Who Was Dracula? (15 page)

Normally, Stoker would have been ready to step in and handle the paperwork, but he realized that Irving was exaggerating. The actor would, indeed, read each letter, poring over the contents with satisfaction. A group of three men were put in place in the office, copying out answers and thanks. Stoker advised, knowingly, that it was unnecessary to send distinct answers—a generally worded note, handwritten, would be perfectly proper.

That night, Irving performed in
Don Quixote
, the current Lyceum production. By coincidence, there was a line in the play that Quixote delivered, “Knighthood sits like a halo 'round my head.” A cheer went up from the pit. Irving held his composure—the perfect picture of the befuddled adventurer—but the audience insisted on an impromptu ovation for their star. A roar of laughter and applause stopped the show.

—

Bram Stoker later admitted that the subject of knighthood had been broached twelve years earlier, when Gladstone was prime minister. Stoker had been privately asked if Irving would be comfortable with such an honor. Stoker, of course, immediately relayed the conversation to Irving, who considered the offer and then dismissed the idea. Irving thought it would be a strain for one actor to be singled out that way. The Lyceum was always proud that casts were listed with the same size type on the programs, and actors were always credited democratically on posters.

Could Irving have really been so modest in 1883? It's possible. This was before his first American tour, during his early years at the Lyceum, and the notion of an actor so honored would have been surprising, and even embarrassing. Perhaps he thought it would have seemed suspicious as well; Gladstone was a fan and a frequent visitor to the theater.

In the subsequent twelve years, a number of artists and designers had been knighted, and Irving's modesty had been tempered. During a lecture at the Royal Institution, Irving claimed that acting should officially be classified among the fine arts. George Bernard Shaw, who took a poke at Irving every chance he could, reported on the lecture knowingly: “What Mr. Irving means us to answer is this question: The artist who composed the music for
King Arthur
is Sir Arthur Sullivan; the artist who composed the poem . . . died Lord Tennyson; the artist who designed the suit of armor worn by King Arthur is Sir Edward Burne-Jones; why would the artist who plays King Arthur be only Mister Henry Irving?”

Stoker scoffed at the accusation that Irving had selfishly demanded the honor. Nonetheless, when knighthood was considered again in 1895, “no judicious opinion was asked,” Stoker wrote. Irving's speech at the Royal Institution had signaled that he was ready and waiting.

On the Queen's birthday, Bram Stoker heard that his brother Thornley was also being honored with a knighthood for his important medical work. Thornley had been serving as an unofficial consultant on Bram's book about vampires, explaining details of the head injuries that were responsible for Renfield's death.

—

On July 18, 1895, Henry Irving was knighted. Max Beerbohm happened to see Irving in his carriage as he traveled to Paddington Station, en route to Windsor Castle. “Irving in his most prelatical mood always had a touch, here and there, of the old bohemian,” he wrote. “But as I caught sight of him on this occasion . . . he was the old bohemian and nothing else. His hat was tilted at more than his usual angle and his long cigar seemed longer than ever; and on his face was such a look of ruminant sly fun as I have never seen equaled.”

He was ushered into Windsor Castle with the other recipients and watched the simple ceremony repeated for each man—the sword, the medal, the nod of congratulations. It was customary for the Queen to remain silent as she performed her part, tapping a sword on the shoulders and bestowing the rank of knight, but on that day, those standing nearby noticed her say quietly to Irving, “I am very, very pleased.” She was a fan.

Irving always showed restraint and never used the title “Sir.” After his knighthood, the Lyceum officially honored him with the merest wink of proud recognition: Lyceum programs replaced the usual credit “Mr. Irving” with “Henry Irving.” His knighthood proved to be an important step for the profession, the first of many such awards for actors. Ellen Terry was made a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, the second actress so honored, in 1922.

—

There was a curse to the vampire: Henry Irving's fortunes began changing around 1897, just as
Dracula
was being prepared for publication.

Fussie, Irving's terrier, died in an accident onstage. The dog had shared dinner each night with Irving; he was free to wander backstage at every theater. One day on a stage in Manchester, as the company rehearsed the show, Fussie was drawn to a workman's coat that had been tossed on the floor—he smelled the ham sandwich in the pocket. The dog greedily nudged and tugged at the garment, failing to notice the open trapdoor alongside it.

Fussie's lifeless body was discovered in the basement just before the show. The company was too miserable to tell the Governor. Only after the performance did they break the sad news, each man removing his hat and bowing his head as poor Fussie was handed over to Irving.

The actor was distraught. For years he had managed to lavish all of the attention that he could not summon for his fellow men onto Fussie. Just days later, when Irving returned to the Lyceum, one of the theater cats seemed to sense his loss and for the first time strutted into his dressing room, promptly curling up on Fussie's cushion. From then on Irving and the cat were inseparable.

Then, his relationship with Ellen Terry began to cool—personally and professionally. Irving was flattered and courted by a fashion writer and gossip columnist, Mrs. Aria (Eliza Davis Aria). Ellen Terry was now being professionally courted, in correspondence, by George Bernard Shaw. He was writing plays that, he felt, provided ideal roles for Terry. “Your career has been sacrificed to the egotism of a fool,” he wrote her.

When Irving produced
Richard III
on December 19, 1896, the opening performance was bumpy. Irving went to the Garrick Club for dinner, then slinked back to his rooms in Grafton Street. As he was climbing the stairs, he slipped and banged his knee on a chest, tearing the ligaments. After one miserable performance,
Richard III
was withdrawn and the theater closed for three weeks.

Shaw couldn't resist piling on. He contributed his review of
Richard III
to the
Saturday Review
, listing Irving's fidgets and mumbles in the role and implying that the actor had been drunk on opening night. Shaw, of course, knew better. Irving would never have set foot onstage if he had been intoxicated.

Terry grew tired of the feud, turned down Shaw's roles, and accepted an offer to play in
The Merry Wives of Windsor
opposite Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the successful star and producer at Her Majesty's Theatre—Irving's friend and competitor. No one was happy.

—

The next tragedy struck in the early morning of February 18, 1898. Stoker was awakened by a pounding on his door in Chelsea. The police were trying to locate him. The Lyceum's storage, in Bear Lane, Southwark, was on fire.

The Acting Manager jumped in a cab and raced to the storage facility, beneath the arches of a railway. The street was already filled with fire pumps and hoses. Stoker pushed his way through the crowd. All his life he'd been attracted by the sound of fire bells, running to watch the brave firemen at work. But as he stumbled into Bear Lane, trying to find someone in charge, he felt sick to his stomach. The hot orange blaze filled the railway arches and spit sparks into the road.

When he identified himself, the firemen told him that they were there only to keep the fire from spreading to other buildings; there was nothing that could be done to save the scenery. The painted canvas and wood would burn, and burn, until it burned itself out completely.

The store consisted of many of the finest hand-painted drops, the most artistic castle interiors, cityscapes, and gardens, props, armor, platforms, and walls. It was the work of the finest scenic painters in the world, the designs of the finest technicians, the pictures that had formed the frame for Henry Irving's artistry. Stoker watched as over 2,000 pieces of scenery, 260 scenes, and 44 complete plays were turned to ash, including the scenery from
Hamlet
,
The Merchant of Venice
,
Macbeth
,
The Corsican Brothers
,
Faust
,
Becket
, and
The Bells.

Stoker estimated the loss at over 30,000 pounds ($150,000). The storage had been insured for a third that amount but, earlier that year, in an effort to economize, Irving had urged Stoker to reduce the insurance to 6,000 pounds. It didn't really matter. No amount of effort could reassemble the artists and replace the scenery.

“It was checkmate to the repertoire side of his management,” Stoker wrote. Irving's business had depended on his ability to assemble a tour of his most popular plays, or quickly swap one play for another—reinstating an old favorite that was sure to draw a crowd. If the new
Peter the Great
proved a flop, a quick production of
The Bells
was in order to keep the box office humming. This was possible only because of the store of scenery. Now the process of putting on a favorite play—even for a short run—would involve a massive investment of capital.

Only a few shows were rebuilt—obvious moneymakers like
The Bells
. In fact, there was little taste for the spectacle shows of a decade earlier. The new fashion was for modern, tight dramas like the works of Ibsen and Shaw.

—

Herbert Beerbohm Tree's
Trilby
—taken from George du Maurier's novel
Trilby
—premiered in 1895. The play was a roaring success for Tree, who played Svengali, a dark foreign hypnotist who exerts an unhealthy influence over a young singer. The success of
Trilby
inspired Irving's
The Medicine Man
. This play was written especially for Irving by H. D. Traill and Robert Hichens, following the actor's suggestions. “I want a modern play,” Irving told his authors. “The character for me must be something strange. Occult perhaps. I could play the part of a doctor—couldn't I?”
The Medicine Man
premiered in 1898. It told the story of a mysterious doctor who dabbles in hypnosis, then abuses his powers.

It was a flop. Ellen Terry's presence in it was a mere formality. As a society maiden, she was little more than a hollow reminder of Ophelia's mad scenes. Terry was crushed that Irving had neglected her part.
The Medicine Man
earned only twenty-two performances before it was withdrawn. The play's silliness meant that Shaw's review virtually wrote itself: “When, after some transcendently idiotic speech that not even her art could give any sort of plausibility to, [Terry] looked desperately at all us with an expression that meant, ‘Don't blame me, I didn't write it.'”

Irving found it difficult to adapt, even when given the opportunity. Arthur Conan Doyle approached Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Henry Irving in 1897, offering the dramatization of his popular character, Sherlock Holmes. Both actors turned him down. Tree would have been unsuitable, but Irving would have made a remarkable Holmes: the tall, thin, loping detective who approached each problem with icy logic.

The role went to the American actor William Gillette two years later, who made Holmes the role of his career. Stoker was present at the play's premiere in New York City, and he later recommended it for the Lyceum, where Gillette reprised his role; both Stoker and Irving experienced the mixed emotions of
Sherlock Holmes
's triumph at their own theater.

It was easy to imagine Henry Irving as the detective and imagine his success. This was a missed opportunity.

Dracula
was probably his second missed opportunity.

—

In 1929, a Chicago newspaper offered a review of the play that had arrived from Broadway,
Dracula
. The longtime critic Frederick Donaghey recalled his conversation with Bram Stoker from February 1900, when Stoker's
Dracula
was a topic of conversation and the Lyceum company was playing in Chicago. “He knew he had written, in
Dracula
, a shilling shocker [otherwise, a ‘Penny Dreadful'], however a successful one, and was frank about it.”

Bram Stoker told me that he had put endless hours in trying to persuade Henry Irving to have a play made from
Dracula
and to act in it[;] he had nothing in mind save the box office. “If,” he explained, “I am able to afford to have my name on the book the Governor certainly can afford, with business bad, to have his name on the play. But he laughs at me whenever I talk about it, and then we have to go out and raise money to put on something in which the public has no interest.”

The Acting Manager had imagined Dracula as the perfect part for Irving, “a composite of so many of the parts in which he has been liked.” Stoker saw Dracula as a combination of Matthias in
The Bells
, Shylock, Mephistopheles, Peter the Great, Dubosc in
The Lyons Mail
, Louis XI, and Iachimo in
Cymbeline.

If Donaghey's recollection was correct, this had been Stoker's plan for
Dracula
. It seemed ridiculous that Henry Irving was commissioning
The Medicine Man
when the novel
Dracula
had been sitting, unopened, on his desk. Unfortunately, his decisions were now conspiring against him. Irving had always been stubborn and dismissive of Stoker's talents. The Lyceum was desperate for cash, but its star was unadventurous.

—

In this way, Henry Irving certainly inspired
Dracula
—the story was constructed and fitted to best complement his tastes and abilities. But Irving was not Dracula. Rather, Irving was supposed to play Dracula.