In 1889, A Doll’s House was produced in England by Charles Charrington, and this was followed a few years later by Hedda Gabler and Ghosts the effect of Ibsen’s methods, and Ibsen’s attitude towards life, was unmistakable.
The later plays of H.A. Jones and Pinero testify to this leaven, compare The Liars and Michael and his Lout Angel of Jones, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray and Iris of Pinero, with their earlier work. For the rest, Mr. Stephen Phillips accomplished what his greater predecessors were unable to do-he made the poetic drama, to an appreciable extent, a vital reality, in Paolo and Francesca arid in Herod; for he had what men like Tennyson and Browning lacked a natural instinct for the stage.
Then this concentration on the poetic drama had stimulated a fresh interest in Shakespeare and both Sir Henry Irving and after him Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree did real service to the stage in their scholarly and poetic productions.