James's Theatre, was looking for an actor manager of high repute to take over his
theatre. He approached the Bancrofts, who were leaving the Prince of Wales's, but they chose instead to go to the Haymarket.
Lord Newry then offered the management to John Hare, who accepted, agreeing to go there in partnership with W H Kendal
and his wife Madge Robertson, who were both in his company at the Court.
For the arrival of the new management, St James's Theatre was reconstructed and redecorated. The Era of October
5, 1979, enthused:
| Messrs. Hare and Kendal are now in
possession of a house which, for taste, elegance, and comfort,
is far in advance of anything the Metropolis has yet been able
to boast. For them the old St. James's has been transformed into
a Temple of the Drama complete and beautiful in all its details,
and likely, we should say, to become one of the sights of
London. The visitor, on entering, will imagine that he has
passed the portals of some Parisian mansion, for the very ticket
office has all the appearance of an antechamber sumptuously
furnished. |
The Hare-Kendals
management continued at the St. James's Theatre for nine enormously
successful years. Cecil Howard describes the opening season in an
article published in The Theatre, September 1888:
During the whole of the term they have done their utmost to provide plays that would not only
amuse but would elevate the public taste, and their efforts have been so far successful that they have experienced
but few failures, and those works that have been adapted from the French stage have invariably been made pure and
wholesome.
Those who attended the opening night of October 4, 1879, experienced a foretaste, from the manner in which the house
itself had been redecorated and improved in appearance, of the elegance and lavish perfection with which the plays
would be put upon the stage. After the singing of the National Anthem by Charles Santley, the curtain drew up on the
comedietta Monsieur le Duc, written by Val Prinsep, A.R.A., in which John Hare was the libertine Duc de Richelieu,
who discovers his own daughter in Marguerite (Cissy Grahame), a young girl whom he meant to betray. William Terriss
was the Count de la Roque. The pièce de résistance was The Queen's Shilling, by G. W.
Godfrey, founded on Le Fils de Famille of Bayard, of which there had been other adaptations. In this Madge
Kendal, Mrs. Gaston Murray, Kate Phillips, John Hare, W. H. Kendal, William Terriss, William Mackintosh and T. E.
Wenman appeared. This piece, first produced in London at the Court, April 19 of the same year, proved so successful
as to be several times revived.
December 18, 1879, saw the production of The Falcon, founded by Lord (then Mr. Alfred) Tennyson on a story
in the Decameron of Boccaccio. Kendal was the Count Alberighi and his wife Lady Giovanna. Marcus Stone, R.A.,
painted some exquisite scenery, and the costumes were extremely rich and archaeologically correct. Kendal gained much
credit for his singing of 'Dead Mountain Flowers.' This ran till March 6, 1880, when Old Cronies, comedietta
by Theyre Smith, took its place with William Mackintosh and Wenman.
From March 13 till May 22, 1880, Tom Taylor's Still Waters Run Deep held the boards, with Hare, Kendal, Terriss,
Cissy Grahame and Madge Kendal as Mrs. Sternhold (by many thought one of her greatest assumptions). On the latter
date The Queen's Shilling was revived, and ran till June 17, when the Ladies' Battle was revived, with
Madge Kendal as the Countess D'Autreval; Hare, Kendal, Terriss, Albert Chevalier and Cissy Grahame; with this was
given A Regular Fix, with Kendal as Sir Hugh de Brass. These two pieces were played till the close
of the first season on July 10. |
Among the many great successes of subsequent seasons were several plays by A W Pinero, whose playwrighting talents
Hare was one of the first to recognize. They included The Money Spinner (1881), The Squire (1881) in which
Hare played the Rev. Paul Dormer, The Iron Master (1884), Mayfair (1885) and The Hobby Horse (1886).
It was a revival of The Squire that was to be the last performance presented at the St. James's Theatre by the
Hare-Kendal management team. Cecil Howard, in his article, describes the occasion:
The last performance of The
Squire, on July 21, 1888, was a brilliant one before a
brilliant audience, the cheers that greeted Hare and the Kendals
were enthusiastic. It was only natural that a few words should
be expected from the lessees, and these were well chosen and
appropriate. Kendal concluded - 'And now, ladies and gentlemen,
the time has come to say, in this place, Farewell. We separate
from our recent associations with no inconsiderable pain. Ties
such as we have maintained with the St. James's Theatre through
all these years are not broken without regret. We go each our
way, with no shadow of rivalry save the worthy rivalry of
striving each for himself and herself to earn a continuance of
your favour, and to sustain the honour of our profession. (Loud
cheers.)' |
The Kendals went on a tour of America and Hare joined Mrs. John Wood at the re-built Royal Court Theatre, while awaiting
the completion of the Garrick Theatre which he managed from 1889 to 1895. While there, he created what was to be his best
remembered role, that of Benjamin Goldfinch in Sydney Grindy's A Pair of Spectacles (1890).
When, in 1895, he gave up his twenty-year career as an actor-managers, Hare was one of England's most revered theatrical
figures. For an another sixteen years, he continued to act, creating, for example the title part in Pinero's The Gay
Lord Quex (1899). He was also an honored guest at many important functions. On November 10, 1900, he was one of the
speakers at the Lotus Club for a welcome home to Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain). Talking about the theatre, he
said:
My task is rendered comparatively easy because we are not here to enter the lists in oratorical
rivalry, but to unite in paying homage to a great distinguished and brilliant writer - and to use an Americanism -
a lovely man. The last time I had the pleasure of listening to Mr. Clemens was at a dinner in London on the occasion
of Mr. Henry Irving's return from America. Among the toasts was one to the drama with the names of Mark Twain and
Mr. Pinero coupled. We all looked forward to the speeches of these two. Mr. Pinero had come, we could see from the
expression of his face, all prepared to give us a very weighty essay on the drama, but Mr. Clemens spoke first, and
with such brilliant humor and wit that the effect was electrical. We waited for Mr. Pinero, but the air was so charged
with the electricity of humor that Mr. Pinero could only sit down with the remark, 'I beg to return my thanks for
this honor.'
The health of the drama is extremely good. Its vitality is excessive. In the past we have had as good - better - plays
and as good players, but at present we have more of them. there may be no genius, but the average is far better. In
this there is a great solace and a great danger. Genius may do what it likes. Average ability must be controlled.
The practical extinction of the actor-manager in our country and his total extinction in your are a great menace.
It is impossible for the commercial director to amalgamate and control those forces which give to the public the perfect
drama. It is the fashion now to cry down the actor-manager. What a mistake! What a folly! The more I look around the
more I deplore the lack of State and municipal aid for the theatre. In England we can never hope for it, but in this
country it could be, and looking upon the ability of your actors and the grace of your actresses my impression is
that in this country could be founded the finest dramatic school in the world. |
In December 1906,
Hare was appointed the Chairman of the Irving Memorial Committee which
oversaw the erection of a bronze statue in London in memory of Sir Henry
Irving who had died in 1905. In 1907, Hare was knighted and, five years
later, he retired from the stage. He did, however, appear in three
silent films, including one of The Vicar of Wakefield that were
made in 1916 and 1917.
Sir
John Hare died, at the age of 77,
in London on December 28, 1921. |
