Granville-Barker, Harley (1877–1946), English theatre scholar, actor, director, and playwright, one of the outstanding figures of the progressive theatre at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1891 he joined the stock company at Margate, and later toured with well-known actor-managers and was seen in London, notably in
Poel's production of
Richard II (1899). In 1900 Shaw chose him to play Marchbanks in the first London production, by the
Stage Society, of
Candida, and he appeared also in their productions of
Captain Brassbound's Conversion (also 1900),
Mrs Warren's Profession (1902), and
Man and Superman (1905), in which his first wife Lillah
McCarthy played Ann Whitefield. In 1904, with
J. E. Vedrenne (1867–1930), he assumed the management of the
Royal Court Theatre, where he embarked on an extensive programme of new plays, including his own
The Voysey Inheritance (1905), in which the hero finds that the firm he has inherited achieved its wealth dishonestly; the social criticism, as in his other plays, is effectively made. An earlier play,
The Marrying of Ann Leete (1901), had been successfully produced by the Stage Society, but their later production of
Waste in 1907 fell foul of the
Lord Chamberlain because it contained mention of an abortion, and the play was not licensed until 1936. His only other play of any importance was
The Madras House (1910; NY, 1921). His experiences at the Royal Court, which had been artistically rather than financially rewarding, made him a fervent advocate of a subsidized theatre, for which he campaigned ceaselessly. His own approach to Shakespeare, whom he naturally considered the foundation stone of any British National Theatre, was conditioned by his early association with Poel, and his productions at the
Savoy Theatre in 1912–14 of
The Winter's Tale,
Twelfth Night, and
A Midsummer Night's Dream were later considered epoch-making in their simplicity and poetic beauty. Barker was at the height of his career in England when a visit to America directed his energies into fresh channels. Divorced from Lillah McCarthy, he married as his second wife the American Helen Huntingdon. At her instigation he gave up all contact with the theatre backstage, hyphenated his name, and settled down to translate, with her help, the plays of
Martínez Sierra and the
Álvarez Quintero brothers, and to write the
Prefaces to Shakespeare (1927–47) on which his posthumous fame chiefly rests.
The Marrying of Ann Leete was revived by the
RSC in 1975, and
The Madras House and
The Voysey Inheritance were produced by the
National Theatre in 1977 and 1989 respectively.