Portrait of Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Portrait of Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852-1917), sepia photograph, London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, London, England, late 19th to early 20th century, Guy Little Collection. Museum no. S.145:472-2007.© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Photography was a novel and exciting development in Victorian days. Most actors and actresses had studio photographs taken in everyday dress or theatrical costume for 'cartes de visite' and later 'cabinet cards'. Both were albumen prints made from glass negatives, attached to stiff card backing printed with the photographer's name. 'Cartes de visite', the size of formal visiting cards, were patented in 1854 and produced in their millions during the 1860s when it became fashionable to collect them. Their subjects included scenic views, tourist attractions and works of art as well as portraits. They were superseded in the late 1870s by the larger and sturdier 'cabinet cards' whose popularity waned in turn during the 1890s in favour of postcards and studio portraits. This photograph comes from a large collection of 'cartes de visite' and 'cabinet cards' removed from their backings and mounted in albums by Guy Tristram Little (d. 1952) who bequeathed them to the V&A. A collector of greetings cars, games and photographs, Guy Little was a partner in the legal firm Messrs Milles Jennings White & Foster and the solicitor and executor of Mrs Gabrielle Enthoven, whose theatrical collection formed the basis of the Theatre Collections at the V&A.

Mr & Mrs Beerbohm Tree in Hamlet

Mr & Mrs Beerbohm Tree in Hamlet by William Shakespeare at the Haymarket Theatre, London, black and white lithographic print, published in The Graphic, London, England, January 1892.© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852-1917) and his wife Maud (born Helen Maud Holt) (1863-1937) had been married ten years when they appeared opposite each other in Hamlet at the Haymarket in 1892. Although Tree's Hamlet was compared unfavourably with Irving's, notices were still warm. Clement Scott, reviewing the production for the London Illustrated News, thought him 'one of the most classical of all the Hamlets shown to us by a very young man' (Tree was 39 years old at the time).

Poster advertising The Tempest

Poster advertising Viola Tree's Company performing The Tempest by William Shakespeare at the Aldwych Theatre, London, by Charles A Buchel (1872-1950), colour lithograph, London, England, designed in 1904, printed in 1921. Museum no. E.451-1921.© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

This poster advertises Miss Viola Tree's Company performing The Tempest on 1 February 1921. The poster was originally designed for a production at His Majesty's Theatre, London in 1904. The German artist, Charles Buchel, who trained at London's Royal Academy of Arts, was passionately interested in the theatre and its stars. For 16 years he produced artwork and paintings for posters and souvenir programmes promoting plays staged at His Majesty's Theatre which the actor-manager, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, had built in 1897.

Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare at His Majesty's Theatre, London, England, 1900. © Victoria & Albert Museum, London

This is a scene from a famous production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, produced by the actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Spectacular scenic effects were all the fashion during the Victorian age, to the point where the action of the play was in danger of becoming secondary to the setting. Each scene was treated as a living picture and this kind of 'pictorial' staging involved detailed costumes and huge casts on vastly elaborate sets with sophisticated special effects. By the end of the 19th century, great store was set by how realistic everything looked and Tree's production was the epitome of this intention. Real grass covered the stage, and live rabbits scampered around to give the impression of a real forest. The actor playing Bottom became so irritated by being upstaged by a rabbit, that he caught it and made one entrance clutching it under one arm, whereupon it promptly bit him. Oberon, King of the Fairies, was played by a woman who sang his most famous speech, 'I know a bank where the wild thyme blows', and who wore a headdress fitted with electric lights.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Wolsey

Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852-1917) as Wolsey in Henry VIII by William Shakespeare, colour print, 1910

Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Shakespearean productions carried on the traditions of Charles Kean and Henry Irving in stressing spectacle. His 1910 production of Shakespeare's Henry VIII, in which he played Cardinal Wolsey, was particularly sumptuous. There were nearly a hundred exquisitely detailed costumes designed by Percy Macquoid. The crimson coronation dress for Anne Boleyn was richly pearled and trimmed with ermine. Henry VIII was arrayed in green with gold brocade, and had a gold dagger enamelled in green. Wolsey wore the red robes of his office, but the addition of the golden pomander (which you can see in the picture) was Tree's idea. It was there to reflect the Cardinal's addiction to luxury, crucial to Tree's interpretation of the role. He cut the text heavily, focussing on the domestic plot and the conflict between Henry and his Cardinal. The reviews he received in a later New York revival were ecstatically enthusiastic: 'The character lives and breathes … a creation vital, impressive, profoundly moving and sympathetic'.

Photograph of the queue for a Beerbohm Tree production

Published photograph of the queue for a Beerbohm Tree production at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, England, early 20th century. © Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Herbert Beerbohm Tree was lessee and manager of the Haymarket Theatre for ten years from 1887. However, he always had plans to go a step better, and on 28 April, 1897 he celebrated the opening of his own newly built theatre, Her Majesty's, just across the road from the Haymarket. Appropriately, it was the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. This was the fourth theatre on the site, and cost £55,000 (about £3.5 million today) to build. Tree's wife Maud feared that the 'new theatre was a monster whose devouring jaws opened wider and wider every day'. It ended up £300 (about £20,000) over the planned budget, but was hailed even by George Bernard Shaw, no fan of Tree's, as 'quite the handsomest theatre in London'. The intricate gilded blue and scarlet of the auditorium, and the foyers and bars in mahogany and gilt can all still be seen today.

Printed booklet programme for A Midsummer Night's Dream

Printed booklet programme for A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Her Majesty's Theatre, London, England, 10 January 1900.© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Herbert Beerbohm Tree's A Midsummer Night's Dream of 1900 was one of his most lavish productions. The scenery was spectacular: Theseus's palace had column after column, festooned with swags of flowers, stretching to the back of the stage, where the illusion continued into the backcloth in the Athenian woods, fronds and ferns sprouted and crawled over every inch of the stage. Opulent costumes designed by Percy Anderson completed the beautiful stage pictures created. To the cast required by Shakespeare's play, Tree added tens of extra fairies, played by children, as well as loosing real rabbits onto the stage for the woodland scenes. Tree himself took the comic role of Bottom the Weaver, while his wife Maud played the fairy queen Titania opposite Julia Neilson as Oberon. It wasn't unusual to have a female fairy king, so this wasn't one of Tree's alterations. The detailed notes in this souvenir booklet testify to the dedicated research Tree put into his productions. The illustration on the back cover is by Charles A Buchel, who painted several portraits of Tree.

Portrait of Maud Beerbohm Tree

Portrait of Maud Beerbohm Tree (1863-1937), sepia photograph, London, England, late 19th to early 20th century, Guy Little Collection. Museum no. S.145:459-2007.© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Photography was a novel and exciting development in Victorian days. Most actors and actresses had studio photographs taken in everyday dress or theatrical costume for 'cartes de visite' and later 'cabinet cards'. Both were albumen prints made from glass negatives, attached to stiff card backing printed with the photographer's name. 'Cartes de visite', the size of formal visiting cards, were patented in 1854 and produced in their millions during the 1860s when it became fashionable to collect them. Their subjects included scenic views, tourist attractions and works of art as well as portraits. They were superseded in the late 1870s by the larger and sturdier 'cabinet cards' whose popularity waned in turn during the 1890s in favour of postcards and studio portraits. This photograph comes from a large collection of 'cartes de visite' and 'cabinet cards' removed from their backings and mounted in albums by Guy Tristram Little (d. 1952) who bequeathed them to the V&A. A collector of greetings cars, games and photographs, Guy Little was a partner in the legal firm Messrs Milles Jennings White & Foster and the solicitor and executor of Mrs Gabrielle Enthoven, whose theatrical collection formed the basis of the Theatre Collections at the V&A.

Poster for Macbeth

Poster for Macbeth by William Shakespeare at His Majesty's Theatre, London, colour lithograph, illustration by Edmund Dulac (1882-1953), London, England, 1911.© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Macbeth

Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Macbeth in Macbeth by William Shakespeare at His Majesty's Theatre, London, photograph, London, England, 1911.© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Herbert Beerbohm Tree was the pre-eminent actor-manager of the Edwardian era. His performance as Macbeth in his 1911 production at His Majesty's Theatre drew some impressive reviews both for its staging and its leading actor.

Magazine illustration of Mrs Patrick Campbell

Magazine illustration of Mrs Patrick Campbell in Pygmalion at His Majesty's Theatre, London, Sketch Magazine, London, England, 22 April 1914.© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Pygmalion is one of George Bernard Shaw's most popular plays and the source for the musical My Fair Lady. Shaw wrote the role of Eliza Doolittle, the cockney flower girl, for the actress Mrs Patrick Campbell whom he greatly admired. In 1914 Pygmalion was put on at His Majesty's Theatre, which was run by the actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and Tree himself played Henry Higgins opposite Mrs (Stella) Patrick Campbell. Rehearsals were difficult since Shaw and his leading actors were all opinionated and uncompromising, but when the show opened it did so to a rapturous response. No one noticed that Campbell was 30 years too old to play Eliza and there were moments when the audience laughed so much that Shaw was worried that the play would never get going again. On the first night, a number of genuine cockney flower girls gathered by the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus and made their way over to the theatre to queue for cheap seats in the gallery.