Macready! Dickens' Theatrical Friend

Mark Stratford
Stratford Productions
Jack Studio Theatre

Mark Stratford in Macready! Dickens’ Theatrical Friend
Mark Stratford in Macready! Dickens’ Theatrical Friend
Mark Stratford in Macready! Dickens’ Theatrical Friend

Macready! Dickens’ Theatrical Friend is an entertaining portrait of William Charles Macready, a barrister in the making unwillingly catapulted into the life of an actor-manager in Georgian England.

Pulled out of school at age 16 when his father—a manifestly unsuccessful provincial theatre manager—was imprisoned for bankruptcy, the young Macready took over the shambolic company of actors and even more disordered accounts and, after turning both around, he went on to carve out a life on the stage, developing new ways of working that paved the way for contemporary practices.

Despite this legacy and although he became an eminent tragedian, the reluctant actor remains less well known than either Edmund Kean or Sir Henry Irving whose careers overlapped with Macready’s at each end of the 19th century. He also crossed bumpy paths with Charles Kemble and another of the day’s lesser known theatre managers, Alfred Bunn.

Writer Mark Stratford portrays Macready from childhood to old age sympathetically, emphasising an innate compulsion to achieve excellence and a strong, principled work ethic, both darkened by a quick temper.

On stage, the context of Macready’s life is delivered by Stratford who, as performer, steps out of role to become the narrator, the occasional expression or gesture a commentary on the hero of the hour or the nature of his profession, and sometimes an appeal for a charitable reception to what follows.

Stratford’s view of Macready is admiring but thankfully unsanitised. He was no angel, but there is some understanding that carrying the burden of disappointment throughout a financially precarious career contributed to his cantankerous nature.

By today’s standards, his behaviour is unacceptable but Stratford plants his show firmly in history without an invitation to draw comparisons, and in a show based on thorough research, the man’s own diaries bear witness to his regretfulness.

The setting Stratford provides lifts the theatre conventions of the day off the page to illustrate the impact of the trailblazing ideas that Macready sought to introduce. In practical terms, they included things now taken entirely for granted such as detailed rehearsals, expectations of sobriety and discipline amongst the company and reverting to Shakespeare’s original texts.

More than that, Macready also sought to elevate the status of the profession. In this regard, Stratford’s narrative is also sensitive to Macready’s personal distress at relinquishing an honourable career in law and his exclusion from cultivated society, even if he did count amongst his friends and champions the likes of the titular Charles Dickens.

Macready may be amongst the least celebrated of his illustrious contemporaries, but in presenting his life, Stratford also tells a timeless story of struggle, perseverance and sacrifice in making a living from one’s art.

Reviewer: Sandra Giorgetti

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