Visit to the Garrick Club

A couple weeks ago my masters program were invited to visit the Garrick Club, a gentlemen's club in Covent Garden with an extraordinary collection of theatrical paintings. It was founded in the early nineteenth century as a theatrical and literary society for actors and educated men interested in the theatre (it is named after the Shakespearean actor David Garrick). Almost from the beginning, the club has collected paintings of actors, mostly portraying them in costume for a specific role. Walking through the rooms of the club, you can quite literally see the history and traditions of the English stage: Garrick, Kean, Bernhardt, Olivier and others are all represented, in plays by Shakespeare (which seemed to predominate) but also others.

It's quite an interesting phenomenon that such an industry obviously grew up around painting actors and actresses as a certain character they were famous for playing. Perhaps this was the beginning of the actor as icon culture; but, other than movie posters, I'm not sure that it's still current to collect pictures of actors as a particular role. One interesting thing that we noticed was that the paintings often put the actors into a natural-looking landscape rather than painting a portrayal of stage scenery. It was as if the actors were represented in the painting more as the characters than as themselves.

Since most of the masters program are female, we ranged from amused to indignant when we learned that the Garrick Club is one of the last of the gentlemen's clubs not to admit women into their membership. Apparently (we learned), there is a vote every year on the issue, and every year it is voted down. But I have to say: the women's restroom we were shown as a place to leave our bags made more than one jaw drop. Women are allowed to be guests of members, and it is obvious they are taken care of when they're there.

The UCL Shakespeare masters program with a smattering of our professors. I'm almost exactly in the middle.