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The Grieve Family: Patterning in Nineteenth-Century Scene Designs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
Extract
British theatre in the nineteenth century operated very much like a family business. Touring companies of necessity depended upon core family groups to manage the affairs, to perform the plays, and to nurture the children. London companies—though not so inbred as the provincials—often saw husbands and wives, parents and children perform together; indeed acting dynasties established in the last century extended well into this one. These actors, at whatever age, were perforce versatile, as an evening's bill might require appearances in an opening melodrama, a Shakespearean tragedy, then a farce to finish. And each of the items on an evening's playbill required scenery. The job of providing those sets was likewise often a family undertaking, though one that lacked female roles: father taught son; son taught grandson. From the beginning of the century until almost the end, the Grieve family—John Henderson Grieve (1770–1845), his sons Thomas (1799–1882) and William (1800–1844), and grandson Thomas Walford Grieve (1841–1899)—designed and painted scenery for some of the most important productions of those years—as well as for some of the most inconsequential and forgettable.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1991
References
1 Charles Dickens's endearing theatrical families, the Crummies from Nicholas Ntctteby and the Slearys of Hard Times, illustrate (though perhaps exaggerate) the dependent structure of provincial troupes in particular.
2 See Rosenfeld, Sybil, “The Grieve Family.” p. 39Google Scholar, in Anatomy of an Illusion, Lectures of the Fourth International Congress on Theatre Research (Amsterdam, 1965); also A Short History of Scene Design in Great Britain (Totowa, NJ: Rowman, 1973).
3 Conversation with Miss Sybil Rosenfeld, 16 January 1986.
4 For discussion of their collaboration with A. W. N. Pugin on this theatre's production of the ballet Le Chateau de Kenilworth, see Hazelton, , Historical Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century Shakespearean Staging (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987), 39–48.Google Scholar
5 Rosenfeld, , A Short History, 103.Google Scholar
6 Hazelton, , Historical Consciousness, 41.Google Scholar
7 See, for example, numbers 58, 105, 213, and 232 in the Grieve Collection.
8 The Princess's designs, retained by Charles Kean and therefore not part of the Grieve Collection, demonstrate Thomas Grieve's importance to that theatre. Intent on documenting his contribution, Kean preserved and labeled the designs for his major Shakespearean productions; in many cases, the Grieve trees appear in designs executed by other scene painters. For Act 3, Scene 3 of Macbeth, for example, Cuthbert is the identified painter, but the downstage trees reveal Grieve as the designer. The bill for that production, which opened 14 February 1853, announced: “The Scenery Painted under the Direction of Mr. Grieve.” Some of the Princess's designs are now at the Theatre Museum, London, while others have been retained by the Victoria and Albert Museum; microfilm reproductions of many of Kean's designs are held by the Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute at the Ohio State University.
9 Artist identification for this design appears at bottom: “Il Conte Ori … KT 1829.”
10 Number 63 in the Collection for Scene 17 of Hop o' My Thumb and His Brothers (Christmas pantomime, 26 December 1831), depicts the new London Bridge thus:
THE LOCAL
COSMORAMA,
(Painted by the Messrs. GRIEVES)
REPRESENTS THE PROGRESS OF
THEIR MAJESTIES AND SUITE,
In the ROYAL SHALLOP, to the OPENING of the New London Bridge
COMPRISING THE VIEWS OF
Waterloo Bridge, Somerset House,
The Temple Gardens, Blackfriars Bridge,
AND THE
New London Bridge,
As it appeared on the First of August, 1831.
An earlier version of the bridge appeared in Henry VIII (Covent Garden, 24 October 1831); and in Whittington and His Cat; of Harlequin Lord Mayor of London (Christmas pntomime, Drury Lane, 1835). When Charles Kean mounted his Henry VIII at the Princess's (16 May 1855), Thomas Grieve once again included an “Old London” panorama, with the bridge prominently featured.
11 “The Grieve Family,” 41.
12 Number 599 in the Collection discloses an atypical domestic use for the door pattern in an unidentified production: a conservatory indicated by three glass-panelled doors with pediment-like tops and a ceiling of glass arched above.