William Haviland began his long association with Shakespeare in 1882 when he joined the company of Sir Henry Irving; until he left Irving in 1895, he performed a number of parts, major and minor, in the thirteen years he played and toured with Irving. After a tour in South Africa, he joined Johnston Forbes-Robertson and then Martin Harvey for his sixth tour of America in 1902.

In 1903 he joined Beerbohm Tree’s company and remained with him until 1905; he returned to South Africa with Tree for his fourth tour. His countless parts in practically all of Shakespeare’s plays ended in a 1913 Dublin production of Richard II with Tree. With all his credits in the major companies of the period it is small wonder that he listed among his recreations “rehearsing.”

While at New College, Oxford, Benson produced Agamemnon, the first play to be performed there in the original Greek. In 1882, he made his first professional appearance at the Lyceum Theatre, London—then under the management of Sir Henry Irving—playing the role of Paris in Romeo & Juliet. The next year, he formed a company of his own. In 1886 he married Gertrude Constance Featherstonhaugh (1860–1946), who acted in his company and played leading parts with him. Benson continued to appear in London and regularly toured the English provinces in Shakespearean roles, and he also performed in Canada (1913) and South Africa (1921). He is remembered for his performances of the characters Hamlet, Coriolanus, Richard II, Lear, and Petruchio (Britannica).

For many years between the late 1800s and the early 1900s, Benson devoted himself to the production of Shakespeare’s plays. In 1886, in particular, Benson was granted control over the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and artistic direction of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. After 1888, he organized twenty-six of the annual Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Festivals. However, in 1889-1890, the plays were directed by Osmond Tearle, and in 1895, Ben Greet was invited to produce a year of his plays. In his Festivals, Benson always made a point to “resurrect” some long-forgotten play in the Shakespeare canon to be performed during the three-week run of the festival. Many of these resurrected plays are now staples of the world stage and the classroom: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Henry IV, Richard II, The Tempest, Twelfth Night. We may credit Benson with reviving the character of Falstaff for the modern audience and for the first documented modern performances of Shakespeare’s great cycle of history plays. Over his years, he managed to produce every one of Shakespeare’s plays, including an uncut version of Hamlet, except for Titus Andronicus and Trolius and Cressida. Benson founded an acting school in 1901, and was knighted in 1916 in Drury Lane Theatre—the first actor to earn such an honor since David Garrick in the eighteenth Century (Buckley).

Here are a few audio and video clips featuring Sir Frank Benson.

Born in 1853, Tree’s real name was Herbert Draper Beerbohm. He assumed his famous stage name in the 1870s. After a string of performances, he joined Frank Benson’s company in 1886, where he played Iago before going on to London and the Haymarket Theatre where he eventually became the manager. “He elevated the Haymarket’s status as a Shakespearian playhouse, and his productions of The Merry Wives of Windsor (1889), Hamlet (1892), and Henry IV, Part 1 (1896) earned him recognition not only as an accomplished actor–manager capable of producing a wide range of genres but also as a solid competitor to Henry Irving and the Lyceum Theatre.

“While Tree built Her Majesty’s Theatre’s (opened in 1897) solid reputation on the successful productions of a variety of dramas, he earned his theater the international reputation as the premier playhouse for Shakespeare in Britain during the Edwardian era, and it is for this dedication to the production of Shakespeare that his career was most celebrated. During his twenty-year tenure at Her Majesty’s, he worked indefatigably to popularize Shakespeare with the general theater-going public, and his success is evinced by an impressive production record unmatched by any West End manager: he put on sixteen Shakespeare plays which averaged initial three-month runs, many of them successful enough for periodic revivals during subsequent seasons, and he instituted an annual Shakespeare festival which featured more than two hundred performances by Her Majesty’s Theatre company and other acting corps during its nine-year existence (1905–13). At a time when most theater managers believed that Shakespeare’s plays lacked commercial viability and spelt financial ruin, Tree proved that Shakespeare could be made accessible and appealing to large numbers of patrons.

“Fittingly, his initial Shakespearian production, Julius Caesar, was his first commercial success at Her Majesty’s, and during its six-month run (January 22 to June 10, 1898) it enjoyed 165 consecutive performances and attracted 242,000 spectators.” His next revivals, King John (1899 -1900), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1900), and Henry VIII (1910-11) were also record breakers in their own right. “Most of the Shakespeare revivals at Her Majesty’s enjoyed equally unprecedented runs. Tree succeeded in popularizing Shakespeare with his audiences because he staged the plays in ways that appealed to spectators’ taste for elaborate spectacle and realistic scenery and scenic effects. Working in the tradition of pictorial realism which dominated the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theater, Tree brought this scenographic method to its apogee, staging the most spectacular Shakespearian revivals in British stage history. […]” Tree’s work with Shakespeare also involved four film projects that spanned his career at Her Majesty’s: the opening shipwreck from his 1904-5 revival of The Tempest; a five-scene version of Henry VIII, based on his 1910-11 production featuring himself as Cardinal Wolsey; a 1916 Macbeth, bearing no direct resemblance to his 1911 stage version; and, though not as extensive as the others but certainly the most important historically, three brief segments from his King John revival filmed in 1899—Tree’s initial cinematographic venture and the very first record of Shakespeare on film. His eldest daughter, Viola Tree, was born in 1884.

“Tree excelled in character roles, and was considered by many to be the best character actor of his day. He possessed an exceptional mimetic genius that enabled him to enact a wide range of roles in which he gave each a unique and differing individuality, and he excelled especially in those characters with idiosyncratic and eccentric natures on which he could build strong, vivid parts.” He died in London in 1917 (Oxford Dictionary of National Bibliography).

Here are some audio and video clips of Sir Beerbohm Tree performing Shakespeare.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle … This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England (2.1)

In Richard II, anger at a king’s arbitrary rule leads to his downfall—and sets in motion a decades-long struggle for the crown that continues in several more history plays.

The play begins as Richard’s cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, charges Thomas Mowbray with serious crimes, including the murder of the Duke of Gloucester. Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, privately blames the king for Gloucester’s death. At Richard‘s command, Bolingbroke and Mowbray prepare for a trial by combat. The king halts the fight at the last minute, banishing both men from England.

When John of Gaunt dies, Richard seizes his possessions to help finance a war in Ireland, thus dispossessing Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke returns to England, quickly gathering support. By the time Richard returns from Ireland, many of his former allies have joined Bolingbroke. Richard abdicates, yielding the crown to Bolingbroke.

Richard is held at Pomfret Castle and Bolingbroke becomes King Henry IV. A murder plot against him is uncovered and stopped. Richard is murdered by a follower of Henry (reproduced with permission from Folger).

Postcards of Richard II:

Productions of Richard II:

1900 Frank Benson‘s troupe performed Richard II sixteen times (March 15-May 5) at the Lyceum Theatre (London). Benson played Richard, Oscar Asche, Mowbray, Harcourt Williams, Hotspur, Frank Rodney, Bolingbroke, and Lily Brayton, the Queen (Wearing, I: 14).

1901 Frank Benson played Richard II in eight performances (March 13-25) of the play at the Comedy Theatre (London). Lilian Braithwaite played the Queen and Frank Rodney, Bolingbroke (Wearing, I: 79-80).

April 15 marked the opening of Frank Benson’s festival season at Stratford-upon-Avon. The company presented for the first time at Stratford a cycle of the history plays: King John, Richard II, Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, Part 2, and Richard III. The company presented five other plays as well, including Much Ado About Nothing (Loney, I: 8).

1908 Frank Ludlow’s ensemble began a two-week engagement at New York City’s Bijou Theatre; the plays by Shakespeare were Richard II and The Merchant of Venice (Loney, I: 44).

1910 Beginning on March 28, several companies presented a London Shakespeare Festival at His Majesty’s Theatre. Herbert Beerbohm Tree‘s company played The Merry Wives of Windsor, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. Norman Mckinnel presented King Lear and The Merchant of Venice; Arthur Bourchier and his company came next with The Merchant of Venice. H. B. Irving played Hamlet, and Frank Benson’s “Bensonians” followed with the Taming of the Shrew and Coriolanus. Poel’s Elizabethan Stage Society gave a performance–in the “original” sixteenth-century style–of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Lewis Waller revived his Henry V, and Tree returned to close the Festival with The Merchant of Venice and Richard II (Loney, I: 54).

At the first Stratford-upon-Avon Summer Shakespeare Festival, Benson presented The Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Henry V, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Richard II, Hamlet, and The Merry Wives of Windsor (Loney, I: 54).

1911 On July 22 Stratford’s second summer season began; this is the year that Baliol Holloway debuted with the Bensonians. The plays performed are A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry V, Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, and the Tempest (Loney, I: 159).

1913 Frank Benson opened the Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Festival with Richard II; the troupe also performed Henry IV, Part 2, Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Hamlet this season. Added attractions were William Poel’s production of Troilus and Cressida, with Edith Evans and Hermione Gingold, as well as Poel himself as the performers, and a presentation of Henry V by the students of Stratford’s King Edward VI Grammar School (Loney, I: 68).

Frank Benson’s summer season of Shakespeare’s plays opened on August 2 with The Merchant of Venice; other plays performed that season were As You Like It, Hamlet, King John, Richard II, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, and Henry IV, Part 2 (Loney, I: 68).

1914 Frank Benson returned from the United States to direct the Stratford Summer Festival. He opened the four-week festval with Much Ado About Nothing.The company also presented Hamlet, Richard II, Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, and Romeo and Juliet (Loney, I: 73).