Pinero, Arthur Wing (Sir)

1855

1934

One of the leading playwrights of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Arthur Pinero was born in Islington, London, on 24 May 1855, and was descended from Portuguese Jews. He was the son of the solicitor John Daniel Pinero and his wife Lucy (née Daines). He abandoned his study of law at the age of 19 to become an actor, making his first appearances at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, in June 1874. Though he acted for some ten years, his main direction was for playwriting. His first play, "Two Hundred a Year", was produced at the Globe in London on 6 October 1877. After several minor pieces, he achieved popularity with "The Magistrate", a farce that was performed at the Court Theatre in 1885. Other farces, "The Schoolmistress" (1886) and "Dandy Dick", were also written for the Court Theatre. With "The Profligate" in 1889 Pinero turned more serious and fused sentimentality with serious social ideas. Then with "The Second Mrs Tanquery" at the St James in 1893, with Mrs Patrick Campbell in the title role, he established himself as a playwright of importance, writing the first of several plays that depicted women in battle with society. He wrote numerous other plays, including "The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith" (1895), "Trelawny of the Wells" (1898), "Iris" (1901) and "Mid-Channel" (1909). In 1909, at the height of his career, Pinero was knighted. His subsequent dramatic efforts were less successful. In thought Pinero was in the school of Ibsen and in structure in that of Scribe and Sardou. His plays did stir public controversy, and he was a very good storyteller. His social dramas drew fashionable audiences, but it is his farces – ‘literate, superbly constructed, with a precise, clockwork inevitability of plot and brilliant use of coincidence’ (EB) – that have stood the test of time. Pinero became a member of the Garrick Club in 1884. He was also a member of the Athenaeum and the Dramatists. He died in London on 23 November 1934. (OCT)