Charles Alexander Calvert (28 February 1828 – 12 June 1879) was a British actor and
theatre manager
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
known for arranging new productions of the
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
an canon featuring elaborate staging and what were considered historically accurate sets and costumes.
Early life
Calvert was born in London on 28 February 1828, and educated at
King's College School
King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a public school in Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The school was founded in 1829 by King George IV, as the junior department of King's College London an ...
. After leaving, he spent some time in the office of a London solicitor and in a mercer's business in St. Paul's Churchyard; but before long he was drawn to the stage, having derived a first impulse towards it from the plays of Shakespeare produced at
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat ...
by
Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps (born 13 February 1804, Plymouth Dock (now Devonport), Plymouth, Devon, died 6 November 1878, Anson's Farm, Coopersale, near Epping, Essex) was an English actor and theatre manager. He is known for his productions of William ...
, from whom Calvert afterwards modestly declared that he had learnt all his art.
Acting career
He first acted professionally in 1852, at Weymouth Theatre, under the management of
Edward Askew Sothern
Edward Askew Sothern (1 April 182620 January 1881) was an English actor known for his comic roles in Britain and America, particularly Lord Dundreary in ''Our American Cousin''. He was also known for his many practical jokes.
Life and career ...
, famous for creating the role of
Lord Dundreary Lord Dundreary is a character of the 1858 British play ''Our American Cousin'' by Tom Taylor. He is a good-natured, brainless aristocrat. The role was created on stage by Edward Askew Sothern. The most famous scene involved Dundreary reading a lett ...
. Then he played leading parts at Southampton and in South Wales, until in about 1855 he joined the company of Messrs. Shepherd and Creswick at the
Surrey Theatre in London, where he played leading youthful parts of a "legitimate" type. A year after his arrival in London he married the actress
Adelaide Ellen Biddies, who went on to continue her stage success in her own right as
Adelaide Calvert. They had eight children, of whom five (three sons and two daughters) followed their parents' profession, including
Louis Calvert
Louis James Calvert (25 November 1859 – 18 July 1923) was a British stage and early film actor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and an actor-manager. He is perhaps best remembered today for having created roles in plays by George ...
, their third son.
[Richard Foulkes, ‘Calvert, Charles Alexander (1828–1879)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200]
accessed 8 May 2017
/ref>
In 1859, Calvert became stage-manager and principal actor of the Theatre Royal, Manchester. Five years later in 1864, by then manager of the newly built Prince's Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden. Opened in 1911 as the New Prince's Theatre, it was the last theatre to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue.
History
The theatre was d ...
, Calvert began the series of Shakespearean "revivals" which were the chief efforts of his professional life. Convinced that Shakespeare could be "made to pay," he consistently produced plays with elaborate attention to scenery, costume, and every other element of stage effect. The Shakespearean plays revived by Calvert were the following:
*'' The Tempest'' (1864), with which the Prince's Theatre opened, and which proved a signal success
*''Antony and Cleopatra
''Antony and Cleopatra'' (First Folio title: ''The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed, by the King's Men, at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre in around ...
'' (1866)
*''The Winter's Tale
''The Winter's Tale'' is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some criti ...
'' (1869)
*''Richard III
Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...
'' (1870)
*''The Merchant of Venice
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.
Although classified as ...
'', with Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinaf ...
's music (1871)
*''Henry V Henry V may refer to:
People
* Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026)
* Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125)
* Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161)
* Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227)
* Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (121 ...
'' (1872)
*''Twelfth Night
''Twelfth Night'', or ''What You Will'' is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Vio ...
'' (1873)
*'' Henry IV, part 2'' (1874)
From a draft in his handwriting it appears to have been his intention, had his connection with the Prince's Theatre continued, to crown the series by an arrangement of the three parts of Henry VI together with Richard III in three plays, under the title of ''The Houses of York and Lancaster''. Some of Calvert's less elaborate productions included Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
's ''Manfred
''Manfred: A dramatic poem'' is a closet drama written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Gothic fiction.
Byr ...
'' (1867) and other plays by Shakespeare. He generally had a good "stock" company, in which several actors and actresses of mark received their training. The financial viability of the ventures he was associated with seems to have varied. The Prince's Theatre passed into the hands of a company in 1868 who quickly rebuilt it, allowing Calvert to fulfill his promise of providing "dramatic entertainment of the highest class". His connection with the theatre ended in 1875, shortly before which Calvert had staged a very successful production of Henry V in New York. After leaving the Prince's Theatre he produced, at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, ''Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
'' in 1877. He also staged Byron's ''Sardanapalus
Sardanapalus (; sometimes spelled Sardanapallus) was, according to the Greek writer Ctesias, the last king of Assyria, although in fact Ashur-uballit II (612–605 BC) holds that distinction.
Ctesias' book ''Persica'' is lost, but we know of its ...
'' at Liverpool and at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, and superintended a "replica" at Booth's Theatre in New York.
Later years
His last years were migratory, spent at the head of a traveling company which appeared in Manchester and at other places. Towards the end the state of his health, which had given way four years previously, persuaded him to retire to Hammersmith
Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
...
, London where he died on 12 June 1879. The genuine admiration felt for him in Manchester had been shown on the occasion of his first departure for New York by a public banquet (4 January 1875). His funeral at Brooklands cemetery, near Sale in Cheshire, was made the occasion of a popular demonstration. Later in the year (1 and 2 October) a benefit performance of ''As You Like It
''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...
'' was staged in Manchester for his family.
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Calvert, Charles Alexander
1828 births
1879 deaths
British theatre managers and producers
Actor-managers
English male stage actors
19th-century English male actors
People educated at King's College School, London
19th-century theatre managers
19th-century British businesspeople