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William Poel (22 July 1852 – 13 December 1934) was anEnglish actor, theatrical manager and dramatist best known for his presentations of Shakespeare.
A son ofWilliam Pole, he grew up amongPre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painters and reportedly sat forWilliam Holman Hunt in his paintingThe Finding of the Saviour in the Temple. He took on the namePoel following a misspelling of his own name on a theatre billing. AtSt. George's Hall,London, in 1881 he revivedHamlet, using the text of the first quarto and doing without scenery. From 1881 to 1883 he was manager ofRoyal Victoria Hall, London, and then for a year manager ofF. R. Benson's company.
In 1895 he founded theElizabethan Stage Society and spent much of his career researching and lecturing on Elizabethan performance. He put his studies to work on stage, as he tried to recreate performances using an open stage, a unified acting ensemble, an uncut text, very little scenery and a swift pace of performance. For incidental music he worked initially withArnold Dolmetsch, then later withRosabel Watson. His work affected many theatre practitioners, most of allHarley Granville Barker. His presentations includedShakespeare'sMeasure for Measure (1893) andTwo Gentlemen of Verona (1910), plays byMarlowe andBen Jonson,Milton'sSamson Agonistes (1900) andSwinburne'sLocrine (1900).
Poel also dramatizedW. D. Howells'sA Foregone Conclusion under the titlePriest and Painter (produced 1884) andBaring-Gould's novelMehala (produced 1886). He wrote several comediettas and a book,Shakespeare in the Theatre. TheNational Portrait Gallery contains a number of pictures byHenry Tonks of Poel in the role as Father Keegan inG. B. Shaw's playJohn Bull's Other Island. His great-nephewRupert Pole (1919–2006) was married toAnaïs Nin.
The Poel Workshops, run and promoted byThe Society for Theatre Research since 1952, emphasize Poel's approach to text in the delivery of which he desired speed, lightness, musicality and the effect of true speech. The Society for Theatre Research's project has constantly evolved and is now known as the Poel Workshops, but still keeps to its aims of the text-centric and verse-faithful to the plays of Shakespeare.
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