" Lena Pocock was the girl's
name, but she changed it to Lena Ashwell when she went on the stage.
In the days of the elocution class there was still some idea of her
becoming a singer, but I strongly advised the stage, and wrote to my
friend J. Comyns Carr, who was managing the Comedy Theater, that I knew
a girl with "supreme talent" whom he ought to engage. Lena was engaged.
After that she had her fight for success, but she went steadily forward.
Henry Irving has often been attacked for not preferring Robert Louis
Stevenson's "Macaire" to the version which he actually produced in 1883.
It would have been hardly more unreasonable to complain of his producing
"Hamlet" in preference to Mr. Gilbert's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern."
Stevenson's "Macaire" may have all the literary quality that is claimed
for it, although I personally think Stevenson was only making a
delightful idiot of himself in it. Anyhow, it is frankly a burlesque, a
skit, a _satire_ on the real Macaire. The Lyceum was _not_ a burlesque
house! Why should Henry have done it?
It was funny to see Toole and Henry rehearsing together for "Macaire."
Henry was always _plotting_ to be funny. When Toole as Jacques Strop hid
the dinner in his pocket, Henry, after much labor, thought of his hiding
the plate inside his waistcoat.
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