As we entered our friends’ garden, Irmgard and Alfred were ready for the walk Irmgard had promised.

Irmgard and Alfred had lived in London during the war, where Alfred manufactured accessories for clothing. As my father-in-law made all the uniforms for the Canadian armed forces, he became a customer of Alfred’s company. After the war — fearing that World War III might erupt — the Irmgard and Alfred emigrated to Canada, living in Montreal where they became friends with my in-laws. Once these fears subsided, they moved to Vence in the south of France. After Jane and I married, Irmgard and Alfred befriended us, calling us “the children”. Before we began living nearby, in Saint Jeannet, Jane and I would visit the Irmgard and Alfred once or twice a year.

When we reached the end of rue Reine Jeanne, Irmgard pointed to a small villa exposed to the road.

“Craig lives there, with his daughter, Nellie.” I had no idea of whom she was referring.

“You know, of course, who Craig is?” I wasn’t sure if I should acknowledge my ignorance, or remain silent in the hope that Irmgard would answer her own question.

I remained silent.

“Edward Gordon Craig was the lover of Isadora Duncan. You must recognize who she was?” Fortunately, when Jane was enrolled in Reid Hall in Paris, one of the courses in her curriculum was the modern arts that included modern contemporary dance of which Isadora Duncan was a pioneer.

“Well, I see that Jeanne at least isn’t a typical American philistine.”

On our return, I waited until Alfred went into the kitchen to prepare our small meal and Irmgard was using their bathroom. I then stealthily took down their Encyclopedia Britannica and looked up Craig.

“Well, children, tell me something,” Irmgard announced when she returned to the living room.

“The little I know of Craig,” I began, “is that, as a stage designer, he rivaled Stanislavsky during the first part of the twentieth century.”

“Yes, boy, that was the position he held, but you know who his mother was?” I could see that Jane was wondering if I had reached that point in the article I had just read.

“Wasn’t she Ellen Terry?” I asked, tentatively. Jane then knew that I had.

“Yes, Ellen Terry, who herself was the English equivalent of Sarah Bernhardt … or Eleonora Duse, for that matter.” Jane looked at me. When I said nothing, Jane asked,

“Was she also an actress?” in her attempt to deflect any criticism from me.

“A very significant actress, Jane. It might do the two of you some good to read about her in our encyclopedia. Like most Americans, your education is sadly lacking. But I’ve invited Craig and Nellie to drop by for a drink tomorrow. I try my best to fill in the gaping holes in your knowledge of what is truly important.”

Later, in our hotel room, Jane told me, “You saved us — mainly you — from being thought of as complete ignoramuses.”

“Jane, I told you on a previous visit with Irmgard and Alfred, our being with them — aside from their caring for the two of us which Irmgard shows in her rather strict adherence to her principles on just about every subject — is to further our growth as individuals.”

“Yes, I’m with you, but isn’t Irmgard overly demanding.? Her manner, at least to me, appears to be rather combative.”

“It does, but it spurs me on to learn. I’m getting to like her approach. She’s a very strict teacher.”

The following day, we arrived early. Alfred went down the road, to walk back with Craig and his daughter Nellie, in case Craig needed assistance. When he unlocked the gate, we were waiting for them at the bottom of the stone steps.

Craig appeared as though a mirage; he seemed to float down the steps toward us. Dressed in a black cloak over an equally dark grey suit, he wore a black wide-brim hat that covered what remained of his flowing, almost pure-white hair, and in his right hand he carried a walking stick that he waved as though in greeting to “the children” — meaning Jane and me. Nellie, dressed in a form of a belted Mother Hubbard, held him by his left arm, steadying her father as he made his way with seeming abandon down the treacherous steps.

In his youth, Craig must have been considered exceedingly handsome — almost beautiful — and, now in his nineties, he still retained a vestige of this former beauty. Tall and lanky and remarkably pale for living in the south of France, he radiated an almost ghostlike appearance.

“Did you notice his hands?” Jane asked when we were snuggled in the hotel room bed later that night. “They reminded me of an illustration of the witch’s hands in Hansel and Gretel.”

“He’s an artist, Jane,” I reminded her, “and an aesthete.”

“So? He still reminded me of a witch.”

“Jane, everything about him emanates art. He dedicated his long life to teaching and practicing the art of the theatre. To me, he looked very raffiné.”

“Now you’re beginning to sound like Irmgard,” she said, and wrapped her arms around me, nestling me in an embrace.

We all entered the house, Craig leading us, waving his walking stick, forgetting — or ignoring — the 16^th century Chinese vase sitting on the Renaissance chest to his right. Without taking off his cloak, he sat down in one of the more comfortable chairs as though that was where he always sat when visiting his friends, placing his hat on the floor beside him.

Irmgard, without asking, offered Craig an apéritif, and Nellie, a glass of sherry. Alfred served Jane, me, and himself from a bottle of Beaujolais, and handed his wife a glass of porto rouge.

“Yesterday, father took a taxi to the Blue Bar, in Cannes,” Nellie explained. “I expected him back soon after midday, and when it was going on 3:00 and he was nowhere to be found, I began to worry.” As she said this, Nellie looked at Irmgard, perhaps for empathy.

“You should be accustomed to Craig’s proclivity for doing that sort of thing,” Irmgard told her. “Heavens, how many years has it been like this? You know he’s safe, and that the taxi will wait for him and drive him back to Vence.”

“Irmgard doesn’t appear to have any sympathy for the weaknesses of others,” I remarked when we settled back in our room at La Résidence later that evening.

“She does, for her own ….”

“And today, for Craig’s,” I added.

“… but not for those of women,” Jane told me.         

“Yes, I’m beginning to notice that, too.”

Craig recounted a story of when he was younger and had recently been thinking about starting a school in Florence. When was that? I asked myself, and then I made a mental note to read more of the article in the encyclopedia.

“I was very young, then … yes … and I hadn’t learned the art of diplomacy.” Once more, Craig waved his cane with abandon. “Ah, the years have taught me a lot. But, back then ….” and his mind appeared to have drifted back to a time, decades ago, when he had left England. “… I was daring, and I wanted — yes, I longed for a way ….” He gazed straight in front of him, seeing through Irmgard who was sitting opposite him. “… I was beginning to find it, in Moscow, and in Berlin ….” He continued to look out the window in back of Irmgard, as though something — or someone — were there. “… and mother was alive then. Yes ….” Craig grew silent.

Irmgard started a conversation with Nellie, and Alfred turned to Jane, while I watched Craig, whose gaze had drifted to the bank of windows that led to the terrace and remained there as though he were transfixed.

“Mr. Craig, can you tell me a little of your mother?” I asked. “I believe she was the foremost actress on the London stage.”

“Ah yes, mother. She had a presence … and when she was on the stage … and then there was Irving ….” Craig put his cane on the floor and leaned back against the chair. “I became very attached to him … yes, he taught me much of what I knew … yes, I learned from him ….”

“I understand that Irving brought your mother to the Lyceum,” I said, to encourage Craig to talk more.

“They were partners … but mother …. She was lovely. They acted so well together … Hamlet, she was ethereal as Ophelia ….”

“Did they ever play Macbeth together?” Aaron asked.

“Oh yes, her Lady Macbeth …. No one could touch her Lady Macbeth, but it was as Portia … yes, as Portia ….” He seemed to drift off in his memories.

“Did your mother always act with Irving?” I asked.

“There was a time … Shaw wanted her to act in his plays …. But mother and Irving were … and Irving needed mother …. Yes, Shaw was persistent ….”

“Did your mother ever act in one of Shaw’s plays?”

“Ah, yes … later. We worked together, mother and I, but it failed.” Craig sat back. “She wanted to help me … yes, mother and Shaw were friends … business partners … but that failed. Too avant-garde for the times, I think ….”

“When Craig said to me that his work in the theatre, and the collaboration between his mother and Bernard Shaw, were too avant-garde, we have to remember that he’s talking about the early 20^th century,” I explained the Jane back in our hotel room later that night. “I assume he would have included Isadora Duncan as well. To audiences accustomed to classical theatre productions ….”

“And classical ballet,” Jane added.

“… Craig, Ellen Terry, Bernard Shaw, and Isadora Duncan probably shocked them, as they were, at that time, too modern.”

“Like Olivier’s Shylock?” Jane asked, referring to a production of The Merchant of Venice with Laurence Olivier we had seen at the National Theatre in London.

“Olivier’s interpretation of Shylock was, to me, more of a rewriting of Shakespeare’s character. And it was that that went against my feeling as a Jew. We have to remember that in Shakespeare’s time, there were no practicing Jews in England.”

“Why was that?”

“Jews were expelled from England in 1290, and from Spain in 1492.”

“Where did they go?”

“Well, they had a choice: either convert to Christianity, be executed, or leave — and most left, going to places like France, Poland, Russia, and many emigrated to The Netherlands — then known as the Lower Countries — where they thrived in a relatively free-from-persecution environment. But, getting back to Craig, I saw some of the drawings he did for stage performances. The difference between when he did them and today is that yesterday’s avant-garde is today’s modern, and as modern, they are perfectly acceptable by today’s audiences.”

After about an hour, Nellie got up and suggested that she bring her father back home, as she thought he could use a rest.

“Well, children, what did you think?” Irmgard asked a few minutes later, after Craig and Nellie had been escorted up the stone steps by Alfred who told them he would be walking them back to their house.

“Now that I’ve met him, I want to know more,” I told her. “He began telling me of his mother and the rôles she played opposite Henry Irving, and her relationship with Bernard Shaw, that she took over management of the Imperial Theatre with Craig, to produce Shaw and Ibsen, but that the venture failed.”

“Help yourself to the encyclopedia,” she offered. “When Alfred returns, he’ll tell you what you won’t learn there.”

It wasn’t long before Alfred opened the door and seated himself.

“I told the children you would fill them in on some of Craig’s more recent life,” Irmgard said.

“He never made a lot of money,” Alfred began, “not like film directors today. He was, after all, primarily interested in his art, not its commercial success. He enjoyed life and living well, and, I might add, well beyond his means ….”

“Added to that, he married multiple times, had mistresses and many children, and, as you are personally aware, that can be rather expensive,” Irmgard added.

“As his productions never made huge profits ….”

“He wasn’t a matinée star,” Irmgard interjected.

“… and he had to support a family ….”

“Actually, several families,” Irmgard noted.

“… and a lifestyle ….”

“That included taking taxis to Cannes, having them wait while he had an apéritif, and return him to Vence,” Irmgard informed them.

“… Craig needed to raise funds.”

“He was too proud to ask.” Irmgard picked up her unfinished porto and sipped.

“First, he sold his collection of books and collectables ….”

“Which, children, was not only sought by the British Museum, but other national libraries as well. Go on, Alfred.”

“… to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.”

“What a slap in the face to the British Museum that was,” Irmgard opined.

“What he received for his collection, while considerable, didn’t last.”

“How could it? Craig had just too many responsibilities. Alfred, perhaps the children could use more wine?” Without stopping his narrative, Alfred fetched the bottle of wine and handed it to me to pour.

“Who helped him?” I asked.

“I’m just getting to that,” Alfred told us. “It was decided ….”

“By friends, acquaintances, and members of the theatre community in England, including John Gielgud, a cousin” Irmgard interjected.

“… yes, especially by the theatre community, to raise funds ….”

“But not to give it to him in one lump sum.”

“That’s right, not in one amount, but every month.”

“That way he couldn’t just fritter it away in taxis to Cannes,” Irmgard commented.

“Each of us agreed to subscribe for a specified amount, to be paid every month during the remainder of his life ….”

“And Alfred was asked to administer the funds. Isn’t that true, Alfred?”

“I didn’t think Alfred would get through his story,” Jeanne said on our drive back to our hotel.

“It felt like I was watching a tennis match,” I chuckled. “My head kept going left then right, then left back to right.”

“It’s interesting.”

“What’s interesting, Jane?”

“The dynamics between Irmgard and Alfred.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Irmgard appears to be the driving force in their relationship. Haven’t you noticed?”

“What I’ve observed is that Alfred defers to her ….”

“Like a caballero,” Jane gently chided.

“It wore me out,” I confessed, ignoring my wife’s insinuation.

“Remember the novel you read by Somerset Maugham?” Jane asked. “It was about a couple, the wife was a great actress — like Ellen Terry — and her husband was an actor, director, and decided to set up a theatre management — like Henry Irving.”

“I think you’re referring to Theatre. I thought it a marvelous novel. But in Maugham’s novel Julia — the actress — and Michael — the actor/director — were married. Ellen Terry and Henry Irving weren’t. But from what I gathered during my conversation with Craig was that his mother and Irving were not only partners on the stage, but ….”

“Lovers?”

“Well, that’s what he didn’t quite say, but what I inferred.”

“We had better get some sleep, Aaron. Tomorrow Irmgard said the Chagalls have invited us to have tea.”

– E.P. Lande

Author’s Note: “Isadora’s Lover” recounts my conversation in 1963 with the noted British stage designer Edward Gordon Craig (son of the famous British actress Ellen Terry). He was also the lover of Isadora Duncan (and father of her first child). During a subsequent conversation with W. Somerset Maugham at the Venice home of Marc and Vava Chagall, I speculated that the characters for his novel Theatre were modeled after Ellen Terry and her professional partner, Henry Irving (accepted for publication by StylusLit). Not many people, even those in the theatre today, realize that Craig was the father — some say the “inventor” — of modern stage design. If they know of him at all, it is as the lover of Isadora Duncan.