Actors - Harley Granville-Barker

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	Actors - Harley Granville-Barker

Harley Granville-Barker (November 25 1877 – August 31 1946) was an English actor, director, producer, critic and playwright.

Born in London, Harley Granville Barker (as he was then known) made his first appearance onstage there at the age of 14. His acting work led to increasing discontent with the low standards of the commercial theatre. In 1900 he became a leading member of the Stage Society and this led to contacts with George Bernard Shaw and William Poel among others. His first play, The Marrying of Ann Leete was produced by the Stage Society in 1900 as well.

After success with the Stage Society, Granville Barker turned his attentions to his own theatre operation and with J.E. Vedrenne took a lease on the Royal Court Theatre in London. There he managed three seasons of repertory theatre. Among many of the works he produced were plays by Shaw, Henrik Ibsen, Maurice Maeterlinck, and new translations of Euripides. These plays were produced successfully in repertory. In the years 1904-07, Barker also produced and directed ten of Bernard Shaw's plays at the Royal Court, establishing Shaw's reputation as one of the foremost playwrights of the modern age. In some cases, the great success of the productions was due in part to Barker's acting performances (for example, as Cusins in Major Barbara and Tanner in Man and Superman).

His productions of Shakespeare's plays were highly influential. Granville Barker did away with "star" system and instead concentrated on excellence in the entire ensemble.

As a playwright, Granville Barker experimented with form, and proved an extremely gifted writer of dialogue and architect of ideas. His best known plays are The Voysey Inheritance (1905), Waste (1906) and The Madras House (1909). His entire body of plays has been produced at the Shaw Festival in Canada.

Late in his career, after marrying for the second time, Barker broke with many of his old theatre friends, including Shaw, and settled in Paris. He then added the more aristocratic hyphen between his middle name and surname while publishing volumes of criticism, his Prefaces to Shakespeare, and translations of Spanish plays.

He died in Paris in 1946.

Sources

Cambridge Guide to Theatre, 1992 ISBN 0521434378
Modern World Encyclopedia: Illustrated, 1935

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