Arthur Wing Pinero

Pinero wrote his first play in 1877. Seven years later, having written 15 more, three of them highly successful, he abandoned acting and became a full-time playwright. He first became known for a series of farces, of which The Magistrate (1885) was the longest-running. During the 1890s he turned to serious subjects. The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893), dealing with a woman with a scandalous past, was regarded as shocking, but ran well and made a large profit. His other successes included Trelawny of the "Wells" (1898), a romantic comedy celebrating the theatre, old and new, and The Gay Lord Quex (1899), about a reformed roué and a spirited young woman. A venture into opera, with a libretto for The Beauty Stone (1898), was not a success, and Pinero thereafter generally stuck to his familiar genre of society dramas and comedies. Although he continued to write throughout the first three decades of the 20th century and into the fourth, it is Pinero's work from the 1880s and 1890s that has endured. There have been numerous revivals of many of his plays; and some have been adapted for the cinema or as musicals. He died in London at the age of 79.

• Illustration — John Daniel Pinero, sketched by his son, 1870 Pinero was born in London, the only son, and second of three children, of John Daniel Pinero (1798–1871), and his wife Lucy, née Daines (1836–1905). Pinero's father and grandfather were London solicitors. They were descended from the Pinheiro family, described by Pinero's biographer John Dawick as "a distinguished family of Sephardic Jews who rose to prominence in medieval Portugal before suffering the persecutions of the Inquisition". Pinero's branch of the family fled to England. His grandfather abandoned the Jewish faith, became a member of the Church of England, married a Christian Englishwoman, Margaret Wing, and became a highly successful lawyer. His younger son, Pinero's father, also took up the legal profession, but was much less successful; Pinero was brought up in circumstances that were not poor but were not affluent. He attended Spa Fields Chapel charity school in Exmouth Street, Clerkenwell, London, until the age of ten, when he went to work in his father's office. John Daniel Pinero died in May 1871, leaving very little money. To contribute to the family income, Pinero continued to work as a solicitor's clerk, earning £1 a week. In the evenings he studied elocution at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution. He and his fellow students staged several productions of plays, and Pinero became irresistibly drawn to the theatre. In May 1874 he abandoned the legal profession and joined R. H. Wyndham at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, as a "general utility" actor. He made his professional debut in the small role of a groom in an adaptation of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White.

• Illustration — Henry Irving: Pinero was a member of his company from 1876 to 1881. As a junior member of Wyndham's company Pinero quickly gained experience in a range of roles, supporting E. A. Sothern in Our American Cousin, and Charles Mathews in the Balzac adaptation A Game of Speculation, and graduating to larger parts such as Crosstree in Black-Eyed Susan. His engagement in Edinburgh came to a sudden end in February 1875 when the theatre was destroyed by fire. He was fortunate in being offered another provincial engagement, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool, where he began to be noticed by the press, gaining approving reviews for his acting in supporting roles. A production of Miss Gwilt, an adaptation of Wilkie Collins's Armadale, starring Ada Cavendish, was reported by the theatrical paper The Era as "a genuine triumph"; the play transferred from Liverpool to the West End, and Pinero retained his role as an elderly solicitor. The production was not the hoped-for success in London, but Pinero received good notices for his performance, and when the run finished after ten weeks he was immediately engaged by Henry Irving's manager, Mrs Bateman, as a member of the supporting cast for Irving's forthcoming provincial tour. Although the tour was uncongenial, and Pinero gathered some highly critical notices, he continued to work as a supporting actor to Irving for five years. He first appeared at the Lyceum, Irving's London base, in December 1876 and played a total of 21 parts there between then and 1881. His Shakespearean roles were Lord Stanley in Richard III (1877), Rosencrantz in Hamlet (1878), Guildenstern in Hamlet (1879), Salarino in The Merchant of Venice (1879), and Roderigo in Othello (1881). In a revival of the melodrama The Bells, with which Irving's name was already synonymous, he played Dr Zimmer (1878). While in Irving's company Pinero wrote his first plays. He began with £200 a Year, a one-act comedy written in a single afternoon for a colleague to present at a benefit performance in 1877. The play was well received and was given several further performances, bringing Pinero's name a modest amount of publicity. His first full-length play, La Comète, was staged in a theatre in Croydon in 1878, and he wrote four more one-act comedies, staged in London in 1878–1880, playing in two of them – Daisy's Escape and Bygones – at the Lyceum. Another of these, Hester's Mystery (1880), written for the comic actor J. L. Toole, ran for 300 performances at the Folly Theatre. • Illustration — Myra Holme, who married Pinero in 1883 Pinero's profile as a playwright was further raised by The Money Spinner, a full-length comedy, first given at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester in November 1880 and then at the St James's in London in January 1881. The theatre historian J. P. Wearing regards the play as of particular importance in the history of the St James's, a theatre previously known more for its failures than its successes. Pinero's play was regarded as daringly unconventional and a risky venture, but it caught on with the public, particularly for the character Baron Croodle, a "disreputable but delightful old reprobate and card-shark" played by John Hare. The following year Pinero wrote the first of eleven more plays for the St James's, The Squire (1881). It caused controversy by its supposed similarity to Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd. After leaving Irving's company Pinero joined another well-known London management, Squire Bancroft and his wife Effie, who ran the Haymarket Theatre. For them he played the Marquis de Cevennes (Plot and Passion, 1881), Sir Alexander Shendryn (Ours, 1882), Hanway (Odette, 1882) and finally Sir Anthony Absolute in The Rivals (1884) as part of a starry cast that included Squire Bancroft, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Lionel Brough and Julia Gwynne. Pinero received mixed notices, some unfavourable, and others among the best of his acting career. This was his last professional engagement as an actor. During his time at the Haymarket Pinero married Myra Emily Wood (c. 1852–1919), who had acted under the stage name of Myra Holme, a widow with two children, Angus and Myra, from her first marriage. The wedding took place on 19 April 1883. There were no children of the marriage to Pinero.

Plays in a similar vein to Sweet Lavender – The Weaker Sex (1888) and Lady Bountiful (1891) – did not match its success, running for 61 and 65 performances respectively. Nonetheless Pinero's attention continued to turn more to serious than to farcical topics. Wearing comments that Pinero began to write "problem plays", considering "the double standard of morality, applied unequally to men and women". His first was The Profligate (1889), in which past misdeeds come to haunt a seemingly respectable man. It was chosen to inaugurate the new Garrick Theatre, but the lessee, John Hare, persuaded a reluctant Pinero to tone down the ending to avoid alienating his respectable society audience: in the final version the protagonist does not kill himself, as Pinero had written, but is forgiven by his wife. The play ran for 129 performances. • Illustration — Punch cartoon showing Pinero's relief as the second Mrs Tanqueray (Mrs Patrick Campbell) successfully leaps over a hurdle marked "Convention", followed by George Alexander as Tanqueray When his next such drama came to be produced Pinero remained firm: the play would, and did, end in tragedy. This was his best-known serious work, The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893). While he was planning it, several plays of Henrik Ibsen were presented in London for the first time, regarded by much of polite society as avant garde, blunt and shocking. Seeing Ghosts led Pinero to reconsider his approach to playwriting, which now seemed old-fashioned by comparison. He was far from uncritical of Ibsen's plays, but recognised that if he was to be a serious dramatist he must treat social problems and human misconduct frankly. The Second Mrs Tanqueray centred on "a woman with a past". Hare declined to present it, and George Alexander, the actor-manager running the St James's Theatre, to whom Pinero then offered the play, said, "Sorry, I daren't do it". He had second thoughts, and accepted it. The production was scheduled to replace Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, which also focused on a woman with a far from respectable past. Unlike Pinero's play, Wilde's ended happily, and was seen by the respectable habitués of the St James's as mildly shocking but acceptable. In Pinero's play Paula Tanqueray kills herself. In Wearing's words, "although not as avant-garde as Ibsen's plays, Tanqueray confronted its fashionable St James's audiences with as forceful a social message as they could stomach". Both Pinero and Alexander were apprehensive about the public reception of the piece, but it was a sensational success at its opening in May 1893, made a profit of more than £10,000, and was still playing to full houses when Alexander, who disliked acting in long runs, closed the production in April 1894 after 225 performances. Wearing comments that the public's appetite for similar Pinero plays varied. The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith (1895) managed a run of 88 performances, The Benefit of the Doubt (1895) ran for 74, The Thunderbolt (1908) and Mid-Channel (1909) both ran for 58.

The year 1898 saw one of Pinero's most enduring successes and his most conspicuous failure. The first was Trelawny of the "Wells", the second, The Beauty Stone. In Trelawny of the "Wells", described by a 21st-century critic as "Pinero's love letter to theatre", the author addressed his regular topics of class and inexorable change, to which he added a study of the enduring power of the theatre. The play shows a popular actress in mid-Victorian melodramas marrying into the aristocracy, regretting it, returning to the stage and finding that she can no longer make the old style of plays work, successfully switching to works in the new realistic style. Wearing calls the play Pinero's homage to Tom Robertson, whose pioneering theatrical realism influenced two generations of writers including W. S. Gilbert and Bernard Shaw as well as Pinero. The critics were confused by the play. Pinero commented that they seemed "divided as to whether the piece is a weak farce or an imperfect realistic drama". It had a good, though not outstanding, run of 135 performances at the Court, but subsequently became one of Pinero's most revived plays. At the same time the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte was in need of a new opera for his Savoy Theatre after the end of Gilbert and Sullivan's long partnership. It is not clear why Carte chose to commission a libretto from two writers with no experience in the genre, but for Arthur Sullivan's The Beauty Stone he brought together Pinero and J. Comyns Carr, an art critic, gallery owner and part-time author of dramas. Sullivan, who was used to Gilbert's skill and flexibility, quickly found his new collaborators inept: "gifted and brilliant men, with no experience in writing for music, and yet obstinately refusing to accept any suggestions from me as to form and construction". He later wrote in his diary, "heartbreaking to have to try to make a musical piece out of such badly constructed (for music) mess of involved sentences". The musical analyst William Parry describes the libretto as "a verbose mess... suffused with a fussy air of arch medievalism". At its premiere, on 28 May 1898, the piece ran for four hours, and Pinero and Carr had to accept some drastic cuts to their words, which also meant sacrificing some of Sullivan's best music. The reviews for the music ranged from polite to enthusiastic; for the libretto they ranged from polite to damning. Max Beerbohm, who had succeeded Shaw as theatre critic of The Saturday Review and who was to become a persistent irritant to Pinero, was particularly waspish. Besides the shortcomings of the libretto, the uncomic, romantic style of the piece was not in keeping with the traditions of the Savoy or the expectations of its audience, and the opera closed on 16 July after 50 performances – the worst run for any of Sullivan's operas. Within a year of the disappointment of The Beauty Stone Pinero returned to successful form with a four-act play The Gay Lord Quex, a comedy of manners, in succession to two others in the genre, The Times (1891) and The Princess and the Butterfly (1897). The Gay Lord Quex, a story of a determined and resourceful young woman and a reformed aristocratic philanderer, had an initial run of 300 performances, and has proved one of Pinero's more revivable plays.

• Illustration — George Alexander and Irene Vanbrugh in His House in Order, 1906 In the first decade of the century Pinero continued to be regarded as among the forefront of British playwrights. His comedy of manners Iris (1901) ran for 115 performances, and in 1906 he had one of his biggest successes, with His House in Order, another work for Alexander and the St James's. This piece is a drama about a put-upon second wife who eventually triumphs over the domineering family of her husband's dead first wife and wins his undivided love. It was a triumph for Irene Vanbrugh and Alexander in the lead roles, and for Pinero; it ran for 430 performances and took more than £78,000 at the box-office. The alliance between Alexander had by now become a firm friendship, punctuated by occasional arguments between the actor-manager and the author, who became extremely prescriptive about the staging of his plays and the delivery of his lines. Another of Pinero's friends was Shaw. As authors they held very different views of the nature and purpose of drama. Although both addressed social problems in their plays, Shaw, who held that all good art is didactic, concentrated on the problem itself, whereas Pinero focused more on the people affected by it, which Shaw felt weakened the argument. Nevertheless, they were on good terms and both were prominent in campaigns for a national theatre and the reform or abolition of theatre censorship. Shaw conceived the idea that playwrights needed a titled figure to lead their campaigns, and lobbied the British government to secure a knighthood for Pinero. Whether because of Shaw's canvassing or not is unknown, but Pinero was knighted in 1909, only the second dramatist to receive the honour (Gilbert having been knighted two years earlier). Pinero rarely used the title, but shortened his signature from "Arthur W. Pinero" to "Arthur Pinero". • Illustration — Pinero aged about 55 In the second decade of the century Pinero had his last two real successes. The comedy The "Mind the Paint" Girl ran at the Duke of York's Theatre for 126 performances in 1912, and The Big Drum, his last play for Alexander had 111 performances at the St James's in 1915. The First World War badly affected his wish and ability to write. He had suffered an emotional blow in 1913 when his stepson killed himself, and the outbreak of war the following year appalled Pinero. Following the sinking of by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915, he wrote to The Times calling on naturalised British citizens of German origin to make public statements of their loyalty to the King and reject Germany's methods of warfare. In the following days, numerous letters were received by the newspaper from naturalised Britons affirming their loyalty, including public figures such as Sir Ernest Cassel, Sir George Henschel, Sir Carl Meyer and Sir Felix Schuster. Among others who came under public pressure because of the war was Shaw, who opposed it strenuously, and was much vilified by the public and even by his colleagues. Pinero refused to join in the chorus of disapproval, and his friendship with Shaw endured, although they saw less of each other after Shaw resigned from the Dramatists' Club under pressure from its pro-war members led by Henry Arthur Jones. Pinero's wife died in 1919, having been an invalid for some time. Although her death was foreseen it caused Pinero deep distress, and after it he was often despondent, despite the devoted attention of his stepdaughter. During the last years of his life Pinero gradually ceased to be a figure of importance in the theatre. After the end of the war he wrote eight more plays; two of them remained unstaged and of the four that were produced in London the longest-running lasted for 64 performances. His heart weakened by a serious bout of influenza, Pinero failed to survive an operation for a hernia. He died on 23 November 1934 in Marylebone Nursing Home. A memorial service was held at St Marylebone Parish Church on 28 November 1934, after which, by Pinero's request, his ashes were buried in his wife's grave in the churchyard of Chiddingfold, Surrey, close to their former country house.

• Title — Theatre — Date — Genre — Acts — Perfs — Notes • £200 a Year — Globe — 6 October 1877 — comedy — 1 — 36 • La Comète — Theatre Royal, Croydon — 22 April 1878 — drama — 3 — n/k • Two Can Play at That Game — Lyceum — 20 May 1878 — comedy — 1 — 40 • Daisy's Escape — Lyceum — 20 September 1878 — comedy — 1 — 31 • Hester's Mystery — Folly — 5 June 1880 — comedy — 1 — 308 • Bygones — Lyceum — 18 September 1880 — comedy — 1 — 89 • The Money Spinner — Prince's Theatre, Manchester and St James's — 5 November 1880 and 8 January 1881 — comedy — 2 — 98 • Imprudence — Folly — 27 July 1881 — farce — 3 — 54 • Bound to Marry — unperformed — comedy — 3 • The Squire — St James's — 29 December 1881 — play — 3 — 170 • Girls and Boys — Toole's Theatre — 31 October 1882 — comedy — 3 — 52 • The Rector — Court — 24 March 1883 — play — 4 — 16 • Lords and Commons — Haymarket — 24 November 1883 — comedy — 4 — 70 • The Rocket — Prince of Wales, Liverpool and Gaiety — 30 July 1883 and 10 December 1883 — farce — 3 — 51 • Low Water — Globe — 12 January 1884 — comedy — 3 — 7 • The Ironmaster — St James's — 17 April 1884 — play — 4 — 200 • In Chancery — Lyceum, Edinburgh and Gaiety — 19 September 1884 and 24 December 1884 — farce — 3 — 36 • The Magistrate — Court — 21 March 1885 — farce — 3 — 363 • Mayfair — St James's — 31 October 1885 — play — 5 — 53 • The Schoolmistress — Court — 27 March 1886 — farce — 3 — 291 • The Hobby Horse — St James's — 25 October 1886 — comedy — 3 — 109 • Dandy Dick — Court — 27 January 1887 — farce — 3 — 262 • Sweet Lavender — Terry's — 21 March 1888 — comedy — 3 — 684 • The Weaker Sex — Theatre Royal, Manchester and Court — 28 September 1888 and 16 March 1889 — comedy — 3 — 61 • The Profligate — Garrick — 24 April 1889 — play — 4 — 129 • The Cabinet Minister — Court — 23 April 1890 — farce — 4 — 199 • Lady Bountiful — Garrick — 7 February 1891 — play — 4 — 65 • The Times — Terry's — 24 October 1891 — comedy — 4 — 155 • The Amazons — Court — 7 March 1893 — farce — 3 — 114 • The Second Mrs Tanqueray — St James's — 27 May 1893 — play — 4 — 225 • The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith — Garrick — 13 March 1895 — play — 4 — 88 • The Benefit of the Doubt — Comedy — 16 October 1895 — comedy — 3 — 74 • The Princess and the Butterfly — St James's — 29 March 1897 — comedy — 4 — 97 • Trelawny of the "Wells" — Court — 20 January 1898 — comedy — 4 — 135 • The Beauty Stone — Savoy — 28 March 1898 — opera — 3 — 50 • The Gay Lord Quex — Globe — 8 April 1899 — comedy — 4 — 300 • Iris — Garrick — 21 September 1901 — play — 5 — 115 • Letty — Duke of York's — 8 October 1903 — play — 4 — 64 • A Wife without a Smile — Wyndham's — 12 October 1904 — farce — 3 — 77 • His House in Order — St James's — 1 February 1906 — play — 4 — 430 • The Thunderbolt — St James's — 9 May 1908 — play — 4 — 58 • Mid-Channel — St James's — 2 September 1909 — play — 4 — 58 • Preserving Mr Panmure — Comedy — 19 January 1911 — farce — 4 — 99 • The "Mind the Paint" Girl — Duke of York's — 17 February 1912 — comedy — 4 — 126 • The Widow of Wasdale Head — Duke of York's — 14 October 1912 — comedy — 1 — 26 • Playgoers — St James's — 31 March 1913 — comedy — 1 — 70 • The Big Drum — St James's — 1 September 1915 — play — 4 — 111 • Mr Livermore's Dream — London Coliseum — 15 January 1917 — sketch — 1 — 12 • The Freaks — New — 14 February 1918 — comedy — 3 — 51 • Monica's Blue Boy — New — 8 April 1918 — play — 1 — 38 • Quick Work — Springfield Mass — 17 November 1919 — comedy — 3 • A Seat in the Park — Winter Garden — 21 February 1922 — comedy — 1 — 1 • The Enchanted Cottage — Duke of York's — 1 March 1922 — comedy — 3 — 64 • A Private Room — Little — 14 May 1928 — play — 1 — 23 • Dr Harmer's Holidays — Shubert Belasco, Washington DC — 16 March 1931 — play — 9 • Child Man — unperformed — farce — 3 • A Cold June — Duchess — 29 May 1932 — comedy — 3 — 19 • Late of Monckford's — unperformed — play — 3 • Source: Dawick.

The original London productions that were followed by New York productions were: The Money Spinner (New York, 1882); The Squire (1882); Girls and Boys (1883); Lords and Commons (1884); In Chancery (1885); The Magistrate (play) (1885); The Schoolmistress (1886); Dandy Dick (1887); Sweet Lavender (1888); Lady Bountiful (1891); The Cabinet Minister (1892); The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893); The Amazons (1894); The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith (1895); The Benefit of the Doubt (1896); The Princess and the Butterfly (1897); Trelawny of the Wells (1898); The Gay Lord Quex (play) (1900); Iris (1902); Letty (1904); A Wife without a Smile (1904); His House in Order (1906); Mid-Channel (1910); Preserving Mr. Panmure (1912); The "Mind the Paint" Girl (1912); and The Enchanted Cottage (1923). • Illustration — Poster for provincial production of The Schoolmistress

Among the notable British revivals of Pinero plays singled out in John Dawick's 1993 study of the dramatist were: • The Magistrate: Old Vic, 1959; Chichester Festival and then Cambridge Theatre, London, 1969; National Theatre, 1986 • The Schoolmistress: Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, 1979 • Dandy Dick: Mermaid Theatre, London, 1965; Chichester and then the Garrick, London, 1973 • Sweet Lavender: Ambassadors Theatre, London, 1922 • The Cabinet Minister: Royal Exchange, 1987; Albery Theatre, London, 1991 • The Second Mrs Tanqueray: Playhouse Theatre, London, 1922; Haymarket 1950; National Theatre, 1981 • Trelawny of the 'Wells: Old Vic, 1965; Comedy Theatre, London, 1992; National Theatre, 1993 • The Gay Lord Quex (play): Albery, 1975 • Source: Dawick. In 2012 The Times remarked on a revival in interest in Pinero, with new productions of The Second Mrs Tanqueray at the Rose Theatre, The Magistrate at the National Theatre, starring John Lithgow in the title role, Trelawney of the "Wells" at the Donmar, and Dandy Dick, with Patricia Hodge and Nicholas Le Prevost. The paper commented, "Like Terence Rattigan in recent years, Pinero is being dusted down, reappraised and hailed as one of the great British playwrights".

Four of Pinero's plays have been adapted as musicals: The Magistrate as The Boy (1917) with words by Fred Thompson, Percy Greenbank and Adrian Ross and music by Lionel Monckton and Howard Talbot; In Chancery as Who's Hooper? (1919) with lyrics by Thompson and music by Talbot and Ivor Novello; The Schoolmistress as My Niece (1921) with words by Greenbank and music by Talbot; and Trelawny of the "Wells" as Trelawny (1972), adapted by Aubrey Woods, George Rowell and Julian Slade.

The first of Pinero's works to be filmed was The Second Mrs Tanqueray, in an unauthorised American silent version in 1914, which prompted a successful but not very lucrative lawsuit by the author. With his approval, eight of his plays were adapted for the silent cinema, an authorised version of The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1916) with George Alexander in his first film role, reprising the part he created in 1893; Trelawny of the "Wells" (1916); Sweet Lavender (twice: in 1915 and 1920); Iris (twice: 1916 and as A Slave of Vanity, 1920); The Profligate (1917); The Gay Lord Quex (twice: 1917 and 1919); Mid-Channel (1920); His House in Order (1920) and The Enchanted Cottage (1924). After the days of silent films there were adaptions of His House in Order (1928) Trelawny of the "Wells" (as The Actress, 1928), The Magistrate (as Those Were the Days, 1934), Dandy Dick (1935), The Enchanted Cottage (1945), and The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1952).

There have been many adaptations of Pinero's works for broadcasting. Television versions include The Gay Lord Quex (1946, 1953 and 1983, starring respectively Ronald Ward, André Morell and Anton Rogers); The Magistrate (1946, 1951 and 1972, Desmond Walter-Ellis, Richard Goolden and Michael Hordern); Trelawny of the "Wells" (1949, 1971 and 1985, Bransby Williams, Roland Culver, Michael Hordern); Dandy Dick (1948, directed by Athene Seyler) and The Second Mrs Tanqueray starring Elizabeth Sellars (1962).

Arthur Wing Pinero is recorded as playwright, actor, writer and director.