Poel, William

Poel, William [ William Pole] (1852–1934), English actor and director, who altered his name in deference to his father's dislike of the theatre, his chosen profession. He made his first appearance on the stage in 1876, and from 1881 to 1883 was manager of the Old Vic under Emma Cons. In 1894 he founded the Elizabethan Stage Society, which was to have an enormous influence on the staging and production of Shakespeare in the first half of the 20th century. On a stage modelled in accordance with his ideas of an Elizabethan stage, with the minimum of scenery, and with music by the Dolmetsch family, Poel produced in a variety of halls and courtyards a number of Elizabethan plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton, Rowley, and Ford, beginning with Twelfth Night in 1895. He also staged the Dutch medieval morality play Everyman for the first time for 400 years. His last production for the Elizabethan Stage Society was Romeo and Juliet in 1905. Financially the venture had not been a success, but artistically it vindicated Poel's theories, and it undoubtedly stimulated other directors to experiment with simple settings and so free Shakespeare from the cumbersome trappings of the late 19th century. Poel continued to work in the theatre until his death, and was responsible for revivals, under various auspices, of the old improvised Hamlet play of the English Comedians, Fratricide Punished, first seen in England at the Oxford Playhouse in 1924; of the anonymous Arden of Feversham (1925); and of Peele's David and Bethsabe (1932) for the first time since 1599.