Irving had long wished to display his sardonic power in Goethe’s great character of Mephistopheles. He had already given proof of his quality in this line in Louis XI. and Richard III.; but there was a piquancy and range in Mephistopheles which naturally offered him an attraction, from the mixture of the comic or grotesque with deep tragic force. It also offered room for a superb and almost unlimited display of scenic magnificence. It was no secret, too, that in this particular display he was resolved to surpass all his previous efforts.
To Wills was entrusted the work of preparing the adaptation, this writer having, as I said, a command of flowing and melodious versification, which, moreover, was fitted to the actor’s delivery. The adapter had completed his task many years before, and the piece had long lain in the manager’s desk. During this period he let his conception of the piece slowly ripen; he discussed it with scholars; thought over it; while the adapter, a German student himself, revised his work at intervals according to the views of his chief. All this was judicious enough. It was, however, destined to be the last work that he was to prepare for his old friend and faithful Lyceum patron. It must be said that the latest adapter was not altogether well fitted for the task, as he was too much given to descriptions and “recitations,” while Mephistopheles might have been made far more of.
The preparations made were of the most thorough kind. For months the manager’s rooms were hung round with a profusion of sketches by artists of all kinds, relics of Nuremberg and the Goethe country, with old engravings of Albert Dürer, and great folios of costumes. To permeate himself with something of the tone and feeling of the piece, he travelled in Germany, accompanied by his scene-painter, Mr. Craven. Both stayed at Nuremberg, where the artist imbued himself with the whole poetry of the old city. Everyone of artistic feeling will recall one truly romantic scene—a simple cloth set very forward on the scene, perhaps to its disadvantage—a view of the old city, with its dull red high roofs and quaintly-peaked spires.
During the preparations, the theatre, now some eighty years old, had been redecorated afresh, but at the complete sacrifice of the old Vestris adornments, the elegant medallions or cameos, and the double-gilt pillars, which were thought to interfere with the view. The outline of the dress-circle was brought forward with some gain of space, and its graceful undulations were abolished. For such changes no one can be brought to account—the irresistible pressure of the time and the laws of convenience bring them about. An entirely new system of decoration was introduced, suggested by that of Raffaelle’s Loggie at the Vatican, which seemed scarcely sober enough for an auditorium. More structural changes were also made in the interests of the galleries, of which the manager has always shown himself careful.