Rutland Barrington

Rutland Barrington (15 January 1853 – 31 May 1922) was an English singer, actor, comedian, Edwardian musical comedy star and playwright. Best remembered for originating the lyric baritone roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1877 to 1896, his performing career spanned more than four decades. He also wrote at least a dozen works for the stage.

After two years with a comic touring company, Barrington joined Richard D'Oyly Carte's opera company in 1877 and, over the next two decades, created a number of memorable comic opera roles, including Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance (1880), and Pooh Bah in The Mikado (1885), among many others in the Savoy operas. Failing in an 1888 attempt to become a theatrical manager, Barrington refocused his energies on acting and writing plays.

Beginning in 1896 and continuing for ten years, Barrington played in a series of very successful musical comedies under the management of George Edwardes at Daly's Theatre, specialising in comic portrayals of pompous rulers or other persons of authority. One of the most popular features of his performances was his insertion of topical songs, or verses of songs, into these musical comedies. After leaving Daly's he continued to appear in musical comedy roles and performed in music hall. He also essayed a few Shakespeare and other dramatic roles and appeared in a few silent films. His career ended in 1918, after which he suffered a stroke and lived the last few years of his life in poverty.

Life and career Barrington was born George Rutland Fleet at Penge, England, the fourth son of John George Fleet (1818–1902), a wholesale dealer in London importing goods from the colonies. His mother was the former Esther Faithfull (1823–1908) of Headley, Surrey, England. He was educated at Headley rectory and then at the Merchant Taylors' School in London. His six brothers included the Indologist John Faithfull Fleet (1847–1917), Vice-Admiral Henry Louis Fleet (1850–1923), The Reverend Ferdinand Francis Fleet (1857–1940) and actor Duncan James Fleet (1860–1909). He also had two sisters, one named Esther (one boy and one girl died in infancy). His aunt, the activist and dramatic reader Emily Faithfull, helped him to make his first connections in the theatre. Barrington was a keen football player in the mid-1870s and played for the original Crystal Palace FC.

In 1880, Barrington married Ellen Louisa "Louie" Jane Stainer (1851–1922), from Woolwich in Kent, the daughter of William Stainer and the former Lucy Mary Wheeler. Barrington and his wife had no children.

Early career; joining D'Oyly Carte's company

Barrington adopted his stage name by 1874 and made his professional debut with Henry Neville's company at the Olympic Theatre that year, playing the role of Sir George Barclay in Tom Taylor's Lady Clancarty, and then in The Ticket-of-Leave Man (by Taylor) and as LaFleur in The Two Orphans, among others. Later that year, he was hired to appear in the touring company of Mr and Mrs Howard Paul. The company played a hectic schedule of entertainments.

In 1877 the producer Richard D'Oyly Carte approached Mrs Paul to play the part of Lady Sangazure in the new Gilbert and Sullivan opera, The Sorcerer, which he was presenting. She accepted, provided her 24-year-old protégé, Barrington, was given a part, and he was cast in the role of Dr Daly, the vicar. When he auditioned before W. S. Gilbert, the young actor questioned his own suitability for comic opera, but Gilbert, who required that his actors play their sometimes-absurd lines in all earnestness, explained the casting choice: "He's a staid, solid swine, and that's what I want." Barrington went on to say that producer Richard D'Oyly Carte later asked him, "hat's the matter? ... some one has just come out of the stalls to tell me you are singing in tune. It will never do." Barrington wrote that "This pleased me so much that I have never sung flat since, except, of course, when I wished". Several contemporaries did find Barrington's singing occasionally flat, including Francois Cellier. Many years later, in her memoir, Ellaline Terriss wrote: "ear old Rutland scarcely ever did sing in tune – but how grand he was. ... He had a beautifully clear diction and a marvellous sense of timing – and was one of the finest singers of the then popular topical songs that our stage ever knew." Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald wrote of Barrington in his 1899 book, The Savoy Opera, "His peculiar tranquil or impassive style has always exactly suited the characters allotted to him, and it would now be difficult to imagine a Savoy opera without him. However, Barrington's performance as Dr Daly impressed the critics and audiences, and he won a permanent place in D'Oyly Carte's company.

Pinafore to Ruddigore

From 1877 to 1896, except for a foray into the business of theatrical management in 1888–89, Barrington remained with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, creating comic lyric baritone roles in all of Gilbert and Sullivan's new operas with the exception of The Yeomen of the Guard (1888). In 1878, he created the role of Lord Chamberlain in Albery and Cellier's curtain raiser, The Spectre Knight, played the Counsel for the Plaintiff in the revival of Trial by Jury, and created the role of Captain Corcoran in Gilbert and Sullivan's first smash hit, H.M.S. Pinafore. Barrington played Mr. Cox in Carte's revival of Cox and Box (1879) and created the role of the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance in London (1880). Barrington was proud that the Sergeant's song generally received two encores. Eventually, he asked Gilbert to write an "encore verse" for the song. Gilbert replied that "encore" means "sing it again." Also around this time, Barrington's short play entitled Quid Pro Quo, written with Cunningham Bridgeman and composed by Wilfred Bendall, was first produced.

The next role that Barrington created was Archibald Grosvenor in Patience (1881). Casting the large Barrington as the "perfect" and "infallible" incarnation of manly beauty mirrored a joke in Gilbert's earlier A Sensation Novel, in which he cast the large, ungainly Corney Grain, in a similar role. During the run of Princess Ida, a comedy written by Barrington and called Bartonmere Towers was first presented at a matinee. In 1885, he created his most famous role, that of Pooh-Bah in The Mikado. The Theatre'''s review was typical of the critics' unanimous praise: "The Pooh-Bah of Mr. Barrington is a masterpiece of pompous stolidity – nothing could possibly be better of its kind – and this popular comedian provided his many admirers with an agreeable surprise by singing every note of the music allotted to him in perfect tune."

right|frame|With Jessie Bond as Despard and Margaret, 1887 Next, Barrington created the role of Sir Despard Murgatroyd in Ruddigore and then reprised his original roles in revivals of Pinafore, Pirates and The Mikado in (1887–88). The Times said of Barrington's performances, "His strength lay in his quietness of voice and movement... in perfect contrast to the restlessness of George Grossmith. No one could be so ridiculously pompous... he moved with effect. There was a native drollery in his lightly rolling dance, a comic dignity in his rotund and placid, yet twinklingly intelligent face. He always gave the impression of thoroughly enjoying whatever he did...."

Theatrical management experiment and later Savoy roles

In 1888, Barrington left the D'Oyly Carte organisation and the Savoy Theatre, missing the chance to create the role of Wilfred in Yeomen, to try his hand at theatrical management, leasing the St. James's Theatre. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News lamented Barrington's departure, suggesting that he was irreplaceable in the Savoy Operas: "He is the typical embodiment... of that British Philistinism, the pachydermatous hide of which Mr. Gilbert has so long striven to penetrate by the process of holding up its own image before it." In March 1888, Barrington played Chrysos in a benefit performance of Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea, a role that he would reprise at a number of "benefit" performances over the years. Gilbert's Brantinghame Hall (an abject failure), starred Barrington as Mr. Thursby, as well as his younger brother, Duncan Fleet, Julia Neilson and Lewis Waller (the latter two in their professional stage debuts). Its companion piece was A Patron Saint. This experiment in management proved to be a financial disaster for Barrington, and he was bankrupt after only five months.

After Brantinghame Hall closed, he again played Chrysos in a revival of Pygmalion and Galatea at the Lyceum Theatre and played Mr Barnes in his own play, To the Death, at the Olympic Theatre. He then appeared at the Comedy Theatre under Charles Hawtrey in Pickwick (1889), a successful one-act musical play by F. C. Burnand and Edward Solomon based on an episode in The Pickwick Papers, which Barrington ended up directing and in which he alternated in the roles of Pickwick and Baker. Barrington then created the role of Lt. Col. Cadbury in a Grundy farce called Merry Margate and next played Tosser in a comic opera by Solomon and George P. Hawtrey called Penelope, in which he co-starred with Dan Leno. He also played a number of other roles in other theatres In September 1892, he created the role of Rupert Vernon in Grundy and Sullivan's Haddon Hall, making a critical splash. For example, The Figaro wrote: "Barrington... kept the audience in shouts of laughter the whole time [he was] on the stage." Despite the failure of the piece, Barrington was singled out for critical praise. Barrington next created the role of King Paramount I in Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia, Limited, opening in October of that year. Barrington's comedy, Bartonmere Towers, was also produced at a matinee at the Savoy in 1893, with Barrington playing Sir James Hanbury. Barrington also wrote and directed a one-act operetta, A Knight Errant, with music by Alfred Caldicott, which played as a companion piece with His Excellency at the Lyric Theatre. At Toole's Theatre, he played John Rimple in Thoroughbred, by Ralph R. Lumley, in early 1895. J. L. Toole had originated the role but took ill and was forced to retire. Barrington also played in some German Reed Entertainments, including a revival of Happy Arcadia at St. George's Hall in 1895, starring Fanny Holland, and toured with the German Reeds.

In November 1895, Barrington returned to the Savoy as Pooh-Bah in another revival of The Mikado. In March 1896 he created the role of Ludwig in Gilbert and Sullivan's last opera, The Grand Duke. In his 1908 memoir, Barrington wrote of some difficulty in getting along with his co-star, Ilka Pálmay, who was cast in the role of Julia. As usual, the critics were pleased with Barrington, "on whom... falls the chief burden of the piece, is intensely funny as Ludwig, more especially in the absurd costume of the second act...." After another revival of The Mikado, Barrington again left the Savoy.

Musical comedy and music hall Beginning in 1896, Barrington spent ten very successful years under the management of Edwardes at Daly's, first taking over the role of the Marquis Imari in The Geisha (1896), and then creating roles in a number of other Edwardian musical comedy hits, including Marcus Pomponius in A Greek Slave (1898), Yen How in San Toy (1899), The Rajah of Bhong in A Country Girl (1902), and Boobhamba in The Cingalee (1904), among others.

In these roles, he had more freedom to add "gags" than Gilbert had given him at the Savoy, and he often wrote topical verses to Adrian Ross's songs. However, Barrington complained that, in these musical comedies, the plot was nearly eliminated during rehearsals. During this time, Barrington often reprised his role as the Judge at benefit matinees.

During this period, Barrington performed his own solo music hall sketches at the Coliseum and produced various tours, performing standard topical songs of the day, including the only song that he recorded, "The Moody Mariner" (1905). "Across the Silent Way" and "The Tramp" by Barrington and Slaughter, and Mummydom (1907), which he had written in 1903 with Wilfrid Bendall (Sullivan's former secretary) based on his play of the same name that had been produced some years earlier at Penley's Theatre. He also wrote a Rip van Winkle sketch for Courtice Pounds and a one-act musical drama, No. 442, His Escape (1907), with music by H. M. Higgs.

Barrington returned to the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1908 for the second of the London repertory seasons, playing Pooh-Bah, Captain Corcoran, Mountararat, and the Sergeant of Police once again, and adding the roles of Wilfred Shadbolt in Yeomen (finally completing the feat of playing a principal role in all thirteen extant Gilbert and Sullivan operas), and Don Alhambra in The Gondoliers to his Savoy repertoire. and in several other roles from 1911 to 1913; on tour in Other People's Babies, by Lechmere Worrall, in 1913; as Lord Leonard Alcar in the highly successful The Great Adventure by Arnold Bennett (1913–14; based on Bennett's 1908 novel, Buried Alive); as Max Somossy in The Joy-Ride Lady, by Arthur Anderson and Hartley Carrick at the New Theatre (1914); He continued to perform in London and in the provinces until 1918, from 1916 under the management of John Martin-Harvey.