Strange Images of Death: Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Macbeth, 1911

Abstract

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853–1917) is a perplexing figure in Shakespearean stage history. At the turn of the century and in the decade following, he was esteemed as Irving's successor, the pre-eminent Shakespearean actor and producer in Great Britain. That reputation rested largely on his great “revivals” of Shakespeare at Her (later His) Majesty's Theatre. Highly regarded in his own day, Tree is now commonly thought of as a somewhat ludicrous impressario: “He was at heart a comedian, a character actor, a make-up artist specializing in the eccentric,” writes Charles H. Shattuck in his authoritative history of Shakespeare in performance. And, Shattuck continues, Tree's staging is remembered chiefly for its “tricky business, tableaux and dumbshows,” the kind of elaborate, literal-minded stage “illustration” which put a barge onstage in Antony and Cleopatra and live rabbits in A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is easy to laugh at Tree's excesses, as many have, because so little is known about his achievements. For until 1974 the Tree promptbooks and theatre records (scrapbooks with complete newspaper reviews) were controlled by the Tree Estate, and were therefore all but inaccessible to scholars. Lacking the direct evidence of reviews and promptbooks, theatre historians have relied on the harsh judgments of Tree's enemies—chiefly George Bernard Shaw and A. B. Walkley of the London Times—who denounced Tree in favor of William Poel, Gordon Craig, and Harley Granville-Barker.